Playtron are quietly building up their Linux-based PlaytronOS behind the scenes, and not only have they released their first Alpha but they've pulled in another investor too.
It’s bazzite with a custom UI instead of Steam Big Picture and no desktop mode. Their big claim seems to be that they say that they have solved anti cheat on Linux: the system generates a checksum of the kernel space, the anti cheat then compares this checksum with the one on file. No custom kernel module needed on the part of the anti cheat dev. At least in theory.
I’m interested in them finding a way to get AC working, but I really dislike this method of doing so. There are a ton of kernel variations, so this would really only work on specific distros and devices. This becoming standard would likely mean being unable to use optimized kernels, different schedulers, and other kernel modules like the ZFS drivers.
I’m having a hard time understanding how this would work. udev will load kernel modules depending on your hardware, and these modules run in kernel space. Is there an assumption that a kernel module can’t cheat? Or do they have a checksum for each possible kernel module that can be loaded?
Also, how do they read the kernel space code? Userspace can’t do this afaik. Do they load a custom kernel module to do this? Who says it can’t just be replaced with a module that returns the “right” checksum?
It’s bazzite with a custom UI instead of Steam Big Picture and no desktop mode. Their big claim seems to be that they say that they have solved anti cheat on Linux: the system generates a checksum of the kernel space, the anti cheat then compares this checksum with the one on file. No custom kernel module needed on the part of the anti cheat dev. At least in theory.
Desktop mode is coming, its just not implemented yet
I’m interested in them finding a way to get AC working, but I really dislike this method of doing so. There are a ton of kernel variations, so this would really only work on specific distros and devices. This becoming standard would likely mean being unable to use optimized kernels, different schedulers, and other kernel modules like the ZFS drivers.
I was discussing this a few months back; an immutable fs is way more secure for gaming compared to Windows.
I’m having a hard time understanding how this would work. udev will load kernel modules depending on your hardware, and these modules run in kernel space. Is there an assumption that a kernel module can’t cheat? Or do they have a checksum for each possible kernel module that can be loaded?
Also, how do they read the kernel space code? Userspace can’t do this afaik. Do they load a custom kernel module to do this? Who says it can’t just be replaced with a module that returns the “right” checksum?