QWCD Quake Bootable Linux CD Released

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QWCD Quake Bootable Linux CD Released

Posted by simoniker on Tuesday June 1, 2004 @03:58AM from the nice-and-fraggy dept.

Ozh writes "QuakeWorld players will want to try this interesting light Penguin-powered 'live distro' : QWCD provides a ready-to-frag nothing-to-install QuakeWorld installation, playable from the bootable CD. It includes popular Quake clients FuhQuake and MWQCL, comes with an up-to-date Kernel, and every piece of software a player should need (ATI and nVidia drivers, internet connexion and browser, IRC client...). Has Quaking at the office ever been easier?"

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Now the question is... by mokiejovis · 2004-06-01 04:02 · Score: 1

Where do we get the Pak files? My Quake CD is long gone.

Are there any freely available Pak files that can be used as replacements to the originals?
1. Re:Now the question is... by cjpez · 2004-06-01 04:08 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  You can buy them from ID Software if you don't mind paying fucking $20 or more for it. ID's pricing really pisses me off for their older stuff. I mean, yes, Quake was a great game, but $20? And that's for them to ship you a physical CD of the thing. If you want just a little digital download of the thing, it's an extra five bucks! That makes no sense at all. Also note that Quake 3 only costs $20 as well.
  Also notice how Wolfenstein 3D is $20, but for only $5 more you can get Return to Castle Wolfenstein. WTF? That's one hell of a $5 bill.
  
  --
  Al Qaeda has ninjas!
2. Re:Now the question is... by superpulpsicle · 2004-06-01 04:26 · Score: 1
  
  PC games are already far cheaper than console games in general. $20 anything, I almost can't complaint.
3. Re:Now the question is... by cjpez · 2004-06-01 04:33 · Score: 1
  
  Well, if you're willing to pay $20 for this, then I guess that's your business...
  
  --
  Al Qaeda has ninjas!
4. Re:Now the question is... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 04:52 · Score: 0
  
  You know, I don't think I ever did get around to actually paying Id for Wolfenstein 3D. Maybe I ought to give them that twenty bucks.
5. Re:Now the question is... by roche · 2004-06-01 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  Up at the best buy near me, Quake 3 is only 10 dollars. So, you are accually paying more for Quake 1 than Quake 3.
  
  --
  
  roche
  Bah Humbug!
6. Re:Now the question is... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 05:06 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  Don't people like to say how older games are usually more fun than recent ones? Wouldn't that then imply that older games are more valuable then their newer counterparts?
7. Re:Now the question is... by cjpez · 2004-06-01 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  Heh, yeah. It's pretty easy to find 'em at used places pretty cheap too. ID's online pricing scheme just continues to boggle me, is all.
  
  --
  Al Qaeda has ninjas!
8. Re:Now the question is... by Jahf · 2004-06-01 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  Seriously, it is no different than other software companies who sell through retail. ID pretty much -has- to sell at the MSRP, even if the majority of retailers sell for less. That way they are not seen as competing against their distributors.
  
  In alot of cases, this is a contractual obligation. Even when not, it is good business sense.
  
  Besides, what you are paying for when buying online is to have (almost) immediate gratification through electronic download (while still having it be legal). You don't have to get out of your chair, you just download and play. That adds value through convenience and cost through bandwidth, so a higher price may well be justified beyond the common sense aspect of not upsetting the people who sell your product.
  
  --
  It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
9. Re:Now the question is... by cjpez · 2004-06-01 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  Besides, what you are paying for when buying online is to have (almost) immediate gratification through electronic download (while still having it be legal).
  Ah, but you're also paying for the fact that you don't have a hardcopy, so if your harddrive crashes and ID's site doesn't let you re-download, you're screwed. Or you've got to make a hardcopy yourself. When you buy the hardcopy, you're getting actual physical materials which cost money (not that bandwidth doesn't cost money, but I can't imagine they're paying much for bandwidth when they charge $20 for an >10yearold game), and you're paying some human being to pick it up and put it in a box.
  Of course, I just checked their shipping charges, and their cheapest shipping option is $7.50. So I suppose that's where the difference is. It's just a deceptively-priced product. They're hoping people buy the "cheaper" version and get hammered with a s+h charge. Ah, well. Still, they're all far too expensive.
  
