Roblox on Linux with recent Wine 6.11
roblox.fandom.com
roblox.fandom.com
The variety is something that I don't see in the traditional game industry where a bug rpg / simulator probably wouldn't be a thing (anymore... sim ant..) but it somehow is in the Robox ecosystem.
Much like today's upcoming generation of animators have their roots in Newgrounds, perhaps sometime a decade from now we'll see a new generation of game developers who got their start in Roblox mods.
It's a neat ecosystem where it's sort of insulated from traditional gaming economics and folks are just trying all sorts of things.
What's interesting is that roblox puts it front-and-center, it feels like the primary usecase, and I'd bet that nodding it feels more approachable compared to others
We have a hard rule in the house of no money spent on virtual items. My kids still love Roblox so there must be lots of fun to be had without spending money.
Not "a great deal" as far as purchases go. As far as how much he plays.
Alternate sentence:
My son plays Roblox frequently.
That's an annoying problem with Wine. I submitted a bug report on the released version, and it was rejected because it wasn't on the latest development version. It's hard to install Wine in a local directory, so installing a version that didn't come with the Linux distro is iffy. (Someone is going to tell me it's really easy, just type all these command line commands. That's not what the instructions [1] say.)
[1] https://wiki.winehq.org/Wine_Installation_and_Configuration
If you are using Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora, you can probably use WineHQ's repo with the winehq-devel package. You can also find the dev dependencies listed on the Fedora page. On Arch, AUR has the wine-git package that should work. On NixOS or other distros/OSes where you have the Nix package manager installed, you can get an environment with all of the dependencies setup for you, although in that case, I will at least note that you don't get a multiarch build.
The situation could be better, but given the heroic amount of ridiculous stuff going on in Wine, it's not too bad either. (Not sure how many pure C programs I've seen exposing MSVC C++ ABI interfaces, but Wine is one.)
I know it's an absolute meme but this is why I like gentoo. You already have the build dependancies for all your software so building it is literally clone,configure,make.
This is ultimately pretty similar to other distros. On Debian derivatives you'd run apt-get build-dep to install all dependencies, and on Nix(OS) you'd run nix-shell --attr to get a shell with the build dependencies available.
- there are precompiled devel releases for some distros, and pkgbuilds/ebuilds for Arch/Gentoo. These options would probably be better for most people. The pages on getting wine definitely do show you how to get the devel version for Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora.
- The actual compilation really is “grab deps, run configure, run make.” If you didn’t generally compile a lot of software manually I could empathize with the subtleties but it is hard for me to say it’s worse than most other software. The page you linked to wasn’t for building it; if you search “building wine” you’ll get the more apt page, https://wiki.winehq.org/Building_Wine which Is large, but it really still boils down to “grab the deps, run configure, run make”
It is unfortunate that it is not somehow even easier, but I also don’t have any suggestions for how it could be improved significantly. Between prebuilt packages and a relatively simple build system, it’s about as easy as any large software is.
Maybe the Wiki could be improved to make it less confusing. But it’s also easy to see why it covers so many of the different things you might want to do. I suspect there’s no silver bullet.
Before that if it's too much, they could make things like shirts to wear in game and sell those to other players, easiest is to use a template and something akin to photoshop.
Roblox is closer to a game marketplace where the games are made by fans than a game unto itself, so the creativity isn't game inherent unless it's subgame was built to be like that (most aren't).
To share my own example - beyond SimCity and not-really-understanding-how-to-make-Age-of-Empires-maps when I was 10 years old - I don’t think I can say I was really using computers constructively until I was 12/13 when I was at the point where I actually understood what I was doing with my cracked copies of Macromedia and Adobe software - so if I’m using myself as a benchmark I wouldn’t stress too much about grade-school kids being newbs…
…just please don’t repress them. And introduce them to the concept of creating their own things outside of closed platforms.
Then around 12 I became way more social online, started making custom skins for InvisionFree message boards and spending more and more time in the CSS Zen Garden... and the rest is history!
Another thing you could try is get an account and play along with them. A lot of games allow for private servers / areas where you can play.
Get them to add real friends from their school and hookup on a web conferencing app. That really helps with team building and communication.
6-7 years old could use it to create obby game with adult guidance.
As a whole, they are no more creative then any other games. And they are rarely if ever as detailed as something like Minecraft.
Linux would always be a minority option. In the case of Roblox, it would be the minority option of a minority platform. Not really the type of thing the company is going to throw money at while they're supporting 4 other platofrms: Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android. All of them more accessible to their audience.
Disappointment in their choice not to develop for Linux is natural, but it's a fairly reasonable choice on their part to avoid increasing their platform & build maintenance requirements by 25% for an exceptionally small number of users that would refuse to use a different OS.
After more than a decade, we know the cost of supporting Linux native builds seems to be the sanity and good will of the devs. For indie and small teams, it's literally taking food out of their mouths asking them to use resources fixing obscure bugs from a vocal minority that they could instead put towards developing new content or planning their next projects.
I get the sentiment, but really, we won the lock-in war. It's kinder to ask devs to stick to what they know and are comfortable with, and if they want to build with SteamPlay in mind, then we all win.
I think you meant lost? But then we sidestepped it, albeit in a buggy and incomplete fashion.
Really? I find that I can play most games just fine under Linux, except those that require annoying anti-cheat software (but then I wouldn't want to run that under windows either...).
[1] https://blog.system76.com/post/654884924769370112/developing...
