Expert Opinions On Linux Gaming's Future

jg21 writes "Following on from yesterday's Slashdot coverage of the idea to launch a games-based Linux distro, LinuxWorld Magazine has held a Gaming Round Table involving Chris DiBona, Ryan Gordon, Timothee Besset, Gavriel State, and Joe Valenzuela about where Linux currently stands and how it will one day become a premier gaming platform. 'It became perfectly clear to me that most of the technological issues are already solved, and that the others won't take too long to fix once the game publishers really get into the mix,' reports Dee-Ann LeBlanc, Gaming Industry Editor for LinuxWorld, who coordinated the round table. Well worth reading."

Comments

Yay!

[GFLPraxis]

Games on a stable and free OS! My dream come true!

Re:Yay!

[mgoodman]

that's why we need linux to adopt a uniform package management system that can appease binary as well as source installations and solve/download dependencies...im looking your way gentoo...

Re:Yay!

[cbiltcliffe]

Who in the hell is going to install a "games distro"? How about fixing the 10,000 existing distros first.

You wouldn't need to install it. That's the whole point. Game developers could create a bootable liveCD distribution specifically tailored to their game, which you'd stick in your CD drive, reboot, and it would load the kernel, drivers for your sound and video cards, the components of X that your game needs, and then launch the game.
Effectively, your PC would act just as a game console. Stick in the CD, turn it on, and you're running the game. Only difference is, if you turn it on without a CD in, you've got a general purpose computer, rather than a screen that says "NO DISC".

Re:Yay!

[GORby_]

While this would be a nice solution, I don't think that would work for many people. When I'm playing a game,I want other things too:
- email client notifies me of new mail
- voice chat/IP Telephony app
- I want to be able to share files
- I want to be able to quickly switch to another application and then back to the game.

I still think that this could work, but then you would have to be able to play the game not only by booting the livecd but from your installed distro too. I once had a Gentoo Linux UT2003 Demo LiveCD, which worked like a breeze (and in fact introduced me to gentoo :-). Don't know if you could easily run that game from your own distro using the livecd though...

Where's the games at?

[ObviousGuy]

It's nice to talk about creating a "gaming OS", but the key component here is that you need some games.

Sokoban and Mahjongg only get you so far..

OpenGL exists on Linux, what else are game developers missing?

Re:Where's the games at?

[FreemanPatrickHenry]

Duh. It's called Nethack! What more do you want?

You and your newfangled first person whatchamacallits...

Re:Where's the games at?

[caluml]

OpenGL exists on Linux, what else are game developers missing?

Stable nvidia drivers to take advantage of it? My machine at work has a lovely graphics card in it - but once I load the nvidia driver, it will crash/hang at some point in the future. And that sucks.

Re:Where's the games at?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chicken, meet egg. Egg, say 'hello' to chicken.

Re:Where's the games at?

[LordK3nn3th]

A significant userbase to market to to justify the time spent on porting to Linux, for starters?

Spread the word.

Re:Where's the games at?

[adug]

Unfortunately, what developers are missing is the market. Top notch games are very costly to produce. There is just no way that developers can make money, or even break even with the small desktop marketshare that Linux commands.

There might be some truth to "If you build it, they will come" but in reality, unless there are an awful lot of people clamoring for the ballpark, it's not gonna happen.

Re:Where's the games at?

[LordK3nn3th]

Does the average Joe know how to install the drivers, or even how to turn off X so the drivers can be installed?

Also, ati and Nvidia haven't released open source drivers. It would be so much easier for the average person if the kernel could come with those video drivers already loaded in.

Re:Where's the games at?

[krahd]

No trolling, but.. something like DirectX wouldn't hurt!

I mean (aside from DirectInput which is pretty cool), the whole development cycle is DX-centered: Microsoft asks Nvidia/ATi what they need, then they put it on DX nad then the cards take advantage of it... it's cyclic.

Carmack is the only reason for OpenGL's survival...

--krahd

Re:Where's the games at?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why we need to encourage developers to start creating games with cross platform in mind. That way compiling the binaries for different OS's including linux and including them on the cd would not really add a huge anount to the budget, but will get more sales with the linux crowd

falvious
Editor
Linuxgaming.net

Re:Where's the games at?

[Kenja]

"something like DirectX wouldn't hurt!"

What we'd end up with would be about ten diferent projects, each of which does about one tenth what DirectX does. Then the project members would fight over which of the ten is the best and which one the other nine should be rolled into.

Re:Where's the games at?

[Chess_the_cat]

But what exactly is the barrier to a significant userbase? Linux is free and you can install it on a partition on your HD; you don't have to get rid of Windows to run or even try Linux. So what is the barrier? If you can't even get people to take something for free you know you have a problem.

It's beginning to look like the adoption of Linux on the desktop is going to take a massive scandal on Microsoft's part. Something like Bill Gates is stealing your credit card number or something. I know I'm going to be modded down for this but I challenge anyone who's going to throw away a mod point on me to reply and refute what I've written.

Re:Where's the games at?

[Doogie5526]

"Carmack is the only reason for OpenGL's survival"

That may be true for games but as for professional 3d apps, OpenGL is king. Likely because of crossplatformability. Since those professional OpenGL cards cost so much (they make the money) and they can just apply the same technology to the game cards is another reason OpenGL is still strong for games.

A 7-syllable word that makes sense! A new personal record!

Re:Where's the games at?

[OneFix at Work]

Umh, OpenGL is really no different, the only difference is it leaves the hardware developers the job of deciding how to support additional features. As for games in todays market, when you are talking PeeCee, you are talking 2 companies nVidia and ATI. Both have their own proprietary drivers for every card made in the last few years.

OpenGL is perfectly fine, not to mention the fact that the existance of OpenGL apps on Windoze makes it easier to port apps and games...but to be honest, the existance of OpenGL on Linux has nothing to do with games and everything to do with 3D Modeling. OpenGL is just how it's done and the fact that there is legacy hardware support for OpenGL means that it will probably remain the low-level standard for 3D Linux apps.

Re:Where's the games at?

[black mariah]

Hell no. When I first switched to Linux about 18 months ago I had no clue how to get my video card running right. I kept getting all kinds of errors. Finally, one of Nvidia's programmers managed to point me towards an option that I have to have enabled for the card to work with my monitor. Very, very stupid.

Re:Where's the games at?

