Work on Heroic Games Launcher, the open source Linux alternative to the Epic Games Store continues rapid improvements with a huge new release out now. Continuing to build upon the work started with another open source tool, Legendary , which hooks into the Epic Games Store but doesn't provide users with a proper GUI.

The recently released 1.0 version (and a few bug fixes after) revamps the entire flow and design of the application, with a much sleeker looking interface and it actually does look pretty good right now. Most of it works how you would expect too, quite useful for all those free games Epic keeps giving out…if you decide to play them on Linux.

Here's a couple quick shots:

It expanded elsewhere too with a new login screen, there's a new settings page where you can configure launch options and pick things like what version of the Wine compatibility layer you wish to use to launch games. There's also now a filter to see only installed games and lots of little improvements and fixes all throughout.

Still a shame such a community project is even needed, but another fine case of a few doing what a big company won't do, since Epic Games appear to have no plans at all to directly support Linux with the client and store. At least now, Linux has something with a fancy UI that can work with it quite easily.

You can grab the Heroic Games Launcher on GitHub .

Free, open source and a lot of fun to get mixing, FamiStudio is a wonderful application for making some retro tunes and there's a new release available. The feature list has grown quite a lot over the last year, along with gaining Linux builds to make it as cross-platform as possible.

What's new in FamiStudio 2.3.0? Here's the highlights:

• MP3 export
• Video export
• Song merge functionality
• Duty cycle effect track support (equivalent of Vxx in FamiTracker)
• Special paste improvements (repeat, effects, etc.)
• Special delete
• Copy patterns to different channels in sequencer
• Option to display note labels in piano roll
• FamiTracker tempo improvements (delayed notes, cuts, fixes).
• Added support for Cxx (Halt) FamiTracker effect.
• Option to export each channel to a seperate WAV/MP3 file.
• Small DPCM improvements (Drag & drop, bit reverse option)
• Small tempo improvements
• Sound engine code size reduction

Want to see it properly in action? You can see their updated full tutorial below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Something we mentioned before that's worth repeating: with it being open source, they do take contributions but they also expect things to work across all three platforms they support being Linux, macOS and Windows. Wonderful to see feature-parity being required, would be nice if more projects were like this.

Want to try it yourself? Find it on GitHub and the official site .

While GOG continue dragging their feet on supporting Linux with GOG Galaxy, you can use the useful Minigalaxy client which is free and open source.

It works pretty great too, doing the majority of what you need with downloading and installing games you own from GOG onto your Linux installs. Minigalaxy 1.0.1 is mainly a bug fix release following on from the stable build that went out late in November 2020.

It can be used for both supported / native Linux builds, and you can also install Windows versions with the Wine compatibility layer. You can also set it to use your system build of DOSBox and ScummVM for those titles GOG have that use them. Overall, it's much nicer than manually downloading and keeping things up to date individually.

Here's what's changed:

• Open maximized if the window was maximized when last closed (thanks to TotalCaesar659)
• Kept installers are now stored in ~/.cache/minigalaxy/download
• Fix about window displaying wrong version number
• Fix show store page button not showing anymore (thanks to makson96)
• Fix the download manager crashing when an installer has been damaged during downloading (thanks to makson96)
• Fix games showing an update is available while the latest version is installed (thanks to makson96)
• Fix loading the library taking a long time when many games are installed (thanks to makson96)
• Fix Gex not launching
• Add the following translations:
  • Swedish (thanks to Newbytee)
• Update the following translations:
  • Polish (thanks to ArturWroblewski)
  • Russian (thanks to TotalCaesar659)

You can grab Minigalaxy from GitHub .

Enlarge / Social media applications are seen on an iPhone in this photo illustration in Warsaw, Poland on December 17, 2020. Facebook has disabled several features on it's Messenger app to comply with new data usage rules currently being put in place in the EU as aprt of the ePrivacy Directive. (Photo illustration by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images)

App developers are exploring surreptitious new forms of user tracking to evade Apple’s new privacy rules, which threaten to upend the mobile advertising industry in the coming months.

Early in 2021, an iPhone update will prevent apps from using advertising identifiers known as IDFA without obtaining each user’s explicit consent for targeting. Developers expect more than two-thirds of users will block tracking when they see a pop-up appear within their apps.

Some app makers say they plan to use invasive tracking techniques such as “device fingerprinting” to work around the new restrictions—even though doing so risks getting them thrown off the App Store if they are caught.

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No Epic Games Store support on Linux? Well, one developer is helping to break down that barrier with the newly released Heroic Games Launcher. Not official but better than nothing? As usual, the open source community delivers where a big company will not.

What's interesting about the Heroic Games Launcher is that it's built on top of another bit of open source tech called Legendary , which is a command-line downloader and launcher for the Epic Games Store with the Heroic Games Launcher giving it an easier to use GUI.

