Does the existence of Wine compatibility layer discourages the creation of native Linux games?

  • jarfil@beehaw.org
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    1 day ago

    Because traditionally there were few Linux devices.

    Android 15 is going to change that: it comes with a virtual machine API and a Linux Terminal running Debian for ChromeOS compatibility.

    Soon, the most popular consumer OS in the world will be Linux:

    • 3.3 billion: Android / Linux
    • 2.2 billion: Apple iOS/macOS *NIX
    • 1.6 billion: Windows
    • 400 million: Windows 11 + WSL 2.0
    • 250 million: gaming consoles
    • “millions”: SteamOS Linux

    Wine might still make sense to keep things standardized for some time, and as a compatibility layer for older games, but native Linux games will also work on the Linux solutions for Android, Apple, and Windows.

    • Petter1@lemm.ee
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      2 hours ago

      If you count apple, you can count android already now. Android is more Linux than apple iirc.

      Android is linux based and macOS is BSD based, again, iirc.

      • jarfil@beehaw.org
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        1 hour ago

        Yes… it will kind of depend on which layer of compatibility will a game require. Debian is Linux + GNU, which is what most people identify as “a Linux system”. Android uses Linux without GNU, but starting with Android 15 it will come with a VM (container?) system to run a GNU userland. Android can already run Linux distros via Termux, which can be set up to run a desktop, but having it by default will mean apps will be able to use it directly. I’ve just tested RetroArch on Android, with DosBox to run Windows 98… but that’s kind of a mindfuck of its own 😂. macOS is BSD, which shares the POSIX interface with Linux, but it does some things in a different way, however there is a GNU userland for BSD, so games using only that, can run on it already. WSL 2.0 is a full first-class VM with full Linux + GNU and a desktop interface that can coexist with Windows… since Windows 10/11 itself runs by default in a Hyper-V VM (the bootloader is Hyper-V).