Running LaunchBox and Big Box on Linux

[Djungelurban]

2 hours ago, The_Keeper86 said:

Wow I've never had a problem with any of these frontends! Honestly BigBox has performed the best for me!

It's not that they work poorly, it's just the whole concept that I'm just not interested in. What I like is the more database styled presentation that desktop mode provides and apart some performance issues I've been having with every version since 9.0 honestly, the desktop mode has almost exactly the layout, structure and function I would want...

Like, before I used Launchbox I was using the barebones QuickPlay if anyone remembers that and I was very content with that. And at that time most popular frontend was HyperSpin and I always found that extremely obnoxious with it's wheels and videos and sound effects and all that surfacy bullcrap visual poop. It never appealed to me. So despite QuickPlay being almost completely dead I stuck with it for over 10 years.
And then I discovered Launchbox which seemed to have a very similar core concept but with a much better interface and, most importantly, was in active development. So I made the switch to Launchbox and haven't looked back since. Launchbox is by far the best frontend out there and it baffles me that no one's tried to copy it...
Well, not the desktop mode atleast. Like I said, BigBox, RetroPie, EmulationStation, HyperSpin... They all share the same core philosophy and none of it interests me... I even used EmulationStation on my PS Classic and it just doesn't hold a candle to desktop mode. No, it's Launchbox desktop mode or a desktop mode equivalent or nothing. Heck, I'd honestly exclusively use "list mode" over any of those (poor list mode, there are so many improvement it could need but no one pays it any attention anymore).

Edited April 28, 2022 by Djungelurban

[super-6-1]

Moving my handheld to linux i would love to see this, I mostly emulate on that then i do my Desktop at home. I have a experimental build of steamOS 3.0 running on my Aya neo pro. Might see what i can do with that idea. 

[Jason Carr]

Just an update on this; we are trying to create a native Linux port. But the available technologies on Linux make it WAY more difficult than we'd like, or we initially thought. Our most current plan of action is to port LaunchBox for Android to MAUI (the latest tech from Microsoft). However, after trying to port it in its current state, MAUI is clearly just not ready for that yet. It's still a very early and immature platform. On top of that, despite Microsoft's previous claims, MAUI doesn't have an official way to use it on Linux. Microsoft is leaving that up to the community to develop, so that's also a significant hurdle.

We would love to develop a native Linux version without those technologies, but we would literally have to write a theming engine from scratch and throw out all of our existing themes, which isn't really ideal or feasible. So there's no real way to take that strategy. Development on Linux is decades behind development on Windows (and even development on Android). So that's the real challenge.

All of this just to say that yes, we want to be on native Linux. But until there's a good way to do it, we're kind of stuck. We're still looking to see if there are any other good options out there. Otherwise, we're waiting on MAUI to be better fleshed out before we can take the plunge.

[neil9000]

9 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

Just an update on this; we are trying to create a native Linux port. But the available technologies on Linux make it WAY more difficult than we'd like, or we initially thought. Our most current plan of action is to port LaunchBox for Android to MAUI (the latest tech from Microsoft). However, after trying to port it in its current state, MAUI is clearly just not ready for that yet. It's still a very early and immature platform. On top of that, despite Microsoft's previous claims, MAUI doesn't have an official way to use it on Linux. Microsoft is leaving that up to the community to develop, so that's also a significant hurdle.

We would love to develop a native Linux version without those technologies, but we would literally have to write a theming engine from scratch and throw out all of our existing themes, which isn't really ideal or feasible. So there's no real way to take that strategy. Development on Linux is decades behind development on Windows (and even development on Android). So that's the real challenge.

All of this just to say that yes, we want to be on native Linux. But until there's a good way to do it, we're kind of stuck. We're still looking to see if there are any other good options out there. Otherwise, we're waiting on MAUI to be better fleshed out before we can take the plunge.

Always appreciate the open and frank explanations of issues, and the why's and why not's of the matters.

