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Comment by pjmlp

5 days ago

Software written for Windows, running with a translation layer on GNU/Linux.

The translation layer doesn’t really matter though, does it? If a user installs a game and it runs the same, the user doesn’t care about the translation layer inbetween. If installing and running a game on Linux is the same as running it on windows, there’s no reason to prefer one over the other for gaming.

  • It certainly does, because it allows game studios to keep ignoring GNU/Linux, even when they happen to have Android/Linux games written with the NDK, it is a Valve's problem.

is there a point somewhere in this statement?

  • Not the parent or grandparent poster and not a gamer.

    The echo in my mind from the statement was along the following lines:

    I can do everything at work remotely from my Linux laptop as they use Microsoft365/Sharepoint/Teams/Outlook and all. I can just log in via Chromium and noone knows any different with one exception: the finance portal. I have to be on an employer owned Windows PC to do that one thing as it is the last 'native program' needed. Moral: enterprise-ish stuff is happening via the Web browser.

    Steam et al financing WINE/Proton and generally hammering all the sharp edges out of the compatibility layer for running Windows software on Linux. Moral: Complex Windows native software can be run under Linux.

    So, at some point in the future, does Microsoft just phase out Windows? Replace it with a really well engineered Linux with compatibility environment for legacy software?

    • Embrace, Extend, Extinguish/Exterminate? They already begun the Embrace phase: WSL.

      The smartest Extend phase they could do would probably be a "Windows" GUI on top of Linux kernel, possibly with some customized locked-down systemd, to replace the aging X and the mess Wayland created. If it gets to be at least as functional as Win11 is, it will instantly wipe out the other two alternatives - Exterminate.

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    • Games work just fine through Proton already, except when they require kernel level anticheat. I'm fairly certain OP is just one of the purists who think it's not done "proper" until it's a Linux native port, which I wholeheartedly disagree with.

    • Why should Microsoft bother, when they have Visual Studio and Windows licenses that game studios gladly pay for?