I think people seem to be forgetting the overhead that this causes in terms of getting features out. All desktop-based features usually release in parallel. If you add Linux into the equation, you’re not just targeting Ubuntu support, you have to start thinking about all the flavors out there. Even if you narrowed it down to a top three, there’s still too much overhead where feature parity wouldn’t make any real sense. Graphics libraries are very platform-specific. They’re using core-libraries at an operating system or kernel level. If you abstract that all away, it takes a lot of engineering time to get 1:1 on other platforms where these things don’t exist.
Additionally, Linux “desktop” has a ~2.6% market share compared to other desktop users. On the engineering side, it would take dedicated teams to this effort as well as proper build pipeline to establish compile / build targets. You can’t just build a target and pray it works on another architecture. The end product would be totally abysmal. There’s too many “what ifs” out there on a linux-based machine that the average user wouldn’t be able to properly install it. Simple validation would prove that much. You also have to maintain it. You need dedicated people for that.
Compiling a whole new executable, dedicated teams, build pipelines for so few users is laughable and there’s almost no ROI other than making the same few users who won’t let this go… happy.
Supporting only the mainstream distros and desktop environments would already be enough.
I’m pretty sure you could easily find people in the community that would be willing to do that.
Take look at Discord - they only distribute .deb and .tar.gz, yet you can find it on many more distros than just Debian-based ones. Same applies to Steam.
Also, hey, have you guys heard about a thing called Flatpak?
Lack of official support = Lack of realistic adoption. Nothing is stopping people from doing that now. This thread is a specific ask for proper support.
I’m pretty sure that the community that is currently using projects such as Grapejuice would adopt it. Not having to use Wine would already be a HUGE step forward.
Currently, Studio “runs” under Wine, but that’s about it. The only graphics mode that works is D3D11 with WineD3D, which has abysmal performance and efficiency. Vulkan doesn’t work, DXVK doesn’t work as well. Well, OpenGL also works but that’s even worse.
There is a plethora of bugs that are present just because it’s running under Wine.
Still, my point stands. Supporting Ubuntu-based distros and distributing a .tar.gz binary or something would already be enough. A Flatpak package would be ideal but apparently some Linux community members don’t like it because it’s user friendly.
I believe this is the reason why Steam is only officially supports Ubuntu and for this, if Roblox does infact make a native build, then they would go for the most popular distro.
But I’ll admit, Roblox’s client with Wine performs soo much better, it is almost smooth at max graphics (which I don’t usually get on Windows 10)
With the push of Valve releasing the Steam Deck and constantly nagging developers and anti-cheat software providers to support Linux natively or help making it run better via Proton, I believe a opportunity might pop up in their eyes. I lost hope for VR support on Roblox a while ago constantly checking for topics and posts about VR on here, but after seeing them start to work on it again and them also fixing a really annoying issue I once had, I was filled with joy.
I wish Roblox had better transparency.
Although, I was really excited for Byfron, at the time I was very sceptical by it and did my own research, went to the Wayback Machine and found the founders of the project and they seem like really nice people:
Vulkan works for me - It feels less laggy than OpenGL (which I normal use) but sometimes the window will turn white then back to normal at random times and the input lag is really bad at times.
Community support isn’t the same as official support. Roblox is a closed sourced platform. If they were to port it (they won’t), they’d do it themselves. No person is going to heavily bank on a “blinded” port.
Your point lacks the basic principles of understanding the weight and responsibility it takes to support another platform at 1:1 feature parity. I’ve had to port enterprise level applications from one distribution to the next. The scope is massive. The overtaking is huge. If there’s no indication of widespread adoption, you waste engineering time and people start getting mad.
This is a thread where Linux users are going to talk the loudest and even then, that’s not an accurate distribution to the amount of users that may or may not take it.
Ports exist when a market share is favorable enough to coast widespread adoption. When you have a market share of barely ~3% (less if we talk about Roblox users), you’re only really catering to very few developers.
Until the market share increases, official support will never happen and unfortunately, the basis of what you’re stating realistically doesn’t make sense. Therefore, your points are invalid.
I think you have misunderstood me, perhaps I wasn’t clear enough.
I never meant that the community should make a native Linux port for Roblox Studio. I was trying to suggest that Roblox could make an official port for Ubuntu-based distros and a tarball that can be repackaged by the community for different distros.
That is how numerous pieces of software are distributed (e.g. Discord, Steam).
Never heard anything like this from anyone except evangelists that wouldn’t be interested in using Roblox anyways. Grapejuice, by far the most popular way of running Roblox in Linux, is mostly distributed in flatpak nowadays.
A Flatpak and the .tar.gz binary for packaging purposes would most likely leave everyone satisfied. Roblox would win too as overall they’d have to worry less about dependency issues, which would improve on the “validation” issue @TheNexusAvenger has pointed out. However, sadly Ubuntu has split away with their own universal packaging standard, Snap, so Roblox would either have to package for both or choose a single one (if they did, Canonical’s Snap would probably be their choice because of Ubuntu’s bigger userbase).
But you still can install software without it, and you can install Flatpak as well.
Furthermore, some widely used Ubuntu-based distros don’t install snapd by default and modified their repositories so that they don’t rely on Snaps (e.g. Linux Mint, Pop!_OS).
Yes and yes, but adding software to a package manager that isn’t even available by default in the biggest desktop distro isn’t an attractive idea for software vendors. If Roblox is published in Flatpak, Roblox would most likely put it in Snap as well. However, the reverse isn’t true; I could see Roblox only publishing to Snap.
The tinniest bit of friction means Roblox is no longer available to be found in the distro’s graphical install interface, which hurts discoverability. It also requires additional stuff to be installed before you can actually install Roblox, which hurts UX and makes Roblox harder to install for new users. Roblox, like other software vendors, want to make the installation process as simple and painless as possible.
(not) Monthly report: I don’t know how or when, but suddenly studio is actually working properly under wine? the ui doesn’t cause any seizures anymore (I mean it, there’s no flashing), performance hasn’t gotten better and some minor visual glitches remain, but definitely a lot more usable now. What I recommend all linux users to do is to upgrade wine to latest version and to do a full clean reinstall of studio, also I recommend everyone to use the latest mesa graphics drivers if you see issues with your current drivers.
I don’t know what exactly got fixed or which program was patched for this to happen, all I know is that future is looking bright even without a native build if things continue going this way.
Have a nice day
AFAIK Studio was down for a couple of months after Web2View was introduced to fix an exploit where a plugin’s code could execute on a system level outside of Studio. Can’t source this on the DevForum (presumably taken down?), at the same time as the old login endpoint was removed.
During that time, Studio was fine on Arch for most. On Debian / Ubuntu-based systems, the opposite was true.
Roblox, PLEASE make this happen. The only thing stopping me from making Linux my main operating system is the fact that Roblox lacks proper support for it. I’ve tried Grapejuice (thanks to you, Brinker 🫡) but with no luck.
However, I highly doubt this will be a thing because of the current state of the Linux ecosystem. The only way that can be a reliable method to get Studio to run for the long term would probably be to wait for more mainstream Linux-compatibility tooling (such as those that Steam is working on for Steam Deck). But only time can tell.
Personally, I believe that in a couple more years this would be a way more likely scenario to come to fruition.
