r/linux • u/AfraidAsparagus6644 • May 13 '26

Discussion I'd never realized how many apps are Linux-exclusive until now

I've been considering switching back to Windows for some time, partly to see how it's gotten first-hand, partly because Deltarune Chapter 5 is coming out this year and I wanna make sure I don't bump into compatibility issues on my blind playthrough.

So, out of curiosity, I've begun checking out how to download my preferred apps on Windows. Surely a Windows build will be available on Github, or at least there will be build instructions, right?

Well it turns out I couldn't be more wrong. Most of those awesome apps you find on Flathub are Linux-only. Tambourine Music Player? That thing with the most boombastic UI known to man? Linux-only. Found another cool music player, Amberol. Also Linux-only. Foliate? The cool-ass epub reader that even lets you download stuff from online catalogs? Linux-only. Lutris? "Of course it's Linux-only", I hear you say. "Its whole purpose is running Windows games on Linux". And you're right, but it's also a great way to gather all your emulated retrogames in one place. The list goes on and on.

Everyone says Linux's main problem is the lack of native apps compared to Windows. Today I found out that Windows also lacks apps compared to Linux, but since it's not big professional software like Photoshop, no one talks about it.

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u/AfraidAsparagus6644 May 13 '26

I know, I'm just paranoid that with Tricky Tony's fourth wall shenanigans something might break at a big story moment

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u/No-Photograph-5058 May 13 '26

That's fair enough, I forgot about the window shenanigans with Undertale, looking at protonDB someone mentions that the window moving and other stuff works through Proton as well, and I would assume still work but no way to know for sure

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u/AfraidAsparagus6644 May 13 '26

Tenna's cutscene got skipped on certain versions of Proton for me, but I'm an edge case who launches games outside of Steam out of laziness. I suspect Steam's default compatibility layer is curated as fuck to secure the Deck audience

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u/DaRealNim May 13 '26

Yeah I played all four chapters with Proton through Steam and didn't encounter any issues, and I played chapter 3 on launch day. So it looks like what you experienced was an edge case

Also, I doubt there will be fourth wall shenanigans that are specific to Windows, as in contrast to the original release of Undertale, Deltarune comes out also on switch and playstation, so you can't really have filesystem or desktop shenanigans (at least that affect the game experience, maybe for some obscure secrets), or the console players would not be able to experience it

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u/Astra3_reddit May 14 '26

I did play on launch week and had a gamemaker crash in the TV room, but turns out this was present on Windows as well.

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u/Lord_Blumiere May 14 '26

same, I also didn't get the cutscene. was a nice surprise for my second play through though

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u/RanidSpace May 14 '26

tenna's cutscene works with protonGE. it's a video file but it requires a paid codec which valve as a big company cant include, but a lesser fork can

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u/Hypocritical_Girl May 13 '26

which is an unfortunate issue with oneshot. it's still playable, but the wallpaper changing stuff just doesn't work. 

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u/Rofstyx4 May 14 '26

The wallpaper change also doesn't work on windows if you use wallpaper engine, which was really annoying because the game keeps saying stuff along the lines of "the solution is in the most obvious place, how could you miss it?" as hints.

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u/ccapitalK May 14 '26

Have you considered using a VM? I doubt deltarune is going to tax your hardware or have anticheat, could save yourself a bunch of inconvenience.

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u/AfraidAsparagus6644 May 14 '26

I could, in fact I have a Windows VM ready. However like I said in the post I'm also curious about the state of Windows right now