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Quoting: "Rustybolts, post: 5052, member: 13"I put it there, I'm sure it will be fine, free press and advertising etc

I've been unknowingly involved in similar situations where people started saying they were going to pursue legal action (even after I pulled down the content in question which somebody else had put up). I find there are fewer headaches with erring on the side of caution (but in this case, so long as we say where it's come from, I don't see a problem) ^_^

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I put it there, I'm sure it will be fine, free press and advertising etc

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Quoting: "Hamish, post: 5049, member: 6"Nixstaller is mainly used for games Edward Rudd ports, such as Penumbra, Amnesia, and Overgrowth. I have not seen anyone else use it though, which may be a shame given what you described.

Games are the only proprietary software I run, so I wouldn't know first hand whether or not there's anything else using it. I did read mention of some gene sequencing stuff called Newbler or something that uses it.

It's GPL'd, so it shouldn't be hard for anybody to get their hands on. Perhaps other packagers just don't know about it or are keen to use mojoinstaller because it's a higher profile icculus/loki thing?

I just noticed that we're getting wildly off topic :D

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Quoting: "Hamish, post: 5047, member: 6"Official now? :p

It was official when the Linux blog went live :b

Hope there aren't any copyright/attribution issues with that image (for the record, I didn't put it there).

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Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 5045, member: 122"Have you heard of/looked at [URL='http://nixstaller.sourceforge.net/viewpage.php?page_id=1']Nixstaller[/URL] (I did some hunting up and that's what Overgrowth uses)?

Nixstaller is mainly used for games Edward Rudd ports, such as Penumbra, Amnesia, and Overgrowth. I have not seen anyone else use it though, which may be a shame given what you described.

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Quoting: "Eddward, post: 5044, member: 78"So any how, it will be nice if LGP can get going again. But the market has gotten bigger. If they keep their DRM in future products, I know it can fail and I have other choices now.

Essentially my thoughts on it - they are going to have to become more competitive and until they are I can not really support them. Remove the DRM and release a competitive product.

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Official now? :P

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Quoting: "MyGameCompany, post: 5041, member: 68"I would say the 2 best installers on Linux right now are [URL='http://installbuilder.bitrock.com/']Bitrock[/URL] and [URL='http://icculus.org/mojosetup/']MojoSetup[/URL]. The latter is free, and has been used for dozens of commercial games. Bitrock is expensive (wasn't when I first bought it), but is very powerful and easy to use. Both installers provide you with a single, user-friendly, and easy to maintain package that works on any distro.

Have you heard of/looked at [URL='http://nixstaller.sourceforge.net/viewpage.php?page_id=1']Nixstaller[/URL] (I did some hunting up and that's what Overgrowth uses)? In addition to providing normal, customisable installer behaviour, it's also capable of optionally building distro packages on the fly (currently supporting 10 Linux distributions plus a few flavours of BSD and Solaris). So you get the benefits of a standalone installer that runs on anything, customisable install locations, *and* package manager integration without having to maintain multiple builds/installers. None of the other installers I've looked at seem to give that kind of range, and since some people specifically care about having software registered with their package managers, surely this option is All Things To All People.

That said, it does seem to be pretty slow compared to the other installers you've mentioned (at least for building RPMs).

By the way, thanks for sharing those numbers. It's nice to hear that you've got good diversity amongst your customers. Off topic, do you have any other figures/stats that you make available? I had a quick hunt through your blog forum thingy, but didn't spot anything.

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Quoting: "MaximB, post: 5037, member: 3"But I thought that it doesn't require and internet connection....I'm sure I've read it somewhere...

You probably have read it. I know I have. After the initial uproar LGP started to say the the network was not needed. From http://blog.linuxgamepublishing.com/2009/02/27/answering-the-lgp-drm-questions

QuoteIt is thanks to the discussions we had with the community that we took out the requirement to be online when yiou register, and the requirement to be online when you start the game.

When it originally came out they had said (http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/press_releases/200806241.txt

QuoteOnce the key has been verified on the LGP servers, and the password registered
then you are good to go, you never need to worry about the system again. It
will call to the LGP servers each time the game starts, to verify its
details.

They also said

QuoteContingencies are made so that if no internet connection is available, the
game will never lock out legitimate customers.

