X-Plane Flight Simulator For Linux

sho-gun writes: "It seems that Austin Meyer, creator of X-Plane, is going to be porting his simulator to Linux. X-Plane is an incredible flight simulator which models flight dynamics by using blade-element theory. Many big companies use X-Plane for development. Currently only the support programs (the programs that build the planes, scenery, airfoils) are available but the full application should be available soon, according to the website. Along side with the open-sourced Flightgear, this certainly is good news for flight simulator fans that use Linux."

Comments

Yet another tool of terrorists...

[drsoran]

Along with PGP, flight simulators were used by terrorists in the horrendous attacks of September 11th. We should ban open source flight simulators unless they provide a special government backdoor to monitor who is using them and where they are flying in the virtual world.

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[narfbot]

huh? excuse me? Banning open source products won't stop that. And what they were showing they were using was Microsoft Flight Simulator which is not open source.

Even if they made surveillence back-doors, they would either hack them, or not go on the net so they could be spied, or they would make their own.

You really think they're just another tool? They're gonna do whatever they want however they can. They aren't stupid.

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[Anonymous Coward]

And while we're at it, we should also forbid the sale of talcum, flour, sugar, salt, cocaine, washing powder, and anything else that can be used to create faux anthrax scares. FBI and FEMA are busy enough as there is, without you pranksters sending your silly letters around.

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[Mistah Blue]

Perhaps I should send some virtual Delta Force troopers in to deal with your virtual terrorists, eh?

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[almeida]

It's sarcasm, you idiot.

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT. HAND.

Or alternatively, try humor.

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[Anonymous Coward]

This really is good news. I belong to an organization of patriots, many of whom are geeks fighting the good fight against tyranny. I'm glad we won't need to boot into Windows anymore to practice for some of our upcoming "tasks."

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[Anonymous Coward]

sarcasm? What, is that supposed to be funny? Goto dictionary.com? Now is that supposed to be funny? Am I being funny? lol, sorry, just really bored :)

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[Frank.B.Parker]

Hey, if you want to make the powder somewhat more credible, use a simple trick: put a few drops of fruit juice into a glass, and leave it out during a night or two. The drops will develop into a beautiful mold. Dry and grind the mold, and mix it with the talcum.

The first analysis of the powder will misidentify the mold traces as anthrax. Only the second and third test (which are more detailed, but also take much longer) will reveal it as a false alarm. But at least, it will stay on the front page for a day, until the more precise tests come in!

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[Skuld-Chan]

I have to admit the other day I was playing Flanker 2.5 (www.flanker2.com) and I wondered what it would be like if I dropped several high explosive, unguided onto a building....

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks cool, but what's that "Windows" thing on the system requirements?

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a reply
Do you like it

Re:Yet another tool of terrorists...

[Anonymous Coward]

you're so right, that we should take this to the next level. They used planes too, so outlaw them, they used hotels, rent-a-cars, ate in restaurants, used ATM machines, carried knives, read books...etc..etc... so we should outlaw all these things, or at very least require some kind of registration to use them.. right?.. you blind idiot.. think about what you're saying...

Austin Meyer???

[Isldeur]

I thought Austin Meyer made hot dogs???

My simulator has a first name,
It's L - I - N - U - X,
My simulator has a second name,
It's M - E - Y - E - R...

(Sorry, that's all I can remember...)

Re:Austin Meyer???

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, it's either Austin Powers (the character), or Mike Meyer (the actor), but not a combination of both.

Re:Austin Meyer???

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually _Oscar_ Meyer... close enough though.

Danm

[ZeroData00]

Now MicroSoft can't track every one using flight simulaters and file them as posable terrorists. The System fails again.

Flight physics

[green pizza]

The very coolest thing about X-Plane is the extensive set of flight physics. Land the Space Shuttle, Fly on Mars. They sound cool, but are rightfully difficult! (but fun)

Any word on the price of X-Plane? Is there a chance it may be GPLed? Or at least priced lower than the Win/Mac versions?

Re:Flight physics

[Anonymous Coward]

So they got their flight physics right. But what about the calculations for structural strength, metallurgy, etc. So that we can also use the tool to determine what amount of fuel to carry, and which height to aim for...

Re:Flight physics

[kingrat]

Dont think it will be GPLed...Austin keeps a pretty tight rein on the development.

The game is open to addons and creation of new
scenery and aircraft which can be found all over the place. www.flightsim.com is a good place to start. Dont know about the Linux version, but the Mac/Win versions are very open, even having a real time 'dump' option of paramaters in the game to feed into whatever addon programs people make.

The game also includes some pretty neat features, such as setting up a network of computers, having one be the cockpit and another
being an outside view, or one computer computing the scenery and the other taking care of the rest.

Austin has awesome support, for at least the Mac/Win versions to date, even answering support emails himself.

He is also very open to users ideas and bug tracking. Alot of what is in the game was suggested by others. Another great thing is he also is constantly developing the game, patches appear very frequently.

Re:Flight physics

[Quasar1999]

Any word on the price of X-Plane? Is there a chance it may be GPLed? Or at least priced lower than the Win/Mac versions?

The price won't be lowered... They are not going to sell even one tenth of what they do on the other platforms... Yet developement (or even just porting) has probably cost them quite a bit, and they need to recover the costs somehow...

IANAL but perhaps if the price for the linux version was dropped, we would see Microsoft sue for anti-competitive pricing... :)

Re:Flight physics

[Owen Lynn]

Flight simulators have to stop somewhere short of reality, or you'd need a whole cluster of computers to do the calculations. There's no good mathematical way to calculate turbulence, for instance. Check back in another 10 years, and perhaps you'll have what you want.

But aside from the mechanics of flight is the human element of flying. Flight simulators are terrible (and I would say potentially dangerous) at simulating the real world flying environment. In the simulator, you don't have 10 different people in the traffic pattern, with a frazzled tower controller who gets confused every now and then. Or the terse language and procedures necessary for transitioning through 3 different airspaces.

But simulator time is cheap, as opposed to $50/hr for an old creaky Cessna 172. You also get what you pay for.

Re:Flight physics

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was making a joke. About the materials strength and such of a building - i.e. where would I have to hit the Empire State building with how much fuel to knock it down.

Re:Flight physics

[schwatoo]

I must say, flying on Mars is a lot of fun and very very different. Even with rocket assisted take offs and a REALLLY long runway you're still struggling to get enough airspeed to get you airborn, even though the ground underneath your gear is racing by at 600kts. And just try navigating your way to another airstrip to land. No last minute 45 degree turns to line up with the tarmac, to turn 90 degrees with on Mars it takes a good 10 minutes and you've gone 100 miles in that time... Lotsa fun.

