Valve's Linux Development Blog Goes Live

I am also in the no .deb camp, i prefer all games to be in my /home

Quoting: "liamdawe, post: 4981, member: 1"I am also in the no .deb camp, i prefer all games to be in my /home

It's probably best if that doesn't happen, given that Linux is meant to be a multi-user OS.

On another note, someone in my LUG pointed me towards this, which seems to be written by somebody involved with Mesa driver development.
http://www.paranormal-entertainment.com/idr/blog/posts/2012-07-19T18:54:37Z-The_zombies_cometh/

Same as the way Desura does it though? It's just my personal preference.

Will be interesting to see then if it will run on my intel HD4000 (the best intel does at the moment their latest generation) since my nvidia chip is inaccessable right now.

Quoting: "liamdawe, post: 4993, member: 1"Same as the way Desura does it though? It's just my personal preference.

To my knowledge, the current Desura client doesn't support multiple users and would need duplicate copies of games by default. This isn't ideal IMO.

It should either follow the LSB, or do what I did - and use a distribution-independent installer that lets users to choose where to install it.

I have to agree with Liam on this one - I dislike games packaged in RPM or DEB packages as I like to keep my games and my system seperate. Going other routes also means that developers do not have to worry about making multiple packages and that end-users do not have to fear being locked to certain distros.

Also, correct me if I am wrong, but if I installed Desura to a system directory (such as /usr/local/games or /opt or whatever) would that not mean that it could be used by everyone? Or alternatively, if I did install it in my home directory but granted other users the permission to read (or even write) to the Desura directory, would that not also allow other users to access it?

Quoting: "Hamish, post: 4998, member: 6"I have to agree with Liam on this one - I dislike games packaged in RPM or DEB packages as I like to keep my games and my system seperate. Going other routes also means that developers do not have to worry about making multiple packages and that end-users do not have to fear being locked to certain distros.

This is why the LSB (Linux Standard Base) exists and why it is important to respect it where possible. I don't really understand why installing to LSB friendly locations would make users fearful of being locked to a specific distro though (or were you just saying that you dislike the idea of games registering themselves with the package manager?).

QuoteAlso, correct me if I am wrong, but if I installed Desura to a system directory (such as /usr/local/games or /opt or whatever) would that not mean that it could be used by everyone? Or alternatively, if I did install it in my home directory but granted other users the permission to read (or even write) to the Desura directory, would that not also allow other users to access it?

You are correct, I believe (I haven't tested this though). Desura doesn't give you an option for this kind of installation though (in fact, the installer doesn't ask you where to install at all - it just installs into whatever folder the installer was launched from).

This is something that the application should be providing for though, not something that users should have to configure themselves.

Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 5002, member: 122"This is why the LSB (Linux Standard Base) exists and why it is important to respect it where possible. I don't really understand why installing to LSB friendly locations would make users fearful of being locked to a specific distro though (or were you just saying that you dislike the idea of games registering themselves with the package manager?).

I do in general dislike registering games with my package manager, yes. I am also unsure how you think that if a company only releases a DEB version of their game (or an RPM for that matter) it would not be restrictive. All the LSB provides is a standard set of libraries and operating standards. It does not make it so that one package format will work on any distro. That is what I was arguing about.

Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 5002, member: 122"This is something that the application should be providing for though, not something that users should have to configure themselves.

Agreed.

Quoting: "Hamish, post: 5009, member: 6"I do in general dislike registering games with my package manager, yes. I am also unsure how you think that if a company only releases a DEB version of their game (or an RPM for that matter) it would not be restrictive. All the LSB provides is a standard set of libraries and operating standards. It does not make it so that one package format will work on any distro. That is what I was arguing about.

Providing DEB or RPM packages doesn't *need* to be restrictive at all. They're just archives with little bit of metadata that tells the package manager what it depends on and how to remove it. As I understand it, the actual content of the packages don't need to differ at all. Of course, I'm not talking about exclusively providing one or the other...

If the app is self-contained enough to be unpacked from a .tar.gz or a .run, I don't see why that itself couldn't be put into a package manager friendly archive in exactly that form as well.

Wolfire's way of handling it is interesting. Their installer gives the option to build a package manager friendly archive appropriate for your system on the fly. It takes a long time to build an RPM (I haven't tried it on a DEB based system), but it's pretty new and hopefully will be better over time.

The LSB (based on POSIX) also governs what stuff should live where, doesn't it?

Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 5015, member: 122"The LSB (based on POSIX) also governs what stuff should live where, doesn't it?

Absolutely. That's what I was getting at when I said LSB. Either put it where it's supposed to go (according to LSB), or let the user decide.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought RPM and DEB did not give you the flexibility to decide where to install. Doesn't the package manager put it where it wants to (apart from the user)?