Another Humble Indie Bundle Is Coming

[miles]

I bought the first one but the only one that's a .deb is world of goo. If Steam comes to Ubuntu I might buy another one, but otherwise I want it in the Ubuntu Software Center or at the very least, .deb packages for every piece of software in the bundle.

Part of the contract that comes with a distribution is that packaging is never upstream's job (doesn't mean they can't, but building a distribution means you're going to do the work for your own users, and not demand that from upstreams).

It doesn't work as well for proprietary software, but it's still feasible. Adobe doesn't develop the Ubuntu flash package, it's Ubuntu's job.

While it's always nice to find a package for your distribution on upstream site, demanding (not just suggesting or wishing) that developers package their own software for your distribution is wrong and goes against that agreement.

Not only that, but most of the games in the Humble Indie Bundle have open sourced their code, so nothing prevents a distribution to package at least the program, and offer to prepair the whole package (program + proprietary data) so upstream can offer it on their site. The games in the HIB are doing far better than a proprietary game offering binary Ubuntu packages, since the latter don't let you fix security issues, and only offer you the appearance of good service.

[miles]

I'm an alpha addict, I reinstall my OS very frequently. I expect to be able to configure everything the way I like it with one "sudo apt-get install bla bla bla bla bla bla" and maybe a dpkg command on a directory.

As far as I remember, the HIB games run in self-contained archives. Just unpack them on a separate partition, and you can play the games even if you reinstall your OS every other day. As for desktop shortcuts, either re-run the scripts, make your own script or your own package (a package that intalls a desktop shortcut is trivial, as is a script, since you just need to copy or symlink the .desktop files and the icons in the relevant directories).

Regarding your worries about upstream script installs, it's trivial even for a novice to check if a script is sane. Less so for a package, and if you believe making a package is any proof of competence, you obviously don't have any clue what you're talking about.

[miles]

Okay, really? Ubuntu does not and should not get treated as more special than any other distro. Anyone who produces "Ubuntu software, not Linux software" is doing it wrong!

Agreed 100%, and that's coming from a Ubuntu user. I don't mind asking if a .deb (not an Ubuntu .deb, a .deb, since I prefer it works for Debian first and then for Ubuntu, not the other way arount) is possible and offering advice if necessary, but I always feel like puking when some random kiddie make an absolute demand for Ubuntu packages as if it's the only distribution in the universe. Those morons should remember that people that build the Ubuntu packages they use everyday are also Debian developers and would be pretty upset seeing their users trying to stab them like that.

[pingufunkybeat]

Packaging is the job of the distributions, not upstream developers. Ideally, the upstream devs would contact the distribution and have them prepare a .deb, .rpm, ebuild a .tgz which runs on their distribution. This is how open source programs do it, after all.

Gentoo provides packages for the Humble Bundle.

If your distro does not provide it, then you can make your .deb yourself.

[pingufunkybeat]

BTW, the Humble Bundle was fantastic, and I will purchase this one too, based on the strength of the last one alone.

Aquaria, World of Goo and Penumbra: Overture were brilliant, and Gish and Lugaru were fun to take for a ride.

This is a great way to support Linux gaming.

I hope they put Osmos in

[Svartalf]

Besides that, if someone can't make a .deb, I don't trust whatever script they do write. Invariably they don't handle dependencies, they don't handle menu entries correctly, all kinds of unpolished crap like that which I won't put up with.

So...you don't trust someone that has been doing this for probably longer than you've probably used Linux?

The reality is that each of your arguments there is null. Why?

.debs don't magically handle dependencies unless you're building it to the SPECIFIC distribution version you're installing to. Seriously. With some things there's a version-to-version variance (Arch decided to go to libpng 1.4 a while back... Busted Caster all to hell on that platform. If the same transpires with a .deb based distribution, I'd have to provide .debs for at least two differing variations there). If I fixed it so you didn't need to worry about that (handling the dependencies myself, by the way...) then .debs are little different than the Mojosetup .bin file I currently provide- the only thing is "convenience" which is a personal preference thing.

If you use BitRock, Mojosetup, and a few others, the menus are handled right as well.

And this doesn't get into the discussion about if I'm doing .debs, then I've got to do .rpms, Conary packages, etc.

[Svartalf]

Agreed 100%, and that's coming from a Ubuntu user. I don't mind asking if a .deb (not an Ubuntu .deb, a .deb, since I prefer it works for Debian first and then for Ubuntu, not the other way arount) is possible and offering advice if necessary, but I always feel like puking when some random kiddie make an absolute demand for Ubuntu packages as if it's the only distribution in the universe. Those morons should remember that people that build the Ubuntu packages they use everyday are also Debian developers and would be pretty upset seeing their users trying to stab them like that.

Thank you guys... As an aside, Cortex Command and Caster both use Mojosetup (and will continue to do so...) but there's plans by myself to make it "nicer" for people that insist upon the .deb or .rpm- never mind that you're just doing one for the other there on this.

.debs and .rpms only offer one thing...being tied into the packaging system so you can uninstall the stuff from that tool. If you're using one of the "good" installers out there, you have uninstall support, you have proper menu insertion support, that sort of thing. Unless you're talking about dependencies that don't drift...ever...unless you're packaged as part of the distribution, it's more a minefield than you'd think- and then you're resorting to doing cross-compiles of things, pinning to libc versions, etc. and providing key binaries including the .so's you need that may/may not be there.

[Svartalf]

BTW, the Humble Bundle was fantastic, and I will purchase this one too, based on the strength of the last one alone.

Heh...good to hear...

Aquaria, World of Goo and Penumbra: Overture were brilliant, and Gish and Lugaru were fun to take for a ride.

Certainly worth the $15 I contributed to the cause...

This is a great way to support Linux gaming.

It is, at that.

I hope they put Osmos in

Dunno what all they'll put in. They should have an intro trailer up here shortly if they haven't already.

[Chewi]

Gentoo provides packages for the Humble Bundle.

I spent so long trying to package them, I never got round to actually playing them. At least I had some success there, particularly with regards to building from source.

[Svartalf]

Heh... I know what's going to be in it...and I'm not tellin'.