I think an better approach would be to ask for unofficial support on WINE vs official support at this time. Supporting WINE would result in less overall engineering efforts while still giving us the ability to use the ROBLOX platform on our preferred OS of choice.
I made an proposal over at Off Topic, but doesn’t seem to have gathered much interest.
It may be 10 months from the last time we heard from here but things have changed in industry.
We’re started to see to a shift in computer hardware being bought, with media outlets (including the BBC, 9to5Mac and techspot) reporting that ChromeOS and Chromebooks as a whole are being sold more than MacOS based on data from IDC (from geekwire), gartner and canalys.
This asks the good question of how this relates to Linux and Roblox, as we can see from earlier in the thread from @zeuxcg that ChromeOS back in 2018 was too restrictive. Has this changed in the two years since this decision? Could this be considered again? Developers and Roblox staff respond with that there is simply not enough people who use Linux to make it worth the responses, does this news change your mind? Even if slightly.
There is this massive wave of an audience, which could be future developers that without such action would just never bother. There are likely lots of people out there who wanted to be a developer, try to earn some Robux, saw no studio, saw no future and said nevermind.
Only a very small percentage would actively look to find a community solution and use it studio as their platform of choice, really pushing against the issues these solutions hold currently, it’s not their fault but this is why we need an official solution and this is what I would formally suggest.
Can we have a formal statement from Roblox which reflect on the changes in the market and their current position for both ChromeOS and Linux in general?
On a more different note, there is NeoKylin within China which is BSD and Linux based operating system within China. Over of 40% of Dell PCs are sold in China back in 2015 according to South China Morning Post, or how the Chinese goverment is moving to 100% ChineseOSes by 2022 according to TechRadar; there are 53.2 computers per 100 households in 2018 according to statista.
Roblox is moving into this critical market, why not support it? Covering both the PC and Mobile market at the same time.
It’s also worth saying that there are people out there who are waiting for this support before they make the change to move to Linux as a primary OS such as @UseStarCode_BACON who has repeatedly made Tweets requesting this change, some as recent as this month. The demand is here, it just requires a simple yes. It doesn’t need to be immediate, just the reaction that it’s on the roadmap for the future.
To that effect, I want to offer developers a change to pledge their position in relation to this topic. It’s multiple choice as a public vote.
0 voters
0 voters
Chrome OS is no longer that restrictive because it can run Linux apps. So making Roblox a Linux app would allow us Linux desktop users and Chromebook users to use Roblox.
Currently you can use Studio with Wine but the player doesn’t work because of VMProtect.
Another concern I saw somewhere was the distribution. Most Linux games come from Steam but Roblox is it’s own thing. Meanwhile most Linux users find it weird to install through your web browser so package manager would be the best option, plus package managers handle dependencies automatically… except most package managers update once every six months which is too infrequent for Roblox. PPAs from Ubuntu and AUR from Arch could be a solution though (Arch is rolling release so normal pacman package would probably be enough).
Thought I responded earlier. Oof
Flatpack? Appimage?
I would be expecting Debian only images for Roblox if support was provided.
Either way, the package man would only be providing the Launcher, updates would be self contained and self updating like we see elsewhere on the platform.
I’m deeply aware of the issues around Linux, although VMware just seems to be the best route for me right now while support is not here. Allowing Linux would give both chromebook and Linux servers support, giving a better UX that what is offered right now. It’s a deeply missing markets with a lot of potential
AppImage would be good indeed. I’ve never used Flatpack before so I don’t know about that. I’ve used a few snapd packages before but a quick Google search reveals that many Linux people disagree with me on using snapd because the backend is proprietary and owned by Canonical.
I think the most likely route to Linux support for Roblox is Chrome OS. Making Roblox available for Linux only because of regular distros like Ubuntu and Manjaro won’t happen just because an average Roblox player doesn’t even know what Linux is. Chromebooks on the other hand have been growing in popularity, making them available to even the most casual players of Roblox. The Roblox Player application already runs on Chrome OS as an Android app, but Studio doesn’t. I highly doubt they would make Studio an Android app or a PWA, leaving Linux app as the only option.
I don’t remember which RDC it was or where I heard this, but someone there said Roblox might be interested to port Studio to Linux for the developer community.
I can already see light at the end of the tunnel for Studio Linux support if those things are considered.
Roblox Player… well it’s not as likely but if Studio is ported, I don’t see a reason not to port the player
application as well. It wouldn’t be much extra work because Studio and Player already share a lot of the same codebase. Chrome OS definitely won’t help with the Player support because it can already run Roblox Player as an Android app as I said earlier.
