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General discussionNEWS: Revamping Linux installers for all GOG.com games(192 posts)(192 posts)
(192 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 15, 2015
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huN73R: http://www.gog.com/forum/shadowgate/linux_version_doesnt_start

I'm posting this here because there seem to be many Linux users in this thread and support staff as well. I would be very grateful if anyone can help me. Thanks!
what system libraries is the game coming with? (inside Shadowgate/lib or Shadowgate/game/lib or where ever they are)
try temporarily remove that lib folder, so that it picks up the libraries from your distro.
just a blind guess, but that is usually my first step. See if the game works with my distro libraries.
Posted August 15, 2015
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huN73R: http://www.gog.com/forum/shadowgate/linux_version_doesnt_start

I'm posting this here because there seem to be many Linux users in this thread and support staff as well. I would be very grateful if anyone can help me. Thanks!
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immi101: what system libraries is the game coming with? (inside Shadowgate/lib or Shadowgate/game/lib or where ever they are)
try temporarily remove that lib folder, so that it picks up the libraries from your distro.
just a blind guess, but that is usually my first step. See if the game works with my distro libraries.
I will post libraries soon, am on mobile now. I'll try deleting that when I'm back home. Thank you for the suggestion.
Posted August 15, 2015
low rated
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huN73R: http://www.gog.com/forum/shadowgate/linux_version_doesnt_start

I'm posting this here because there seem to be many Linux users in this thread and support staff as well. I would be very grateful if anyone can help me. Thanks!
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immi101: what system libraries is the game coming with? (inside Shadowgate/lib or Shadowgate/game/lib or where ever they are)
try temporarily remove that lib folder, so that it picks up the libraries from your distro.
just a blind guess, but that is usually my first step. See if the game works with my distro libraries.
Rather than just removing the folder, why not just rename it? That way, if you want to undo it, all it takes is another rename.
Posted August 16, 2015
Simply: Thanks guys - the new installers are appreciated :)

Looking foward to Galaxy on Linux.
Posted August 16, 2015
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Ciris: It's done for all games already :)
Really? So I must have overlooked all the update flags in my library, haven't I?
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phaolo: I don't have Linux, but this sounds great.
Unfortunately it only sounds great when you don't have Linux.

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linuxvangog: We want to give the freedom of choice to our users.
Right! So please continue to provide a format which does not require to execute any binary or script on my system.
I understand when you want to support only one format, that's ok. But then please put all game data into one (tar) archive and provide an additional script or executable which extracts that archive for the people which want an installer.
Posted August 16, 2015
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linuxvangog: Guys, if you REALLY want to unpack it without running the installer, someone already explained how to do that in this thread. But I can assure you this is certainly NOT the supported way of installing our games from now on and if you do that we CANNOT guarantee that everything will work without problems.
So the primarily point of this change is that you don't want to officially support tar balls anymore? Bad enough.

PS: And please stop to use spaces in file and directory names on Linux (use underscores instead). That's a Windows disease. ;) Maybe the same Windows disease as to use zip instead of gzip/bzip2/xz on Linux ... :(
Posted August 16, 2015
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vv221: You just need to use 'unzip game.sh' instead of 'tar xf game.tar.gz'.
I wouldn’t really call that "more work" ;)
It is more work, as explained here. Apparently not much, though. But the worse point is that GOG opts out of the responsibility for a non-scripted install now (the tar balls were officially supported before).
Posted August 16, 2015
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Gydion: AFAIK, it's the way the forums always have worked. Only threads created with the GOG account show a blue marker. Staff created posts aren't marked any different than other users.
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mrkgnao: Let me rephrase the question:
Is there a reason why this thread was not created with the GOG account like other news threads posted by GOG?
Even more, for such a fundamental change I would have expected at least a sticky thread, better a news message on the front page and maybe even an email notification. But communication never has been a strong point of GOG.

I only found this information because I follow the lgogdownloader thread. :/
Posted August 16, 2015
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GR00T: I'll third this. It wouldn't confuse anyone that way (other than figuring out where to find them in the first place).
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linuxvangog: Guys, if you REALLY want to unpack it without running the installer, someone already explained how to do that in this thread. But I can assure you this is certainly NOT the supported way of installing our games from now on and if you do that we CANNOT guarantee that everything will work without problems.
If I find something that gives me problems, I'll start learning how MojoSetup scripting works and see if I can write a non-interactive installer which executes only a trusted subset of MojoSetup scripting after my extraction script finishes.

