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General discussionGeneral Linux FAQ and Troubleshooting(1903 posts)(1903 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 31, 2014
Just out of curiousity, will the Linux-supported DOS games be bundled with a version of DOSBox or will it leverage the version provided by the Distro's repo? Also, will Timidity be provided for better MIDI playback?
Post edited July 31, 2014 by callen92
Posted July 31, 2014
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callen92: Just out of curiousity, will the Linux-supported DOS games be bundled with a version of DOSBox or will it leverage the version provided by the Distro's repo? Also, will Timidity be provided for better MIDI playback?
They are bundled with DOSBox.
Posted July 31, 2014
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vv221: Files installed via a .deb package are not user-writable, but the game probably needs to write in some folders (saves, settings, etc.).
Files installed through debs provided by gog are user writable, for example:
$ ls -l /opt/GOG\ Games/Stargunner/
total 36
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 lip 28 23:29 data
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 lip 27 02:25 docs
drwxrwxrwx 3 root root 4096 lip 27 02:25 dosbox
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root root 7179 lip 22 19:28 dosbox_stargun.conf
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root root 147 lip 22 19:28 dosbox_stargun_single.conf
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 665 lip 22 19:28 start.sh
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 lip 27 02:25 support
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 162 lip 22 19:28 uninstall.sh

And at least DOSbox wrapped ones are storing savegames inside "/opt/GOG Games/..." directory.
Posted July 31, 2014
Thanks glidur!

I downloaded the tar.gz version of dragonsphere and took a look myself. Having a bundled version concerns me because newer versions of DOSBox may bring performance updates and bug fixes that might benefit some of the games in the GOG library. I hope they factored this in to their build process

There is no timidity, which is a bummer. The difference between timidity and DOSBox's built-in MIDI renderer is like night and day! You all owe it to yourself to set it up on your Linux systems and into your dosbox configuration!
Post edited July 31, 2014 by callen92
Posted July 31, 2014
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steevstevep: IMO it is easier to just unpack a tar.gz somewhere in your home folder and then delete that single folder after you're done playing.
I prefer to not lose my savegames between version updates or reinstallations :=).
Posted July 31, 2014
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gildur: Files installed through debs provided by gog are user writable, for example:
$ ls -l /opt/GOG\ Games/Stargunner/
total 36
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 lip 28 23:29 data
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 lip 27 02:25 docs
drwxrwxrwx 3 root root 4096 lip 27 02:25 dosbox
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root root 7179 lip 22 19:28 dosbox_stargun.conf
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root root 147 lip 22 19:28 dosbox_stargun_single.conf
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 665 lip 22 19:28 start.sh
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 lip 27 02:25 support
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 162 lip 22 19:28 uninstall.sh

And at least DOSbox wrapped ones are storing savegames inside "/opt/GOG Games/..." directory.
So that’s how they did it, I was wondering…
A nice alternative to what I’m doing with my homemade .deb, but not one I’ll adopt: I install everything under /usr/local and don’t like the idea of anything user writable there.

For the curious, here is how it goes for me:
_game data under /usr/local/share/games
_game documentation under /usr/local/share/doc
_icons under /usr/local/share/icons
_menu launchers under /usr/local/share/applications
_launchers (shell scripts calling wine/DOSBox) under /usr/local/games

A fake arborescence is created via symlinks under $HOME/.local/share/games, with only the files that need to be user writable really copied there.
This arborescence include the WINE prefix if needed.

This way, I can install my game on multiple computers, and just copy the arborescence under $HOME/.local/share/games to keep my settings, saves, etc. (only a couple Mb usually)

My method is more complex, but it has an advantage: every setting, as well as saves are user-specific, and you can turn back the game to a "fresh install state" just by removing the user writable fake arborescence (it is recreated by the shell launcher if non-existent).
Another pro is that I can uninstall a game, and by reinstalling it later it will have kept my settings and saves. (the user writable arborescence is not deleted with the game files)
Post edited July 31, 2014 by vv221
Posted August 01, 2014
How will GOG measure Linux sales, in order to judge whether the endeavor to support Linux is successful?

