Valve going to officially support Linux?

[ivanovic]

Hiho!
Just found a nice link at holarse.de:
http://www.valvesoftware.com/job-SenSoftEngineer.html

In short: It is a job offer for a senior software engineer that would be responsible for "Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform." and "Manage the operation of large clusters of machines running both Windows and Linux in a highly available system.". So is Valve finally gonna admire that there is a gaming market on Linux? Or are they only trying to get their server work natively on Linux, too?

Looks like time for some speculation has come...

[yoshi314]

well maybe there will be some use of my steam accounts after all.

they're laying around useless recently.

[R3MF]

ID have always been the champion of linux gaming, and i have always bought their products regardless of my ambivalence towards mindless shooters..

now that ID have decided that linux is not important for their gaming future (tech5), I will be delighted to support Valve if they choose to take up the position of figurehead of linux gaming.

[MNKyDeth]

If Valve starts to port that would be nice. My only issue with that is though that we have plenty of shooters. I was hoping for a company with a game selection more like timegatestudios that do RTS style.
We don't have many native RTS games that are commercial. Kohan: Immortal Soverigns by timegate is one but support was dropped rather early and none of there sequals came to linux.

I will buy any game valve ports none the less. As I collect linux games. Only 10 left to go unless more come out this year like I am expecting, like Savage: A Tortured Soul, UT3 and I think if I recall 1 or 2 others, I'd have to look them up but am feeling lazy right now.

So Valve...
Bring the games to linux and we will buy them. If not for the fact they came out for linux but because it seems people actually like your games.

[d2kx]

If it's true, this will allow to make the Linux (gamimg) community much, much bigger. It would be the bomb of a news. I could play my favourite HL2Mod, finally. fglrx 8.41.7 and under don't even support DX8 or DX9 using Wine with Source Engine-based games.

[mvpittman]

Anyone remember those competitive trade-ins where they'd just take whatever competing product you had in trade for what a company might be selling...

Then they'd smash what you traded in, just to keep it off of the market?

Maybe they just want to keep all the people willing and able to do Linux game programming from working on linux game programming, by hiring them.

[Svartalf]

now that ID have decided that linux is not important for their gaming future (tech5), I will be delighted to support Valve if they choose to take up the position of figurehead of linux gaming.

Have they? They never once indicated that Linux was officially supported until the official betas started for ANY of their previous games. I am not going to suppose either way, but it bothers me a bit to see people assuming that they're NOT because they're not saying anything, using all kinds of circular logic to justify the statements made.

You don't know WHAT any studio is going to do/not do until they make OFFICAL statements to that line of action.

That's not to say it's not fun trying to second guess them- just don't be making blanket statements like "They've given
up on us" when you have NOTHING in hand to actually PROVE it. It's noise we all don't need- and it'll add to any considerations that they might have to actually NOT doing things.

[Huenengrab]

Carmack himself said, Linux wasn't that important to him anymore. According to a german IT-site he was one of the major driving forces in porting to Linux. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

I'd consider buying HL2 and the extensions, if they decide to take that giant step towards Linux-Gaming.

[user5124]

This could be a very big thing, providing it's their current/future AAA titles.

Even if it's not, it'll still have a positive effect. This news is only good news!

[Throwing Strikes]

Yeas!!! No more waiting for Wine to fix problems after Steam updates. I guess the Wine people have been bugging Valve so much that they have seen the light.


I wonder if its gonna be a Wine based solution like Google did with Picasa or actually making games native.

Really great news!!!

[immudium]

Well wouldn't that be nice. Sorry to be a party pooper again, but I'm quite skeptical Valve is actually spending time porting their DirectX based games to Linux. Valve has always produced Linux servers for connecting said Windows games. I'm guessing that this job posting (especially given the emphasis on networking) is a continuation of producing those very same Linux gaming servers and services and NOT in actually porting the games themselves.

[Malikith]

Responsibilities

+Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform.

Thats it right there, does this mean we're going to get Half Life 2? I don't know, I have a steam account with all of the half life 1 based games along with the Half Life 2 silver package and if they started porting these that'd be cool.

I think if they port anything first it may be the Half Life 1 based stuff, since that runs opengl already and would be the easiest, however, i'm pretty sure the Source engine is capable of rendering in opengl right now.

That'd be funny though if they ported the Half-Life 1 based games first, how many years ago did we want this? But I guess now with the Steam platform and all the games ported to that, now they can port Steam and all the games to Linux.

Does this mean they'll actually do it? Maybe, maybe things are coming together for Linux Gaming. All I know is if Valve gives out Linux versions of their games, that is going to be a HUGE boost to Linux Gaming.

[Moustacha]

I sure as hell hope they port the clients (i.e. the game and not the server). They could start the snowball rolling :D

[Malikith]

I watched a video of Gabe Newell from Valve talking about directx 10, he said it was a waste basically. I need to find that video again, it was pretty recent.

[Malikith]

This isn't the video but this is the article:

According to an online survey by Valve Software, only one in fifty players who access download service Steam has a DirectX 10-compatible graphics card and Windows Vista installed. In an interview with heise online, Gabe Newell, president of Valve Software, said that Microsoft made a terrible mistake releasing DirectX 10 for Vista only and excluding Windows XP. He said this decision affected the whole industry as so far only a very small percentage of players can use DirectX 10.

