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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.'"
Can we get Tux Racer? Now that's livin'...
I agree with this assessmanent, however, one of the biggest challenges is to get peoples legacy Windows games to work, which is quite the challenge, if possible at all, on a reliable basis.
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
Yeah, whatever.
There's so much missing structurally for that to even be considered. You know, silly stuff like reliable, robust video and sound drivers.
Cart before the horse.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
As long as it doesn't go the way of Loki...
How about a variation of a bootable Linux Game CD that you can also install later ala Knoppix?
Of course, you couldn't just run OS/2 off of a CD with no install, and video was next to impossible to configure correctly when you didn't specifically know what video card was in the box, and networking didn't work, yada, yada, yada...
Anyway, it would certainly help to have a WIDE VARIETY of games, that rivalled ones on other platforms, etc.
It takes companies years, millions, and hundreds of megabytes to create successful games, and the success to linux is a game that actually runs on linux? No, I say linux needs to be able to run PC games (well and without hassle).
When you get to hell -- tell 'em Itchy sent ya!
It's going to take a bad ass mofo of a game, and one that's NOT available on any other platform.
Make it so attractive, so kick-ass, so awesome and so LINUX that they will flock to it.
Don't let it out for M$ and don't copy a M$ or console game.
The Mac suffers from a shortage of games, albeit not as great as Linux, and those games sell for $$$. It's a nice thought but the reality is that you need the developers too. A whiz-bang platform without games leaves you... well... with a neat looking Linux box with a game controller.
Trolling is a art,
I think knoppix does a great job: you can fire it up and see what it looks like, and if you want, mount a hard-drive partition for the cd, or just install onto your harddrive.
Add games and you've got teen-geek heaven.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Indrema!
...did I miss the point here somewhere? Just about everything I know about gaming says that the more the OS stays out of the way, the better. Now they want to replace our thin OS-like layers with a complete business/research oriented OS. Why?
Seriously, the OS doesn't *do* anything for a game. All a game really needs is a collection of APIs to transparently access low-level hardware. Threading is nice, but "green" thread libraries can be used in its stead. That's much the reason why MSDOS (save for the 640K barrier) was such a great gaming platform. The OS literally did nothing. It got the frick out of the way, and stayed there.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
That's a step backwards I think. At least in windows you can both develop/work and play games.
I think a step forward will be to get some form of standard for graphics/sound/input ala DirectX style. sure opengl, oss, sdl are all good libs but they follow the unix philosophy. That is, do one thing and do it well.
There should be a unified development tool/library that includes them all. E.g. I can install "blah" and boom I got 3d graphics, sound support, joystick/keyboard support, timers/interrupt/callback etc...
Of course that doesn't stop people from just picking their fav collection of tools [e.g. ut2k4 which runs perfectly on my Gentoo box].
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
In addition to getting the old Windows games to work and needing better video drivers etc. You're going to have to get the game companies to develope games for Linux. Overall I think this is a good idea. I you have the games based Linux distro then there will be a group which is working on all of these problems (as well all the problems us /.er can't fortell).
As those games are played, kids will be encouraged to learn how they work and maybe work on their own. AMOS and Blitz basic on the Amiga formed a huge range of great games, but getting people learning C++ from an early age would lead to great things for the future, I'm sure.
Does he have any sort of clue what goes into the development of a modern "killer game"?
Programming is nothing. There are thousands of man-hours going into art assets, level design, animation, voiceover production, playtesting, etc..
The days of the kid making a neato race car game on his vic 20 are long, long gone.
And like every other twit in linux land, he offers to "help make a linux games distro, even though im not a programmer and have no appreciable skills". Which follows the standard OSS game production model:
1) Think up cool name for game
2) Open sourceforge project
3) wait for programmers and artists to come write it for you
4) ??
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Mac has tried breaking into the PC gamining scene for decades. They even had that "bigass game thats only available on that platform" called "Marathon."
It requires two things:
Quantity of games
Quality of games
You don't need to make a gaming distro, you need a gaming distro with HUNDREDS (if not more) games already available to it. And not just net-hack and tux-racer, but big name gaming companies spitting out Linux based games.
What do you need to do this? A big-ass company with a ton of cash.
It is a proven plan. Just ask Sony how it broke apart Sega and Nintendo to get into the gaming console. Money, quantity and quality of games.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
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.
woohoo!
My first Linux installation had me drooling at the list of games that were in the Games folder. Then, as I started each, one by one, I found the feeling similar to when you got your Burger King meal's get-the-bb-into-the-holes game.
Or, similarly, found the amazing Atari emulator only to find that those games that used to kick ass now keep your attention for about 30 seconds each - but there's 2,000 of them!
Because I've used Linux at work. I've seen what it can do. I needed to set up a proxy server and got Squid running. I understand what the fuss is about and why everyone is always shouting about it. It's powerful, you can do just about anything that you want with it and it's not as hard to learn as everyone makes it out to be.
Why not run it at home? GAMES!!!
A good deal of people suggest running games under WINE, but from other posts that I've seen, it doesn't seem like WINE does the best job. I'd rather put up with the usual garbage that my Windows machine gives me (random crashes, etc.) because I play a lot of games.
The problem with writing a 'gaming' distro is that you need people to write games for it. While it's not unheard of, it's going to require a good deal of work and what comes first? Users adopt it or game companies release games for it?
It's a great idea and I hope it does take off, but it seems like a lot of work...
