Dear Protontricks users and developers.

---

I need to say this first and foremost; developing Protontricks has been interesting, and has given me quite a bit of experience, helping me dip my toes into git besides the command that had widely multiplied in my bashrc; "git clone".

So, that stuff about me getting back into maintaining Protontricks fell pretty flat, And I apologize. However, I feel it would be right for me to confess what's been going on in more detail than just letting everyone out in the dark.

I've decided to quit using Linux as my main driver, due to many circumstances, and therefore will stop maintaining this project.

I guess some of you would be upset at hearing that, and I think I would too. Someone just dropping their role as maintainer of a project like this, and dropping out of Linux altogether, that would be a sign that this person doesn't care about Linux gaming enough to want to bother. Honestly, that's almost the opposite. I really, *really* admire the determination that tons of Linux users go through to get "their game on" (i'm so sorry).

Lately, it's become apparent I'm not as patient as I used to be with Linux, hell, I started off with Debian expecting everything to work as it should from what a friend of mine recommended. But at a point, I've gone through countless distro hops, and going from windows back to Linux over and over and over and it's a surprise that I haven't gone insane. For 2019, I decided to stop it. I've grown somewhat of an anger issue before I decided all this, getting frustrated at things just "not working", and lo and behold, I'm unlucky enough to have a majority of the stuff I've wanted to use and do on Linux just not work.

So here I am, back on Windows 10. The reasoninbg behind my choice is that, it's compatible, and I've kind of enjoyed my experience with it so far. No, that's not the coolaid talking, or what some would call Stockholm Syndrome, I've actually enjoyed my time here in terms of things working, my anger and patience has leveled out for the better, plus my new PC came with the thing, so reinstlaling it didn't require any sort of product key or anything. My position currently now, is not fit for maintaining protontricks, and I'm somewhat ashamed of keeping everyone hanging, and I'm sorry.

When I first started using Linux, I was just at the right spot to be able to enjoy myself. I had an intel GPU, though absolutely horrible (and I mean it was an integrated chipset in a tower o_O) which meant I didn't have to worry about incompatibilities with that, my game library, and needs, didn't rely on Windows specific applications (Save for a little emulator called Bizhawk, which I've had pined for for so long to get working fully on Linux, my patience was wearing thin with even that, go support that project tasvideos makes a great emulator for fiddling with games)

Now, now that I have a new PC, my capabilities have grown, along with the friends I've grown to loving around me giving me things I probably couldn't do without. As a result, however, I had to make too many sacrifices that I supposedly had to make due to these reasons:

I have an Nvidia GPU, which compared to windows, isn't as well supported. I oddly have a pretty "stable" GPU for Linux, one of the GT700 cards, but that couldn't exactly stop stuff like the fact that...

I have a game library and a certain amount of needs that REQUIRE me to use Windows to fulfill. I know Wine can handle most of them, but between Wine and Windows and hell, even Proton, it's no contest. Proton has been a huge step in the right direction honestly, but I wish Valve would do more with it, possibly fulfill the same functions as Protontricks right inside Steam? I'm getting sidetracked, here's the kicker...

Friends of mine have, with the goodness of their heart, given me things that absolutely require Windows to use, Vegas Pro 15, Soundforge, hell, I've had FL Studio sortt of for a while and it's worked much better here on Windows. The reason I can't particularly use stuff like Vegas and Soundforge is because the installers seem to be broken or something, I don't know what, I kind of gave up questioning why something stopped working on Wine a long time ago since it's more effort than I'd want to put.

Above all, I want to say this; I don't "hate" Linux, most of this is not really anyone's fault. I had been on a PC that had really well supported hardware, then as my capabilities grew, my expectations grew too on what I could do, and as that happened, I grew less tolerable to when thinbgs didn't work.
People say that the "Year of the Linux Desktop" is fast approaching. I'm not gonna say it hasn't. I'd say that, the definition seems to go from person to person. It depends on what you're willing to do, and in cases like mine, what sacrifices you're willing to make. For certain friends of mine, everyday is the year of the Linux desktop, and I'm happy they can enjoy something I can't, but for me, I've lost mine.

So... What does this all mean for Protontricks? Well, I'm wanting to hope that someone else can maintain it instead. Hell, fork it, I'd love to see someone turn this thing into something amazing for my friends and other PC gaming enthusiasts alike. I would like to hear what any of oyu involved would have to say, and if any of you are interested specifically in taking the protontricks github from me, feel free to message me on Twitter. I guess that, now, I mark Protontricks as reaching it's "1.0" release, that doesn't mean it has to be over though, and I'd like to see it grow beyond.

For me, I've been learning the Godot Engine, playing around with it and doing some silly stuff (As you can tell from the tweet before this), if the time comes I publish a game, there's no question on if I'd support Linux for it, 'cuz it's easy and I would want to support the platform. :)



Keep those keyboards spicy.
Sirmentio

Reply · Report Post