Will this game ever come out for Linux also? If you buy it on Steam you get it on Ubuntu. So I'm just wondering if it'll ever come out here for Linux users.

Well, if steam does this, it is obviously through wine. Just install wine (Steam might have already put it on your computer, as I have no idea how they are bundling it exactly) , download the windows installer and run it. Gog doesn't need to make special packages of windows games for Linux.

OSX on the other hand, wine is difficult to install, and requires compiling. So wineskin app bundles were a good solution.

GOG's bundled Wine thingies are pretty convenient, but sadly there isn't such a thing for SS2.

I suggest you take a look at PlayOnLinux, it seems to have an install script for SS2. With POL it's also easy to manage different Wine versions if you need to.

oops, i for some reason presumed, again, all versions would be available here, too. oh well. gonna try wine i guess.

Saying that Linux users don't need Linux packages isn't a proper answer. After all, we could say the same thing for DOS games: just download the Windows version and run it through DOSBox. If we reason like this, there is no point in adding Linux support at all on GOG for (good) old games.

So, yeah, the game installs and works fine through Wine but it would be better if a neat Linux package was available. It would be nice to hear from GOG support if they plan to add the Linux version.

1. Linux support is all fine and dandy. But face it, not everything is going to get a release on linux. Either the souce code is long gone, or In the case of SS2, it would take a complete, from the ground up, redesign of the new dark game engine. Some things just aren't built with unix/linux in mind, such as use direct X and not openGL. I'm a mac user myself, and I always have to find a work around. It's part of the price you pay for a non-windows system.

That is why Gog bundles SS2 with wine.

to the average user, there is little difference. If gog and steam use an interpreter/emulator, It is entirely in the background and you would never notice.

2. Dosbox is not a windows emulator. You can install win 3.1 on it , but It is so involved i would not recommend it. A program like oracal's VM box is much easier for that sort of thing.

Dosgames are always bundled with dosbox, no matter what the system.

That's not my point.

1) SS2 Linux on Steam is, as far as I know, a Wine "port" made by the publisher. So GOG wouldn't have to make their own port as it's apparently already available, they would only have to repack it to stick to the format they use, like native Linux games. The question being: as the game is officially available on Linux from its publisher (on Steam), do GOG plan to make it available here too?

2) I wasn't talking about installing Windows on DOSBox or stuff like that. Someone above said that given the fact that we can manually install SS2 Windows through Wine we don't really need an official Linux version. I was pointing out that this way of thinking can apply to DOS games too: in that case, we don't really need official support and packages from GOG as we can manually install them on Linux through DOSBox. Why bother having any Linux support at all on GOG, then?
The thing is that people want games that work out of the box, so yes, we "need" the Linux version of SS2 on GOG if possible.

I follow now.

Gog's mac version is just SS2 packaged with wine. They can have a linux installer that installs wine with it. Thing is, wine is so easy to install in linux with its built-in package management system, in the first place, It almost doesn't even save time. The windows installer works perfectly fine on a linux system if you installed wine first. Just double click. OSX it's a different story. The integration isn't the same.

The way steam works, it makes sense for them to do this. But a special linux gog installer? Eh... Doesn't hurt I guess. Perhaps just needs a label, RUNS IN WINE.

Dosbox, doesn't have the same right-out-of-the-box system integration, It requires setup. So an installer is useful.