It's no secret on what my views on Linux are. But if Proton is as good as they say and can be used for GOG games I just might be willing to give it another chance. What ever gets Linux closer to the whole "click a picture to make it work" the better.

One of the biggest problems with the Linux community is how much they oversell everything.


How many times have I heard "gaming is viable on Linux now!" or "no no no this time it will be different"

There's a difference between being passionate and straight up laying about what something can do. Not to mention the definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and expecting things to change)

If proton is another Linux insane moment were we're promised everything but given nothing. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. I am hopping it will be good and not just another Steam OS thing.

I'll state the obvious

Proton is wine + bells and whistles. What makes it interesting is it's inclusion in steam. It allows for one click install and play steam games. Without steam, proton is just fancy wine

And to be honest, if you're going to use proton without steam and the fancy things (dxkv for example), vanilla wine and front end program like Lutris probably do a better job at it

Is it really that obvious? Not to us Windows users. I thought Proton was a whole new thing and a game changer. Wine is kind of terrible at what it does.

I don't know if it could be used for GOG games, but:

https://wccftech.com/proton-windows-to-linux-compatibility/ And yeah like that other guy said, Proton still seems to be based on Wine, so if you dislike Wine so much, I guess you will dislike Proton as well.

Maybe GOG should make a similar project of their own, like hiring this guy:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/adamhms_linux_wine_wrappers_news_faq_discussion/page1

I'm all for these kinds of projects so that in the future when Microsoft has finally locked down Windows so that you can only play UWP games on it bought from Windows Store, us retro gamers can still play our older Win32 games on Linux. A bit like we can nowadays play MS-DOS games with DOSBox, even though MS has dropped support for MS-DOS a long long time ago. https://wccftech.com/proton-windows-to-linux-compatibility/

Probably not obvious for windows user. But most Linux users know proton is a fork of wine, with some programmers being paid by steam to improve some fancy feature such as dxkv ( this one translate dx11 to Vulkan).

The hype in Linux community is more about the streamline process of installing and playing the game with (near) zero configuration rather than about compatibility because we all know wine is hit and miss. That, and the fact some games are officially supported by valve

Gaming IS viable on Linux now. I don't have windows installed, and I do lots of gaming. I've been largely Linux-only for the last 12 years, and done lots of gaming.

Proton is awesome. I put a couple of hours into Grim Dawn last night, and it was truly seamless. Other than the warning that it's using a compatibility to, it felt native.

That's not going to happen. I doubt Microsoft would prevent you from using your software. Just from a users prospective Linux is the thing that feels locked down. You can only download from repositories which hurts portability and it doesn't let you decide in what directory you want your games to be installed. Tim Sweeney is a fool, ignore him.

GOG should definitely do something to not alienate the Linux userbase. Nowadays, with neglecting the Galaxy port which everyone raves about in Linux community gives a bad message to them and I hate to wake up in the world where Linux gaming is locked to one DRM ridden platform.

Funnily enough I have a similar mindset. But I think the Linux community is bringing this on themselves.

Thanks to Sude's excellent work we already have an open-source client which can install games using the Galaxy interface.

However, community work that supplements what GOG can't do, does not send the message that GOG cares about Linux.

EDIT: crappy engrish wording

But they already have, like dropping MS-DOS and 16bit Windows application support. I have to use third-party solutions like DOSBox, ScummVM and Wine to use my 16bit MS-DOS and Windows software.

With UWP vs Win32 they'd have even more incentive to do so: to get people to buy all their Windows apps from the Windows Store, and to promote the XBox consoles at the same time (as it is supposed to be easy to develop an UWP game for Windows 10 and XBox at the same time). With dropping MS-DOS and 16bit Win, the reasons were more technical (hence, more understandable).

It has been very clear for a long time that Microsoft is dreaming of going the Apple iOS route, where they'd control and get a cut for all application purchases. Windows RT, Windows 10S etc. etc. etc. No competing digital stores on the same platform.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/is_windows_10_the_biggest_threat_to_steam_gog/page1

Yeah yeah you can keep denying that, but you are merely putting your head into sand.

Windows can't totally remove ability to install application outside their store, especially in their professional / business version. there are countless of applications made by third party that just need to run on their system. A lot of them are applications tailored specifically for company need, usually made by "visual studio or delphi programmers". If these applications don't run, companies will jump to alternatives. Microsoft can't afford to lose that.

And it will be called "Planet" lul