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Is the Key to Linux a Games-Based Distro?
An anonymous reader writes "If in the FOSS community we could only get our act together and launch a game-based distro, we will be home and dry. That, at least, is the view of one British games enthusiast, Ian Bonham, who says in the short Linux World article: 'I would be happy to help a group of volunteers create a distro based on games, because I believe that's where the next generation is - NOT in giving away copies of Linux or OOo. That's a short-term ideal. The PS2 and the X-Box(sic) run Linux, so let's create a distro that turns home PC into a console with development potential. Expand that distro to the consoles. And lets get some 'killer' games on that disk.'"
Not to mention this has already been done before. Heck, Gentoo provides a "games-tailored" kernel for emerging.
It's really true, there are some fundamental issues that need to be resolved before having a games-based distro. Right now, there wouldn't be that many games to play on it anyway.
The nice thing about game consoles is that all the hardware is basically the same. If I buy a game for PS2 or XBOX, I know it will work on my PS2 or XBOX. Start letting someone put the linux based game distro on any PC, and they will complain about performance and certain things not working properly because they decided to test it on that old 486 they had in the closet.
It would be quite cool to have some game-targeted features in the kernel for instance:
;-) Would it not help performance
Ability to "lock" the scheduler, so that the game gets 100% CPU until it unlocks (effectively
making it a single process OS like DOS while in this mode).
While in the above mode, a user-configurable keypress to pause the whole system, no matter
what's going on.
Running the games in kernel space? Maybe this is just madness
if the CPU wasn't switching between contexts?
I'm sure I could think of more - yes I know this might not make the most stable system out
there, but for games use, wouldn't that be a good compromise?
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I think the answer then lies within a solid emulator. I think gamining companies would support this as well. It would take them far less time and money to make sure their game was programmed to operate within Wine than to write a Linux port. Not to mention the pool of open source volunteers at their disposal.
A modded Xbox running XBMC is a whole lot more user-friendly than anything I've seen for Linux. The software is easy to configure and use, looks great on an HDTV. As I understand XBMC is a port of mplayer - but the customizations they've done for it to work with the remote control and adding a multi-media browser (for file selection) take it to the next level.
What would be really great is to port XBMC back to Linux, and meld it with MythTV for PVR functions. Supply the distro with preconfigured Emulators (just drop roms in a particular folder). I'm sure a distro like this would be something that many people would be interested it.
A bootable, playable CD would solve a lot of headaches for game developers.. provided you can solve the driver issues.
Bah, I do that now. I reboot into Windows whenever I want to game. That is the sole purpose of my dual boot.
Pippin.
Remember the short lived Apple console? That's what happens when a company without many resources tries to enter the game industry. Although this isn't a console approach, I doubt it would end in success. People won't flock over to Linux just to play games. Nobody ever buys a Mac for gaming.
Linux already has a market niche and is associated with being 'for nerds.' It's going to take a serious overhaul to try to do this, and its not even guaranteed to succeed.
...
I've been using Linux as my sole home desktop environment for years now. Since the very begining we have been hearing (and chanting) claims about how Linux needs game to become mainstream. Whats interesting is Linux now *has* games. I think a games focused distro would be smart, but certainly won't fix (or hide) the number of other areas in which Linux distro still need to mature.
Linux isn't experiencing a high rate of adoption because its still too hard to use. We know this. No amount of games is going to fix that and [name your favorite distro here] are making slow but relentlessly steady headway (see Microsoft cringe).
My point is there is no single solution at this point. Linux needs Users Friendly standards from the layout to the message dialogs, application naming conventions, install/uninstall and system configuration. Thats a lot detail and involves a lot of seperate pieces. Standardising is also FUCKING BORING WORK. So don't expect it to happen as quickly as some other things.
Games are cool, but its not that simple.
Quack, quack.
The problem is that if someone has a game that they really like (the Warcraft 2 Expansion Set comes to mind for me), then they will want to be able to run that game on their PC. If they can't, it doesn't really matter if the PC runs newer games (which is what manufacturers will port) or not. If they can't run their existing favorite games, they can't run Linux full time.
.doc format; Evolution can connect to my Microsoft Exchange server; etc.).
e lopment
For this reason, I consider a games distro to be one of the worst ideas to gain Linux converts. There are just too many games.
Concentrating on general (email, web browser, word processing, spreadsheet, etc.) and specific (CAD, web design: e.g. Dreamweaver) applications makes more sense. There the issues are more in terms of supporting a few apps that someone uses almost exclusively. File compatibility is the important part, not application compatibility (I don't need to run Microsoft Word if OpenOffice can load and save
I especially like CAD as a Linux app, because CAD designers frequently run *only* their CAD software on their PC. Even if they can't run any other software on it, it doesn't matter. They wouldn't anyway. Further, CAD uses gobs of resources and is thus better suited for lean running Linux (system processes leave more room for CAD processes).
IMO, games should be one of the last areas of focus for Linux developers. There are just too many legacy games which will never get ported. Thus promoting hacks like WINE. Linux should concentrate on its own apps, not pretending to be Microsoft Windows.
