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A friendly poll

A friendly poll


  • Total voters
    49
  • Poll closed .

Draygera

Member
Jan 6, 2012
10
5
How many people here have heard of or ever used a Linux operating system?

The original Unreal Tournament 2004 had one of the best Linux ports I had ever seen and Killing Floor was originally a UT2k4 mod that was converted into a retail game.

The question I have is: How many people here would love to see a Linux client of this awesome-sauce game?

If you say no, please give your reasons and no rude comments or Linux-hating please.
 
i already put this idea up, bringing the strongest point: POSIX compilant which means that the mac port can be minimally modified and used. But also a good counter point has been made that the integration with steam is very strong and there is no linux steam client to date so the chances for port are minimal. So yeah i've been butt raped by the crowd of angry KF forum users and the thread ended on that.

And I voted Yes for the reasons i gave above.
 
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Yes. But it's one of those "with the heart, not the mind", sort of votes.

The "STEAM-don't-do-Linux" hurdle is pretty freakin' high. I'll have to artificially set that reality aside to comment further. VALVe is *supposed* to be treading down the Linux road, but I'm not sure how far that project has progressed. There is also the WINE option, but that, of course, has nothing to do with a native Linux version of Killing Floor.

As someone running a KF LAN at home, in an area that has Flintstones-like internet service, we're often not in contact with the STEAM cloud. Yes, that plays hell with leveling-up, not to mention achievements. We don't let the lack of either prevent us from having a good time. (I catch hell when updates take place, however.) If we now were to suddenly swing the whole operation over to Linux, at this point, it wouldn't greatly affect us as long as we could get up and running. But, I recognize this is a very isolated circumstance.

Janek556 makes an excellent point in mentioning POSIX compliance. It seems it shouldn't be rocket-science to swing an existing Apple executable over to Linux. And, Linux would gain a major boost from having a functional STEAM client. There is money to be made here for someone. STEAM could be the 'killer app" that Linux needs to find itself on more platforms. But, with regard to Killing Floor, the ball is currently in VALVe's end of the court, not Tripwire's.
 
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I do use Linux, Ubunto 10.04. However, 99% of people who exclusively use Linux don't play games. Ask the faculty at any reputable institution what they think of KF. Those of us who do, like me, have multiple systems. So, there is no financial incentive to port steam to Linux. I did vote yes just to support you.
 
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There's no Steam client for linux and thus no way the game would be able to install or authenticate.

Given TW was one of the first non-Valve developers on Steam and one of the first non-Valve developers to offer Mac builds when it became available, it's not unreasonable to believe a linux port of KF is a possibility if a native Steam client precedes.
 
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I'm all for a native Linux build, but as indicated above it's presently impossible.

The thing about the "no market" argument, apart from severely underestimating the market that is actually there, is that it's a vicious cycle: Linux is a relatively small market largely because relatively few prominent developers bother to support it. Leading the charge may seem a fraught prospect but I honestly believe it would prove rewarding.
 
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Hmmm

Hmmm

I wonder if there is possibly a way to integrate Steam being run in Wine with a Linux client (i.e. look up PyLotro <http://www.lotrolinux.com/> or LotroLauncher <http://www.bmx-chemnitz.de/~mfr/LOTRO/>. These two launchers allowed Linux users to update Lord of the Rings Online by parsing certain configuration files and then bypassing certain checks that were in place allowing a fully functional Linux client (even though it required Wine).

Of course there is a new-coming Steam-like client that supports Windows, Mac and Linux (64-bit support is still kind of iffy and buggy last time I checked), Desura (http://www.desura.com). The only real difference I've seen so far is lack of Achievements and most of the titles are either Indie or not so well to do, but this is beside the point.

Option number 3: Tripwire releases their own alternative Steam like client with multiple similarities to Steam, but with improvements and what not.

I could go for days about various different ideas I have.

PS So far, I'm liking the answers. People are bringing up good points, especially the POSIX thing. Kudos to you, my fellow sir. :D
 
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Steam is the obvious problem. I think there's a large enough market in Linux users, just that even if Steam worked on Linux without WINE I don't know if Steam would be popular with Linux users. Valve must have done the market research on it, and I suspect it's too much of a risk.

