Any chance of official Linux release?

[Hekkaryk]

Right now game does work on Linux (and without any issues!), you only need small tweak to get launcher up and running.
Are there any hopes of making it official? I believe it's 100% possible (perhaps even with very small effort seeing as there are no issues I know of right now).


... or at the very least please don't break it with Odyssey release? ^_^"

[Onkel Weezy]

Ok.. here is an idea.

Setup a virtual machine on your linux system, put Windows 10 on it, load the game.

And STOP asking for something less that .5% of the player base wants. It is never going to happen, because most companies can't make money doing it, and it is just an expense sink for them. You are welcome to keep whining.. but I expect you will still be unhappy 5 years from now if you do.

This game is basically more than a half decade old. If they haven't fully supported Linux by now, it ain't going to happen. I know this will make you sad, but it is the harsh reality of gaming right now.. If it ain't console or PC, good luck getting most games on it.

As it is, many games on PC are ports from consoles (I'm a 98% PC gamer.. with a few games on consoles). Some of those ports are fairly dreadful.. but this is the lay of the land. You take what you can get and put your energy into more productive uses rather than whining on forums about stuff that isn't EVER going to be economically viable.

[Hekkaryk]

You did not read anything else than title @Weezy :D
Elite: Dangerous already runs VERY WELL on Linux. I'm just curious why they didn't tick it as "supports Linux" when they only need to fix launcher (to cooperate with Proton) OR run certain well-known commands on boot.

You'd be surprised how many Windows-only games are getting enabled for Linux (ever since Steam added Proton many of those work perfectly fine)! ^_^

[Onkel Weezy]

Au contraire, mon ami.. I DID read your post. The reason they haven't made it official is because then they have to stand behind it and provide extra support. You see, I'm in software. Some things in software kinda 'come for free' without a lot of effort. But once you step up to full support, dollars spent goes WAY up..

I don't know any facts around this at Frontier, but I'm guessing that it is probably just one or two guys at Frontier doing Linux.. and part time at that. It is totally possible for that to happen (I've seen stuff like this in the past). This will create good will .. but they aren't committing to fixing bugs quickly or any of the things requiring higher investment.

[Brew]

Yeah that's why I didn't preorder, participate in the alpha, etc. Especially when things are in a rougher state during the alpha, it's much less certain that it will run on Proton. I will have to wait and see what happens. I imagine Odyssey uses the same basic game engine though, so I am reasonably confident the final product will run okay. Fingers crossed!

[whatdoesthisbuttondo?]

Originally posted by Weezy:

Au contraire, mon ami.. I DID read your post. The reason they haven't made it official is because then they have to stand behind it and provide extra support. You see, I'm in software. Some things in software kinda 'come for free' without a lot of effort. But once you step up to full support, dollars spent goes WAY up..

I'm in software too (lead software engineer), and I couldn't disagree more with that statement.

First off, given the price tag of games in general, I think we both know from our professional experience how many minutes of support we can realistically expect before the inevitable answer is a polite "sucks to be you".

There isn't enough money in the pool for anything apart from running through the default script, and "send us the logs, better hope a couple thousand other people have the exact same problem and we actually realize that".

Not throwing shade on FDev here, they actually have good support in my opinion, just the reality of the gaming industry.

And then there is the distinct difference in user competence, which is a key driver in your average support ticket cost.

I'll happily support a Linux user, because not only do they tend to do exhaustive research and solve most issues on their own without ever pestering you, actually read the FAQs to check if a solution is in there, they also tend to make absolutely sure the issue is not on their end.

And if all that is not helping, they'll have already collected vast amounts of diagnostic data when opening a ticket and ruled out many possibilities on their own already, which will save you a lot of time and money.

This is quite a bit different from "all other games run on my machine, so it's clearly your code", not providing any meaningful information but "you fix it yesterday or I'll make angry posts on reddit and call my lawyer" because "I've bought your company for fifty bucks".

Exaggerating a bit here, but you get the idea.

So yea, from the cost perspective, it would definitely be a win to officially support the platform, given how fierce the Linux people are in doing free promotion for stuff that officially supports their OS.

From what I can tell, they're nearly there just like the OP suggested, only a couple minor issues with the launcher and that is it.

Could probably just tick that box at this point, and provide FAQ how to get around the known issues in a couple of minutes.

[ShelLuser]

Linux, and open source environments in general, are horrible platforms for any commercial based company to work with, that's the bottom line. For the simple reason that anything in the project can change on a single programmers whim and when it does you may end up having to re-write a lot of your software to make things work again.

