Comment by RunSet

Comment by RunSet 2 days ago

> If native software was routinely available, launchers might not feel necessary.

> But I sure as hell don't want to invest howevermany weekend days figuring out how to make games from other platforms as easy to play as Steam games on SteamOS.

For games that are licensed under terms that allow it, Debian's Game Data Packager has already automated that work. And- as your comment suggests- a native port is much better than running on a wine shim, which will always be second-rate.

https://wiki.debian.org/Games/GameDataPackager

List of games supported by Game Data Packager:

https://game-data-packager.debian.net/available.html

bsimpson 2 days ago

That link is hard to follow.

Does that effectively replace the .exe parts of a Proton game with an equivalent Linux engine, while letting Steam et. al. manage the artwork/levels/etc?

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RunSet a day ago

No, it packages open source game data (which can't be distributed because it is copyrighted) so that it can be installed and will work with the games that already have debian packages.
So in the case of quake (for example) it makes a .deb file, which when installed will create the directory structure in the correct place and put the .pak files, config files, etc. where debian's quake engine package(s)[0] will look for them. This .deb file for the quake game data won't do anything on its own. You need to also install a quake engine, which debian includes.
You can create the game data packages from the installation CD, from a working install directory, or from a Good Old Games installer.
[0] https://packages.debian.org/stable/games/quake

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