Epic Games Wants Linux Gamers. It's Rebuilding EAC For Fortnite
This article goes more into how EAC for Linux is being altered. Basically EAC can run with ring 0 access on windows machines to prevent cheats, but on Linux it doesn't have the same level of invasive access. This is better for user privacy, but also limits its ability to prevent cheating.
The upcoming EAC Linux v2 will fall into a middle ground between the two, and will require the kernel to be signed with a key Epic recognizes. The system will also have to have TPM 2.0 and secure boot enabled. I recommend reading the article for more details.
https://itsfoss.com/news/epic-games-linux-anti-cheat-fortnite/Open linkView original on sopuli.xyz
60 replies
No thanks. Piss off Timmy boy
Yeah Sweeny has been an outspoken hater of Linux his entire life. Now that its gaining marketshare, hes flip flopping. Fuck off Timmy boy
OG Unreal Tournament games had native Linux versions, even as late as 2016 when Epic was developing a (now cancelled) 4th UT title.
But then Fortnite happened and Epic switched from supporting Linux to antagonising it as it's Valve's platform thus enemy's platform (his reaction, probably).
Needs TPM, Secure Boot, and restricted Distros. Naw Dawg... I'm good.
Lot of loopholes to jump through for something not many people want
People with Steam decks, for example, would have access to EAC titles. I think it is worth it financially for Epic.
EAC already worked on Linux. Tim Swiney just wants to enshittify Linux because he's a POS
Well well well, fortnite losing tons of players, epic firing thousands of devs ... suddenly the people that are switching to linux getting more relevant huh timmy.
You can go fuck yourself tho.
Fuck off and do the anticheat server side, stingy cunts.
Cheap bastards can't even do the shit we were taught in college: always validate inputs server-side too!
Nah, fuck off and stick to Windows.
Umm maybe it's just me and my distro, but using secure boot won't even let my Nvidia drivers run, soooo...
Although I'm not as familiar with the TPM, being knowing that Win11 needed it for some goddamn reason. I've never even noticed a setting for it or whether it's on or off (never had a reason to care).
These are some reasons I stopped using Windows in the first place. I don't need an evil corpo telling me what settings I must use so they can hide what there doing.
Exactly. When I first switched to Win10 (after it itself was just a free upgrade for me from 7, which I thought was odd for a corporate product), and saw the candy crush thing and (fuck I swear there was a second thing there, but I can't remember) whatever that other thing was already sitting in the start menu, I knew on day 1 that that was gonna be my last version of Windows.
And then it got worse and worse. Luckily I'm that same time Linux was making huge strides with Wine and other compatibility tricks that by the time I got off the MS train I lost nothing as far as gaming potential, just maybe added a few minor snags to get everything nice.
Stick it up your ass, Tim Sweeney (the bitch).
Epic doesn't care about Linux gamers. This is an AI publicity stunt. The app does not work and probably never will.
Epic doesn't care about
Linuxgamers. FTFYThis article is about EAC, not their new app.
Same same
Fortnite must be hemmoraging players for them to do this.
No thanks, i dont care for anti-cheat titles to begin with and there is Heroic in case i need to run a game from epic store.
All 4 of the 9 year old children who are on Linux want to play Fortnite are going to be pumped for this!
This targets the parents more. My son started out on Linux but has since moved to Windows because that makes it easier for him to play games with his friends.
I am not gonna play Fortnite or anything with an invasive anti-cheat, but more multiplayer games available for Linux means more adoption amongst casual players. So, at the end of the day it's a net positive thing.
Typical of Tim's Weenie
Is the OS remaining secure and private with the anticheat that is requiring tpm, secure boot, etc?
Or like the Windows anticheat is it going to be able to access all the files on the PC?
My understanding is that there's a systemd service that runs only when the game runs, and that uses ePBF to restrict read/write access to the game files while it's running (to prevent tampering). The tpm/secure boot/recognized kernel part is to make sure the user doesn't have a modified kernel that will lie to the anti-cheat.
If everything works like they say, they shouldn't have access to the non-game files and no direct kernel access. So privacy should be maintained, and theoretically no risk of a EAC bug or exploit causing a full system crash.
Overall it sounds much better to me than windows anti-cheat, but that's a pretty low bar.
Agreed to your comment. Only problem i have with it is that i use mainline to get latest kernels, and that wont work (kernel is not signed). Other than that, sounds good tbh
Still not gonna run epic stuff, but technically it sounds good
You can have multiple kennels installed, so you could normally boot with mainline, but if you wanted to play a EAC game you could reboot with an approved kernel.
Oh i know i can. I always have latest mainline + latest supported incase i run into issues. I just dont want to reboot to play games. Might as well use windows for gaming then :)
If true that does sound like a huge improvement over the Windows anticheat experience.
I'm curious how effective it will be, I don't think there's anything wrong with leveraging secure boot to verify the kernel is unmodified, but does this mean dkms won't be supported?