3D acceleration out of the box, an instlaler/uninstaller that's newbie friendly, better hardware detection, etc, etc.
Although I'd bet a distro that could run games would be popular just for the piracy potential.
This guy is way out there
For Linux to truly become the gaming OS of choice it will need a killer app that can't run in Windows, forcing users to switch over.
Problem is, no developer will be willing to develop said killer app until Linux becomes the gaming OS of choice.
Windows became the top gaming platform without any special "gaming" versions of its OS. They did this through marketing and its DirectX APIs. Get some good games and people will play them regardless of their distro. Get a "game" distro and nobody will use it without good games. Either way, the distro doesn't matter.
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.
No, the key to making Linux a success is getting frikking copy and paste between applications to work, oh and maybe getting applications to understand the printers that I've got set up in CUPS, oh maybe when I click on a link in Thunderbird Firefox could open the page, oh and maybe the other n thousand things that Windows actually does right for the average user.
Disclaimer: I use GNOME/Linux is my primary desktop, day in day out, there are things I love about it, but the average user experience stinks. Creating a frikkin games distro isn't going to help.
John.
You're wrong in that the XBox runs a highly modified version of the Windows2000, not CE kernel. Just enough of the OS for booting, hardware configuration (aka Live! config), and DVD autoloading is kept internal. The rest of the libraries required to run a game are loaded off of the game DVD.
If you read, "Inside the XBox" you'll know that the original spec was for a custom version of WinCE to be used, but that was scrapped since it would've required making a fork of DirectX that worked with CE.
gentoo already has bootable game cds, one with americas army, and another with ut2003 demo
Imagine if the open source comunity were able to develop a couple of really good games, say just an FPS and an RTS, then release both windows and linux versions. The catch being to charge for the windows version, while releasing the linux version for free. If the games are good enough and don't focus on the activities of penguins, this would be incentive for windows gamers to try linux and see the benefits. I know that the games would then not be considered "free", but the developers could still release the game engines under the GPL or whatever.
Celebrities are like ads, if we all ignore them, they'll just go away.
Develop games for linux? on what processor? x86? And then someone will bother porting it to work well enough on PPC, Sparc, or what have you? You think linux users are marginalized, try being a linux user on a non-x86 platform... not that i'm bitter, mind you. i love having to compile almost everything.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
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.
Just think about it. You boot up Linux for the first time, and the way to activate functionality is to make your way through the "game". The first thing it should read when you boot it up:
It is dark. You will mostly likely be eaten by a Stallman.
>inventory
You are carrying:
man light
>man room
The room brightens. You are in a small chamber. A sign on the wall declares this room to be: init.
A door reads, "Daemon Restroom". A light glows from underneath it. You hear a toilet flush
A tall lanky fella steps out of the darkness. He wears a threadbare cloak and carries a large sack. He opens the sack, and grumbles something about "699". A large stilletto knife dangles from his belt.
Ideally what Linux needs to do for game developers is offer them something more than what Windows gives them.
What could this possibly be? Imagine putting a game you just bought in your computer and it booting up with an OS which is minimalistic with regards to the game in question. Everything it needs and nothing more. Whatever overhead there might be in Windows is irrelevant, this OS is there and just does exactly what you as a game developer needs.
The system boots from the CD (ie knoppix), mounts your windows Hard Disk read/write for game saving, and loads the game. If it's a network game, it brings up your network interfaces too. Everything is detected, and the OS is configured the way the game needs it.
TO BOOT (no pun intended), you can also install the game as a normal windows game and run it from the windows environment if that's what you want, as a user.
Where could one obtain an operating system where they could build this bootable CD from and redistribute free of licensing fees??
What the OSS community who is interested should be focusing on is providing this technology for game developers, giving them a clean and robust migration path out of Windows. Then, miraculously, this framework can be put on top of your existing Linux install with no effort.
Call me crazy. ;)
"Give away the stone, let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and faded anchor." - Maynard James Keenan
Just port the f*cuking EverCrack onto Linux and I'm ready to migrate my desktop. :)
No seriously, that's the only thing that is keeping me and my wife back.
Bot Assisted Blogging
I think that the poster is obviously refering to the X-Box linux project, which via a buffer overflow exploit in certain games, enables linux to be installed without requiring a mod-chip.
The inherent open-ness of Linux and its various development kits allows developers to create software and games software without the costly restrictions and control console manufacturers seem to place over their respective hardware.
It should be noted however that Sony have released a Linux based distro specifically for Playstation 2 for exactly this purpose.
My own personal belief is that it is extremely difficult to create next-gen games without the kinds of near-hollywood budget software houses have to throw at it. Im not saying its impossible, but small scale bedroom coding aint gonna produce the kinds of masterpieces that Lionhead or $GAMESTUDIO_OFCHOICE are producing.
I think a better twist on this idea would be to produce bootable CDROM's ala knoppix, bundled with a specific game. This way you remove the notion of operating system dependancy. Linux enables you to build a very low-level OS, with just enough required to boot the game. If something along these lines were to be introduced it would allow mainstream software studios to sell games to anyone who has an x86 machine, regardless of OS.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
There are probably over a million people running OS X now that have no idea they're running a Unix based OS :). So I think the chance of attracting people to an alternate OS remains slim.
In the end we need something that is easy to use and operate. Say what you want about Windows, but it's still much easier to learn than Linux. Especially if you want to do more than the standard user stuff (install software, etc).
www.lonseidman.com
I thought a few years ago Mandrake had a "gaming edition" that even came with a Linux version of "The Sims". I don't think that really mattered in the long run, though.
