Linux is downright absurdly dev friendly; especially if you're into pure C, or ancient languages like LISP, TeX, or PERL.

The absurd number of utility programs built in those languages is staggering.

... but if you've locked your software into using various windows-specific APIs, you're kind of toast. That shouldn't be the case with Galaxy, but it's a common thing with some game developers.

GOG (at least on Linux) don't put their games in a sandbox, Flatpack and Steam instead choose a directory for the game and restrict its filesystem access to that directory tree; that should probably a considered a missing security feature. For cloud saves, that means that the savefiles go whereever the developers thought of, instead of being forced to a restricted directory.

For a wholly offline installer, what new features need to be added? Prompt for a directory, install, add desktop shortcuts uninstall, do something when installing in to a directory that already has files in. Icculus' GTK2 based MojoSetup already does that.

And operations friendly. Setting up an internal certificate chain or many custom network configs on Windows or Macos feels like pulling teeth.

On Linux, it is trivially easy in comparison.

The question is almost never "is it difficult ?" but "is it worth it ?"

Also the "coding" part is the tip of the iceberg, even if it took only a single click to convert the Windows version of Galaxy into a Linux you would still need to take into account the testing, the project management, the support, and after all those things are added whenever or not the ROI would justify it.

agree , even just the support part is probably costly , the staff has to understand different linux distros and that is a pain , no wonder nearly nobody supports general linux

It's less about new additions, but more modernizing away from a sunset toolkit. GOG's installers are a flashbang in this world of dark mode everything, and it'd be nice if they conformed to modern UI. That's really it, and it's kind of petty, but GOG could at the least also upgrade the Icculus installers to their latest versions or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Oh, and patches. Gods, I'd love proper patches for Linux.

Apart from some of the other suggestions in this thread that might be true, I suspect it is as simple as not wanting extra work, especially based on the likely financial return.

Whatever they create, would require maintenance too.
The old GOG Downloader went by the wayside due to maintenance issues.

And Galaxy itself isn't even complete yet.
Maybe when Galaxy is complete they may consider doing a Linux version, but I seriously doubt there is enough motivation there.

And if no-one currently employed by GOG has the expertise then they would likely need to employ someone who does.

There would also be other factors.
Right now GOG can continue to claim they don't provide Linux support, even though the odd game has a bonus of a Linux version.
But if they did a Linux Galaxy client, then there would be an expectation and a contradiction to deal with.

Well, GOG is probably phasing out Linux support as they regret putting money into it and cannot see the RoI. This I have thought since I realised some eight months after Ubuntu 20.4 came out that GOG still did not support that version. Thanks for others before me pointing out this detail.

Would it not be much easier if all games were sold on the MS shop that is installed in your Windows anyway. Mac people do not need anything aside from Solitaire as it is not appletic to game anyway.

It's exactly this, the percentage of users that uses Linux is really small and you have to divide it by the users that actually care for a launcher having support of the installers, it barely worth it on a plataform like Steam, here is not reslly the place :/
Linux is like 1-2% at most, I also have Linux PC, but don't use it for gaming.

It would probably take a lot of users moving to Linux/SteamOS and them users also using the Steam Deck to probably get GOG to aim for that direction.

I dunno, don't think that user-base is there right now - maybe in due time, if the Steam Deck gets popular?

Also, I dunno if GOG wants to support Steam Deck either, as that's a competitor's store-front built into SteamOS and the Deck.

Probably like 3 people and their dog would even use a Linux version of Galaxy, that's why.

Even so there are developers who won't provide a Linux build although it's available on (considers recently locked threads)... in other places, because they can't integrate it with Galaxy on Linux. Which is very unfortunate for the state of Linux gaming on GOG...

Has Galaxy itself proven to be worth it? If it came down to having Galaxy, or having acceptable customer support, which one is better for GOG's bottom line?