Re:Flight physics

[Anonymous Coward]

No no! He was insightful, not funny. The moderators are always right, so this post is not a joke. He's pointing out how the software is far from being a useful tool for whatever sort of business you're into ;-)

Re:Flight physics

[mindstrm]

I might be mistaken.. but dont' these guys also do some real-world flight simulation for aircraft manufacturers, etc?

Might there not be some additional long-term benefits they forsee in porting to linux? Scalability? clustering of extreme simulations?

Re:Flight physics

[AJWM]

In the simulator, you don't have 10 different people in the traffic pattern, with a frazzled tower controller who gets confused every now and then.

Actually, you can, depending on the sim software and the setup. Years back there was simulator software (SubLogic's? I don't recall) that let you see the other aircraft in the pattern if you networked the machines, and there was also software called something like ATC (Air Traffic Control) Simulator, which also tied into the same net and showed the aircraft on a radar screen. Don't recall the details of how the communications worked.

And I can't imagine anyone playing air traffic controller for fun.

(Oh, and speaking of physics, I've yet to see a PC-based simulator that could model a spin. Although I haven't looked lately.)

Re:Flight physics

[addison]

But simulator time is cheap, as opposed to $50/hr for an old creaky Cessna 172. You also get what you pay for.

If you're paying $50/hr for a 172, I might advise you to take that to heart. :)

Addison

Re:Flight physics

[Chris Hiner]

Actually, there are people that play air traffic controllers for fun. See http://www.vatsim.net/ for example.
With the right equipment, you can even talk to the various ATC people as you fly your filed flight plan.
Right now, according to the Who's online list from vatsim, at http://data.satita.net/who.html there are 43 ATC people (some just observers, some instructors and students), and 155 pilots flying.
There are even virtual airlines out there...
I was amazed when I stumbled across some of them a few weeks ago. Search google for "virtual airlines", there's enough of them that they've got their own directory category.

Re:Flight physics

[ArticulateArne]

A lot depends on the airport. At my home airport, RNH, I payed $53 an hour for a 172 this summer. It's a '67, but I know the guy I'm renting it from (he was my CFI, also the airport manager out there, among other things) and that the airplane is in good condition. It's flown mostly by him, and students doing supervised solos. On the other hand, at the airport near where I'm going to school, SGF, I pay $65 for a slightly newer 172 at the FBO. Of course, it's at a bigger airport with higher fuel prices, landing fees, etc. I guess all of which is to say that it's still possible to find a low price on a decent rental, you just have to look in the right spots. And yes, you do get what you pay for. The 150s at the FBO are $47.50/hr, and I sometimes wonder how they manage to keep them in the air for so little...

Re:Flight physics

[ScumBiker]

I wish 172's where $50 per hour. Where I'm getting my lessons, it's $65 per hour. A Cessna-152 is $52 per hour.
I do agree that home simulators are kinda not cool, mainly because there's no feedback loop for your reflexes. Plus the fact that it suck to have to futs with the highhat button (or whatever) to see sideways. I've always wanted to have 3 monitors so I can get a 3 angle view.

Re:Flight physics

[nathanm]

Flight simulators have to stop somewhere short of reality, or you'd need a whole cluster of computers to do the calculations.

Good point! I work in the flight simulation business, and there's a good quote relating to this: to build a completely realistic simulator would cost as much as the aircraft itself. This would probably hold somewhat true for operation as well.

Re:NYC maps ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would maps of the Redmond campus be more appropriate? You don't need to train for missions which are already accomplished.

Re:Oooh slashdot spam

[mindstrm]

Uh.. slashdot is not just about free software.

Xplane (the world's most accurate flight simulator you can have without a military budget) being ported to linux is *fantastic* news.

Not everything needs to be free, bub. It's only free if people are willing to write it for free.

Anthrax is easyer

[Anonymous Coward]

(n/t)

Re:Anthrax is easyer

[Anonymous Coward]

yes. yes, it is.

How does this compare to the other flight sims?

[anotherone]

For instance (just because this is the one I'm currently addicted to) MS flight sim- it's got practically the whole country modeled. Does this thing have any landscapes included, or is it just the a few places you can fly in?

Re:How does this compare to the other flight sims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this thing have any landscapes included, or is it just the a few places you can fly into?

No, for the moment, it just contains Manhatten, Washington DC, and Redmond. But for starters, that should be amply enough.

Re:How does this compare to the other flight sims?

[anotherone]

Haw... Redmond. Figures.

Forget the twin towers, then... Crazed linux advocates UNITE!

Re:How does this compare to the other flight sims?

[redcliffe]

I personally think FlightGear is better. It's not finished, but there are aspects of the XPlane simulator that I don't think are right. For instance the clouds look 3D, but in certain circumstances you can see that they aren't really. There just some other inconsistancies that tell me that the've tried to make it look as good as they can, but the underlying stuff isn't that good.

With the FlightGear project, we are putting in the time to do it right. We will eventually have autogen and stuff like that, but we will do it better.

Re:How does this compare to the other flight sims?

[Wyatt Earp]

http://www.x-plane.com/descrip.html

"X-Plane is the world's most comprehensive, powerful flight simulator, and has the most realistic flight model available for personal computers.

Welcome to the world of props, jets, single- and multi-engine airplanes, as well as gliders, helicopters and VTOLs such as the V-22 Osprey and AV8-B Harrier.

X-Plane comes with subsonic and supersonic flight dynamics, sporting aircraft from the Bell 206 Jet-Ranger helicopter and Cessna 172 light plane to the supersonic Concorde and Mach-3 XB-70 Valkyrie. X-Plane comes with about 40 aircraft spanning the aviation industry (and history), and several hundred more are freely downloadable from the internet.

X-Plane scenery is almost world-wide, withs cenery for the entire United States, Hawaii, Alaska, Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan on the CD, and more scenery downloadable from www.X-Plane.com. You can land at any of over 18,000 airports, as well as test your mettle on aircraft carriers, helipads on building tops, frigates that pitch and roll in the waves, and oil rigs."

"X-Plane also has detailed failure-modeling, with 35 systems that can be failed manually or randomly, when you least expect it! You can fail instruments, engines, flight controls, and landing gear at any moment.

While X-Plane is the world's most COMPREHENSIVE flight sim, your purchase also comes with Plane-Maker (to create your own airplanes) World-Maker (to create your own scenery), and Weather Briefer (to get a weather briefing before the flight if you use real weather conditions downloaded from the net).

X-Plane is also extremely customizable, allowing you to easily create textures, sounds, and instrument panels for your own airplanes that you design or the planes that come with the sim."

It comes with
Part-Maker (to make airfoils for your aircraft if you would like to make your own planes).
Plane-Maker (to make your own planes and helos if desired)
World-Maker (to make your own scenery to fly in if you like)
Weather-Briefer (to get a weather-briefing before your flight if desired)
X-Plane (the actual flight simulator)

It's pretty amazing, I just got it after a cousin who is a laid off Airline pilot (Mesa - CRJ) bought it for his G4 and was amazed by it. I'm pretty amazed too, I've be doing touch and goes with B-2s and B-1Bs out of Edwards and Ellsworth AFBs for the last two days...drop the temp to 10 F, add snow and gusts to simulate South Dakota in the winter...gobs of fun.