-=Android=- Chew's Eye Shop http://www.chewseyeshop.com
"Cart before the horse" was the best quote I saw here. I think getting Linux ready for a corporate desktop should be easier, and based on my little involvement with UserLinux (Bruce Perens' new distro), I think Linux is not quite ready yet for corporate. Close, but little things keep poping up.
OTOH, I think it's good that people keep working on Linux gaming. Parallel software development and all that. I just don't think it's on the critical path right now. :)
In Windows, there are only two modes: clone screen and make all the screens a single desktop. XFree86 (which, I'll consider for the point of argumentation a part of Linux) has much better support, and you can even make many seperate, independent desktops, one on each monitor(very useful for monitors that are of different sizes).
Though seemingly useless unless your budget is really tight, you can even hook up an extra USB keyboard and mouse, and have two people simultaniously use the same computer locally. More info here.
The number of things you can do with XFree86 and Linux is endless, and features are developing very fast. Haven't looked at Linux lately? Look again.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was working for Linux 3d project about 4 years ago, and back then it was not easy. The drivers were poor and X was crushing every 15 minutes. Don't know if it's better now, but...A Linux mobile phones just launched. Mobile phone is a natural handheld gaming platform, it will be PC analog of mobile gaming or better. If Linux phones really take off, they may propell Linux gaming as well. That is if someone developing game for Linux phone this game will run on the Linux PC as well, with minimal effort for porting. I myself indie wonna be and it seems to me Linux gaming have some promise. But if Linux gaming take off it will be low-budget titles mostly IMO...
If EA's catalog for the last 3 years could be played nativly in Linux, the desktop use would explode. Gamers could save the money given to M$ and spend it on games.
Games drive the PC hardware industry now. Nobody needs a 3Ghz processor for business apps. For M$ Office or Open Office a 1.2Ghz to 1.6Ghz is more than enough. The only reason for super fast processors and video cards is to play high end games (graphics workstations are different, I mean the standard home PC).
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Games don't attract people to an OS - an OS attracts game developers because of a target audience.
If Halo had come out for only Linux, do you think there'd be a million more Linux users? No, because nobody is going to ditch their OS just to try out one game. And no game developer is going to spend the millions it takes to make a AAA game on an OS with low yield.
Maybe, just maybe, if there was an excellent hobbyist community and development platform then as amatuer productions like FPS mods and the like get more and more mainstream Linux could get a bit of rise up, but nothing serious I'd imagine.
Linux should just keep the long slow road it's been on. Get prettier, get friendlier.
Take a look at X-Box games that have been ported to the PC. Aside from running on the same processor architecture, DirectX provides a nice buffer for X-Box games to be retargeted for the PC.
Window managers, glibc, OpenGL, etc close the gap somewhat, but there's way too much hardware out there in PC land that isn't supported to its potential under most environments. Also, what about sound (some consoles do 5.1 surround, and others don't) and input devices (light guns, DDR pads, keyboards, mice may or may not be present)?
IMO, An gaming/multimedia-oriented OSS middleware/API similar to DirectX would go a *very* long way to help build better games in a platform-neutral manner; This is exactly what a project like this needs.
wait..did you just say XFree86 and developing fast in the same sentence? Best laugh I have had all day thanks :-)
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
Linux hasn't made it into the enterprise yet, and its whhheeeyyyy ahead there against Linux as a home platform. A crackdown on MS piracy, Media players and P2P apps are more likely to get Linux into the home than games IMO.
Vacancy for signature. Apply within.
Its common knowledge that becoming a superior gaming platform is the best way for a platform to gain mainstream acceptance. Thats why the Amiga has become the dominant computing platform today.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
I'm writing a GBA game right now in my spare time. So far, I've got about 4000 lines of code in the game itself and 7000 in tools (and I'm about to go throw another 3000 or so in tools.) I've spent several days on all of this, and spent about six hours stealing sprites from other games and making other placeholder art. Yes, placeholder art - I needed something to test my code with.
:P) will have spent just as long on art, if not longer.
I imagine, by the time this is done, I'll have spent several times as long working on levels as I have making code, and I imagine my artist (if I ever get one
And this is just a GBA game! I was involved in making Champions of Norrath. The company included:
Five programmers
One (overworked) level designer
Seven artists
And more than once, I ended up implementing stuff we didn't really need because the stuff we did need was waiting on the artists.
Art uses a TON of resources. Programmers, while still absolutely critical to a good game, just don't need as much time anymore.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
...but based on the tried and true formula that fueled the adoption of many other technologies, I think we should consider a PORN based distro. It worked for VCRs, DVD, cable TV, and broadband internet, why couldn't it work for Linux? :)
Chris
The kernel can definately be hacked so that it allows this, but this presents a huge security concern. Every user would have to have the same priveledges as root in order to do this, or the user must play as root.
What's the problem with PCs?
(everybody chimes in, a bored monotone)Crap hardware.
And how do consoles aviod this problem?
(again, a bored chorus)Standardized hardware.
And what's the difference between a PC running Windows XP, some crap video card, crap sound card, and strange Taiwanese motherboard, and Linux distro running the same thing?
(bored chorus)When it comes to games, nothing really.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
...just a suggestion, if you have one or two apps that us seem to be compiling weekly, offer to be that application's build maintainer for your architecture, I'm sure the developers would be glad to have contributed binaries.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
If the people who run around holding forth on what "we" need to do actually did a tenth of what they're calling for, we'd be "home and dry". For that matter, if they did anything useful, it would make all the difference.
