Valve’s Lepton project aims to bring Android games to your Linux device
I don’t think it’s too much of an understatement to say that Valve’s Proton layer revolutionized gaming on Linux, which is pretty funny given how it only started because Gabe wanted to get away from Windows 8. Now, it appears the gaming giant wants to do something similar with Android games with a new project called ‘Lepton’.
With a strong emphasis on the gaming side
As spotted by Linuxiac, Valve has released its Lepton project on GitLab. The documentation states that Lepton works best if you download it via the Steam client, but nothing’s stopping you from taking a peek at the source code if that’s more your style.
At the moment, Lepton has a very focused use case:
Lepton disables various Android services that are not required to run games possibly breaking compatibility with some applications.
[…]
Lepton is intended to help game developers bring their VR Android games to the Steam Frame. Other use cases are possible, but were not the focus of development and may lack polish.
While playing VR Android games on your Steam Frame sounds like a great use of Lepton, I honestly don’t see a reason why Valve can’t flesh this out so that people can run Android games on any Linux-based device, and eventually, any Android app. People are using Proton to get non-gaming software on their Linux machines, after all.