Oh and your wings can ice up, imagine the fearful looks, hunting for the de-icer button when the icing warning pops up on your screen.

Re:How does this compare to the other flight sims?

[AJWM]

the most realistic flight model available

Ah, but will it let me do spins?

Plane-Maker (to make your own planes and helos if desired)

I want to model rocket planes like the EZ-Rocket! (Better yet, I want to fly the real thing!)

Re:How does this compare to the other flight sims?

[sydneyfong]

How does this compare to the other flight sims?
The best flight sim comes from IOCCC

(Here is the code and
here are some clues.)

That should teach them not to open suspicious mail

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, every school boy knows that you can catch viruses when doubleclicking on attachments of dubious mails. What did they think? They still didn't learn after Melissa, ILuvYou, Sircam, etc.

Yea...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but does it run under linux? Oh wait...

Re:I r0X0r!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?

What?!

I'm blind drunk but still I've got to post something, don't I?

why dont US military/air force have open sims ?

[johnjones]

question why don't the US military/air force open up their simulators ?

I thought in the good US of A that all projects that the government does the people of the US of A had access to the source

Unless
It was deemed that it was endangering security of the nation
Or
It was contracted out to a company and then they had all the IP

I don't see how a simulator could fit into any of the above
The dynamics of a fighter plane YES but not a Cessna
The military airports YES but not civil airport where the data is already published

Since the MS flight sim is ahead of most things what have you got to lose in asking ?
(Politely since the Military don't like question right now)

regards

john jones

p.s. I am not a citizen of the USA so am just wondering

Re:why dont US military/air force have open sims ?

[Desus]

"p.s. I am not a citizen of the USA so am just wondering"

That line right there probably answers your question as to why the Air Force doesn't open up their simulators. That's the very essence of National Security right there. To have Military Airports in a game, even if they aren't the exact replicas or layout, is a huge threat.Enemies have to get their knowledge from somewhere, and something like this (even though it would be very cool) could easily be used for harm.

Re:why dont US military/air force have open sims ?

[Smitedogg]

I can see why they might be hesitant about releasing it, but like mentioned, why not get rid of the military airports and re-release it? Besides, it's not hard to get plans for military airports, I just did a quick look and came up with the plans for Hickam AFB in Honolulu, HI - a major Air Force base. I think they should be more worried about that before they worry about harmless video games that _might_ be used by terrorists. We can't just lock up everything that may be used by terrorists; what next, ID needed for Diesel and Fertilizer?

Re:why dont US military/air force have open sims ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We can't just lock up everything that may be used by terrorists; what next, ID needed for Diesel and Fertilizer?"

That combo managed to kill 300-odd people in Oklahoma. Yes, proper ID/credentials for buying large quantities of things which can make bombs would be a good idea, if only to give a good paper trail afterwards (and preferably at least some kind of checking beforehand).

Re:why dont US military/air force have open sims ?

[sysadmn]

Well, all the simulators I worked with either ran on custom or near custom hardware (anyone remember the Harris NightHawk?), and/or used REAL hardware to 'simulate' subsystems. That is, the simulation porvided the external world, fed the simulated sensor inputs into an actual flight control computer.

For one example of the current art, see dsix

Re:why dont US military/air force have open sims ?

[maggard]

Because the US DOD doesn't use PC's to train pilots on. It uses much larger more sophisticated systems running on high-end hardware connected to large physical simulators.

These multimillion-dollar simulators are built and supported by contractors who own their internals. It's not unlikely the US DOD has access to the code but the developers have no interest in giving it away; particularly when other governments are also willing to pay for this technology.

Honestly I can't imagine who would be suprised by this or how the originial question got scored so high.

Re:why dont US military/air force have open sims ?

[foobar104]

(Sorry in advance for the long post.)

I thought in the good US of A that all projects that the government does the people of the US of A had access to the source [u]nless [i]t was deemed that it was endangering security of the nation [o]r [i]t was contracted out to a company and then they had all the IP

Both of those things is usually true.

For two years I worked as a consultant for a company that built training simulators for the USAF, the Air Force Reserve, and several foreign military services (countries like Denmark, South Korea, Jordan, Egypt, and so on). This company's two big products were an F-16 tactical simulator and an F-18 mission simulator.

Some fairly significant parts of the simulator runtime code are classified. As an example, some configurations of the F-16 can be equipped with the AIM-120 AMRAAM radar-guided missile. The code that handles the capabilities of the AMRAAM, and its interactions with the mission control systems, and its dynamics in the air is all classified.

(The details of this code is classified; the existence of it isn't. At least, I hope not. Otherwise, I'm in a shit-load of trouble right now.)

So obviously classified code can't be open-sourced.

The code that wasn't classified (a lot-- if you replaced classified modules with stubs, it was possible to run the whole F-16 load in unclassified mode; we did that a lot for visiting suits and stuff) was proprietary. In some cases, it was highly proprietary.

My example here is the F-16's mission control computer. The source code for this computer's programs was provided to us by Lockheed; we translated it line-by-line, mostly by hand, from assembly language into Ada-83 and compiled it to run on the sim's SGI Onyx host computer. This module was basically the core of the simulator, and it was of course a closely guarded commercial secret, even though it wasn't technically classified by the DOD.

We did something similar with the F-18's mission computer programs, but instead of translating them, we ran them natively in a Motorola processor emulator on the SGI host. This was kind of a cluster f*ck; it took 17 MIPS CPUs to emulate the two Motorola processors and the one 1553 mux bus controller in the MCC in real time. But somebody decided it was cheaper to throw hardware at it than to translate Boeing's code.

The other distinctive thing about US military flight sims-- at least the two I worked closely on, and also the F-22 tactical sim with which I worked a little-- is that they're not generic flight-dynamics simulators. Rather than taking the programmed characteristics of a wing or an airframe, like it sounds like X-Plane does, these sims were built with the full knowledge of the aircraft's flight characteristics. So it would be completely impossible to take the F-16 Block 30 code, change a data file, and have an F-16 Block 42 sim, much less a space shuttle sim or a 767 sim or whatever. These apps just weren't built like that.

A lot more goes into a tactical or mission training sim than just flight dynamics, anyway. I'd guess that maybe one out of five modules in the F-16 sim dealt with flying the plane; less than that in the F-18 sim. The rest was cockpit interface drivers (we had a real cockpit, with hundreds of individual hardware devices, wired into the sim; the serial mux control code was impressive) and inter-sim communication (DIS [defense information systems] and HLA [high-level architecture] protocols) and image generation and tactical DCS (distributed coordinate system) databases and the operator/instructor interface and it goes on and on and on. These things would only be relevant in context of a military tactical or mission sim, flown by military pilots in training, in a military installation with military instructors and other military sims connected over the military's encrypted wide-area training network.

