F44 Change Proposal: Rework Games Lab [SelfContained]

Project Discussion Change Proposals
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1

Rework Games Lab

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Announced

This is a proposed Change for Fedora Linux.
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

Summary :open_book:

Modernize the Games Lab deliverable by leveraging the latest technologies to offer a high quality gaming and game development experience. This includes a change from Xfce to KDE Plasma to take advantage of the latest and greatest Wayland stack for gaming.

Owner :open_book:

Detailed Description :open_book:

The Games Lab has been on minimal maintenance for some time, with nearly all members having left.

There have been many developments in the ecosystem that benefit gamers that could be pulled into this lab to make it a more compelling offering and potential platform of growth for Fedora.

In the past ten years, thereā€™s been signficant effort around Linux gaming, and the past five years have seen a meteoric rise in adoption of Linux for gaming.

In that timeframe, technologies like Wayland and PipeWire have matured and now exclusively offer compelling features (such as HDR and VRR) that are increasingly considered critical to gaming.

As part of this rework, we are:

  • Refreshing Fedora gaming documentation to showcase the new capabilities of Linux gaming, and give references to game playing, emulation, development, installation, ways to improve, etc.
  • Providing an environment to upstream common gaming patches that provide functionality for handhelds and other gaming hardware, that have otherwise stayed within downstreams.
  • Showcasing a strong set of open source games and creation tools to demonstrate what an open gaming platform is capable of.
  • Leveraging the work of the Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop Edition as the basis for building our experience.
  • Emphasizing the role of downstreams (ex. Bazzite) in delivering to the needs of users, by providing a commons for Fedora-based gaming focused downstreams to acheive common goals.

Feedback :open_book:

Benefit to Fedora :open_book:

This change will modernize the Fedora Games Lab, bringing the user experience and documentation up to speed as a modern, customized Fedora experience built on the flagship Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop Edition, while showcasing the best of gaming on Linux for users and developers.

Scope :open_book:

  • Proposal owners:
    ** Make new Games Lab definitions in fedora-kiwi-descriptions
    ** Improve the state of Plasma Bigscreen
    ** Document contemporary aspects of Linux gaming
    *** Actually playing games
    *** Emulation
    *** Game Development
    *** Game Installation
    *** Issues
  • Other developers: N/A (not needed for this Change)
  • Release engineering: [Making sure you're not a bot! #13135]
  • Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)
  • Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
  • Alignment with the Fedora Strategy: This effort aligns with the objectives to broaden our audience and expand our connections with gaming communities to make Fedora the preferred platform for gaming and game development.

Upgrade/compatibility impact :open_book:

There will be no change to existing Fedora Games Lab installations, only new installations will get the new experience.

For those who would like to manually switch, there will be documentation on how to do so.

Early Testing (Optional) :open_book:

N/A

How To Test :open_book:

Install the refreshed Games Lab and play any of the preloaded games.

User Experience :open_book:

Users will have a modernized entry point into the Fedora gaming ecosystem, with improved access to information regarding the game experience on Fedora/Linux.

Dependencies :open_book:

N/A.

Contingency Plan :open_book:

  • Contingency mechanism: Revert back to pre-Change configuration and defer to the next Fedora release
  • Contingency deadline: Beta Freeze
  • Blocks release? No

Documentation :open_book:

The current [Fedora gaming documentation :: Fedora Docs Fedora gaming SIG documentation] will be redone and brought to the same standard as the new Lab.

Release Notes :open_book:

\n\n\nThe Fedora Games Lab now uses KDE Plasma as its desktop experience. Existing users who have the previous Xfce-based experience will not be upgraded to this.\nUsers who want to adapt existing installs to the new experience can read the Games Lab documentation for more information.\n\nThe Fedora Games Lab now includes a modernized games and game development tools package set.\n\nGaming on Fedora documentation has been modernized and greatly expanded on.

Last edited by @alking 2025-12-15T20:59:06Z

Last edited by @alking 2025-12-15T20:59:06Z

2 Likes
2

How do you feel about the proposal as written?

  • Strongly in favor
  • In favor, with reservations
  • Neutral
  • Opposed, but could be convinced
  • Strongly opposed
0 voters

If you are in favor but have reservations, or are opposed but something could change your mind, please explain in a reply.

We want everyone to be heard, but many posts repeating the same thing actually makes that harder. If you have something new to say, please say it. If, instead, you find someone has already covered what youā€™d like to express, please simply give that post a :heart: instead of reiterating. You can even do this by email, by replying with the heart emoji or just ā€œ+1ā€. This will make long topics easier to follow.

Please note that this is an advisory ā€œstraw pollā€ meant to gauge sentiment. It isnā€™t a vote or a scientific survey. See About the Change Proposals category for more about the Change Process and moderation policy.