  --
  Al Qaeda has ninjas!
10. Re:Now the question is... by redfcat76 · 2004-06-01 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  In the case of quake 1, along with the game on the cd, you also get an awesome set of ambient music. You would pay almost $20 just to get a cd full of Britney Spears or Barbara Streisand at the record store. Why not cut your losses and figure you are paying $15 for the soundtrack, and $5 for the game?
11. Re:Now the question is... by HanClinto · 2004-06-01 05:55 · Score: 1
  
  That being said, how does it expect people to load content into the games? Over a network share? USB key?
  If I want to play at work after hours, I can't go around installing pak files on the machines so that the bootable CD can play from it. Any ideas?
  It seems like there would have been a freely available pak file by now.
12. Re:Now the question is... by cjpez · 2004-06-01 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  You would pay almost $20 just to get a cd full of Britney Spears or Barbara Streisand at the record store.
  Well, no I wouldn't, but the point's taken. :) I had forgotten about Trent's soundtrack on the CD itself. That'd be worth a bit more, to be sure.
  Okay, so let's say Quake's worth it at $20. What sort of ambience do I get with Wolf3d?
  
  --
  Al Qaeda has ninjas!
13. Re:Now the question is... by Pxtl · 2004-06-01 07:12 · Score: 1
  
  There isn't a free replacement pak yet? I know there is one for Doom (freedoom - its ugly but it gets the job done).
  
  As an aside, is there one for Quake II?
  
  Hmm - perhaps this project could be used for game distros of other opensource GL games such as Cube or Armagetron.
14. Re:Now the question is... by falcon5768 · 2004-06-01 07:21 · Score: 1
  
  lots of dying nazi's screaming "my laven" or something to that effect.
  
  --
  "Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
15. Re:Now the question is... by SnoBall · 2004-06-01 07:27 · Score: 1
  
  Also note that Quake 3 only costs $20 as well
  
  I just bought Quake 3 recently at my local Wal-Mart for $10. Check at your local friendly Wal-Mart to see if they have it that cheap. :)
  
  --
  Don't eat me ... *looks at nickname* ... okay, eat me.
16. Re:Now the question is... by Jahf · 2004-06-01 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  If idsoftware.com were an exclusive outlet, I'd be complaining. But it's not. The only person I know who bought from there did so at 2 in the morning for an all-night gaming session because the closest Wal-Mart was an hour one-way and he had no interest in pirating -if- the publisher had a clue.
  
  Point? Then buy it from the store. Seriously, I would guess the percentages of people who only know about buying ID games from their website (as opposed to finding out about the website after seeing the game in a store) is amazingly trivial.
  
  How many other game makers have an electronic instant-download mechanism for store-sold games? Not many. And I'd be willing to wager the cost is equally higher than the stores, including S&H (and $7.50 S&H really isn't an insane cost for a company that doesn't make shipping a primary business function). I remember when ID was seen as visionary for stuff like this, now people complain about it. Go figure.
  
  --
  It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
17. Re:Now the question is... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 07:49 · Score: 0
  
  Some stores used to sell leftover stock of the Loki Linux release of Quake 3 (complete with tin) for $5-$10, with instructions on how to download the patch so that you could play it in Windows.
18. Re:Now the question is... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 16:54 · Score: 0
  
  http://www.slackers.dk/files/qwserver/pak0-pak1.zi p
Uh Oh! by blueZhift · 2004-06-01 04:03 · Score: 1

Uh Oh! Get ready to see office productivity take a nose dive and those afterhours electric bills skyrocket! ;) Man, I love stuff like this, no muss, no fuss!

