Ubisoft's FOR HONOR will block SteamOS / Linux players starting September 10

> Steam Linux does not supported sealed/signed boot with secure attestation

Even if it did, you wouldn't stop DMA cheaters from hacking the game. This is the slippery slope we see on Windows with Ring 0 anticheat being defeated with spoofed PCI hardware.

> The only realistic way to solve this on Linux is enforcing secure boot w/trusted kernels and then running the anti-cheat in sandboxed eBPF kernel space. Embark is looking at this approach.

Assuming secure boot, there’s another realistic way, which is to use vendor-signed readonly Linux OS images — not just kernels — that disallow process memory access to root, come with signed kernel drivers, and offer secure attestation support chained to secure boot. Steam Linux and Bazzite could both implement this easily; the former has a fixed hardware target list and the latter is already an ‘all in one’ solution. Since Linux users are generally competent at dual-booting, one would simply dual-boot into the sealed image to play PvP multiplayer games, no eBPF development or maintenance of anti-cheat required. Embark is within their rights to evaluate the workload of supporting DIY unsigned Linux instances through eBPF but doing so would create a viable competitor to an attestation-derived Valve Anti-Cheat for Steam Linux, and so likely inspire the giant in the room to step up and obsolete it.

The age verification is it's own can of worms. I'm currently waiting for my native country (but not the one where I reside) to actually publish their wallet implementation. I'm planning to make complaint around it because the whole thing almost certainly breaches ePD. ePD's exceptions are actually for "information society service" rather than just any service. The ISS itself has it's own sets of requirements, but the important one here is that "normally provided for remuneration". Service provided by government as part of their public duty almost never fulfills that requirement.

So in order to store or read data they would need consent. But consent requirements come from GDPR and it's unlikely that this type of consent would be "freely given" given the impact of refusal.

They've stated in their patch notes that they made a change specifically to run on the steam deck. Regardless of what they say now, they have actively supported linux in the past and so should be liable for breaking the game for those customers.

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/for-honor/news-updates/6j...

And that would be fine if they left it at "we don't support it, if you run into problems on your own". When they go so far as to actively block Linux users, then they are doing something wrong and should be required to refund those purchases.

So they should have to return the money you paid, to account for their mistake in selling you the game.

> There are obviously few or no hard technical blockers preventing Valve and the Linux community from supporting any game that runs on Windows

The announcement is a proof that your statement here is incorrect. Ubisoft is not banning Linux because they hate you and your money, but because there's a hard technical blocker to implementing an efficient anti-cheat system on Linux and the cost of overcoming this technical blocker is presumed to be higher than the loss of revenue they're incurring from losing your business.

We should invest in solutions outside of Microsoft for games. Even if Microsoft comes out with XboxOS, and even if somehow it isn't terrible, it will eventually be terrible and will enable companies to continue to do anti-consumer B.S. like what Ubisoft is doing here.

Given how dogshit Windows 11 is, and how dogshit the Xbox-branded apps have consistently been in the last 10 years or so (it's genuinely impressive how bad they are), it's hard to see why a new Microsoft thing wouldn't have all the same problems. They just don't make software to serve the user anymore.

This might be what steamos becomes. Fully controlled and can only run games and some software like discord.

Yeah, I hadn't used Fedora-based distros for over a decade. I haven't ran into issues with Nobara, but I'm sure that if I do any LLM can help me debug/resolve them.

Definitely lowers the barrier of entry for someone entirely new to Linux as well.

Nobara Linux, which is based on Fedora. I used the "Gnome" installer rather than "official" because I still want a regular desktop experience. I've been on Linux for development since 2008 as well so I wanted an "all in one" OS this time rather than dual-boot Linux/Windows.

I'm running this on AMD CPU & GPU (because AMD historically was always better supported than Nvidia). I've not run into any issues the past weeks. Discord and the game both run smoothly. Honestly hard to believe given how rough it was in the past.

That said, I don't play a wide variety of games, I tend to stick with a single game for years. So I'm happy just running "The Finals" and haven't tried other games lol.

What kind of issues are you running into with Bazzite?

I recommend you Zorin OS it works perfect out of the box

I used both Bazzite and Debian, and, while the games do "just work", the problem with Bazzite was that the peripherals were fiddly. Getting the Xbox controllers to work needed some fiddling every time, streaming games from the desktop was hit and miss, and a few other small things like that.

It's still amazing how well gaming on Linux works, but the only reason why I wanted a Steam machine is becasue when a few friends are over, I don't want to spend twenty minutes fiddling with controllers, it kills the mood. I want to turn it on and game immediately.

"Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get 'Comfortable' Not Owning Their Games"

Nothing makes more comfortable than not playing Ubisoft games.

Apparently so have other gamers considering that Ubisoft's stock price has fallen over 90% in the last five years.

Actually, the intent was to preserve the sense of pride and accomplishment by motivating players to play through their purchases instead of hoarding them indefinitely. You think you want a permanent game library, but you don't. Do you guys not have free time? It shouldn't be that hard to finish a game well within its service life anyways.

i find it quite amusing that some people forget that opensource software is a double edge sword in these cases.

> "why can we run windows games the way we want and often better than windows?"

its because we can fiddle with anything in the system, from even before the kernel boots up to the software itself.

> "why cant we stop people tampering with their own systems to stop cheating?"

its because we can fiddle with anything in the system, from even before the kernel boots up to the software itself.

but my addendum is:

> I suppose the only good solution is like those "game streaming services": move all the logic to the server and use the client only as a rendering device.

we are in the "dark ages" of AI/computer vision usage and this wouldn’t stop aimbots that are screen readers. Overall the proposal is the "lesser evil" but still quite fucking evil.

This is what I meant by my last sentence.

Easy Anti cheat works as a software but doesn't work as an anti cheat system.

Valve has in the past given refunds for something that was changed to deliberately no longer work on certain systems. Given that this involves their own hardware devices in this case they're likely to do so here.

ok, 10%. but you're trading full root/admin access to game code on your pc... is it really really worth?

People are so brain washed that it is essential that here we are, sad companies won't take the option you giving them root access on linux too!

a much better solution would be absolutely no root kit, but players picking "never play with this player gain". done. boardgame.com does this and it is very much perfect and flawless.

trust is not binary. i trust my preinstalled system fonts more than i trust vanguard, as an example.

different goals, different people involved, different scope of access, different amount of review, different amount of use = different levels of trust

do not engage this comment.

it's either completely and honestly someone not technical missing the point entirely, or more likely trolling.