I hope that answered your question, at least in part.

Re:why dont US military/air force have open sims ?

[Samedi1971]

Well, all the simulators I worked with either ran on custom or near custom hardware (anyone remember the Harris NightHawk?), and/or used REAL hardware to 'simulate' subsystems.

Nighthawk code is fairly portable to other posix unix systems. The interface hardware isn't really important, since it's the flight and systems models that matter. Port those and add an X display interface and visual scene generator and you've got a high-fidelity sim based on real flight data.

These days I work on commercial flight sims (the full-motion FAA-certified kind) running on linux computers. You can run the simulation on any old off the shelf pc. Not that anyone could afford to pay upwards of $1,000,000 to license the software for a single flight model.

Re:why dont US military/air force have open sims ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, whatever the fuck a deltic is, it probably means moron.

Simple physics

[Anonymous Coward]

The "fancy physics" of this game sound pretty straightforward.

Just hire a couple of pre-free software aerodynamics post-graduates for a few months and you'll have the same stuff GPLd.

Re:Simple physics

[DGolden]

If anyone's hiring, I'm free. :-) Masters in mechanical engineering, with a heavy emphasis on CFD...

(Far too much like hard work if I wasn't being paid for it though...)

Re:Simple physics

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone's hiring, I'm free. :-)

Do you mean free as in speech or free as in beer? Or do you just mean available ?:-)

Re:Simple physics

[DGolden]

I just mean available for work. .com collapse and all that.

Re:Oooh slashdot spam

[Ogerman]

Not everything needs to be free, bub. It's only free if people are willing to write it for free.

On the other hand, it makes no sense whatsoever for any software NOT to be free, regardless of whether or not the programmers are willing to work for free or not. For instance, companies who need a simulator can take FlightGear and pay someone to expand upon it to suit their own needs. Or a gov't agency can write open code which will benefit them AND the commercial aerospace industry (not to mention gamers..) The social value of generating public goods is immense. So lets dispense with this "not all software should be free" BS. Intellectual property wrecks havoc on the efficiency of dynamic industries such as software.

More details

[ppetru]

I'm the guy doing the port. I'm not sure whether Austin had plans for this but I guess he gave up after the repeated requests he got to give me the source to port on it. Some details:

1. It won't be open source.

2. It won't be free (I don't know what Austin's plans are but I guess the price will be the same as the Win/Mac version).

3. I'm not getting any money for doing the port -- as I told Austin, I'm doing it for the sake of having a good flight sim for Linux.

4. The file format, network data and outputs will be compatible with the Win/Mac version.

5. The port uses libSDL (before you scream bloody murder about license violation, have a look and note that it's dynamically linked).

6. Since it's SDL-based, a FreeBSD port should be easy enough to do once the general *nix porting issues are solved. I don't know what's the status of OpenGL on FreeBSD; X-Plane *requires* OpenGL and you probably don't want to run it in software emulation. Until a native FreeBSD version will exist, the Linux binaries should run just fine using the Linux compatibility mode (but see the OpenGL notes above).

If you want to see the full app happening, here's how you can help:

1. Download the beta, test it, and send me feedback.

2. Email austin@x-plane.com and tell him that you think a Linux version of X-Plane is great. This is needed because I only got the subprograms source so far, and he doesn't seem 100% convinced yet to send me the main source too.

Re:More details

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya know, I was so ready to say "you forgot one more: it'll run faster on FreeBSD." Dammit, you already covered that one. ;-)

Re:More details

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like a great simulator. I personally think that it is ludicrus that everyone is asking for this program to be GPL'd. Iv'e never played this sim, but it goes without saying that such a program is a very complicated and time consuming thing. To even think that someone may be willing to hand over the code in that manner is maddening. I think that you are doing a great thing for the Linux, *NIX realm, and for the flight sim genra in general. Iv'e been saddened in the decline of quality fight sims (particullary combat type) being produced. They just don't have the thought put into them that many of the older ones had, even though they are growing very long in the tooth.

I think that Linux, and the flight sim world needs to adopt some of the same ideas that have made other genras of games popular. Those being:

• Multiplayer real-time combat
• Massively multiplayer games (afterall, what's better than multiplayer than massivley multiplayer?) A distributed system of volunteer servers (such as universities, using a freely available, but secure server) could provide connectivity for thousands of players.
• Well designed mission/sortie objective system (the flight simulator equivalent of Rainbow Six, with great opportunity for cooperation, teamwork, etc.)
• Different classes of vehicle (like the different classes in Tribes2 [air units, ground, etc.]) -- I thought that this was one of the best, but most underplayed aspects of sims like AirWarrior. For example, and AWACS crew could feed long range radar information to fighters, bombers, and Heli squads could do the close in and dirty work. In essence, the use of tactics are a must to do anything useful in such a game.

Obiously, making a sim like this too real would (possibly?) eliminate some of the fun. Spawns of units should not happen at real world intervals, etc. (How long does it take to build an F-15 anyway?). I have just been foaming at the mouth for a new, killer flight sim. The last ones that I have really, really enjoyed were Janes' ATF, and Eurofighter 2000. Both of those games brought some level of innovation to the industry (even though both had their respective flaws), and were in that way a milestone for other sims to compete with. I was just thinking that the X-Plane flight, rendering engines would be great for use in a flight sim in the likes that the world has never seen before. I personally would pay upwards of $200-250 (so, I put a high value on well done simulators) to play such a game, if it were done right. I imagine that many hardcore flight sim fanatics would not hesitate to pay that much for a sim that had the featurs I have outlined (perhaps even more). Maybe Austin would not like to have his hand in such a project (ethical reasons, given recent events, or what have you), but I feel that given todays wide availibility of high speed, (relatively) low latency connections, that a massively mutiplayer (but somewhat open and hackable [to lesser extend for apparent reasons]) sim is just begging to be done.
Everyone complains that FPSs', RPGs, (and other genras) are all cookie cutter made, with similar stories, and action, and sport nithing less than non-intellectual mind numbing involvement (read stare and drewl). This is an oppurtunity to incite change just waiting to happen, and I sincerely hope that someone nabs it up, and gives it the TLC that it (flight sims, in general)deserve.

Re:More details

[thogard]

This isn't a game, its a flight simulator.

Re:More details

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice the careful use of the terms "Sim" and "Flight Simulator", in my drunken writeup. Chess is a game, and a simulation is an approximation of reality. That's what this sumilator I suggest shoud be: An Approximation Of Reality . Is that bold enough for you to understand now? The military uses "War Games" to simulate reality (in a limited fashion, as all simulations are), so I fail to see the distinction you draw. Arguing over semantics make me yawn, and so do pretentious (not to mention anal) bureaucrats. If you don't like the idea, that's your problem; not mine.

