Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by felter » Sun, 5. Sep 21, 22:52

pjknibbs I'm just curious, are they Linux enabled games to start with or are they Windows games that you are running on Linux.
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by pjknibbs » Mon, 6. Sep 21, 07:05

felter wrote:
Sun, 5. Sep 21, 22:52
pjknibbs I'm just curious, are they Linux enabled games to start with or are they Windows games that you are running on Linux.
Windows on Linux. Wouldn't be much point testing Linux games on Linux because you kind of expect those to work!

By the way, there is an issue with Might and Magic VIII I hadn't noticed earlier--it starts up fine, but when you actually get into the game there's a bright graphical splodge superimposed over the display. Apparently a common issue, I'll see if I can find a fix.

Oh, and did another test, this time installing a game from GoG directly in Lutris by linking it to my GoG account, and for some reason that really didn't work so well. It was a DOSBox game (Duke Nukem 3D) and for some reason there were two required libraries (libopusfile and libSDL_2) that weren't already installed and didn't get installed by the installer, so I had to manually find the packages to install those. Not so impressed there.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by felter » Mon, 6. Sep 21, 17:04

pjknibbs wrote:
Mon, 6. Sep 21, 07:05
Windows on Linux. Wouldn't be much point testing Linux games on Linux because you kind of expect those to work!
You would be surprised at the amount of people who would do this. While I didn't think you were one of them, it is always safer to ask than presume, and there is never no harm done in asking. :)
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Panos » Sun, 12. Sep 21, 09:38

felter wrote:
Sun, 5. Sep 21, 22:52
pjknibbs I'm just curious, are they Linux enabled games to start with or are they Windows games that you are running on Linux.
Windows games running on Linux is the easy answer :D

The technical answer is, all Vulkan & OpenGL-(please die) API games run on Linux like native games made for Linux. Like X4 Foundations, X Rebirth VR etc.
The rest, due to the work of a brave and crazy person, written for DirectX are using a Vulkan-based translation layer for Direct3D which is called DXVK. Initially started with DX11 and moved to DX9, 10 and now working on 12 to translate.
Since DXVK came to be, the Linux Gaming made a HUGE leap forward as did with Vulkan API.

And all this because one man had serious desire, nothing could stop him :lol: , to play NieR: Automata on Linux and created the DXVK project. (now is working for Valve - Steam).
:lol:

(FYI DXVK works on Windows too and improves the perf on many games, even current AAA titles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comme ... n_windows/
)

And on personal note. Since I am using Linux since 1998 (alongside windows due to work) that bit extra tinkering required to do things, is making me to connect with my system.
Good example today, created the vkbasalt configuration file to use the Real Space reshade on Linux :D

I have posted it here.
viewtopic.php?f=180&t=414524&p=5079293#p5079293

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Panos » Sun, 12. Sep 21, 09:42

Tempest wrote:
Sun, 5. Sep 21, 21:43
started my testing with Manjaro 12.1.1

ran into a little snag on the steam side, TLDR:enable steam beta update

had black screens all over the place after a fresh install

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/09/s ... eres-a-fix

fixed with the beta toggle.

so, steam AND x4 are now running in beta mode :lol:
Hahaha :lol:
Yeah, some Manjaro update broke Steam runtime last 1 week. Installed the Steam Native from AUR (didn't uninstall previous version or games) and all worked fine.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Panos » Sun, 12. Sep 21, 09:42

red assassin wrote:
Thu, 2. Sep 21, 17:34
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Hank001 » Sun, 19. Sep 21, 17:36

This might be a bit outside of just the gaming issue, but touches on the larger issues concerned with Linux OS(s).

This is about using linux virtual machines to run older versions of the Windows OS and the trouble it caused me. It's a precautionary take (or should be).

At one point I was running Linux VMs for Windows XP 32 bit, 64 bit, Win 7 and 8.1. These operated perfectly and I was happy overall with their stability. Until motherboard problems on the host machine cropped up.

Linux VMs by their very nature are very machine specific. The motherboard build itself used capacitors that "dried out" with age of but two years and after trying two replacements and they too proved useless for the same issues I tried and tried different ways to again run the VM's on newer systens and always ran into failure because the VM's would not recognize the new host system.

More savvy among you might ask; "What's the problem? Just...". I did and it didn't work. To the point of the experts saying that even pulling the Windows builds out of the VM's was not possible as they too were imbedded in the Linux host's code. (The Windows builds themselves and their virtual drives were imbedded within large Linux files). Trying to change this to run on a different system would have meant finding and changing thousands of lines of code!