Honestly, we've been hearing "What we need to do is make the bestest game ever and only sell it for Lunix and then everyone will use Linux!!!" for years. And what "we" have to show for it is Tuxracer and 500 libraries in search of developers.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Linux games have always had a very me-too nature. There are emulators for old systems, old commercial games that have had the source code made available, lots of little hobbyist remakes of Tron Light Cycles and Boulder Dash and some C64 games. There's some other stuff, too, but not much.
Back when the Apple IIgs was dying, and I paid attention to that system, there was a similar pattern. Oh so many programmers wanted to prove that the gs was an awesome system, so what did they do? They wrote clones of games that were available for other systems. Really, this was cool for the people who only owned a gs, because they couldn't play those games otherwise. But as an outsider looking in you saw all these versions of Tetris and Lunar Lander and so on. Some were spiffy, yes, but wow did it make the gs seem stale. The Amiga followed the same road. It would have been much better for the programmers of those systems to lean hard on creativity rather than getting in a pissing contest with other computers.
I would say that I could easily switch 15% of my customers from windows to Linux Desktops if these apps were NATIVELY available in Linux and had perfect interaction with the windows version:
Act!
Quickbooks
WinFax (client)
AOL
Get the companies that make these programs to make shrink wrapped Linux versions and I'll have them up with Mandrake 10 in a day or two.
It's the APPS, stupid.
And please - to all you pointy heads out there - I know that there are workarounds, compatibility layers, converters, etc. If your first reaction was to point this out, then YOU are one of the people who are part of the problem. Get a clue; users don't grep. And they never will. Understand that and STFU.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
While many more games come out for the PC, there are are fair few that make it to the Mac: UT2004, Halo, Neverwinter Nights, Shadowbane, Everquest, Ghost Recon. And more. Yet Macs still have a 3% marketshare. It'll take more than just having games, or Macs would have been in a better position already. Mostly, it'll take not having Windows on your new computer already, but also an interface with a consistent metaphor that never requires the command line, etc.
--
$tar -xvf
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.
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?
See The New Adventure Shell. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The killer app I think that may have potential to be front runner is Cube. www.cubeengine.com It's not super pretty but its really got a lot of potential, and it really illustrates a lot of the strengths of the open source model. It has innovative features, an ingame map editor for instance.
There should be a unified development tool/library that includes them all. E.g. I can install "blah" and boom I got 3d graphics, sound support, joystick/keyboard support, timers/interrupt/callback etc...
Okay then... I'll just take OpenGL, SDL, and ALSA, put them in one Debian meta-package, call it Universal Games API or "blah" or whatever makes you happy, and there you go.
SDL, OpenGL, ALSA all solve one problem well. They also work together well. Writing OpenGL apps using SDL is simple.
I'm not really sure what you want or why you want it. Yes, all of these libraries are "UNIX philosophy". That means that not only do they do one thing well, they are designed to be easy to make work with other programs that do other things, so you can easily get one program that does both.
What more do you want?
The enemies of Democracy are
Windows got in to the office because it was NOT perceived as a "game" OS.
Remember "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."?
Soon to be replaced by "Nobody ever got fired for saving their company money." (by NOT paying the IBM premium?)
As Windows gets gamier and gamier (, I love the British expression,) it is perceived as less and less of a serious OS. Face it, its broken adn it can't be fixed. Its not a "serious" OS.
IBM's OS died from trying to compete by tying hardware in with the software when they'd given the store away to the clones.
Mac OS was never in the running (except that X-Serve running OS X has a shot.)
Windows is losing mind and marker share. WHY?
Linux is now in the running to win the marbles.
Don't blow it by running games.
Linux is poised to conquer the office PRECICELY because its NOT a game platform and its cheaper than having a bunch of MSCE flubbing things.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I'm gonna agree with you, mostly, but (and there has to be a but ;) I don't think that you just outa the blue one day decided, "Hey, I'm gonna edit movies!"
;)
I'm certain that there was a learning curve, and for some of the higher end NLE's, it's pretty damn steep, and for me, "too much work." But then again, I've used Linux for a long damn time, and *to me* it's actually easier to set up a wireless card under Linux than a Mac(*). So, in the end, what "too much work" means is different for us; just because you are used to one way doesn't mean that different == useless.
And if you can afford 10k$ + 1.5k$ a year for Shake, give the Linux geek down the street a couple of hundred bucks to set up your cluster
(*) Granted it was a Proxim Skyline w/ crappy drivers.
What ever happened to these games? I d/l them both, and they not only booted up, and played the games, but played them well on several computers I ran them on.
I think in order for this to work, we need the following steps:
1. Release Linux like a Game CD you'd put in a Playstation or XBox. I often have to reboot to play a lot of games on my PC anyway, because of Window's poor memory management. Things still work better after a reboot, even in XP.
2. Have it save game files to floppy/USB flash card, or a partition on the hard drive. That way, the Gamer can carry the CD with him, or use a friends, but the game saves will be stored in his USB or floppy, just like a memory stick in a Gabecube, for instance.
3. On boot, just like Knoppix, configure the setup, then goes right to the GUI.
4. The GUI has a menu, maybe like:
a. Play game
b. Run GAIM/XMMS
c. Tweak settings
d. Redetect USB/Floppy saves
e. Advanced configuration
f. Really advanced (aka Linux with some GUI)
g. l33t 4dv4nd0rz (aka XTerm)
x. Shut down, eject CD, reboot
See, things like "f" and "g" will introduce kids to Linux like the command cheat codes and easter eggs in games now.