It already has a number of the main features needed including supporting the EGS login, downloading and installing games. All the basic parts are there and they're quickly improving it.

Note: since the EGS overall has no Linux support, it does rely on the Wine compatibility layer to actually run Windows games downloaded on your Linux box.

Considering all the free games Epic have been handing out over the last year, I've no doubt plenty of you have been logging into EGS just to claim them so this will hopefully help some of our readers get the most of of gaming on their Linux box.

Check out the Heroic Games Launcher on GitHub .

Lutris, the free and open source all-in-one solution to keep your games from different sources together on Linux has a fresh release out to begin 2021. With the ability to download and launch games from Steam, GOG, Humble Store, Emulators, Windows games through the Wine compatibility layer and much more - it's certainly useful.

Release build 0.5.8.2 just went out today, January 5, with these improvements:

• Fix popover menus not appearing on Wayland
• Fix game bar getting unselected on Wayland (Forces the last game to stay
  selected)
• Update Chinese, Dutch, German and Russian translations
• Download DXVK when Lutris starts
• Add fsync2 feature detection
• Limit simultaneous downloads to 3
• Add support for deb file extraction
• Add support for Adobe Air games from Humble Bundle (Installation only,
  Air runtime will come at a later stage)
• Add support for GStreamer enabled Wine builds. This will provide better
  compatibility for games using Media Foundation

You can download Lutris from the official site and GitHub . You can also support it on Patreon .

Are you a video content creator on Linux using OBS Studio? Chances are if you livestream you have lots of windows open for chat and all sorts and OBS Studio might be about to make that easier for you.

There's an open Pull Request on the OBS Studio page on GitHub (meaning it's not in the project yet), which adds in the ability to add in dedicated web browser windows docked directly into OBS Studio. The idea is to bring the browser integration closer in parity to the Windows version.

Here's an example of how it could look for you, with a Twitch Chat bar docked into the OBS Studio windows:

Game pictured - the excellent DRAG .

Having more tools available in the Linux version is going to be great. This is why open source is great, as any developer can come along and submit the code for it like we've seen here. I know plenty of times having browser docks like this would have saved some hassle. Hopefully you will find this useful too.

If you wish to try it out right now with no fuss it's available in the handy Snap package . Based on my own testing, it does appear to work quite well.

Godot Engine is probably the most promising free and open source game engine around, and they clearly had a very productive 2020 with big plans for 2021.

Just before the year was up, and as we took our holiday break, developer Fabio Alessandrelli wrote up about the ongoing and impressive progress on the Web Editor and the HTML5 export. The progress on it has been somewhat mind-blowing with it now having GDNative supported with HTML5 exports from Godot, and the web editor itself has now hit what they say is the Beta stage and you can try it out at this new temporary address .

For the web editor, they're looking to keep it up to date and in sync with the latest work on Godot 3.2.4.

Pictured - me testing out the Godot Engine Web Editor

The Godot Engine team have made huge progress elsewhere too. While work continues on the current stable branch, with Godot 3.2.4 due out properly sometime soon that brings in some big stuff like 2D batching for GLES3 for better performance, a greatly improved FBX importer, a configurable amount of lights per object and so on the work also continues on Godot 4 with Vulkan API support too.

So much is going on they created a thoroughly impressive showcase video of Godot's 2020. Have a look below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Own a shiny new PlayStation 5 and want to stream games from it to your desktop or laptop? Or perhaps you're clinging onto your PlayStation 4 and want to do the same? Chiaki is here to help.

Linux gaming? Not quite but it's another brilliant FOSS application that can enable you to do whatever you want, with what you already own. I've used Chiaki occasionally with my own PlayStation 4 to stream it to my Linux desktop and for the most part, it actually works surprisingly well depending on the network setup.

The big Chiaki 2.0.0 update went out and pulls in some big features on top of PlayStation 5 support being new, here's some of the big features:

• PS5 Remote Play Support
• Add Nintendo Switch Borealis GUI
• FFMPEG in builds updated to 4.3.1
• Add Video Profile Auto Downgrade when 1080p is selected for PS4
• Add correct Bitrate for 1080p
• Relicense under AGPL v3 only + OpenSSL
• Connect all available controllers in GUI
• Add Double Click for Fullscreen in GUI
• Add Audio Device Selection to GUI
• Add Congestion Control
• Add Raspberry Pi Decoder
• Add Text Input Support to Library
• Improve GUI CLI for streaming
• Add Sleep Mode Trigger
• Add generic Hardware Decoder Selection to GUI

There's also a good few bug fixes included as well of course. Great to see Chiaki continue to evolve, another case of a few doing what a big company will not.

Chiaki itself has also moved. The developer is no longer using GitHub, and is instead now providing everything up on their own sourcehut - which you can now find here .