7 ms·

I played the Linux version the article mentions while at Goldman Sachs; a colleague on the Red Hat coverage team gave me a boxed copy of Corel Linux including t

by ylee 2y ago

I played the Linux version the article mentions while at Goldman Sachs; a colleague on the Red Hat coverage team gave me a boxed copy of Corel Linux including the game. The port ran very well on my Red Hat Linux box at home. In retrospect it was part of a brief flurry of Linux ports of major games. I also got to play Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Neverwinter Nights; in both cases the publishers made Linux clients available for download that use the retail version's assets. Despite the valiant efforts of Wine and related projects, the world would have to wait 15 more years before Proton leveraged Wine technology to bring quasi-native games to Linux, and 20 years before Steam Deck made it the norm or close to it.

linsomniac 2y ago
That reminds me of 1999, where I threw a party to help my friends modify their Celeron 300A CPUs so they could run dual-socket. My dual 300A running at 450MHz would run Starcraft under WINE faster than Windows could run it because at the time Windows couldn't do multi-core. Under Linux one processor would run the graphics (in X) and the other would run the game mechanics, and it would blaze.
- b112 2y ago
  I hate you. Well, just envy hate and just momentarily. Back then, such hacks were harder to find/discover. I would have loved to do that hack, I yearned for true multicpu.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    That stuff was all over Slashdot at the time, where I heard about it; even got one and ran it for awhile, eventually relegating it to a Linux server.
    - mnky9800n 2y ago
      For some reason I feel like running home stuff fell out of favour. Or perhaps, I stopped doing it. I would prefer to do it again however I don’t ever have an idea what to do with it since these days I just stream everything from the internet. And I have plenty of cloud compute for whatever I want to do.
      - bombcar 2y ago
        People call it "homelab" or "data hoarding" these days, but yes, the easy access to hours and hours of movies and music was "solved" for the average person by the content streaming sites, so there's not as much a drive as there used to be for it. Heheheh, drive.
        mnky9800n 2y ago
        And now I learn that I am average.
        ticoombs 2y ago
        If your willing to try /r/homelab and /r/selfhost have great wikis and are good enough entry points to start you on your way. There is a lot you can do with a rPi and an 8TB HDD!
        bombcar 2y ago
        It really is a world of difference - XBMC 20+ years ago made your TV a wonder to behold, more powerful than anything anyone else would have (and desirable, too!). Now a full Plex + JellyFin + Infuse setup just makes it feel like some sort of knockoff Netflix. There are still advantages. But they’re not as noticeable (main one being if you can find it, you can have it instead of having to search various streaming platforms).
        mnky9800n 2y ago
        yes i remember setting up a system through xbmc that made it so the tv would appear to have cable channels that were built from everything that was on my storage. So you had channels for different genres or cartoons or movies or whatever. and you could flip through the channels and watch whatever was on. and now it's just that you can even watch digitizations of old vhs recordings of television on youtube if you want. there just seems to be no need to do all that work and when you do, it never seems terribly nice and half the time things are falling over. It was fun when i was a student but now I actually want to watch television if i sit in front of the tv, not try and fix whatever broke to make it work again.
- runlevel1 2y ago
  Was that the period of time when you got more bang for your buck building a PC with dual-socket Celerons than one high-end Pentium? EDIT: An excellent retrospective on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE-k4hYHIDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE-k4hYHIDE
  - linsomniac 2y ago
    Yes, the dual Celeron 300As, if you could take advantage of multiple cores, were faster than the higher end CPUs, particularly if you overclocked to 450MHz. My box was stable at 450MHz for around a year, then I had to gradually down-clock it, eventually back to 300. Never really did much to track down why that was, just rolled with it and figured I should be grateful for the overclocking I had.
    - giobox 2y ago
      I also ran a dual Celeron system overclocked to 450mhz - it was great value in 1999. Abit even launched a motherboard that let you run dual Celerons without modifying the processors, the legendary BP6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABIT_BP6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABIT_BP6 This was first board to let you use unmodified Celerons, the "hack" to let dual CPUs work with those chips was performed at the motherboard level, no CPU pin modifications needed.
      - olyjohn 2y ago