[PhoenixFlare]

But what exactly is the barrier to a significant userbase? Linux is free and you can install it on a partition on your HD; you don't have to get rid of Windows to run or even try Linux. So what is the barrier? If you can't even get people to take something for free you know you have a problem.

I think you're missing something - to the majority of computer users, setting up a dual-boot system or doing pretty much anything along those lines is scary, complicated, and unless they have a geek friend or extremely precise help, dangerous to their system(s). Hell, i'm willing to bet that most people don't even understand how data is stored on their drives, let alone the concept of partitions.

And even if you do somehow get a casual gamer to install Linux, what is there to play? Sure, there's Quake, the UT series, NWN, and a relative handful of other games, but that won't keep forever. And that's IF the person even likes any of the games available in the first place.

And the free games included with many distros are in the same boat - as someone said in the previous thread, it creates excitement when you see the huge list available, then it slowly dawns on you that it's (almost) all board/card games and mediocre clones.

Conversely, get more games included like Frozen Bubble and a few others, and there might begin to be a chance of holding someone's interest.

Re:Where's the games at?

[Deraj DeZine]

Yeah, Linux should come pre-installed with the latest drivers just like Windows. Oh wait, Windows users have to install drivers downloaded from nVidia or ATi's site, too.

I think it's obvious that downloading and running a program to install a driver is not beyond the computing abilities of your average gamer.

Re:Where's the games at?

[LDoggg_]

Here's 310 other games. Some Free, some commercial.

I know, not even close to what's available on windows, but still way more than I'll ever get a chance to play.

Re:Where's the games at?

[LordK3nn3th]

Linux, however, is an entirely different system.

While it's true that the drivers need to be installed for windows as well, keep in mind that most windows users are usually an admin user. Also, it's done through the command line in Linux, whereas in windows it's all done through the GUI.

Also, you entirely forget that the Linux kernel is free and updates more frequently. With Windows, you really have to buy a new version.

I've installed the NVidia drivers multiple times, and I've gotten errors that the common gamer probably wouldn't be able to fix (I consider myself a Linux newbie, but I still have some computer saavy).

Re:Where's the games at?

[LDoggg_]

Come to think of it I can't even remember how I did it, since my evironment automatically launches into X and there is no single "autoexec" type file to tell me where it's deciding to run startx,

You're right. There is not an autoexec file. However there is a file called /etc/inittab

Change this line:
id:5:initdefault:

To This
id:3:initdefault:

If that seems cryptic, read the comments in the file that tells you exactly what that means (has to do with run levels).

Now I'm not asking for help right now because I don't need it right now. However these things aren't where I'd look for them, so as far as I'm concerned they aren't where they should be.

Riiiiggght. If its not on the C:\ drive it must be wrong.

I'm not saying this couldn't be a little easier. Not sure why X has to come down in the first place. (Restarting X is ok, but bringing it down to install the driver?) But it doesn't have to be the same as what you're used to in order to be the right way of doing things.

Re:Where's the games at?

[lambent]

*cough*rtfa*cough*

Specifically, the question titled "What might the linux community do in order to change the thinking of the games industry?"

Some salient points: most game publishers want a minimum 50,000 unit commitment. http://counter.li.org/ estimates current linux deployment at 18 million. The 50 thousand target clocks in at 0.27% user saturation. That is anything but impossible.

The speaker goes on to say that smaller, independent game houses are 'thrilled' to see even 1,000 sales, and this should be financial motivation enough to go to a platform.

I'm not so sure about that second point, but another speaker goes on to second the 50,000 number as a target.

Re:Where's the games at?

[Doogie5526]

Maybe not for the news blurb, but I was explaining that Carmack isn't the only thing keeping OpenGL alive. The fact that the technology devloped for professional 3d cards/apps makes it cheeply avaliable for gaming cards. So the professional use of OpenGL is helping the gaming world as well as keeping the standard updated and alive.

One more thing, those professional 3d apps are also used to create the games. So the content creators have the chance to get familiar with Linux while developing for it.

Re:Where's the games at?

[Decameron81]

"But what exactly is the barrier to a significant userbase? Linux is free and you can install it on a partition on your HD; you don't have to get rid of Windows to run or even try Linux. So what is the barrier? If you can't even get people to take something for free you know you have a problem."

Indeed, Linux has a problem there. Consider a common Windows gamer. Why would he be interested in even installing linux to give it a try? It's not like Linux is going to improve his gaming experience. Installing an OS that sometimes even geeks have problems with is not exactly what a gamer wants to spend his day doing either. It doesn't matter if linux is free... they want something they can install and use with two or three mouse clicks... they don't even dream about using the keyboard to tell the PC to do something (other than move the player around the screen).

As good as Linux is for some kinds of works, it is still ages behind when it comes to desktop computing. But a great effort is being made to improve on this side too.

My suggestion is for linux developers to work on making easier installers, less complicated interfaces and sometimes more self-configuring applications. Having default configurations that make the linux experience more user friendly and such, without having to go through the hassle of setting up things an "ignorant" user wouldn't care about.

But that's just my opinion,
Diego Rey

Re:Where's the games at?

[tonywong]

There has to an incentive for them to pursue it. The problem with a linux based game is that the developers are not necessarily lazy, but will take the path of least resistance to highest profits. That means most of them will stay with windows because they know that most x86 users will have that installed.

This means linux (as a whole) must play to their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.

1. ATI and nvidia must have drivers released that will work properly.
2. A DirectX port or OpenGL2 would also accelerate development.
3. Since Linux can be updated and supports more advancements more quickly than windows, push that to developers. If Athlon's 64-bit processing power can be utilized, ship a knoppix-like distro that takes advantage of it. Nothing like making the claim that their game performs X% better by using linux and amd 64bit mode than by using XP. Getting the NTFS partition loader automagically to install would be a boon to write/cache saves and game updates.

4. Brain dead consumer land installs. Knoppix is even easier to install than windows ;). If you built a disc that booted straight into the game, or it would take over an XP box and unload the OS, you've built a back door into linux installs. Kind of reverses the way of looking at the installed base.

I'm probably missing alot here, but I think them's the basics as I see it.

Re:Where's the games at?

[nomadic]

There might be some truth to "If you build it, they will come" but in reality, unless there are an awful lot of people clamoring for the ballpark, it's not gonna happen.

It DID happen. Loki heard the clamor, released a bunch of games, then went belly up because all the people who had insisted for years that they'd buy linux games if they came out turned out to be lying.

Re:Where's the games at?

