Slashdot Mirror
Where Can I Find Linux Porters?
David asks: "Many small software developers would love to get their software up and running on Linux, but where can competent Linux porters be found? I ask because, a while ago, I released a shareware game called Lugaru. I developed it for Mac OS with the intention of porting it to Windows and Linux. I was able to easily find several developers willing to port it to Windows at a reasonable cost (a fair portion of the sales) but I am clueless about how to find people with the Linux expertise. It is frustrating because I get many emails and forum queries asking me about a Linux version. I really want it to happen and am willing to pay - the problem simply is that I don't know how to go about finding Linux developers. So, I ask Slashdot."
How about posting a request on sourceforge.net with the description of the needed porting skills?
Or even looking at the already ported applications similar to your and asking the developers if they are available, or can they point someone else?
I get cold contact requests from these guys on LinkedIn all the time. I imagine if you sign up, you can find them pretty easily too.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I have a small team of Linux developers that are looking for some work of this nature. We would be more than happy to help you. Send me an email or message on /.
I'll update my profile to have my current email address. krakrjak at gmail dot com
I beleive the site is www.guru.com, it lets you post project offers, and potential developers/clients bid on them.
...If you told us what APIs and toolkits you used
Or better, if you'd read liks he provided before posting:)
[pasted from forum]
My new engine uses OpenGL, SDL, and OpenAL
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Ask Icculus.
Ryan C Gordon is the one to thank for the Unreal ports, and a Linux game porter community surely exists at his site.
Check out http://icculus.org/
"If the original was written in C++, you'll probably have comparable speed."
Riiight.
C++ is considerably faster than Java according to the Computer Language Shootout Benchmarks
but I think $20 for a game is above a reasonable Linux price point I don't know. Doom 3, Postal 2, and several other games sold well under Linux for much more than $20. I'm looking forward to downloading the demo once available and if I like it I'll be more than happy to fork over $20. Especially if it will encourage further development for the Linux platform.
The real question is, not will it sell, but will the licensing allow me to purchase a license for the game and have all platforms available to play?
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
Lugaru's a 3rd person "shooter" type game where your avatar is a Lagamorph- a humaniform rabbit.
Since it's 3D, your suggestions are a little less than helpful for this gent's problems...
Now, considering that they're coming from MacOS to Windows to Linux (from what I gathered from the forum discussions...) it's not as hard as it could be. Technically, the studio could do it all themselves as most of the libraries for game development of this type tend to be the same ones for Linux and Windows as well.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
A couple thoughts.
/dev/dsp is always going to be the sound card and /dev/js0 is always going to be the joystick. If you want to detect them, great, but let the user specify.
/dev/js0 on a particular boot and /dev/js1 on the next boot.
First, I've seen various system-specific mailing lists be used by people who are interested in hiring someone to do a job. Perl-specific mailing lists, SDL-specific mailing lists, and so forth. This is one way to find people familiar with a system.
Second, if you are doing a closed-source game for Linux, be aware that binary compatibility is a *bitch*. I have done a fair amount of work on getting older Linux binary games that I've purchased to work, and I'm pretty much convinced that it's not reasonable to just ship "a Linux binary" in the same sense that one ships a Windows binary that one simply expects to work. In the past, companies that have attempted to do Linux ports of their games have generally not had a binary that continues to work for more than a year or several. The Linux world is not really oriented around guaranteeing binary compatability -- vendors do not generally feel constrained to make sure that software written for their distro a few versions back continues to work. This is *not* a minor undertaking. Much as I love Linux, I would suggest that a better target for a "second platform port" would be the Mac. You appear to have done that, and if you're really pleased with the results, you've made your money back and all, then it might be worthwhile to consider Linux. In general, though, folks attempting to do commercial Linux releases have not done very well -- I understand that Jagged Alliance 2, for instance, shipped something like a couple hundred copies in the first few weeks. That was a pretty high-profile game with a solid port, and no fancy requirements (3d, etc).
Third, be aware that the state of 3d under Linux sucks. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. ATI and NVidia ship binary drivers that produce friction from the kernel folks. The fastest cards with open-source drivers are some of ATIs, and those drivers are *not* rock-solid. Linux was actually better off in the 3d arena a couple of years back, when Matrox had good open source support and ATI was allowing open source drivers -- the state of Linux 3d has actually regressed.
Fourth, if you do this, if at *all* possible, use the existing standard libraries. SDL is the closest thing to a standard game development environment out there across Linux distros. SDL_image and SDL_mixer are also good sidekicks. SDL has lots of oddball competitors that are more or less a pain to get running on various systems.
Fifth, take a look at the strategies that Loki and the other Linux game developers used for deploying patches, for dealing with shared/static libraries, for handling installation/uninstallation, and so forth. The installer world for Linux is not currently suitable to do a Windows-style "download this file and use it" and vendors currently aren't really set up (with the possible exception of Linspire) to provide for-sale applications through their package management system.
Sixth, *let users specify devices*. Nothing is more annoying than some random developer who decides that
Seventh, be aware that Linux currently is not capable of maintaining joystick orderings, so if the user has two joysticks, one may wind up being
Eighth, furries rock. Good job.
Nineth, while this almost certainly isn't appropriate for your game or your scale of operation, be aware that some of the most technically successful cross-platform vendors have built VMs and then targetted that VM. Sierra's AGI and SCI engines, Lucasarts' SCUMM, Infocom's Z-engine (and the free competitor, TADS) all made for generations of highly-portable adventure games (yet none of these games were extremely sluggish or technically limited for their day).
Tenth, let your users toggle between full screen and wi
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
The problem comes in if the Win32 app in question was built with MFC or ATL. Perhaps there's a free version of those somewhere that I don't know about, but you would have a hell of a lot of trouble porting those kinds of apps.
Producing compatible versions of MFC & ATL would be a good companion project to WINE if its not already been done by somebody.
Shareware is a fairly foreign concept on *nix - there doesn't seem to be anything that makes it between a full professional package (or a boxed game from Loki) and free, even with a lot of people migrating from the windows environment where shareware happens.
With enough effort I could be proved wrong. Also I'd be interested if there is anyone that reads this that actually paid for XV since I've never met anyone yet who has.
The source compatibility mode is not restricted to x86 machines!
You take the source code for the program to be 'ported' and the source to wine (available under the LGPL) and compile them both on your target machine. The result is a binary (with the WINE libraries compiled in) that will run on any (non-x86) architecture running Linux.
That's how it works in theory (your real life experience may differ).
I downloaded the demo for the Mac (LugaruMac.zip) but I cant even play it because there's no working executable or launcher included.. :(
Having bought a powerbook about 6 months back, I find I'm having identical thoughts. Sure it's pretty and all, but then I want multiple desktops: $40 to codetek (I passed and use a different open source program, but you can't directly send windows to other desktops which sorta blows). Want to have mouse buttons programmed into the corners of the touchpad -- $15 for sidetrack. Anyway, I like my powerbook and all, but I don't feel any desire to replace my desktop linux system with an iMac. When I first got the powerbook, I was seriously considering doing just that, but after a few months, I discovered that I like linux better because the mac is missing some features I feel are indispensible (others in addition to the things mentioned above).
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good