Only the future will tell us how long getting proper Linux support will take. For now, the solution seems to be Grapejuice (for Studio only setup) or a VM if you don’t want to dualboot. I’ve just used VMware for Roblox stuff just like you have.
Good news, Linux for ChromeOS (Crostini) runs a container version of Debian, see Crostini developer guide and Running Custom Containers Under Chrome OS. So at least for Debian and the APT package manager, there’s room there.
Linux support is going to be hard, we’ve seen this from Roblox. But I hope to try and offer that different position where Roblox can see the opportunity and take it. Going any further than proprietary Debian package is for down the road and I don’t think this feature is in the state to even request that.
As much as I understand and respect the position of both sides, for a request like this I’m going to be controversial and tell you to put your FOSS flags to the side for this, those arguments contain many valid points but for Roblox this just isn’t going to work.
I’d want to nudge to suggestions which help Roblox but which totally just doesn’t destroy things. Ultimately whatever works for Roblox the best, should in most cases be the option. Roblox is going to exist as a free proprietary software and not much else for the long term.
Personally I think Roblox should focus on maintaining and making Roblox Studio bug free on already supported platforms before supporting another one, especially MacOS.
I currently can’t and won’t recommend Roblox Studio to people who want to get into Game Development because of how unprofessional the software has been and is being treated.
I really wish Roblox Studio can become a better tool, currently it gets in the way and you are better off making your own plugin or using a thrid-party software for better workflow.
I have nothing against the people who work at Roblox, and I’m not trying to spread hate but Roblox Studio has given me too many bad days for me to be positive about it.
I’d go as far to say that I’d have chosen Unity over Roblox if I could go back in time
TL;DR Linux shouldn’t be supported because of the small user base and Roblox should focus on improving what they already have.
Wanted to give everyone a quick update, but Roblox on Linux via WINE is once more. You can see the submitted patch here, which happened to be a mere one line fix. Stability is still in question, but we have an answer for now.
I am surprised it’s just one line of code. Will try when I get home.
Is it in any Wine version yet or do I need to manually apply the patch? (I’ve already tried building Wine from source and it’s pain)
You’ll have to compile yourself for the time being, as we’re waiting for it to go upstream so people can receive official builds. Do know that although Roblox is now running accordingly, there’s still a slew of other issues such as the mouse bugging out really bad, though a fix for that may be coming to WINE shortly.
I wanted to elaborate. The one line patch was interesting because from what I understand Roblox was able to be emulated since late 2020. I tried compiling an older version of Wine (from the stable branch, early 2020) and applying the patch directly, but it couldn’t find a function by the name of NtFilterToken.
At some point in late 2020, someone implemented NtFilterToken but they seemed to forget to point ZwFilterToken to it, which is what this patch does.
Also the patch should now be live on the Wine staging branch which doesn’t require users to compile it themselves.
I don’t think it’s likely, but here it comes.
Valve has just announced Steam Deck, a Nintendo Switch-like game console running SteamOS 3, which is based on Arch Linux. (soon many gamers will be able to say “I use arch, btw”) If Roblox ever expands their console support, we might see Wine/Proton get officially supported or even better, a native Linux client.
It’s all just speculation. Roblox only supports Xbox and it seems like more platforms won’t be supported anytime soon. It’ll also be possible to run Roblox on it the day it launches as it can run regular Linux apps, including Grapejuice. Someone please try it in December as I won’t be buying it. I’m not a console gamer so it wouldn’t be worth it for me.
Doesn’t seem too relevant. At face value the target audience for this device doesn’t really seem like it will intersect a whole lot with Roblox’s current audience, it’s not as accessible as smartphone/tablet gaming. Roblox isn’t on Steam currently either.
Since this topic has become slightly more relevant, I’d like to chip in.
I recently switched to using Linux. The reason? Because Roblox is beginning to work on Wine much better than it used to. The moment I heard someone got Roblox running in Wine I already started attempting to switch to using Linux and even ordered an SSD just to put Linux on.
The reason is that, in my opinion, Windows is incredibly bloated, full of lots of issues, annoying integrations, the UI is dated, and overall I’ve just had lots and lots of problems with Windows, from corruption to all kinds of things.
On top of that, Roblox (usually) runs significantly faster in Wine for me than on Windows (though getting it there was an enormous hassle and the difference is only about 30-60% faster depending on the game, so don’t assume you’ll go from 30 FPS to 300 or something crazy), and I have been using Studio and playing Roblox games for several weeks now inside of Wine.
