As Phoronix had spotted earlier today, Distrobox – a wrapper that creates and uses containers (like a distro) that are highly integrated into the host machine – got a pretty big update with 1.4.0. I won’t go over the changes, but I will say this: there’s now documentation on how to get Distrobox set up on the Steam Deck. Just look under the “SteamOS 3” section on their table. Simply run steamos-readonly disable via the terminal to disable the immutable file system, then follow their installation instructions for Arch Linux or install Podman to $HOME.

Since the news about Cemu going open-source and available for Linux went viral a few weeks ago, we’re already starting to see improvements to the Wii U emulator with version 2.0-1. To start, the update is mostly bug fix-related. Many of the issues present with 2.0 should no longer be a problem with this update. The patch notes also mention “lots of smaller Linux improvements,” although it doesn’t go into detail concerning what exactly has been improved.

We haven’t seen an update to Slippi since February. But today we finally got one! New features include desync detection and m-ex support (allows expansion of content). The modifier key should now work with keyboard setups, the performance warning is now more clear, and the quickchat feature has been refactored to C rather than ASM. One particular bug fix for Linux users is that building the project (or using it) on newer systems with ffmpeg 5 should now work!

While Heroic Games Launcher is a great Epic Games Store client for Linux, there’s another: Rare. Unlike Heroic, Rare is written in Python and does not use Electron as its base, thus saving your computer precious RAM. Quite a few new things released in this update, including a Settings for Epic Games Overlay, plenty of UI fixes, general bug fixes and typos corrected, and plenty of other features. Changelog is as follows:

Today’s beta Deck client update mostly focuses on bug fixes, plus the styling of command names in Steam Input has been improved. Patch notes are as follows: General Fixed scrolling on home recommended screen due to discovery queue Fixed issue where What’s New section was not populated properly Steam Input Replaced the Big Picture configurator in desktop mode with a windowed view of the new Configurator. This currently only applies to desktop mode on Steam Deck.

One thing that always turned me off about Cemu – the Wii U emulator – was the fact that it was closed-source. Nearly eight years after the creation of the emulator, it is now fully open-source and licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. Not only this, but the emulator now has Linux builds available, although for the time being you’ll have to compile the emulator from source: Right now you still have to compile Cemu yourself for most distros.

Small update to GE-Proton today. Besides the usual components being upgraded to the latest git (dxvk, vkd3d-proton, wine), some other features have been added. Patch notes are as follows: protonfix for Flatout Ultimate Carnage (single player only) added – thanks Ranplayer Amazon games patch added (this is mainly for possible future compatibility, please use wine-ge for non-Steam games) wine-staging ddraw-Device_Caps and ddraw-version-check patchsets disabled in favor of new Proton ddraw changes.

Did you know you can play online multiplayer with Nintendo Switch games on Linux? It’s possible thanks to Ryujinx’s LDN build. Today the LDN build got an update that now enables Vulkan. This means improved performance on AMD and Intel, and all GPU vendors “will enjoy drastically reduced shader compilation stuttering!” Mind you, the last time we saw an update to LDN was back in November, so all the changes made to the main branch since then have made it over to the new 2.

Quite a few new games are playable with today’s Proton Experimental update: Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull Re-Volt Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Aspire: Ina’s Tale Battle Realms: Zen Edition WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Ultimate Definitive Edition OUTRIDERS Some fixes and improvements have also been added: Fix cutscene stutter in Disgaea 5. Fix Thrustmaster HOTAS having non-functional dial in Elite Dangerous. Fix raytracing in Crysis Remastered. Fix Planet Zoo randomly crashing. Improve video playback in Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen.

The past few beta updates to the Steam Deck client have now been pushed to the stable branch. Notably, some fixes were added to Offline Mode, a couple of fixes to the on-screen keyboard have made it in, and the hot/cold temperature notification has temporarily been disabled “while we address issues with false postives.” Patch notes are as follows: Offline Mode Fixes We’re continuing to look at making the user experience of playing games without an Internet connection a better, more intuitive experience.