Linux users: Are we over-reliant on Steam? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I’ve recently moved my whole game library over to Linux and stopped dual booting. Everything runs great on Linux, I just run it through Steam’s Proton layer.

Therein lies the problem. Even my non-Steam games I run through Steam since it’s so convenient with Proton. My experience with using straight up wine, winetricks, Lutris etc. had been much more clunky in comparison and less reliable for getting things running.

While it’s working fine for now, what do I do if I’m offline and Steam decides this is one of those days offline mode doesn’t work? What if I get banned from Steam?

Has anyone had any luck replicating their Proton setup outside of Steam? Or simply just running a Proton game outside of Steam after getting it set up using Steam?

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[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

I wouldn't say we're over-reliant on Steam, but maybe on Valve to some extent.

If Valve would suddenly stop all their work on/around Linux, that'd certainly affect Proton and also things like the open AMD GPU drivers. Sure, others would likely continue their work (it's not like they're doing it all alone now anyway), but Valve certainly brings a lot of expertise and also commercial interest.

this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025

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