So my advice is this: Do Not Virtualize Windows on Linux unless you know you can migrate the VMs to other Linux based machines!
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by jlehtone » Sun, 19. Sep 21, 23:19

I would read your tale if I had more salt at hand.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Hank001 » Sun, 19. Sep 21, 23:27

:mrgreen: Okay it's a bit long. Sorry.
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by Tempest » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:07

i've gone back to windows 10 (still trying to push the 5800x beyond "out-of-box" spec, easier access to troubleshooting tools imho)

But. my personal experience was pretty great on the 1st try (Manjaro + native steam) X4 seemed to run perfectly fine, if not better then windows ever did. something silly, but as an example: Terratech on steam. ALWAYS stuttered on the windows machine intermittently, completely fine on Linux.

there is the issue of non-native linux games though (some old, some newer) heres to hoping for a massive shift towards the other end of the O.S. spectrum for gaming in general (props to the guys at Egosoft atleast)

Definitely not liking the way windows seems to be heading. (advertising platform/data-mining aparatus with an O.S. slapped on top of it)
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by pjknibbs » Tue, 21. Sep 21, 18:56

Tempest wrote:
Tue, 21. Sep 21, 16:07
i've gone back to windows 10 (still trying to push the 5800x beyond "out-of-box" spec, easier access to troubleshooting tools imho)
I still have Linux on the under-TV computer because it seems to work well enough, but I've reverted my cheapo HP laptop back to Windows because it kept hanging for no readily apparent reason under Linux. Rock-solid stable on Windows, no issues at all.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by felter » Fri, 22. Oct 21, 16:24

Has anyone tried using a Linux programme called Bottles to run Windows apps/programmes on Linux, it would also be interesting to know how it handles Windows games, as it has a gaming environment.
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by pjknibbs » Fri, 22. Oct 21, 16:48

Can't say I have, I've pretty much given up on desktop Linux for...well, frankly I lost count since I first tried the OS out in 1995. Why is it easier to run Android applications on Bluestacks (an Android emulator on Windows) than any Linux-based emulator I found? Android is freakin' based on Linux, you'd think it would be trivial!

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by BaronVerde » Fri, 22. Oct 21, 19:29

Apart from being "based on Linux" it hasn't much in common with full Linux implementations.It is also full of proprietary software from google and others, and lacks many of the security features that make up Linux. It may well be that a full Linux doesn't run Android apps when they try to things in areas where they should keep their hands off, I mean other than the current user space.

I only play native Linux games. I would go so far to advise people not to install undocumented 3rd party applications, which incudes clients like steam and gog, emulation layers other than pure wine (but even then I'd rather use windows if I must play windows games). I also dislike Linux versions like the Ubuntus or specifically adapted ones like steam os out of distrust they may concentrate on more than mere functionality.

For me, the power of pure Linux lies (besides the fully documented dev environment even for beginners) in the higher safety margin which may easily be compromised by software other than that from the repositories, even with the use of e.g. google chrome because suid sandbox. I haven't seen a single Linux hack yet that didn't either need physical access to the machine, or the user to actively install a root kit or otherwise mess up security, like working as root. I also do not install software tat needs root rights during installation, a sure sign that something is fishy !

We can't be sure in those cases that something like a rootkit isn't included, something that runs outside of the user space and doesn't belong to the core os as from the repositories, rootkits got a revival lately I read. And yet another thing arises when the digital signatures can be compromised, or when hard- or firmware offer backdoors. We must disconnect totally, then, if we want privacy.

Another thing is, all those layers of middle ware and emulation introduce new possibilities for errors and conditions were debugging gets ever harder. We start running after updates that may kill one error and introduce another instead. I prefer a stable system with only security updaes, until the next release.


It is of course a personal decision to say I don't care about supervision and data kraken, privacy is an illusion and I don't need a stable system, I just want to play.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by red assassin » Fri, 22. Oct 21, 23:30

BaronVerde wrote:
Fri, 22. Oct 21, 19:29
[Android] lacks many of the security features that make up Linux.
This is actively backwards - Android has a much stricter permissions model for applications than Linux does. Other than your web browser, I'd be shocked if any of the applications you run with your user permissions are constrained by sandboxing, SELinux rules, etc, whereas all Android apps are strictly sandboxed, with a permissions model for access to anything sensitive. You install a random Linux app without ever granting it elevated permissions and it can absolutely freely read all of your sensitive files etc without ever needing to elevate to root because it's still running as your user; Android doesn't work that way. That you hear more about Android security issues than desktop Linux is simply because Android has a thousand times the userbase.

None of that is to suggest that Google don't have a very high degree of access to your Android phone, of course, but to suggest that Android's security model vs somebody other than your OS vendor is weaker than desktop Linux is absolutely untrue. (You trust the maintainers of your distro just as much as an Android user does Google, by the way. You're going to say "something something open source", but when was the last time anybody verified every one of the literally billions of lines of code making up the average Linux distro, or even verified that the binary packages actually match the published source code?)
I haven't seen a single Linux hack yet that didn't either need physical access to the machine, or the user to actively install a root kit or otherwise mess up security, like working as root.
lol? See "code execution" and "gain privileges" columns. A few of those are Android specific, but most aren't.


