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C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

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Re: C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

#31

Post by tdsamardzhiev »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #11
stinos wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a pity they've decided to take a political position rather than a technological one . Not sure if that really is the case - to me it reads like "I spent so much time getting this thing to work and it still doesn't work properly now, so I just give up" Yeah sure, the underlying reason for this might be that he doesn't know how to properly do it (and the reason for that in turn might be that it is hard), but how i…

> spend weeks at a time just trying to install Linux, get it to boot, and get a development environment working I think we found the problem. It's between chair and keyboard.

Actually, Eric Lengyel is a well-respected guy and programmer. If an OS takes him long (and by long I mean more than 10 minutes) to install and configure, that doesn't speak all-too-well for that OS.

Re: C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

#32

Post by digi_owl »

Arnt wrote: post #17
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spend weeks at a time just trying to install Linux, get it to boot, and get a development environment working I think we found the problem. It's between chair and keyboard.

Oddly enough, I had a lot of trouble getting my new laptop to boot, work and sleep properly. Not for lack of experience: I first installed linux in the summer of 1992 using hlu's floppies and have used linux for daily work for about 20 of the 22½ years since then. I can easily believe that someone used to windows with its mishmash of installers might have an unpleasant experience. Apt-get works wonderfully on a prist…

The basic problem with systemd is that its "dependencies" based design result in all manner of nondeterministic behavior.

And i suspect this has little to do with the original complaint. I think that is more in terms of "lib version X-1 do not support the feature i need, X+1 breaks a different feature in a subtle way, and version X can't be found in any distro repo out there".

Sadly the above is not a problem of Linux or libraries, but of distro package formats balking at having multiple lib versions installed at once.

Re: C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

#33

Post by flohofwoe »

pja wrote: post #26

The answer to this developer's install problems are a VMWare virtual machine running on his usual Windows setup. By his own account his actual Linux code works just fine - the only thing that was in his way was his inability to install the OS in the first place. It seems a shame to throw out all that working code over such a trivial & easily solvable problem. Wrestling with weird stability problems (which might be a…

VMs just add another dimension to the pain of incompatible or buggy components. I don't know if VMWare provides modern OpenGL support (3.x or better). I have only experience with Virtual Box, and only ever got OpenGL 2.1 (8 years old) without extensions running with hardware acceleration, but with bugs (e.g. vsync never works). Right now I can't update to the latest VBox version because its display driver is incompatible with my Linux version.

I work on Linux running in VMs every day, but can't recommend this setup at all for OpenGL development.

Re: C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

#34

Post by rjaco31 »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #30
thirdtruck wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was running Steam in Big Picture mode on my Linux laptop only minutes before reading your comment. It's not a true Steam Machine, but neither is it that far off. :)

What is the specific difference between a true Steam Machine and a PC with Steam installed?

Well they use the SteamOS as an operating system

Re: C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

#35

Post by qznc »

emsy wrote: post #13
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #7

Whoa, blast from the past; I did a minor game design using this engine. I spent most of the time refactoring the demo game code to something a bit more OO / to my style though. I don't know if that was good for performance, but it pleased me. But yeah, as another commenter stated, it just doesn't have the leverage as the bigger engines have (U4, Unity, etc), and those have very competitive pricing for hobbyist develo…

From a consumer point of view, everything above the Linux Kernel is a mess. A mess means actually choice where the consumer doesn't need one. I had hopes that Steam Machines may leverage Linux to consumers but trying to configure my father's Linux machine to his needs brought me back to reality. I even think that the consumer perspective is the one that hinders Linux. Want to develop something for Linux? What's the d…

I like your definition of "mess". It clarifies but is still subjective. :)

The answer in my opinion is "develop for Ubuntu LTS". Non-LTS changes too fast. In contrast to Debian, you can assume proprietary nVidia/ATI drivers. If it works on Ubuntu, it (usually) also works for Debian and Mint, although you don't have to explicitly support them. Arch users are probably used to and savvy enough to port stuff from Ubuntu. It implicitly means GTK/Gnome/Unity, although games probably just use SDL and OpenGL.

Re: C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

#36

Post by qznc »

tdsamardzhiev wrote: post #31
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> spend weeks at a time just trying to install Linux, get it to boot, and get a development environment working I think we found the problem. It's between chair and keyboard.

Actually, Eric Lengyel is a well-respected guy and programmer. If an OS takes him long (and by long I mean more than 10 minutes) to install and configure, that doesn't speak all-too-well for that OS.

There are so many reports of normal people installing Ubuntu without problems that I'd rather guess he hit some obscure bug.

Re: C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

#37

Post by ZenoArrow »

emsy wrote: post #13
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #7

Whoa, blast from the past; I did a minor game design using this engine. I spent most of the time refactoring the demo game code to something a bit more OO / to my style though. I don't know if that was good for performance, but it pleased me. But yeah, as another commenter stated, it just doesn't have the leverage as the bigger engines have (U4, Unity, etc), and those have very competitive pricing for hobbyist develo…

From a consumer point of view, everything above the Linux Kernel is a mess. A mess means actually choice where the consumer doesn't need one. I had hopes that Steam Machines may leverage Linux to consumers but trying to configure my father's Linux machine to his needs brought me back to reality. I even think that the consumer perspective is the one that hinders Linux. Want to develop something for Linux? What's the d…

> "From a consumer point of view, everything above the Linux Kernel is a mess."

That's the sort of thing projects like systemd aim to fix.

> "Want to develop something for Linux? What's the display server? Proprietary or free drivers? What Desktop Environment? QT or GTK Application?"

You don't need to concern yourself with the display server if you're writing using a library like Qt or GTK+, but it's not a hard question anyway (X.org now, Wayland/Mir in the future). Drivers wise, most devices only have one driver to choose from, the only exceptions are for the GPU, and if you want to play games the answer is clear (NVidia card, proprietary driver). Desktop environment doesn't matter, they all support X.org graphics frameworks.

There are certainly challenges with Linux development, and there is a need for a bit more stability lower down the OS stack, but the situation is improving, and Windows proves you can offer both choice and stability. The only issue I see that is a time bomb with regards to Linux gaming is the sound stack, everything else appears to be improving.

Re: C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

#38

Post by thirdtruck »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #30
thirdtruck wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was running Steam in Big Picture mode on my Linux laptop only minutes before reading your comment. It's not a true Steam Machine, but neither is it that far off. :)

What is the specific difference between a true Steam Machine and a PC with Steam installed?

Besides Steam OS, mentioned earlier, people also expect them to be console-like in their compactness and portability, but that's not a hard requirement.

Re: C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

#39

Post by jiggy2011 »

rjaco31 wrote: post #34
jiggy2011 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the specific difference between a true Steam Machine and a PC with Steam installed?

Well they use the SteamOS as an operating system

I don't think that is a requirement though, realistically the cost saving on a Windows OEM license will be eclipsed by the reduced game catalog for quite some time.

Re: C4 game engine drops Linux support citing frustrations with desktop Linux

#40

Post by wtf_is_up »

jevgeni wrote: post #29
icebraining wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The engine is proprietary, stefantalpalaru couldn't "take up the flag" even if (s)he wanted.

I understand that. But, say I propose to stefantalpalaru to write an engine supporting Linux from scratch. And if that's too hard, wouldn't it be fair to say, that it is also a problem between the chair and the keyboard?

It depends if (s)he abandons the project because installing a distro is too hard or (s)he had a legitimate roadblock.
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