Little known fact: my use of the semicolon in the previous sentance is incorrect. Just ask me if I care!

GNU-jihad!

[Anonymous Coward]

razed linux advocates UNITE!

Someone already sent an anthrax-coated letter to Bill.

GNU-jihad!

Re:GNU-jihad!

[Frank.B.Parker]

Oh great! Now RMS has a new goal in life: to convince Osama bin Laden to change its name to Osama gnu Laden...

Re:Oooh slashdot spam

[nomadic]

On the other hand, it makes no sense whatsoever for any software NOT to be free, regardless of whether or not the programmers are willing to work for free or not.

Sure it does. Make your software closed, and everyone will have to come to you for the upgrades.

Oh god, you are sooo funny

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't remember when it was, but at some point recently, all the intelligent people left and idiots like this guy replaced them.

This is it, I've had it with Slashdot, goodbye.

I'll buy it!

[steve.m]

I got 5.x a few months back, and upgraded all the way to 5.66 (which i'm happy with). I wasn't too impressed that even though I'd only had 5.x for a few months, there was no upgrade path to 6 (gotta pay full price) - so it's the only reason I keep Win98 around.
when 6 gets released on linux, i'll be buying it and trashing my 98 install.

go petru! go austin!

Re:A couple of questions

[nbvb]

#1) It's not open source.
#2) It's not "getting a free ride" or anything like that. It's about bringing good software to another operating system.

What the HELL is the big deal with people charging for decent software?

I absolutely, 100% agree that most software is crap and isn't worth the bits it's written on. But there ARE pieces of software that are WELL WORTH what the author is asking for.

Mac OS X -- I didn't mind paying $129 for it. It's well worth the investment.

X-Plane -- this is a great flight sim that's worth the $49 I paid for it.

Adobe Photoshop Elements -- Finally, a photoshop that's priced reasonably. I paid $90 for it and didn't mind one bit. It's a great piece of code and worth it.

Veritas Volume Manager -- makes your life better. Worth the $$$.

Solaris -- Worth the $80 for the media. (Although I don't think media costs NEAR $80, Solaris is still worth $80.)

OmniWeb -- worth $29. Nice browser, nice features.

Not worth it:
Microsoft anything -- we all know why.

Sun Cluster -- Sun makes some of the sh_ttiest clustering software ever.

99% of other software.
---------

I guess my point here is that JUST because someone charges for software doesn't make it bad. The quality of the code determines whether it's worth it or not!

--nbvb

Re:That should teach them not to open suspicious m

[raz16]

I don't think they are trying to double-click on their snail-mail. ;) But now you maybe will see virus scanners for both types of mail.

Domestic terrorism!

[Anonymous Coward]

Check this out.

The day of the attacks, University of New Mexico history professor Richard Berthold said in a course on Western civilization: "Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon has my vote.". Soon after his comment became public, violent threats followed and the 55-year-old Berthold agreed to leave the campus.

If academicians aren't allowed to say innocent things like this, we're soon living in a fascist society.

Re:Domestic terrorism!

[Anonymous Coward]

Any academic who says something that isn't much of an academic. These people are paid to think and this man did not, there is no reason the university should have done anything else.

Re:Domestic terrorism!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell yeah.
Looks like they fired his ass for stupidity - very valid reason in their line of work.

Re:Domestic terrorism!

[mimbleton]

"Soon after his comment became public, violent threats followed and the 55-year-old Berthold agreed to leave the campus for a week for his safety, a spokeswoman said. He has apologized, saying, "I was a jerk. But the First Amendment protects my right to be a jerk." An internal investigation is under way."

Hmm ... he has a rigth to be a jerk just as UNM has a right to fire jerks.

Re:Oooh slashdot spam

[Anonymous Coward]

That's plain unethical.

Now this is cool.

[trilucid]

From the page on Mars sims:

... The result? If you take off with 60 knots on the airspeed indicator, your REAL speed is SIX HUNDRED KNOTS! (about Mach 1) Take it from me, Mach-1 takeoffs are quite a thing to behold, when the plane will barely leave the runway at that speed.

To me, this is the best reason I've seen yet for creating sim software that uses real-world physics and modeling. I don't know of any other sims in existence that offer this level of "playability"; am I wrong here?

These guys have gone to great lengths to make this thing "the real deal", and I applaud their decision to make it usable under Linux. I stopped messing around with Windows-on-Linux type stuff months ago (well, partially due to the fact that almost everything I use runs under Linux ;-] ). The biggest thing I've been missing is stuff * I * find fun, which generally isn't the usual FPS games.

I can tell already I'm gonna be spending entirely too much time modeling new plane designs (and consequently flying them into the ground, d'oh! ).

Are there any other projects out there that focus this heavily on the physics modeling side of things for sims? Please tell me some of them run on Linux :-).

Re:Oooh slashdot spam

[rossjudson]

Beauty is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. X-Plane is a really neat simulator, and you're saying that Austin should be forced to give it away for free? I'm sure you LIKE getting stuff for free, but it has to be freely given, not forcibly taken. So I'd say that from the standpoint of a commercial author, it makes quite a lot of sense for software to be NON-free.
Considering the state of the national airsystem right now, simulators may be the best bet for a lot of people out there. The vast majority of private pilots are not permitted to fly at the moment; enhanced class B airspaces are still closed to VFR flight. This may enter a gradual period of reduced constraint over the next few weeks.

Who?

[Mike Schiraldi]

What's the name of the new flight simulator for Linux?

X-Plane.

Explain what?

Just X-Plane.

I want you to tell me what the name of the new flight simulator for Linux is.

X-Plane!

Look, i don't know how i can be any clearer here.

Re:Oooh slashdot spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Computer flightsims are hardly accurate no matter how 3l333t the name is. Unless you're a MS flighsim captain.... Get in a real plane and fly around...

Poor drsoran

[fm6]

We all take our karma where we can get it. But "funny"? He's a fascist, not a commedian.

Re:Poor drsoran

[Anonymous Coward]

stop whining you fucking prick.

Re:Poor drsoran

[dillon_rinker]

You need geritol! You have irony-poor blood!

Uhm, redundant?

[fm6]

The site claims the Windows version runs fine under Wine.

Re:Uhm, redundant?

[ruszka]

There is no redundancy. Just because the Windows version may run fine under Wine means nothing. The very thought that Austin is looking into creating X-Plane for Linux is tremendous all on its own. It's a big step and it's too bad more people aren't considering doing it.

Re:A couple of questions

[mimbleton]

"Microsoft anything -- we all know why. "

No, we don't.
Please elaborate .

* MOD PARENT DOWN *

[Anonymous Coward]

drsoran is a troll, as can clearly be seen from this post. Please moderate him down accordingly.

Late Linux ports of games is a losing business ...

