"There will be a time when we must choose between what is easy, and what is right." - some dude.


I think, at the very least, the community should be brought into the loop as to what progress has been made toward a Linux build, and what challenges must be overcome. We might even be able to help.

Nobody embodies the ideals of GoG more than Linux users. These are people who make active concessions to support the righteous underdog, in the face of overwhelming greed and control. It would make a great difference to building an open future in gaming, if all those fresh new Linux users could expect to run their GoG games without hassle.

There is a time where being able to play your purchases on your preferred OS is more important than DRM, especially since the DRM free prices are usually higher. That time is now for me. so Steam gets my $ until gog gets a native Linux client. I will even purchase cyberpunk on steam over gog since it is DRM free anyway and I can launch from my library I see no reason to purchase it here. In this case I don't think you have to make a choice between easy and right. Steam is making it easy for Linux gamers and it feels right to support them over someone who is not.

+1. Please consider prioritizing a linux version. That would be fantastic! You clearly have a few testers ready and waiting.

I wanted Linux client from gog but then I had to reconsider, I want nothing in that regard. Offline installers should do (if only gog can put efforts into timely maintenance for all patches and updates for offline installers). I dislike new steam UI and the way it eats ~2GB of my RAM while looks worse than any gaming client till date. I don't want my games to be pay walled behind unusable client which is steam now for me. Maybe I can give it 2Gb of RAM but I can't look at that UI without a headache that will eventually grow into migraine if I'll keep looking that way.
Offline installers are the best way to keep your purchases secured therefore I still support gog even if it has no Linux client available. I can understand why native client can be beneficial for Linux newbies or for people who plays MP games but for old single player games there's no reason to use it.
But of course I will advocate for Linux client because it is only fair to have it like other OSes. It's like i would support legalization of prostitution without a thought to get employed in the business :)

I'm surprised no one here mentioned snap, flatpak or even appimages... that would make maintaining the client a lot easier... at this point in time... there's no sensible reason to not have a Linux client.

But hey!... maybe Microsoft will strong arm this nonsense once it takes over the Linux scene... even their developers are switching to Linux... idk

have you tried Games Nebula? it's unofficial Linux client, very simple. can download and install Linux and Windows games (by using wine). the UI is very simple but it has main features like gog web page, game shelf.

https://github.com/yancharkin/games_nebula

+1 for a Linux version

+1 for a Linux GOG Galaxy version. If Valve/Steam can do it, and keep updating despite the collapse of SteamOS...

Besides, if percent market share is the only criteria, why does Steam, GOG, Humble Bundle, bother with ANY linux games at all? The latest Steam April 2020 hw/sw survey has

Windows 95.06% -0.27%
OSX 4.05% +0.25%
Linux 0.89% +0.02%

Less that 1%. how could ANY money be made there. The Linux groups on Srteam must be empty. /sarcasm.

The 2019 Stack Overflow Developer Survey shows Linux leading as the favorite software development OS:

Linux 54.1%
Windows 49.4%

Yes, there are plnety of Linux gamers out there.
No. developing software on linux is not "hard".

When it comes to open source, it is impossible to count the true number of users (or gamers). For Windows, Mac, EVERY SALE is counted. EVERY access on the internet is counted.

I'm just one guy who games on linux and spend an average of $100+/year on linux games FOR THE PAST TWENTY PLUS YEARS. True, some of those games were Windows, but run via WINE, (except for some on that eON wrapper horror). That doesn't eavem include the cash I tossed toward open source games.

/end of rant.

Simple: money > Steam has tons of it and while Newells fear that MS will make the Windows 10 store mandatory back then was unbased (so there was no need to push SteamOS anymore) its still pouring money into Linux, as he realized quickly the MS has taken the "small steps" route, but will eventually get there.

So just find an investor that is wlling to pour money into a gog Linux client (development+support) without wanting to see any money coming out if it, and you are good to go.

Considering that GOG has also developed the Galaxy client for Mac, I must wonder whether or not it was developed totally independently or if most of the code is already cross-platform compatible? In the former case GOG is likely wasting more money now than what a cross-platform Win/Mac/Linux support would have cost them and even in the latter case they should reconsider adding the Linux support as their remaining Windows 7 customers are more likely to move to Linux than Windows 10 and if games keep been released on GOG without the Linux version that Steam offers, many of those gamers might consider buying them there and the rest of them might just concentrate on clearing their backlogs instead of buying new games anymore...

+1 to GoG client on linux!

Probably the latter - as far as I can tell they rely on QT and Chromium Embedded Framework, which both has working/stable builds for Linux

Good point, and its something I can't really wrap my head around. The three things that come to my mind:
1) They have in house competence that is "free" (one dev might using MacOS as his main system)
2) (More) Uniform plattfiorm: There aren't many different Versions of MacOS X around int he wild as different versions/variations of Ubuntu so there are a lot less different combinations of kernel and needed libraries floating around
3) Marketshare: Afaik MacOS has marketshare of around 15% while Linux ist still looking at 3-4%. But Mac users aren't known for beiing avid gamers, so I have no clue what part of that marketshare are actual gamers

Very hard to believe

Which would mean that the extra step to add Linux support wouldn't be insanely expensive for GOG.

I would think that gaming is practically never the main reason for anyone to use a modern Mac over other systems, but if you have other reasons to own one, then there is a chance that you could resist the idea of buying a separate system just for gaming purposes.

Okay, I may have been a bit too idealistic about that by not really considering how many of those remaining users don't know that Microsoft's servers are still activating Windows 10 from 7 and 8.1 license keys or are otherwise planning to buy a new computer with Windows 10 relatively soon and then disconnect their current computer from the internet or upgrade its OS once they have copied the important stuff to the new computer.

But excluding them, what is so hard to believe that the rest of us still clinging to Windows 7 may see that "upgrading" from it to Windows 10 would come with so huge setbacks that no future Windows 10 exclusive game release is ever going to offset them especially when WINE is likely to eventually allow us to play those games?

Most probably, maybe also a lack of in house expertise (don't now how good the support is, gog provides for the linux/ubuntu builds they offer for a part of their catalogue.
Point beeing, that is something you can easily resolve with throwing money at it.

Humans are creatures of habit, and while humans can change those, it tends to get more complicated the longer you adhered to your habit. And I am not pinning this on technical details/capabilitys of both operating systems, but the phyilosphy behing it and how things are handled. Like the fact, that in order to switch oses you need to make a first vital desicion: what distribution to choose. And after that th process may not even be over as many offer different flavors of themselves. On Windows, this decision is already premade, so there is no chance a fear forms in the back of your head that you may made the wrong choice on your first step into this. And its also the first contact with a part of the Linux philosphy: it all about deliberate choices and the consequences they may include.
And the amount of extra work you have to put in, to get games (which were meant to run on Windows) working on Linux. It got a lot better ofver the last few years, but most times its still no "start installer and be done with it" that Windows usually offers.