Earlier quoted context omitted.
As if a windows game from 2006 is going to run on windows 11 :)
I was able to run Age of Empires 2 on Windows 11. It didn't like running on an ultrawide, but it worked well enough at smaller resolutions.
a 3d game…
The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it
111–120 of 145 posts
Re: The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
As if a windows game from 2006 is going to run on windows 11 :)
The 2006-engine version of Half-Life 2: Episode 1 runs on Windows 10/11 with no configuration [1], outside of getting Steam to download it. I recall installing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on a Windows 11 machine, which just needed Directx 9c to run. [1] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=28643...
all of the half life work fine natively on linux as well on steam. Do you have something more challenging?
Re: The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it
#113There’s no reason to believe that widespread Linux adoption would not irrevocably damage the experience. It would end up looking something like Android. The same thing happened to the internet. It was ruined by mass adoption. You can call this gatekeeping, but nothing positive has come from getting most of the world onto social media.
I'm inclined to agree with you here. As much as I'd love to see native apps from some big vendors (Adobe, in particular) if what it takes to get there is mass adoption of Linux on the desktop, I'm not sure I want it.
In a way, we already have it in the form of ChromeOS, and I certainly don't want ChromeOS or Android to be the default experience, or for the community to start to cater to that model.
All of the things Linux would need to become to get Windows level marketshare would strip away what makes it appealing in the first place, in particular, full user control. I don't want a nanny desktop, but that's exactly what it would become.
Linux can stay niche for those who appreciate it as it is.
Re: The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 2006-engine version of Half-Life 2: Episode 1 runs on Windows 10/11 with no configuration [1], outside of getting Steam to download it. I recall installing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on a Windows 11 machine, which just needed Directx 9c to run. [1] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=28643...
all of the half life work fine natively on linux as well on steam. Do you have something more challenging?
Because valve puts in the ongoing effort.
Tell loki software they need to update the binaries of their games. Oh wait they don't exist anymore.
Re: The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which works if you use binutils ld. Does it work with mold or gold? And then how do you use this with languages other than c++/c like Go or Rust?
Rust toolchain has already a bug since 2015: it cannot link statically libgcc, namely it does not have "-static-libgcc" option since 2015. I got the bug with "TinyGlade" video game (extremely good BTW), which is written in rust, and with the dev we hit that bug. Namely... better have a libgcc with the right ABI... and I can tell you, this has a been a HUGE issue since valve started to distribute games more than a dec…
As in you have to build on an old distro? Or something else?
Re: The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
> adding an application (not just a program binary) is as easy as extracting a package into a folder and integrates with the rest of the system I have fond memories of installed Warlords Battle Cry 3, Warcraft 3, AOE2 etc. directories on flash drives, distributed to 20+ kids in high school (all using the same key). Good days.
Way off topic but you just reminded me of all the time I spent playing Warlords 3 (not Warlords Battlecry 3, the original Warlords games were turn-based). One cool feature it had that I'm surprised I haven't really seen other turn-based games do is a "play by email" option similar to correspondence chess, except you're just emailing save files back and forth and the game makes importing/exporting the save files via e…
Civilization V has a "cloud game" option that keeps the save file online. Players can then take their turn when they have a chance (though non-responsive players can break the game), and if you're running the game through Steam you'll even get a Steam notification when it's your turn. You can also define a webhook that gets called when it's somebody's turn. One of these days I'll put together a little tool that takes that webhook message and translates into a Discord PM or Discord channel post @-ing the person whose turn it is.
They specifically say that it's their way of paying tribute to Civ playing by email.
Re: The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
the first launch of firefox would take a few hours. let alone the first boot of the linux kernel... :)
Just because you are used to slow compilers doesn't mean fast ones are impossible. As I said in the original post, code optimisation can be done before compilation on the developers machine, so all that need be done on the target is a simple debug build. An example is Jonathon Blow's JAI compiler which compiles around 250,000 lines of code per second. Even on very slow hardware this is reduced to perhaps 80,000LoC/s,…
> An example is Jonathon Blow's JAI compiler
I thought you were advocating "just distribute source code" – JAI is a closed-source language that, in its decade of development, has never been used for a significant project.
Re: The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it
#118I think the problem is that people treat Linux as OS instead of just a kernel. You should assume every Linux distro is a different OS so when you are shipping your app for Linux you're actually shipping your app for Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu etc
This is definitely the root of it. Linux isn't the OS, your distro is.
Somewhere along the way we seem to have collectively forgotten that the distro, via it's package manager, is responsible for delivering software, ensuring compatibility, and integrating it all - at least for open source software. That was one of Debian's biggest selling points "back in the day" - that they had a huge repository and big team of maintainers packaging everything under the sun so it works on Debian.
Now we have app image, flatpak, snap, etc. All means of getting developers to ship binaries directly to users, bypassing the package managers, instead of shipping code to distros, but we shouldn't expect devs to ship to the 100s of different OSes in this ecosystem. They ship the code, distros pick it up (or don't) and make it work on their distro.
The shift to direct-to-user binaries doesn't make sense for OSS. It should be packaged by the distro, not the dev (of course, the devs can help with packaging if they are so inclined).
Obviously this doesn't apply to proprietary software, but like you said, you can just target on of the LTS enterprise distros and get a well-defined, stable base (for 10 years with Ubuntu and Red hat).
Re: The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was able to run Age of Empires 2 on Windows 11. It didn't like running on an ultrawide, but it worked well enough at smaller resolutions.
a 3d game…
I've just installed and run Star Wars Empire at war (2005) from steam, it seems to run just fine in WQHD. The UI isn't even blurry
Re: The state of binary compatibility on Linux and how to address it
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a reason glibc can't just do a better job at keeping some legacy symbols around? It's not like it's big stuff. They're things like legacy string functions. We're talking a few kilobytes of code in most cases. The Linux kernel goes to a lot of effort to not break user space, at least for non-exotic core features and syscalls. It seems like a lot of user-space in Linux-land does not make the same effort. It's…
> a lot of user-space in Linux-land does not make the same effort I believe that, what the article misses is that glibc is maintained and extended with an entirely different community and development model. Windows remains compatible over decades because Microsoft (a) is the sole distributor, and (b) puts an immense effort towards backwards compat. In Linux userspace, it's simply a non-goal across distributions. If y…
> Ship multiple binaries, or distribute the source code (and let users build it).
And that's why we have package managers and distro maintainers/packagers. You'll get no help from the community if your stuff is proprietary, just the way it is. Ship the code, distros will pick it up and do the packaging for you to make it available in their distro. It's part of the free software culture that surrounds the Linux ecosystem.
If you absolutely must ship proprietary software, then target an enterprise distro. Ship it for RHEL or Ubuntu LTS and you get, at least, 10 years of a stable base.