The Roblox player has been working for much shorter than Studio yet the player works completely flawlessly. I haven’t had one rendering, performance, or other issue with the player. Though, it is required that you use a patch to fix the mouse becoming permanently stuck when right clicking (it’d be nice if Roblox decided to look into that but I doubt that’ll happen currently)
My one complaint with Roblox in wine is studio, which frequently crashes, and depending on how you set up rendering modes, or if you use DXVK, I had so many rendering issues, black screens, flickering, etc, and plugin windows are especially buggy. Out of the box, Studio works just fine its just a bit slow in terms of GPU usage, and does have other issues. (E.g. if you drag instances in the explorer it never stops showing the drag effect unless you open the context menu)
Overall, I am personally extremely happy I switched to Linux, being very technology focused, and, given my personal experiences with Windows I am relieved to not have to worry about my issues on there anymore.
Someone has to bring back this topic every year so uhh yeah I’ll be the one i guess.
Roblox won’t come to linux in the near future, as what said before is still valid, it’s too much work for what it’s worth. However, if linux keeps growing at the rate it is now, then one day, eventually, Roblox will have to add linux support, linux’s desktop market share has went from 2.33% to 2.8% (September 2021 to September 2022, I don’t know about this month) according to this, that’s a huge increase for such a small market share. There are currently 74,277 games on Steam, with 10,716 of them having native linux versions, which is a huge number bump from the time that @Brinker7 mentioned but is a decline in percentage (roughly 14.5% of them are native); and 12% of all Steam games out of the 14% rated have a silver or higher rank on ProtonDB.All the linux players and developers of Roblox and myself can hope for is for linux to grow enough so that roblox can make a linux native port without it being a hassle.
ok cool but what about the current state of Roblox on linux? Well… it’s not that bad, grapejuice and wine are able to handle that, the player works FLAWLESSLY, but studio on the other hand… yep it still needs a seizure warning for a lot of the menus (which are near unusable unless you know how to navigate them without seeing them), and it crashes when using with some renderers (varies on each person’s device), and it has some other bugs which are significantly smaller but still exist, i don’t know about virtual machines though since i haven’t tried them yet, someone let me know how Roblox works on virtual machines if you use it like that.
But there are still concerns about what will happen to Roblox for linux, we don’t know if new features will cause new problems, we don’t know if some changes make our situation better or worse, but most importantly, Byfron, the anticheat Roblox has acquired and is looking forward to use, Byfron has been present on 3 games (Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Valorant, info from here) and only one of them works on linux (Apex Legends), fortnite isn’t supported for linux in the first place, and Valorant is broken probably due to their own anti cheat (info gathered from Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?), so there isn’t any evidence of whether or not Byfron’s anti cheats on roblox will affect linux users, but anti cheat software have always been the killer of linux gamers. so I want someone here to answer me on this one
Roblox won’t be getting a linux native version any time soon, Roblox on linux is hard to get working in the first place, but we still can use it, but will Byfron take away even these hacky solutions we have now in order to access Roblox on linux? Or is Byfron going to be one of the anti cheats that doesn’t have a seizure when sees someone is using linux?
Even if y’all never make a linux native version, just please don’t take the small things we have now.
Thanks for reading
Edit 1: added Steam and ProtonDB data, also added all the info i could gather about Byfron.
Edit 2: fixed some numbers.
Edit 3: removed “and we don’t have to deal with the new roblox app 
” cause as of right now we also have to deal with it 
Would be nice to have a linux studio version
I’ll bring this topic back from the dead month to throw my support in.
Linux would be very much appreciated as a user who’s forced to dual boot windows only because of Roblox Studio’s lack of Linux support.
At this rate, I’d throw in the towel, it’s never going to get a Linux binary.
If what I heard at RDC is anything, I wouldn’t lose faith. I was talking to a Studio engineer and Linux came up in conversation. They claimed another engineer made a native build of Roblox Studio in a day and it worked for them. The reason it never shipped was validation, which is a general problem for Linux - a program may work out of the box in testing but break on another distribution or desktop environment.
Which is an issue currently affecting numerous Debian-based distros using Grapejuice.
On Arch, Studio runs fine for everyone I’ve asked.
On Debian-based distros, Studio fails to login in (purportedly down to the introduction of Web2View to fix the plugin vulnerability discussed recently).
Obviously, don’t take these statements as sourced facts.