I failed.. couldn't resist.. I'm weak and now I hate myself.

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Quoting: AsavarTzethAs a side note. I just want to point out two of the main issues I see with people blindly claiming bundling libraries would solve everything. I do recognize there being real advantages, but still here are my thoughts:

- First of, the (L)GPL, if I interpret the license correctly (read it many times), may not allow you shipping your game this way. Sure you could try to use dependencies without copyleft but I don't imagine thing to be that simple. If it were, then more developers would already have done it.

- Because of first point I would then assume, even if you bundle everything possible (license allowing), you could never prevent something like GCC5. Because, as stated above, I don't think the license allows for bundling this with your proprietary game.

I think you cannot distribute GPL licensed libraries at all in this case. LGPL as I understand, does allow this. GCC itself I guess has some exception to GPL3 to allow linking from a proprietary binary blob against GPL licensed library but it still does not allow distributing such libs with the blob. I may be wrong, so please correct me in that case. In any case, common sense is a good one to have. Shipping _everything_ from the dependency chain would not be that great idea. Shipping your own libraries should be only done when it is absolutely necessary and as small scale as possible.

I think my point was, not including the libs when necessary can not be used as an excuse since it can be safely done. Whether it is necessary and/or smart to include them, is another story.

Quoting: MaelraneIf you start bundling everything we get yet another Windows where (only a few years ago) every game used to install it's own dx. And this sucks on multiple layers, just one (and a minor) being a whole bunch of disk space wasted.

For example, I never use the steam runtime and yet I can play most games just fine ;)

Well, we certainly have our own version of the Windows "dll hell". Have you recently checked the amount of libraries you have installed on your system? Most of us have quite some, plus 32-bit libraries, multiple versions of libraries, etc. Shipping a few necessary libraries with a game is probably not that much of an issue if we talk about disk space. Of course shipping the whole dependency tree all the way to libc would be ridiculous.

Anyway, you're right, most of the time libraries are not (that much of an) issue and you can install whatever is needed. Until time goes by and you want to play a game few years old with a dependency to an old version of a library that might not exist in repositories anymore or has been patched to a point where game does not work with it anymore. That's where stuff like Steam runtime can be helpful.

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Quoting: jonprydeThe problem also isn't in the game devs not packaging their libraries with them. Packaging libs that could, in theory, cause conflicts with other libraries is generally a development no-no in a lot of ways. Sure you can do it in some cases, but in this case, I don't believe it to be a good idea. Games generally don't get the same level of updates that core libs may get.

Yes, they do not get the same level of updates as system libs. That's the whole point in supplying your own (and to some extent the reason for stuff like Steam runtime): to avoid your binary breaking when everything it is linked against gets updated rapidly over time. There is no harm/conflicts coming from bundling necessary libraries _if_ done right. I really want this myth to die.

Also, yes the problem can be the game devs not packaging their own libs. Just yesterday I ran into a game that is linked against some ancient version of one particular library that exists in most of the systems. It was not supplied with the game, so I'll be compiling it myself and playing with LD_PRELOAD if I want it to work. Sucks.

Quoting: toorNo user => No money to get out of it => Bad ecosystem => Lack of proprietary softwares => No user

Reading that made me sad. As if having more proprietary components would be a good thing in any way.

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I'm really getting tired of this myth of thousand and one distributions making everything complicated. Yeah, it's a myth, which probably originates from people who simply have not done their research and/or simply have no idea what they are talking about.

First off, since you're supplying a binary blob please, please do not rely on library X version Y to exist on your customers install. Rely on Steam runtime instead, the rest is up to Valve and distro maintainers.

If you don't want to use Steam runtime (or need something that it does not include), learn the very few gotchas about dynamic linking / library loading in Linux compared to Windows and supply your own. Usually this means a simple launcher script. If you need only a handful of libraries or binary size is not an issue, you can also consider static linking.

So, target either Linux (not Ubuntu, not Mint, not whatever, just Linux) or SteamOS. If you target Linux, you will need to supply libraries on your own and if you know what you're doing, it'll most likely work for majority of the users. It'll also run on SteamOS. If you target SteamOS, you worry only about compatibility with SteamOS but please, stick to the runtime in that case, and your game will most likely work elsewhere too if both distribution packagers and you have done their job properly. It really is that simple.

Driver problems unfortunately are there. I don't think it's a responsibility of a gamedev to fix the more serious driver problems. If you run into such problems (and most likely you will), it's your (constructive and detailed) feedback that is needed to get those problems fixed. I think most of us would not mind if you only target binary drivers at first. Heck, many would probably not mind if you would only target nvidia binary drivers at first. That is, if there is a good explanation for such behavior and support for other drivers coming in a future patch. Be clear what is supported, what is not and why and it'll all be alright.

I wouldn't worry about the ethics and philosophies either. Those that care are not going to install Steam or any other binary for that matter. I'm pretty sure most of us have this thin line about what we accept and what we do not. If a gamer only accepts free open source products, (s)he probably does not have any interest in a closed source game in a first place.

One last thing.. I would really like game developers to just ask us for help if they face problems with Linux. Chances are there are devs and experienced/veteran users in the audience who can actually help you get started or help you get your problems solved. It's a different platform, different ecosystem and a different user base so use the knowledge that is already out there instead of just banging your head to a wall while reinventing the wheel for nothing.

Sorry for the long comment, I just had to get it all out.

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Certainly made me see Alienware in a bit different light than before. Might even consider purchasing one now. I'm so easily deceived by marketing folk..

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Instabuy. First game is incredibly good and I don't even like first person shooters that much generally.

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I used #21, thanks!

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I can't believe no one told the other guy about distcc and ccache.. Anyway, awesome video. Might even buy DL thanks to it.

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