I found that there is a branch called Bazzite that is essentially Steam OS for desktop, I’ve been using it for a few months now with four monitors and no major hiccups.
It’s kernel level anticheat, it can do whatever it wants. It’s on the same level as the operating system.
Realistically? Nobody’s gonna bundle Linux filesystem drivers in malware just in case. If someone is to exploit Vanguard for malware I’d expect a credentials stealer to take your Steam and Discord accounts. Ransomware would likely spread to the NAS but that can be mitigated with readonly permissions where appropriate, and backups/shadow copies.
Not really, the source is more about the entire concept in computer science. It’s extremely comprehensive, for those who want to know it inside and out. TLDR : Ring 0 means anything directly controlling the hardware, which is usually the kernel. There’s also rings beyond zero that are reserved for specific things, for example -1 for hypervisors like KVM & Hyper-V.
Separate daemon & GUI processes… Permissions aware… Modular installation of modprobe config… It looks like the author understands the basics of designing a tool like this. Nice.
I have a couple of reservations from a security perspective, though:
The daemon and GUI are the same executable, which means a lot of complexity in the binary that runs in a privileged context. I would suggest splitting the daemon into a separate, minimal binary.
Wow I when you said 268 dependencies I figured JavaScript was involved…
Is the culture of Rust/Cargo getting as bad as JS/NPM these days or is this developer just using an insane amount of dependencies? I don’t have any experience working with Rust so I’m genuinely curious. I stay away from JS in part due to the insane amount of dependencies every non-trivial project has.
I’ve built projects in many languages and other than a few JS/React/ReactNative projects which seem to have unavoidably massive node_modules folders, I’ve never had more than maybe 10 dependencies in a project ever…
Is the culture of Rust/Cargo getting as bad as JS/NPM these days or is this developer just using an insane amount of dependencies?
From a quick glance through the files, I see maybe a couple dozen direct dependencies. That’s not what I would call conservative (especially for a privileged daemon) but the bulk of those hundreds seem to be sub-dependencies.
I’ve seen similar in the other Rust projects that caught my attention. I suppose this is a predictable result of Rust’s Cargo culture: When pulling in other people’s code is convenient, automated, and normalized, it tends to happen a lot, and the transitive nature of dependencies amplifies the effect.
So even a small project can easily include code from hundreds of random people other than the author, with practically no accountability, as we see here. And since it’s a long tail of small and often obscure projects, rather than a handful of well-known ones like a standard library, there is little hope of meaningful auditing.
There also seems to be a culture of statically linking all those dependencies. That means security patches will never reach a user through OS updates, and with so many dependencies involved, chances are slim that every upstream vulnerability will be patched on the user’s machine soon after it’s discovered (if ever).
I would find Rust more appealing if it had a standard library (and maybe a few high-profile well-maintained external libs) comprehensive enough to cover most needs, and if the tooling and culture encouraged minimizing dependencies. I think the former might develop with time. I fear the latter might not ever appear.
I’ve been thinking about learning Rust after hearing about it’s benefits, but was put off by its ugly type syntax that I hate from C++ and the whole “fighting with the borrow checker to do simple stuff” thing. But now it seems it also has the terrible bloated dependency culture I hate from JavaScript too!
IMO any security benefits from the increased memory safety are immediately nullified by the security nightmare that is hundreds of statically compiled dependencies…
I guess I’ll keep waiting on the sidelines and see how the standard lib and dependency culture evolves.
You’re not alone in finding the syntax awkward and ugly. :)
Rust’s promise of lifetime management that can (with help from the programmer) be guaranteed correct is very appealing to me, but that feature alone is not enough to justify excessive code complexity or bad ergonomics.
IMO any security benefits from the increased memory safety are immediately nullified by the security nightmare that is hundreds of statically compiled dependencies…
Rust undermines itself in another way, too: A systems programming language that’s difficult to use encourages switching off the safety features when they get in the way. That’s frowned upon by the community, but the incentive is there, so it happens nevertheless. The result: overly complex software that’s annoying to write/maintain and doesn’t always deliver on the language’s defining promise.
And then there’s the fact that not all dangerous bugs are solved by memory safety. It’s no panacea.
I guess I’ll keep waiting on the sidelines and see how the standard lib and dependency culture evolves.
If you’re interested in something that improves on C++, you might have a look at D. The basic syntax is similar, the advanced syntax is better, it offers memory safety tools less burdensome than Rust’s, and has an optional garbage collector. I find the standard library a bit rough, but an improved next edition is in progress. The dependency management tool (Dub) supports not only libraries from a community repo, but also OS-provided libs, git repos, and plain old directories. After using it actively for a month or so, I feel the language itself is sane, and the maintainers seem to be making good decisions about polishing it up in future versions.
Is the culture of Rust/Cargo getting as bad as JS/NPM these days
Thanks for saying it.
When I see some rust projects, they looks like they where managed by JS devs (“1 need, 1 package”) that want to do compiled language… The amount of dependencies can be utterly insane.
