Backward compatibility hell

[poofyyoda]

It seems that from now on more work is going to be needed to get closed source games working with up to date linux distros.

I tried Unreal 2004, on the development version of ubuntu karmic. The adoption of libdirectfb 1.2, and libfusion 1.2, result in the game complaining about libdirectfb-1.0.so.0 etc... so I linked the newer versions to the old ones and resulted with an error 40 in libfusion.

I haven't had time to really bother delving into it, but I guess we now also require either static versions of the old libraries, and/or have old versions of these packages in the repositories for backward compatibility (like libstdc++5).

Now this is very irritating that those responsible for directfb, sdl development etc.. have not worked to ensure backward compatibility., and that the developer of the binary did not anticipate future version numbers and requires == versions.

[whizse]

Ho hum, I'm running Debian unstable and have an even newer version of libdirectfb installed compared to Ubuntu Karmic. UT2004 seems to work fine here?

[poofyyoda]

Well I get lots of stuff like this

./ut2004-bin-linux-amd64: error while loading shared libraries: libdirect-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

for a ton of libs, right now I'm busy copying the older 1.0 versions into my ut2004/system folder where the binary will load those instead of the system ones which are labelled 1.2.

Are you sure you don't have any old 1.0 versions on your filesystem or ut2004/system folder?


EDIT -- yep after copying older versions of libdirect-1.0.so.0, libfusion-1.0.so.0, libdirectfb-1.0.so.0 into the ut2004/system folder the game launches fine.

The problem of backward compatibility needing old libs is not cool.

[nanonyme]

Now this is very irritating that those responsible for directfb, sdl development etc.. have not worked to ensure backward compatibility., and that the developer of the binary did not anticipate future version numbers and requires == versions.

Wrong. The idea of those versions is that future versions of the libs might not be compatible with programs compiled for older ones. Linux closed source games need constant maintenance and forwardporting...

[whizse]

Nope, on old libs.

What about the SDL library? Are you using the one shipped with the game (which doesn't seem to include directfb support) or have you replaced it since?

[poofyyoda]

Wrong. The idea of those versions is that future versions of the libs might not be compatible with programs compiled for older ones. Linux closed source games need constant maintenance and forwardporting...

So how can we expect game developers to bother about linux then when the ecosystem is so screwed?

[poofyyoda]

Nope, on old libs.

What about the SDL library? Are you using the one shipped with the game (which doesn't seem to include directfb support) or have you replaced it since?

That'll be what it is.. thanks for the tip, I replaced the libsdl ages ago with one on the system. I guess I need to change it again with newer distro ones.

It's still a bit annoying how I can't just copy my game folder to other computers and just have it work, without manual linking etc..

[whizse]

Just create a symlink to the system libSDL.

[nanonyme]

So how can we expect game developers to bother about linux then when the ecosystem is so screwed?

Can we?

[whizse]

UT2004 was released five years ago, and still works. That's good enough for me

Besides, I think iD Software have a very good solution to this particular problem.