Regarding Warhammer 40K: Mechanicus:

Does anyone know if the expansion has a Linux installer too? I see the base game listed with Linux as a supported platform but not the DLC. Another thing I noticed is that the Linux System Requirements for the base game are also missing.

If anyone owns the game and can shed some light I'd be grateful. :)

Hi Ganni,

this (images attached) is what I get when I look at my Library:

At first, linux installers show up for the DLCs as well, but if I click on any of them a download of an .exe is starting.
If I chose "Windows" or "Mac" in the upper left and switch back to linux again, I get the second picture, where it says
the DLCs for linux are not (yet?) available.

So, for answering your question regarding DLCs for linux: No, it doesn't seem so. (I'm still waiting for them to show up...)

i dont comment much, or read forums. only when looking for some tips,tricks,or fixes..

but i will say

running GOG games (windows) or the galaxy clients isnt going to be straightforward.

im a tinkerer, i enjoy finding a problem and attempting to solve it

as such, i have been known to spend 3 days on a problem until i find some way to make it work or declare it futile.

thats linux for me, i do not expect windows games or software to work "out of the box" on linux

* what i do expect is a linux application, or source github compile to work.



notes:
i do not have wine or lutris or anything like that installed

what i do have, is a clone of steam proton isolated to its own folder for testing.

clicking a ".exe" does not open wine or anything


with this in mind, i create scripts to attempt to troubleshoot specific games
putting winetricks/protontricks into it and finding what works


same for dosbox, i have 3 versions of dosbox for testing and one for use.

i dont use whatever gog gives you, or whatever steam gives you.
i take the files out and put them in my test folders and make my own config.


those are my choices

ArchLinux work?

Usually but GOG only supports Ubuntu and Mint. You will have to add more libs yourself but that should be nothing new if you are on Arch.

Or you can use a chroot of a distribution that's known to work.
(If you're going to do this, look for a tool called "schroot", which appears to be available in the Arch community repository. You also might want to look into "debootstrap" for actually installing the chroot, at least if the chroot is of a Debian derivative.)

Well, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS has decided to no longer produce a 32-bit OS. It was only after a lot of anger from users that Canonical even decided to keep providing some (not all) 32-bit libraries. In fact, nearly all of the i386 libraries that Focal still provides are for some part of the GNU Compiler Collection. One of the missing i386 libraries includes libcrypto, which is a weirdly common library for many Linux games that, AFAICT, have no networking features (maybe they use the RNG?).

Speaking from experience, it is an unbelievable pain to compile libraries, which can take more dependencies than the program you're trying to compile, and those dependencies can have their own dependencies. Yet not only are games still being released on GOG with only 32-bit binaries, (One Step From Eden released on GOG less than a week ago, 32-bit only), upcoming games with Linux support are also being released with only 32-bit support! The team behind Kharon's Crypt told me in an email that they were planning to release on GOG, and the Linux demo on their website is a 32-bit binary only.

I suppose VMs are an easy solution, just install an older LTS and use that, but a VM eats a lot of storage space and I like to archive things, plus there's a massive performance hit even for hardware virtualization. Chroot could also work, but now you need sudo privileges to play your games, which will be a problem for households with small children who aren't yet responsible enough to be a sudoer. Plus, I would have no clue how to install an entire Linux distro into a chroot folder, I'm only barely able to use chroot from a live DVD to fix a borked GRUB. PPAs are another potential solution, but I suspect that those will only exist as long as it's relatively easy to build a 32-bit package. Canonical seems to be trying to force 32-bit obsolescence, and eventually it's going to become such a pain to provide 32-bit packages that I suspect many PPA maintainers (volunteers) will stop bothering. Plus, every PPA added is a chance for a hacker to upload a rogue package or update.

I've asked the Linux Mint Dev Team what their plans are, and while Clem seemed willing to provide these packages in Linux Mint 20, I can't say how much of a priority this is for the team, nor can I say for how many releases the LMDT will provide these packages.

What is the GOG team's solution to the 32-bit sunset? The writing is on the wall. Your specialty is updating older games to run on modern hardware and OSes. What's the plan? Is there a plan? If not, will there be a plan?

I was going to post a link to the list of packages used in Ubuntu 20.04, but apparently I can't post this message until I remove the link.

This situation is not new to GOG, as it already happened in the macOS world where 32bit has been dropped entirely since macOS 10.15. GOG stopped advertising the affected games as Mac supported, however they still provided the downloads and even left a note on the games' page where it says "Mac notice: The game is 32-bit only and will not work on macOS 10.15 and up. " - One game that has this message is 'Volgarr the Viking'.

While I don't agree that they stopped advertising a game as Mac compatible, I can imagine why though - excessive Support tickets. Many people would see the Apple logo without reading the warning and think it's compatible with their system.

I don't think Linux should be treated any differently.

That's... Really unfortunate. I don't outright refuse to buy games with no Tux icon, but I definitely think a bit harder about whether to buy it now, put it on the wishlist and wait for a sale, or just ignore it and move on. My Steam wishlist still has games on it I put there in 2012. My GOG account is only a few years old, but it already has games on its wishlist I added shortly after making the account.

No one is forcing you to use Ubuntu. Switch to distros that support multiarch.

The problem is not on user's side.

Thing is, GOG supports only Ubuntu, so with 20.04 we are to expect Linux versions being removed from GOG because of Ubuntu's lack of support for 32bit.

Why would they do that? Much smarter thing to do for GOG is to stop supporting Ubuntu, and support distros that provide multiarch. I'm pretty sure Steam is going to do the same thing if Ubuntu won't provide any way to play 32-bit games.

On this one we can blame only ourselves for advertising Ubuntu as the solution to "OMG! Too Many Distros!" problem. While it was not the case with me, and most probably with you, general Linux audience has reached a consensus to use Ubuntu as the standard of Linux, and GOG have embraced this stance, thus providing support only for Ubuntu and its derivatives (like Mint).

So, for all intents and purposes, if Ubuntu decides to drop 32bit support, than that's it. As GOG does not to be bothered with Linux support at all (and most probably just added support as part of the "Me Too!" behavior it utilizes in regards of Steam in the first place) I assess chances of GOG adopting support for any other distro (without any guarantees that distro will not follow suit of Ubuntu) to be at 0%. Linux doesn't worth the bother after all (as far as GOG is concerned).

Sad but true.

This situation is quite different to the situation with Macs - Canonical are not dropping 32-bit support with Ubuntu, they're dropping support for 32-bit system installations (i.e. no 32-bit .isos & 32-bit versions of many software packages have been culled as they no longer need to be provided to support 32-bit installs etc). You can still install and run 32-bit software on the 64-bit installs.

This was never the case really (consensus) and while Ubuntu was hyped, today it's not even the most popular distro, for example judging by GOL stats: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics

So I don't see any problem for GOG to drop Ubuntu support and focus on distros that provide multiarch.