Elite:Dangerous for Linux?

Grumbleweed

Grumbleweed
8 reasons to be cheerful :

1) David Braben is a founder member of the extremely successful Raspberry Pi project, which shows that he is not allergic, that there is a surprising demand for Linux based end user systems given the right catalyst and that tomorrow's gamers will be quite familiar with using Linux
2) More and more quality games are ported to, and released on, Linux every week
3) When given the opportunity, Linux users spend more on games than windows or Mac users on average
4) Most Windows users use Unix based systems every day without even realising it, so it will not actually hurt them to try
5) Mac version is definitely coming, which means that the Linux version shouldn't be such a huge step further
6) Linux is far better than it was even a couple of years ago, in terms of hardware support and interface design, and this trend looks set to continue
7) In general, Linux users pretty much can look after themselves technically, or at least each other, so less central support is required
8) Linux users tend to be better at bug reports

I hope this helps. It doesn't really matter which OS you personally think is better, because that isn't what this thread is about.
 
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graham.reeds

G
Every few years I try Linux in my HTPC box. Originally it had trouble playing MP3 and certainly couldn't play avi files reliably. Then it had real trouble playing DVDs. Last time it had trouble playing MKV without slowing down and skipping frames - wouldn't use hardware acceleration for decoding nor could I play bluray.

Windows may cost but I am happy to pay when things work. You listed phones and servers as examples of linux. My router has Linux but I don't play games on that either.

The discussion is about Elite Dangerous on Linux. As far as I can see, it wouldn't take too much effort to make another target for the Cobra engine to target Linux. Hell they could give it as a project to the interns.
 

sswam

sswam
sunnystormy said:
As for SDL; all SDL is, is an abstraction that's taken care of that windowing context for you. Sure, that could save the developers time, but that still means rewriting their already existing Windows codebase. It may be easier to just interface with X11, but I don't know what the code looks like, so it's not for me to say.
Click to expand...

I have coded and ported Open GL games and emulators using both Xlib / GLX / GLES and SDL / Open GL / Open GLES, and I can tell you that it is a whole lot easier to use SDL / GL. As a bonus, the code is portable. In future Linux desktops will not necessarily use X11 as the main window system, but SDL / GL will continue to work.

graham.reeds said:
The counter argument that you can get the source and fix it is bunk because people don't do that.
Click to expand...

I have fixed bugs in several open source programs for my own benfit, for example I hacked wine so that Risk of Rain would run without crashing on Linux (the bug was subsequently fixed in a better way by NVIDIA).

VictorT said:
It doesn't matter what you think about Linux, why are you even in this thread if you have nothing to add?
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^ This exactly. This is not a Linux vs Windows thread. It is not a place for Windows users who have never used Linux seriously, to come and attempt to take a dump on Linux while in fact just embarassing themselves by showing their ignorance. This is a place for Linux users to express interest in a Linux port of Elite dangerous, and to present reasons why this might be worthwhile for Frontier.

Grumbleweed said:
8 reasons to be cheerful :

1) David Braben is a founder member of the extremely successful Raspberry Pi project, which shows that he is not allergic, that there is a surprising demand for Linux based end user systems given the right catalyst and that tomorrow's gamers will be quite familiar with using Linux
2) More and more quality games are ported to, and released on, Linux every week
3) When given the opportunity, Linux users spend more on games than windows or Mac users on average
4) Most Windows users use Unix based systems every day without even realising it, so it will not actually hurt them to try
5) Mac version is definitely coming, which means that the Linux version shouldn't be such a huge step further
6) Linux is far better than it was even a couple of years ago, in terms of hardware support and interface design, and this trend looks set to continue
7) In general, Linux users pretty much can look after themselves technically, or at least each other, so less central support is required
8) Linux users tend to be better at bug reports

I hope this helps. It doesn't really matter which OS you personally think is better, because that isn't what this thread is about.
Click to expand...