When developing cross-platform games which are also released fo Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, developers look for the smallest common denominator. And since neither Microsoft's nor Sony's new consoles support Shader Model 4.0 for DirectX 10, only few games use it, he said.

In addition, Newell bemoaned the increasing lack of input device diversity in PC gaming culture. He would like to see controllers like the Wiimote or the Guitar Hero guitar, but since DirectX support for devices like these had increasingly been reduced over the last few years, developers didn't dare implement these expensive innovations.

The Half-Life 2 Orange Box, which will be released for PC and Xbox 360 on 12. October, uses DirectX 10 functionality only for accelerating some mimics. Visually, however, it was virtually impossible to differentiate between the versions. The PS3 edition is being developed by an EA studio and is scheduled for release two to three weeks later.

The game will already be available from download service Steam on 10. October. Newell said the later release date for the retail editions was requested by the retailers. Retailers also didn't want different versions, resulting in the release of a complete package containing Half-Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Portal and Team Fortress. Even before the release date, Valve will announce additional bundles for Steam so that existing Half-Life 2 users don't have to buy a second copy of the game.

The source engine was expanded for Episode 2. A special alpha blend mode generates smoother anti-aliasing edges. In addition, the demo version exhibits new distortion effects and soft shadows. The Orange Box console versions will also apply the new engine features, including high dynamic range rendering and multi core support, to the main game. The PC main game was not revised. Half-Life 2 runs at a resolution of 720p (1280 x 720 pixels) on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

Source: http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/94869

This possibly, and let me emphasize on that, possibly, has meaning behind what we're seeing.

[Svartalf]

Carmack himself said, Linux wasn't that important to him anymore. According to a german IT-site he was one of the major driving forces in porting to Linux. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

It was at one point in time- but then, MacOS "isn't that important to him" either and you don't have them saying that they've given up on them, now do you? As you put it, it doesn't mean much of anything either way. :D

In all honesty, if he's targeting MacOS, there's no reason to NOT make a Linux version. Really. And even if he doesn't 'produce' it, all you need do is ensure someone has enough pull to license a version all the same- there's little reason for him to deliberately NOT do a Linux version at all ever and forever more on this one. He's targeting Macs and PS3 for it- that translates into Linux support anyhow, even if he doesn't do it in passing like he did in the past.

In the end, we do ourselves in if we keep going on about them when they're still in the early stages of everything. I'm actually much more keen on discussing the prospects of something from Valve, trying to second guess what they're up to- it would honestly be a cold day in Hell if Valve or Blizzard did anything for Linux in the near to medium future, and would be welcome if it did get that cold.... I wouldn't mind buying HL2 to play if they did make a Linux version for it...

[Svartalf]

This possibly, and let me emphasize on that, possibly, has meaning behind what we're seeing.

Yeah... DX10's biting just about all the players out there and while it brings promise, it's nowhere else on any other platforms; just Vista. Now OpenGL 2.x and soon 3.x, on the other hand and OpenGL ES 2.X as well- different story altogether.

Vista's burned just about everyone in the Windows world, to be honest. It's been expensive for all the players, AMD included, to get to there and there's just not been any of the takers that there used to be on something like it. XP did better by far, as did 98. In the end, it's not coming together and they don't like what happened.

[Malikith]

I sure as hell hope they port the clients (i.e. the game and not the server). They could start the snowball rolling :D

The servers are already ported, there really isn't that much else to port than the client, at least from what I can see.

It was at one point in time- but then, MacOS "isn't that important to him" either and you don't have them saying that they've given up on them, now do you? As you put it, it doesn't mean much of anything either way. :D

In all honesty, if he's targeting MacOS, there's no reason to NOT make a Linux version. Really. And even if he doesn't 'produce' it, all you need do is ensure someone has enough pull to license a version all the same- there's little reason for him to deliberately NOT do a Linux version at all ever and forever more on this one. He's targeting Macs and PS3 for it- that translates into Linux support anyhow, even if he doesn't do it in passing like he did in the past.

In the end, we do ourselves in if we keep going on about them when they're still in the early stages of everything. I'm actually much more keen on discussing the prospects of something from Valve, trying to second guess what they're up to- it would honestly be a cold day in Hell if Valve or Blizzard did anything for Linux in the near to medium future, and would be welcome if it did get that cold.... I wouldn't mind buying HL2 to play if they did make a Linux version for it...

You know, I still question that rumor of John Carmack not supporting Linux. We know hes going to always open source the engines, and with the history of ID, I just can't see this not being on Linux.

[Svartalf]

I sure as hell hope they port the clients (i.e. the game and not the server). They could start the snowball rolling :D

Would be nice, wouldn't it?

[Malikith]

Yeah... DX10's biting just about all the players out there and while it brings promise, it's nowhere else on any other platforms; just Vista. Now OpenGL 2.x and soon 3.x, on the other hand and OpenGL ES 2.X as well- different story altogether.

Vista's burned just about everyone in the Windows world, to be honest. It's been expensive for all the players, AMD included, to get to there and there's just not been any of the takers that there used to be on something like it. XP did better by far, as did 98. In the end, it's not coming together and they don't like what happened.