 

[slaapliedje]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

Just an update on this; we are trying to create a native Linux port. But the available technologies on Linux make it WAY more difficult than we'd like, or we initially thought. Our most current plan of action is to port LaunchBox for Android to MAUI (the latest tech from Microsoft). However, after trying to port it in its current state, MAUI is clearly just not ready for that yet. It's still a very early and immature platform. On top of that, despite Microsoft's previous claims, MAUI doesn't have an official way to use it on Linux. Microsoft is leaving that up to the community to develop, so that's also a significant hurdle.

We would love to develop a native Linux version without those technologies, but we would literally have to write a theming engine from scratch and throw out all of our existing themes, which isn't really ideal or feasible. So there's no real way to take that strategy. Development on Linux is decades behind development on Windows (and even development on Android). So that's the real challenge.

All of this just to say that yes, we want to be on native Linux. But until there's a good way to do it, we're kind of stuck. We're still looking to see if there are any other good options out there. Otherwise, we're waiting on MAUI to be better fleshed out before we can take the plunge.

Hmm, my first gut response was 'wtf, there are so many development tools for Linux, it's insane.' But you're trying to stick with .Net which was created by MS and yeah it's kind of crap even after all these years on Linux.  So really you should be saying 'Development with .Net on Linux is decades behind'.  Mono has gotten better, and SDL2 is fantastic.  But trying to port .NET code over when there are many parts Microsoft made sure were not cross-platform, it makes it rather difficult to try to take something that was coded initially around only supporting Windows to some other platform.

Well, looking forward to Launchbox being native.  Maybe ping some people over on gamingonlinux.com to see if they can help out?

[Jason Carr]

12 minutes ago, slaapliedje said:

Hmm, my first gut response was 'wtf, there are so many development tools for Linux, it's insane.' But you're trying to stick with .Net which was created by MS and yeah it's kind of crap even after all these years on Linux.  So really you should be saying 'Development with .Net on Linux is decades behind'.  Mono has gotten better, and SDL2 is fantastic.  But trying to port .NET code over when there are many parts Microsoft made sure were not cross-platform, it makes it rather difficult to try to take something that was coded initially around only supporting Windows to some other platform.

Well, looking forward to Launchbox being native.  Maybe ping some people over on gamingonlinux.com to see if they can help out?

We are very much open to technologies other than .NET. That is not the issue. The issue is that most, if not all app development technologies are many years behind Microsoft's offerings. Microsoft has always won on the desktop because they have the best development tools. Good progress has been made by other organizations/companies on the web, but not really on the desktop with app development.

But yes, we also need a solution that we are able to build and support with our expertise. The Linux audience is still much smaller than the Windows and Android audiences, so it would not make any real sense to devote more (or even the same amount) of resources to it as we do for Windows or Android. A relatively smooth transition is necessary here (a rewrite with completely new technologies isn't in the cards).

Regardless, the GUI/theming engines that we have on Windows (WPF) and Android (Xamarin.Forms) are immensely powerful and crucial to the rapid development that we have for both platforms. We're not aware of anything on Linux that is anywhere near as powerful or as flexible as those technologies, and writing something like that from scratch would take our whole team years.

[slaapliedje]

6 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

We are very much open to technologies other than .NET. That is not the issue. The issue is that most, if not all app development technologies are many years behind Microsoft's offerings. Microsoft has always won on the desktop because they have the best development tools. Good progress has been made by other organizations/companies on the web, but not really on the desktop with app development.

But yes, we also need a solution that we are able to build and support with our expertise. The Linux audience is still much smaller than the Windows and Android audiences, so it would not make any real sense to devote more (or even the same amount) of resources to it as we do for Windows or Android. A relatively smooth transition is necessary here (a rewrite with completely new technologies isn't in the cards).

Regardless, the GUI/theming engines that we have on Windows (WPF) and Android (Xamarin.Forms) are immensely powerful and crucial to the rapid development that we have for both platforms. We're not aware of anything on Linux that is anywhere near as powerful or as flexible as those technologies, and writing something like that from scratch would take our whole team years.

Just did some quick digging, looks like you can use Xamarin.Forms with MonoDevelop and GTK# on Linux.  Though seems there were a couple of conflicting posts.  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/xamarin-forms/platform/other/gtk?tabs=windows is perhaps useful?