Thank you

(P. S. I signed up for GOG when I saw the announcement about Linux support.)
Post edited August 01, 2014 by yavocet202
Posted August 01, 2014
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yavocet202: How will GOG measure Linux sales, in order to judge whether the endeavor to support Linux is successful?
Tolya said that they have ways.
Posted August 03, 2014
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Tolya: I am sorry you feel this way :( Let me tell you that the decision to support only two chosen distributions (the two most popular ones, currently) doesn't come from spite or our bad will towards the community.

It comes from the fact that we have to make sacrifices in order to retain as much "GOG-way" as possible - i.e. user friendliness and a guarantee that a game you paid money for actually works. In order to do that we had to select an environment that is not only friendly for the users, but also friendly to us. Right now, supporting games on Arch Linux would mean that we would not only have to support the game itself, but also every instance of an individual system installed and configured by the user.

I understand where you are coming from and I am a big fan of the open source community. However, once you start taking customers' money, you take responsibility for the product you ship. I am a big fan of Arch Linux (because one successful installation of it teaches you a ton about both the hardware and the Linux systems themselves), but right now I can't see how we could guarantee that the games we ship on a system that each users builds for himself work correctly each and every time. And selling people games that we have to refund immediately (because they don't work) is just a good way to aggravate our customers.

The bottom line is this: our "ideal" is that a game we ship works "out-of-the-box" on a supported system. You download our installer, take your computer to the middle of nowhere with no internet connection, you install with a double click and play. We already had to sacrifice a bit of that - some games require i386 libraries on 64-bit systems.
Hello,

people who use stuff like arch, know why they do it and what they do. Please rethink your position regarding those people. We are the linux community. Not only arch, there are many others and it is not needed to provide us with the kind of support you describe here, we want other things from you. :)

It is in my opinion completely okay to go the ubuntu/mint/deb only way. Steam does that too.

But! You are gog and from what i learned from the current discussion, you could gain a severe coolness factor in the linux area and community. Please ask yourself why that did not happen so far!

What do you need to change this?

Here is my humble proposal:

1. Do not support more distributions than you currently do. Again, thats fine.
2. Open your build scripts for ubuntu/mint/debian packages, upload them to a local git on your servers and link them to the games.
3. Document the way you implemented a games package to make it run on your supported distros.
4. Provide that documentation too linked to the supported games.
5. Continue to deliver the currently delivered tar.gz files.

We do not need more than that.

Why should you do it that way?

See -> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/steam and think about what happend there.

Please also take a look at this link and again think about it. -> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository

Best Regards,

A arch linux steam user and gog customer.
Post edited August 03, 2014 by lcatlnx
Posted August 05, 2014
avatar
astropup: Well, technically that's true. Wine is an API translator. It translates Windows API into its Linux counterparts. But Wine pretends to be Windows, so you might say it "emulates" it. Although WINE doesn't really do any real emulation, so saying it's not an emulator is more correct in a technical sense.

But for the most users that's not that important if their favorite game runs. :)
Then perhaps you can explain the difference between wine and high level emulation?

IMHO: It's all semantics, wine predates the term high level emulation and by then the catchy backronym was well established.
Posted August 05, 2014
avatar
Tolya: I am sorry you feel this way :( Let me tell you that the decision to support only two chosen distributions (the two most popular ones, currently) doesn't come from spite or our bad will towards the community.

It comes from the fact that we have to make sacrifices in order to retain as much "GOG-way" as possible - i.e. user friendliness and a guarantee that a game you paid money for actually works. In order to do that we had to select an environment that is not only friendly for the users, but also friendly to us. Right now, supporting games on Arch Linux would mean that we would not only have to support the game itself, but also every instance of an individual system installed and configured by the user.

I understand where you are coming from and I am a big fan of the open source community. However, once you start taking customers' money, you take responsibility for the product you ship. I am a big fan of Arch Linux (because one successful installation of it teaches you a ton about both the hardware and the Linux systems themselves), but right now I can't see how we could guarantee that the games we ship on a system that each users builds for himself work correctly each and every time. And selling people games that we have to refund immediately (because they don't work) is just a good way to aggravate our customers.