--
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Only 46MB by SpaFF · 2004-06-01 04:04 · Score: 5, Informative

The ISO is only 46MB, which means you could put this thing on a business-card CD and tote it around in your wallet. How cool is that!

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-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GIT d? s: a-- C++++ UL++++ P++ L+++ E- W++ N o-- K- w--- O- M+ V PS+ P
1. Re:Only 46MB by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 04:15 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I guess it would beat actually talking to people.
2. Re:Only 46MB by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 05:34 · Score: 0
  
  Remember that the PAK file (levels, sound, etc) is not included. How large is your average quake PAK file? You'd have to download yourself some choice third-party levels and include them, or somehow extract a few from the original Quake PAK, 'cause I don't think the whole thing would fit.
  
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  M
more! by Apreche · 2004-06-01 04:22 · Score: 2, Insightful

I can't wait for pc games to be officially released in LiveCD format. It would definitely give a much needed boost to PC gaming. Making it easier to make games run and not having to configured crazy drivers and such makes it better for all gamers.

Not only that, but having the game be the only thing occupying your system gets rid of a whole heck of a lot of useless overhead and can help to crank up the fps and such on lower powered machines. Lower system requirements means more potential customers. No software dependency means linux and windows users will both be all over it.

Maybe Carmack will make a Doom 3 livecd, we can only hope.

--
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
1. Re:more! by lounger540 · 2004-06-01 05:06 · Score: 1
  
  Nice idea for a game utopia, but the boot cd still needs an OS (this case linux) and still needs drivers. Plus there would be a little more overhead actually bcs you have to load all files off of a cd which would be slower then a harddrive. This is only a convenience to be able to play quake on any pc w/ a bootable cd bios.
  
  --
  LOOP1: MOV CX,2 LOOP LOOP1
2. Re:more! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 05:18 · Score: 0
  
  lets see, pretend we've got a winXP computer with aging hardware, and the new game doesn't have the needed drivers. what then?
  
  How bout this:
  
  1. install game in regular OS (windows)
  3. game uses drivers that were already installed.
  2. game CD is bootable, but uses files from HD (which the CD will scan for) to play.
  
  yes no?
3. Re:more! by Jahf · 2004-06-01 05:36 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  So load the games off CD with an option to install locally.
  
  A number of folks still don't have 3D working on their Linux box, so it is a convenience for them. If you are one of those who take the time to get it all working, use the copy option to get better speed.
  
  I admit that having to reboot to play a game can be annoying (it's been awhile since that was a common practice), but it makes a good option. Plus, if done right and the game is small enough, you could have a bootable Linux version -and- an installable Windows version on the same disk.
  
  Take for instance Neverwinter Nights ... the big difference between the two platforms (Linux/Windows) is in the executables, which are fairly small. We know you can get a bootable Linux gaming distro into about 30MB. Make it a bootable Linux CD but -also- have a Windows installable executable on it (and a copy option to copy the Linux binaries down to disk). Put all of the data on the other disks if you need more space (or on a DVD but I don't think that is quite to the pervasive level yet).
  
  If the developer takes the time to create a multiplatform game, then they can be guaranteed of shipping an OS that meets their dependencies while also giving options for you to use it in your native OS installation.
  
  --
  It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
4. Re:more! by DavidLeblond · 2004-06-01 05:44 · Score: 1
  
  I fail to see the point of a Live CD if you need to first install it to the hard drive.
5. Re:more! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 05:59 · Score: 0
  
  like the post below this, have both options. install to disk or boot to CD, or both, cross platform.
  
  And it'll make coffee
6. Re:more! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 07:16 · Score: 0
  
  Wow, talk about a support nightmare...
7. Re:more! by IntergalacticWalrus · 2004-06-01 11:59 · Score: 1
  
  What about game patches? Driver updates? Support for newer hardware? The static nature of the LiveCD makes it complicated. You could save updates to disc, but that would be a hassle.
  