And that gives Linux a very open opportunity I think. More than ever. The business world loves Linux, and hopefully, the Gaming business will love it too.

[Svartalf]

You know, I still question that rumor of John Carmack not supporting Linux. We know hes going to always open source the engines, and with the history of ID, I just can't see this not being on Linux.

Heh...you're on the same page as I am here, it seems. I just can't stand people coming up with unsubstantiated statements like that without giving at least SOME rebuttal on the subject. We flatly do NOT know anything other than they're working on it. Never ONCE was it said that Id was doing ANYTHING for Linux on Doom 3 or Quake 4 either. We happen to have versions, now don't we? :D

[nukem]

Personally I don't think Valve will be port their games to Linux they just want to get Steam on it. There have been a few games released to Steam and Linux(if you bought the boxed Windows version). They might want to support Linux just for Steam so they could bring in more revenue from that and encourage any game maker who wants their games available on Steam to know that what ever platform they want to support Steam will support it as well.

The other thought is that Valve might have lost some deals selling the Half-Life 2 engine for use in the other games(id software and Epic make most of their money though licensing their engines to other companies) because their engine only supports Windows and finally realize that its in their best interest to support as many platforms as possible.

[niniendowarrior]

Have they? They never once indicated that Linux was officially supported until the official betas started for ANY of their previous games. I am not going to suppose either way, but it bothers me a bit to see people assuming that they're NOT because they're not saying anything, using all kinds of circular logic to justify the statements made.

You don't know WHAT any studio is going to do/not do until they make OFFICAL statements to that line of action.

That's not to say it's not fun trying to second guess them- just don't be making blanket statements like "They've given
up on us" when you have NOTHING in hand to actually PROVE it. It's noise we all don't need- and it'll add to any considerations that they might have to actually NOT doing things.

Somehow, in all of this... I find a rare tone of hope from Svartalf. :D

Let's see if Valve has anything interesting to announce in the future. ;)

[Thetargos]

Porting only Steam (a means to deliver... and run) doesn't make much sense to me, without actual content. Of course it could send a message to companies making Linux games that they could deliver their games through/with Steam for Linux too, become a Linux game publisher. Again that doesn't make much sense without actual content to back that up, so they must have something up their sleeve...

As mentioned earlier, porting Hal-Life 1 would be the easiest starting point, as the game already runs in OpenGL, and they could do it using SDL instead of DirectDraw for the window and audio functions, the could theoretically do it fast (a few months) and with relative ease... Start harvesting the "Linux farm" with this (and I do believe that there would be more than a handful of users willing to buy HL1 if finally ported over to Linux, even if it is through Steam, me included), and then really focus to the harder port of the Source Engine.

Remember the Source Engine and HL2 leak of a few years ago? Many that reviewed the code, said that the infrastructure to make the game multiplatform and multirenderer was already in place, and much of the engine had already been ported (since the servers are basically game clients without the graphics), and preliminary OpenGL rendering path was there... Maybe they stalled the OpenGL renderer, but if all else is true (and that is a BIG FAT if) about the multiplatform support and server and a preliminary OpenGL renderer, it might not be such a hard thing to do... It might even be slimmer, if they only had to deliver one set of textures instead of the three sets HL2 currently has (DX7, DX8 and DX9 specific textures), instead releasing only one or at most two sets of S3TC textures and normal "ugly-low-res-uncompressed" textures.

It is still nonetheless an interesting finding, and here we are, speculating all over it.

[slacked]

Wow! For me, the only reason to have windows is to run CS:S, if they really port it to linux I can finally remove win from my box. This would be great!

[yoshi314]

Porting only Steam (a means to deliver... and run) doesn't make much sense to me, without actual content. steam is already ported to linux.

( http://gentoo-portage.com/games-server/halflife-steam ; take it as a proof )

some steam games come with linux dedicated server software (e.g. HL2 has linux server binary, but no game executables are ported)

maybe that's what they mean - they want an extra developer to develop dedicated server software for linux, as usual?

[Malikith]

steam is already ported to linux.

( http://gentoo-portage.com/games-server/halflife-steam ; take it as a proof )

some steam games come with linux dedicated server software (e.g. HL2 has linux server binary, but no game executables are ported)

maybe that's what they mean - they want an extra developer to develop dedicated server software for linux, as usual?

Well what people mean is the Steam client, not the server. The servers are already ported for Half Life 1 which includes support for all the mods as well as Half Life 2.

People want to see this in Linux:

http://bloodytampon.servegame.com/pics/steam.png

[ivanovic]

Before everyone goes off into too much of enthusiasm, there are some things to consider:

There will definatly be no results of this within one or two weeks. No idea when this job offer was posted, but it is at least two weeks ago because google cache version is dated august 28th. Until anyone is employed it will probably at least take two or three month from the date the offer was put online. Until any real results will emerge from this I would say it takes another three to four months because the "new one" has to get used to any code he gets. There will be no "oh, here is the code" - "give me one hour and you will have the HL2 Linux binary". Stuff like this will take quite some time. I don't expect any real results of this job offer before next spring/summer.

