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VMWare/Quake 3/Unreal Tournament on FreeBSD

Posted by Nik on from the it's-not-emulation-you-know dept.

There have been a spate of reports about the usefulness of FreeBSD's Linux ABI recently. First off, Daeron wrote in with the news that VMWare now runs on FreeBSD, thanks to the efforts of Vladimir Silyaev. Vladimir has a page up with instructions and caveats. Secondly, Jacob Hart has confirmed that the Unreal Tournament Demo works flawlessly. Finally, Mark van Woerkom has created FreeBSD ports skeletons for Linux Quake 3 Test.

2 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. What's needed now are native ports. by Brett+Glass · · Score: 4
    It's nice for FreeBSD users that Quake, VMWare, StarOffice, and other products published as native binaries for Linux can run on the Linux ABI, but it may be bad for the platform in the long term. Vendors will simply say, "We don't need to support FreeBSD; just run the Linux version!" Such an approach would consign FreeBSD to being Linux's ugly stepsister -- potentially forever.

    This has happened to other platforms. The Windows emulation in OS/2 virtually eliminated development of native OS/2 applications.

    Another example: FreeBSD has a larger installed base than Solaris, and yet there are more native ports to Solaris than to FreeBSD. FreeBSD users should be concerned that this is a sign that the phenomenon mentioned above is starting to happen.

    My take: FreeBSD users will have to bombard manufacturers with requests for native ports to overcome the negative effects of emulation.

    --Brett Glass

    1. Re:What's needed now are native ports. by Chalst · · Score: 3
      Thought provoking post, but I disagree with the pessimism. FreeBSD
      and Linux appeal to different kinds of user: Linux appeals more to the
      innovation hungry user, whilst FreeBSD appeals more to users who care
      more about the robustness of the whole system.

      I also think that free software is much more able to weather a decline
      in fashionability: FreeBSD doesn't *need* to be the hippest OS on the
      block for year in, year out incremental development to be
      made by the people who value its strengths.