  Also, most people aren't really thrilled at the idea of rebooting just to play a goddamn game. This is a long, time wasting and annoying procedure.
8. Re:more! by big+daddy+kane · 2004-06-02 12:07 · Score: 1
  
  this is just like how consoles work, except due to the varrying nature and specs of pc hardware, your experiance may vary. users with little ram will experiance lagging frame rates and sloooow loading times, even worse with a slow optical drive. make a live dvd would be nice as games that require multiple cd's wouldnt require cd swapping, but then again if you want seamless operation with games get a ps2!
I thought by stienman · 2004-06-01 04:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

Since Emacs is an OS, why don't they port quake to it, and then make a boot CD out of that? Quake under Emacs should only be a 2-3 line script anyway.

-Adam
Game OS? by Fiz+Ocelot · 2004-06-01 05:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

This just gave me an idea. What if game devs were to do this, like a customized operating system for their game? It could be just like this, stripped down bare bones, just enough to run the game very well.
It sounds cool from a pure performance stand point, but of course you'd be missing a lot too. None of your custom configs and other programs etc. But just performance wise, it could be awsome.? Well overall it would be inconvenient, yet another crazy idea.
1. Re:Game OS? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 05:57 · Score: 0
  
  That's actually the idea that eventually became the X-Box. I don't have links to supporting information on hand, but Microsoft wanted to create a development environment that would make all the games developed in/for it run at the same quality. After running into problems due to the rediculously vast amount of hardware varience there is in the wild, they just decided to package up their development machines and sell them as a console.
  
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  M
2. Re:Game OS? by HanClinto · 2004-06-01 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  From a developer's standpoint, this might be at least a bit of a hacking deterrent.
3. Re:Game OS? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 06:02 · Score: 0
  
  isn't that what a console is?
4. Re:Game OS? by CableModemSniper · 2004-06-01 06:11 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  They did do this, they were called custom boot floppies and they were a pain in the neck to setup. I think gaming has become much less of a hassle now that those days are over.
  
  --
  Why not fork?
5. Re:Game OS? by Fiz+Ocelot · 2004-06-01 06:12 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Technically yes it's what a console is, but I'm just talking about PC games. As in a particular developer, lets say Epic made a linux distro called Unreal OS. Or ID made DoomX. A custom distro on a developer/game basis instead of how it is with a console.
  It might make for an interesting project for fun.
6. Re:Game OS? by stungod · 2004-06-01 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  They have those. They're called consoles. It's a custom os running on custom hardware, and runs games very well.
  
  The problem isn't what gets stripped out but how much still needs to be included in order to run the game on the vast variety of hardware out there. It's one thing to tune your OS for a specific target machine, but when you don't know anything other than it's an x86 box and can boot from CD, there are a few more things you have to add just to get the OS running, let alone the game itself.
  
  So, you can reduce the number of supported devices or configs and incur the wrath of all the folks who think your game should run on the 486 they use for Zork or you can add everything you think might be needed at the expense of size. It's a tough call, and one of the biggest obstacles to achieving optimal performance.
7. Re:Game OS? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 08:25 · Score: 0
  
  The funny thing about this idea is that Unreal OS could be your only OS. Many people only need e-mail, web browsing, and other basics. What a great way to build customer loyalty. The overhead would be low because all of the non-game related software on the CD would be open source, so a company wouldn't have to spend a lot of money to re-invent the wheel, or X-Window...
  
  Make it a bootable live DVD and allow it to save files to a variety of storage media and I think this is a great idea.
8. Re:Game OS? by MMaestro · 2004-06-01 09:36 · Score: 1
  
  They used to do this with DOS. A stripped down OS that was so stripped down you couldn't do anything with it without more software. And then it required driver software to be installed. Then boot disks. Then requiring to restart your computer whenever you wanted to do something else after running boot disks.
  We've come a long from those days. As much as I hate Microsoft and Windows, I'd hate the idea of going back to the days of DOS. (Good luck getting games like Wing Commander II running back then...)
9. Re:Game OS? by Chris_Jefferson · 2004-06-01 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  Avoiding this kind of thing is one of the major reasons that I think things like directX / openGL came along.
  