Dkms modules would have to be on an approved list I think.
All you have to do is say fuck almost all the reasons i switched to linux and BAM youll be playing a shitty free2play royal rumble shooter in no time!
This is a good thing. Yes, it's not perfect. Yes, Fortnite and Epic are not great. But it's so exhausting when people say "you can't game on Linux" because games like Fortnite don't work on Linux. The argument I always make in response is that it's like saying you can't game on a Gameboy because it doesn't have Fortnite.
The main reason for a lot of people not switching to Linux is because they only play games like Fortnite (competitive multiplayer games with aggressive anti cheat) and those games don't work on Linux. (Marvel Rivals being the big exception to the rule.) Fortnite supporting Linux in some form will bring more users to Linux. More users on Linux will mean more studios view it as profitable to support.
So, yes, this is a good thing. Yes, I fully admit it's not perfect, but it's a huge step I think most of us can admit we never saw happening.
I didn't realise there were eight year olds using Linux.
My daughter and I built her first pc together when she was about 7 or 8, and it ran Linux.
Why wouldn't you gift a child a Steam Deck?
Apart from the price, a kid would probably destroy it pretty quickly. And I certainly wouldn't want them playing fucking Fortnite on it.
Mine have kept theirs in good shape for multiple years. Both are under 10
That's the case with any game console.
My six year olds do a really good job with it honestly. I had to make sure I had a decent case on it because I've got ADHD Gremlins with some gross motor delays so they forget not to walk around with it and drop it occasionally, and they're not the most careful about plugging it in so I've had to repair the charging port once. But overall they've done really well in the 2 years we've had one.
That's awesome.
I'm honestly pretty impressed with how sturdy it is. To have the only thing that's failed be a charging port in two years of letting at the time 4 year olds use the things regularly is pretty impressive.
I dropped mine onto a carpeted floor from less than a metre (the one time I picked the case up by the handle was the one time I hadn't zipped it up) and it broke one of the bumpers. Cost me $350 to repair it.
It's good to hear that multiple people here have said their young kids are looking after them, though.
I have had to like... realign one of the bumpers once after one of their drops actually now that you mention it.
Nothing was broken that I could see, the button just wasn't lined up fully so it wasn't clicking properly where it was supposed to. Went back to working just fine once I put it back together after giving the button a little nudge with the screwdriver.
I know many kids using Android phones.
This article is a giant softball for EGS, and the author should ashamed of it.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun was willing to call them out
A good move from a bad actor. I wonder if they will release a native version or use proton (with another name, because of course).
This and the forced open sourcing of Photoshop is destroying windows moats.
Because all the other pandering and blame-shifting they've done so far hasn't worked.
So I guess MOK is not supported? That would make it impossible to play with Nvidia drivers because they need a MOK for signing.
Using eBPF is actually a pretty neat idea, but I guess MOK would be too easy of a bypass because you can sign your own kernel modules and just do whatever in kernel space.
It's way better than a crappy kernel module but I wonder if hackers will actually abuse this for access over windows, especially when the Android version is also right there without any significant anticheat.
Does TPM and secure boot mean the same processors that windows 11 needs?
No. There are 2 ways to get TPM. The TPM Chip and the eTPM built into most modern CPU's. There were CPU's that met the SecureBoot/TPM features for Win 11 buy failed in other respects so it would say the CPU failed. Also for CPU's that did fail the TPM check, you can get the TPM Chip on a module for your motherboard. But that is only if you are OK with TPM/SecureBoot because there are a myriad of reasons like when active it can be fingerprinted to defeat your anonymity when using VPNs and it can be used to track you. Also they have been several severe exploits found in TPM and SecureBoot because the code is not maintained as often as it is supposed to be to be kept secure.
It is one of the key reasons I am on Linux right now and I plan Windows 10 to be my last Windows PC build as a daily driver. I am not enabling that Microsoft BS on my Linux PC to play a game.
Got a source for how secure boot can be used to track you? Presumably if something can fingerprint your secureboot setup, they can fingerprint your CPU hwid directly.
Also TailsOS includes secure boot support, so it wouldn't make sense to enable if it allowed fingerprinting
Sure https://bfy.tw/UXmE
What a condescending post. Do you think I didn't search? Your link only returns 1 article that talks about it, and it doesn't go into any details.
You could have said directly that it's the TPM Endorsement Key that is used as a fingerprint. However, the article doesn't explain why nor how it could be used to track you through a VPN, and neither did you.
AFAIK, if you are in a position where the TPM can be probed for the key, it's already game over as they can just query the CPU hardware id.
Short answer is yes, but that was Microsoft’s decision on Windows killing off many desktops, most folks who use Linux will likely see through Epic Games nonsense and avoid using it.
i want epic games to fuck off forever we dont always get what we want
Please keep that on windows, exclusively. Forever.