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Joined 9 months ago
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Cake day: February 7th, 2024

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  • Flatpak’s security and sandbox has gotten much better in recent years. I’ve been using Steam via Flatpak for a while now and haven’t run into any issues yet, other than not being able to make desktop shortcuts of my games.

    I use Flatseal (another Flatpak application) to further restrict my Flatpak’s permissions) The default Flatpak permissions for Steam aren’t bad IMO (at least when compared to other Flatpaks) but you can tweak it to your liking using Flatseal.

    If you want to take it a step further, I would recommend using Goldberg’s Steam Emulator, which is FOSS, and it will allow you to bypass Steamworks DRM (which is Valve’s very weak DRM) for games which solely use Steamworks DRM.

    I find that the overwhelming majority of my games just use the Steamworks DRM if any, but YMMV. Using Goldberg’s Steam Emulator is also a good way of preserving your library if, in the unfortunate case, Valve decides to remove a title from your library for whatever stupid licensing reason they come up with.

    After freeing your games using Goldberg’s Steam Emulator you then could use the Flatpak of Lutris and disable network access for Lutris/further restrict permissions it has to the rest of your system using Flatseal.





  • You have a point, but if Microsoft completely locks down the kernel, preventing any third party software/driver from running at the kernel-level, Anti-Cheat developers will have to find a new way to implement Anti-Cheat. This may open up the possibility of some newer form of Anti-Cheat being user-space; or at the very least NOT ring 0, which in-turn may open up the possibility of this new form of Anti-Cheat working underneath Linux.

    Or maybe we’re all still screwed because this new form of Anti-Cheat will perform on a basis that trusts that there is no third party access to the Windows kernel because of how restricted it is, therefore nullifying the need to be ring 0, but it still might not work under Linux due to the freedom/access users have to the kernel.

    But then again, in order to implement any third party driver into the Windows kernel, it has to be signed and/or approved by Microsoft first (IIRC). But cheaters get around this through various means. So maybe nothing changes; but if Microsoft DOES restrict kerne-level access, this leads me to think that Anti-Cheat will have to change in some form or another, which may lead to it working on Linux.

    TBH, The only way(s) I see Anti-Cheat moving forward at all, is:

    • Hardware level Anti-Cheat (similar to a DMA card. Maybe it requires a certain type firmware that is universally used across all/most major video game companies)

    • Some form of emulated environment. Maybe like a specific kernel that is used for each game.

  • Why do certain security software require access to the kernel? To keep malware from getting to the kernel or something?

    Security software doesn’t necessarily NEED access to the kernel, but kernel-level access provides the maximum amount of access and visibility to the rest of the system. The only thing higher then kernel-level is hardware-level.

    In the case of CrowdStrike, kernel-level access provides their software to have the highest privileges which yields in the most effective defense against malware (in theory). However third-party, kernel-level access is never a good idea. Software that has kernel-level access can be, and has been, exploited before. In the case of CrowdStrike, it was a faulty update that screwed over Windows systems. The more access you have in a system, the more you screw it over when something fails.

    Doesn’t restricting access to the kernel offer more security?

    Yes! You are correct. If implemented correctly of course, restricted access to the kernel provides a higher amount of security.

    Wouldn’t malware also be unable to access the kernel?

    In theory, the more restricted the kernel is, the more difficult it is for malware to access the kernel.

    Kernel is what connects software and hardware, correct?

    Yes. A function of the kernel is providing a way for software and hardware to communicate with each other.




  • mudle@lemmy.mltoLinux@lemmy.mlHow FOSS is your setup?
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    3 months ago

    Excluding hardware (microcode, UEFI, etc); within my Linux system, the only proprietary software I have installed are Nvidia drivers and Steam (installed via flatpak). When I first made the switch to Linux, I was actually shocked at the minimal amount of proprietary software I actually used/needed.
















  • The only times I’ve encountered a game or program not launching via Bottles, it had to do with missing dependencies and/or other issues with the installer.

    SteamDB has a list of dependencies that are used for Ape Out, of which you can try adding to your Bottle.

    However, I would try running the game in Lutris; In Lutris, if you encounter issues with the game, you can click on “show logs” which will (hopefully) help you out a great deal. Lutris uses their own runtime which is primarily pulled from Valve’s Steam runtime (IIRC), saving you from having to hunt for dependencies (if missing dependencies are the issue).


  • mudle@lemmy.mlMtoLinux Gaming@lemmy.mlBottles not working
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    5 months ago

    You can check if it’s using the Discrete GPU by going into “Details” in your game’s bottle, then go into “settings”, and make sure that the toggle for “Discrete Graphics” is turned on. You can also set an environment variable; DRI_PRIME=1. Also might want to check your HDMI or DP cable is plugged into your GPU. You could also try checking GPU usage while the game is running, and seeing if it’s using your GPU at all.

    You said you moved to Fedora from Pop_OS; If you are using an Nvidia GPU, you might want to check if you’ve got the Nvidia Proprietary drivers installed or the Nouveau drivers. You can check this by running lsmod | grep nvidia in a terminal. If you get any output whatsoever then you’re using the Nvidia Proprietary drivers, which is what you want for gaming.

    If it is a shader issue; in the same “settings” in bottles make sure DXVK and VKD3D aren’t disabled. There’s no real way to bypass shader compiling. All your games need to compile shaders.



  • mudle@lemmy.mlMtoLinux Gaming@lemmy.mlBottles not working
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    5 months ago

    Assuming when you created the bottle, you chose “gaming”, it will use “soda” as it’s default runner, which is based off of proton. Maybe try going into preferences, runners, then click on “Soda”, and try messing around with different versions.

    According to the latest ProtonDB reports of Ape Out, Proton 8.0-5 was being used. Looking at my available “Soda” runners in bottles, I see soda-8.0-2,soda-9.0-1, and soda-experimental_8.0 as the latest runners available. I would try using those runners as a start.

    Also, (I only now just noticed it), under preferences, in General, there is an “Integrations” section. Under that there’s “Steam Proton Prefixes”, which (I assume) allows you to use Proton prefixes.

    Here are the following commands, depending on your installation method of Steam to give permissions to Steam’s path if it doesn’t have it already.

    Steam non-Flatpak:

    flatpak override --user com.usebottles.bottles --filesystem=xdg-data/Steam

    Steam Flatpak:

    flatpak override --user com.usebottles.bottles --filesystem=~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/data/Steam

    Alternatively you can use Flatseal and add the path: ~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/data/Steam