Update On The GOG Game Service For Linux

[RealNC]

I know this discussion is going to end up here anyway so im just trying to be ahead of the curve... standardization of packages on the linux desktop?

Format: RPM
Frontend: PackageKit

Nope. Instead, use installers that come bundled with all needed libraries. No dependency tracking. Just like they do for Windows. You get an *.exe, you run it, the game and the DLLs it needs get installed. It's the only sane way to deal with the madness of non-standardized software installation between distros.

[shmerl]

And partial virtualization (containers like?) can help with running some older stuff probably.

[[Knuckles]]

And partial virtualization (containers like?) can help with running some older stuff probably.

Yeah. We've been further from just providing a virtual machine image with minimal linux distro + supported stuff + wine or whatever.
Cross-platform, and it will always work.

[M1AU]

I know this discussion is going to end up here anyway so im just trying to be ahead of the curve... standardization of packages on the linux desktop?

Format: RPM
Frontend: PackageKit


Justification:

1) PackageKit-- distro agnostic, backend agnostic (packagekit can even hook into pacman for christs sake)

2) RPM-- I know people get really up in arms about RPM vs Deb but my personal vote goes to RPM because Enterprise already does RPM (RHEL + CentOS) and you can do delta packages. Maybe delta's are more an issue of apt-get vs yum but under Debian you download the whole new package, under Fedora you only get the binary difference. I like delta's.

I realize because of Ubuntu that .deb has kind of become 'the standard' for desktop but really it'll probably come down to punching match between Red Hat and Canonical then between RPM and Deb since Ubuntu has desktop and Red Hat has enterprise unless by some miracle they can come together and settle on a package format and package manager (again..yum..please. yum search is so much saner than apt-cache search).

For libraries either run statics, supply them yourself, or have distros package all versions of a libraries wherein there was an ABI break so that we can just run stuff across the board as long as its ABI compatibile (obviously if there was an API break then its an ABI break too) this way when you install the package it just pulls in the library dependencies it needs from the repos


disclaimer: no, I'm not one of those "We need a stable kernel interface! Backwards compatibilty for 20years!" guys, or even release to release. I actually have no problem breaking BC, but if they are going to mandate specific library versions then thats probably the best way to do it.

Yes, please do it.

[disi]

I wonder if they officially work together with PlayOnLinux?
PlayOnLinux is available on every major distribution.

To install a game:

1. look up the game in the PlayOnLinux database to make sure there are installation scripts for it
2. buy the game on the GOG website
3. in PlayOnlinux and click install for the game
4. enter your GOG credentials
5. it will be downloaded/installed with a corresponding wine version which is known to work with the title
6. click play

OK, it is not native Linux but you know how weird companies are with their source code and how much money they want for old titles or sue private people who recreate a game on Linux (worst companies to name just one: Blizzard)

[yogi_berra]

Nope. Instead, use installers that come bundled with all needed libraries. No dependency tracking. Just like they do for Windows. You get an *.exe, you run it, the game and the DLLs it needs get installed. It's the only sane way to deal with the madness of non-standardized software installation between distros.

Nah, that makes sense, it will never fly on linux.

[glasen]

I don't understand what your problem is. Most of the games from GOG are old Windows 95-games or even older DOS-games. All DOS-games (e.g. "Wing Commander 3") come with a bundled version of DOSBox because it is the only possible way to play these old games on a modern Windows system (There is no 16bit sub-system in all 64bit versions of Windows any more).

So why discuss about packaging managers or system libraries? None of these game will ever be ported to Linux (Okay for some of them a Linux binary client exist), so the only possible way to run them on Linux is to use some emulator. This means DOSBox for DOS-games or Wine for Windows-games. There is no other way.

All GOG has to do is bundle the games with Wine or DOSBox and ensure they will run flawlessly on the most common Linux-distributions (Means Fedora, OpenSuSE and Ubuntu). And to ensure everybody can install them, they should use the installer the Humble Indie Bundle uses for their game. This installer is brain dead easy to use and even allows to register the game in the distributions package manager to allow easy uninstalling of the game via the package manager.

And if you crying know "What is with the dependencies of Wine or DOSBox?"

There are plenty of examples of programs which come bundled with a custom version of Wine (e.g. "TeamViewer") and run perfectly on a bunch of distributions without any problems. And DOSBox is very easy to compile as a static binary (Only one file) so there is no need for some libraries.

[shmerl]

You didn't follow the discussion. The issue is about GOG adding native Linux games and supporting them. DosBox and etc. are not an issue.

[glasen]

As far as i can see the representative of GOG just wrote that they are evaluating ways to ensure that GOG-games can be as easily installed and run as on Windows. There is absolutely no single word about native Linux games.

[shmerl]

Look at the thread name and proposal text itself and various discussions in that wishlist item. The proposal says:

If a game has a Linux version and it is made and supported by the developer please allow the option to download the Linux version if at all possible.

That was always implicitly understood that the main point of this are native Linux games. Anyone can already take DosBox game from GOG, unpack it and use (with some config tweaks may be). Or run some Windows game which is compatible with Wine. There is literally zero input required from GOG for it. The whole point of that wishlist entry is asking GOG to start shipping games which provide native Linux builds.