And it's not just Linux itself, no, you also have to cope with the X environment, the desktop or window managers, etc, etc. There are no set out standards here, and backwards compatibility is something the Linux boys have never heard off.

For example... XFree vs. X.org vs. Wayland anyone?

I can easily run a DOS game from the 1980's on Windows 10, no problem. Try running an ELF binary from that era but without recompiling it; you're going to run into a lot of problems.

What some people apparently don't understand is all that support time is tanking away from the profit which a company is making. Support is a money sink, a required one sure, but still; a money sink.

No one in their right mind is going to try and commercially support a platform that can change on a whim which will then require you to "fix things"; ergo more hours spend on keeping something which wasn't broke in the first place to work vs. working on new things which you can actually sell.

[Onkel Weezy]

Originally posted by whatdoesthisbuttondo?:

Originally posted by Weezy:

Au contraire, mon ami.. I DID read your post. The reason they haven't made it official is because then they have to stand behind it and provide extra support. You see, I'm in software. Some things in software kinda 'come for free' without a lot of effort. But once you step up to full support, dollars spent goes WAY up..

I'm in software too (lead software engineer), and I couldn't disagree more with that statement.

First off, given the price tag of games in general, I think we both know from our professional experience how many minutes of support we can realistically expect before the inevitable answer is a polite "sucks to be you".

There isn't enough money in the pool for anything apart from running through the default script, and "send us the logs, better hope a couple thousand other people have the exact same problem and we actually realize that".

Not throwing shade on FDev here, they actually have good support in my opinion, just the reality of the gaming industry.

And then there is the distinct difference in user competence, which is a key driver in your average support ticket cost.

I'll happily support a Linux user, because not only do they tend to do exhaustive research and solve most issues on their own without ever pestering you, actually read the FAQs to check if a solution is in there, they also tend to make absolutely sure the issue is not on their end.

And if all that is not helping, they'll have already collected vast amounts of diagnostic data when opening a ticket and ruled out many possibilities on their own already, which will save you a lot of time and money.

This is quite a bit different from "all other games run on my machine, so it's clearly your code", not providing any meaningful information but "you fix it yesterday or I'll make angry posts on reddit and call my lawyer" because "I've bought your company for fifty bucks".

Exaggerating a bit here, but you get the idea.

So yea, from the cost perspective, it would definitely be a win to officially support the platform, given how fierce the Linux people are in doing free promotion for stuff that officially supports their OS.

From what I can tell, they're nearly there just like the OP suggested, only a couple minor issues with the launcher and that is it.

Could probably just tick that box at this point, and provide FAQ how to get around the known issues in a couple of minutes.

Its a numbers game bro.. this is the source of my original comments. You don't invest where you can't scale reasonably and make a profit. That is business 101. Consoles became big because it lowered dev costs by simplifying development.. and because the usage model was really easy, making it super-popular option in the gamer population. PCs are still somewhat of a bastard step-child. It is why so many ports are done rather than original development. The market is big enough to justify the port, but it can be kinda half-assed and still be ok.

This is and continues to be the big picture in game development. Apparently some folks got kinda sick of the types of games on consoles and floated back to PCs.. which is why some games are still made for PCs first. But I can assure you it isn't out of the kindness of their hearts that they are doing it (which always seems to be the argument around supporting Linux, et al.). Raw dollars are still there.

[Sarina]

You want full game compatibility on Linux, you will have to wait until Windows 10 reaches EOL and Microsoft makes a framework better than Wine.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by Hekkaryk:

Right now game does work on Linux (and without any issues!), you only need small tweak to get launcher up and running.
Are there any hopes of making it official?

I doubt it, because making it official means that it has to be ensured to work in the future, too. And there are many things that can break it beyond FDevs control. A Linux distro can break it, itself. And if they officially support it, they will have to deal with it.

[whatdoesthisbuttondo?]

Originally posted by Weezy:

But I can assure you it isn't out of the kindness of their hearts that they are doing it (which always seems to be the argument around supporting Linux, et al.). Raw dollars are still there.

Exactly, you should read again what I wrote.

Minimal effort to do it at this point, and better overall revenue per paying customer, you even made that point yourself if you think about it.

I've dealt with this exact conundrum countless times, and experience shows it is extremely convenient when a 3rd party does the support for your product while you get to keep the money.

Oh, and on a side note, the problem with PC gaming today is exactly there, vast variety in hard- and software components paired with the fact that your average PC gamer basically knows nothing about those, regardless of what they may think they know.