Looking at the job offer steam *will* be part of it at least for distribution. I don't think they will do something like "Half Life 1 - Linux Edition" since I could imagine that quite many users would be upset about this if they had to pay additionally for a game they already bought as Windows version (probably many of us do have it as such...).

It is more likely that they will try to get their engine itself working better on multiplatform. In short: If something works on Linux it is not too far from working in general on gaming consoles because you at least tend to have a rather working interface and adding different backends is a lot easier as if you are using hardcoded DirectX-only stuff.

Once an opengl render path is implemented not too many additions have to be made to have the engine work nicely on MacOSX/Linux/PS3/... and especially Mac and Linux are gaining quite a market share in the last months. Linux thanks to big companies like Dell and Lenovo who do/will offer Linux preinstalled (not to forget many people not liking Vista and looking for other ways to get eyecandy without having to use Vista...) and MacOSX due to the switch to Intel, their massive promotion and "ease of use" (OSX "just works" and has quite many of the tools that I learned to love from Linux though it really lacks a package manager...).

If Valve will really offer their own games as Linux version (this will be needed to make other Studios believe that the engine is really multi-platform) it will probably give gaming on Linux a really nice boost. Maybe eventually Blizzard will support Linux with a native version *dream*...

[Malikith]

Before everyone goes off into too much of enthusiasm, there are some things to consider:

There will definatly be no results of this within one or two weeks. No idea when this job offer was posted, but it is at least two weeks ago because google cache version is dated august 28th. Until anyone is employed it will probably at least take two or three month from the date the offer was put online. Until any real results will emerge from this I would say it takes another three to four months because the "new one" has to get used to any code he gets. There will be no "oh, here is the code" - "give me one hour and you will have the HL2 Linux binary". Stuff like this will take quite some time. I don't expect any real results of this job offer before next spring/summer.

Looking at the job offer steam *will* be part of it at least for distribution. I don't think they will do something like "Half Life 1 - Linux Edition" since I could imagine that quite many users would be upset about this if they had to pay additionally for a game they already bought as Windows version (probably many of us do have it as such...).

It is more likely that they will try to get their engine itself working better on multiplatform. In short: If something works on Linux it is not too far from working in general on gaming consoles because you at least tend to have a rather working interface and adding different backends is a lot easier as if you are using hardcoded DirectX-only stuff.

Once an opengl render path is implemented not too many additions have to be made to have the engine work nicely on MacOSX/Linux/PS3/... and especially Mac and Linux are gaining quite a market share in the last months. Linux thanks to big companies like Dell and Lenovo who do/will offer Linux preinstalled (not to forget many people not liking Vista and looking for other ways to get eyecandy without having to use Vista...) and MacOSX due to the switch to Intel, their massive promotion and "ease of use" (OSX "just works" and has quite many of the tools that I learned to love from Linux though it really lacks a package manager...).

If Valve will really offer their own games as Linux version (this will be needed to make other Studios believe that the engine is really multi-platform) it will probably give gaming on Linux a really nice boost. Maybe eventually Blizzard will support Linux with a native version *dream*...

No one said this would happen over night, this could take a year or two, it may never happen, but its nice to see at least a spark of hope that a big company like Valve may get into something like this.

I do agree with you about it being a large boost, companies will see that there is indeed a market. Why will they see that? Well, theres a good ol thing called the Steam Survey where it takes all the information of your system and uploads it. This will show statistics of how many steam users are actually using Linux, meaning, there will be some actual evidence of how big or small the Linux market really is.

Heres the steam survey as it is now:


http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

Could be interesting to see Linux on there. Hehe.

90.33 % of users are running Windows XP

7.99 % are running Vista

[Svartalf]

Somehow, in all of this... I find a rare tone of hope from Svartalf. :D

Let's see if Valve has anything interesting to announce in the future. ;)

Being on the front lines for trying to get Linux Gaming going can make you VERY cynical. I'm fairly sure I'd have caught wind of the rumor from my own contacts in the game development space if it were a dead certainty in the case of the Id rumors. In the end, AMD's changing things, they just didn't change 'em fast enough as I suspected they wouldn't- you don't do a 5% global RIF when you're actually needing to HIRE a half dozen or so developers to accelerate the glacial pace of Linux OpenGL driver development. Id's never told us anything in the early stages of the development of a new engine or game whether or not a Linux version was done- all the brouhaha is over a statement allegedly from John Carmack stating he didn't view Linux as being all that important any more and everybody and his dog took it up and ran with it as if he'd sold out to Windows and Windows alone (sorry, bad, bad business move with Vista NOT doing at all well...). Valve asking for a Linux developer to "port games" very probably means they're doing Steam and possibly HL2 or similar and maybe porting their engine over to make it properly cross-platform.

Heh... There's very likely to be some very nice things on the horizon for Linux Gaming within the next 6 months or so. I can't say what (NDAs...always fun with what you can/can't say...) but if the deals close, there should be at least a few happy campers.

[immudium]

Heh... There's very likely to be some very nice things on the horizon for Linux Gaming within the next 6 months or so. I can't say what (NDAs...always fun with what you can/can't say...) but if the deals close, there should be at least a few happy campers.

