In enterprise, it isn’t a question of what you can work on, but what you prioritize. Adding more people does not always make projects go faster. Adding proper Linux support (the focus of this post, not WINE support) is the equivalent of a new platform, which would satisfy <1 million people. Picking a platform like the Meta Quest 2 or PlayStation 5 would give you many times the benefit. A native Linux version won’t be able to be prioritized until Linux has the same type of market share that macOS does. WINE, on the other hand (not the point of this post), is a lot less work and could be a practical option.
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Worth has nothing to do with how much money they have. Roblox actually loses money every year, but their stock value is worth billions. Also, as other users have stated, it isn’t entirely about the technically ability, but if it’s worth it.
As the user above me stated, they could get way more users by supporting PS5 as opposed to Linux.
On top of that, Roblox has already stated they plan to try and support Wine, which would be nice for Linux Users.
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Does ROBLOX Studio at least work on linux? I never really play games on ROBLOX anymore and 100% of my activity is building static showcases in Studio. I heard the game client doesn’t even work in virtual machines anymore either, but does this also apply to Studio as well?
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Yes, Roblox Studio currently works and Roblox has stated it has no plans whatsoever to change that.
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So while I was reading a blog post made by the developers of a Linux distribution called “Endless OS”, I stumbled upon a very interesting statement:
We have a tool called eos-gates that intercepts users trying to run Windows software or install deb or RPM packages, and (where possible) guides them to the same app, or an equivalent, on Flathub. At the time of writing, by a very wide margin, the most popular Windows app our users try to install is Roblox. Sadly we can’t really recommend a straightforward way to install that particular game, but this data has helped us to find other apps that we should add to the mapping.
Endless OS’s privacy-preserving metrics system – Will Thompson
It looks like Roblox is a lot more popular on the Linux ecosystem than what I initially thought. Although this distribution in particular has a very small scale, it still shows that the interest and demand for Roblox on Linux is there. Due to the nature of the Linux desktop, the amount of data available on user behaviours is very limited (although that’s slowly changing), so I’m left wondering if this trend can be observed in other distros. I do notice the name “Roblox” being thrown around Linux forums and communities every so often, but that’s just anecdotal evidence; this data, as small as it is, is far more interesting.
In any case, I still believe that Linux compatibility is at least worth considering, and small pieces of data like this one are further cementing my opinion. I think it’s fair to say that Roblox has an unnatural amount of popularity in the Linux ecosystem, far beyond the interest in other desktop platforms. This interest might be enough to offset the Linux desktop’s relatively small userbase.
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That’s excluding the share of developers that use Linux though.
Almost everyone I know who uses Linux is a developer, Developers are worth FAR more to ROBLOX than players.
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Some exiting news (finally):
Vinegar has been updated to be able to play Roblox again!
I’m not sure how they did it - it could be modifying the client to bypass the check or just remove the check, regardless it’s finally working!
You can read this article here to see how to get it working - its basically just installing vinegar and running a command to swap to the correct branch
It’s still in testing, and no official announcement has been made, but it was kinda “announced” here
I’ve been running it for a while now and it has a few quirks and glitches, but it works!
edit: changed the word “beta” to “testing”
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Yeah, the news haven’t reached everyone yet. Native support would still be preferable, but at least it’s relatively easy to set up now.
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I completely agree with you.
Playing “a dream you’ve had before” was a hog when running with Vinegar
Even though its the only way to play Roblox on Linux, doesn’t mean it’s perfect - I kept experiencing heavy lag and de loads every few minutes on minimum graphics even though playing on windows is just fine on max graphics (I dual boot)
It would definitely be preferable to have a native version, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen unless Linux desktop market share seriously skyrockets (as most of this topic already points out)
I only made a post on this topic to spread the news, even if it’s not preferable. Better than waydroid.
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No one is going to play Roblox on a supercomputer though. I bet 99.9% of people that would be using the Linux version of Roblox have pretty standard PC configurations.
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Do you have an Nvidia or an AMD or some other thing?
Nvidia does not have out-of-the-box support in most cases on Linux while AMD has out-of-the-box support
Now that we might be losing our ability to run the Roblox client on Linux through WINE again, I guess it is time to continue bumping this thread. I get it - the answer is still going to be no. Linux is still moving fast, especially under Wayland. The Steam hardware survey (very biased, but still shows some degree of trends in gaming) flipped macOS being ahead of Linux to Linux being ahead of macOS for Steam users in August of last year. I want to move my desktop to Linux, but Roblox is the only thing holding me back; not even VR is stopping me thanks to NVIDIA’s proprietary driver updates. So many of my tools “just work” more on Linux than Windows, and dual booting still has way too much friction for me to consider.
Oh, and Steam Deck. I’d like to be able to continue to play Roblox on the Steam Deck.