Honestly, security is complicated. As an individual desktop user, your risk exposure as a Linux user is probably a lot lower than other OSes just because, realistically, there's hardly any of us so nobody cares enough to target you. But don't confuse that with the OS being more inherently secure, because it isn't.
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by BaronVerde » Sat, 23. Oct 21, 00:24

Sandboxing, done the google way with a suid sandbox, actually circumvents Linux user space restrictions. It is not a security feature, but a root kit. They promised for more than decade to change it, don't know if that has happened by now. Linux/Unix has its sandboxes they are called user space and circumventing the by software only creates backdoors and rootkits.

Any Linux/Unix is many many times times more secure in every aspect than Android. Android is a catastrophe, a cheap farce of an OS. Thought was common knowledge, but I let you guys go out on a search.

Your list, in the section 2021, confirm that attacker needs local access and/or modification of system files is not possible.

Linux isn't invulnerable, that's sure.

And yeah, I was imprecise. With Linux hack I meant "get root privileges" without physical access or user aid installing unsafe software. I have yet to see it. At best the exploit vector was unknown, as in a recently reported hack linked to professional (Isreali ?) corporation whose name I forgot. Sure, if people run a google chrome browser with the suid sandbox anyone in between with the power to modify the file and its sigature can gain root access, simply because the file has root privileges on execution. But one doesn't install such nonsense.

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by red assassin » Sat, 23. Oct 21, 00:36

Chrome hasn't used the setuid sandbox since the kernel introduced suitable sandboxing mechanisms in 3.10 (2013). It uses user namespaces and seccomp-bpf. Firefox uses the same mechanism.

You could try providing some actual citations or examples for Android being less secure than "any Linux/Unix", rather than everyone's favourite "do your own research". It's not true.

"The user never runs any unsafe software" is an incredibly optimistic security perspective - the vast majority of malware affecting other OSes starts with the user running something they shouldn't as well! - but sure, desktop Linux gets RCEs as well: https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-3806-1 https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-3807-1
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by BaronVerde » Sat, 23. Oct 21, 01:04

Well, that's a bi like asking textbook knowledge. A smart phone OS and one that runs on supercomputers (I am not talking of other mobile Linux distributions which may be worse than Android) may have a common genetic heritage, but not actually much functional overlap.

And yes, it is my opinion as well that the user (me right here) is the biggest risk, and that's why I advised against any installation aside from the OS repositories and maybe a well reputed game or two. People shouldn't give the control away, to google, steam, or others.

Linux is a multi-user (10s of thousands) OS and a user is without higher intervention not able to install software outside their space. For that there are configurable user rights which the administrators must set up. That's not trivial and multilayered, but you certainly know that.

Btw. google chrome still used the suid sandbox in 2020 (own check and I think it is still used as a fallback), they say it is not yet completely removed. https://chromium.googlesource.com/chrom ... lopment.md

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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by red assassin » Sat, 23. Oct 21, 10:39

You seem to have much better textbooks than I do, so for my benefit please list some of those security features that are present in a modern supercomputer Linux distro and a modern version of Android.

Google still provide the setuid sandbox to support kernels which don't support user namespaces, yes. It's certainly not ideal as a sandboxing mechanism, but it's better than nothing, which is the alternative on kernels that don't provide real sandboxing features! As the issue linked from that link says, the sandbox helper binary there isn't required if you're not on a kernel that needs it, and hasn't been since 2016.
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Re: Linux for gaming, is this a good time to jump the windows boat?

Post by BaronVerde » Sat, 23. Oct 21, 11:33

Without going into details because much is not publicly disclosed - contrary to the common opinion it was an open source OS - by google and google controls the apps that run on it. And frankly, no idea how one can assume that there is no difference. You can even bake your own kernel in Linux, harden it with the features you like and need, strip it down or blow it up. With Android you're stuck to what Google gives you to eat.

Android isn't really open source:
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/android-r ... ce-matter/

There's another main difference from a user pov, imo the one that makes it an absolute nono: Software installed from the repositories of one of the Linux distributions like Debian (and many, but not all of its derivatives), Suse, RHEL, etc. are up to now safe to install without ado. On Debian one can choose between pure open source (depending on manufacturers helpfulness or absence thereof), contributions and non-free software. Also between 3 rollouts, one that has the latest features but may be unstable, one that is in testing but reasonably stable, and one that feature frozen and only receives security updates but may lack some modern features and specific support of hardware. The Android market place is not safe, in contrary. You catch everything from trackers to keyboard readout, and you have that in the news every other day (switch search engine if not).

Malware in the google store (just the first hit out of many):
https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... id-market/

Of course not all is known because of the partly closed sources in Android, but there have been and speculatively still are a lot of vectors to take over an Android device with remote access. Such things do, (for now and to my knowledge) not exist on Linux:

Hackers can take over Android devices without notice:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05 ... abilities/

... and the list goes on.

--------------
So, yeah, I'm as sorry as necessary :-) But apart from the initial use of a Linus kernel Android hasn't much in common with any full Linux implementation. But I am genuinely interested, why do you think that there are no or little differences ? Seems like a very far fetched assumption to me, given the code base, the philosophy, and the target audience as well as hardware bases ...

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