[T3kno]

I haven't had to reboot either, all I do is type:

wine winboot

If I need to do a hard boot I just type:

killall -9 'wine'

And it's all better.

Re:Where's the games at?

[zentu]

Open GL 2.0...

Seriously, if the developers had half the power in Open GL that DX9 has the standard would be used more, but as it is it has become stagnant due to the constant bitching that is done on the groups meetings, and all because they want to use their own propriety code, so they can charge the others.

I am sick of the bullshit... I just want to have the games, and then I can lose windows.

I want the EU as part of their Monoply agreement to require MS to release some of their old code to the public domain, screw the Win code, I want the DX code from like version 7 or 6 and earlier.

Re:Where's the games at?

[prockcore]

Carmack is the only reason for OpenGL's survival...

Riiight. Because Lightwave, Maya, Softimage, and all the other top of the line 3d rendering packages use directx.. oh wait, no they don't. they all use OpenGL because directx doesn't support half the things they need to do highend modeling.

Re:Where's the games at?

[DaEMoN128]

There are many reasons why you can't get a Windows user to switch or even try...

1. Never Quest (Ever Crack, Ever Quest). It doesnt work right out of the box. You ever see a common user hop into a command prompt to get things done??? try to explain compiling a program to run a program half as well as it did before he left windows.

2. Geek appeal. I actually know a person that will not try linux because he doesnt want to be labeled a geek.

3. Hardware support. I still have hardware that I cant use... and I dont have the time to try and code a driver (and fail miserably).

4. I just bought a dell with MS on it already.... if it works (it does what I want it to do), then why fix it?

5. My wife's company uses a lot of MS publisher.... Is there an open souce equivelant?

There are many reasons not to switch from windows to linux.

Mod me down for trolling for all I care, these are true for the general populus. Knoppix is a good start, as is the SuSE live CD, but we still have a long way to go.

BTW, I haven't ran windows for 4 years now and am glad to be free.

PS. If you guys are having troubles getting people to try linux, maybe its your approach and not the software. The software can be the best thing in the world, but if you can't make it sound L337 or cool, interesting, fun, and usable... then you will never get past the stigmata that GNU/Linux has

Re:Where's the games at?

[TandyMasterControl]

(im talking about full Windows GUI like control panels...

actually nvidia has this feature already worked out for Linux. Called 'nvidia-settings' it was in their Beta driver set 1-0.4260. What you saw was a fully fledged gui for controlling card options very reminiscent of the control panel on Windows, if not identical.
Why they don't include it in their official releases is a mystery. When I was using the beta drivers, it seemed to work perfectly.

Re:Where's the games at?

[xSauronx]

except in windows when you download the drivers, you just have to double-click them, and click again 2 or 3 times without actually reading anyting to install them.

i linux, you have to boot into x so you can have a web browser to use to download the drivers (and dont give me any bs about lynx, typical ps users couldnt handle it); then you have to quit x (and i didnt even know how to do that at first, and found it was a pain in the ass to install drivers because of it) then you have to move to move to the right directory, run the driver program, enter the root password (assuming you started all this as a regular user) and restart x.

windows: download, double click, click click click; reboot.

see? slightly different, and you should know better. its hard enough to get a windows user to do even that much with comprehension most of the time.

Re:Where's the games at?

[Antity-H]

Actually there is no need for them to release open-source drivers. Specs would be enough, considering the number of linux dev who own an nvidia and are annoyed at the lack of open-source drivers, it would only be a matter of time before some appear.

However they won't do that which is undestandable since most of the times these specs can give you quite an insight at what's happenning inside the card.

John Carmak

[after]

I wonder if they contacted John Carmak about this... or even concidered him. I mean, he and his team did create the first true 3d (raltime) game (wolfenstien, for those you living inside a cave) and his company does support Linux (Quake III Arena, for example)

Re:John Carmak

[Drantin]

If you'll check the links in the summary, they do have a representative from ID Software...

For me...

[ThomasFlip]

The most annoying thing is getting the grafix drivers to work properly. When I was trying to get UT2003 to work, I found the install to be the easy part, but finding the proper drivers and installing them was the most difficult part.

Re:How can I play a game when I'm blind?

[Carnildo]

How can I play a game when I'm blind?
YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!

Nethack has pretty good support for such technologies as screen readers and braille pads.

Isn't it a market issue...?

[krahd]

Traditionaly the gaming industry is one where garage developers have great impact.

A big problem I see with Linux as a mainstream gaming platform is that there is no significant market to tempt those developers with no extra money to burn...

I speak myself as a former game developer (now on the academic side of the world)... how would you convince me to develop for linux if I have no extra money??

--krahd

Re:Isn't it a market issue...?

[DeltaSigma]

Getting developers to develop for Gnu/Linux isn't hard. They'll do it automatically when gamers want Gnu/Linux support. What we need to do is figure out a way to get gamers to desire Gnu/Linux support.

It's not going to be a one-step process either, we're really going to have to work at it.

One way is resources. Suppose the major distros could have a "mode" dedicated to fullscreen OpenGL games. With generally more effecient use of resources in Gnu/Linux as opposed to windows the guys that just have to have that extra 3 frames per second will find it in Gnu/Linux. There's always a small percentage of players that are competing for maximum FPS no matter how useless a pissing contest it is. If all the people winning that contest are running Gnu/Linux, more of those types will turn towards Gnu/Linux since it becomes a necessary tool to compete.

Often games are released on Gnu/Linux as a server only version, no playable client. A lot of server maintainers choose the Gnu/Linux server over the windows server because of stability and features. Gnu/Linux servers often end up with more features.

That's the thing. If we already have this fantastic environment for developers, then why are we worrying about the developers? Get the gamers over here. Let's not forget that one of the massive drivers behind the gaming industry's profit is the fact that games are competitive. If we really want Gnu/Linux to be a viable gaming platform, by attracting developers, which are attracted by gamers, then what do we have to do?

The answer is so simple I shouldn't even have to write this length of a post.

The answer is we must use Gnu/Linux to give gamers a competetive edge on the games we _DO_ have.

If we can do that, they'll come. And they'll bring their friends.

Then we just keep doing that, for every game we get, until we have all of them.

Clustered Gaming monster

[Neo-Rio-101]

One thing that Linux can do really well is CLUSTER EASILY. Forget the PS3... as long as games are written to make use of Linux's clustering abilities - we can have some MASSIVE gaming servers and game environments.

