The installer forces you to agree to the EULA. That is why publishers insist on an installer.

It would be a step in the right direction to re-package all games using DosBox for Linux and Mac. It's a pain in the a** to run the installer with wine just to get the game's files and maybe the default configfile for dosbox provided by gog.

- GoG could make you agree to the EULA before you buy the game, or when you join. What's the point of doing it after; it's not like GoG will issue a refund if you decline the licence.

- It's highly debatable where, how, and which parts of EULAs are legally binding.

- You don't need users to explicitly agree to it. If a user wants to do something non-standard, it's their responsibility to find out if they're allowed or not.

- No one reads EULAs.

- Clicking a button is not equivalent to a signature.

Conclusion: installer EULAs are of no utility to GoG, publishers, users, or anyone else. They could be skipped entirely.

404'd
Here's another one which works
http://www.gog.com/en/wishlist/site/add_linux_versions_of_games

AFAIK, the native NWN port for OS X doesn't work. One upon a time on the Bioware forums there was talk of a patch including a Universal Binary for Intel Macs, but Bioware abandoned work on it around the same time that DA:O came to the Mac.

As I've mentioned before, a lot of Linux and Mac ports are woefully out of date and unsupported; getting them back up to speed would be a monumental job far out of the realm of GOG. The Mac port for Shogo: MAD run only in OS 9! Community open-source ports for a lot of games are out there, but they're just a [url=https://www.google.com/search?q=duke%20nukem%203d%20open%20source%20port&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8]trip to Google away.

Actually, the easiest way for DOSBox games on linux would be to give us a tar file which includes the game files and the edited config-file. That would get rid of the need to use wine to extract the games, and minimize the effort GOG has to put into it.
Oh, and maybe add a wiki page for linux users who don't know how to configure dosbox to run the game :D

And voilà! Linux support for DOSBox games would be a feature!

I'd like to know too. I haven't tried it on WINE 1.4 or 1.5, yet though, so here's hoping...

Oh snap, looks like they're merging stuff. My vote was transferred to the one you linked. I'll edit my post.

For me it's exactly the opposite. Except for the games that use dosbox, I haven't found a single game that is running well – or running at all for that matter – on GNU/Linux and Wine.

Baldurs Gate, black screen (Wine) or missing sounds (GemRB); Fallout needs some tweaking and tinkering first and was still unplayable for me due to laggy mouse input; Desperados, missing codec (?) file; Thief II, no videos due to missing codec, slower loading times but super-fast movements as if the main character is on speed.

These are just a few titles I tried. I'm by no means a “games on GNU/Linux” or Wine guru and there are probably ways to get those games working- with some serious input first. But that's where I lose interest in getting my games running on my Linux box. While I have no problem tinkering around with my box, I can't be arsed to do it just to play a game. For that there are either consoles or Windows. And I happen to have both. So when I want to play a GOG game I simply install it on Windows and everything works as expected. I may check whether it works on Wine and I may even try to find a solution when it isn't out of the box. But if I don't find a solution or the preparations are about two pages long and need me to move half my Windows installation to my Wine folder (exaggeration here) I simply boot into Windows and play the game right there.

Of course, I would welcome GOG making games available for GNU/Linux as well. But my experience has shown me that this certainly isn't a simple task. So I figure, trying to get those games running on GNU/Linux is as much work as getting those fine oldies running on Windows.

And then it isn't even “just GNU/Linux”- it's many different distributions all with their own little peculiarities; take different libraries and program versions for example.

So again, these are games made for Windows and meant to be played on Windows, so that is where I play them. GNU/Linux still isn't the right choice of OS for me, personally, when it comes to gaming- unless of course the games come with native GNU/Linux support.

Have you checked the WINE Application Database? Codeweavers has something similar for CrossOver, too. If an application has Gold or at least Silver status on both, it's a good bet they'll run well for you on your system. Back when I had access to one, I've gotten a lot of GOG titles working on Ubuntu 10.x up to 11.04.

Also, I suggest updating to at least version 1.4 of WINE. BG/BG2 and IWD have been working well for me since at least v1.3.x. They've been working hard on 1.4 for a while and it's gone a long way to fix compatibility and performance issues with games like Fallout. It's also worth noting of course that some games are inherently hard to get running on WINE; Thief, Thief 2 and System Shock 2 are good examples of this. It's hard to get Dark Engine games working well even for Windows users.

Actually, thats no problem. The Installers from liflg.org for native Linux games are Distribution independent. So it doesn't matter what GNU/Linux it runs, unless its some really weird Distro, but then thats your problem. Support for the main Distros is like support for one Distro.

It's sad to hear about your problems with Wine. From GOG I've got Demon Stone, Temple of Elemental Evil and Rayman 3 working perfectly in Wine. Only Rayman 2 doesn't work yet.
All the DOSBox and scummvm games run fine (logically) and Neverwinter Nights (from GOG) is running native. No need for a Windows here. But I can understand that not everybody wants to mess with Wine to much, but I'd recommend installing PlayOnLinux. Its a GUI for Wine which allows you to easily get games working with a lot less indepth knowledge.

(Oh, I'm using wine 1.5.1-1 :D)

Thanks. I'm using Wine 1.5.1.

And yeah, I've checked the WinHQ database. But in my eyes the platinum, gold or silver status only indicate how good and how far some people managed to get a game running on their machine with whatever precautions they took. In other words, the game may run on other people systems as well. But it definitely isn't guaranteed that it does.

In my case, I haven't experienced a single game that was running out of the box on Wine on my machine. And in case I got them running they were still not working as good as on Windows 7. So for me, personally, Wine really isn't an alternative. Sure, other people have different experiences with Wine. But that's mine and I could understand when publishers such as GOG wouldn't want to go through all this hassle either.