        The real problem with this setup was that a vanilla Pentium 3 would run circles around the dual Celerons. I had my Celerons clocked to something ridiculous at one point like 600MHz and still could not beat the Pentium.
        giobox 2y ago
        You are forgetting the massive price difference though. For sure a P3 was great if you had an unlimited budget, but a quick look at pricing sheets for September 1999 shows a 600mhz P3 at ~650 dollars. The 300mhz celerons, easily over-clockable to 450/500mhz, where only ~150 dollars each. These prices are in 1999 dollars too, I haven't adjusted for inflation. It was the value proposition, not the outright performance that made dual celeron builds attractive, especially in an age where we were having to upgrade far more often than we do today to keep up with latest trends. In 1999 I vividly remember not being able to afford a P3 build, was largely why I ended up with the BP6. The P3 also had significant supply issues throughout its lifespan, which didn't help pricing at retail either.
pjmlp 2y ago
I feel relying on WINE and Proton instead of building a proper GNU/Linux ecosystem will eventually backfire, it didn't happen already because thus far Microsoft chosen to ignore it. However as Steam vs XBox slowly escalates, Microsoft might eventually change their stance on the matter, forcing devs to rely on APIs not easier to copy, free licenses for handhelds, taking all Microsoft owned studios out of Steam, see which company has bigger budget to spend on lawyers, whatever.
- baq 2y ago
  WINE and Proton piggyback on Microsoft's guarantees of Win32 stability. As long as that remains in place (which should be for all intents and purposes forever given MS's customers) they can't really do anything about it. So, next time you hear the joke about Win32 ABI being the only stable ABI on Linux, remember it's funny because it's true!
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    If all one wants it to run games that use the Win32 API as defined today, surely. If all one wants it to run games that use the Win32 API as defined tomrrow, anyone's guess.
    - baq 2y ago
      Note this is a huge improvement from 'binary is guaranteed to not work in the future, probably not too distant' of the standard model of Linux distributions.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      If the API only has additions, then Microsoft would still need to convince game devs to actually use them (and Valve will point out that if they do, their game will not work on Steam Deck, so there's a clear downside). If some APIs are removed, it breaks older Windows games. I can't think of any historical API that has been completely removed in this way - even stuff like DirectDraw and DirectPlay is still there even though it has been deprecated for decades.
freedomben 2y ago
What a shame, GOG only has the Windows version :-( I'd love to buy the linux native version.
- pantalaimon 2y ago
  You probably don't, the old linux binaries are notoriously hard to get to function properly on a modern distribution. While the kernel interface remained stable across all those years, user space libraries have changed quite a lot, so it's much easier to run the Windows version with wine.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    ah, that makes a ton of sense actually. Thanks!
    - MrBra 2y ago
      Also, take a look at Heroic (game launcher and library with integrated Wine for GOG/Epic/Amazon Prime), available for Windows too.
- sevensor 2y ago
  Plays just fine under Wine, better than on modern Windows in fact
thatjoeoverthr 2y ago
I had the box set, it was the first Linux game I bought. The flurry was Loki Games, a porting house. They let me help as a beta tester! I got to test Descent III and Mindrover. Next would have been Deus Ex, but they flamed out. One of them, Sam Latinga, built SDL and I believe is still active.
- Patrick_Devine 2y ago
  I still have my boxed copy (along with everything Loki produced) in a big box in the garage.
- sho_hn 2y ago
  I think Loki also originated OpenAL, which is still around as well.
sho_hn 2y ago
I remember Corel Linux! It was the first Linux I ever used, from a PC magazine CD in 1999. A significantly hacked-up KDE 1.1 w/ integrated Wine. To this day, you can find Corel in the copyright dialogs of a few notable KDE apps, e.g. the file archiver Ark. I'm now looking back on 25 years of Linux use, 19 of them as a KDE developer, including writing large parts of the Plasma 5/6 shell, 6-7 years on the KDE board, and working on the Steam Deck (which ships with KDE Plasma) at a contractor for a hot minute to bring gaming back as well. At least on the personal level it was an impactful product :-)
- luismedel 2y ago
  Same here. The Spanish edition of PC Mag included Core Linux. It was the most pleasant install experience in much, much time (next, next, next, finish)
gmueckl 2y ago
Was the Linux port made by Loki Software by any chance? That shirt lived company did a lot to make Linux viable for gaming. They developed a bunch of new libraries to help with porting and open sourced them. SDL was one of them. Edit: OpenAL was another one of their libraries.