Now all I want for Christmas is an Open Mosix release for the 2.6 kernel. :)

Re:Clustered Gaming monster

[mgoodman]

and that is why there are quite a few games coming out with linux-based servers, but the clients are still win32 unfortunately.

Of course.

[LordK3nn3th]

Obviously, we've all heard about UT2003/2004, Neverwinter Nights, and the upcoming Doom III (id Software usually supports Linux well, yay them!)

Even the US gov't is jumping aboard with America's Army (as well as support for Mac).

Linux is growing, and needs to grow more and more in regards to users, so we can get better game AND hardware support. I know some people think this Linux vs. Windows war is kind of silly, but until Linux grows to the point where it's recognizable by the average user we'll still be left out in the cold in many regards (such as, of course, games and hardware).

I admit, I myself still have Windows installed. How else can I play many games? Wine doesn't want to work on my computer, and it's not perfect anyway.

Ths single most important requirement

[Performer Guy]

The most important thing required for a successful gaming platform is an audience to purchase the games. If you have that, game developers will develop for your platform. Linux does not have this yet and it is a bit of a chicken and egg scenario.

About the only thing Linux can hope for in the short term is the occasional port but even that may not be financially viable for quite some time judging by the smouldering crater that was once Loki.

Re:Ths single most important requirement

[AuMatar]

But on the other hand, linux users are mainly computer geeks, and a higher percentage of computer geeks play games than any other segment of the population. So there's a good argument for developers to consider writing for linux- there may be fewer users, but a higher percentage would consider buying your product. Especially since the competition is low in the Linux world.

Hmmm...

[GFLPraxis]

Hmm...I wonder if it'd be easy to convert Mac OS X games to Linux? After all, both Mac and Linux games use OpenGL, and both Mac and Linux are UNIX based... If the developers take the Mac source code and tweak it a bit for linux, then recompile it on an x86 Linux machine, voila, Mac games on Linux!

Re:Hmmm...

[The Lynxpro]

"and both Mac and Linux are UNIX based..."

Careful. That sounded like an SCO penned legal brief.

Two Words: Market share.

[Behrooz]

Two Words: Market share.

The games will come if/when a larger proportion of their target market runs Linux.

Right now, very few games are developed for Linux, because relatively few game buyers run Linux. Most game developers don't have the time or resources to port their products, because the margins are razor thin and time is critically important. Windows development toolkits like DirectX are widespread and proven effective.

Until linux is percieved as a major market and has the level of (hardware) vendor support that Windows-based stuff does, it will continue to be an afterthought in game development.

X-Plane is coming too...

[StarTux]

Although more of a Simulation, rather than a "game".

http://www.linuxsimulations.org

As in console or PC?

[fembots]

Personally I think it might just be a bit easier to roll out a gaming linux console, as it eliminates most of the installtion/setup processes that could be complicated sometiems.

stuck

[AnonymousCowheart]

Linux seems to be stuck right now as far as games go. There are GREAT free games, don't get me wrong, I've wasted many hours using frozen bubble, but, there needs to be incentive (read users) for commercial game developers to develop for linux. The catch-22 is that there needs to be incentive (read games) for windows users to switch to linux. I'm not a big gamer, so doesn't effect me and I'd rather buy a game console, however, joe six pack needs games that can play easily on his OS, before a switch.

engines for linux

[maxmg]

The FA makes some valid points about the cost of porting games to linux. However, there are commercial-quality game engines out there that do run under linux. One of them, Nebula if even open source (even though Nebula2 is still lacking graphics support for linux, but that's in the works). Nebula1 is perfectly useable and has all kinds of goodies, including input handling, sound, and a slick architecture.

I believe the major problem at the moment is definitely the difference in availability/quality of hardware accelerated graphics drivers. One ATI get their shit together, the story might be different...

Apple gamers....

[MagicDude]

I just hope it turns out better than being a Mac Gamer. (Complements of the Red vs. Blue guys)

http://webdev.o1.com/rvb/movies/switch/RvB_switch. mov

Vote with your wallet.

[angst7]

State: It's very simple. Buy more games and tell the industry that you're buying that game to play on Linux.

I totally agree. The single biggest hinderance to seeing more games running natively on linux is the perception (and likely fact) that there's no money in it. It's for this reason that I subscribe to Transgaming, Bought Neverwinter Nights (and sent them a letter explaining why I picked their game and thanking them), and have copies of games from (some defunct) companies that I dont even play, but whose development I thought it was important to support.

Just keep supporting the folks doing a good job.

---
Jedimom.com, picking out a thermos for you.

A Linux Game fund?

[Hunzpunz]

I posted this in the last Linux - Gaming - Distro - Thread, but was a bit late. This isn't consistent in itself, but the idea should be clear:

What about setting up a fund for developing a linux game? It should have a concept, only rough, like the genre, set.

Then set up a website with a nice progress bar, and a target sum needed for the developement, like what? 5 Million Dollars? 10 Million Dollars?

Ok, that won't get us a completely new Half - Life - 2 developed, but maybe a nice RPG / Adventure built on an existing engine.

Maybe different Funds for different uses, like
- Make a cool RPG a 'la Deus Ex / System Shock
(Wizardry would be even better, but i don't know about the mass - marketing appeal...)

- "Make a good game developing environment based on Crystal Space"

Make an agreement with some game studio to get a cool engine for a guaranteed price for a free - as - in beer - game production use, let it be the UT or Doom 3 Engine. Or not, depends on the game's genre, i guess.

Let somebody develop a cool game from this money for the community.

If the community wants a new cool game developed, everybody transfers a few bucks to a new proposed game fund of his choice. I think there are enough gnu / linux / bsd / mac etc. fans out there to invest a few dollars each to get a big enough budget, it's mostly a marketing question, i guess.

Kind of like the effort for opening the Blender source?

The fund should be handled by a trusted entity, of course.

Supporting Direct3D & OpenGL

[AhBeeDoi]

For Linux to become a gaming platform, game developers have to be willing to support both Direct3D and OpenGL. For id Software and a few of the more established developers who already have Linux versions of their games, it is less of an expense. For newer developers, it would be a larger risk than just supporting D3D to hit 90+% of the desktop PC's.

It's all about the money (mostly)

[olePigeon (Wik)]

The biggest problem is convincing developers that there's money in it for them.

Most are under the impression that they shouldn't bother with anything other than Windows because there's no money in it. "95% of the market is Windows, so why bother with a poultry 5%" type attitude.