5. We're Open Source. All we need is for people to start thinking like gamers who can program, and we can turn stuff from Egoboo and bzflag (some of the native choices) into some really sweet FPS. Stop trying to copy what's popular, innovate!
6. Since Open Source is not a great marketing engine (at least yet), we'll have to go by word of mouth. The best way to do that is to make something so unique, that big name companies who worry about stuff like parental ratings and market share couldn't compete. Maybe have a FPS with incredible gore and violence, and maybe nudity. A very addicitve strategy or simulation game, like Civilization, Sim City, or something... but something that hasn't been done before, like My First Brothel.
Even better, start a secret campaign banning the game. Get it blacklisted by a church group. That will put it into the limelight real quick. Well, okay... maybe that's too far. The Republicans might denounce Linux as "spreading immorality to the youth." Forget I said that.
But you have to think like a marketing person. You have to:
1. Create need
2. Fulfill need
3. Sustain need
And I agree, games for Linux would really drive it. I mean, come on, who needs an ATI Radeon 9200 for MSOffice? Games have DRIVEN industries, and Linux should not be counted out.
But, and here's the clincher: is the Linux community ready to be popular? Remember when AOL let users onto Usenet? Think hard about this path.
Valid points, to a degree....
I do not care how customizable Linux is. I don't care what distros are out there. I want to use Linux to get work done.
Same reason I started with Linux -- it was more practical. At some point I swayed into the whole Free Software mindset and actually put up with some workarounds just because I felt it was the right thing to do. No longer. I'm back to using Linux because it's just easier.
I've been thinking of getting Shake, the high end compositing package. It's no longer available for NT. It's only OSX, Irix, and Linux now.
It may have an XP version at some point...
I downloaded Mandrake, because I heard it was easiest to use. I partitioned in advance, burned it, and installed it. It went off without a hitch.
Installation is a strongpoint of Mandrake's.
When I tried to setup my wireless network card, it wasn't automatically recognized and installed. I couldn't find documentation on how to get it recognized and installed. No links to device drivers. Nothing.
Nor was the wireless card in my Thinkpad recognized by Win2K. I had to do lots of Googling and hunting around on the IBM site to find drivers. The modem was recognized without a problem in 2K. Under Linux (RH9, specifically) the wireless 'just worked'. The modem required a download of the Lucent rpm and a rebuild. Then it worked. The ease of installation was a little better for Linux in this case.
At this point, I wanted to quit. For some reason, I didn't.
I felt the same way about Win2K. It was a PITA to locate all the drivers (video, sound, power management, DVD playing, etc..
I used a different card, that was automatically recognized. When I went to setup the ESSID, WEP key, etc, I was presented with lots of options in the network setup. I didn't know what they meant, nor did I suspect they were important.
That's odd. The network setup for the Linux partition was pretty much the same as the Windows version.
In the end, just as the past 3 times (usually every two years) I've installed Linux, I've been annoyed and bogged down with learning useless information that "Just Works" in other operating systems.
And again I felt the same way about Win2K. For example, try getting DivX to play properly under 2K. It required downloading of the DivX program and a fee. The CD Writer required extra software (and a fee). There was no word processor. There was no remote desktop software. There was no graphics software ( I don't count Paint as a graphics program). Updates required a minimum of four reboots for various service packs and "must reboot to complete" packages. Hell, even the digital camera wasn't working properly. Under Linux it was a simple matter of "yum -y update; reboot; yum install OpenOffice". Everything else was installed by default.
Linux does not need a games distro. It needs to be easy to use. I don't care how close it is. If I have to use google to find a device driver, it's too much work. If I have to edit a text file, it's too much work. If I have to manually compile programs, it's too much work. I'm lazy, because there's no reason I shouldn't be.
And this was just for the laptop. Have you ever tried configuring Windows for commodity hardware (i.e., not bought from a big name manufacturer?). It's near impossible to find drivers that work properly. Under Linux most stuff "just works". Edit text files? Ever try to clean up spyware and adware from a Windows machine before Adaware existed? You're talking serious registry hacking there. Let's not forget all the little tweaks to the TCP/IP stack under Windows that requires, that's right, more registry hacking. Under Linux these are text files in plain English. Now I'm not saying that you need to mess with the registry for everything under Windows, but it's unfair to claim that it's easier than having to edit a text file.
The key to Linux's mainstream success is offering the same services of other operating systems rather than offering services only a few people give a damn about.
Linux is a lot bigger than some may realize. It's getting mainstream.