@ Verdan & distribution independence: Sure, it can be done, for example by already packing all needed libraries with the program and link the program to the libraries in the installation folder instead of having it to look them up in the system. But, correct me if I'm wrong, that's not the way most of the games have been created one can find on GOG. And I guess including all the different codecs is just another issue.

And yeah, there are even more programs out there to make the inclined Linux-gamer happy. But then again, I'm not one of them. I'm not going to install I-don't-know-how-many programs or hack scripts just to make a game run on my (Arch)Linux system when I could have it running without any hassle within minutes on Windows. Heck, I'm not even going to do any tweaking and testing on Windows any more to get a game running!

But I think someone's experiences and problems with Wine wasn't really the original topic of the thread.

Thanks anyhow for all the tips and trying to help though guys. :-)

I consider myself to be fairly lucky in what has worked for me. That being said wine is a crap shoot that can not be relied upon in any way. Depending on the distro, the version, and your personal hardware/install you may have good or bad luck with the same game at two different times for no apparent reason, and the end experience sometimes asks you to "put up," with some sort of random oddity. I have 2 installs to help max my odds.

The AppDatabase is hard to trust. Most of the reports a very dated and few if any have reports for 1.4 or even latter 1.3 versions. A lot has changed since 1.2. They should probably start moving those reports to some archive you have to dig harder to get to. That way people will start feeling more like new reports are needed. Its hard to modivate someone to post an up 2 date report if their are 7 dated ones already. Those of us using linux often will post our experiences in game specific forums.

When it comes to packaging dependencies with a game to make it more distro independent it doesn't matter what GOG has or hasn't done. They aren't Linux versions and have no linux dependencies to begin with. If one had the option to convert an install it would probably mean there was an installer that wrote all the linux stuff and then made you copy the data files into your new linux install. Which is basically what ID did with Quake 3.

If you (or anyone else) is interested here are some games I have had good luck with.
Space Rangers 2 used to work great, though the new wine versions seem to only draw half the screen.
Guilty Gear X2 works very well but I'm having an escape key issue with new versions of wine. All its issues can be worked around with the game's own config tool. I documented my experience with it in its forum.
Fantasy Wars worked quite well. I had some units turned invisible after I did something, but running it once in "compatibility mode" returned normal function.
Beyond Good an Evil appears to work well enough. I didn't play long or test it on newer versions of wine(maybe I did not 100% sure). There is a thin black line at times if yo can look past that.
Two worlds worked great on one install. I think I had to have a native DLL though, and it would skip passed the story screens.
Rayman 3 I played all the way through. I would say it was 100% just like playing it in windows.
MDK2 I have played almost all the way through. It was 100% perfect, but whatever they did to fix the mouse warping issue may have changed the way the mouse behaves. Now turning is a bit odd. Everything else is still perfect.
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri has started working well under the new wine versions. It didn't work before, but people are reporting good things with 1.4.
Haegemonia seemed to work. I Didn't play long though. 1 hour?
Chaser worked quite well. Don't remember any issues.
The Nations Gold edition seems to work well. Haven't played enough to say it stays that way
D&D Dragonshard works well. Maybe 100% but I should play it on windows before I commit to that.
Aquanox2 I had running but I didn't get to game play. Reports said mouse warping was an issue. That issue is better in some games now so... But you need to have that feature in your build!
Gothic 2 isn't supposed to work, but I did get it working. It wouldn't launch 50% of the time but when it did it was fine. I don't recommend it though.
Stronghold worked quite well.
Age of Wonders Shadow Magic seemed to work quite well in the game part.
XIII worked well but had common mouse issues that appear to be resolved in the new versions. I would now rate it a 100% BUT I heard there are two levels that render out black and can not be played. I do not know if it is still true.
Prince of Persia sands of time did run fantastic (sans the fog effect) and still does. Mouse behavior may have changed slightly in the newer wine versions. I have played most of the way through.
jagged alliance 2 worked great as far as I could tell. Have only plaed a bit (CD version in this case)
Assassin's Creed 1. Beyond me needing a faster system it seems to work great.

I wouldn't take the AppDB as gospel, but it's one source of evidence that helps determine my GOG buying habits. I like to corroborate the AppDB with the Codeweavers compatibility database, and with various forum comments that I try to dredge up on Google. I will agree though, a lot has changed from 1.2 and 1.0; 1.4 brought with it a raft of changes which fixed some bugs with games (notably Fallout 1 and 2).

I admit I haven't tested these two games vs. new versions of CrossOver or WINE but I'll make sure to test them out soon. With some tweaking, they worked fine with CrossOver Games 10.x, which I believe was based off of the WINE 1.2.x codebase.

MDK2 played flawlessly for me on CrossOver 11 (WINE 1.4), even on the old GMA 950, but I think I had to skip the launcher/config app or else it wouldn't work...it's no matter since you can configure the graphics and sound options within the game anyway. Chaser also worked well (GMA 950 not supported though), as does Stronghold (which thankfully does support the GMA 950).

Bah, Aquanox 2. Both it and its predecessor suffer from serious mouse and keyboard controls, in my experience. Everything else worked fine. If mouse warping is indeed the problem, then it should be easily fixable...

I've nearly gotten to the end of XIII, and the key is to do a registry edit, setting MouseWarpOverride=true, under "HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Wine/DirectInput". After that the game works flawlessly (save for a lack of widescreen support).

If you want my pick for a foolproof game which works in WINE and CrossOver, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (and Heroes Chronicles, which shares the same game engine) would be it. It's worked flawlessly, dependably, in CrossOver Games all the way from CXG 8.x to CXG 10.x, and CX11.