  There are 3 major problems with your idea. Lets see them:
  
  1) Where to save games / read internet connection details from? Are you going to know how to do this from multiple OSes? I refuse to re-enter my network details into each game I download
  2) So, I have to reboot every time I want to play, and close down my P2P/web server/MSN?
  3) Patches. What happens when a) a new graphics card comes out, or b) the game needs patching? Gonna store it on the user's hard disc? (back to the accessing hard disc problem again)
  
  This comes up time and time again. We left that world when we left DOS boot discs, and good ridance.
  
  --
  Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
10. Re:Game OS? by elasticwings · 2004-06-01 13:11 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, what would be really cool is a gaming tuned distro that on the site you selected from lists all the hardware in your system and then you were directed to an iso containing all the needed drivers, installers, and other requirements of games that currently run under Linux. It would take a lot of time, money, and space to individually tweak an iso for as many possible combinations as you could make, but I think there are alot of people that have a gaming machine separate from their regular internet/downloading machine on the network and would use a distro custom built for their machine to game on. And install to the freaking hard drive for the love of God. Bootable ISO's are cool for toying around with, demoing, or running on your office/work machine; but you should really install to your hard drive at home if you plan on using it regularly.
11. Re:Game OS? by zonker · 2004-06-01 14:28 · Score: 0
  
  well, microsoft (sorta...) already did this the first time they dabbled in computer/console gaming with the msx (though they didn't have involvement other than providing a basic for the machine). but yeah, lots of folks have had this idea but there are too many problems that need to be solved before this kind of thing can become a reality. a basic interpreter woulda been fine for simple homebrew games back in the day, but today you need graphics and sound libraries and a shitload of drivers... not to mention a no brainer autoconfig utility.
  
  --
  Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
Legal Quake datafile replacements by 0x0d0a · 2004-06-01 06:53 · Score: 3, Informative

Are there any freely available Pak files that can be used as replacements to the originals?

There is a free reimplementation of the textures.

There is a free reimplementation of the audio effects.

It is extremely unlikely that there will ever be legal full "drop-in replacements" for the id pak files simply because the maps must be identical to interoperate (not just "kinda work similarly) and the maps are copyrighted by id and were never made free-as-in-beer.

It is entirely possible that people will just start using new (freely-available) maps, however. For example, the Team Fortress maps are freely redistributable.

I am not sure if there has been a project to fully reimplement the Q1 models (it'd be neat if someone did higher-poly-count versions).

--
May we never see th
Full version pak files by DaveCBio · 2004-06-01 07:02 · Score: 1

Is there an easy way to get these on to the CD?
Uhh... Quake is like, OLD man by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-01 07:32 · Score: 0

Doesn't anyone but me care that Quake is over 6 or 7 years old? In other words: Who cares??!?

If switching to Linux means I get to play ancient cruddy games, what's the point?
1. Re:Uhh... Quake is like, OLD man by AEther141 · 2004-06-01 10:08 · Score: 1
  
  Because it's open source, it's compact, it runs on shitty old office PCs, and the ultimate geek motivation - because you can.
2. Re:Uhh... Quake is like, OLD man by psyco484 · 2004-06-01 10:37 · Score: 1
  
  Except Quake won't install on any Windows >= NT, meaning new machines can't play it. This lets people using Windows play a great game without having to switch operating systems. And the next person to call Quake a "cruddy" game gets their knees broken.
3. Re:Uhh... Quake is like, OLD man by Sigma+7 · 2004-06-01 13:41 · Score: 1
  
  Except Quake won't install on any Windows >= NT, meaning new machines can't play it.
  
  Not a problem. Given the very simple nature of Quake, all you have to do is a manual installation where you copy the files from the CD to the Hard drive manually. All you really need are the pak files in the \id1 directory. (You can also include the expansion files in their appropriate directories if you want to play on the expansions)
  
  Anyone who has trouble installing Quake under XP should find another computer, install and zip it right away for burning on a CD-R or CD-RW. Make sure you delete the opengl32.dll file before burning, as that file is for the 3DFX cards.
  