I know first hand, those contingencies can fail. I believe the hang I saw was probably just a bug that resulted from some unexpected network condition. But I'm still very unforgiving in this case. This bug was in DRM code that serves no purpose other than to second guess if I deserve to run the software I've paid for. I will only really notice when it fails. OK, I sometimes notice the start up dialog and I'm insulted by it, but that could be removed and then DRM becomes at best a slow noop with bad failure conditions.

So any how, it will be nice if LGP can get going again. But the market has gotten bigger. If they keep their DRM in future products, I know it can fail and I have other choices now.

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im with liam, hamish and troy.
hate to have my proprietary games/programs installed system wide.
i like to have Games folder in my $HOME, where all my games are located and Programs folder where all my proprietary programs have.

when u have some issues with ur linux or want to switch distro then its also good to just wipe / and use the same /home partition or just link the new distro to same /home partition and use the same apps as they were by not reinstalling any of them.

my 2 coins

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Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 5036, member: 122"Sure, but is creating a package with bundled libs and no dependency metadata (you still get the benefits of being easily uninstallable, and some level of integration with users' normal methods of installing software) a better or worse solution than a standalone installer? I think this is what the Wolfire installer does. It seems to give the best of both worlds (or at least as much as is possible).

I see where you're coming from. You can certainly build a RPM or DEB that contains your bundled libs. But then you're locked into the install location that the packager chose, like Liam and others have said. I know a lot of Linux gamers like Liam that prefer to have as much control as possible over where things get installed on their systems, particularly proprietary, closed-source apps.

But if you want to support the widest range of distributions possible (which I think is important, since 40% or so of my Linux customers don't use a "major distro" like Ubuntu, Fedora, or SUSE), you would still have to provide something other than a RPM or DEB, because not all distributions support RPM or DEB. That means you now have 3 installers/packages to update & maintain: a RPM, a DEB, and something else (tarball, installer, or whatever). My time is valuable, and I'd much rather have a single solution to maintain that works everywhere.

You could just give people a tarball and expect them to extract and install the game themselves. That gives them the flexibility to install it where they want, and it works on any distro. Many users know how to extract tarballs, and some might even prefer it (don't have to execute an installer, just extract and go!), but it's not very user friendly. And contrary to popular belief not everyone that use Linux is that tech-saavy. My wife, for example =)

The other thing that RPM, DEB, and tarballs don't do for you is install desktop shortcuts, setup links in your system menu (which is located/structured differently on different distros), optionally modify your PATH so you can run it from the command line, etc. A good installer provides so much more than just dumping the files onto the user's system.

I would say the 2 best installers on Linux right now are [URL='http://installbuilder.bitrock.com/']Bitrock[/URL] and [URL='http://icculus.org/mojosetup/']MojoSetup[/URL]. The latter is free, and has been used for dozens of commercial games. Bitrock is expensive (wasn't when I first bought it), but is very powerful and easy to use. Both installers provide you with a single, user-friendly, and easy to maintain package that works on any distro.

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Quoting: "liamdawe, post: 5039, member: 1"So any clues or indications as to when the next Linux blog post may be?

Nothing that I've seen. That recent blog post by one of the Intel guys might be an indicator that something regarding graphics drivers and optimisations might be forthcoming. This seems to have been the hurdle that was the catalyst for Valve starting to come out about their Linux plans (the call for Linux specialists, inviting Larabel to Valve HQ, the assorted snippets in interviews, and the eventual launch of the Linux dev blog itself), but I suspect that like the other Valve blogs, the frequency of content won't be consistent.

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I think some people tend to read into it all too much. I really am with Hamish and Troy on this one, for games just my personal preference is to not have it installed system wide via a .deb - for all the mentioned reasons.

So any clues or indications as to when the next Linux blog post may be?

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I thought the whole point was you needed to be online to activate but after that you didn't need to do much? I thought it was only the initial activation it required the net for?

They really should remove their DRM completely though it doesn't do such a small company any favours.

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But I thought that it doesn't require and internet connection....I'm sure I've read it somewhere...

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Quoting: "MyGameCompany, post: 5034, member: 68"There are other problems with using RPMs and DEBs to distribute closed-source binaries, which I detailed in my articles. Mainly, package managers can't always resolve the dependencies, and even when they can, you have no idea how the dependent library the PM installed was built (and whether the configure options you depend on were built into it in a way that makes it compatible with your program - things like rpath, whether to use shared X11 libs, etc).

