Steam Play/Proton for GNU/Linux update supports more games (including non-Steam games)

What is Proton?
Proton is a tool distribution based on a modified version of Wine. The included improvements to Wine have been designed and funded by Valve, in a joint development effort with CodeWeavers. Proton itself is released under a permissive license similar to the MIT license. The code forked from WINE was originally licensed under the Lesser GNU Public License (LGPL), which requires derivative works to also be under the LGPL. It will allow Linux to play many games, as well as providing developers a development target without making a full port. Proton uses the Vulkan graphics API to translate DirectX 11 and 12, leading to better compatibility and performance.

"Some" Windows games with no GNU/Linux version currently available can now be installed and run directly from the Linux Steam client with native Steamworks and OpenVR support. Steam Play officially supports a limited set of "whitelisted" games that are deemed Proton-compatible and play on GNU/Linux. Being on the whitelist means that a Windows game will run, but there may be moderate performance decreases compared to running the game natively on Windows. One game that is whitelisted is Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. It was released for Windows in 2015 and is powered by id Tech 5. It works just fine on the NVIDIA Linux stack and Mesa.

Any game that has major bugs will not be put on the whitelist. Games with crazy DRM or anti-cheat systems will be hard and will never be supported. Based on reports on ProtonDB,many non-whitelisted games play just as well as on Windows including many popular titles like King of fighters XIV and The Elder Scrolls Online. In fact around 700 titles are noted on ProtonDB as “stable,” meaning they have minor issues but remain playable. Results will vary depending the exact hardware and driver configurations one is using.

My test systems:

Desktop:Xfce 4.12.3
Proton:3-7-8 
Distro:MX-18_x64
Kernel:4.19.0-1
RAM:12 GB
GPU Driver:4.3 Mesa 18.2.6
GPU:AMD RX 560 4GB
CPU:Intel i7 4770 3.6 GHz

Desktop:Big Picture Mode
Proton:3.16-5
Distro:SteamOS 2.0
Kernel:4.16.0-0.steamos2.1-amd64
RAM:16 GB
GPU Driver:NVIDIA 396.54
GPU:MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Ti AERO 8G
CPU:AMD Ryzen 7 2700

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood and TEKKEN 7 Ultimate Edition runs perfectly. They are both white list games. I've started doing my own testing and have been pleasantly surprised with games like: King of fighters XIV,The Elder Scrolls Online, and Quake Champions. All three are games that previously only relied on a Windows 10 installation. All are completely stable and exhibit native-like performance with very-very few bugs or errors.

Steam Hardware & Software Survey

What is Steam?

Steam is a digital distribution platform for video games. It provides you the option to buy and install games, play multiplayer and stay in touch with other games via social networking on its platform. The games are protected with DRM.

I took the Steam Hardware & Software Survey.Steam conducts a monthly survey to collect data about what kinds of computer hardware and software our customers are using. They say participation in the survey is optional, and anonymous.

14.80% of the people in the survey use the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060

I have a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti (1.10%)

0.23% of the people in the survey use the Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS 64 bit

I use Linux Mint 19.1 Tara 64 bit (0.06%)

56.41% of the people in the survey use the 4 core cpu

I have a 16 core cpu (0.04%)

38.04% of the people in the survey use the 8 GB of RAM

I use 16 GB of RAM (31.29%)

Kano: Build your own computer

• Build your own computer. Comes with step-by-step book, Raspberry Pi 3, programmable LED lights, DIY case, power button, wireless keyboard with track pad, memory, HDMI and power cables, stickers, Kano unique operating system, 100+ coding challenges, and 100+ apps.
• New - learn to code with 100's of creative challenges and stories , Voltage - 5 volts
• Make art, games and music. Hack Minecraft to do something new.
• Plugs into any HDMI screen. Browse the internet, watch YouTube, write stories, 100+ apps.
• Endless play with the Kano community. Be inspired by 700, 000+ creations. Open any creation, K the code to make it your own.

 
For a nearly complete computer setup and a great project for students, there is out the Kano Raspberry Pi 3 Computer Kit. 

You get the Raspberry Pi computer and a case. It also includes HDMI and USB cables, an 8GB MicroSD card, and a wireless keyboard with built-in touchpad for the Kano OS. Just assemble the computer and hook it up to an HDMI display. Soon you will be ready to play around the pre-installed games, coding apps, and learning software.