For me, it mostly means rust have a strong package system, not that rust have good devs.
I’m doing Python at work and you have to use a many pypi package for financial reasons (yet, I restrict myself as much as possible), but seeing this mindset is scope specific open source project is crazy.
All of this does not means all rust (or JS) devs are bad, its just a consequence of bringing code to the masses: Its a good thing in many way. Lets acknowledge this and not being impressed by badly engineered dependency choices.
Yup. I guess the gist of it is, Linux is great for just general gaming, but if you’ve got something specific, it’s just not there yet. (I see a bit about VR too)
+1 on sims, with so many different peripherals as well as third party software like simhub, even if a base game works on Linux, it effectively doesn’t since there is so much integration needed
Yeah, I’d love to get a VR headset, but there just aren’t even games to play on Linux, and the headsets with good Linux support are either expensive or hard to find.
Hopefully that improves, I imagine it’s stopping people from switching to Linux.
Even the Index, Valve’s own headset has had broken functionality for years with no fixes in sight. Valve refuses to fix big stuff like the cameras, base stations not turning on, or even automatic audio switching.
Not to mention steamvr reprojection is completely broken.
Yeah, I just keep a windows partition for VR. In all of my experience with VR on Linux, it has been terrible and buggy which is just intolerable. I gotta be honest, its not smooth sailing on windows either, steam vr has some bugs they haven’t fixed for years, so combining that with Linux just is not good.
I’d really love a wireless VR headset that is just a display with inside out tracking and streams from your PC.
There’s really no reason to have built-in computation unless it’s a standalone device and it just leads to a bulky and heavy device that still has a short battery life.
Yup. One by one the papercuts are getting resolved, so hopefully it’s just a matter of time before VR support gets better. Ideally Valve gets interested again and makes another push for Linux VR (maybe some tie-in with the Deck?), otherwise we may be waiting a while.
It’s anecdotal but I saw a significant improvement in multiple games on an Nvidia 1050 running Nobara. Had no issues installing drivers and getting things set up.
Nvidia 1070 here. Haven’t run into problems using Mint or Endevour. Had to choose propriety drivers on Mint, but that was it.
Might buy an AMD card next, but that’s more to see if there are any features I’m missing out on. I’m also excited to see whether AMD has grown better hardware, as it was a constant hassle when I last used one 10+ years ago.
Yea, Ryzen Is awesome! No plans on going back to Intel.
While Intel might have better IPC, AMD having twice as many cores easily makes up for this.
Might come with an argument in regard to single-threaded games, but that should not be relevant with pretty much everything having moved to multi-thread by now.
I’ve forgotten which generation but the last time AMD had the better card most people still bought Nvidia.
I only dislike AMD significantly less than Nvidia. Give me friendly company with non-proprietary drivers and I’d consider that even if it wasn’t “the best”.
Yeah I have been having so much trouble running AI stuff on my Rx 6700 XT that I use my media computer with a RTX 2060 to do most of my experimenting with though the VRAM is really limiting.
At least in terms of the latest features, like RTX. If you’re only interested in raster performance, AMD works quite well and provides excellent value.
Not just the latest features. NVENC is better for both streaming and untethered VR, CUDA is usually better supported by photo/video/3D/CAD software, etc. AMD is only good if you’re only playing games and can’t afford an NVIDIA card.
Or you’re like me and use Linux and value better drivers (e.g. Wayland support, no update bugs on rolling release distros, etc) over those other features.
And on Windows as well, if you’re buying mid-range, you’re probably not going to have a good experience with those other features, so you should go with AMD. The premium for buying Nvidia at the mid-range often isn’t worth it.
I also use my GPU for hobbies and work. My hobbies are game dev (nothing hardcore GPU-wise, just some mid-poly modeling), gaming (mostly indie, though occasionally SP AAA), and random SW-dev projects (e.g. I’m building a Lemmy/Reddit clone). For work, I’m a full-stack web dev and don’t do CUDA work (and I have a separate work-provided laptop), just occasionally run renders of things (mostly web-based three.js stuff). So for me personally, I’d only really see a benefit for running some of the latest games, which is incredibly rare since I honestly don’t have a ton of time to keep up with things (e.g. I’m finally starting RDR2 after owning it for years). I game in 1440p, and most games don’t tax my GPU (RX 6650XT). If I need CUDA, I’ll just rent space on AWS or something instead of running it locally.
So I care a lot more about Wayland support (I have monitors with different refresh rates) and driver stability (I run a rolling release, and Nvidia causes issues at least a few times/year) than top tier performance or latest features. I’ve been on Linux longer than Steam has, and I’ve honestly only been playing more games because Valve has made it so easy. For me, Linux comes first, gaming second, and AMD provides a high quality product for my use case. I used to use Nvidia because ATI used to be worse on Linux, if you can believe that, but I upgraded after COVID because Wayland got quite stable.