3

I donā€™t think a games lab is something that should be modernized and all theoretical improvements should be aimed towards the main editions. Gamers are likely to spend a big portion of their activities outside of just gaming and pointing them to a lab instead of the main editions is a disaster waiting to happen. A user that works in finance, plays games and does digital art will now need to choose between the main editions, games lab or design suite when the correct answer is a main edition.

The proposal also widens the scope of the lab, game playing and game development are very different. Does it come preinstalled with PrismLauncher or Godot, unreal engine and unity? Why would a gamer need those very heavy engines installed? Why would a game developer need all 3 of them? Emulators and alternative store frontends are often in a gray area licensing wise too.

Taking into account that the majority of gaming related applications are proprietary, it would also make the lab not that appealing over the downstreams since it probably wonā€™t come with Steam. Same for NVIDIA drivers and codecs.

So a Fedora gaming lab that will weight 15GB and still require users to jump through hoops to get the main gaming store and their drivers working without all the QA of the main editions ĀÆ\_(惄)_/ĀÆ

4

I do not agree with this statement. As you are pointing out Gamers are likely spend a big portion of their activities outside of just gaming ā€¦ so we do, users which not are Gamers. And when a Game related issue is blocking a new release then it definitely should not block all the Gaming unrelated tasks to.

I am not against of promoting the KDE desktop on the same Level as the Workstation. What I do have a problem with is, that all communities around gaming are believing, that Fedora has to solve all the issues which are gaming related so that we do have a ā€œEierlegendes wollmilchschweinā€ (german expression) which means in English more or less:
ā€œegg-laying wool-milk pigā€

The Idea of promoting a separate Gaming-Lab is a valid alternative to avoid release blockers. As mentioned a Graphical issue (old Nvidia hardware as example) should not be a reason that users with less problematic Hardware have to wait for a release of a new Fedora version.

When I was a teenager, we used to have Game-Boys, Atari & other gaming consoles to not brick our parents computer.

Today we still do have such consoles, however the owners of this Businesses are smart and do somehow expect from the Linux community to carry all the hard work and also expecting that the Linux communities are obliged to continuing supporting old software/hardware and using outdated libraries which from closed sources OSā€™s longtime are banned and discontinued. I just do miss seeing more effort from this side of entrepreneurs, which also support the Linux landscape in general.

I think also the balance between ā€œnice to haveā€ and ā€œsolid to work withā€ got a bit out of control. While the Gnome desktop still has the vision to deliver a basic work box with a restricted, distraction-free Interface to work with, is KDE still believing more configs on diverse places is still the way to go. Even within a new released Fedora version, try to promote a new main Desktop version. This is not really the Idea, why Fedora does have Editions and promotes new Desktop version on new releases every 6 to 8 Month[1].

This proposal Is indeed a good idea to promote gaming on top level. With focusing including the wider Linux community to participate solving issues with this Lab.
We could even distinguish between ā€œTop Gaming LABā€ with a ā€œRetro LABā€ to make Gaming available on older as on never hardware.

Wen you can add a third party repository on a official Fedora Edition so you can on a LAB. I believe the whole Gaming Industry should rethink to put more money into development and should stop to recycle old outdated code and libraries while let us in the Linux communities have this battle.

  1. Maybe KDE and Gnome should try to sync better their release of new desktop versions, this way we can beta test them together before a new release of Fedora is coming out ā†©ļøŽ

5

My point is that gaming (playing, not development) is entertainment that your OS should do in addition to your daily tasks. Itā€™s just as absurd as having a ā€œmovieā€ lab with VLC or ā€œmusicā€ lab with a bunch of music players, thatā€™s something the main editions should do, itā€™s part of using your computer for entertainment. If thereā€™s an issue on the main edition with gaming then it absolutely should be blocked until it gets fixed.

The thing the Game lab could do differently is come with all the proprietary stuff needed for gaming and thatā€™s a different conversation and proposal (steam, nvidia drivers, gray-area emulators) , but as it stands it will just be a way worse experience than the gaming downstreams that come with these out of the box.

If I install ā€œFedora Gaming Editionā€ then I expect it to be ready for gaming. Since all Fedora spins come without third party repos and proprietary software, that means that users will have to:

  1. install fedora gaming edition
  2. search online on how to install third party repos
  3. install the nvidia driver with secure boot
  4. install steam
  5. install codecs

or they can just install one of the downstreams and have everything ready without any tinkering.

I want to emphasize that gaming is part of someoneā€™s entertainment and it should be something the main editions take into account and not just push all responsibility to one of the labs.

6

Yes exactly, but why are all this downstream projects here complaining and wanting to integrate non free software by default?
The mission of Fedora is and will be allways:

What is Fedora?

The Fedora Project is a community of people working together to build a free and open source software platform and to collaborate on and share user-focused solutions built on that platform. Or, in plain English, we make an operating system and we make it easy for you to do useful stuff with it.

Soruce: Fedoraā€™s Mission and Foundations :: Fedora Docs

The emphasis is on:

ā€¦ a free and open source software platform and to collaborate on and share user-focused solutions built on that platform.