  And the next person to call Quake a "cruddy" game gets their knees broken.
  I doubt that you noticed that Quake has a shorter shelf-life than it's predessor, Doom. This is mainly because of it's Nightmare mode being not much different than "hard" because of the most common playing style of shoot and hide (combined with the fact that you had to jump through silly hoops to get it if you didn't know the appropriate console commands.)
  
  The only interesting part with Quake would be it's relative ease to make mods, such as those various QuakeC Bots floating around. But still, I've moved on to better and more interesting games.
  
  (One thing for sure - I'll probably write an automated waypoint builder later on. It'll be an interesting challenge and prepare me for more complex engines.)
4. Re:Uhh... Quake is like, OLD man by colk99 · 2004-06-01 16:42 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  hrm I guess this quake install that I just did should be impossiable seeing as I have XP:) yes the dos version of quake (the orignal) probly did require dos but their was a quake pack released with the expansions that had winquake and glquake (which runs at > 200 fps on todays machines. Which installs just fine under windows XP
5. Re:Uhh... Quake is like, OLD man by psyco484 · 2004-06-01 17:32 · Score: 1
  
  First off, shame on me, and thanks for pointing this out. I never really thought to look past the error message I got and I'll definitely have to.
  Second, it wasn't as good as Doom. And I don't think I implied it was, especially in single player, but it did have (at least in my opinion) much better multiplayer that kept me addicted for at least 3 years. The thing about Quake that I loved so much, and the reason I wasn't a big fan of Half Life, was that there wasn't a story bogging gameplay down. It was just fun to run around and kill stuff. I'm eagerly waiting for Doom3 but I can't be as excited about Doom3 as I was for Quake3 because I know the mod community isn't going to be very interested. Doom3 will have support for at most 4 players the last I heard. That's fine for a small deathmatch, but it doesn't leave room for much expansion in multiplayer. A lot of people complain about the Quake series simply being a tech demo, but I just think that's great. It means a lot of innovative and fun games are going to be made, mostly for free. So, if you'll allow me to modify my previous comment, I now claim the Quake engine, which happened to ship with a not-as-good game, can not fairly be called a "cruddy" game.
6. Re:Uhh... Quake is like, OLD man by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-02 03:22 · Score: 0
  
  It's crud.
Excatly what I've been saying for years! by rawg · 2004-06-01 08:49 · Score: 1

I have been telling game makers for years to do this. Why bloat out your games making them run on Windows? Windows uses too many resources, making game play slower. Why not make a Linux based game that you boot from the CD? It could install the data files to your hard drive to make game play faster, but it would not have to rely on Windows running in the background to play the game. When I worked at Microprose I suggested this to the programmers. Nobody really liked Linux back in that day.

I don't know why this hasn't been done before. I don't know why this isn't mainstream now. It makes a whole lot of sense to me.

--
The above is not worth reading.
1. Re:Excatly what I've been saying for years! by Kyouryuu · 2004-06-01 15:27 · Score: 1
  As another replier already said, it's not exactly what I would call a panacea to all of PC gaming's woes.
  
  A user would have to reboot the system just to play a game. Switching between games becomes a hassle, especially if you only play for short spurts at a time.
  
  You still have to support all of the hardware. Even if you based it on Linux, you'd need a reasonably competent hotplug system to auto-detect hardware configurations. Even though you might think this puts everything on "your terms," it's not really circumventing the problem of supporting many configurations. And now the burden falls entirely on you to get it right, as opposed to any help Windows could give you.
  
  Writing configuration to the hard drive seems awkward. Supposedly, this is how you'd have to apply patches and record player data. So whenever I put in a CD, I would have to apply a patch every single time, unless you installed the entire game to the hard drive, which is how we are already doing it. A LiveCD shouldn't have to rely on a hard drive being there. Otherwise, what advantage does this format really have?
  
