Pop!_OS – the Ubuntu-powered distro created by none other than the geniuses at System76 – has just released 22.04 LTS (long-term support), shortly after the release of Ubuntu 22.04. There’s quite a few exciting things going on with this release, so let’s go over the changes. Software Upgrades As far as base upgrades are concerned, the kernel is using 5.16.19 (kind of surprised they didn’t go with 5.17), Mesa drivers have been upgraded to version 22, and the desktop environment is based off of GNOME 42 with System76’s COSMIC UX spinoff.

Gardiner Bryant, for those of you who aren’t aware, is a YouTuber who started out as The Linux Gamer back in 2014. As he’ll explain in this interview, he went from initially talking about native Linux games to talking about Linux in general. And now since he got a Steam Deck, that’s pretty much all he’s been talking about in his newer videos. I have occassionally pitched in and helped him with the scripts to some of his videos.

General Linux Gaming Ubuntu is falling behind, but apparently the newly released Ubuntu 22.04 is “absolutely stunning.” We’re starting to see less and less games that are borked through Proton. Thanks, Valve and CodeWeavers, for all the hard work that you do 21 new games have been released on Steam with Linux support You can update the firmware on your DualSense controller with Sony’s new FW updater app. Works great with wine-ge-custom or GE-Proton The game Overgrowth has now gone open-source Steam Deck Looks like Metroid Prime Trilogy works very well with the Deck You can customize the theme on Steam The Deck was the Steam top seller for the week ending April 17 Variable refresh rate switching is “coming soon” Small Deck client update went out, adding a few bug fixes and some other features The dock, now called a “docking station,” has upgraded ports.

Following hot off the heels of the official Proton 7.0-2 release yesterday, the developer of GE-Proton has followed up with GE-Proton7-15. Included in this release is a few protonfixes for State of Decay 2 and Fall Guys. The former no longer crashes, and now apparently the Fall Guys EAC works on Proton! You no longer have to apply those weird tweaks anymore. WINE_DO_NOT_CREATE_DXGI_DEVICE_MANAGER is a video fix that was enabled for the following titles:

Earlier this month Proton 7.0-2 was available as a release candidate. Along with it came several bug fixes and games that are now playable on your Steam Deck. The official release is more or less the same thing as the release candidate, albeit for fixed rudder detection for Microsoft Flight Simulator and fixed video playback for Monster Train, Hardspace: Shipbreaker, Car Mechanic Simulator 2021, and Nine Sols. Here’s the official changelog:

Five people are trapped on a train track. A train is coming and the only way you can prevent those five people from getting killed is by pulling a lever. That lever will cause the train to go onto another track, but the problem there is that track has one person trapped on it. What do you do? Will you let the train go to its default route, killing five, or pull the lever and let it take the alternative way and kill one?

Most of you who read the headlines are probably aware of the fact that as of yesterday, you no longer need to own a PS5 in order to update the firmware on your DualSense gamepad. It’s now possible to upgrade the FW on your Windows PC. But I’ve noticed that, even though some have claimed to get the FW updater to work on Linux via Wine, I didn’t have such luck myself.

I got a hold of the man. The man behind one of the most popular websites out there for Linux gaming. Liam Dawe, the owner of GamingOnLinux (GOL). In this interview he reveals how he got into Linux, why he created GOL, his obsession over the Steam Deck, among other things. He even tells us how he manages to put in so many articles on his site on a day-to-day basis while having a family and other life obligations.

Lutris – a universal launcher for your Steam games, your Epic games, your emulators, and so much more – version 0.5.10.1 was released today. Included in this release is improved Flatpak functionality; Steam, app and desktop shortcuts will launch with Flatpak when necessary. This is important for such devices as the Steam Deck, as the Steam Deck by default can only run Flatpaks outside of Steam. MangoHUD can now be shown or remain hidden with a simple toggle.

Once upon a time, ten years ago, Ubuntu was the de-facto distro used for Linux gamers. That was at the time Steam was released as a beta for said operating system. Ubuntu was the only distro that officially supported Steam. Gabe Newell had referred to this time as “a huge milestone for the development of PC gaming;” he noted Linux as being an “open, customer-friendly platform.” Caonical chimed in on the support of Steam on Ubuntu as well.