It’s time to seriously consider LaunchBox on Linux.

[duerra]

On 1/7/2026 at 9:22 AM, Fursphere said:

People have been hailing the death of Windows and the beginning of Linux's rise to the top since the early 1990s.   (Remember slackware and their "f**k you, figure it out yourself" welcome message?)

Yet..  here we are.   Value is pouring R&D money in Linux... for Steam.  With Steam being the front end and operating system (more or less).  The Steam Box may die and early death due to the RAM prices skyrocketing due to the AI data-center slop rush currently happening right now.  We'll see.   But the Steam Box (Steam Console?) is going to be more akin to Apple Mac than Linux.    Its going to be a fit-for-purpose OS on fit-for-purpose hardware.   Most people aren't going to buy a Steam Box to NOT use Steam big picture.    That's the whole point.    They'd just buy a regular computer instead...   and SteamOS is only putting in drivers for the hardware they're selling. 

Anyway, long story short.   Yes, it would be great to have a mainstream alternative to Windows.   But Linux ain't there yet, and probably never will be since the solution to every major problem is "these guys are doing it wrong, I'll make my own fork and do it right!" (insert Bender quote here) - and now we've got thousands of forks.  

Things are genuinely different today than they were back then, for many reasons.  Never before has the desire to exit Windows been as strong as it is today due to spy tech and the decline of the stability of Windows, things like Microsoft account requirements for Windows 11, etc.  Never before has the stability of the Linux desktop ecosystem been as strong as it is today.  Valve's investment into Proton has also created a trail specifically for gamers that everyone else is benefiting massively from.

There are certainly still things here and there which creates a Windows dependency for some things for some people.  However, most of these challenges have been adequately overcome in the open source community where it matters.

[Fursphere]

I agree with almost everything you've said, with the exception of leaving out the key phase "...for enthusiasts"  

That phrase belongs after every statement you made, because at some point (I've been in tech professionally for 30+ years now) I don't want to "play tech guy" at home anymore.  I just want to use my flipping computer.   And Linux is still a tech research tweaky quicky nitemare bullshit game.  If I want to deploy kubernetes, linux is my go to node choice.  If I was to build a webserver, I'm probably using linux.  If I want to play a game on steam?  Or use my collection of high end game controllers (Fanatec, VKB, light guns, LED controllers for arcade shit, blah blah blah..) Linux ain't it.  

Yes, you can most likley absolutely get almost anything to work on linux.  It may take minutes, it may take hours/days/weeks to figure out a particular quirk / roadblock.   I have better things to do with my time these days.   If I was still a young guy in my teens or twenties, I'd probably just white knuckle it and plow through.  But those days are long gone.   I'm older now, and I don't see value in endlessly searching forums / reddit / youtube / github / etc to get a trivial thing to work.

If you do, rock on man.  Seriously.   Good on you.   

And.....   all of my Win11 machines do not use Microsoft accounts.  Its a trivial workaround.  If you choose "home / personal" when you're installing, you'll get pushed into a Microsoft account (you can still avoid it, but its harder).  If you choose "education / work" - no requirement at all. 

[dragon57]

2 hours ago, Fursphere said:

I agree with almost everything you've said, with the exception of leaving out the key phase "...for enthusiasts"  

That phrase belongs after every statement you made, because at some point (I've been in tech professionally for 30+ years now) I don't want to "play tech guy" at home anymore.  I just want to use my flipping computer.   And Linux is still a tech research tweaky quicky nitemare bullshit game.  If I want to deploy kubernetes, linux is my go to node choice.  If I was to build a webserver, I'm probably using linux.  If I want to play a game on steam?  Or use my collection of high end game controllers (Fanatec, VKB, light guns, LED controllers for arcade shit, blah blah blah..) Linux ain't it.  

Yes, you can most likley absolutely get almost anything to work on linux.  It may take minutes, it may take hours/days/weeks to figure out a particular quirk / roadblock.   I have better things to do with my time these days.   If I was still a young guy in my teens or twenties, I'd probably just white knuckle it and plow through.  But those days are long gone.   I'm older now, and I don't see value in endlessly searching forums / reddit / youtube / github / etc to get a trivial thing to work.

If you do, rock on man.  Seriously.   Good on you.   

And.....   all of my Win11 machines do not use Microsoft accounts.  Its a trivial workaround.  If you choose "home / personal" when you're installing, you'll get pushed into a Microsoft account (you can still avoid it, but its harder).  If you choose "education / work" - no requirement at all. 

Totally agree with you. I'm too old to worry about the vagaries of un*x, Linux, and the like. I learned starting with custom un*x hardware in the early 80's. It was my job to make those esoteric machines run, and I enjoyed it. I still install new Linux distros for nostalgia's sake from time to time, but not for a real personal need in one of my home systems. I totally understand why Jason and company haven't gone down the Linux path (yet?). Maybe it will happen one day soon; if so, I wish them luck.

[Nixx]

I’d add that, in many cases, games still run as fast or faster on Windows. And when Proton’s advantage comes from components like DXVK or VKD3D-Proton, those can often be used on Windows as well, alongside a huge range of wrappers and alternative renderers.
Maybe that balance will change over time, but for a nostalgic gamer like me who plays games from many different eras, Windows is still hard to beat when it comes to overall compatibility.

Now, i have a BC 250 sitting on a box since few weeks that would make a decent steam machine for less than 200 bucks for my kids, but linux only, so i will have to join the party. Not sure how i will proceed, on one side, i have a near complete rewrite of launchbox on .NET that i can probably port to linux, or i can just make it emulate a romm server and use any romm client out there.