by ylee 2y ago

linsomniac 2y ago

That reminds me of 1999, where I threw a party to help my friends modify their Celeron 300A CPUs so they could run dual-socket. My dual 300A running at 450MHz would run Starcraft under WINE faster than Windows could run it because at the time Windows couldn't do multi-core. Under Linux one processor would run the graphics (in X) and the other would run the game mechanics, and it would blaze.

b112 2y ago
I hate you. Well, just envy hate and just momentarily. Back then, such hacks were harder to find/discover. I would have loved to do that hack, I yearned for true multicpu.
- bombcar 2y ago
  That stuff was all over Slashdot at the time, where I heard about it; even got one and ran it for awhile, eventually relegating it to a Linux server.
  - mnky9800n 2y ago
    For some reason I feel like running home stuff fell out of favour. Or perhaps, I stopped doing it. I would prefer to do it again however I don’t ever have an idea what to do with it since these days I just stream everything from the internet. And I have plenty of cloud compute for whatever I want to do.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      People call it "homelab" or "data hoarding" these days, but yes, the easy access to hours and hours of movies and music was "solved" for the average person by the content streaming sites, so there's not as much a drive as there used to be for it. Heheheh, drive.
      - mnky9800n 2y ago
        And now I learn that I am average.
        ticoombs 2y ago
        If your willing to try /r/homelab and /r/selfhost have great wikis and are good enough entry points to start you on your way. There is a lot you can do with a rPi and an 8TB HDD!
        bombcar 2y ago
        It really is a world of difference - XBMC 20+ years ago made your TV a wonder to behold, more powerful than anything anyone else would have (and desirable, too!). Now a full Plex + JellyFin + Infuse setup just makes it feel like some sort of knockoff Netflix. There are still advantages. But they’re not as noticeable (main one being if you can find it, you can have it instead of having to search various streaming platforms).
        mnky9800n 2y ago
        yes i remember setting up a system through xbmc that made it so the tv would appear to have cable channels that were built from everything that was on my storage. So you had channels for different genres or cartoons or movies or whatever. and you could flip through the channels and watch whatever was on. and now it's just that you can even watch digitizations of old vhs recordings of television on youtube if you want. there just seems to be no need to do all that work and when you do, it never seems terribly nice and half the time things are falling over. It was fun when i was a student but now I actually want to watch television if i sit in front of the tv, not try and fix whatever broke to make it work again.
runlevel1 2y ago
Was that the period of time when you got more bang for your buck building a PC with dual-socket Celerons than one high-end Pentium? EDIT: An excellent retrospective on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE-k4hYHIDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE-k4hYHIDE
- linsomniac 2y ago
  Yes, the dual Celeron 300As, if you could take advantage of multiple cores, were faster than the higher end CPUs, particularly if you overclocked to 450MHz. My box was stable at 450MHz for around a year, then I had to gradually down-clock it, eventually back to 300. Never really did much to track down why that was, just rolled with it and figured I should be grateful for the overclocking I had.
  - giobox 2y ago
    I also ran a dual Celeron system overclocked to 450mhz - it was great value in 1999. Abit even launched a motherboard that let you run dual Celerons without modifying the processors, the legendary BP6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABIT_BP6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABIT_BP6 This was first board to let you use unmodified Celerons, the "hack" to let dual CPUs work with those chips was performed at the motherboard level, no CPU pin modifications needed.
    - olyjohn 2y ago
      The real problem with this setup was that a vanilla Pentium 3 would run circles around the dual Celerons. I had my Celerons clocked to something ridiculous at one point like 600MHz and still could not beat the Pentium.
      - giobox 2y ago
        You are forgetting the massive price difference though. For sure a P3 was great if you had an unlimited budget, but a quick look at pricing sheets for September 1999 shows a 600mhz P3 at ~650 dollars. The 300mhz celerons, easily over-clockable to 450/500mhz, where only ~150 dollars each. These prices are in 1999 dollars too, I haven't adjusted for inflation. It was the value proposition, not the outright performance that made dual celeron builds attractive, especially in an age where we were having to upgrade far more often than we do today to keep up with latest trends. In 1999 I vividly remember not being able to afford a P3 build, was largely why I ended up with the BP6. The P3 also had significant supply issues throughout its lifespan, which didn't help pricing at retail either.