Sure, but is creating a package with bundled libs and no dependency metadata (you still get the benefits of being easily uninstallable, and some level of integration with users' normal methods of installing software) a better or worse solution than a standalone installer? I think this is what the Wolfire installer does. It seems to give the best of both worlds (or at least as much as is possible).

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Quoting: "gbudny, post: 5010"Ridiculous DRM? This is a joke?

"Some features includes:

LGP copy protection does not require internet connection to install or play the game.

OK. I feel obligated to call you on this one. I was vocal about LGP's DRM when they announced it. After a while I bought one of their games with the DRM during a sale to see what it was like. For a while it seem ok as much as I wanted to dislike it. The annoying dialog every time I'd start the game, reminding me it was calling home, irked me every time I saw it. But I went ahead and bought a second game, X3 with the DRM.

Last May I was still playing the game. May 23 I tried to start the game and it hung. To try and debug it I fired up strace and discovered the game was stuck in a select() system call on a socket connected to 87.117.204.64. Whois said that address belonged to LGP. X3 is not a network game and this error was happening before the the DRM/call-home dialog. Since I couldn't spend the even playing X3, I used the time to write a nastygram to LGP. I'm using that email for reference now.

At the time of the failure I was also unable to reach the LGP website. That day I could not play a single player game I paid for because of a network problem. I think it also demonstrates that if LGP were to go down, I may not be allowed to play the games I've purchased. I believe that adding DRM was a poor choice on LGP's part and as much as I appreciate what they have done for Linux gaming over the years, I believe they deserve a black eye for that one.

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There are other problems with using RPMs and DEBs to distribute closed-source binaries, which I detailed in my articles. Mainly, package managers can't always resolve the dependencies, and even when they can, you have no idea how the dependent library the PM installed was built (and whether the configure options you depend on were built into it in a way that makes it compatible with your program - things like rpath, whether to use shared X11 libs, etc).

In my opinion and experience, unless your source code is open or you're willing to build packages for specific distros/versions, you should really avoid using RPMs and DEBs. A distribution-independent approach that doesn't use package managers is best for distributing a closed-source binary - it's easy to maintain (you have one binary and one "package"/installer to update for patches), and it "just works" on any distro.

I have one installer for each of my games, and I haven't found a distribution yet that my games won't install and run on. That includes both older and newer distributions.

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Quoting: "gbudny, post: 5025"This is truth.
However since 2001 to 2009 they spent time and money on porting games to Linux PPC, Alpha, Sparc and x86-64 instead porting more new games to Linux x86-32.

Actually x86-64 is good because it's current, many more people use it today than 32-bit.
I use 64-bit and anyone with 4+ GB of RAM (unless they use PAE Kernel ;)).
Any PC today is 64-bit.

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Quoting: "Hamish, post: 5031, member: 6"That does not answer the question - I fully accept that package managers are an asset and a strength of the platform, but I disagree that they are the best course of action for third party proprietary software for reasons I have already mentioned. I do not consider that to be throwing away a privilege but recognizing the faults and strengths of each approach. Proprietary software is always going to be alien on a free system - as such alien solutions work best for it. That is my take on it at least.

Sorry, I thought your questions was rhetorical (and I think that saying that it brings back a problem that we are trying to move past probably indicates what my answer would be anyway) ^_^

I don't really agree with the reasons you mentioned for third party proprietary software. IMO it's better to register software with a package manager so that it can be easily removed and conflicts can be identified than it is to bypass it.

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That does not answer the question - I fully accept that package managers are an asset and a strength of the platform, but I disagree that they are the best course of action for third party proprietary software for reasons I have already mentioned. I do not consider that to be throwing away a privilege but recognizing the faults and strengths of each approach. Proprietary software is always going to be alien on a free system - as such alien solutions work best for it. That is my take on it at least.

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It surprises me that there are people who don't quite grasp that package management systems solve the problems that individual installers create. DEBs and RPMs (and the tools to manage them) exist because there are problems with way that things are done on MacOS and Windows. Sure, there are advantages and disadvantages to each, but embracing what we've been actively trying to escape feels a bit like taking a backwards step.

At the end of the day though, it doesn't make much difference. Unless Valve are going to integrate Steam with local package databases to register individual games and other stuff it installs, Steam will essentially be its own isolated package management system.

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RPMs most likely work about the same as Kame posted about DEB files (I know that I can simply open them up in an archive program and manually extract the contents).