 

[duerra]

4 hours ago, Fursphere said:

I agree with almost everything you've said, with the exception of leaving out the key phase "...for enthusiasts"  

That phrase belongs after every statement you made, because at some point (I've been in tech professionally for 30+ years now) I don't want to "play tech guy" at home anymore.  I just want to use my flipping computer.   And Linux is still a tech research tweaky quicky nitemare bullshit game.  If I want to deploy kubernetes, linux is my go to node choice.  If I was to build a webserver, I'm probably using linux.  If I want to play a game on steam?  Or use my collection of high end game controllers (Fanatec, VKB, light guns, LED controllers for arcade shit, blah blah blah..) Linux ain't it.  

Yes, you can most likley absolutely get almost anything to work on linux.  It may take minutes, it may take hours/days/weeks to figure out a particular quirk / roadblock.   I have better things to do with my time these days.   If I was still a young guy in my teens or twenties, I'd probably just white knuckle it and plow through.  But those days are long gone.   I'm older now, and I don't see value in endlessly searching forums / reddit / youtube / github / etc to get a trivial thing to work.

If you do, rock on man.  Seriously.   Good on you.   

And.....   all of my Win11 machines do not use Microsoft accounts.  Its a trivial workaround.  If you choose "home / personal" when you're installing, you'll get pushed into a Microsoft account (you can still avoid it, but its harder).  If you choose "education / work" - no requirement at all. 

I mean, my only counterpoint to your counterpoint is that we're talking about LaunchBox and emulation, and emulators, and emulator setup, and launch configurations, and imports, and file type matching, and bit inverted roms, yadda yadda yadda.  All of this already clears the "for enthusiasts" bar.  If you're putting together a gaming frontend, I don't think it's Linux that's holding you back.  We're not talking about migrating Grandma to Linux and wondering if she can handle it.

Edited yesterday at 12:58 AM by duerra

[Fursphere]

I was playing with Batocera not too long ago on a mini-pc I've got (Intel NUC).   Took 45+ minutes of fuckery to get my Xbox bluetooth controller connected.   Refused to connect two at the same time.    Swapped the drive back to windows - instance connection.  No issues.  

I have a wired XBox controller (USB) and that worked fine with Batocera - but its stuff like that.  Basic stuff that should 'just work' that you have to endlessly tinker with.   On my main gaming PC - with my RTX 5080 - getting the GPU drivers to play nice with the OS was a bear.  Lots of entering the bios to tweak this or that, and then rebooting and hoping it would work.

There is a Linux fanatec driver - but it only supports basic connectivity.  No FFB, no tweaking settings.  So my Daytona Twin racing cabinet was a no go.   If you've ever tried to emulate arcade racers - you have to tweak all sorts of crap per game to get things working (its super annoying).  

Like I said before - you can get it working, its just a crap ton more effort than windows.  And it'll be varying degrees of different for every linux OS flavor. 

In the enterprise setting - my corp. standarized on Red Hat linux - because we got tired of every other flavor of linux bringing their own flavor of bullshit to the table.  No thank you!    Same thing happens x1,000,000 in the home setting - every linux has something different that you won't know is a problem until your balls deep in some random problem and you go "ah shit, time to re-image to another distro" because some random dev decided to change something for reasons.

[duerra]

Yeah, it's not 100% yet.  But it's gotten a lot better very rapidly and continues to do so - even the NVIDIA driver situation has finally turned a corner.  A lot of what you just described though fighting drivers and BIOS settings actually matches an experience I've been fighting for months with one of my Windows PCs 😅. 

I have a motion platform but I'll admit it's not focused around arcade racer emulation, so my experience there is limited (though I've heard similar things about Fanatec hardware and Linux being a problem).

When it comes to cabs, a lot of the cab builders were on Win 7 forever, and only just recently been retooling for Win 10, from my experience.  Win 11 is almost certainly off the table for most of them, even with Win 10 EOL, which is.... fun, especially entering the AI age with a legacy and unpatched OS. 😕 

Edited yesterday at 02:07 AM by duerra

[Fursphere]

I have been thinking about dumping Windows more and more.   But there are so many shortcomings.   Oh, my vPinball cabinet would be a nitemare on linux too.  I think there is finally a version of visual pinball ported to linux, but I know of no front ends, or utility software, or anything else in that ecosystem.   PinCabs are a nitemare to begin with....   lol

[duerra]

Lol, one thing at a time.  I also have a VPin cab, but we're on the LB forums and LB doesn't come in to play there (at least for me).

[Fursphere]

5 minutes ago, duerra said:

Lol, one thing at a time.  I also have a VPin cab, but we're on the LB forums and LB doesn't come in to play there (at least for me).

I think someone here made LB/BG a PinCab frontend using the 3-screen plugin.  I played with the idea for a minute, but then realized the loss of semi-automatic batch media generation would be a deal killer for me.  I'm actually surprised that no Arcade front end has done what PinUP has done with the auto batch recording stuff. 

And with PinUp being free and so feature rich, its on hell of a tough sell to convince someone to not use it in favor of something else.   (I tried PinballX long ago - no thanks!)

[duerra]

Yeah, if you're doing a VPin, I can't fathom how you'd go in any other direction beyond academic exploration.  I could understand that project not wanting a hard Windows dependency in its own capacity.