[dougmc]

Unfortunately, doing Linux ports of games months or even years after the Windows version has been released is a really poor business model.

The people who really wanted to buy X-Plane already did -- months ago, when it came out initially. These people aren't likely to go out and buy it *again* -- even though it'll now run on their favorite OS -- unless they're TRULY dedicated to the game.

X-Plane came out in Feburary for Win32. How many games do you know of that you like so much that you'll buy it *again* after eight months? Not many!

If you want people to buy Linux games and buy them in reasonable numbers, you're going to need to release the Linux version at about the same time as the Windows version -- otherwise, only a few people are going to buy your game.

Suppose you've got your average gamer -- he dual boots between Linux and Windows. He goes into the computer store, and sees X-Plane for Linux -- $50. He then sees X-Plane for Windows in the bargian bin for $10. Which is he likely to buy?

The same applies to Mac ports of PC games, but to a lesser degree -- after all, outside of something like SoftPC, a Mac cannot run the same software as a Windows box -- where a x86 box that runs Linux box could also run Windows and therefore Windows games.

In any event, since Austin is doing the port for free, I guess they're not going to lose much on this one, even if nobody buys it.

Re:Oooh slashdot spam

[Anonymous Coward]

..it's also plain business.

Re:Late Linux ports of games is a losing business

[dougmc]

Ooops. X-Plane came out in Decmber of 2000, according to Gamespot. -- not Feb 2001 as the other review said.

And it hasn't quite made it to $9.99 yet (at least not via mail order) -- EBWorld.com seems to sell it for $19.99. Not sure how much it is over at the mall ...

Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

dougmc is a troll, as can clearly be seen from this post. Please moderate him down accordingly.

Re:Oooh slashdot spam

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. The math that goes into that thing must be amazing.

Don't get me wrong, open source software is good, but this guy certainly deserves to make some money off of this software, if it really is as good as it sounds.

Flying inspired a Unix guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a little something written by a Unix guy inspired by flying.
http://www.hrbibt.com/silent.htm

Re:Late Linux ports of games is a losing business

[Wyatt Earp]

Sorry.

X-Plane 6.0.4 came out on the 10th of October for Mac and Windows.

http://www.x-plane.com/

And you won't see it in the bargin bin, because the developer has gone to distributing it himself.

http://www.x-plane.com/order.html

"X-PLANE 6.00 IS NOT BEING SOLD IN STORES! IF YOU WANT X-PLANE 6.00, ORDER IT HERE!

X-Plane 6.00 is $59.99 +$10.00 Domestic or $30.00 International shipping.
This CD includes both Macintosh and Windows versions of X-Plane, as well as your choice of scenery CD.
Your purchase allows free updates through all 6.x versions."

Re:Late Linux ports of games is a losing business

[avalys]

You obviously don't understand how Austin's business model works - when you buy his simulator, you get a cd that serves to verify you paid for his sim - you can then download free updates from his web site until the next major version. If you pay for the sim, you can download it for win32, macos and now linux. You don't have to pay for each individually. I bought x-plane a while ago, and previously used it only on windows. Now I can use it on linux without paying a cent.

This rocks!

[Chris Johnson]

I just wanted to say for anyone who's not familiar with this sim that it is THE geek flight sim bar none. I've been running it on the Mac since it was $200, and it was worth it even at that price.

It's never perfectly debugged but it's also never stopped adding cool details, features and stuff. These get divided among flight model features and eye candy. In the former category, Austin (yes, this is all ONE GUY coding it) added support for gyrocopters. (It's _always_ had helicopter support, which is rare). In the latter category, he's been enhancing the clouds and scenery hugely- even 5.66 (not the new version) already has very impressive 3D clouds, which don't even eat the frame rate that much.

The true geek factor in X-Plane is not even flying the planes- it's designing them. Using all the tools like Part-Maker, Plane-Maker (and these need to be included, 'scuse me for stating the obvious) you can literally design just about anything, right down to designing your own _airfoils_, using various third-party stuff to determine lift/drag/moment of the foil at various angles of attack, and then entering that into Part-Maker to bring the airfoil into X-Plane for use. Plane-Maker is about placing wings and elements anywhere, NOT about punching in 'stall, top speed' etc values: the utterly amazingly geeky thing about this sim is that it builds the flight model from just analysis of the plane parts, ten times a second, relative to things like AoA and speed and propwash and ground effect. So when you put something together in Plane-Maker, and it doesn't exist in the real world, you're actually using X-Plane as an aeronautical design tool, and instead of working out on paper whether the CG is too far aft, you save the plane, fire up X-Plane, 'get in the drivers' seat' and take the bastard up and see if it kills you ;)

That's about as cool as virtual reality gets, right there- and it's the heart of the geek appeal, to me: if you play with the sim this way you have to _be_ capable of interpreting behavior like a test pilot. The planes behave in amazingly unexpected ways. I've had a high-speed jet show a nasty tendency to pitch up sharply at a certain speed- puzzling until I realised that it was hitting Mach 1, and the shockwave was interacting with the wing geometry (!) Try _that_ in MSFS or Fly...

I've actually taken ideas from Slashdot into X-Plane: some time ago there was an article about Japanese ground-effect flying trains, so naturally what do I do? Go fire up Plane-Maker, and try to build a ground-effect vehicle that maintained a consistent ground height all by itself. Didn't quite succeed, but I did manage to make the most forgiving aircraft I've ever seen for zooming about really close to the ground... and now there's gyrocopter support, there's lighter-than-air support (and the Hindenburg), and the helos (and the SoloTrek- yes, the two-ducted-fan thing that you stand on), and whatever neat aero thing turns up next year on Slashdot, I am sure X-Plane will be able to handle modelling it. Hell, there's even an entirely fictional Japanese Anime Plane to play with. I flew it straight up into space and the stars came out, in a perfectly black sky, as I passed escape velocity. Now if we could model something _real_ that does that, we'd really have something...

Think of it as a commercial aviation design simulator for less than $50. There are in fact a _number_ of people using it to rough-draft real-world planes being built in real life... suffice to say, X-Plane getting a Linux port is _totally_ news for nerds, and if you're an aero nerd it is very much stuff that matters. It's probably the single coolest program I have, of any description. If you want a specifically opensource flight sim, Flight Gear has a lot going for it- but if your interest is strictly aviationgeek and not coder, X-Plane absolutely maims anything else out there, by a wide margin, even given that it's usually kinda quirky (5.66 was running nicely for me, though).

Re:This rocks!

[mimbleton]

"the utterly amazingly geeky thing about this sim is that it builds the flight model from just analysis of the plane parts,"

Flight Unlimited, commercial fs was one of the first on the market to use this kind of model instead of state machine which was common back then.
It was around 1995 or 1996.
I fail to see what's so great about this X-Plane.

Re:This rocks!

[StarTux]

Go to x-plane.com and work it out instead of whining here :).