This does not change the fact that doing that or what Kame suggested remains a hack and should not be necessary for installing the game on other unsupported distros. I thought we had this situation fixed for us years ago by Loki anyway?

When it comes to how Desura does it, would there be less complaints if Desura made a more active way of making it known that it is up to the user to set the install location (such as it shipping with it's own MojoSetup installer?).

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Quoting: "Bumadar, post: 5019, member: 93"but so is steam which we are all exited about :)

Not about the DRM I am not. I am still loath to Steamworks and it is the main thing that gives me pause whenever I consider using Steam. This is why I am still very much in the Desura camp myself.

Quoting: "Bumadar, post: 5018, member: 93"agree, but that is something totally different then writing pieces about them still being invalid and create the mood he does where people fanaticly want LGP to go bust. its more then trollish, its like doing his best to make a company look bad or irelevant

Possibly, though LGP is not the only the company Larabel does this to. I will submit that LGP is the one that has tried to do the most for Linux, so it is worse in that respect though.

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I recommend mid wars, 5v5 matchmaking map with only one lane and almost no respawn timer. It's crazy fun, and people tend to rage less if you're bad in midwars.

Also, they've made it a lot more accessible recently, adding in things like range indicators and the like on skills, and having in game guides is just fantastic.

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Quoting: "MaximB, post: 5024, member: 3"I don't think that at 2012 they need to spend time and money on PPC, Sparc and Alpha. It's better that we get 3 Linux games a year from LGP, than zero.

This is truth.
However since 2001 to 2009 they spent time and money on porting games to Linux PPC, Alpha, Sparc and x86-64 instead porting more new games to Linux x86-32.

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I don't think that at 2012 they need to spend time and money on PPC, Sparc and Alpha.

Maybe they should choose easier games to port ?
If they see that the code is a mess and it's problematic, then port a different game.
I'm sure you can get all the technical details before you buy the porting rights.
Also as I've said before, use different porting/licensing approach.
Licensing an old game and trying to live of the sales is suicide.
Instead, try to release the Linux port closer to the release date of the game - and live of the % of Linux sales.
Hib anyone ?
Kickstarter ?
There are lots of opportunities out there, you need to evolve.

It's better that we get 3 Linux games a year from LGP, than zero.

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unfortunately HoN didn't appeal me enough. it has native client and pretty good graphics, but i play LoL instead because its just much more simpler game to play and i'm too lazy to play hardcore.
too bad that LoL doesn't have native client. but it works without problems with playonlinux.
anyway i might give few more tries to HoN in the future

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Quoting: "MaximB, post: 5021, member: 3"I love LGP and all they done for Linux gaming, but times have changed and they must evolve.
One thing I could not understand....why Ryan Gordon ported much more games than LGP (and newer games) ?

Ryan often didn't make patches for older games.
He didn't ported commercial games to Linux PPC, Sparc or Alpha.
For example he ported Candy Cruncher only to Linux x86.

QuoteMe: Did you ported Candy cruncher to Linux Sparc and PowerPC?

Ryan Gordon: We had it running on PowerPC for the Mac OS version, but I'm pretty sure
I only dird the x86 version. (LGP probably had source code access and
added Sparc and PPC ports).
--ryan.

"According to Ryan C. Gordon. a game port is not all that difficult and a single developer can spend anywhere from 24 hours to 3 months making a port. Could you confirm this? What then is it that takes such a long time getting a Linux-port out of the door?
Ryans estimate is based on the fact that a) a lot of the games he ports are already using OpenGL so the hardest part of a port doesn't exist, b) most of the games he ports have a custom or non-existent network stack, and so the second hardest part of a port is a whole lot simpler, and c) he is a coding machine, better than most at what he does, and he has 10 years experience doing it. Not everyone has his skill level."
http://www.hardware.no/artikler/ryan_c_gordon_and_michael_simms/68450/4
LGP has many unpublished games for Linux. Three months ago I found empty PPC folder on CD with Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom for Linux.

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I love LGP and all they done for Linux gaming, but times have changed and they must evolve.
One thing I could not understand....why Ryan Gordon ported much more games than LGP (and newer games) ?
I think LGP should not be porting old games, but as suggested before try to port game that are in production and get funds from Linux sales (40% to them 60% to the developers- or something similar).
Posting good 10 year old games is a bad idea.

They don't have to license the porting and sales rights, that as it seems never covers the costs.
Also they need to choose games that are easier to port, games that use more Linux friendly engines.

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