TheCornCollector

I’m European and had to do the same, so it’s based on something else.

Don’t know about Ubuntu specifically but for all software I actually want to work, I wait for the first point release upon a major release.

AllenAI has released open source models with open training data, code and science. If you value the ‘source’ to actually be open. They’ve also published the multimodal Molmo models.

I got some weird specialised hardware over USB working via WinBoat. Might be an option for some.

I can only speak for the Heroic launcher but this has been my experience:

• One click play button like Steam, but it’s easier to configure Linux-specific settings in the menu.
• Updates are done automatically or can be forced like Steam.
• Cloud saves are available, but need to be done manually from the game settings menu with the risk of user error.
• There is a friends list and chat, but the games I played had their own in-game friends list.
• Unfortunately, no achievements from what I’ve seen.
• No DRM, so you truly own the game. (as far as it’s possible to own something digital.)
• Linux game support seems to not be any worse than Steam
• Built-in Wine/Proton version installer.