  LiveCDs are SLOW. Knoppix and Mepis are no fun when it comes to speed of their LiveCD versions. It's slower to read from the CD-ROM than it is off the hard drive, which means longer load times and the need for more RAM to run a game effectively (unless you install to the hard drive).
  
  In short, while it is a novel approach, it is hardly a panacea, which probably explains why a lot of developers haven't done it.
2. Re:Excatly what I've been saying for years! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-02 08:51 · Score: 0
  
  This is a great idea. The objections presented so far are easily manageable, and are on par for what you would expect with this kind of software project.
  
  The day is coming, the only question is how soon. As soon as these three issues are solved, Linux-based game CDs for Windows will start to catch fire. That day is alot closer than some people think.
  
  (1) How quickly must a PC be able to reboot from Windows into a Linux-based game for the user to not care.
  (2) How easily plug-and-playable must PC hardware become in order to make an acceptably successful Linux-bootable game CD?
  (3) How user friendly must it be to set up and use a Linux-bootable CD game be in order to be accessible to the average Windows gamer?
  
  The person to successfully make this work will be known for more than just creating the Java Virtual Machine for Game portability. This uber-Java doesn't stop at games.
  
  Gentoo Games Inc is one notable group already working on a Linux-based game CD solution.
  http://games.slashdot.org/games/03/05/1 6/1232250.s html?tid=127&tid=186
3. Re:Excatly what I've been saying for years! by rawg · 2004-06-04 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  1) You have to reboot your Windows system anyway or it becomes corrupted.
  
  2) Linux will support all the hardware you though at it. No need for the game developers to have to support it. Plus, if you have ever worked in the game industry, you would know they have to support all the hardware anyway. I used to work in compatibility at Microprose.
  
  3) Why would saving game data to the hard drive be "awkward"? That's how it's done now days. And I'm not really saying to use a "LiveCD". I'm saying, boot linux from CD to play the games. So your saying it's ok to play the game from CD on a windows system, but not boot Linux from it to play a game?
  
  4) Yeah, LiveCD's are slow, when your loading X and everything else under the sun. I'm just talking about loading the Linux Kernel, a few drivers, and the game. Totally different thing here.
  
  Actually, I'm talking about turning your PC into a Console using Linux on CD to boot it. You can either play the game from CD (slow) or copy it to the HDD (faster) using a option on the game, but you still boot Linux. This way the game developers are not restricted to the Windows Platform. They don't have to pay the MS tax. They have total control over the OS. There is no bloated crap running in the background of your game. You get the best game performance because there is basically nothing running in the background. DOS games were the best, just because of this reason.
  
  To me it just does not make sense to run a game on top of Windows. No sense at all.
  
  --
  The above is not worth reading.
ATI support not included yet by Forkenhoppen · 2004-06-02 00:07 · Score: 1

This is release 0.0.3 of the client. If you check the release Changelog file, you'll see that ATI support won't be there until 0.1.0. The submitter jumped the gun.
1. Re:ATI support not included yet by graikor · 2004-06-04 07:53 · Score: 1
  
  Look again. The changelog hasn't been updated, but the new version for download is 0.1.0.
Please learn how to make links. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-02 02:23 · Score: 0

Please learn how to make links.
<a href=" http://www.slackers.dk/files/qwserver/pak0-pak1.zi p">(illegal?) pak files</a>
yields: (illegal?) pak files
Business card by phorm · 2004-06-02 02:43 · Score: 1

Just make sure you don't mix it up with your other business-card CD's when you give 'em to clients.

Hmmm... this candidate looks very interesting, but I'm not sure what this "fragging noobs" thing is or how it fits in with our business strategy...
Ready to frag nothing to install? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-02 04:47 · Score: 0

NOT! You have to drop in a replacement file and your own paks and then create an iso image and then burn it. Close but no cigar.
Site Down? by zloof · 2004-06-07 08:25 · Score: 1

Looks to me like the site is down, anyone have a mirror, or at least the LiveCD around? Maybe throw up a BitTorrent for the ./ community?