Also, added to the cost is desktop support. If you write a game for just Windows you only have to worry about Windows problems. If you write a game for Linux and Mac OS X, you have to hire, train, and then troubleshoot Linux and Mac problems.

The other problem is to convince developers to NOT design their game around proprietary technologies such as DirectX.

By the way, this information comes from the developers themselves. Personally, I think it's a bunch of crap excuses for lazyass companies trying to squeeze out every profit they can by minimizing responsibility. I'm an avid Mac user but I just recently had to buy a PC just to play games. Counter-Strike, Infantry, and Subspace are Windows only and impossible to play under emulation. However, I'd LOVE to see all my favorite games running under Linux and Mac OS X so I can chuck Windows.

If game developers can't be convinced to even write games for the Macintosh using the above excuses (especially the marketshare one), why would they be at all interested in a desktop that has an even smaller marketshare than the Macintosh?

Re:It's all about the money (mostly)

[G-funk]

"95% of the market is Windows, so why bother with a poultry 5%"

Er... Cockadoodledoo?

Isn't there a cultural disconnect as well?

[faust2097]

I'm going to ignore the driver/hardware support issue for now, I'm sure other people will cover that in depth.

It seems to me that the people who pride themselves on having open and free software are probably those least likely to actually buy games. I think the best bet in the short to medium-term is for companies that are already doing porting like Aspyr to pick up the ball once they see that a market exists. The success of shareware companies like Freeverse and Ambrosia are what has kept big-name titles on the Mac and as far as I know there aren't a lot of examples of super-successful for-pay games on Linux.

Microsoft also has a serious advantage as far as DirectX goes and its integration with Visual Studio. The development environment is a very big deal, especially as games get more and more complex.

Sound drivers...

[antdude]

Since Creative Labs don't make and open source drivers for Linux, the audio area is lacking. I have to use drivers from http://opensource.creative.com for basic sound. I would like to have EAX for games to get those sound effects like reverbs, directional sound for 4.1 speakers setup, etc.

will they make a profit?

[fermion]

Gaming is the one place where payment has always seemed to be important. On the old Apple ][, one of the few copy-protected things were games. One of the nice thing about console systems is that it defines the customer base and tend they are designed to discourage casual coping. The PC is popular platform because nearly everyone has one, and even if you sell only sell copy to every people how play it still results in a good chunk of change.

So the question is can the games be sold on a *nix platform. Yes people do pay for *nix software, and people do make money off it, but can *nix games generate the types of profit that will attract the top game developer? Even if the engines are cheap or free, even if *nix market share rise to 20%, is this enough of a customer base to warrant the effort?

Then there is the question of marketing entertainment on a platform that potentially has no possibility of viable copy protection.

Just to be clear, I think that *nix products in general can be sold and generate a profit. However, games and the like seem to follow a more complex set of economic rules.

Binary Incompatibility

[rsmith-mac]

Ryan Gordon(of Epic fame) made a really interesting comment I think it worth repeating

It'd be lovely if the glibc maintainers would stop breaking binary compatibility, too. Not that they are particularly sympathetic to those shipping binary-only products.

While we tend to blame the problem on Linux's small marketshare, I think Ryan is right here in that binary compatibility has as much, if not more to do with it. Compared to Windows, it would seem that things get broken more often in Linux, both application and driver wise, and that no one from the glibc guys to Linus himself want to really support this kind of compatibility in fear that it will undermine the OSS movement. How is an industry that needs binary compatibility for games and drivers alike supposed to survive without it?

Re:Binary Incompatibility

[dbIII]

Anyway, DirectX is a great example of something that just works. The version doesn't matter, it is 100% backwards compatible

Ever tried running an older directX game like "Dungeon Keeper II"? There may be 100% compatibility between point releases, or maybe even full versions - but there are certainly examples of programs that break with different version of DirectX. A lot of the games and 3D programs that you can buy new now in discount boxes just will not work on XP with a current directX - for many you can download the patches which support newer version of DirectX.

Who needs more options when the first one always works?

We don't live in that perfect world back - you should always be able to roll back to an earlier version.

As a developer...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Linux is a pain to develop a good game client for. DirectX games are not easily ported, and most games are DirectX. This means most professional game developers are fluent in DirectX. DX makes things a lot easier than writing for every sound/video card out there.

Further, Linux editions of games lose money. Quake3 for Linux sold dismally, while people were buying the Windows version enough to be dunking the CDs in their coffee. And the Linux client was released first: if ever there was an opportunity for a killer-app game to help boost Linux, that was a great time.

Loki went out of business by doing the smart thing: bootstrapping itself with porting Triple-A titles from Windows, to earn some cash and develop a library to live on. Who's going to look at the Linux market and see it as viable when id and Loki can't make a good go of it?

And Linux users are habituated to not paying for Linux software, as a rule. Not that they don't, and not that there aren't vertical markets where people are paying good money for Linux apps, but the OSS community is, well, a hard community to pry money out of.

I say this as a developer of Windows games, who runs Macs at home and who has compiled a few Linux kernels in the past. Developers have enough to do to create a modern game while taking advantage of the assistance of things like DirectX: taking on the burden of developing the same thing without that help, for a community that likes their software free (both kinds of free),... that's a lot to expect.

Re:As a developer...

[Simon Michelmore]

Not necessarily. This all depends on how it's implemented. Sure, you're going to undergo some performance hit, the question is whether or not it is significant or not. The abstraction should still be built very close to the target API - there's no reason to have it support everything and the kitchen sink - but several of the more common APIs have enough similarities (case in point, notice how Direct3D became more and more "OpenGL-like" during it's evolution) that you can primarily target one, but keep one or more others in mind while doing the design.

I'm not saying that you _have_ to support every API under the sun from the start, merely that it is quite possible to have a design such that a game is not tied to a given API to the point of a port being a major effort.

Cases in point - Quake 2 and Unreal. Both supported multiple renders at release. Quake 2 had both a software and OpenGL render. Unreal had a software and Direct3D render (and an OpenGL renderer too). Without some level of abstraction internal in the engine this would have been a major effort to do. As it is, it still isn't trivial, at shipping. Here, I am talking about merely designing an engine such that it allows for easier porting in the future.

As a side note - if you want to look at bad examples of this, check out Ultima Ascension. Ran fine on a 3DFX card, but the Direct3D performance was abysmal. May have been resolved in later patches (I don't know as I had a Voodoo 2 at the time), but at shipping it was pointless to even try on anything by a 3DFX card.

