this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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I think its less a question of the technical feasibility, and more of an issue that we, as users, don't want more closed-source blobs in our kernels. Meanwhile, the publishers insist that they can't open-source their anti-cheat code; Their idea being that if we know what's in it, it will be easier to bypass.
Basically, one distro or a few(at most) may get anti-cheat integrated one day(like, say, SteamOS), but it will likely never be in your standard Linux kernal.
They could go the rought of kernel modules, I would think, but for whatever reason, we're still having this conversation.
Valve also has server side anticheat in his games (Counter Strike or Deadlock). They are also against it.
Kernel-level anticheats can be bypassed anyways, but they are the easy solution for the corps that want to sell their multiplayer game.
@MachineFab812 @SpiderUnderUrBed even if you have steamOS, what keeps you from downloading kernels from kernel.org and building?
If you want it to still be steam OS and compatible with games then you couldn't use kernel.org kernels that's the point.
Fundamentally it becomes a console not a PC. That's WHAT steamOS would be in this hypothetical.
If a person stands to make a lot of money figuring out how to use a regular, non-anticheat kernel then they will do it. It would be a lot less difficult to do when the kernel code is open source.
For anti-cheats, it isn't the case, as with Windows, where you can semi-trust that the kernel isn't lying. If an anti-cheat runs and wants to see what DMA devices are connected it uses the kernel to do that and it trusts that the kernel isn't lying. You could trivially modify the Linux kernel's source code to not list a specific card when asked by a kernel module.
Shite is still shite, even if it's open source shite.