Really, X-plane had a lot before FU and did it better and to greater detail, however the price tag was $200.

Just go to www.x-plane.com I was totally amazed by the detail. I fail to see what why you cannot find anything amazing in x-plane. Maybe its because its going to be ported to Linux?

StarTux

Re:This rocks!

[mimbleton]

I just played it and it is ok but nothing out of ordinary.
In fact there is no view panning, controls sucks.
This product suffers from lack of polish and finish which is understandable considering the fact that it was create by one dude.
Reasonably fun simulator but nothing that I have not seen before.
PS.
I am not flight simulators fanatic or pilot and therefore it is entirely possible that I might have missed something that stands this product apart from everything else.
Just talking about "fun factor".

Re:This rocks!

[StarTux]

Played it too, thought differently. Guess thats apples and oranges :). Its says joysticks are optional, I beg to differ though.

The eye candy is actually a lot better than MSFTFS 2000, which is something I did not expect.

One thing that does stand out is the fully "rendered" Mars, check his website on flying on Mars. I followed some links and found that you can orbit Earth also, not bad.

StarTux
PS Turn indicators on cars as they turn, well not accurate for California I guess :). Take your time, there is a lot in their.

I for one will buy it

[johnjones]

I will be buying it

bit of advice on porting it

test and code it on more than one arch say PPC and x86 running linux and maybe even have a go at getting it to run on solaris
(alot of uni hardware is sparc solaris so think of all the profs willing to play ;-)

you can download Solaris for x86 for free or get it on CD for shipping costs
(this reduces the amount of hardware that you need)
once its running on this the sparc is just a differant set of compile switchs in that big ol makefile

oh and have a go with gcc3.01 just for fun (-;

thanks again

regards

john jones

Re:Late Linux ports of games is a losing business

[Chris Johnson]

Um, no- X-Plane came out well before 1997. That was back in the days before 3D cards- at the time, it sold for $249, as as an engineering simulator for homebuilders, an IFR trainer and a VFR trainer all in one.

It's still all that and a bag of chips, but please don't get the impression that X-Plane comes from gamer land.

Re:A couple of questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, please do. Last time I checked, most of the opensource proggies were utter crap when compared to Microsoft's offerings. Have you used any of their software since Win3.1? Their current line up is hard to beat.

Re:Late Linux ports of games is a losing business

[Anonymous Coward]

Thirty bucks to ship a cdrom to Canada? Fuck that noise.

Re:Late Linux ports of games is a losing business

[dougmc]

Excellent! You're right, I was unaware of that.

I was thinking of all the `Loki will port X game to Linux' posts that seem to make it to slashdot. -- they almost always force you to buy the game again (Loki didn't do Unreal Tournament, did he? THAT you could download a Linux port for, and that was done right (and later versions had the Linux version on the CD.))

Also Makes a Mech Combat Simulator

[Myriad]

For those who are interested the author also write a program called Younge's Modulus which is essentially a Mech Combat Simulator that uses the same realistic physics engine as X-Plane does (of course were more concerned with walking, rather than flying in this case).

If you want to try it, there is a demo version available (MAC/Windows only).

I'd buy it but...

[sv0f]

...I hate how they advertise their product with all those pop-under ads.

Re:Oooh slashdot spam

[mindstrm]

Although that may be a viable business model.....

And Open-source may be a fantastic idea for some stuff...

The fact remains: if software has value, people will pay for it.

Dynamic industries such as software? Hmm.
IP laws are overbroad and rediculous, in this I agree. Anyone should be free to write their own version of something.. patents are rediculous...
I do feel copyright still holds, though, at least, for the actual work. (not necessarily the design).

Yes. Many things that are somewhat necessary in today's society (office apps, etc) should be OSS and free to all. That benefits society.
But.. games are entertainment.. they have a short shelf-life in general...they usually don't have long-term profits for a particular game (except perhaps quake and diablo)... and.. you get the picture (maybe).

You techno hippie anarchist geeks make me sick.

WEll...

[mindstrm]

That's because the emphasis on X-plane is on realistic flight modelling, not realistic scenery.
Yes.. MS Flight Sim (I have it) has excellent scenery. I had fun flying small planes around my hometown (Central B.C.) by landmarks alone.. quite interesting.

Apparently, the X-plane flight model is second to none.

Re:WEll...

[redcliffe]

Personally I can't feel any major differences in the C172 flight models of Flightgear or X-Plane, but flightgear does require more data to get the flightmodel correct.

Re:WEll...

[thogard]

lucky you, I havn't gottne Flight gear to compile this year. Something about needing 40+ libraries and the newest ones won't work so you have to dig up old ones.

I've given up on flight gear. All I want is a sim that I can set the cloud to 100% and do some instrument approaches. If I want a nice view, I'll go get in a real cessna.

Re:WEll...

[redcliffe]

You can do that now. There are both RPMs and DEB packages available. There's a windows version too. Instrument approaches are near perfect, the only problem at the moment is that the active ILS is on both ends, but we are working on that.

There are only two libraries, but you need to get your OpenGL hardware accelleration going. You just get the latest stable SimGear and Plib. Then the 0.7.8 FlightGear and compile it. The stable versions do work. I'm a FlightGear developer and I use CVS which occasionally breaks, but otherwise there shouldn't be too many problems getting it to go.

To drop the visibility, I think the key is Z/shift-Z. 0.7.8 has the older panel, but the it's quite a bit better than the one in MSFS 98, and the new panel in CVS is even better. Keep away from the hills! :-)

BTW I'm going to start a website about flying in FGFS when I get time.

David

Kudos to me!

[Hagabard]

Frist Posterior! I sacrifice my Karma in the name of the Anal-Jihad.

Allah_Spork, accept me in thy kingdom...

Err, em

[Pope]

On the other hand, it makes no sense whatsoever for any software NOT to be free

Why?
Just because some software can be free, it does not follow that all software must be free.
I for one don't give a flying fuck about having the source for any of the apps I use because I'm not a programmer: I don't miss it and I couldn't do anything with it even if I had it.

Open your mind a little and realize that both free and commercial software can, nay, should exist. I don't mind paying others for their albour and expertise in things I know nothing about, the same as I get paid for my expertise.

GPL and price

[kimihia]

What does the GPL have to do wtith price?

"GNU Pricing Levels"

Re:Late Linux ports of games is a losing business

[MattBurke]

Suppose you've got your average gamer

This isn't really a product for your "average gamer"...

Great News

[Anonymous Coward]

I really like flight simulators, and hated going into Windows just to play Fly!. I will hold off getting the new version of X-Plane (I was going to get it for my birthday), since they are working on a Linux version.

Of course, now I will have to see if I can get my CH Yoke, and pedals working under Linux.

This is great news!

Re:Err, em-burp

[Anonymous Coward]

"I for one don't give a flying fuck about having the source for any of the apps I use because I'm not a programmer: I don't miss it and I couldn't do anything with it even if I had it."