The bootable Distro...

[trims]

Honestly, if I were a games developer looking at the Linux market seriously, there is one feature which would really draw me in: the ability to provide a bootable distribution on the game CD.

One of the biggest headaches of game developers is trying to test their game on a sufficiently large subset of available hardware and software configurations to insure it will work properly. This isn't an issue on Consoles, which is one (not the only, but a big one) of the issues they are so popular to develop for. Having a bootable distro on the game CD gives the developer many of the advantages of both Console and PC:

• Known Software Config - by using a bootable CD, the developer can pick exactly the software versions wanted, and not have to settle on some generic baseline likely to be available to the whole audience
• Simple QA - with a known software config, QA is vastly simplified. The software will only support specific hardware, so any other hardware configs don't have to be tested. And multiple versions of the same software are no longer an issue. All of this results in much higher quality product.
• Moore's Law - unlike Consoles, the PC market allows for quick hardware turnover. So a fixed CD distro can freeze the software config, while allowing more advanced hardware to improve gameplay.
• Permanent Storage - Given a properly written CD distro, saving config data and game state to permanent media is rather simple (autodetect the hard drive, and then ask the user to tell where to save it). This is a big win over the Console, where saving state is restricted due to cost and available space.

Given the size of modern games, DVD distros are more likely than CD distros, but the concept is identical.

The bootable game CD/DVD has the potential to drastically reduce developer costs associated with modern games, and merge the best features of PC and Console gaming, with few drawbacks. I expect to see game makers venture into Linux in this area first.

-Erik

Re:The bootable Distro...

[Christ-on-a-bike]

I've thought about this, and although it's a nice idea I'm now pretty sure it won't happen.

The basic problem is that the publisher of a bootable game has to support not just a single binary, but a whole operating system, bootloader, etc. Not going to happen. Such support could possibly be outsourced, but it still costs money.

People will expect tech support if the publisher is shipping an OS - after all, any software problem is their fault. At the moment, Linux users neither expect nor receive any support for games, and we like it that way as long as it gets us the goods.

A specialized distro requires its own focus

[Rolman]

As many have said on the previous discussion, games-oriented distros already exist, based on Knoppix, Gentoo and many others. I can't help but feel the focus on these distro developers is not going to the right direction.

Being a developer myself, having used UNIX clones for more than one decade, and worked in the videogames industry, I know it's tempting to see the whole Free/Open Source software available as reusable code for just about any kind of project and think about software as some sort of Swiss Army knife.

But, the truth of the matter is, the usage patterns of a gamer are completely different from any other type of user, either from a technological and/or psychological perspective. We even tend to think of games as content in the same way as audio or video, when in fact, games are very demanding applications. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the usability of games, their GUIs, the APIs and hardware support are not a priority and you'll see just about any of the so-called "games distro" using mostly the same software as a regular one, complete with KDE, GNOME and whatnot.

There should be only a handful of games-oriented distros, made with forks of every relevant component, but tailored exclusively for the needs of games and include no non-games related software inside. X, OpenGL, SDL and other libraries and APIs, Hardware Detection & Driver Support may seem obvious to have, but why do we need whole collections of shells, fonts, window managers or even locales? Why even the same init and authentication processes as desktop-oriented distros? Most games need to have their own, custom support for these things anyway, so the unnecessary, duplicate stuff should be removed.

Small, specialized software is better in many ways, so that the focus can be on the hardware support and the robustness of needed engines, APIs and libraries. Only then a games developer can maximize resources and focus on solving games' bugs during beta testing, and spend less time on issues with other unrelated, bloated components.

A tiny, modular LiveCD distribution is ideal for games because software diversity and versioning is better controlled, but should not be mandatory, and because the OS components can be under a free license, software houses can launch their products with the same codebase without any problem and make them either bootable or installable. Hell, some can even make professional SDKs out of it and license it to other developers.

Simply put, making a desktop-oriented distro, then just adding some drivers and some games and claiming it's a "games distro", doesn't take advantage of the technical superiority the free software community and, as a gamer, doesn't make it attractive to me, as in every distro there's some learning curve and fine tuning involved. "Damn! I just want to play a friggin' game!"

<RANT>It's a shame we're not showing of any real world usability advantages over videogame consoles or Windows-based games.</RANT>

Direct X

[ratfynk]

The whole concept of directX controls is the big thing holding Linux back for in all aspects of the entertainment industry. As long as there is an obvious MS hardware partner cartel, Linux will have big trouble breaking into the home market. Creative labs and the vid chip designers still pay lip service to open source and are afraid of offending if they let too many specs out. The reason why HP and Intel is being shit on by Microsoft is simply that they let out too much to open source developers.

Sony and API's

[debrain]

Really, one person with the most potential, in my eyes, benefit from a good Linux platform is Sony. If the API for Linux were similar to the PS2/3, then 1. porting would be relatively cheap, 2. they get free consoles without the cost of manufacturing, and 3. they compete with Microsoft's model of doing exactly this with their Windows and Xbox API overlap.

Perhaps this applies equally well to Nintendo ... ;)

Morphix Game CD

[apathy0o0]

Perhaps what they are looking for is something like this from the Morphix guys. It has the q3a and ut2003 demos too.

SDL

[Ian_Bailey]

A simmilar corss-platform solution exists:
SDL

It's always growing, it's open source (sort of), and it already supports many of the things in DirectX.

Missing: Linux Gamers. No real market exists.

[AHumbleOpinion]

... what else are game developers missing?

What is missing? The Linux gamers are missing. Now calm down everyone, this is a serious point. The Linux game market is not the number of Linux users who would buy a Linux based game. That is too simplistic. The real Linux game market is the number of Linux users who would buy a Linux based game and would never buy the Windows version, would never dual boot or emulate.

The fact is that Linux users who dual boot or emulate are already customers. The developer has no financial incentive to do a Linux version, it would not generate any new money with these users. It would merely replace a Windows sale with a Linux sale. This does not rule out developers doing Linux games for non-financial reasons, like id.

When so called "experts" discuss the future of Linux gaming, speak only of the number of Linux desktops and ignore the dual boot/emulation issue, they have lost some credibility IMHO.

Questionable numbers: ignores dual boot/emulation

[AHumbleOpinion]

Some salient points: most game publishers want a minimum 50,000 unit commitment. http://counter.li.org/ estimates current linux deployment at 18 million. The 50 thousand target clocks in at 0.27% user saturation. That is anything but impossible.