Well you just sold me. I mean, I never thought there would be a chance in hell that Dell would ever sell PCs without the Windows tax and yet there they are doing quite well with Ubuntu. I've always maintained that if any software company did any sort of informal investigation into Linux desktop use and demand for their software on Linux (outside of the server space) they would be pleasantly surprised. Maybe the decision makers at Valve aren't as closed off as I thought.

[Thetargos]

Svartalf, if what I read between the lines of your post is correct, man! Maybe it's time for that new rig of mine soonish than what I thought :D

On the other hand, I won't allow me to get too high on daydreamin' so if nothing comes to fruition the hit on the ground wouldn't be so hard. Still, as they say, hope is last to die.

[Svartalf]

Svartalf, if what I read between the lines of your post is correct, man! Maybe it's time for that new rig of mine soonish than what I thought :D


You'd be reading some right things into it. There's a little to appeal to the FPS crowd and a little to appeal to the RPG crowd with what might be coming up. I wouldn't get my hopes up TOO much on things yet- licensing deals are such funny beasts. NWN ALMOST became an official Linux title you could buy off the shelf- but in the end it got Nixed by one of the BoD's for the parties involved (Couldn't tell you if it was Hasbro, or Atari...). There've been other deals nuked from orbit for varying resons- this is the main reason why I state that you can't ever know what's going to happen until it's Officially Announced by a studio or publisher, LGP included in that list... :D

[Thetargos]

You'd be reading some right things into it. There's a little to appeal to the FPS crowd and a little to appeal to the RPG crowd with what might be coming up. I wouldn't get my hopes up TOO much on things yet- licensing deals are such funny beasts. NWN ALMOST became an official Linux title you could buy off the shelf- but in the end it got Nixed by one of the BoD's for the parties involved (Couldn't tell you if it was Hasbro, or Atari...). There've been other deals nuked from orbit for varying resons- this is the main reason why I state that you can't ever know what's going to happen until it's Officially Announced by a studio or publisher, LGP included in that list... :D

Darn! That's enough to get me drooling! My mind suddenly can't stop thinking about all the possibilities (and implications!), and the fact that there are clues scattered all over the place in the gaming corporate world to hint about some radical actions, but nothing concrete, nothing quite tangible, and hope that is as of yet and at some point will be an actual action... I hope I'll be able to sleep!

First, ATI on Linux has made one of the biggest steps into the right direction (bump speed of their drivers, broaden their support for newer cards and opened their specs (wow!))

Second, there seems to be all sorts of good news regarding Linux "all of a sudden", in many areas... and the possibility of a "shift"... It all looks really good... Hopefully not too good.

[Extreme Coder]

Darn! That's enough to get me drooling! My mind suddenly can't stop thinking about all the possibilities (and implications!), and the fact that there are clues scattered all over the place in the gaming corporate world to hint about some radical actions, but nothing concrete, nothing quite tangible, and hope that is as of yet and at some point will be an actual action... I hope I'll be able to sleep!

First, ATI on Linux has made one of the biggest steps into the right direction (bump speed of their drivers, broaden their support for newer cards and opened their specs (wow!))

Second, there seems to be all sorts of good news regarding Linux "all of a sudden", in many areas... and the possibility of a "shift"... It all looks really good... Hopefully not too good.

It's good to hear a bit of hope for Linux gaming for the future, because I was almost losing my hope for it :/ I just read a rumour that Quake Wars would be the last Linux game for ID :( I certainly hope that's not true.

I think what's needed is a few games from well known developers(Blizzard, Valve,etc..) so that other publishers will get enough 'courage' to port games to Linux.

And also, the endless differences between distros which make targeting Linux as a single platform should be taken care of.
For example, we could have a game specific file format, with all distros supporting it, or for example use autopackage or something like that.

I sure hope the gaming world in Linux will get better ;)

[Thetargos]

The main problem with games, is glibc, actually, rather a "a file format", that problem has been "soved" with the use of either, Loki installer or another installer. Autopackage would be nice, though.

There seems to be a great misunderstanding about the whole idTech 5 and Linux support. Until id say something about it, I think there are chances for us getting a native client of idTech 5 games.

[Svartalf]

The main problem with games, is glibc, actually, rather a "a file format", that problem has been "soved" with the use of either, Loki installer or another installer. Autopackage would be nice, though.


You don't need autopackage- it doesn't solve the problem for commercial titles and doesn't play nicely with 64-bit x86-64 systems (LGP/Loki Install, however DOES...). However, Autobuild FROM Autopackage does solve the glibc problem in an efficient manner, especially if you couple it with Scratchbox. The nastiest problem that you face building commercial applications is with the C++ standard libraries since there's been no less than 3 ABI's in the last five or so years- it's a minefield. However, you can side-step that issue if you statically link the C++ runtimes and dynamic-link glibc against the 2.1 version of the runtimes with Autobuild. From there, you have a large range of stability, at least until the FSF crowd breaks the glibc ABI again... >:-) :D


There seems to be a great misunderstanding about the whole idTech 5 and Linux support. Until id say something about it, I think there are chances for us getting a native client of idTech 5 games.

Indeed. I suspect that most of the people that are grousing about Id not doing a Linux version are realtive newcomers to the Linux scene and don't know that Id's NEVER announced anything about Linux versions of their titles until the Beta is about to be released. Not once that I know of, in fact- and I would think I would know about it because I've been at doing Linux stuff since the 0.9.X kernel versions, when Yggdrasil was THE thing, Slackware was just picking up momentum, and SLS was the main distribution at the time.