So by your reasoning Linux should be closed source. Good thing your not the only one on the planet.

Re:Oooh slashdot spam-"I" POV

[Anonymous Coward]

"The fact remains: if software has value, people will pay for it."

So if people are downloading Linux, does that mean it has no value? Interesting POV.

Realism?

[Skuld-Chan]

I dunno - after I took off I was doing manuevers I'm used to in fighter sims with a British Airways Airliner - like aileron rolls, and cuban loops - and I'm serious. Although I've never flown a real air-liner I doubt one would do this as willingly as the game made it seem. I could pull turns that one would use to evade missle locks without even stalling.

If I had a bit more power I probably could have pulled off the bell manuever (where you fly straight up - let the jet stall, and come straight down at some attack angel)

Keep working on it guys :).

Re:Realism?

[NiceBacon]

A loop is not a manouver that strains the plane a lot. Its a positive G only thing, and most - if not all - planes should be able to do it.

Re:Oooh slashdot spam

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not everything needs to be free, bub. It's only free if people are willing to write it for free."

Well the guy doing the porting is doing it for free. So why are we paying for it again?

Re:A couple of questions

[nbvb]

Things that beat any Microsoft offering are:

here
here
here
here
here
and here

And if you want to delve deeper into Answer #1:

Included when you buy a Mac:
iTunes
iMovie
Mac OS X
Quicktime

Things worth paying for (if they're your can of soup):
Final Cut Pro
FileMaker
AppleWorks

I hear complaints that the cheapest Mac is still more expensive than the cheap PC's. So what? You get what you pay for. Does the PC include a Unix-based OS that's fast and slick as hell (KDE & Gnome are neither.)? No. Does it come with a full-fledged MP3 manager/player/ripper? No. Gotta pay the Microsoft Tax if you actually want to legally convert your CD's into a digital format. Do they come with a real movie editing program? Nope, don't have that either. MS Movie Maker is a poor excuse for anything. And best of all, I don't need Microsoft ANYTHING to use my Mac! Or use my Sun workstation, either!

Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

"...good news for flight simulator fans that use Linux."

You mean the 0.0001% of the linux user base ?

Demo.

[StarTux]

Tried the demo, 48 meg download but its worth it.

In fact to beta test the modules this was the only way I can get them to work. Although the plane maker one will not load with the demo as it needs "cockpit:standard:aoa".

Not bad, actually it seems like a lot of fun. Especially with lots of planes already available. Just wish setting up joysticks on Linux didn't suck so much.

StarTux

Re:Flight physics (take Orbiter)

[Marsell]

X-Plane costs less $60 US... it's right there on the web-site.

However, if your are interested in accurate physics (at least in space), you ought to try Orbiter. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned it yet.

The physics there are the most accurate I've seen for a PC space game. The graphics are spectacular, and accurate (at least for those space bodies where such data exists). For some bodies there are 8192*8192 bitmaps (heh, you'll _need_ a good graphics card if you choose that option!). Best of all, it's free.

The only downside is it is not open source, nor does it run in anything but Windows.

I really recommend it to anyone who likes all the nice physics stuff, and the eyecandy, but isn't scared off by a _steep_ learning curve. At least go take a look at the purty screenshots.

Pricing info

[ppetru]

For those who asked: as I said in the previous post, I don't know what Austin's plans are, but I believe that it will be the same as with the current Mac and Win32 versions: if you have the CD, you can play on any platform.

Thus, people who already bought the CD can simply download and run the Linux version with no extra money to pay.

PS: (the shameless plug part) I'd love it if I got a job working on flight sims, I'm sick and tired of web development :)

How well does it run?

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it run reasonably smoothly on my ghetto AMD-K6 200Mhz/64MB RAM 'puter if I turned the graphic quality down a few notches? Would love to try the game but don't want to waste the time installing it only to find it runs like molasses..

not able to read all of comment

[johnjones]

can you read ?
(insulting I know but I'm sick of this)

read my comment and pay attention to what I say about military airports and planes

I have got sick of people on slashdot recently unable to read comments and have the feeling that VA Linux staff do 98% of the moderation

did you not read the part about F18 simulation and Military airports being classified ?
but civil NOT being

its sad that the people of the US say they are open but in fact the government agencies contract out all the work and so then it cant be open

regards

john 'bad mood' jones

p.s. oh and I stuck in the citizen of USA bit so that fools would not complain about me not being and harp on about national security but that failed didnt it !

Re:Late Linux ports of games is a losing business

[thogard]

His business model used to work a bit differently. If you wanted his program, you paid. If you wanted a game, he didn't want your money.

Argh.

[mindstrm]

Stupid hippie.

Let me rephrase:
'If people percieve software as being worth some of their money, they will pay for it'.

Would I pay for linux if I had to? Now? Abso-fucking-lutely.

You techno hippie open-source nerds need to quit watching 'Antitrust' like some kind of cult classic and go get a life. It's not for you to tell others they shouldn't sell their work.

Re:Argh.

[Ogerman]

You techno hippie open-source nerds need to quit watching 'Antitrust' like some kind of cult classic and go get a life. It's not for you to tell others they shouldn't sell their work.
I never said they shouldn't sell their work They have every right to if they like. I'm just advocating that the users of software need to fully realize the power of collaboration to meet their needs. Most don't even give it a glancing first thought. It's a matter of priority. First (optimal) choice is to create or extend a collaborative open source project. If that is absolutely infeasible, THEN you go looking for proprietary solutions as a backup. And I'm neither a hippie nor an anarchist nor a nerd and I've never seen that cheezy 'antitrust' movie.

Re:A couple of questions

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly constitutes "last time I checked".
I find it hard to think that a
generalized statement like "MS's lineup is hard
to beat" could be derived from someone who has
actually used linux in any meaningful capacity.
It is a shame that intelligence test results
can't accompany everyones post here.

Re:Flight physics (take Orbiter)

[Anonymous Coward]

39.95 at compusa

X-plane!

[thejake316]

I'd like to X-press my X-treme X-huberance at another X-game for X-windows. I'm in X-stacy!

I just hope it's as good as X-pilot!

Signed,
X-bill

Re:A couple of questions

[mimbleton]

Hehehe.
You truly like your Macs, good for you.

"And best of all, I don't need Microsoft ANYTHING to use my Mac! "

But you need Apple everything and that is more than I could stand.
Apple is simply NOT a good software company.

Re:Late Linux ports of games is a losing business

[NiceBacon]

The X-PLane 5.0 CD I purchased had both a mac and a pc version on it. They both require the cd to be inserted so you can't play them on different machines at the same time. I guess that the Linux version will funktion the same way.

Anyone try designing new paper airplanes with it?

[Twitch42]

I have no idea if the s/w is acurate on that level, or if such things scale, but it seems like you might be able to come up with some impressive party favors.