[Jason Carr]

54 minutes ago, slaapliedje said:

Just did some quick digging, looks like you can use Xamarin.Forms with MonoDevelop and GTK# on Linux.  Though seems there were a couple of conflicting posts.  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/xamarin-forms/platform/other/gtk?tabs=windows is perhaps useful?

Yeah, I actually put significant time and development into exactly that. But as it turns out, that implementation is very slow, ugly, and only half working. So I ended up shelving it after a couple days of work. In theory, you could get it working with a lot of effort, but it was so slow and just wouldn't be a good solution.

Edit: The (mostly) good news though is that the MAUI development on Linux is based off of that same solution, so they're not really starting over from scratch, and there's certainly hope that it will eventually become a good solution. The problem is just that it's very young and immature, and hasn't been optimized, or even fully implemented as of yet. A good number of the features that we use Xamarin.Forms for on Android just don't work on GTK yet.

I'm tempted to dive in and help with that development, and I may at some point. As of right now though, I've got my hands full. Once our new hire comes on board and gets up to speed, I might be more freed up to do something like that. But that will probably be a while.

[The_Keeper86]

10 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

Yeah, I actually put significant time and development into exactly that. But as it turns out, that implementation is very slow, ugly, and only half working. So I ended up shelving it after a couple days of work. In theory, you could get it working with a lot of effort, but it was so slow and just wouldn't be a good solution.

Edit: The (mostly) good news though is that the MAUI development on Linux is based off of that same solution, so they're not really starting over from scratch, and there's certainly hope that it will eventually become a good solution. The problem is just that it's very young and immature, and hasn't been optimized, or even fully implemented as of yet. A good number of the features that we use Xamarin.Forms for on Android just don't work on GTK yet.

I'm tempted to dive in and help with that development, and I may at some point. As of right now though, I've got my hands full. Once our new hire comes on board and gets up to speed, I might be more freed up to do something like that. But that will probably be a while.

Really appreciate you letting us know! I've been using Linux off and on since 2003. Of course gaming has gotten much better with the likes of proton and more emulator options like Retroarch. Shame it won't run great with Wine. I remember when we tried before it seemed to work but adding emulators was a huge pain! I've tried many frontends on Linux such as RetroFE and adding emulators and roms was a such a pain there as well.

[Jason Carr]

28 minutes ago, The_Keeper86 said:

Really appreciate you letting us know! I've been using Linux off and on since 2003. Of course gaming has gotten much better with the likes of proton and more emulator options like Retroarch. Shame it won't run great with Wine. I remember when we tried before it seemed to work but adding emulators was a huge pain! I've tried many frontends on Linux such as RetroFE and adding emulators and roms was a such a pain there as well.

Yeah, Wine does work and we could improve the situation of adding games, but it was so convoluted and you have to install so many things that you're not really even running on Linux anymore lol.

[Mozzers101]

I've read this with interest after heading across from the 2022 Community Poll. Like many other commenters I will be getting a Steam Deck later this year and would like to have Launchbox available there. It would be nice. That said it is not any kind of deal-beaker. Storage issues would quickly arise given the size of my library and there are already some good Steam Deck solutions out there. I'm currently creating a "Greatest Hits" playlist that I will eventually export to my Steam Deck with the aim of keeping it at 512GB.

I'm on the LB train fully, there is no other program I use more and it is utterly awesome.

If you get there and can do it, then great. I wonder if getting "ahead of the game" now would mean more new customers should the Steam Deck really take off but that's a gamble and, right now, only Jason and the staff are in a proper position to assess whether or not to go ahead and devote their finite resources to making it happen. Many of the users currently have lifetime licences already so there is no new revenue stream coming from us, perhaps the Steam Deck could be a real winner and be worth the resources.

I would happily consider paying afresh for a Linux LB build perhaps with a good discount for holding a lifetime licence.

Whatever happens, thanks to you all for Launchbox.

Edited May 14, 2022 by Mozzers101

[DavrosKaled]

On 5/15/2022 at 4:04 AM, Mozzers101 said:

I've read this with interest after heading across from the 2022 Community Poll. Like many other commenters I will be getting a Steam Deck later this year and would like to have Launchbox available there. It would be nice. That said it is not any kind of deal-beaker. Storage issues would quickly arise given the size of my library and there are already some good Steam Deck solutions out there. I'm currently creating a "Greatest Hits" playlist that I will eventually export to my Steam Deck with the aim of keeping it at 512GB.

