Circular reasoning [LWN.net]

Circular reasoning

Posted Jul 25, 2006 20:02 UTC (Tue) by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
In reply to: Circular reasoning by man_ls
Parent article: What AMD's ATI acquisition means for Linux (and Macs) (Linux-Watch)

imagine if Linux became a gamer's dream operating system.

I think it's not just good 3D which is needed - gamers expect that they buy the DVD, put it into the Windows computer or a console and it "just works". I'm not sure that it's possible to the same in the Linux world - will the same binary work well on the last few versions of SuSE, Fedora and Ubuntu? Not to mention that the support of a desktop Linux system tends be lower than the windows systems: I mean WinXP was released 5 years ago and I can run the latest games on it - could you run a current binary program on a 5 years old Linux distribution (e.g. Debian potato)?

Bye,NAR

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Circular reasoning

Posted Jul 26, 2006 2:58 UTC (Wed) by xanni (subscriber, #361) [Link]

Why would you want your game to run on multiple Linux distros? Surely it's easier to make a "Live-CD" with whatever kernel and libraries the game needs on it and run the game as process 1.

Circular reasoning

Posted Jul 26, 2006 5:31 UTC (Wed) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link]

What happens when the game gets patched?

Circular reasoning

Posted Jul 26, 2006 5:32 UTC (Wed) by beoba (guest, #16942) [Link]

Woops, forgot to mention this too:

Say you have a computer which uses the successor to PCIe, and your game CD has a kernel that does not have support for this successor.

Saved games

Posted Jul 26, 2006 8:44 UTC (Wed) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link]

I've been thinking along these lines, but it leaves the problem of where to store saved games. The best I can think of is to take a leaf from Sony and require people to buy a USB stick for the purpose.

Then there's the speed issue: one reason many games install to disk is to speed up access to the game files.

If a live-CD tried to copy its files to disk it has a significant risk of breaking the installed system.

Circular reasoning

Posted Jul 26, 2006 9:24 UTC (Wed) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

I'm not that sure, Loki went backrupt, didn't it?

Bye,NAR

Circular reasoning

Posted Jul 26, 2006 10:41 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

"worked out well for games from loki" != "worked out well for loki"

Shit happens.

Circular reasoning

Posted Jul 26, 2006 15:28 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I don't think gamers would have much problem in updating their operating system every few years. Heavy Windows users are used to reinstall the OS every few weeks anyway, otherwise performance suffers.

As to binaries, it can be done -- the first example that comes to mind is the Java VM -- but I'm not sure that binaries are the best way to deliver games anyway. A different model could be explored maybe: distribute the engine as libre software, for free; charge for the levels with a different license. In the same vein as what Id did with the original Doom (a demo version for free, a pay version with full access to the levels), but a step further.