How many of the 18 million are end user desktops?
How many of the end users are also gamers?
How many of those Linux gamers ONLY run native Linux games and NEVER dual boot or emulate?

I argue that most Linux gamers are already customers who run the Win32 version. A Linux verson would largely not generate new sales, it would replace existing Win32 sales with Linux sale. Where is the profit in this?

Linux and Mac not comparable, dual boot/emulation

[AHumbleOpinion]

The Linux and Mac situations are not comparable. Linux gamers can dual boot or emulate a Win32 game. They are therefore mostly already customers of the developer. Only a handful will go without a hot game trying to hold out for a native Linux port. Mac gamers can not effectively emulate, unlike their Linux brethren they have to emulate the CPU not simply the APIs. Win32 emulation on the Mac works for business apps but not for games.

The only way it might happen in the short term

[mdarksbane]

Is the same way it happens for Mac ports.

Game company A makes a windows game and sells a few million copise. Game publisher B sees this, pays company A to let them port the game and company C to do the actual porting.

The mac publisher (Like Aspyr, Macplay, or Destineer) has to pay for the game license, and for the porting company (Westlake, Omnigroup, or a few others) so that they can finally sell a few thousand copies of the game to mac users. In addition, of course, to paying royalties on the sales they DO make (in addition to the initial licensing fee) and support for the mac version.

Most ports require very little effort by the PC developers and publishers, but a LOT of effort and capital by the porting publisher themselves. This is why Loki went out of business. A hit with a 5% install base will give you just about enough money to pay for your next release. That's a really tough way to sustain development.

What Linux needs (and mac needs more of) are native, top-quality developers making mac and Linux first games. Ambrosia Software comes to mind on the mac; although they use a shareware business principal, their games are easily on the same level as most commercial offering. Bungie (of Halo fame/infamy) started out as the Mac's most popular/famous developer before they began first cross-developing with windows, and then being purchased by Microsoft for XBox development.

Companies like this are equivalent to exclusive releases to consoles. You have to have games that you can't get any other way.

What linux needs is developers making great linux games. Games that make windows gamers install linux just to play in the same way people buy an Xbox to play Halo.

I think..

[katalyst]

the approach is wrong.. as a gamer, my primary concern is not the OS on which the game will run, but the game itself and wether it will run on the platforms available to me... it irks me when I see a game I like and cannot play it because its for a different console or a different OS. Going back in time... the shift from DOS to Win95 was slow because most games - doom, duke3d,descent, shadow warrior etc etc ran on DOS.. and wingames was a synonym for cheap squiggly graphics puzzle oriented games. Hence DirectX was born. Loki tried to re-engineer games to be linux-compatible.. but i think that's a waste of time and resources. The designers/publishers should have a small porting team which ports the code as the game is being developed (or just after).
Ofcourse, Linux can be worked on to make it a a stable gaming platform - but the way its being portrayed.. its like they want it to be THE gaming platform.. a replacement.... which means the enterprise software will run on one OS and the games on another :(

GCC vs. Visual Studio

[sparrow_hawk]

Anybody else catch the gripes from one of the developers about the quality of Visual C++ code as compared to the quality of GCC code? He seemed to think that the VC++ code was better optimized, and in general regarded Windows as the better development platform. I'm not a serious programmer (I just play on on Slashdot), and my projects are small and none too complicated. Can anyone else comment on this? Is he talking sense, or blowing smoke?

Re:GCC vs. Visual Studio

[CowboyBob500]

Also, I realize makefiles and CVS are incredibly useful, but not for me personally

You'd better get used to CVS because when you get out into the big bad world you'll find that it's fairly ubiquitous, even in 100% Windows shops like where I'm currently contracting...

Bob

Re:GCC vs. Visual Studio

[IamTheRealMike]

That's accurate - the main problem is that gcc is (a) slower and (b) produces larger code than VC++ does. The gcc guys focus primarily on standards compliance and portability rather than performance, and for most apps it doesn't really matter. Many games though are absolutely huge pieces of C++ - one program TransGaming worked on took 20 minutes simply to link the end result.

Re:GCC vs. Visual Studio

[rufusdufus]

Microsoft Visual C's code generator is custom tweaked by Intel. It knows everything there is to know about proper pipelining and memory and register optimization and generates diabolically good code.

The GCC compiler is probably better in many way such as compliance to standards, but there is no way it can compete with the chipmaker's proprietary knowledge.

Re:GCC vs. Visual Studio

[FooBarWidget]

The problem is mostly that debugging information is huge (for some reason). If you turn off -g, linking will be *much* faster.

When I was compiling Gimp 2, it took 2 minutes to link the binary, and it was 40+ MB! I turned off debugging and it took 5 seconds or so.

Getting the gamers

[MachDelta]

Linux has a LONG way to go before it will convert someone like me.
Who am I? A fairly typical or above average Gamer/Windows power user, i'd say. Probably above average, considering I built my computer from scratch (yay!), and recognize a handful of Linux buzzwords. Anyways, there are generally four things I use my computer for:
-Games
-Teh intarnet
-Art (PS/PSP, Maya/Max)
-Music (omgomgomg, MP3s!)
I run my quiet little Windows XP(home) box. It has plenty of the usual bandaid programs on it (Kerio/AVG/AdAware), and I try to stay away from M$ programs as much as possible (IE is only for emergencies, and I buried OE somewhere so deep and dark i'm not sure I could find it again. ...not that i'd ever want to), so I consider it pretty safe. No viruses or other crap, which is nice. But on the whole I don't really like Microsoft. And I don't really like being forced to use their standards and software. Switching to something else would be wonderful! ...as long as it worked.

So I guess that pretty much puts me dead center in the "games 4 linux" crosshairs. In theory, I should be a pretty simple convert, right? Err, actually... actually, I'm actually very resistant to Linux (please don't stone me untill after my speech, kthnx). Why? Well, lets take a trip through stupid gamer land:

//Begin Idiot Gamer Mode//
Starting off with Linux in general...

-Linux? Thats that confusing OS, right? Sorry, don't have time to hunt for packages/screw with command lines/read a million help files/troll forums for answers to stupid questions. Especially not asking for help. I just know i'll get told 'RTFM' when i'm having a problem... *sigh*. If only Linux was more user friendly! Whats a rm -fr / anyways?

