linuxvangog: The game requires 32 bit compatibility libraries
archy2: linuxvangog, I hope this packaging can be improved in future GOG releases.
In several previous GOG releases (e.g. Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition), you bundled
too many libraries with the game... including
libstdc++ and
libxcb-dri3 (which break 3D rendering on systems with Mesa-based graphics drivers if Mesa is compiled against a different version of them), and things like
libX11 (which is nonsensical because every desktop Linux system already has it).
But now, with Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition you've erred too far in the opposite direction, by bundling
no libraries - not even things like
libjson or
libssl of which many Linux systems don't have the required version installed by default, and which you could have bundled without causing problems.
The optimal solution lies in the middle:
Don't bundle libraries for which bundling causes problems or which are already installed on pretty much every Linux, but
do bundle the remaining ones.
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Also, please insist that game developers include both 32bit and 64bit Linux builds of each game's executable, and make the ./start.sh script choose the correct one. Shipping only 32bit builds in 2017
(when virtually all Linux gaming rigs are 64bit) is kinda embarrassing, and exacerbates the library dependency problems described above because it makes it less likely that a given library is already installed on a typical system, and also makes it more difficult for users to identify and install the correct package to provide the library.
Thank you for your input. We realized that bundling libraries with Linux games by us was a step in the wrong direction, as it brings more problems than profit. If the game has an active developer, we always let them know that the game should ship a 64 bit binary and all of the dependencies needed to make the game run immediately after the installation.
However, if the developer does not do that, it is better to let the end-user fix dependencies on their side, to avoid library conflicts - that's why we always inform about the game dependencies on the product store page.
We are investigating other solutions for this problem, but for now we decided, that the choice explained above is the best option.
