On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:50:43 +0000, Invisible wrote:

>>>>> (Actually, at the time I tried out klogic, we *did* have an Internet
>>>>> connection, but I didn't even bother to *attempt* to make it work
>>>>> under Linux. Making the "simple" stuff work was hard enough...)
>>>> Well, then, there's really no excuse for not submitting bugs, is
>>>> there? ;-)
>>> How do you figure that?
>> 
>> Because you're on the 'net now?
> 
> And I don't use klogic any more?

You said you tried it again when you did have an Internet connection.

>> The way you write, you make it sound like there's maybe 1 or 2 or maybe
>> even *gasp* as many as 10 whole games for Linux.  There are probably
>> thousands that run natively, and hundreds to thousands more that will
>> run under something like WINE or reasonably within a current release of
>> VMware.
> 
> I guess it depends on whether you consider XTetris to be a "game".
> 
> Sure, there are about 25,000 Mahjong clones for Linux. But how many
> large-scale games are there?

There are several.  I'm not a gamer, but I'm told by people who are who 
use Linux that game support is better now than ever.

> (If I'm not mistaken, there's one newish FPS that works on Linux - I
> think it might be a member of the Unreal series. Doom has been ported,
> but that's pretty tame by now. And there's Tux Racer...)

Like I said, go to freshmeat.net and have a look.  Go to sourceforge.net 
and have a look.  Go to Cedega's website and look at what Windows games 
are supported.

>>> I'm not saying it's impossible to make cross-platform games. But when
>>> you have a huge codebase invested in DirectX, it would be tantamount
>>> to a complete rewrite to move to OpenGL. (Plus Valve games make use of
>>> lots of advanted stuff like DirectX 10. Guess where that's
>>> supported...)
>> 
>> If you want broader platform support, then it becomes an investment to
>> look into.
> 
> Sure. And some day, there will probably be a lot more stuff for Linux
> than there currently is. All I said was that today there isn't a vast
> amount of stuff yet.

And you were wrong, see above for the reasons why.

>> And companies are doing it, as you said, Valve releases games that are
>> native on Linux now.  There must be money in it or they wouldn't
>> invest.
> 
> Valve don't release games for Linux. They make the game *servers*
> available for Linux. As far as anyone knows, there are no plans to ever
> make the games themselves available for Linux, or any other platform
> that isn't Microsoft.

http://www.cedega.com/gamesdb/

Don't just read the "over 40 games certified", look at the list.  Half-
Life and several (most?) of its derivatives run under Cedega perfectly 
fine.

Just because Valve don't release the clients on Linux doesn't mean you're 
stuffed to run the client on Linux.

> Other developers, though, may have other plans...

Obviously, because the number of games that run on Linux is increasing.

>>> Of course, why would complexity be any obsticle to comprehending
>>> something?
>> 
>> It shouldn't be an obstacle to trying to comprehend it.
>> 
>> If you start with "this is so incredibly complex I'll never understand
>> it so why even bother starting to look at it", then sure, it's going to
>> look damned impossible.  You won't understand it overnight, but you can
>> learn about it over time.
> 
> Sure. A system designed by several thousand designers and programmers
> over the course of decades. A system that is *purposely designed* to be
> difficult to understand. Sounds simple to me. :-P

There you go again with the "purposely designed" nonsense.  It's not 
*designed* to be difficult to understand.  Don't confuse complexity with 
"intentionally meant to be difficult to understand".

>> <sigh>  Again, it's not the specifics, it's the concepts.  A more
>> complex OS just takes more time and manpower.  That doesn't make it
>> impossible. If it wasn't impossible, WINE woudn't exist.  WINE exists. 
>> Therefore, it's possible.
> 
> And exactly how many thousand people are working on WINE?

This may surprise you, but the core development team for most OSS 
projects is relatively small.  A lot of people can contribute patches, 
but the core development team reviews and approves as well as doing 
development.

>>> I don't see anything in the FAQ about legallity.
>> 
>> I was sure there was something in there.  No matter, look at Mono - it
>> also addresses the patent issue.  Mono is a reimplementation of the
>> .NET framework - incidentally, done (I believe) through clean-room
>> reverse- engineering.
> 
> Interesting - I was under the impression that it was an ISO "standard"
> now.

The language may be, but that doesn't mean the libraries are.  Building 
cross-platform applications using C# isn't very easy to do if things like 
Winforms aren't ported to the platforms in question.

>> So please stop saying "it's impossible!" when clearly it isn't because
>> it's being done.
> 
> Well if you want to be *technical* about it, what I *actually* said was
> "it's impressive because it should be impossible".

Semantics, don't start with "it should be impossible" just because you 
don't have the knowledge or experience.  Making a rocket should be 
impossible.  Going to the moon should be impossible.  If the human race 
balked at everything that should be impossible, we'd never progress.

Jim

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