You don't have that particular issue with consoles, sure the console gamers are as clueless as the PC gamers, but at least the hard- and software is uniform.

More knowledge in your user base, paired with more uniform hardware equals less money wasted on support.

That is business 101 as you put it, a numbers game.

It isn't a coincidence Valve went for Linux as a platform for their SteamOS/SteamMachine project, and it had nothing to do with love for free software, I can assure you that a business analyst does not care one bit about this.

[Agony_Aunt]

Problem is, as soon as they officially support it, they have to officially support it.

Yeah, obvious right?

But that not only means having their support people having to deal with tickets and issues relating to bugs on Linux but also their devs have to consider any changes they make breaking on linux and QA have to also test on linux.

As things stand, they don't have to care at all if anything they change would break it on Linux.

In short, the economics don't add up. Way too much effort for too little in return.

[RomanRingOnIt]

None of the issues raised are valid and show a overwhelming problem of windows users trying to sound profficient. Fact remains the only part of Elite:dangerous that issues arise from is the launcher, and nothing to do with the game itself.

Exclusive client not required anyhow as Proton does all the support issues for them, and by allowing it they are giving permission to Linux users being there own support which is win win for them. Itd be nice but I see no incentive for Fdev to do it even if a substantial amount of the playerbase game on Linux.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by Klotho:

Fact remains the only part of Elite:dangerous that issues arise from is the launcher, and nothing to do with the game itself.

And the launcher is required for accounts authentication. So no skipping on that.

Exclusive client not required anyhow as Proton does all the support issues for them, and by allowing it they are giving permission to Linux users being there own support which is win win for them.

Which isn't very different from the current state.

The fact is that if you want to have an easy to install/play PC gaming experience, then you should use a "GameOS", which Windows has been for decades. And if you like to tinker with installs, making them to work, then that's what we already have now with Linux. Right tools for the job, you know.

[ShelLuser]

Originally posted by Klotho:

None of the issues raised are valid and show a overwhelming problem of windows users trying to sound profficient.

As if Apple isn't a thing 🤦‍♂️

But yah, if none of the concerns which have been raised are true then why isn't gaming on Linux a thing right now? Even Steam has a Linux launcher (sorta).

I'll do you one more: why is there hardly any commercial software available for purchase on Linux (nor FreeBSD for that matter) while Apple has no issues?

And if that wasn't enough... Enter Max(/MSP)[cycling74.com]; a visual programming language which is fully dedicated to multimedia purposes. It was developed by Miller Puckette who also worked on an open source variant called Pure Data[puredata.info].

Max runs on both Windows and MacOS whereas Pure Data is also available for Linux.

So here's the thing... Pure Data doesn't even come close to what you can achieve with Max. It's an impressive project in itself, don't get me wrong here, but... comparing both environments is plain out awkward.

And yet both projects started at the same point. The main difference being that Max became closed source and a commercial project whereas Pure Data remained an open source project ever since yet doesn't even come close anymore.

Yah, there's a very good reason why Max never bothered with Linux support, even though the environment actually supported it at one time.

Open source is an amazing movement and development in itself. If it wasn't for open source we wouldn't have things like a free of charge Visual Studio for example. That's a plain out fact. I lived the days where you had to pay $1000 to have a C compiler for Sun Solaris, fortunately GCC was also a thing back then.

But there is a good reason why it never took off from a commercial perspective. The only commerce you see with Linux are either the companies behind it (Canonical & RedHat (now IBM)) trying to exploit the whole thing (for example by providing tutoring) or companies which started tutoring and tutorials themselves.

Yet when it comes to commercial software for Linux... good luck trying to find some.

[Hekkaryk]

I find the whole "bo-hoo, Linux bad for business" part of this conversation funny xD It's only bad for business because some corporations think so. Some don't, that's why Steam runs well and my library is full of either games that are natively supported or supported via Proton (which I never ever realised before moving as I've used only Windows 10 for playing before) ^_^ With great raise of Linux popularity devs should take a look that it allows -let's face it - people with less money - buy their products. And Elite runs well on somewhat old hardware. This is a perfect scenario for rapid sale with little effort. Right now it's not feasible as 99% won't follow 10 instruction requiring them use console (unlike us, software devs/dedicated Linux users)... I see money for Frontier and wonder why they aren't taking it. They could officially state that their Linux support is fragile and only put minimal initial effort to get it going now, it would likely not break :D