Latest Comments by Linas
Vanguard Princess, a 2D fighting game that features an all-female cast is coming to Linux
9 July 2016 at 5:05 pm UTC

Quoting: InverseTelecine
Quoting: LinasThis can lead to all sort of hard to diagnose problems, and imposes limitations on how much you can take advantage of the native system.

That certainly might be a problem, but it also might not be a problem. This is more of a case-by-case issue. Good Wine ports vs bad wine ports.

I honestly think it has more to do with Wines ability to run the game, than the effort put in by the developer. There are not that many Wine ports available, so my evidence is not extensive, but I have several examples:

System Shock 2 - platinum rating. Very old game, and the developer seems to have lost the source code.

Two Worlds - gold rating. An old and hilariously bad game, so it makes no sense for the developer to invest in a proper port.

Eador. Masters of the Broken World - garbage rating. Relatively new game. Sold a Wine port on Steam for a while, but it never really worked for anybody, and the developer dropped Linux support and never spoke of it since.

So Wine seems to be a shortcut solution for old and no longer profitable games that already run fine in Wine. And if the game does not run in Wine, there is very low chance for actually doing a Wine "port", because the complexity of that will very likely be higher than that of a proper port. There is no example of a Wine port known to me that actually took a game that was not able to run in Wine, and made it to.

Quoting: InverseTelecineDoes going native mean ostracizing non-native ports? I'm not be sarcastic or snarky here! That is a legitimate question! I am just hoping the answer is no.

Probably not. I mean, I do understand that porting old games is an investment that makes no sense for most developers. They may be build on old technologies that are really platform-specific, using middleware that is no longer supported, etc. So if the game already runs in Wine, why not just package it and let some more people enjoy it? But in my mind Wine a tool for resurrecting old games, and not a viable porting option for new games.

Sorry if I did not answer all the points, because this is potentially an endless discussion. :)

Vanguard Princess, a 2D fighting game that features an all-female cast is coming to Linux
7 July 2016 at 8:09 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: InverseTelecine
Quoting: Linas
Quoting: JuliusHave been playing this with WINE (platinum support) quite a bit...

As far as I know, it will be a Wine "port", so nothing will really change here.

Um... I take serious issue with this comment. A real Wine port done by professionals is much, much better than just "running a game with Wine."

Was not my intention to sound demeaning. I do think that Wine is an amazing piece of software and I have great respect for Wine developers. Yet I do not consider Wine-wrapped games to be proper ports, just as I don't consider software running in DOSBox to be Linux software. Simply because it still runs non-native code, makes non-native system calls, and generally does not interact with system libraries and services the way native software is expected to. This can lead to all sort of hard to diagnose problems, and imposes limitations on how much you can take advantage of the native system.

That is not why I dislike Wine-wrapped "ports" though. My main issue is that this method is very Windows-centric from the developers point of view, and does not encourage proper cross-platform development practices. That is why so many developers choose to use technologies that are inherently incompatible with Linux, such as DirectX 11, and then write off Linux ports as unfeasible.

Quoting: InverseTelecine1. A lot of people who are inexperienced with Wine configuration (like myself!) will not be able to troubleshoot and hack around problems that come up when running a game in Wine...

That is exactly what projects like PlayOnLinux and Winetricks do. Also we are talking about a game that already has a platinum rating in Wine, therefore I cannot see how it is much more than just running it in Wine.

For the sake of argument let us say that the game really is problematic and cannot simply be run in Wine. Would you not rather have all that effort put into a proper port instead of making workarounds for the non-native software?

Quoting: InverseTelecine2. Most important: A Wine port can be bought on Steam/Humble/GOG and count as a Linux purchase, thereby helping our OS get more games in the future!

That is a fair point. Although I believe that Wine ports will lead to more Wine ports. Which can do wonders for older games, but new games may prove problematic. For example Alien: Isolation has a garbage rating on Wine.

What we really need is more developers getting into Linux as a first-class development platform, and not as an afterthought. And that in my mind means going native.

Vanguard Princess, a 2D fighting game that features an all-female cast is coming to Linux
7 July 2016 at 1:22 pm UTC

Quoting: JuliusHave been playing this with WINE (platinum support) quite a bit...

As far as I know, it will be a Wine "port", so nothing will really change here.

Today GOL turns 7 years old!
6 July 2016 at 7:48 am UTC Likes: 4

I would like to take this opportunity to encourage people to support Liam on Patreon, so that we all can enjoy this website for years to come.

Today GOL turns 7 years old!
5 July 2016 at 11:37 pm UTC

7 years is a long period. I have only known about GOL for around 2-3 years, and that already feels like forever. During this period I witnessed it shape from a hobbyist website into an essential part of my daily life. Probably a bigger part than I care to admit in public. :)

Humble Store is doing a DRM-Freedom sale with some great Linux deals
5 July 2016 at 12:16 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: tuubiI'd rather sit inside playing games when it's not sunny and warm outside.
Not really a problem here in Denmark.

Come see the winner of our official wallpaper competition
4 July 2016 at 2:48 pm UTC

Congrats Frank. This is a lovely wallpaper. Would be even cooler to have a transparent version that you could overlay over a desired color background. Anyone with strong enough gimp-foo to do it? :)

When should i386 support for Ubuntu end? Help Canonical decide
29 June 2016 at 11:01 am UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: leillo1975I think that Ubuntu 32bits has no sense. Other thing is the light flavours of Ubuntu like Lubuntu and Xubuntu. I manage a lot of old machines (Pentium 4 with 1GB RAM) that with xUbuntu 32bits can do something useful in my job.

That is not how it works. All these Ubuntu flavors are not independent distributions. They are based on the Ubuntu. So if it drops 32 bit support, so do they.

When should i386 support for Ubuntu end? Help Canonical decide
29 June 2016 at 10:13 am UTC Likes: 2

In my humble opinion, Ubuntu on the server is called Debian. But then I may be a bit biased. :)

32 bit is mostly useful for reviving old hardware, but again, Ubuntu is not particularly optimized to be run on legacy hardware, so you are probably better off with a more lightweight distribution anyway.

So in the end, it is not something I am going to lose sleep over.