[Thetargos]

Yes, C++ library support seems to be the most problematic part of doing native applications in Linux, that's why the companies that do have ports either statically link to whatever C++ runtime they use (Epic, BioWare) or ship a version tailored for their application (id) installed into the application's lib PATH.

[anshuman]

I think, this step from valve should be credited to Ubuntu users . They have been great fanatics and don't shy out for asking support to linux. any group with money and not waiting to shout for support cannot be ignore :).

BTW i am redhat user cause that was the stuff around in my days (10 years ago) and i have to work on it. still Ubuntu isnt bad for stuff like this. Go ubuntu fanatics!!! :D

[Svartalf]

Yes, C++ library support seems to be the most problematic part of doing native applications in Linux, that's why the companies that do have ports either statically link to whatever C++ runtime they use (Epic, BioWare) or ship a version tailored for their application (id) installed into the application's lib PATH.

Add LGP to the static-link crowd. They offer a statically linked binary which is the one that's been verified. They also offer a dynamic link version with the install just in case you run afoul of problems- but it's not officially supported except when they've verified a specific configuration (and told you to use it in a FAQ or elsewhere...)... The problem with the dynamic linked version is that it doesn't QUITE work the way you expect- Linux does NOT search the PATH for .so files. It searches along the ld.so.cache specified path, which can only be dynamically overridden like you mention via LD_PRELOAD, which has it's own set of issues.

[Thetargos]

I think, this step from valve should be credited to Ubuntu users . They have been great fanatics and don't shy out for asking support to linux. any group with money and not waiting to shout for support cannot be ignore :).

BTW i am redhat user cause that was the stuff around in my days (10 years ago) and i have to work on it. still Ubuntu isnt bad for stuff like this. Go ubuntu fanatics!!! :D

I use Feodra, and was too a Red Hat user from 10 years ago.


Add LGP to the static-link crowd. They offer a statically linked binary which is the one that's been verified. They also offer a dynamic link version with the install just in case you run afoul of problems- but it's not officially supported except when they've verified a specific configuration (and told you to use it in a FAQ or elsewhere...)... The problem with the dynamic linked version is that it doesn't QUITE work the way you expect- Linux does NOT search the PATH for .so files. It searches along the ld.so.cache specified path, which can only be dynamically overridden like you mention via LD_PRELOAD, which has it's own set of issues.

I've seen many ways of ensuring that a particular library path is seeked for in the launcher scripts for many applications. Take Neverwinter Nights' script for example, where they override the system-wide SDL library (in case it is not installed) for their own with LD_LIBRAY_PATH, placing in a higher priority their own ./lib and ./miles directories for libraries, that effectively overrides the /etc/ld.so.cache file. Some others also use LD_PRELOAD, though I'm still not sure what are the benefits of one Vs the other method, are they simply different "styles" of doing the same thing, or does one loads the symbols of a certain particular .so library and even if found another in the regular library path, that at least ensures those symbols are resolved and available for the application (maybe increasing the chances for segmentation faults or the like memory errors). I've seen LD_PRELOAD being used for overriding some application behavior (again, with NWN and some addons for Linux, like the nwuser library which sets the basic infrastructure for the game to save its data onto the user's /home directory rather than the current game directory).

[Svartalf]

I've seen many ways of ensuring that a particular library path is seeked for in the launcher scripts for many applications. Take Neverwinter Nights' script for example, where they override the system-wide SDL library (in case it is not installed) for their own with LD_LIBRAY_PATH, placing in a higher priority their own ./lib and ./miles directories for libraries, that effectively overrides the /etc/ld.so.cache file. Some others also use LD_PRELOAD, though I'm still not sure what are the benefits of one Vs the other method, are they simply different "styles" of doing the same thing, or does one loads the symbols of a certain particular .so library and even if found another in the regular library path, that at least ensures those symbols are resolved and available for the application (maybe increasing the chances for segmentation faults or the like memory errors). I've seen LD_PRELOAD being used for overriding some application behavior (again, with NWN and some addons for Linux, like the nwuser library which sets the basic infrastructure for the game to save its data onto the user's /home directory rather than the current game directory).

Each has it's own issues. LD_LIBRARY_PATH forces the system to look up the libraries in the specified path first when doing a lookup and then applies the ld.so.cache lookups if it can't find what it's looking for the LD_LIBRARY_PATH. LD_PRELOAD explicitly preloads the specified .so files before any linkage or execution is attempted on a binary. Neither is really good from the standpoint of a regular binary- you typically use them to debug or to sidestep a problem with a binary and the current runtimes you have.

For some background:

http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/_/ldpath.html
http://prefetch.net/articles/linkers.badldlibrary.html
http://blogs.sun.com/rie/date/20040710
http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/umischiefs/ (For the last one search for LD_PRELOAD on the page...)

LGP provides LD_PRELOAD/LD_LIBRARY_PATH dynamic linkable binaries to provide compliance with the LGPL licensing terms and to provide a way for people to sidestep very specific issues when they might arise with a given system.