pjmlp 2y ago

I feel relying on WINE and Proton instead of building a proper GNU/Linux ecosystem will eventually backfire, it didn't happen already because thus far Microsoft chosen to ignore it. However as Steam vs XBox slowly escalates, Microsoft might eventually change their stance on the matter, forcing devs to rely on APIs not easier to copy, free licenses for handhelds, taking all Microsoft owned studios out of Steam, see which company has bigger budget to spend on lawyers, whatever.

baq 2y ago
WINE and Proton piggyback on Microsoft's guarantees of Win32 stability. As long as that remains in place (which should be for all intents and purposes forever given MS's customers) they can't really do anything about it. So, next time you hear the joke about Win32 ABI being the only stable ABI on Linux, remember it's funny because it's true!
- pjmlp 2y ago
  If all one wants it to run games that use the Win32 API as defined today, surely. If all one wants it to run games that use the Win32 API as defined tomrrow, anyone's guess.
  - baq 2y ago
    Note this is a huge improvement from 'binary is guaranteed to not work in the future, probably not too distant' of the standard model of Linux distributions.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    If the API only has additions, then Microsoft would still need to convince game devs to actually use them (and Valve will point out that if they do, their game will not work on Steam Deck, so there's a clear downside). If some APIs are removed, it breaks older Windows games. I can't think of any historical API that has been completely removed in this way - even stuff like DirectDraw and DirectPlay is still there even though it has been deprecated for decades.

freedomben 2y ago

What a shame, GOG only has the Windows version :-( I'd love to buy the linux native version.

pantalaimon 2y ago
You probably don't, the old linux binaries are notoriously hard to get to function properly on a modern distribution. While the kernel interface remained stable across all those years, user space libraries have changed quite a lot, so it's much easier to run the Windows version with wine.
- freedomben 2y ago
  ah, that makes a ton of sense actually. Thanks!
  - MrBra 2y ago
    Also, take a look at Heroic (game launcher and library with integrated Wine for GOG/Epic/Amazon Prime), available for Windows too.
sevensor 2y ago
Plays just fine under Wine, better than on modern Windows in fact

thatjoeoverthr 2y ago

I had the box set, it was the first Linux game I bought. The flurry was Loki Games, a porting house. They let me help as a beta tester! I got to test Descent III and Mindrover. Next would have been Deus Ex, but they flamed out. One of them, Sam Latinga, built SDL and I believe is still active.

Patrick_Devine 2y ago
I still have my boxed copy (along with everything Loki produced) in a big box in the garage.
sho_hn 2y ago
I think Loki also originated OpenAL, which is still around as well.

sho_hn 2y ago

I remember Corel Linux! It was the first Linux I ever used, from a PC magazine CD in 1999. A significantly hacked-up KDE 1.1 w/ integrated Wine. To this day, you can find Corel in the copyright dialogs of a few notable KDE apps, e.g. the file archiver Ark. I'm now looking back on 25 years of Linux use, 19 of them as a KDE developer, including writing large parts of the Plasma 5/6 shell, 6-7 years on the KDE board, and working on the Steam Deck (which ships with KDE Plasma) at a contractor for a hot minute to bring gaming back as well. At least on the personal level it was an impactful product :-)

luismedel 2y ago
Same here. The Spanish edition of PC Mag included Core Linux. It was the most pleasant install experience in much, much time (next, next, next, finish)

gmueckl 2y ago

Was the Linux port made by Loki Software by any chance? That shirt lived company did a lot to make Linux viable for gaming. They developed a bunch of new libraries to help with porting and open sourced them. SDL was one of them. Edit: OpenAL was another one of their libraries.