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I would imagine a large part is segmentation. You can’t even guarantee that X is installed on the system. This is a hard problem since most games are proprietar
by invokestatic 6y ago
I would imagine a large part is segmentation. You can’t even guarantee that X is installed on the system. This is a hard problem since most games are proprietary.
Edit: commenters make good counterpoints
- Spivak 6y agoI mean for games you are allowed to have dependencies. If you require X or XWayland I don’t think you’ll find anyone complaining.
- throwaway2048 6y agoThis is really not an issue, Steam has a standard runtime for instance, and bundling dependencies is always possible.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoSteam has a standard runtime because it's such an issue.
- throwaway2048 6y agoThus, a widely used, useful, solutions to the problem exists. Its not like any game developer seriously worries that X is installed.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoOne of the differences between Windows developers and Linux developers is that Windows developers generally do worry about what dependencies the user has installed. They specifically do not want to make dependencies the user's problem. Linux developers historically make dependencies someone else's problem.
- throwaway2048 6y agoAnd windows developers solve this problem in precisely the same way, by bundling dependencies.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoSure, but a Windows developer only has to bundle things that can't be relied on in the base OS. In Linux almost everything in user space fits in that category. The vast majority of Linux developers don't ever do anything with dependencies and just rely on packagers to do it for them. I hardly ever use closed source Linux software, but it has been my experience that they support at most 2 precise distro versions.