4 ms·

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 S

by emsy 12y ago

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 display server? Proprietary or free drivers? What Desktop Environment? QT or GTK Application? All those things are fine to develop for, but what do you develop for when you don't have time to test and support every existing configuration.

icebraining 12y ago
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 don't see why. A Steam Machine would solve exactly the problem you point out: it would set a fixed configuration that developers could target. Then other distros would have to adapt themselves if they wanted to run those games, and not the other way around.
qznc 12y ago
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.
ZenoArrow 12y ago
> "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.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Looks like a cure that is worse than the illness from here...
mhd 12y ago
Note that Windows is a similar mess. From the very beginning, you had plenty of different GUI libraries - MFC, WTL, WinForms, Delphi, Xwt, wxWindows etc. (let's not even mention Java, the perpetual red-headed step child) Every office version introduce some new "default style" that everybody had to emulate (flat toolbars, ribbons...), resulting in a plethore of subtly different applications. Does your menu have icons? Where is the preferences dialog? And the only salvation for the driver mess is that apart from Nvidia, Intel and ATI, every other manufacturer has left the picture. No more Tseng, S3, Matrox etc. But Windows is immmensely popular. So you have to go through those problems. Linux isn't that hard, but it still might not be worth the effort. OS X does pretty well in that regard, not that popular, either, but very homogenous. At least since the days of RealBasic apps is finally over ;)
- flohofwoe 12y ago
  For games you don't care about the window system, what's critical is a 3D API, input and sound. MS got this right early with D3D, DirectInput and DirectSound. And MS forced hardware vendors to commit to these APIs which was a good thing. The problem with Linux (above the kernel) is that everyone is pulling into a different direction.
  - vetinari 12y ago
    Of couse games do not care about UI toolkits, but the excuse against linux was always Gnome-KDE or Gtk-Qt-Motif-Athena-whatever, even through games do not care about these things (see also your grandparent post). In Linux, there is glx[1]+OpenGL and SDL. The problem (quality of OpenGL implementations) is not unique to Linux. [1] - yes, soon to be EGL.
    - flohofwoe 12y ago
      Yes I remember now that the Valve SteamOS devs recommended to use SDL2 instead of going directly on the OS APIs, since it takes care about a lot of small problems and differences. So basically SDL would take the role of DirectX.

by emsy 12y ago

icebraining 12y ago

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 don't see why. A Steam Machine would solve exactly the problem you point out: it would set a fixed configuration that developers could target. Then other distros would have to adapt themselves if they wanted to run those games, and not the other way around.

qznc 12y ago

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.

ZenoArrow 12y ago

> "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.

digi_owl 12y ago
Looks like a cure that is worse than the illness from here...

mhd 12y ago

Note that Windows is a similar mess. From the very beginning, you had plenty of different GUI libraries - MFC, WTL, WinForms, Delphi, Xwt, wxWindows etc. (let's not even mention Java, the perpetual red-headed step child) Every office version introduce some new "default style" that everybody had to emulate (flat toolbars, ribbons...), resulting in a plethore of subtly different applications. Does your menu have icons? Where is the preferences dialog? And the only salvation for the driver mess is that apart from Nvidia, Intel and ATI, every other manufacturer has left the picture. No more Tseng, S3, Matrox etc. But Windows is immmensely popular. So you have to go through those problems. Linux isn't that hard, but it still might not be worth the effort. OS X does pretty well in that regard, not that popular, either, but very homogenous. At least since the days of RealBasic apps is finally over ;)

flohofwoe 12y ago
For games you don't care about the window system, what's critical is a 3D API, input and sound. MS got this right early with D3D, DirectInput and DirectSound. And MS forced hardware vendors to commit to these APIs which was a good thing. The problem with Linux (above the kernel) is that everyone is pulling into a different direction.
- vetinari 12y ago
  Of couse games do not care about UI toolkits, but the excuse against linux was always Gnome-KDE or Gtk-Qt-Motif-Athena-whatever, even through games do not care about these things (see also your grandparent post). In Linux, there is glx[1]+OpenGL and SDL. The problem (quality of OpenGL implementations) is not unique to Linux. [1] - yes, soon to be EGL.
  - flohofwoe 12y ago
    Yes I remember now that the Valve SteamOS devs recommended to use SDL2 instead of going directly on the OS APIs, since it takes care about a lot of small problems and differences. So basically SDL would take the role of DirectX.