not the other way around. Games by themselves won't make people come to the platform, and no developer will sink the (millions of) dollars it takes to build a game if there's no chance the investment will be worthwhile. Look at the Mac: it had MS beat, hands down, on user interface and desktop publishing tools that took advantage of the nifty commonality of a standard GUI. The problem being, of course, that Apple discouraged people from buying the Mac by pricing it well above PCs and keeping it a very closed platform. We naturally know how that turned out. Now, while people still use Macs for Photoshop and other desktop publishing tasks today, the bulk of the work is done on Windows PCs and THE EXACT SAME SOFTWARE (ported to the PC). This isn't because the desktop publishing software came to Windows and the legions of rabid Mac users clamoring for PCs raised Windows out of the dirt and made it king. The developers behind said software said, "Gee, there's a lot of people using PCs and Windows. Maybe we should try to sell them some software..." Games under Windows were, similarly, a joke and, more importantly, a huge pain in the ass until Windows95 and, more importantly, DirectX. This is true. But what is also true is that developers STILL TRIED to put those games out on Windows. Remember WinG? Or having special DOS BOOT disks to run your favorite resource-intensive game that Windows was muscling out of CPU time? Yeah, me too. I was king of autoexec.bat and config.sys for this very reason. Microsoft eventually came around and admitted that it was hard for developers to write games under Windows and gave them DirectX. Notice a pattern here? Microsoft, if nothing else, has gone to great lengths to strike a balance between keeping the PC as open a platform as possible (Windows runs on nearly 100% of the hardware out there -- granted, a lot of hardware is designed with Windows in mind wrt. driver support, but it's the same problem of the installed base...) and making it easier and easier to use. This is one thing they have done QUITE correctly. Now, on the other hand, being a CS geek and general practitioner of most CS philosophy/ideology, I think that Unix (and Linux, by extension) is more PHILOSOPHICALLY correct in its approach to computing. It's much more modular, security and multiple users have been in place since the beginning, and stability generally trumps features. This is good. What is bad is how hard it has been, historically, for people that don't know what they're doing to get going in Linux. And, if you're Joe User who just wants to download pictures off your camera and look at pictures of girlies on the web, it's more trouble than it's worth because Windows, for all its faults, does it out of the box. Linux needs to get into the business. Into the small to mid-size business. Vendors need to push the point that, in general, you will pay through the nose to get Windows installed legally on 3 computers in your home office. Price and user control is still king in this game (hell, it's why the PC won), but people need to be convinced that it's cheaper and just as good. Better, even -- who cares if it's just as good? If they have to spend a lot of time to learn it, then, guess what? It's not cheaper; people value their time above most other things. And, sadly, while OOo is just as good as (I use it every day), it's not *better* than Word. My thoughts, anyway. C
The Sun is proof that we can't even do fire properly.
It seems to me that a solid cross-platform API is worth two gaming distros. As it is, I can whip up a little demo in SDL and run it under linux or windows or a host of other operating systems. I think if we could get good industry support for OpenAL and OpenGL to supplant less compliant libraries, that a good API like SDL could serve the purpose rather than devoloping a whole distro around games.
Passionately pushing pixels since 8086 =)
Get the ISO
The morphix site
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
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.
An easy parallel... Imagine having never used windows before. You go and install a version of Windows that doesnt have drivers built in for your wireless card. You would have the same amount of trouble. Good luck finding the driver without google as well. I have had more problems with drivers while installing Windows than Linux the majority of the time. Knoppix autodetected ALL of the hardware on my laptop, while I had to copy network drivers (among many others) to a floppy to make the system usable under Windows.
Your problem is that you don't want to learn..."I've been annoyed and bogged down with learning useless information that "Just Works" in other operating systems"...BAH!!!
To each their own...Linux is a hell of a lot easier to use for me, and I've been using Windows 5 times as long. How we get Linux mainstream is have it preinstalled on cheap computers targeted towards new computer users. People are too stubborn and stuck in their ways to change for the most part.
Friend of mine recently decided he wanted to fiddle 'round with Linux. First thing he tried to do was Debian. After futzing around trying to get X working for about a week he gave up and wandered off.
He came back with RedHat 9 which did do a pretty good job of getting X working, but it was godawful slow. I suspected he needed the latest nvidia driver off their web site. He wandered off to get that, then wandered into the twisty maze of package dependencies he needed to get it working. RedHat could take some pointers from Debian in the package dependency arena (That's why I kicked them to the curb last time I used the distro.)
My friend wanted to be able to play assorted video in Linux too. Pretty sensible. So he started looking into mplayer. Now, I know there are a lot of legal issues surrounding mplayer, but it's kind of difficult to explain those issues to someone who's used to just having the ability to do all that stuff in Windows. He wants to just install the package and have it work. He doesn't want to have to locate DLLs in 18 different countries and compile code that may technically be illegal here in the States to get it working.
So there's step 1. If I can slap a Linux bootable CD into pretty much any system and have it boot reliably, detect all my hardware reliably, and provide accelerated 3D and play video without me having to compile a kernel I will consider step 1 a success.
Step 2 is providing the libraries necessary to write the software for Linux. Look at all the major consoles and Windows itself and what do you see? Those corporations sell a SDK to people who want to develop software on their platform. Do the software libraries that are available for Linux compare favorably to the ones for the other platforms? I'm pretty happy with the Linux application libraries, but games have specialized needs.
If you provide those two things, you've got the beginnings of a cross-platform gaming environment that a lot of gaming companies should find very interesting.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Linux is free. It can be included on a bootable disk with your game. So while hardware remains an unkown, at least your game can run on a known kernel, known libraries, optimised X server etc. Swap space (if needed) can be automatically found in Linux partitions or Windows swap files.
Managing players' saved data is the biggest problem here. A nice solution might be to save it over the internet to central servers. Now they can load their saved games from anywhere, and play on any PC.
Of course the hardware detection would have to work more flawlessly than Knoppix, not an easy task. This method of distribution would not suit all games.