[Thetargos]

The main problem with commercial applications (such as games) in Linux is the heterogeneity of the system from distribution to distribution, particularly in those with long release cycles, as they tend to have older libraries to linger for a much longer time, not only that, but also the many versions at any one time of GCC libraries. As such it would be best for a commercial application to pretty much package the libraries it was linked against and force their use rather than the system-wide libraries, or statically link against those (having the side effect of fattening the binary). Those are the main issues, from what I've been able to observe:

GlibC version.
GCC version, libs and version which the system libs were built with.
C++ runtime libraries version.


That's when LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LD_PRELOAD are most useful.

Judging from some of the sites you cited, it would seem as if it would more beneficial if the application programmers at build time, used specific link paths so that the binary would "look" for those libs at run time, regardless of system configuration and as such they could rely more on their own "local" ./lib path [1] (http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/_/ldpath.html). So if I understand this correctly, they could simply build having int mind their own application's directory structure and ship the libraries they may need without relying on LD_LIBRARY_PATH or LD_PRELOAD at all (if I read correctly this should be done with the ld -R flag at link time). However most cases I've seen of LD_LIBRARY_PATH being set are in wrapper mode (the lesser evil).

Most of the references you provided, however are for Solaris, so I have to wonder if GCC's ld in Linux does support the -R flag [2] (http://prefetch.net/articles/linkers.badldlibrary.html).

The LD_PRELOAD reference is quite a nice read! Simply due to its function, LD_PRELOAD could be very dangerous, depending on its use.

Thanks for the great references!

[Svartalf]

The main problem with commercial applications (such as games) in Linux is the heterogeneity of the system from distribution to distribution, particularly in those with long release cycles, as they tend to have older libraries to linger for a much longer time, not only that, but also the many versions at any one time of GCC libraries. As such it would be best for a commercial application to pretty much package the libraries it was linked against and force their use rather than the system-wide libraries, or statically link against those (having the side effect of fattening the binary). Those are the main issues, from what I've been able to observe:

GlibC version.
GCC version, libs and version which the system libs were built with.
C++ runtime libraries version.



In the case of the first two, Autobuild from the Autopackage project happens to resolve this so it will gracefully handle a LARGE range of runtimes because of the nature of how glibc accomplishes ABI versioning support (incl. an odd way of handling backwards compatibility...) The C++ runtime libs issue's a mess- Autobuild will resolve a goodly portion of these, but I've not used it as much as just simply statically linking that one with myself (it will still dlopen the glibc you specify with the ABI, etc. through Autobuild and as long as you're not flipping around stuff via C++, you end up being fine.


That's when LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LD_PRELOAD are most useful.


Indeed. It's just that they have severe security and stability concerns and shouldn't be used except in the case of a problem with your app just not working right. What the vendors are doing when they use this out of the gate first is showing that they don't understand how things work as well as they ought to. That's not to say we're not happy with them making the stuff, but... :D


Judging from some of the sites you cited, it would seem as if it would more beneficial if the application programmers at build time, used specific link paths so that the binary would "look" for those libs at run time, regardless of system configuration and as such they could rely more on their own "local" ./lib path [1] (http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/_/ldpath.html). So if I understand this correctly, they could simply build having int mind their own application's directory structure and ship the libraries they may need without relying on LD_LIBRARY_PATH or LD_PRELOAD at all (if I read correctly this should be done with the ld -R flag at link time). However most cases I've seen of LD_LIBRARY_PATH being set are in wrapper mode (the lesser evil).


Yep. Unfortunately we don't HAVE the -R flag available to us, to the best of my knowlege, and it's still an issue.


The LD_PRELOAD reference is quite a nice read! Simply due to its function, LD_PRELOAD could be very dangerous, depending on its use.

Thanks for the great references!

You're very much welcome. It always helps to know and understand why something's much less than desirable if it can be avoided. :D

[Thetargos]

Not having -R to ld or the $ORIGIN variable sure can be a problem in Linux. I wonder if there is work being done to implement those?

[Svartalf]

Heh... Back to the "rumor" about Id not supporting Linux anymore...

I'd LOVE to soften the people up that started this rumor with a warhammer or a morningstar- it's making the rounds everywhere today.

Sigh....

[Thetargos]

Talk about "jumping to conclusions"

[Svartalf]

Talk about "jumping to conclusions"

Silliest thing I've heard of in a while, esp. with Intel, AMD, and the OEMs going this way (Noting that one of the OEMs made it a requirement to have Open Source drivers for Linux, etc. or they don't get to play in a short time...)

The only reason why you might really want to circulate that rumor or buy into it is if you're chearleading Windows or X-Box... >:-) :D

[Thetargos]

Yeah... At any rate, that OEM part of your post caught me off guard, do you mean Dell, by any chance?

Edit
Just reading the latest news post and article in the front page, so we don't know yet which OEM this mystery one requiring Open Source drivers within the next twelve months is, tough one thing is certain, it must have a lot muscle to be able to at least require those IHVs that would supply them with hardware to open up their drivers (hence it could be either Dell or HP, and given recent history, I'd lean towards Dell)

[Svartalf]

Yeah... At any rate, that OEM part of your post caught me off guard, do you mean Dell, by any chance?