Nvidia has been kind of a mess for me on Wayland, especially the lastest 545 drivers. I just switched to AMD and literally all my issues disappeared, including one I thought was a KDE plasma bug
Looks like KDE Plasma 6 is going to default to Wayland, so I’ll probably give it another shot when it comes out (in Feb I think?). I’m currently on GNOME because of weird KDE Wayland issues on my AMD card (maybe it’s no longer a thing, IDK). I don’t have a strong preference between them, but my kids use my computer and I think KDE is probably easier for them.
My kids don’t have any experience with Windows, they’ve only used ChromeOS (at school) and Linux (my computers, one has Plasma 5, and the other has GNOME).
But yeah, it feels kinda Windows like with the start menu and whatnot.
Enjoy I use mint 21.1 Victoria 21.1 xfce on my gaming laptop myself
Little tip make a second drive with a backup so that if it ever gets a bit to complicated you’ll have something to come back to also you could duel boot as well if you need windows for work or smth although tbh I hardly have any issues with mint it normally works outside the box . Mints an all-round decent distro in my expirence
I also recommend you install neofetch onto your system when you do install Linux you can customise neofetch to look however you want you can also rice neofetch as well
Just to be sure. Are the options "Enable Steam Play for supported titles" and "Enable Steam Play for all other titles" in Steam Settings >> Compatibility both set?
First and only thing that came to mind. Maybe somebody has more ideas.
We went from a time where you had to rebuild your fucking kernel to get your graphics card to work and fucking around with Wine to get to a point where you nearly throw your PC out the window until you can get a little app to run to simply running apt install nvidia-driver-xxx and clicking on a button to make a Windows game run in Linux.
I have fond memories of getting World of Warcraft working on Linux back in ~2008 only to realize it had an OpenGL mode that ran better than the DirectX mode I was trying - and failing - to get working.
You aren’t wrong about kernel and driver shenanigans.
I only recently got an update from a mailing list thread I had submitted something to about WINE not using dual cores in WoW.... That threw me right back
I recommend Linux Mint. It’s super user friendly, and there is a lot of support out there if you run into any issues.
Now that gaming is less important for me, I feel like now is a good time to switch mainly to Linux.
Eh, gaming works just fine on Linux. The main issues are with multiplayer games, so you can still probably play most of your single player games on Linux. Steam makes it really easy, and you can play Epic and GOG with Heroic Launcher.
But as for tips:
keep a windows install as a dual boot, at least for the first few weeks, but set Linux as the default; if you can, use a separate drive for Linux; partitions work, but it’s easy to accidentally remove Linux’s boot loader when troubleshooting Windows problems
don’t get fancy with your distro, just pick a popular one
try to avoid the CLI; a lot of people will post commands to run, but if you don’t know what they’re doing, you can hose your system; instructions for GUI tools tend to be less problematic for newer users, at least from my experience
But the most important is to have fun! Solve one problem at a time, and enjoy your new system!
As far as i know most MMOs don’t run heavy anti cheat stuff as they are built to not trust the clients so i suspect a lot will work fine.
Some i know work perfectly fine are:
Guild wars 2, both through lutris and proton. Back when i originally swapped to linux i had some issues getting the commonly used dps meter (arcdps) to work with proton. It requires some optional features to be enabled to allow direct x overlay windows etc. Worked first try through lutris though and ive been playing the game on and off for the past year through that without issues.
The Elder Scrolls Online, works perfectly fine through proton. You can even get the standard addon manager (minion) working through standard wine and just point it at the right folder for addons to work. A few that require running programs to update stuff will be fiddly though. (Like tamriel trade centre)
Final fantasy XIV has an unofficial launcher (XIVlauncher) you can snag up on the flathub that makes installing and running the game easy. I have not played the steam version, but i imagine it works as well.
Warframe works fine through steam, but its barely an MMO.
Second life works fine with the common viewer, firestorm, having a native linux version.
Highly recommended for anyone with a Steam Deck, or who might game on a Linux machine. On several occasions, Steam has told me that a game is straight up unsupported on Deck, but looking at Protondb, people say it works fine… And what do you know.
Also, some games might only work with ProtonGE, and Steam won’t tell you about that.
There are multiple things taken in account for the steam deck compatibility.
One of the issues, can be the very small display. In some cases the game may display small text or require a mouse for some menus, and it will be partially compatible, but in other cases it may be unplayable, or only playable with a mouse.
For sure. Though Steam will tell you in the case of the display being small, etc., as part of their compatibility check thing. It will often be yellow instead of green, and it will tell you the reasons why.
I’m talking about games that are full on “unsupported.” As in Steam shows the grey circle with the line through it. Specifically recently, Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition is marked as “unplayable”. I skipped past it in my library for about a year thinking it wouldn’t work, before randomly looking on ProtonDB and seeing people say that it works fine.
And sure enough, works just fine. Even with DSFix. That’s just one recent example for me.
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