So if your a tech enthusiasts looking to learn how an operating system works check out the Kano kit. It is currently available at places like Walmart & Target.

My history with GNU/Linux

Happy New Year 2019...

GNU/Linux is many times overlooked by most people and does not get as much attention outside of software enthusiasts. I've have used Linux on and off for 15 years, and Linux has been my only OS for over 9 years. There are about 100 different active distributions according to DistroWatch. There's a wide range of desktop environments to choose from, but the most common ones are GNOME, KDE, XFCE, Deepin and MATE (pronounced Ma-Tay, like yerba mate). There are even app warehouses. When you want to install a new program, the package manager queries the distribution's repository (or app store/warehouse) to look for the software package.  Linux software repositories have been around much longer than iTunes or Google Play. I typically run Linux Mint, Deepin, OpenSuse tumbleweed, Manjaro Linux and Pop!_OS.  My favorite distribution of all time was Lindows/Linspire, RIP August 2001-October 2007.

In 2003 I was using  Lindows 4.0 on a custom made Pentium 3 desktop pc. I soon bought the Balance 14.1" Laptop, 1.2 GHz VIA C3 Processor, w/ Linspire 4.5. Later  I bought a Dell Inspiron 1420N 14.1'' notebook Core 2 Duo Intel Processor w/Ubuntu Sometime later I got the very powerful System76 14.1'' Lemur Ultra laptop, which had the 3rd generation Intel Core i7 w/Ubuntu. I've also used Raspbian a Raspberry Pi.

As of 2018 I'm using an Asus X201E-DH01 with a 2nd generation Intel Mobile Celeron 847 which is an Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) dual-core processor. The GPU is HD-capable but doesn't support 3D acceleration or several video processing technologies. However the Thermal Design Power of this chip is 17 Watt, and that accounts for the CPU cores, the GPU, and other components. Windows 10 does not run the best on that hardware. However, Manjaro, and Linux mint both run much faster.

When I need to do heavier lifting I use my prebuilt HP ProDesk 400 G1 MT Intel Core i7 (Haswell) 4770 based system. My custom built Ryzen 7 system I use it more so for testing.

Today...you don't have to spend a lot of time in Terminal, issuing text commands to install graphics drivers. Taking my personal experience with Pop! OS version 18.04 as an example, I didn't need to touch Terminal. All of the hardware on my pre-built HP ProDesk 400 G1 MT was automatically detected, right down to a Radeon RX 560 Video Card.

Relatively new to Linux are "Snaps." These are universal packages that install easily across various distributions like Pop!_OS, Linux Mint, Debian and others. The Snap Store contains many programs to choose from like Spotify, Telegram, Slack, Blender, VLC, OBS Studio etc.

In 2018 Steam adds Proton, making SOME Windows games playable on Linux. Proton is a new tool released by Valve Software that has been integrated with Steam Play to make playing Windows games on Linux as simple as hitting the Play button within Steam. As of Dec 31 2018 over 2,500 Windows Games Work On Linux Through Steam Play. With Proton: 3-7-8, I was able to play the MS Windows 10 ver. of King of Fighters 14 steam edition. No tweaks needed, No crash, No sound problems.

Mark Shuttleworth this year announced that Ubuntu 18.04 will be supported for ten years. Long Term Support releases of Ubuntu is usually just 5 years of support, doubling to 10 years.

Technology/consulting firm PC/OpenSystems LLC has acquired the rights to the names and have released Freespire 3.0 / Linspire 7.0. Being a fan of the original Linspire I decided to give this iteration a try. Linspire 7 is a solid distribution but its no Linspire 5-0. They choose XFCE for there desktop for crying out loud. There is nothing that seriously stands out with Linspire 7 to make me say WOW. There is no Click and Run. Now they did come out with a Service Pack for general release. With the Linspire 7 SP1 KDE is now the default desktop.
 
In 2019 it will still true that most apps are tailored to be written for Windows. If you look in the right places you can find some GNU-compatible versions, but only for very popular software. Windows has a big advantage over Linux which is that in the software as virtually every program is designed from the ground-up with Windows support in mind. Gnu/Linux currently will not play Hollywood DRM Blu-ray discs.