Gamers are minority of PC users, but a little over 10% of PC's shipped are still gaming-level. Some of those are probably purchased for graphic designs and/or video editing, but the gaming segment would still be substantial enough that Windows wouldn't want to lose it. Not because of the immediate revenue loss: In the beginning you'd still probably have to pay a MS tax if you weren't building your own PC, or you wanted a laptop (and gaming laptops are a large part of the gaming market).
Once 10% of the market was installing Linux, that's a foot in the door MS really wouldn't like.
75% of kids aged 9-12 in the US join these hangouts, and I imagine not being able to participate would be a Linux adoption dealbreaker for many.
I dragged out my macbook (as there was no Linux support) and it was ridiculously easy to make a 3D multiplayer game that millions of people could play instantly (sure, only a handful of their friends played my creation, but still - if you made something good, the audience is there!). It was also a great introduction to my niece on using 3D software - she loved adding tonnes of random stuff and moving it around into weird structures.
I've tried to make multiplayer games in the past, and it's a nightmare. Having a giant player base already authenticated, with all the plumbing in place - it's just a really fun environment to develop for.
I wish there was something similar (and as popular) for making "more serious" games.
Phantom Forces even had a sponsored event with Disney.
I would be interested to know if Unity LEGO Microgame aims that kid creators market.
Certainly not young children, who to the 50th percentile will lack the computer, as opposed to phone, needed to author a Roblox game, and to the 99th percentile, the developmental skills needed to program in Roblox Studio.
Now, in the laptops of my kids, I can switch to Linux...
Steam now allows you to install any Windows game on linux in the same way you'd install any other game. That's a big improvement.
Anti-cheat is an issue, but otherwise it isn't a million miles away.
The value 88(%) is also misleading. It represents games running at least at bronze level (the lowest quality of a playable game). The percentage of perfectly running games (via Proton) is 15%.
I support Proton as a shortcut to release Linux-compatible games, but there's no comparison, in the big picture.
I'm less about trying to imply that Linux is "crushing" Windows and more about it being seen as a viable option (i.e. " not a million miles away").
I think I'm against out of hand dismissal, which your post and the post I responded to are without qualification or balance.
I didn't intend "shortcut" as derogative (bad word choice :)); rather, given the limited resources of game development, it may make Linux ports possible (as opposed to native ports, which take significantly more resources). John Carmack actually supports this approach.
My criticism is that while there is the impression/hope that at some point the "emulation" will be completed, based on my experience (with Wine and ReactOS), it never will - it's a virtually infinite amount of new hacks/tweaks/small additions.
My conclusion is it a type of work that will require continuous employment of (development resources), and will be more of a workaround, than a solution. (regarding the "crush", this was actually in reference to an ancestor post)
Including native ports in the discussion, or excluding them, is a tricky discussion, which I consider separate - my points were about Wine/Proton specifically.
I actually do play games, but even if my O/S is Linux (and essentially all the games are on Steam), I still run games in a VM.
Markets don't optimize for efficiency in computing.
I do think the above poster hasn't made it clear the experience they're speaking to. A lot of "anti" sentiment I see is based on things that aren't really true anymore. If all were informed and were giving their considered opinion that despite recent advances they still don't foresee a large gain in marketshare then that's fair enough. I think my main issue is with uniformed generalisations being stated as if fact backed up by recent and relevant experience.
Having said that I do agree with your post, so please note that my criticisms don't apply to you!
The "news" is that in the last 5 years it has gone from "absolutely not viable for gaming" to "good enough for a lot of people".
OS/2 was also a great platform for games by that measure, thanks Win-OS/2.
Same applies to GNU/Linux, hence Windows continues to thrive, while the 1% of the desktop folks get to taste Windows games with an ABI emulation layer.
Linux is mostly not being used because people don't have all the software they need and translation layers solve that.
We're entering a different space in desktop OS usage. Windows is changing the desktop metaphor to be more similar to macOS and mobile computing is being used by an increasing number of people as a daily driver.
In short, I don't think ABI emulation layers are the reason Linux is only at 1%. Indeed it was at 1% before Proton was released.
I think "it does not play most recent games" is untrue without qualification.
It is however one of todays most well known games.
I'm not diminishing the value of games like that running well under Wine, I think it's great. But it's not the same as "recent" games running well.
As one of the GPs points out anti-cheat is unfortunately another big hurdle. CS:GO works great because VAC runs in user-mode and Valve go out of their way to specifically detect Wine and adjust behavior as appropriate (I reverse engineered it extensively some years ago). I think EAC has a native Linux client, but many of the big names are still unplayable.
If you try to play Valorant, Apex, Siege, Warzone, PUBG, etc. my understanding is they'll barely even launch, let alone allow you to join a multiplayer match.
I'm sure there are fewer players and less content, but it seems like a more sane base to build on for your creative ventures. They're not after your money the way Roblox often is either.
[1] https://boilingsteam.com/valve-breaks-the-shackles-of-proton... or you could in 2019, anyway
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/
wine @ eef39a6 vkd3d-proton @ 72d9b32
Cobbling together existing tools is really powerful in games and graphics :)
Building on wine just for games is an excellent thing too.
I just bought crossover for mac the other day (commercial wine tuned for games) and have been pleasantly surprised how well games run under it, esp. compares to my dual booted windows for some reason.
19 inch 2029 macbook pro
It's an excellent last resort, even if you're more comfortable using Wine directly.
Also if you’ve never played Minecraft, it is amazing, especially as a social experience, and it is very much not just for kids.
Both of my kids love playing minigames with their friends, but don't build anything. Minecraft scratches their building itch for the most part.