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General discussionNEWS: Revamping Linux installers for all GOG.com games(19 posts)(19 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 11, 2015
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It's a year of Linux gaming on GOG.com!

Today, we want to share with you a few new updates to the way that installing our games on Linux will work. Based on what we've learned and on your feedback, we have revamped our installers to offer a much improved experience, and make it more consistent with the way we do things on Windows and OS X.

Starting today, our Linux games will come with all-new installers that include more features, combine the best of our previous solutions, and plain ol' look better. Among other things, here's what you can expect:

--The new installers will be distro-agnostic. That means that you'll be able to run and try them out on virtually any Linux distribution without any tweaks.
--A simple installation process, done in just two steps that we all know well: simply add executable privileges to the installer, then simply run it.
--Patches. Differential patches. No one likes downloading lots of data for an update, now you'll be able to grab future patches for big games with frequent updates.
--Support for installing DLC.
--Pretty backgrounds, pretty desktop icons.

For more info about the new installers, you can always check out our Linux FAQ.
Post edited August 11, 2015 by Ciris
Posted August 11, 2015
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huN73R: Interesting, can you post a list of all games which have migrated to this system? It's a bit tiresome to keep checking all of their sub-forums for news. Or is it already done for all games?
It's done for all games already :)

[edit] All English-language versions of games. Other languages are going up as we speak :)
Post edited August 11, 2015 by Ciris
Posted August 11, 2015
Hello there!
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adamhm: Yeah, as others have said it's good that there are new distro-agnostic installers, but at the same time I also don't like that the choice for downloading tarballs has been removed. Why remove the tarball option?
As we learned from our already year old Linux support, having two formats instead of one was the cause of the confusion among some users. New installers introduce many features that were not reachable with older forms of distribution we used, such as differential patches that will make updating your games way easier :)

And, honestly it is more simple for us to maintain a single format for games, instead of two :)
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BillyMaysFan59: While I see some welcome improvements, I think the tar packages should still be available as an option.

I like them because you can just unpack and run them right on the spot, without installing the game system wide.

Bring back good old tar packages and you've got a deal.
We want to give the freedom of choice to our users. The new installers are meant to be installed in any localtion in your $HOME folder (while $HOME/GOG Games is recommended), because installing games system-wide is not exactly the best solution, because of many problems with file mode bits (e.g. some games creating save/configuration files in their root folders).
Post edited August 11, 2015 by linuxvangog
Posted August 11, 2015
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classicgogger: Yes.
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BillyMaysFan59: Huh.
___________________
Also Ciris' post mentioned the new installers being distro agnostic. Does that mean that GOG will be officially supporting more distros than Ubuntu/Mint now? Might be a pretty bold move.
No, there are no plans to support more distros ATM.
Posted August 11, 2015
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TheJoe: (...) snip

Further, don't use $HOME. $HOME isn't defined on some distributions by default. When looking for a user's home you should always use ~/. Unless you were just talking about $HOME for simplicity's sake with the post.
Well, from my experience the $HOME variable is more dependable than the tilde (~), but yes, I meant it as 'the user home folder'.
Posted August 11, 2015
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Ciris: No, there are no plans to support more distros ATM.
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BillyMaysFan59: I see.

So your official verdict on other distros is still pretty much "go ahead and try it at your own risk, but we can't offer support". Fair enough.

(...)
More like: if you want to try, we don't want to make it difficult to you ;)
Posted August 11, 2015
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Kristian: Great news. Any ETA on Galaxy for Linux?
None that I'm aware of - the Galaxy team is working hard on bug fixes and implementing the features that we consider key to the client (and seeing what issues may pop up then) before we start bringing it to another system. Keep following our news updates, though, and you'll be sure to hear of any GOG Galaxy Linux news in the future :)
Posted August 11, 2015
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TheJoe: Hide tarball downloads under "Advanced Options" in account section or something.
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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).
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.
Posted August 11, 2015
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hedwards: I'm fortunate enough to have a connection without any caps, but it's rather slow and downloading a 10gb file takes all day. On top of that, any large files I have that I decide to backup could take 2-3 days.
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hummer010: Mines slowish too, but I can handle the slow. I get tired of always managing my total bandwidth. I've been working on getting Shadows of Mordor downloaded since it was released for Linux - at 42GB, it's going to take me at least two monthes to download it - I just can't commit that much of my monthly bandwidth to a single game. Add to that trying to re-download the big one's from GOG, and I'll never catch up!

To the best of my knowledge Wasteland 2 directors cut is a free upgrade to all existing owners, and is supposed to drop some time this fall. I'll wait until after that to re-download Wasteland 2.
You can change the directory during installation so you don't have to install it in $HOME.
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throgh: Seriously? Why did you removed the zipped packages, GOG? I just DON'T want pretty icons or shortcuts added automatically. I want to configure the system on my own and now I have more work extracting the bash-installers to get only the data-files. :-(

Besides: Has anonyone tested the installers with Ubuntu 12.04 or any derivate?
The shortcuts and menu icons can be toggled off during installation. And you can extract the file using a simple unzip command like it's been mentioned earlier in this thread.
Post edited August 11, 2015 by JudasIscariot
Posted August 11, 2015
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throgh: Seriously? Why did you removed the zipped packages, GOG? I just DON'T want pretty icons or shortcuts added automatically. I want to configure the system on my own and now I have more work extracting the bash-installers to get only the data-files. :-(
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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" ;)

-----

Looks like Judas is still a master of the shady edit XD
Not an edit just auto-merged forum posts :P
Post edited August 11, 2015 by JudasIscariot
Posted August 11, 2015
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JudasIscariot:
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vv221: Yeah, that’s what they all say…
Now I just look like I’m parroting you with my late answer!
This should motivate you to be faster next time :P
Posted August 11, 2015
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v3: Don't mean to step on your toe, but comparing with your excited reaction from the other thread where we discussed Shadow of Mordor for Linux, I can't help but lol. Anticipation, the hype, climax and then - just a couple of months of steady downloading. It seemed you'd be all over Orcs by now. But then, patience is a virtue worthy of a lone ranger...
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hummer010: Yup. Sucks. I hadn't anticipated 42GB. I've completed 11GB so far :)
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JudasIscariot: You can change the directory during installation so you don't have to install it in $HOME.
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hummer010: Good stuff! Thanks for the reply Judas.

All in all, I'm pleased with the change. Nothing is lost from the tarball downloads, and differential patching is gained. That's a real win in my books!
Just tested OlliOlli2's installer and it works as expected :D
Posted August 11, 2015
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JudasIscariot: Just tested OlliOlli2's installer and it works as expected :D
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GR00T: Judas, can these new imnstallers be accessed via the DLer links? I tried BG2 but can't seem to get the DLer to initiate at all.
I don't know, I am at home and I don't use the Downloader at home. Sorry :(
Posted August 12, 2015
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Ciris: Today, we want to share with you a few new updates to the way that installing our games on Linux will work.
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shmerl: It would be good if you added MojoSetup to your credits page: https://www.gog.com/thanks

Same probably goes for some other projects you missed there, like Wine for example.
We're on it, we didn't mean to forget about authors by any chance :) Also, check the 'thanks' section in the installer's EULA!
Posted August 13, 2015
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Ciris: --A simple installation process, done in just two steps that we all know well:
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Gede: make && make install ? Yeah, I wish... :-(
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 )
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Community
General discussionNEWS: Revamping Linux installers for all GOG.com games(19 posts)(19 posts)
(19 posts)