Proton's stable branch sat still for 49 days, then returned with two EA App fixes
Proton's stable branch has moved for the first time since August 21. Proton 11.0-2e was tagged in Valve's own Proton repository at 17:49:01 UTC on October 9, and the whole of it is two fixes to EA's launcher.
Valve's own Steam Deck photography. Proton is the compatibility layer the handheld runs Windows games through. Image: Valve
The release body runs to three lines. "A small update for Proton 11.0-2:", then "Fixed EA App Launcher login window not being focused properly with Gamescope" and "Fixed EA App titles not displaying the correct splash image". The release points at commit bc89621 and carries two files. All of that was read from the release page at 21:45 UTC on October 10.
One thing this is not is a Valve statement. The release was published by the GitHub account ivyl, whose profile gives the name Arek Hiler, the organisation CodeWeavers and a bio reading "Proton Janitor". Proton is Valve's project and the tag sits in Valve's repository, but the words in it are not Valve's.
Two lines, both about EA's launcher
The EA App is the launcher EA puts in front of its own games, so on a Linux machine Proton has to run the launcher before it ever reaches the game. The first fix is about focus, which decides which window the keyboard is talking to, and it happens under Gamescope, the compositor Valve develops in a repository of its own.
The second is cosmetic: EA App titles were not showing the correct splash image. No game is named in either line.
Forty-nine days, with Experimental in between
Proton 11.0-2 was published on August 21, which is 49 days before this one. Every tag the repository pushed in that window carries the experimental-bleeding-edge prefix, and those are builds rather than announcements: five of them went up on October 10 alone, one on October 9 and three on October 8.
Against the rest of the 11.0 line, that is a long pause. Proton 11.0-1 was published on July 7, 11.0-1b on July 28 and 11.0-2 on August 21, which is 21 days and then 24. Then 49.
The older line has not been abandoned either. Proton 10.0-4b went out on July 28, the same day as 11.0-1b, so the repository was patching both lines in one morning.
Proton is the compatibility layer that lets a Linux machine run a Windows game, and it is what a Steam Deck runs Windows games through. The numbered releases are the ones that carry a version with them, and Experimental is the rolling channel beside them.
Proton Experimental is where anything visible has been landing. It picked up early 32-bit OpenXR support that needs the PROTON_USE_WOW64 flag on October 7, and in September it took the first ARM64 build of Wine Mono, the .NET layer the Steam Frame uses. Neither is part of 11.0-2e, which carries its two lines and nothing else.
The two channels have been moving at very different speeds. The rolling builds were tagged on each of October 8, 9 and 10, while the numbered branch moved once between August 21 and October 9, and moved for a launcher.
Something larger is in testing behind it. A release candidate for Proton 11.0-3 opened in the same repository at 19:20:09 UTC on October 9, 91 minutes after 11.0-2e was tagged, posted by the same account and carrying a changelog that calls itself tentative.
Forty-nine days of quiet on stable, and what finally broke it is EA's login box and a wrong splash screen.