No what linux needs is a distro that works... windows has alot of problems and i am sure that we will find some new ones tomorrow..but it works..it installs..and it runs games.. if linux wants to be on the desktop someone needs to make a distro that works...connnects to the net..works with all the popular chat programs..views websites right...and runs the popular games just as windows does...and when you install some component it needs to install everything that it needs to work...no errors like oh you need this component to run that..and this component needs this one and this one needs this one... windows has alot of problems but when you install a program it comes with everything you need to run said program, is either built in or on the cd. that is linux's biggest problem...
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben
If the game studios would pump out java byte code using swt or wxjava for their platforms linux we be an awsome platform to run .. most jvms ive used run faster on linux/unix variants than on windows.. ... Ummmm bytecode ....
if it were a knoppix like boot cd, how would the average user update it? right now its as easy as applying a patch, but if it were a cd based distro, how would that work? almost all games are requiring a zillion updates, both for fixes and teasers to keep people playing the game (I am thinking specifically of new maps for BF1942) and updates to add-on systems like desert combat or punkbusters.
also a lack of support for winmodems, a lot of on-line games still use modems, and converting to linux would require a new modem or some other on-line access.
On the whole, Like most of the commenters here, I would switch to linux if I could have my games as well. Hell, if the BF1942 series went to linux I would switch! odd that they have linux servers but not clients, i guess its all abotu directx..
GentooGames
http://www.gentoogames.com
From gentoo.org:
Today, we announce the creation of Gentoo Games, Inc., a gaming technology company created to deliver innovative Linux-based game technologies to the public. To kick off this new initiative, we are also announcing a full version of the very popular (Linux exclusive) America's Army military combat simulation on a self-booting Gentoo GameCD. Thanks to hosting services provided by Super Computer, Inc., the America's Army GameCD can be downloaded here. This CD includes the full version of the America's Army game and requires an NVIDIA or recent ATI (Radeon 8500 or higher) graphics card. Enjoy!
There is also a UT2K3 version...
Hardware is autodetected... and so just works... It boots straight into X. There is no configuration needed. You don't even need to install the game. Great for a LAN party as every computer that is reasonably new should boot straight into a networkable game...
On Windows I only use CloneCD and Daemon-Tools (cd cloner and virtual CD driver respectively). Note that I don't pirate software, I just hate going through the pain of swapping CDs all the time. (I started this stuff after buying my third copy of AOE2 because the discs got scratched and couldn't be used).
However Linux doesn't have virtualised CDs (loop mounting an ISO only works for disks that aren't fair use prevented^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H copy protected. If I am not prepared to play stupid CD swapping games on Windows, I sure as hell ain't going to do it on Linux. I am aware of cdemu.sf.net but it doesn't support much (yet).
The next step is assuming that the games will even run ...
seriously. I admit, I'm a windows guy, but I'd say, this game is really cool for lunchbreaks :) -
And for the rest I'd say: games are the driving factor for a rather big part of the geek community and one of the things my friends and I still keep using Windows. Configuration here and there, using console - I don't mind. If and only if there is something to gain from these excursions through the software setup. Setup alsa takes 3 hours? No problem, if there is a kind of goal at the end: giving the finger to Bill Gates *and* be able to play some killer games.
Games are the bridge between serious geeks and the average computer-using person. Most other "home" tasks are pretty easy to do on either Windows or Linux systems, except maybe for using firewire-devices. But the games are the turning point. Hardware manufactures have realised this for years, beginning with the Origin *Commander series and continuing with the FPS genre...
Also, the MS page linked above is for their optional "Plus" pack, not for the base XP system (which comes with, what? Solitaire, hearts, minesweeper? Do we now have a more advanced MCSEHS qualification? - Minesweeper Consultant, Solitaire Expert and Hearts Shark). I do notice an ominous counter to one FOSS advantage, though, a "365 tips from users like you" section.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Another aspect to consider is system security. If every app on a linux system came with static libraries, then you have multiple libraries scattered all over the drive. Will all those application authors update their program to include library updates? What if a nasty buffer overflow turns up in libBlah...do you want to leave all the dependent programs around for crackers to stumble upon?
I am not saying that the convenience factor is not important; rather I think that an altogether different approach is needed, one that tackles the problem at a different level. Development on ports systems (Gentoo) is one interesting direction, autopackage another. Better that than applying static libraries to a problem they were never designed to fix.
===---===
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
...was that it was marketed mainly as a gaming platform.
May we live long and die out
...when John Dvorak said precisely the same thing in his column. I guess this guy liked what he read there too.
-Tom
..are the only reason why this isn't a windoze-free box. I know that there's Flight Gear, but it's a long ways from my favorite flight sim, European Air War (by Infogrames). I also love the MechWarrior game series (I own all the MW-3/MW-4/Mercenaries+expansion packs). I just wish that somebody other than M$ had the rights to it. USB joysticks are a pain to get working in linux, also. *IF* a linux-gaming distro came out with anything close to the same quality/quantity games available, and better support for joysticks, graphics cards, etc., I'd be grabbing a copy pronto, and saying a permanent goodbye to windoze. The biggest problem is game makers not porting to linux, which a new distro, no matter how good a gaming platform it may be, won't affect until the game makers see enough of a market for it to be worth the effort/expense.
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
As a Windows user and professional developer, it'd take more than games to make me switch. At one point I thought games were the only things holding me back, turns out I was wrong.
:)
This past weekend I installed Fedora.
Installation compared to WinXP? Comparable.
Post installation (configuring things, tweaks, etc.) not even close.
I got some help in forums from some long term Linux users, but quickly realized the need for help wasn't going away anytime soon. I've installed Linux with each new major version since around version 5 or 6 if memory serves correctly. The distros I've tried the most were Redhat and Mandrake. I prefer Mandrake, but Fedora was suggested by the forum Linux users.
