Published on Tux Machines (http://www.tuxmachines.org) Home > content > Making Linux More Like Windows Making Linux More Like Windows By Roy Schestowitz Created 28/10/2020 - 10:56am Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 28th of October 2020 10:56:29 AM Filed under Microsoft [1] Gaming [2] Collabora's Work On Extending The Linux Kernel To Better Support Windows Gaming - Phoronix [3] Windows gaming on Linux got some love this week at the Linux Foundation's Open-Source Summit Europe virtual event. In particular, a recap of the work that's been done so far on extending the Linux kernel to better support Wine / Steam Play based support for Windows games running on Linux. Gabriel Krisman Bertazi as an engineer for consulting firm Collabora talked about their work in recent years on improving the Linux kernel for supporting Valve's needs around running Windows games on Linux with Steam Play. Collabora has been one of Valve's partners for this effort along with CodeWeavers and Valve employing various developers on improving the Linux graphics stack, etc. Collabora expect their Linux Kernel work for Windows game emulation in Kernel 5.11[4] Collabora have been doing presentations during the Open Source Summit, with one particular talk from Gabriel Krisman Bertazi on the "State of Linux Gaming" being quite interesting. While there has been a lot of progress with the Windows compatibility layers Wine and Valve's fork Proton (part of Steam Play), there's still plenty of areas currently lacking and needing work. Collabora is one company extending the Linux Kernel to improve Linux gaming with these compatibility layers, thanks to Valve sponsoring the work. One of the big missing pieces of the pie is supporting the likes of anti-cheat and DRM, with anti-cheat especially causing all sorts of problems entirely breaking lots of Windows games in Wine and Proton. The State of Linux Gaming talk was mostly going over what anyone following would already know, as the event isn't aimed at your typical Linux gaming enthusiast. However, it was still an interesting talk to follow. Thanks to The Linux Foundation, I was able to attend and listen to the talk (the online event requires a ticket purchase) but I've been told by my Collabora contact that they will all eventually be up on their own YouTube Channel which could be as soon as early next week for anyone to be able to view. If you want a brief overview, you can find the slides here from the event schedule. One of the key points that Gabriel Krisman Bertazi went over is their work on system call emulation, which is now required because DRM and anti-cheat tech "are issuing system calls directly from the Windows game code and that bypasses Wine because Wine is not a sandbox" and Wine currently cannot capture those system calls needed which ends up causing games to crash. Microsoft Gaming Source URL: http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/143746 Links: [1] http://www.tuxmachines.org/taxonomy/term/62 [2] http://www.tuxmachines.org/taxonomy/term/69 [3] https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Extending-Kernel-Wine-Steam-20 [4] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/10/collabora-expect-their-linux-kernel-work-for-windows-game-emulation- in-kernel-5-11.