Linux gaming gets a big boost from a 12-year-old Ubuntu developer

Late last year, young developer Rudra Saraswat gave Ubuntu gamers a great GUI tool. The cleverly named”gamebuntu” was effectively a bash script that automatically installed a veritable kitchen sink of gaming tools, and then used a handy overlay for finding and launching things like Steam, VLC, OBS, Twitch, Lutris, Discord, and more. Now he’s got it announced a completely new version that takes Gamebuntu in a different and more elegant direction.

“I completely rewrote Gamebuntu to give people the freedom to choose what they want to install,” says Rudra. “You can choose from 4 launchers, 2 kernels, 7 tools and 1 streaming app.”

The new approach to Gamebuntu is refreshingly reminiscent of what Ubuntu Budgie is Adding to its welcome app for version 22.04. Instead of a big installation routine that sets up a default gaming environment, Gamebuntu 1.0 lets the user choose exactly what software to install.

Here is what Gamebuntu 1.0 offers about its current AppImage on GitLab, broken down by category:

launchers:

• steam
• Heroic/Epic
• Mini Galaxy (GOG)
• Lutris

cores:

• Low latency kernel
• Xanmod kernel

Social:

tool:

• game mode
• G Overlay
• MangoHud
• NoiseTorch
• OpenRGB
• piper
• Polychromatic (Razer)
• Protonup Qt
• VLC
• Wine (use wine-binfmt to run Windows executables directly)

Streaming Apps:

It’s a solid selection of essential gaming tools and clients. I suggested adding the excellent Protonup-QT, a GUI tool that allows you to update and manage custom Steam Proton variants like Proton-GE. Rudra installed it within hours!

He encourages you to add your own suggestions this Ubuntu Discourse thread.

Rudra has a promising future. Before he turned 12, he had already created two unique Linux distributions: Ubuntu Unity Remix and Ubuntu Education Edition.