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Latest Comments by boltronics
Wine 2.0-rc5 release, moving towards a final stable version
16 Jan 2017 at 1:52 am UTC

Regarding Wine support for games with Native builds, a lot of games get bug reports and appdb entries before a GNU/Linux port is available, or sometimes before it is even announced. When native ports do get released, sometimes you get something like Killing Floor which is too buggy to even be playable on some maps, whereas the game can be ran flawlessly under Wine. I like to think of it as an optional fall-back when the native port isn't working correctly.

I've also encountered free software games that are very difficult to build from source (which was the only option on GNU/Linux since binaries weren't provided), whereas running the Windows build under GNU/Linux via Wine was a snap.

Lastly, in many (most?) cases, Gallium Nine patches allow Wine to perform faster than native games, for those who can be bothered with the hassle.

Off topic: I'm really happy with Wine right now - I just got Jack Keane 2 running under Wine with Nine patches. I've been waiting years for it to run properly, although it only seems to render correctly with Nine.

Building Mesa from source, a guide
14 Jan 2017 at 2:10 am UTC

Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: boltronicsI also use `make install` to install, and am not sure why that wasn't suggested on the wiki. You only need to temporarily allow write access to the target directory (/opt/mesa-master/ in the example) which can easily be reverted afterwards - and the instructions even do this anyway with the `chown root:root` command. In my case, everything is scripted.
You can, but I wanted only a minimal set of files. make install would deploy more stuff, and also if you mess up your prefix by mistake, it will clutter or let alone mess up some system directories. So I'd rather avoid using it in the guide. If you script it all, there is less chance of mistakes once it's tested, then it's more reasonable to use it.
In my case, I chown my /opt/<mesa> directory so `make install` simply has no privileges to write anywhere else. :)

Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: boltronicsI also have LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH exported from a file in /etc/profile.d/ and I add my custom library paths to a file under /etc/ld.so.conf.d/ and use ldconfig so that's one less environment variable to worry about.

I also avoid setting VK_ICD_FILENAMES by adding ICD JSON files under /etc/vulkan/icd.d, which is within the default search path and doesn't seem touched by any current Debian packages.
I didn't want to make global overrides. The whole point was to only use custom Mesa on demand, when you want it, and let the rest of the system and applications use default Mesa. If you are confident that it works well - you can always add those global overrides in /etc/profile.d/ and /etc/vulkan/icd.d as you mentioned.
Fair enough, that's a good idea when starting out. I actually install to /opt/mesa-<arch>-<release/date+hash> and symlink that to /opt/mesa-arch so I can always go back by just changing a symlink.

Good work in writing it all up!

Building Mesa from source, a guide
13 Jan 2017 at 2:52 pm UTC

That's more or less the approach I use. The main difference is that I use a chroot which I enter using schroot, and expose /opt from inside it for deployment directly within the chroot. Once installed, I check all 32-bit deps are met using ldd, just to be safe. eg. `find /opt/mesa-master -type f -exec ldd {} \; | grep 'not found' | sort | uniq`

I also use `make install` to install, and am not sure why that wasn't suggested on the wiki. You only need to temporarily allow write access to the target directory (/opt/mesa-master/ in the example) which can easily be reverted afterwards - and the instructions even do this anyway with the `chown root:root` command.

In my case, everything is scripted. I also have LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH exported from a file in /etc/profile.d/ and I add my custom library paths to a file under /etc/ld.so.conf.d/ and use ldconfig so that's one less environment variable to worry about.

I also avoid setting VK_ICD_FILENAMES by adding ICD JSON files under /etc/vulkan/icd.d, which is within the default search path and doesn't seem touched by any current Debian packages.

The Humble Store winter sale is on and DiRT Showdown is free
13 Jan 2017 at 1:56 am UTC Likes: 1

I've put quite a number of hours into DiRT Showdown. The port is excellent, and I love racing games that don't try to take themselves seriously.

Valve are looking to gather a list of games that don't work with radeonsi
10 Jan 2017 at 2:13 am UTC

Did Shadow Warrior have a mouse cursor rendering bug under Mesa? Or was that just the proprietary drivers? Can't remember - would have to check.

Mesa 13.0.3 released with numerous bugfixes
6 Jan 2017 at 2:48 am UTC

Quoting: morbiusI'm happy that Mesa is developing quickly, but I don't know if Radeon cards are worth it on Linux. AMD currently has better offer in mid-range graphic card segment, but what's the point if many games won't work.
Only this specific card had the issue I believe. What do you mean "many games won't work"?

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is about to get ~70% better performance with RadeonSI
4 Jan 2017 at 2:50 am UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: throghYet this is only possible with non-free firmware, so in fact the Mesa-drivers are cool but not complete open. :(
Especially newer cards have those problems, when installing the libre kernel!
No, Mesa is completely open. It's the AMDGPU kernel module that requires the non-free microcode.

Speaking of which, it looks like there might be some hope for a free software microcode implementation soon as well.
http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=PS4-Linux-Radeon-Driver-Mods [External Link]

Dune Legacy, the open source Dune 2 game engine has a major update
3 Jan 2017 at 3:04 am UTC Likes: 2

Oh man, I finished Dune 2 many times when I was a kid. So good.

Does anyone know a place still selling it?
Yes, from eBay.

I picked up a brand new unopened (still in shrink wrap) retail box very cheap a couple of months back, and I finished the game under Wine with the High Resolution Patch (since I wanted to watch the cut scenes). I've since moved on to playing Emperor: Battle for Dune (again, brand new copies can be found cheap on eBay), which I didn't even know existed until late last year (but beware it has some weird SafeDisc copy protection which wouldn't read in my main optical drive - grab the official patches from ftp://ftp.westwood.com/pub/emperor/update/EMPENGINSTFIX10.ZIP [External Link] to bypass).

I'll have to take a look at the Dune Legacy project at some point.

Check out the 'Top 10 Linux Games 2016' video from various Linux Youtubers
30 Dec 2016 at 1:51 am UTC

Quoting: throghWell thanks for the video. But I would appreciate having more freedom within videos or just to say in content generally speaking. Perhaps with usage of MediaGoblin [External Link], Mediadrop [External Link] or even Plumi [External Link]? Talking about freedom is one thought, being free from such monopols like YouTube is another. ;)
I agree with this, and host my own MediaGoblin install for photos I want to share. Unfortunately my ADSL2+ uplink is too slow for video, so I dump video content on YouTube and encourage the use of youtube-dl to get at it.

Heavy Gear Assault has now officially launched into Early Access on Steam, be wary Linux gamers
30 Dec 2016 at 1:46 am UTC

I'm one of the people who can't log in, but I too got the game through the newsletter. I personally dislike games that require a separate login to Steam anyway, so no big loss.