The Problems Right Now For Gaming On Linux

[tuke81]

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Wine is a program that requires a new fake Windows directory to be created and Windows applications be re-installed for every Wine version upgrade or downgrade. It is best to hard set the version for Wine unless you do not mind doing a complete setup of all your Windows programs that you want Wine to run.

What, I have had the same wineprefix for years now(from wine 1.0 to now 1.5.19). I have installed different distro too(from 32bit kubuntu 10.04 to 64bit kde mint 13), but keep the same wineprefix and all installed windows programs works as they were first time I installed them. Only upgrading thing is that wine-gecko-thingy, which will be downloaded every time I start some program through wine after updating wine.

[a user]

I also have no problem with DRM as long as it doesn't detract from the experience. It's why I like Steam. Steam's DRM for the most part is just silent in the background but if a DRM starts to interfere with my operating system, or shuts down the game if I lose connectivity for a split second, then I have a problem with it.

well, i wellcome the positive effect of steam for linux gaming, but calling steam a good exemple for a non-detracting DRM is hilarious!

it was one of the first drm system i started to avoid on windows, one of the most annoying ones. of course meanwhile other companies managed to create some even more annoying systems, but that doesn't make steam better.

[nightmarex]

Except for when they can't get it to work. Because really, 99% of "advanced Linux users" aren't nearly all that advanced. In either case, when they can't get it to work, this costs the company money, in two ways.

First, the wanna-be elitist users just go around bad-mouthing the company's "crappy" products and poor "Linux" support, which costs the company sales from other potential customers.

Second, the company has to process refunds, which has overhead. Overall, an unhappy customer costs more than no customer, which is why successful companies try so very hard to both make their customers happy and target advertising and sales only to demographics that they know they can keep happy. And in the world of software, that often means only targeting one major OS.

Just curious how much do you think pirates using Windows cost gaming companies? I bet you couldn't even get a 10th of a percent in comparison to those who badmouth bad ports in a specific Disto's community.

FWIW most games that are buggy fail across the board. Yet to lend some credence to your argument it can sometimes it's driver specific, perhaps WM specific, composter or something to do with SELinux but I have yet to see a game crash because you're using a distro that's not Ubuntu but has the same kernel and dependencies.

I have no idea why you're so condescending you must be jealous because you can't use one of the "elitist" disto's.

[GreatEmerald]

#3 There needs to be a better way to manage these repositories. I know that Ubuntu has a way to manage them but there has to be a better way. Like putting hotlinks in websites that you can click on and have it added to your system. Cause right now I keep bookmarks for repositories I want. I also ran an update and accidentally got Wine 1.5.20, which doesn't play World of Warcraft anymore. So I gotta downgrade to 1.5.19, which is not a straight forward process.

openSUSE solved it a while ago with YaST 1-Click Install. It still has a few rough edges, but overall it works quite well.

LAWLOMG. Yeah, this is probably still around.
The thing is there are soooo many Windoze people definitely NOT being correctly licensed. If you would make a worldwide license audit... omg.

Actually, yea, this is a bit of a Fridge Logic moment. If Linux users were fond of pirating, why the heck would they be using Linux, and not simply pirated Windows? It makes no sense.
Now there could be some truth in that Linux users may not want to pay for software. But in that case they are not customers to begin with, as they would have never bought it on Windows just the same. And, as HIBs show, there is definitely a considerable amount of people who do pay.

[blackiwid]

"no f2p games"

Heard of FOSS games? These are actually free and paying won't give you an advantage.

"I mean what are the 2 reason why linux is not successful on the desktop... 1. few games 2. no microsoft office or office that is fully compatible with ms-office formats..."

MS-office formats are plague and you should avoid them. Go ODF! Now, the question is, when will people use these...

yes ms-office is the less strong argument... I think people would switch to odf if nothing else they would miss. But still after gaming its one of the biggest points why people do not migrate to linux, especially companies. And yes of course thats plague. I dont talk about me I talk about MS-Only-users.

The more important point is only a few opensource games... and often at least graficly not very advanced... so something like steam is a big thing if you want to bring more users to linux. if it would be successful and really a big chunk of game developers would port their stuff to linux because of steam... that could create a self-accelleration-process more games -> more users -> more games ->...

But of course for the price that this all then are non-free linuxes... so thats its not opensource anymore, or only some parts are opensource.

But ok if the question for mid time range is, do most users keep using totaly nonfree in any way pure drm windows system or do they use linuxes with some closedsource and some drm... I think the last thing would be better.

But of course that can only be a step between real freedom... because you will not reach the mass of peoples when you say... only use totaly free software and hardware or if you cant do that either dont use computers at all or go shoot yourself you harm people...

I mean you can say that... and I find it good that you remind people of this (or something similar to that) because at some point they are more sensitive for that viewpoint... and they will things that happen see with other eyes, and at some point they realise that they have to at least search longer for opensource alternatives before they give away their freedom...


I think btw, that opensource is not the solution it is more a demonstration of some practices for the future... like wikipedia is, it shows as example that people work not primary for money but for a meaning... that could make us easier able to understand that we have to intertruce basic income grant... and people are generally more free and then it will also become more easy for the free software movement to find more people using their time to make software for others for free... or some people can more easily create new startups which maybe make only opensource stuff like with kickstarter or something like that...

And opensoruce as example or free software will not be the solution of our climate and poorness problems... they can maybe be a small part of the solution but not more...

[LightBit]

In my opinion, Xserver shouldn't die, when driver crashes. It should run as best it can and try to reload driver again (fallback into vesa mode?). every software piece contains bugs and xserver should be able to recover from it. Hardware failure is a different case, recovering from that is quite difficult, i think. In short, applications shouldn't be able to kill xserver at all.

This would require additional server and it would be much slower.

[D0pamine]

I installed ubuntu and after three months i am now an expert so i requested many features for gnome3 which is now a huge success and now i'm turning my attention to gaming

by the way - alt and enter rather than alt and tab ... alt and g for mouse grab too

[Calinou]

and often at least graficly not very advanced...

Better graphics do not mean a better game. If you want better graphics, then contribute by making good, high-resolution art.

[JanC]

I installed ubuntu and after three months i am now an expert

Either you are delusional, the funniest guy on the block or a genius on a level way beyond Einstein...

[JanC]

In my opinion, Xserver shouldn't die, when driver crashes.

I think it's usually not the driver crashing, but the "software" running on the GPU. (It is sometimes possible to detect such crashes, and then the driver can hopefully restart the GPU, but if such a crash is not detected...)