I’m sure a bunch of anticheat developers will also end up being terminated again due to a lack of appropriate notice
Doesn’t negate my point that this a ridiculously small fraction of the playerbase (less then 0.1%). Roblox should be focused on other platforms with much larger market-shares that bring in much more revenue, not an OS that nobody uses.
I don’t know of a single highly successful developer on Roblox that uses Linux that would make it worthwhile to create a whole separate version of Roblox for them.
2 Likes
Linux is used to some extent by most professionals in the tech space. The Linux playerbase would be significantly larger if Roblox supported it.
2 Likes
I think your misrepresenting Roblox’s playerbase, a VAST majority (99.9%) have no idea how to switch OS’s and are perfectly happy with Windows or Mac. Because of this, the Linux playerbase would barely grow if Roblox supported it and it would end up a waste of time and resources that could have been better spent elsewhere.
1 Like
With the addition of the Steam Deck to the Linux ecosystem, the growth in the Linux space (especially for gaming devices) is massive.
3 Likes
Yes, however it’s easier for the engineers to simply support Wine rather than making a Linux client entirely.
The only major device that runs a Linux distribution right now is, obviously, the Steam Deck. Linux as a whole won’t catch onto the public unless major OEMs (namely Acer, Dell, and HP in the United States) get involved and start selling computers with a Linux distribution installed. So until this happens (granted it ever does), Linux will be somewhat of a blip in corporate and public eyes, but also something of potential interest.
1 Like
Despite this, there’s likely still ~200,000 (most likely more) users on the platform that use Wine as a means of running the Roblox client on a UNIX (not Linux specifically) system. If I had to guess, this is most comparable to the console user base, which itself pales in comparison to those playing on PC/Mac or mobile devices. Therefore, it’s a sizable portion to consider when you take into account the potential revenue that can be reaped.
And I would not be surprised if the majority of these players are playing Roblox via the Steam Deck, since again, that’s the only Linux device available right now en masse.
1 Like
Not even close, XBOX is much much larger having a playerbase around 100x more then mac for comparison.
1 Like
Congratulations on ruining many experiences of a mass amount of machines.
The release of Byfron and 64 bit has been downright terrible, not telling people they have it, breaking peoples installations and some people not even being able to run it yet being on a 64-bit machine.
What a disappointment and a real sign of what a disgrace this company has become, the only care here is for your stock price and money.
6 Likes
Hello Jrelvas, Unfortunately this block was intentional.
This means official Linux support or bust, unfortunately. I’m not a linux user myself, but a lot of my friends do use Linux; there’s an increasing marketshare (especially developers, which are more or less the lifeblood of this platform, after all) which includes Valve’s Steam Deck; a lack of Proton support would be awful.
1 Like
It actually does somewhat. It shows that Linux’s true size is very underestimated and that it’s more relevant than what you think.
Let’s say that there’s around 150k Roblox Linux Users total (might be more, might be less) and that 80% of them used Roblox this month. (120k users)
Now let’s look at Roblox’s Q4’22 report for investors.
Roblox claims that in Q4’22, 2.5M players joined the platform and that 13.4M players returned. That’s 15.9M total.
If 15 900 000 players is 100% of the userbase, then 120 000 Linux players is ~0.75%, over x7.5 of what you initially claimed!
We are small, but not that small. And these are very conservative claims, there are likely twice as many as linux users as what the statistics lead us to believe, once we consider other Grapejuice sources and other ways of running Roblox altogether.
Roblox’s problem with Linux is purely a technical one. The other platforms you’re advocating for are not supported due to legal reasons. You’re comparing apples to oranges.
Roblox investing resources on basic Linux compatibility does not in any shape or form take away resources from a PlayStation or Switch release. After all, the only thing preventing Roblox from being available there are the policies of console storefronts against other storefronts inside of them.
Making a Roblox client for the PlayStation or the Switch is essentially no different from making a client for the Xbox. Since Roblox already has both a:
- Xbox client (Console controls and homogeneous platform),
- and a iOS/Android client (touch controls and ARM platform)…
…the actual engineering effort to create a client for a PlayStation/Switch target is very small. It’s in fact easier than any other platform or operating system since you can make many assumptions about the hardware where Roblox is running under.
So yeah, avoiding Linux support just because Roblox can’t get over legal issues with other platforms just doesn’t make any sense.
I’ve found many great examples from just looking at this topic and seeing the amount of relevant Roblox developers that use (or otherwise support) Linux. Just because you don’t personally know anyone (or believe they are not “relevant enough”), doesn’t mean those people don’t exist. I feel like this opinion comes off as tone-deaf, considering the overwhelmingly negative response to this topic.
I know this anecdotal, but the overwhelmingly negative response to these news clearly show there are many people (developers, players, even content creators) that are willing to completely ditch Windows if Roblox is capable of providing them the support they ask for.
It’s also worth noting that Linux’s gaming community (and beyond) has already picked up on these news. If nobody using Linux cared about Roblox, how come these news have already spread to the wider community that has nothing to do with Roblox?
Here’s three examples I can think of:
- Linux news site: Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their new update | GamingOnLinux
- Linux gaming subreddit: Reddit - Dive into anything
- Fedora Linux’s official discord server:
Linux might have a (relatively) small desktop userbase, but there’s a clear interest in having this platform accessible to us. I can guarantee you that if Roblox offers Linux first-class support (even if it’s just via Wine), the interest of many Linux gamers will be captured and they will try Roblox out.
If there wasn’t interest on Roblox within the Linux space, these news wouldn’t come out of this pseudo-private forum in less than a day.