Looking at The Humble Indie Bundles, Linux users tend to pay more than Mac and Windows users.

Having made the leap onto Mac means supporting Open GL, so that's one less problem.

For the game developers I suspect it's a harder QA problem supporting Linux. With Windows and Mac OS there's a narrow number of variations, especially with Mac having predicable hardware.

I would happily test Killing Floor on Linux hardware though. Wouldn't be too much of a problem to test both Nvidia and Ati/AMD GPUs.
 
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Not trying to be rude

Not trying to be rude

But I did ask for no rude comments please.

I've purchased all the Humble bundles and am impressed. I'm a Gentoo user and I say if you are able to get kf on Linux, test it on a neutral system and make builds that work universally. Neutral, I mean gentoo, arch, slackware, basically build it yourself distros since they all can be built with everything all other systems have.
 
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Wine works

Wine works

But as pointed out earlier, it's still not linux native. Wine is a good idea, but it's also a double-edged sword because the opinions of developers would be why make a game linux compatible if you can just run it in wine. Whats that going to do for non-wine compatible software or games? I would love to play Borderlands again on my system, but it runs terrible in Wine for me, but I'm not going to reinstall Windows because it messes up with my hardware and my development work flow has increased since I built my system, but thats beside the point.

Has anyone tried Binding of Isaac through Wine? Playable and fun, but not as smooth as I'd like.

I'm basically trying to get the developers to see the opportunity they have to do something unorthodox with a great game. I started this poll after chatting with the Tripwire VP abt it.
 
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Now, I could be completely wrong on this one as it's been some time since I tried to install and use a Linux OS so be nice.

Isn't a major problem going to be the fact there are so many builds of it out there? At least with Windows the OS doesn't change and most people have a narrow range of hardware (nVidea or ATI, that kind of thing) and Mac you know what hardware is going to be there.

First time I used Linux it might have well been Windows 3.1. Second time I had a job and a half just to get audio to work. Third time was better (Unbunto?) but finding useful compatible programs or work arounds was not worth it, especially when Pace (licence software control) came to play. After that I gave up on it and went with what I knew worked. Last attempt was nearly 3years ago.

Now this isn't a major reason not to port it over but wont testing it and making it stable be a pain?
 
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Now, I could be completely wrong on this one as it's been some time since I tried to install and use a Linux OS so be nice.

Isn't a major problem going to be the fact there are so many builds of it out there? At least with Windows the OS doesn't change and most people have a narrow range of hardware (nVidea or ATI, that kind of thing) and Mac you know what hardware is going to be there.

First time I used Linux it might have well been Windows 3.1. Second time I had a job and a half just to get audio to work. Third time was better (Unbunto?) but finding useful compatible programs or work arounds was not worth it, especially when Pace (licence software control) came to play. After that I gave up on it and went with what I knew worked. Last attempt was nearly 3years ago.

Now this isn't a major reason not to port it over but wont testing it and making it stable be a pain?

a LOT has changed since then. You can now go the route of a complete package that offers little less control over system (Ubuntu, Mint, etc) because of default init lvl 5 (GUI) So a console is not something you'd see often or at all. There are other, more "professional" distributions if you like (Fedora, CentOS, BackTrack, etc.) but all evolve around the SAME linux kernel, just like windows relies on NT kernel. What goes around it - User interface, programs, setup files - do not affect the ability to run a linux native executable so for programmer experienced in writing for linux platform there are no obstacles that will force him/her to alter the source code in any way for every single distribution (and there are 200+!).
 
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I already play killing floor on linux, through wine.
I'm sure Killing Floor works well, since it's going to be similar to unreal. But with running under wine I find Steam most annoying, since it frequently breaks. I'm curious to how popular Steam would be if it ran native and interacted with wine for running games. Suspect it would still require a lot of effort on the side of the user to make it work, but it would make life easier. I was quite surprised how well MW2 ran under wine.

Technically on the developer side I don't think it's a hard problem to solve. I suspect it's more of a market/social problem.
 
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