I'm on the LB train fully, there is no other program I use more and it is utterly awesome.

If you get there and can do it, then great. I wonder if getting "ahead of the game" now would mean more new customers should the Steam Deck really take off but that's a gamble and, right now, only Jason and the staff are in a proper position to assess whether or not to go ahead and devote their finite resources to making it happen. Many of the users currently have lifetime licences already so there is no new revenue stream coming from us, perhaps the Steam Deck could be a real winner and be worth the resources.

I would happily consider paying afresh for a Linux LB build perhaps with a good discount for holding a lifetime licence.

Whatever happens, thanks to you all for Launchbox.

I'm absolutely with you. I will 100% buy another Lifetime License. I got one for Windows and one for Android. But as I greatly prefer using Linux I'm holding out hope, even if the Linux licenses are more expensive due to the extra work the team have to do to get it running on Linux.

[shadowfire]

My 2 cents: I've been dual-booting Linux/Windows for over 2 decades now (Linux for productivity, Windows for games). Honestly I'm not a Windows fan but getting Windows games to run on Linux has often been a painful experience so I decided to keep Windows around solely for games.....

But Proton may very well be a game changer. Theoretically over 98% of my Windows Steam games should run on Linux now (emulated games have never been an problem; plenty of emulators like DosBox, ScummVM, UAE, Vice, MAME etc. are cross-platform), so I started testing a few Windows games recently (Dark Souls, Mortal Shell, Quake Live) and yeah, things are looking good. Almost got SteamVR to work as well. I'm considering migrating most of my games to Linux or at least games that require Windows 10 or higher (from what I've read Elden Ring should work fine on Linux).

So yeah, I definitely would be interested in a LaunchBox port for Linux. While Lutris and GameHub are decent launchers they lack a lot of features that LaunchBox has. And if Steam Deck takes off maybe there will be new audience as well?

PS plenty of devs I know including me disagree that development technologies are "behind" on Linux It's just a different cup of tea.

(Btw. Application appearances on Linux are usually not handled by the application itself but by desktop environment themes through GTK or QT for a consistent look and interaction. Not that it cannot be done, e.g. Chrome's Youtube App, SideQuest and Tauon Music Box have a custom appearance.)

Edited July 27, 2022 by shadowfire

[n2linux]

A little late to the party, but mark me down as interested in a native Linux version. I have a home built arcade cabinet and I was amazed at LaunchBox and BigBox speed on older hardware. Plus it is just plain polished.  I tried the Wine implementation of an older version of LB/BB.  I found the performance was poor (on the old hardware), both with the front-end and emulators.  So Wine isn't nearly up to native speed. Now I did play with it on newer hardware and it was much better.  I'm just not ready to chase down newer hardware for the cabinet (but that's on me).

All that said, hopefully Steam or MAUI or something comes along to aid the developers.  I too, believe Linux has some good tools. It just can be apples and oranges some times. With only a small interested cadre in native Linux, I can see why the focus of the developers is elsewhere. With so many cross platform implementations of software, it's easy to think it's easy to port. But as a programmer, depending on the tools used in the original development, it ain't so easy at times.

I did set up a dual boot for just running my favorite emulator native on Linux.  I found the speed returned for the old rig.

But Thank you, developers, for an awesome product. Keep your focus where it needs to be. I understand.  

[Icebergnyc]

Transfer apps into Flutter SDK. Repair and write once allegedly and then it can run on linux, Android, IOS, mac and windows and feel like a native app. Its way ahead of Maui and other software in cross platform application building. An executive at TenCent said that 90 percent of code for a certain cross platform deployment stayed with the same base code for multiple OS's while using Flutter. 

Edited August 3, 2022 by Icebergnyc

[Jason Carr]

2 hours ago, Icebergnyc said:

Transfer apps into Flutter SDK. Repair and write once allegedly and then it can run on linux mac and windows and feel like a native app.

We'd have to throw away about 10 years of development and basically start over to do that lol. I would appreciate if folks would not make suggestions like this unless they really know what they're talking about. Because I get all excited that there might be an easy solution and then I go look into it, and it's just another obvious dead end.