23 Likes
i’d argue that this is somewhat false. supporting one distro is enough, as the wider community will take what they can get, adapt it, and if your compatibility project is open source (like Proton) they might even submit patches to fix problems on obscure distros.
also, it’s worth noting for things like roblox that (for the foreseeable future) won’t be packaging their game for linux, what distro you use wouldn’t really matter unless it drastically changes your kernel and coreutils.
the DE problem, however, may be a problem. keyword: may. one of the DEs you listed there (Budgie) is actually based on GNOME anyways. actually, a lot of the mainstream DEs are based on GNOME.
i don’t exactly see DEs or WMs causing problems for the ROBLOX client unless they decide the client needs its own window decorations or something.
3 Likes
I can’t know-assert if it’s true
But I saw a screenshot where the player was banned for exploits, but the reasons also said “rbxfpsunlocker.exe”, is that true?
honestly the screenshot is not mine
I don’t use the devforum often, but when I do, it’s when I have a serious issue with Roblox as a platform. I run Linux on my laptop almost daily, and I’m proud of that. Just look at this beauty!
Roblox, if you aren’t going to implement your anti-cheat on Mac, there’s no reason to not support it on another popular UNIX-like system. Also, software developers love Linux. Less professional developers will want to work on your platform if you outright block it.
15 Likes
I’m pretty sure this is fake:
- I’ve seen videos of exploiters using KRNL (A free Roblox script executor), and the file is
krnlss.exe, notkrnl.exe. - A well-known Roblox engineer specifically stated that they will not ban people for using RFU in a QnA section of RDC 2019:
RDC 2019 Live Stream (Day 1) - Engineering Panel + Game Jam Kick Off - YouTube
I don’t believe they said that? Mac is an officially supported platform anyway, Linux is not. BUT, apparently the reasoning for the current block of Linux on a NOT-YET–FULLY-RELEASED client is, according to Bitdancer (an engineer, likely on the x64 client team), because it would crash anyway and would make it more difficult to isolate issues with the new client prior to it’s release due to an overflow of crash logs.
Bitdancer has actually been very forthcoming with the new client, given that you use Linux, I think what they say will be very interesting for you to read.
EDIT: I don’t mean to come off as condescending! It’s just what I have seen and what I know.
5 Likes
While the numbers he stated may not be entirely accurate, his statement overall is. I think this can be proven by just looking at other devices that Roblox supports that have been getting the short end of the stick.
Firstly, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, it accounted for 1% of the total distribution of players during 2022 according to Statista (which is likely more than Linux.) But the overal experience I’ve had with the platform on Xbox is terrible and nowhere close to being as good as what’s provided on PC and Mobile devices even after years of being out. We’ve also been teased with the possibility of a Playstation version for a while but still basically nothing except a few statements, a job listing, and a few images.
Secondly, VR which Roblox also supports. I do not own a VR headset myself but from what I’ve gathered online the overal expereince of Roblox on VR is terrible as well. Yes I know there have been hints that imrpovements are coming but it has taken them years to do so even though they’ve been supporting VR on the platform since 2016.
Looking at these, I would say I agree with Outlook that, at least from the stance of Roblox currently, it just isn’t worth it for them to take the time or effort in order to provide support for the Linux Operating System. It sucks but it is what it is.
1 Like
Compatibility concerns should not be an issue. Everyone using wine is already well aware that they should not expect Roblox to make it work for them. But you are intentionally going out of your way to make it impossible for us to use your platform. If you have “security concerns,” please be transparent about them because this response is just a huge word salad. Do better.
4 Likes
Throughout the project I’ve been trying to keep the infrastructure for hosting the project minimal. That means everything I need to run the project is on GitLab. Unfortunately GitLab only reports statistics about contributor activity and none about git clones or access to Pages.
For whatever its worth, I do have a number for the custom Wine build we’ve been distributing for performance improvements. It hasn’t been relevant for a while since those changes got upstreamed into mainline Wine, but that custom build still got 96,719 downloads from unique users.
As far as I know Grapejuice has been distributed via:
- Source installs (manual install and making use of a self-updater)
- Debian repository hosted on GitLab pages
- Arch User Repository
- Flatpak
- NixOS package repository
Rounding up the number of active Grapejuice installs to 200,000 probably undercuts the real number by a lot, but it is the only one based on a real measurement. The group of people who decide to use another wrapper program or just use Wine are not included.
While we could be arguing about how 200,000 active users is only a fraction of the Roblox player base (0.36% to be precise), I think it is way more productive to look at the value that it is providing to Roblox. According to Roblox’ last financial statement, Roblox has had 2.2 billion USD worth of revenue with 56 million active users. If I’m doing everything right then the value of an average user is about 39.29 USD. Multiply that per-active-user value by 200,000 and you have the value of the Grapejuice userbase. That value would be 7857142.85714, or more readable, 7.86 million USD.
I work at a company that’s a similar size to that of Roblox, we spend millions a year on enterprise software licenses alone. Regardless I would still have some very awkward converstations with my boss if we neglected 7.86 million USD of value over some technicalities 
In any case, Grapejuice as a project has grown way larger than I ever imagined. Aside from the number of installs, its pretty common to come across people who have heard of the project. Even people who aren’t Linux ‘nerds’ or very technically inclined. I’m very thankful of the people who stuck around and to those that contributed to the project.
25 Likes
The original topic mentioned how you can get in/out the Byfron test.
To get the Byfron client, enter this in your address bar:
roblox-player:1+launchmode:app+channel:zwinplayer64
To get the normal client:
roblox-player:1+launchmode:app+channel:zlive
3 Likes
Hyperion blocks (and potentialy bans) FPS unlockers.
I suggest everyone not to use an FPS unlocker because if you get banned your account gets terminated and you get a permenant HWID ban.
Also Re-Shade will 99% get you banned (if the Hyperion anti tamper detects it as hooking).
Be careful if you get banned because your account gets terminated and you will get a permenant HWID ban.