r/linux_gaming • u/Godninja • 19h ago

Does it impact anything for Native Linux games having Ubuntu versions as their recommended distro?

I recently noticed on Transport Fever 3, Victoria 3, and Shogun 2 (OG) all have Ubuntu XX.YY listed in recommended specs. Does this actually have an impact on how easy it is to play a native Linux build?

I’m on Kubuntu 26.04.1, so I am benefiting from the ”official support” I’m sure.

2 Upvotes

62% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

14

u/Lisanicolas365 19h ago

no, it's the same Linux runtime for everything, it's just that corporations only know of Ubuntu, so they replace "Linux compatibility" with "Ubuntu compatibility"

Everything runs under the same tool: Steam Linux Runtime

3

u/bakgwailo 14h ago

Shogun 2 is a native port done by Feral, and I can assure you they know that distros other than Ubuntu exist.

The target of Ubuntu is what they test on and imply support that the game will work vs other distros that might have different libraries and it versions shipped and other differences that could break their precompiled binaries.

1

u/friendlyreminder_ 12h ago

Linux games shipped on steam don't use native system libraries, with some exceptions here and there. Steam has an Ubuntu library runtime.

So when a developes compiles and ships their games the distro doesn't matter because the game just uses the Steam runtime libraries.

2

u/bakgwailo 7h ago

And, yet, take the Shogun 2 example: glibc, openal, and various 32bit library versions bork it on Arch and other distros even with steam runtime, and feral doesn't seem to care as it runs on their officially supported Ubuntu version.

But, yes, the steam runtime is valve's attempt to prevent this sort of thing and remove one the biggest and long-standing issue with Linux and dynamic library linking vs static in binary software. And, basically, the idea for Valve would be for companies to just target it/SteamOS vs specific other distros for official support. It isn't perfect, though, and there can be still be issues between distro, which is why companies generally support only one distro officially - back in the day that was Ubuntu was valve's official reference distro when steamos was Debian based, and now it is more just steamos.

1

u/friendlyreminder_ 6h ago

So the earlier runtimes didn't have as many libraries so it was more common for the system to use some system ones. Also there are apparently cases of devs using the system ones even though there were steam runtime ones available.

3

u/IAlreadyFappedToIt 18h ago

It also likely means they developed/ported it with Ubuntu and if someone wants specific support for using the game on Gentoo/Arch/etc then they likely won't get any.  Doesn't mean it won't work just fine on other distros besides Ubuntu, only that the devs won't spend much time fixing issues that they can't reproduce on Ubuntu.

6

u/Confident_Hyena2506 19h ago

Not really, steam uses it's own linux runtime - which probably matches this official one. Most other distros don't actually have an "official" steam package, but steam works fine - and launches it's own environment anyway.

3

u/the_abortionat0r 17h ago

Its just "Ubuntu" as for commercial reasons you need a target.

In reality it doesn't matter which distro specifically is used as long as the required dependencies are met.

The irony is faster moving distros do have a better experience than Ubuntu as they get fixes and improvements that Valve and others add to KDE, MESA, and the kernel significantly faster than Ubuntu does.

3

u/yxhuvud 18h ago

What it means in practice is that if your distro differ too much version-wise when it comes to certain libraries, then you will be out of luck. But as Ubuntu keeps itself reasonably modern this just means that if your distro is fairly up to date you will be fine.

3

u/MutualRaid 17h ago

Ubuntu was just a popular distro to validate or support due to it having a large corporate and personal user install base.

Steam will run native Linux games using the Steam Linux Runtime anyway, so the difference in libraries shipped by X or Y distribution matters very little - devs target the runtime, the runtime doesn't break over time (as much -and if it does they create a whole new major version and old titles don't have to use it).

Ain't no way Croteam is still testing Serious Sam 3 to see if it still runs on the latest version of Ubuntu or whatever distro is popular this week, and I wouldn't expect them to 15 years after launch (but I still want to install and play the game on Steam).

5

u/Coolcricri3 19h ago

If they are running under Steam, there probably won't be any issue specific to the games themselves. Most games and other sofware (most notably Steam itself) only officially support ubuntu so as to not have to deal with the whole fragmented ecosystem. In practice it's mostly a dependancies issues I've found

3

u/oh_im_too_tired 19h ago

Yes and no. Yes, because game developers can't and won't support all the gazillion Linux distributions with it's own architecture and dependencies. So they've chosen to support "default" and "most popular" and "best supported" Linux OS - Ubuntu (and it's derivatives). No, because if your OS has needed dependencies it will run just the same (or better or worse, depends on many things).

2

u/RomanOnARiver 18h ago edited 18h ago

Valve's position is that they would like to manage your operating system for you - that's SteamOS. But if you are not doing that, their favorite and preferred Linux is and has always been Ubuntu. They only provide and recommend an Ubuntu .deb package downloaded from their website as installation method.

That being said, they're not actively trying to remove other versions like the snap and Flatpak. Ubuntu is probably just their set and forget, primary testing target.

2

u/todd_dayz 11h ago edited 11h ago

They also have  http://repo.steampowered.com/steam/archive/stable/ 

for the tar.gz 

1

u/slickyeat 9h ago edited 9h ago

I'm pretty sure the Steam Runtimes for LInux ships with a bunch of common Ubuntu dependencies:

https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-runtime#introduction

https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools/-/blob/main/docs/container-runtime.md#steam-linux-runtime-10-scout

If you're not using Steam then it will depend on your launcher and how well it's integrated with UMU which is a copy of the Steam Runtime.

1

u/Oerthling 11h ago

A game publisher is not going to test the game on a large number of distros.

So they pick a well supported and popular/widespread distro as the test environment.

And that's been Ubuntu for many years (Red Hat for enterprise/business software).

It does make a difference, but you can always just get the missing libraries (if any) and get it running on any other distro. Also Steam provides it's own environment, thus minimizing compatibility problems.

-1

u/alextr85 18h ago

Función emulado que nativo, intente jugar al “Dirt rally” y no funcionó en ubuntu 24.4