We are still very much wanting to tackle Linux, but still kind of stuck until some better development tools are developed, so it's a ways off.

[Icebergnyc]

Just this morning I looked into a ton of forums where professionals talk about .net and flutter and switching over between the two and creating applications that use both in tandem. If you knew Everything, You wouldn't get all excited . A suggestion is just a suggestion. Nobody is rushing you. This a discussion board. Anyway like i said Flutter is way ahead of the pack in cross platform deployment. And did you even look into what was saying about the TenCent exec?  They had to go back and rewrite about ten percent of their code. Probably was millions of lines, but it still saved them more time than anything else on the market could have by a landslide. We are all learning something together. 

[Lordmonkus]

I have had to say this many times already and here I am repeating it again.

I want to see Linux take over, I really do but it's just not happening soon. It's getting better but the progress is extremely slow.

For Jason and his 2 other devs to suddenly shift focus to Linux like you are suggesting would essentially stop all current work being done on the Windows and Android versions of Launchbox and then spend how ever much time not only making a Linux version but also a full featured version. This is a lot of work for a small dev team which means a lot of lost revenue for what is a fraction of a percent of the potential customers. So yeah lets just compare a 3 man dev team to a giant Chinese ripoff company with near unlimited funds, great comparison.

[Icebergnyc]

5 hours ago, Lordmonkus said:

I have had to say this many times already and here I am repeating it again.

I want to see Linux take over, I really do but it's just not happening soon. It's getting better but the progress is extremely slow.

For Jason and his 2 other devs to suddenly shift focus to Linux like you are suggesting would essentially stop all current work being done on the Windows and Android versions of Launchbox and then spend how ever much time not only making a Linux version but also a full featured version. This is a lot of work for a small dev team which means a lot of lost revenue for what is a fraction of a percent of the potential customers. So yeah lets just compare a 3 man dev team to a giant Chinese ripoff company with near unlimited funds, great comparison.

Your reply is out of context. The larger disposable income  wasn't a factor in making the of the decision, it was the ease of development. Working with programming languages that effortlessly compile over into native languages such as Java and C and objective C. Auto programming correction, Auto backup features, real time alerts, and so much more.  They have millions of shareholders on their back. Time was of the essence.  Nor was it a measuring stick. Corporations are going to what they want to do and customers are going to still want what they want. You expect somebody to not ask? You expect customers to not inquire? You expect users to not ponder what if and respectfully debate or just have back and forth conversation? Are we sheep? That's a highly unrealistic and  outdated way of thought and perspective. Once again I reiterate that nobody is rushing him. Nobody said stop what your doing. Just like I'm sure Jason understands the demand, people including myself understand the hesitance. When the time comes, and it will, You guys are going to have to seek out alternative solutions. Things were put out there. And they were for very good reason if y'all actually pay attention and not try to belittle me like Jason did. There is absolutely no reason for anybody to get mad. Everybody has do their due diligence and perform adequate research without having a chip on the shoulder. Just this past year I learned way more about computer networking  than I did in the last ten years. I ended up building home and small business servers, and had to be hands on with everything that goes with it. I've been using LB for years on mu older windows pcs that I've turned into retro consoles. I like the work that ya'll do. I look forward to more. But as a consumer, and human being, like everybody else, I'll be happier when your product is on Linux. Next year or ten years from now. If not...Somebody else will provide. That's how the world turns. Just as your team sees Linux as insignificant at the moment, users see it as being at the cusp of the tipping point. 70 percent of global servers run on Linux.  Its got the global cell phone world on lock. All the big businesses deploy it one way or the other, and use it internally including MSFT. Home users everywhere  are surrounded by it day in and day out and they know it exists. VR is embracing on all the biggest platforms. The PC gaming world is turning its head. Overall demand for Opensource solutions and high customization is at an all time high in the pro and consumer tech world. Just keep your ear to the street...This is only my second day on this forum. Peace.

[Lordmonkus]

Well since you wanna accuse of belittling, being mad and having a chip on our shoulder it is clear you aren't interested in listening to reasons why Linux is not a priority I will just leave you be.