McRae: Are We Removing What Defines Arch Linux? [LWN.net]

McRae: Are We Removing What Defines Arch Linux?

Posted Aug 17, 2012 14:28 UTC (Fri) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784)
In reply to: McRae: Are We Removing What Defines Arch Linux? by Zack
Parent article: McRae: Are We Removing What Defines Arch Linux?

Perhaps having tried to develop a Nethack variant has given me a more than usually jaundiced view of what portability involves, but it's pretty obvious to me that cross-OS portability has both benefits and costs, and the relative magnitudes of the two vary wildly depending on what you're trying to do. The costs for an init system are likely to be higher than for a mail system, and it's not at all clear to me that the benefits will be correspondingly higher.

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McRae: Are We Removing What Defines Arch Linux?

Posted Aug 19, 2012 5:05 UTC (Sun) by Kamilion (subscriber, #42576) [Link]

Heh heh -- there's one way... http://www.wazhack.com/
Developer is committed to Unity4's linux support (when unity4's release occurs)

(Been playing it recently on my android tablet a lot, so in a way, there's already linux support, just not X support.)

McRae: Are We Removing What Defines Arch Linux?

Posted Aug 19, 2012 14:45 UTC (Sun) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

That's not a Nethack variant. That's a new roguelike. (Which, for good measure, runs on a rather more restricted set of platforms than Nethack.)

If you want to understand what I'm talking about, read the Nethack source code. Bringing a bottle of brain bleach might be advisable.

McRae: Are We Removing What Defines Arch Linux?

Posted Aug 19, 2012 21:55 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

There's nothing wrong with the nethack source code! (As long as you consider that e.g. modifying string constants is "not wrong"...)

The nethack source is very like nethack itself: an intricate and wonderful maze filled with treasure and surprises and hidden secrets and traps and terrifying monsters of every kind. I actually prefer reading the nethack source to playing nethack. (But perhaps I am strange.)