Linux native port needs more love.

[Fornax]

Don't get me wrong, overall DST runs well on Linux (in some respects better than on Windows - for example, the game and server startup time is significantly faster on Linux, which is really impressive), but there are a few issues that make me prefer playing on Windows:

- My main issue is the broken moonstorm overlay - the black graphical artifacts are not pleasant to look at and are very annoying. I guess the problem lies in the incorrect rendering of transparency by X11 (which also affects XWayland). Well, what can you expect from a display server from the '80s, lol. Interestingly this issue doesn't occur when DST is launched via Proton.
- And the above problem brings me to this: recently, the Linux graphics stack has been rapidly moving from X11 towards Wayland compositors. Unfortunately, DST doesn't natively support Wayland protocol, so the only way to run the game is through the XWayland compatibility layer. This means that some users with Nvidia graphics cards will experience flickering issues. Fortunately, this problem should be resolved once Nvidia releases the stable 555 driver (and Wayland compositors are mostly ready for this change - Plasma will officially support explicit sync starting from version 6.1 (backported to 6.0.5 with kwin-explicit-sync package), and GNOME 46 supposedly already supports it). But still - running the game through a compatibility layer is not an optimal solution.
- In 2021 DST introduced an option called threaded render. Unfortunately, it was quickly removed from both Unix system ports - quoting the patch notes: "Removed the threaded render option for OSX and Linux because it doesn’t work quite right." The lack of a threaded renderer noticeably affects the game's performance - FPS are unstable compared to the Windows port, and the graphics noticeably stutter (you can disable the threaded renderer on Windows which results in the exact same stuttering I experience on Linux).

There are also a few minor issues, such as DST sometimes failing to automatically kill itself (requiring manual termination of the zombie process), using PulseAudio instead of the newer PipeWire (It's not a huge problem cause pipewire-pulse works great), oh and the missing DST icon - if that annoys you, add "StartupWMClass=dontstarve_steam_x64" to the Don't Starve Together.desktop file as a workaround.

Those are my main complaints about the Linux port. Feel free to share yours in the comments if you have any others. But yeah - in summary - these days, Linux distributions are in a completely different place than they were in 2016, and it would be nice if DST kept up with all these advancements.

[Captain_Rage]

loool, I was under the impression that Klei provides really great support. The issue where the game fails to gracefully exit is extremely annoying however. Still not sure what is going on but it seems to affect plenty of users. I believe it appeared after the distribution my system is running (Arch Linux) upgraded its implementation of Lua. This could be wrong though. I've reported it and only got a reply that Klei can't help me since the distribution I am using is not officially supported. As for the Moonstorm overlay bug it finally disappeared some patch ago, and / or switching to the Wayland compositor (I use KDE as desktop environment which seems to default to using Wayland now).

Thanks for the tip of how to restore the icon. I've noticed that it's missing but didn't realize it was a glitch. :d

[chirsg]

I hope I have it in me to learn how to configure linux before windows 11 becomes mandatory on all devices. Spyware filth

[Anis5240]

10 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

Klei provides really great support

klei moment

[Fornax]

6 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

loool, I was under the impression that Klei provides really great support. The issue where the game fails to gracefully exit is extremely annoying however. Still not sure what is going on but it seems to affect plenty of users. I believe it appeared after the distribution my system is running (Arch Linux) upgraded its implementation of Lua. This could be wrong though. I've reported it and only got a reply that Klei can't help me since the distribution I am using is not officially supported. As for the Moonstorm overlay bug it finally disappeared some patch ago, and / or switching to the Wayland compositor (I use KDE as desktop environment which seems to default to using Wayland now).

Thanks for the tip of how to restore the icon. I've noticed that it's missing but didn't realize it was a glitch. :d

The issue with the zombie process is not new and is distro-agnostic - back in 2019 I used Ubuntu and this problem also occurred though it was sporadic. Now on a different distro it happens frequently. Also, Arch kinda has to be officially supported cause the Steam Deck uses it as its base.

I also use Plasma on Wayland, and this problem still occurs:

 

14 minutes ago, chirsg said:

I hope I have it in me to learn how to configure linux before windows 11 becomes mandatory on all devices. Spyware filth

Read about Pop_OS - it is a very newbie-friendly and gamer-friendly distribution.

[. . .]

I hope by the time I move on from my Windows 7 PC these will be fixed! I definitely don't want to use the new spyware bloatware versions of Windows and would prefer Linux since it actually an OS which the user is in control of their PC not the PC/Company in control of the user.

[Fornax]

An update on the third point - the unstable FPS. I did a little research and managed to stabilize the FPS so much that they are much more stable than on Windows, despite the lack of threaded render! Here's what you need to do:

- install MangoHud - its main purpose is to monitor performance, but it can also manage Vsync and other stuff, which is what we're interested in. (in my case: sudo pacman -S mangohud - of course, this depends on your distribution);

- install goverlay - this program manages all the fancy options that MangoHud offers (sudo pacman -S goverlay in my case);

- create a MangoHud folder in the .config directory if it doesn't exist: if you're using a GUI, note that folders starting with a dot are hidden by default - Meta+H (Win+H) will reveal them; or just do: mkdir -p ~/.config/MangoHud

- run goverlay for the first time and select your GPU (NVidia in my case) - This should create a MangoHud.conf file in MangoHud folder. Open this file and take note of the pci_dev - this is your graphics card's number (pci_dev=0:01:00.0 in my case). Copy it.

- below is a minimal configuration for MangoHud for DST - dontstarve_steam_x64.conf - paste this file to your MangoHud folder, open it and find pci_dev=YOUR_PCI_DEVICE_NUMBER - replace YOUR_PCI_DEVICE_NUMBER with the number you copied from the MangoHud.conf file.

- the final step is to add mangohud %command% to the Steam launch options (right click on DST → properties → general → launch options).

Launch the game.

So what does MangoHud do?

    fps_limit=60 - We limit FPS to 60 because DST doesn't support higher FPS values anyway;
    vsync=0 - We don't care about this because DST doesn't use Vulkan;
    gl_vsync=-1 - This interests us - it changes Vsync for DST to adaptive;
    fps_limit_method=late - This reduces latency.

 

If you need other tweaks orif it doesn't work as expected, the full documentation can be found here: https://github.com/flightlessmango/MangoHud

dontstarve_steam_x64.conf

[_zwb]

I'd say people on the linux platform only make up <1% of the player base. In the linux version Chinese characters simply don't display, I doubt they would leave this unfixed for years if it's the Windows version.

Spoiler

  I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.  Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.  There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!

 

[Terra B Welch]

Hm, I see, I was curious as to why ever since I migrated to Linux(Linux Mint for anyone curious) that sometimes DST would act weird, I even had a time where the window just hung trying to close but never did and I looked at the processes and there wasn't even a process haha. I still have no regrets from migrating over to Linux and hell, I'm glad I did after seeing windows 11.

On 5/30/2024 at 2:20 AM, chirsg said:

I hope I have it in me to learn how to configure linux before windows 11 becomes mandatory on all devices. Spyware filth

Linux Mint seems to be a good starting point if you're new to Linux.

On 5/30/2024 at 2:33 PM, . . . said:

I hope by the time I move on from my Windows 7 PC these will be fixed! I definitely don't want to use the new spyware bloatware versions of Windows and would prefer Linux since it actually an OS which the user is in control of their PC not the PC/Company in control of the user.

Yuuuuuup, the very reason I migrated over to Linux is because I was sick and tired of all the bloat on Windows, I have no regrets from migrating, even if some things took effort to work.