This means not expecting from others ā€¦ it means collaborating with others. Not excluding a group ā€¦ but also means not to give to much wight on a specific group. If you are going just about two years back in history and also watch a bit the past on discourse, you can see that the KDE issues, gaming problems and graphical failures related with it, ā€œdisproportionately increasedā€.

I mean with that, the request are in a big volume here, while the solutions not come in the same proportions. In special the demand for KDE and Gaming is unproportional to problems we do have with Gnome.

Have you ever tough to make the demand by Valve, to create a own Linux Distribution for x86_64 and maintaining a community while bringing with own financial support back to the KDE/Linux project and also helping to solve issues with it?
As I know the Steam is still on i686 as the package for it on ā€œrpmfusion-nonfree-updatesā€ shows. (This page was last edited on 28 May 2025, at 02:11. Valvesoftware wiki)

(I do get a bit sick seeing Videos, while seeing the founders of the project mentioned above, almost to suffocate in money, while projects like Gnome have to search for own financial support again) Using, miss-using and dropping this could also happen to the KDE project, if the blood-sucking leech doesnā€™t find enough blood anymore.

That is why making a call for a own SIG/WG is not a bad idea. Bringing Users together with the values Fedora still stands forā€¦

7

Itā€™s great to see this proposal.

I hear that there are kernel option that improve the Gamers experience.
Do you require a custom kernel build for Games Lab?

Will the normal kernel build add in features that you identify as useful in to Gamers? I assume you will need the agreement of the kernel maintainer for this.

Are there custom tuning that will be needed for the Games Lab experience?

Will there be anything that is not a simple RPM install to get the Games Lab experience on my KDE plasma desktop?

8

We are agreeing for the most part, the problem here is that if you want a ā€œgamingā€ lab thatā€™s ā€œmodernā€ and comparable to the downstreams, then you need the proprietary stuff. Otherwise this proposal will be the current games lab but without xfce and just the same old FOSS games. Dropping the games lab altogether is preferable to this proposal promising an alternative to the downstreams.

9

The desire of the lab is to simplify this by allowing users to check boxes during the post installation wizard to allow them to make the choice to install proprietary bits they will need to play modern games (or make the choice not to). This allows us to comply with the Fedora policies while still providing a better out of the box experience for folks who want to game on Fedora. This lab will also have the goal of integrating any specific bits that are in this lab into the workstation editions (Gnome and KDE) of Fedora to improve their experience if a user make the decision to install gaming related packages on their system.

Most kernel modules that are required for gaming are typically for hardware enablement for handhelds. The desire would be to get these kernel modules in the Fedora repos so long as they comply with the Fedora packaging policies. Tuning isnā€™t typically required these days unless you are a power user and at that point, you will likely look into tuning options yourself. The packages that are needed for gaming will likely be a package set that could just be installed on any fedora system to get it ready for gaming. The lab will allow us to show a Proof of Concept for a platform that could be utilized by downstreams or products if they choose to.

I donā€™t think dropping the games lab is a great idea. It provides a deliverable that Fedora creates which should hopefully drive more interest into gaming as a whole.

1 Like
10

I think the path here is working within the relationships Fedora has with the larger Linux kernel developer community to mainline the features and functionality to support these platforms.

4 Likes
11

I think this is great.

IMHO thereā€™s still a place for a gaming spin that:

  • Is not Atomic Desktop (Bazzite).
  • Is not rolling release (Nobara, CachyOS).
  • Reduces the friction of modern gaming experience (Steam, GOG, Epic, etc.) but still highly promotes open-source games.

Iā€™d personally be happy with just a trimmed version of Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop with all the performance and compatibility improvements in Bazzite and Nobara.

1 Like
12

It would be useful to know exactly what these performance and compatibility changes are in Bazzite and Nobara.

Then ask why Fedora cannot have those changes by default.

13

As far as I understand from the proposal and what @dogphilosopher wrote. Answering this question and making changes to Fedora when possible is part of the labā€™s goals.

To list such a change, from CachyOS, I have for a while now been using CachyOS kernels on my Fedora workstation (using copr), due to sched-ext, specifically scx_bpfland thread scheduler producing very noticeable performance and latency gains for gaming and generally intensive interactive workloads ā€“ I also do game development with UE. In some cases the gain is quite substantial. This is something that could easily be included in Fedora (along with scx_tools package) without affecting existing defaults. (see: GitHub - sched-ext/scx: sched_ext schedulers and tools )

14

This change proposal has now been submitted to FESCo with ticket #3529 for voting.

To find out more, please visit our Changes Policy documentation.

15

This change has been approved by FESCo and will be included in Fedora Linux 44.
To find out more about how our changes policy works, please visit our docs site.

FESCo Issue: Making sure you're not a bot!

1 Like
16

This is amazing, would love to know if there is a way to contribute to this.