Immediately I became aware that my ATI Radeon 9700 Pro wasn't going to have solid drivers under Linux. Argue all you want, but in WinXP I never have stability issues with it, and it's as fast as can be.
My Logitech MX500 worked in the most basic sense of the word, but wasn't nearly as full featured as it is within WinXP. I could tweak a few things, but that meant hacking up files with a text editor. Not something I, or most any other Windows user is willing to do to change some simple settings on a mouse.
It didn't take long to figure out that almost everything that didn't work out of the gate was going to take some text file tweaking. Windows computing has surpassed that, and to capture more users, Linux is going to have to as well. Long time Linux users see this as a more powerful setup, but Windows users (even those who WANT to convert) see this as a solid brick wall.
Some of the other posters here mentioned issues regarding support for joysticks. Add to that almost any controller I'd be buying at Best Buy or Circuit City, and you've got another decently sized issue to overcome.
Screw-ups. This is a major pet peeve of mine. If I install the wrong video drivers in Windows, it's smart enough to realize it, and drop me to 640x480x16. Note that I'm still in the GUI, and have access to the net from any installed web browsers, etc. If I do that in Linux, I'm staring at a non-GUI based UI and am there until I can figure out how to hack through things via a command line to get up and running again. This sucks big-time IMO.
Installs - Why is it that with a lot of Linux software, immediately after the install I have to hack up some configuration files? Why can't the installer give me a couple of screens with the necessary options and allow me to choose then? From there, it can install the software with the settings I've chosen. If I have to configure the stuff via a command line after the fact, what's the installer for? Heck, I'll just copy the files myself and save half the download.
Chip[sets] - Why is it that in Linux I have to know what chip/chipset is being used in my NIC, or modem, etc. but in Windows I don't? In Windows (assuming it doesn't just work on it's own) I locate, download, and install the drivers. At most, I reboot, and my new hardware is now working. In Linux, I need to damn near know how to build the thing to get it to work. That's gotta go.
With regards to drivers, as someone who's technical, I realize companies don't always create Linux drivers for their hardware, and creating drivers isn't the easiest task in the world. As a user however, I could care less. If you want me to use Linux (and I think that's the main point of the topic here) you need to have drivers for everything Windows has drivers for. And not just barely working hack 'em in vi drivers, I'm talking drivers comparable to their Windows counterparts.
I realize that Linux is often viewed as being more stable, secure, and even faster than Windows. But, if I have to be a mechanic to drive the best car, I think I'll take the bus.
My Tech Posts on Twitter
"Is the Key to Linux a Games-Based Distro?"
No. The key to Linux is getting to the point where hardware support has the same width and depth as XP does, and with the same or better performance.
This is NOT where we are currently at (by a long shot). Support alone isn't the only point, either: under XP, things (generally) just work. Under (insert your favorite flavor of *nix here), even if it CAN work, it takes someone experienced / intelligent / trained / willing-to-read-countless-HOWTO's to MAKE it work.
You get hardware support up to speed, then the gamers will follow. A "gamer's distro" will attract some number of users, but getting hardware support up to speed will get them, their friends, and my mother, and my friends, and...and...etc.
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
I beleive StepMania has support for Pump It Up
one of the other arcades around here had PIU, but it kinda sucked.
--- As to make my comment seem, by comparison, more intelegent... doodie doodie doodie poop poop poop!
One of the biggest problems with *nix systems are dependencies. This is a problem that would go away if all applications were distributed as self-contained packages, a practice that should be the default behavior when distributing software applications. With few exceptions, anything that requires the end user to download pre-requisite software when it could be easily bundled is, quite honestly, just plain silly.
.app bundle. This is the way all software should work.
"What about security? What about performance?"
The app should be designed to give the end user a choice: Do you want to use a dynamicly linked library? Fine -- tell us where it's located and we'll ignore the stuff we thoughtfully bundled for you. Do you just want the damn thing to work? Yes? Fine -- you don't need to do anything further, and we'll just use the bundled libraries.
"What about disk space?"
Given the benefits of software that just works, a few extra MBs of space is not even worth wasting brain cycles on. For those that feel otherwise, I suggest they figure out a way for apps to be packaged such that undesired bundled libraries could be easily jettisoned.
This isn't La-La Land that we're talking about here -- just look at Mac OS X. Most applications there aren't even "installed" in the *nix/Windows sense of the word; the end user downloads the package and drags the application icon into the Applications folder. Done. Any dependencies are contained within the
If application developers would all agree to do this, the world would be a much better place.
SDL is what you're looking for; it's been around for several years. It's mature and in use in many projects. I don't know everything that DirectX does, but I believe most of it can be handled by SDL combined with OpenGL. Not only does SDL run on many platforms (including Windoze), it has bindings for various high level languages, so one isn't stuck with C or C++.
it has to do with software support more. I finally talked my parents into letting me dual boot their system just so they can try linux. They like the fact that they don't have to worry about all these e-mail worms going around. Only real question they had was "will my saved word/excell files work on linux?" "Sure with Open Office", I replyed.
I think that if you could goto your local computer store and their software section has as large of linux selection as windows then it will help mega tons.
Yeah yeah I understand you can just download most of linux software for free however most people don't know this due to the M$ brainwashing effect.
If there was a nice GUI for Gentoo that would an image of each package when searching/listing it would help new people.