The bottom line is this: our "ideal" is that a game we ship works "out-of-the-box" on a supported system. You download our installer, take your computer to the middle of nowhere with no internet connection, you install with a double click and play. We already had to sacrifice a bit of that - some games require i386 libraries on 64-bit systems.
avatar
lcatlnx: Hello,

people who use stuff like arch, know why they do it and what they do. Please rethink your position regarding those people. We are the linux community. Not only arch, there are many others and it is not needed to provide us with the kind of support you describe here, we want other things from you. :)

It is in my opinion completely okay to go the ubuntu/mint/deb only way. Steam does that too.

But! You are gog and from what i learned from the current discussion, you could gain a severe coolness factor in the linux area and community. Please ask yourself why that did not happen so far!

What do you need to change this?

Here is my humble proposal:

1. Do not support more distributions than you currently do. Again, thats fine.
2. Open your build scripts for ubuntu/mint/debian packages, upload them to a local git on your servers and link them to the games.
3. Document the way you implemented a games package to make it run on your supported distros.
4. Provide that documentation too linked to the supported games.
5. Continue to deliver the currently delivered tar.gz files.

We do not need more than that.

Why should you do it that way?

See -> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/steam and think about what happend there.

Please also take a look at this link and again think about it. -> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository

Best Regards,

A arch linux steam user and gog customer.
Correct me if I am wrong but don't our tar.gz archives contain everything you need in order to try and get a given game running on an unsupported distro?

I ask because I am not on the Linux team at GOG, just an average GNU/Linux novice (Mint 17 is my distro at the moment :) )
Posted August 05, 2014
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JudasIscariot: Correct me if I am wrong but don't our tar.gz archives contain everything you need in order to try and get a given game running on an unsupported distro?

I ask because I am not on the Linux team at GOG, just an average GNU/Linux novice (Mint 17 is my distro at the moment :) )
Not quite, I suspect. In my case (Antergos here, which is based on Arch), I still needed to install libpng12 to run DOSBox games and lib32-alsa-lib to get audio in FlatOut. Those weren't hard to figure out and obtain through pacman, though. They were practically screaming those names in the terminal.

Not that I'm complaining. I knew I was in for a little manual work when I ditched Ubuntu. Probably because I still had to do some manual work in that distro anyway.
Posted August 06, 2014
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astropup: Well, technically that's true. Wine is an API translator. It translates Windows API into its Linux counterparts. But Wine pretends to be Windows, so you might say it "emulates" it. Although WINE doesn't really do any real emulation, so saying it's not an emulator is more correct in a technical sense.

But for the most users that's not that important if their favorite game runs. :)
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TheCycoONE: Then perhaps you can explain the difference between wine and high level emulation?

IMHO: It's all semantics, wine predates the term high level emulation and by then the catchy backronym was well established.
If you define HLE as Wikipedia does, it doesn't suit the concept. Wine doesn't emulate any hardware. It runs only on x86 or x86_64, supporting win32 or win64 API respectably. HLE, as defined by Wikipedia, seems to be more like Dosbox than Wine.
Posted August 06, 2014
If I buy a game on this website is it compatible with widows 8.1 and is it downloaded straight to your computer so that I don't need a cd player or cd?
Posted August 07, 2014
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ahinds176: If I buy a game on this website is it compatible with widows 8.1 and is it downloaded straight to your computer so that I don't need a cd player or cd?
Compatible systems are listed on every game page, if you look on Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri page as an example, it states that the game is compatible with Windows XP, Vista 7 and 8 and Mac OS 10.6.8.
It might work on other systems, but GOG.com will provide support only for the aforementioned systems.

And yes, every game here come as a straight download, you don’t need any kind of client or activation to install and play it.

But, are you sure a thread named "General Linux FAQ and Troubleshooting" was the right place for your questions? ;)
Post edited August 07, 2014 by vv221
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127
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionGeneral Linux FAQ and Troubleshooting(1903 posts)(1903 posts)
(1903 posts)