In the meantime, consider looking at multi-platform game development engines like those provided by Garage Games: http://www.garagegames.com/pg/browse.php?type=dev
Multi-platform engines enable game designers to get both markets easily. Ideally, they could develop on Linux (less system process bloat means faster compiling) and test the game on Microsoft Windows.
Btw, now that I have actually RTFA, I notice that the author is talking about something like bootable CDs with games on them. This already existed: that's exactly what Gentoo Games CDs were. The website ( www.gentoogames.com ) no longer seems to work, so I'm guessing that it never took off. Morphix also works on this (game specific live CD).
Another reason not to wait for games is the problem of too much of them being content rather than code. Modern games are frequently based on impressive 3D graphics (content) and movies (content) rather than spectacular game engines (code). Several of the big time multi-player games have already released Linux version (e.g. Id Software products). Until Linux has much more of a market share (at least 20%), we can't expect anyone to develop a Linux only game.
Look at how much money Microsoft is losing on XBox. Not a problem for them, since they have the money to lose. Linux doesn't have those kinds of resources. One game wouldn't do it. To really draw people would take ten or twenty.
I have been asking this one since the day I saw my first Knoppix CD.
Why can't we build games where everything you need to run the game is right on the CD?
There are already Linux distros out there that boot into MAME. Why can't we create some type of standard that is the "whole package" answer to DirectX?
As long as your hardware is compatible, you just work. You boot from the CD and play that game and that game only. We can create a standard bootable game distro and port games inside that distro.
Once you have it running in a "fixed environment" of a bootable CD (you know every piece of code on the CD and its version, so you are in total control of compatibility and run environment), you can expand to get the same game to run in a general Linux environment.
Would it be a PITA to reboot my PC just to play a game? Yeah. Don't I already do something similar with console games? Yeah. Aren't I basically just turning my PC into a fixed environment like a console? Yes, but it is an environment where the developer has total control over the run environmnet.
Am I smoking crack here or does this make at least some sense?
Why doesnt the OSS community collaborate with Apple to make a robust *well marketed* alternative to DirectX for *nix? It would use OpenGL of course for the graphics. The rest of it might even be able to come directly from some existing projects.
This would be a win for Apple and the community as then game developers could target one platform that would encompass Mac, Linux, BSD etc. Perhaps the combination of all these platforms together would be a big enough number to start convincing game companies to pursue the *nix market.
The key here would be convincing Apple to throw in the marketing. Without marketing, it would probably never take off. And come to think of it, maybe it would be impossible to convince Apple since they really arent trying to sell gaming machines. idunno, just a thought that seems to make a lot of sense in a lot of ways.
I was going to moderate this discussion, but somone has to say this:
/usr/bin or /bin or /var/usr/bin confusion. If one distro took over by having all the features that desktop Linux needed, which in my view is basically Fedora to unify toolkit look across gtk, gtk2, and qt, but with better hardware detection (ala binary non OSS drivers) and better package management (ala automatically installed apt-get), the standardized directory layout would encourage more Linux ports of games.
A standardized Linux distro is needed. Not another obscure niched one except built just for games. Because a standardized distro would be inherrently best for games.
Imagine if Bruce Perens' UserLinux came with nvidia and ati's binary drivers and automatically installed them during the distro installation. Currently no distro that I know of does this, the drivers must be manually installed.
One could argue that in most cases you have to do the same thing in Windows, but in Windows all that requires is double clicking an install file. In Linux you have to usually exit X, check dependencies, and all kinds of other cryptic stuff.
Finally, the one thing that we most need that a standardized distro can provide, is a standardized directory layout. None of this
As a software author, most authors only release their software as source when dealing with Linux, because it's the only way to ensure that it will work in every distro. But if there was a standardized directory layout and package management system, every dependency could always be found in the same spot and there'd be no need for third party package management and binary compilation.
This may seem like nitpicking, but many companies don't port their games to Linux on the sole basis that they 1. don't want to release source and 2. don't want to take the time to write an installer which can accomodate every distro's different package management, directory layout, and dependency tree.
So that, my friends, is what Linux needs. Create that and gaming will follow.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
I get identical performance, including framerates, in linux and windows with both ut2003 and the ut2004 demo.
I also play Alpha Centauri, Neverwinter Nights, Enemy Territory, Kohan, and Civilization: Call to Power very satisfactorily in linux, thanks largely to tuxgames.com.
The only reason I still have a dual-boot is Rise of Nations. There are more games available for linux than people realize. Everything id publishes, and epic game's stuff, and an eclectic assortment of others.
Games that I have played in the last couple months on my linux box:
:)
Neverwinter Nights and expansions
Quake 1,2,3 and mods
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Unreal 2k3/2k4demo and mods
Warcraft III and expansion
Diablo I and II and expansion
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Angband
Descent III
Half life and mods
Games that I've been really annoyed that I couldn't play on my linux box in the last few months:
Unreal II
Various midi-enabled piano-tutor games
Linux gaming is not where it was a few years ago. You might need a winex rpm to get past the copy controls for some of the games but it's cheaper and better than buying windows (or any proprietary console or whatever).
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...