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The way Roblox and its engineers view Linux is counter-productive, and dare I say harmful. No matter how marginal you think the amount of Roblox players who use Linux is, its market share and prevalence is actively and rapidly growing, in a way that will only get less and less ignorable as time goes on.
That being said, with the planned changes you’re turning that already marginal userbase into a non-existent one. With the proposed policies you are actively pushing away current AND future Linux players and developers off your platform, with zero compensation for Linux users who’ve already spent money on a platform they won’t be able to access anymore might I add, in favor of anti-cheat software that is wholly dependent on a bloated operating system that is actively losing its market share in the US, and potentially even worldwide.
Very disappointed in what is clearly a shot in the foot for Roblox in the long run, just as many others seem to be.
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the main caveat with linux as a whole is a lack of compatibility with games and applications, which means less people will shift to linux due to their workflow / games not being supported on linux
it is undeniable that linux has a superior desktop, command line interface, better way for users to download applications (unfortunately not packaging, but flatpak is a really good option) and much more
windows to me is just the OS that is preloaded onto computers and is used by people who don’t care what is on their computer
thats just me tho
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It’s my understanding that Roblox has never had official first-party support for Linux. Using Roblox on Linux never came with any warranty or guarantees. Roblox is under absolutely no obligation to compensate Linux users.
Roblox will support Linux the day Linux makes any semblance of sense to support. Currently, it’s a tiny pocket of the overall market that Roblox wants to capture.
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Correct. When Hyperion was initially rolled out there was still support for Roblox Studio. Hopefully this doesn’t change.
That is correct. Roblox staff were always very clear in this stance and told us (Roblox on Linux community) that it was a personal effort from themselves. Arguing that compensation is deserved over a “best-effort” project/solution provided by volunteers is wrong (afaik, the Roblox staff who worked on Linux compatibility did so on their own time), and, in my opinion, goes against the very values of the FOSS community.
@Soda_Bobinski As someone who makes many contributions to FOSS, including the Linux desktop, I understand your frustration, but using Roblox in a way which was explicitly stated to be unsupported does not entitle us to compensation. You should focus your energy on showing why the Linux desktop is an important platform for Roblox to support.
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WINE has done a lot for application compatibility. Everything I use that is not tied to Windows is either native on Linux or works using WINE (even Autodesk Fusion 360, which I would not have expected to work well). The one exception now is Roblox. In theory, Roblox could “just do it” with a lot of time and resources. To bring this back:
Obviously, support is the killer. Linux has a lot of weird edge cases that could pop up in support any time. Looking at you NixOS, with no dynamic library linking by default.
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WINE has done a lot for application compatibility. Everything I use that is not tied to Windows is either native on Linux or works using WINE (even Autodesk Fusion 360, which I would not have expected to work well). The one exception now is Roblox. In theory, Roblox could “just do it” with a lot of time and resources. To bring this back:
Obviously, support is the killer. Linux has a lot of weird edge cases that could pop up in support any time. Looking at you NixOS, with no dynamic library linking by default.
That is true but now with how tech has progressed and developed on Linux, I’d say that Roblox has EVEN LESS to do in order to make this work; Looking at Steam Proton 9.
I’ve read some posts and i keep coming across “Compatibility” “QA” “Cross Linux Platform Support”
The answer is literally just “Flatpak” or “Steam”.
Almost all Linux platforms if not all of them support Flatpak and Steam, so getting a client to work there is bound to get it to work on every other Distro.
I am aware that “Cost” is also a potential problem, however as how the Linux community keeps growing, this will soon be out of the question. Windows keeps doing stupid decisions and thus pushes users off their platform which just grows the MacOS and Linux communities.
The biggest Windows change was Windows 11 which already killed off a bunch of computers because of that dreaded TPM 2 Chip.
No one in the Linux community is asking for a fully supported platform, however it would be nice.
We’re aware that Linux is not perfect neither the programs on Linux.
Why not just work with the developers that already have made Roblox somewhat work on Linux like Grapejuice and Vinegar Developers; considering Roblox keeps complaining about all the other points that i stated.
At the end of the day, Native client has been thought of and was discussed to some point but it’s not gonna be anytime soon, we just have to stay hopeful.
(Also what is the reasoning to block VM’s? VM’s still are technically Windows so Hyperion works perfectly fine there, unless i am missing a picture.)
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This might be immature but I genuinely don’t understand the mindset of having to have something like this work to that extent.
It’s freaking Linux. Trying to get it running on all platforms, or even a decent majority is tough and pretty much not worth wasting time for in many cases. I think getting it working on some of the more widely used platforms and releasing it in that state would account for much more of the issue than they think. Starting with partial support is better than trying to tackle everything which is better than this lame feedback loop.
There’s also bias present here because I’m included in the group of people who use popular distros (Arch btw) but I still think the point stands.
TL;DR: Trying to account for all the weird edge cases present on Linux is a waste of time. A partial release would be better for everyone.
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