Edit
Just reading the latest news post and article in the front page, so we don't know yet which OEM this mystery one requiring Open Source drivers within the next twelve months is, tough one thing is certain, it must have a lot muscle to be able to at least require those IHVs that would supply them with hardware to open up their drivers (hence it could be either Dell or HP, and given recent history, I'd lean towards Dell)

Heh... I have my guesses some based off of info that's public, some based off of stuff that's covered by NDA still (and not the LGP ones still in place... :D). I wouldn't put it past HP, Lenovo, or Dell to lean HEAVILY on the chip vendors to get their damn acts together on this. Vista's burned pretty much everyone in the industry, Microsoft included- and they don't want to rely solely on MS any longer. As it stands, I know of at least one situation where HP AND Dell told a vendor to get at least proprietary Linux support solid, preferably as Open Source drivers- or they are a no-sale. Windows support wasn't enough.

[Thetargos]

Windows support wasn't enough.

That bit right there is priceless. For some time now many individuals among the community and in the press have stated that what had been holding Linux back from "average Joe" wasn't a barrier to entry, as such from the OS itself or any of the distributions (as many distributions had come a long way and are even easier to install than Microsoft Windows retail), but rather OEM support, and with them, hardware support. These news are huge for Linux and many other open platforms, as this means prebuilt systems with full OSS supported hardware being shipped, no fuzzing and messing around anymore, and most likely Linux pre installed too. If only they would honor better their decision to support Linux (particularly Dell), as it is a hell to try and find their Linux offerings on their websites... Not to mention their "<brand X> recommends Microsoft Windows Vista" messages stamped all over their sites.

[Svartalf]

That bit right there is priceless.

Isn't it though? I particularly liked the fact that both OEMs in the same timeframe told them the exact same thing.


If only they would honor better their decision to support Linux (particularly Dell), as it is a hell to try and find their Linux offerings on their websites... Not to mention their "<brand X> recommends Microsoft Windows Vista" messages stamped all over their sites.


Keep in mind that the OEMs aren't monolithic entities- and the decisions to make this an issue haven't been getting made except as an as-needed basis with them until recently. There's still a LOT of pro-MS people in Dell and HP and that's part of the reason the stuff's the way it is. The other reason is that Microsoft DOES give "marketing dollars" to companies that do the "We Recommend Vista" bull- something I've considered to be a serious conflict of interest.

[wiscados]

There are more than one jop opening that requires linux experience, though it may just be server stuff:


Senior Software Engineer, Web Applications
Operating Systems:
Windows
Linux
Equipment and Applications
Windows and Linux server configuration familiarity
Senior Programer:]
Minimum Requirements
Master’s degree in computer engineering or applied mathematics.
Must have two years experience with the responsibilities of the position with C++, Windows and Linux platforms, using networking technologies in large scale systems or gaming platforms, including experience taking a computer software product or a video game from conception and development through publication and product shipment.

I really do believe they are porting HL or HL2 to Linux, both of them already run on OpenGL, HL was an OGL game and HL2 also runs on PlayStation 3 which, uses OpenGL. Onve it is on OpenGL there really isn't much left except OS specific stuff...

[Svartalf]

There are more than one jop opening that requires linux experience, though it may just be server stuff:


Those would both be server side jobs. It's a bit interesting that they're asking for someone that an e-commerce site would want as well as someone to handle both sides of a networked game system.


I really do believe they are porting HL or HL2 to Linux, both of them already run on OpenGL, HL was an OGL game and HL2 also runs on PlayStation 3 which, uses OpenGL. Onve it is on OpenGL there really isn't much left except OS specific stuff...


Well, in the case of the PS3, it's a little more involved than that as the PS3 uses OpenGL ES 2.0 which is, OpenGL, but it adds a few embedded twists to the mix. Chances are, there's no code changes needed, but they may have used some ES specific calls, which would have to be re-worked, etc. Having said this, though, they will have done all the really "difficult" work already for the Orange Box- so why not?

[Thetargos]

Isn't it though? I particularly liked the fact that both OEMs in the same timeframe told them the exact same thing.
Amazing indeed... From the article about the Open Source talk at the IDF, it would seem that if Intel has really understood the meaning of OSS, other big companies like Dell and HP also seem to be grasping the meaning of OSS and how can it benefit them.


Keep in mind that the OEMs aren't monolithic entities- and the decisions to make this an issue haven't been getting made except as an as-needed basis with them until recently. There's still a LOT of pro-MS people in Dell and HP and that's part of the reason the stuff's the way it is. The other reason is that Microsoft DOES give "marketing dollars" to companies that do the "We Recommend Vista" bull- something I've considered to be a serious conflict of interest.
Marketing Dollars I hate that term. Alas Microsoft (and others, even Intel included) are known to promote the practice. You gotta love the dual "sense" you can extract from the Dell's explanation of their Linux system with statements such as "You don't get a Microsoft Operating System", for whatever reason they included that remark (are they talkinga bout MS Tax? Or rather about MS's OSes problems), for good or worse... Let the reader decide.

[sugar]

I've been only buying games that are released for Linux for years. ID & Epic are the obvious leaders.

Go Valve!

[Kronos]

Wow nice find... if ventrilo would follow suit i could ditch wine altogether