-Distro? Oh, gee... I don't know. There are so many! Knoppix is just for peeking. RedHat and Mandrake... aren't those "newbie" distros? I don't want to be called a newbie, so no thanks. Gentoo? Thats like, REALLY hard, right? Debian sounds fun, but I don't think i'm that smart. SuSE? Isn't that for businesses and stuff? Oh, and that Slackwhatever sounds like, impossible. Lycorsis and Lindows... pfft, I want to get AWAY from Windows, thanks. Xandros? Whats that?
Wow.. there are so many choices! None of them seem like they're targeted at ME though. And anyways... why so many? I don't want to have to choose... what if I miss out on something! Some feature that distro X has that my distro Y doesn't but I really really want? Man, i'm really frustrated and confused right now. At least with Windows its all the same...

-My hardware... um, will it all work? Drivers for my Radeon 9700 Pro? Its a GREAT gaming card... I spent a lot of money on it too. No drivers, no deal. Oh, and are there audio drivers for my sound (nForce Soundstorm) too? Ah yes, and the last thing... my entire harddrive (almost full) is NTFS. I don't want to loose 70gb of information just to use Linux! Oh, and whats all this stuff about USB and plug and play? Shouldn't that just, like, work?

-My software. Ack! I have so much of this! Lets see... I need web utilities. Already got Firefox and Thunderbird, so thats good. I'll need an FTP proggy too (I use smartFTP right now), oh, and of course, Kazaa. Some benchmarking and utility programs would be nice too (I AM a gamer after all). Soo, like Sandra, Prime, cpuz, FRAPS, etc. Oh, and I need all my pretty desktop customization programs (or equivalent) to make things look like I want... ObjectBar, Sysmetrix, Rainlendar, and LogonStudio is what I run ATM. Then i'll need media stuff... I like Sonique, and i'm trying to get more skill with Photoshop (big one), Paint Shop Pro, Maya, and Max. Oh oh, and i'll need Nero or something to burn CDs with. Ok, now onto games... yes, lots of games. I have a *ton* of classics. Everything from System Shock to Scorched Earth. They barely run under Windows though... I doubt they have Linux equivalents, though maybe WineX can figure them out? Old games can

We Need RMS for *REAL* Game Dev!

[Doches]

Game development takes more than just coding, right? Artwork, music, voice-overs, lots of stuff. And all Linux has is a ton of great coders, right? Dude:
http://www.kde-look.org - We've got artists.
http://kguitar.sourceforge.net - Somebody's gotta be a musician out there.
http://www.fsf.org - RMS loves to talk.

Comon guys, just get 'em all together!

This was "interesting"? Not really.

[Svartalf]

Loki died, not because the people talking about buying Linux games were lying, but for other reasons.

Loki took on the porting or support of 21 different titles at a tune of at least $20-50k per title and royalties proportionate to if someone was selling an actual Windows game.

Loki went about the process of doing the actual publishing of the games in a manner that one would expect of a Windows publisher- thereby making the break-even levels nigh impossible to achieve.

Loki went about doing incredible, amazingly stupid things like ordering 50k units of CD's and those little metal tins for Q3:A, causing a delay in the ship date, creating impossible margins on the product when they should have ordered about 5k of the CD's and used DVD boxes to cut costs and get the official Linux version in people's hands in about the same timeframe as the official release (So that people wouldn't have went and bought the Windows version and "patched" it with the binaries set from Id...).

The Solution.

[Tatarize]

Charge for the Windows version.
Release the Linux version for free.

Game makers still make all their money, the windows folks out number the linux folks by a huge margin. But, never underestimate Joe Windows-came-pre-installed's wanten need to save a buck.

Also, for the game creator this brings much geek love. Geek love is ofcourse the best type of love. If only women could learn that lesson.

So game creator X, you have a raving band of loving geeks? What do you want to do with em?

--------
I never want a tagline... NEVER!

Another benefit to DirectX over OpenGL...

[j450n]

Is the ease of portability between PC and XBox. With GC and PS2 you are looking at entirely different architecture anyway, but when you pair OGL and D3D, your tradeoff is essentially:

OpenGL: PC and Linux
DirectX: PC and XBox

From a perspective of sales, there is really no question where the profit is.

Drivers, drivers, drivers

[Rogerborg]

And I don't give a rat's arse if they're open source. I want them fast, I want them prominently available from hardware vendors and/or distributors, and most of all, I don't want to have to play a Towers of Hannoi with dependencies and command lines to get them to install and work on a stock Red Hat or SuSE system.

Oh, I know it should be simple enough, but it isn't. Google for problems with (e.g.) NVidia drivers with SuSE distros and that should give you a sample of the fun that awaits. For every twitchy zealot who'll chime in saying "Well, it just worked on my system!" (even though Linux cognitive dissonance means it probably didn't "just work") there will be someone who eventually got it to work after hours of hacking and begging for help in forums, someone who gave up on it, and someone who thinks it worked but who is still using old drivers without knowing it because they missed the "Wrong version of fleem" error in the forty screens of script output that ended with an "Install complete."

Redhat Refugee

[JaxGator75]

Your thoughts sound very familiar. I wanted to get away from WinXP for my MMC PC and thought "MythTV sounds cool. I'll try that!"

I'm smart enough to build my own Win boxes from left-over parts (or brand-new when I'm rich) and troubleshoot for my entire family, so I should be able to handle it. Right???

It was like doing your fucking taxes. Looks simple, but it's a trap (heehee... Fark cross-over represent!) I was able to obtain and load Redhat9 and began to think "Linux is easy! Everyone is stupid but ME..."

Then I needed to install programs. As I continually search forums for definitions to all the buzz-words (Distro, Tarball, Root, etc...), I find more programs that I don't have (but need before I can install the original package).

So being a good little geek, I research and study and ask for help (only to be blasted for being stupid and told to "Go back to M$ if you want quick and easy, n00b!!!"). After finally getting through 107 installs so I can install the 1 thing I wanted, I find out that my hardware won't work with MythTV. Not now, not ever...

FF to an hour later... I've deleted all Linux partitions and have WinXP MCE 2004 installed and downloading the first of several updates. Now I wonder how the "N00b" OS of Linux kicked my ass (even though I was willing and able to do the research 98% of the world will not and cannot do) and have a hard time seeing how I'll have the time/energy/hardware/balls to try again in the future...

Too bad... I kinda liked the feeling of being out from under Bill's thumb...