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Valve's Proton 10.0-4 Released With More Windows Games Now Running On Linux
(www.phoronix.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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CodeWeavers, also a for profit company, has indeed been at it for decades. I used to pay them to run Outlook something like 20 years ago.
If you want to imply that Valve is not contributing, your own statement works against you. Wine is not new. CodeWeavers is not new. Yet gaming on Linux only really became a thing once Valve got involved.
Most people still cannot install or configure Wine. But they can use Proton in Steam. People gaming everyday still cannot get Office or Photoshop to work. They can play Steam games but would struggle to make StarCraft run (not in Steam).
Valve is organizing all the bits to make an actual ecosystem work. It is why they created Proton vs just sending patches to Wine. It is why they have gamescope. It is why they fund FEX. If is why they created the Steamdeck and Steam Machine.
I have loved CodeWeavers literally for decades. But minimizing the impact that Valve has had on Linux gaming makes no sense.
Wine is dead simple to use. On MacOS which I use on desktop there’s Whiskey, a free front-end although author of that one decided he doesn’t want to cut into Crossover sales because they contributed so much to it.
Let Valve pretend it’s their product in their press releases but why do Linux users do this much free marketing for them is beyond me. You’re allowing PC gaming to become locked like Android/iOS for very little in return.
They paid a lot of money to make what is currently the best compatibility layer for modern games on Linux and released it as FOSS software. And someone already forked it into a non steam stand alone launcher if you don't want to use Steam.
That's like ... the complete opposite of "allowing PC gaming to become locked".
They paid way less money than CodeWeavers who released their work freely as well.
I’m not able to use it for games outside of Steam because Steam is a monopoly and loads of games release exclusively for it.