My decision to remove write permissions from game folders after install is completed and symlinking any bits they complain about into $HOME for backup is already outside the range of supported installation configurations. (And I HAVE discovered some games which simply refuse to work in that configuration. As soon as I have time, I'll be looking into whether Ubuntu kernel builds include any overlay filesystems I could use to get the last laugh.)

...or maybe application sandboxing will advance sufficiently before that becomes an issue and I can just write a tool which:
1. Spins up a sandbox akin to a FreeBSD Jail for the game with a skeleton $HOME inside and no network access.
2. Runs the installer inside it and puppets it to completion
3. Adds an overlay mount so that any further changes beyond what the installer did will be redirected to a "game_saves" directory under the aegis of my nightly multiply-replicated backups.

(I don't like installers or applications doodling all over my homedir like little kids with markers, I prefer my installations to be Portable (my games folder is on a 2TiB USB 3.0 hard drive), I don't have room to back up game data to ensure I've got my save files, and I like to ensure that games will continue to work if their vendors go away by preventing things like Unity's first-run phone-home analytics ping from working.)
Post edited August 16, 2015 by ssokolow
Posted August 16, 2015
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Gede: make && make install ? Yeah, I wish... :-(
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JudasIscariot: If we could offer you the source code + assets for these games so that you could go through compiling them on your system, we would :)

Make && make install is not going to happen with most games that are sold commercially for Linux (Tales of Maj'Eyal notwithstanding :P )
Although make often is used to compile sources it does not require sources. ;) It's just a convenient system to automate processes.
Posted August 16, 2015
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ssokolow: My decision to remove write permissions from game folders after install is completed and symlinking any bits they complain about into $HOME for backup is already outside the range of supported installation configurations. (And I HAVE discovered some games which simply refuse to work in that configuration. As soon as I have time, I'll be looking into whether Ubuntu kernel builds include any overlay filesystems I could use to get the last laugh.)
Oh, another disadvantage of the new approach. Installing the game with the same user which later runs the game is a bad idea.

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linuxvangog: Guys, if you REALLY want to unpack it without running the installer, someone already explained how to do that in this thread. But I can assure you this is certainly NOT the supported way of installing our games from now on and if you do that we CANNOT guarantee that everything will work without problems.
Do you at least test and guarantee that the game works when it is installed* with one user (e.g. a dummy system user) and run as a different ("normal") user later?

Edit: *installed as installed with your official Linux installer
Post edited August 16, 2015 by eiii
Posted August 16, 2015
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phaolo: I don't have Linux, but this sounds great.
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eiii: Unfortunately it only sounds great when you don't have Linux.
Sigh.. so, there's always some drawback :(
Posted August 16, 2015
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vv221: You just need to use 'unzip game.sh' instead of 'tar xf game.tar.gz'.
I wouldn’t really call that "more work" ;)
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eiii: It is more work, as explained here. Apparently not much, though. But the worse point is that GOG opts out of the responsibility for a non-scripted install now (the tar balls were officially supported before).
Therefore my new work after buying Linux-releases is to unpack them and making a .TAR.GZ-file out of them for archiving on my NAS. Yeah this is more work because earlier I could take the downloaded .TAR.GZ-file as a whole but I also recognize this one from the Humble-store so it is not very new to me.
Posted August 16, 2015
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ssokolow: My decision to remove write permissions from game folders after install is completed and symlinking any bits they complain about into $HOME for backup is already outside the range of supported installation configurations. (And I HAVE discovered some games which simply refuse to work in that configuration. As soon as I have time, I'll be looking into whether Ubuntu kernel builds include any overlay filesystems I could use to get the last laugh.)
I think you already know I do something similar with my ./play.it project.
Could you please explain the method you use on your side? (be it here or in the ./play.it dedicated thread)

Comparing methods to take the best of both is usually how I improve my scripts ;)
Post edited August 16, 2015 by vv221
Posted August 16, 2015
I know this is in vain. But there. If only for fun.

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/bring_back_tar_balls
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionNEWS: Revamping Linux installers for all GOG.com games(192 posts)(192 posts)
(192 posts)