1. Braben's support for Raspberry Pi makes it doubly disappointing that Frontier didn't code in a portable way from the get-go, and have made no commitment to a Linux port.
2. I do most of my gaming on Steam+Linux, there is a wide range of excellent indie games, and most Windows games I have tried work well in wine. We can thank Valve, Wine and Humble Bundle for this.
3. This is true, for several reasons: there are fewer games to choose from on Linux, and Linux users presumably have more disposable income on average, because many of us are employed in highly paid highly skilled jobs in the IT industry.
4. Linux is not for everyone, and that's fine.
5. Certainly it's a small step from Mac to Linux or vice versa, if they code it sensibly using portable APIs; and it would have been a small step from Windows also had they done so.
6. Yes, it's generally much easier to get new hardware working on Linux than on Windows these days, because there's no need to manually install or upgrade drivers.
7. Yes, there is very strong community support in the Linux community.
8. Yes, Linux users tend to be smart.
 
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BoldyBald

B
As a gaming solution I gave up on GNU/Linux long ago. I never liked Wine or all the hassle it gave. That said, I do like the growing GNU/Linux support on Steam and in other areas. Maybe one day it will become a valid option for gaming.

That said, one of the biggest hurdles will be which version/distribution and what library dependencies it should run on. The problem is the wide variety of all the distributions and the small differences between them.
 

Atonnis

A
Every year I install one of the Linux variants (or a couple) and every year I get a couple of hours in and yawn widely, then go back to Windows.

Of course, I'm running Windows 10, and given its improvements and changes since Windows 8.1 I don't think it'll garner the same hatred as Windows 8.*

Linux-wise, I'm just not convinced. People may use Linux systems every day without realising it, but it just doesn't have anything useful beyond the already established Windows. Windows 10 has multiple desktops, etc. The few advantages Linux had are rapidly disappearing.
 

danskmacabre

danskmacabre
I'm a computer programmer by trade on a pretty obscure OS called OS/400 on AS/400s (or Iseries, I5 as they are known now).
However I also like to dabble with other OSs including, Windows and Linux.

I'm actually pretty happy with Windows 7. It seems stable enough to me, but I like to play around with Linux on a Raspberry Pi to do various things. It also seems pretty stable to me.

I would like to see a Linux port of ED. Not particularly for a desperate need or want for it, but it'd be a good excuse to set up a Linux Dual boot on my main PC for a laugh and play ED on Linux.

I must say, apart from games, there's no real reason for me to particularly feel a need to keep using Windows.
If Linux supported games as well as or better than Windows, I'd happily drop windows, as I have no real OS loyalty.
 

BoldyBald

B
Atonnis said:
Every year I install one of the Linux variants (or a couple) and every year I get a couple of hours in and yawn widely, then go back to Windows.

Of course, I'm running Windows 10, and given its improvements and changes since Windows 8.1 I don't think it'll garner the same hatred as Windows 8.*

Linux-wise, I'm just not convinced. People may use Linux systems every day without realising it, but it just doesn't have anything useful beyond the already established Windows. Windows 10 has multiple desktops, etc. The few advantages Linux had are rapidly disappearing.
Click to expand...

Not really sure what you are trying to do here, since it's all off topic. So you have a hard time understanding Linux, who cares? There is a windows client already stick with that. I think this thread is about people who would also like to see a Linux version aside of a Mac version. But a Mac version is a waste of time too, I suppose?
 

Colas

Colas
Personally, I am a die-hard unix, then linux fan, and my workstations, servers and HTPC I use at home / work are all linuxes.

However, I have ended setting up a dedicated "gaming machine" on windows, so that it can have a powerful (read: noisy) GPU, while I keep my other computers tiny and silent.
I play non-GPU-intensive games on my linux box, though.

Thus, I would buy a linux version of ED just to "raise the rep" of linux for gaming, but I may not actually use it for some time (until all games I play are on linux). I wonder how many people are like me.
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
I am bit taken back by a) clear misinformation and old FUD floating around in this thread b) also clearly going offtopic, as topic is about ED Linux port, not is Linux viable platform for gaming.

For first I already pointed out few facts, which I think is enough for FD to make some calculations about making a port (I plan to do a online campaign for ED Linux port, and i will try to get more concrete numbers for FD to evaluate). Pushing this into OS war territory is nonsense, as it has been clear that such conflict exists mostly in geek's minds.

As for actual Linux port if FD ever decides to do so, it will be easier with OS X port already on release. No, not because it's *nix, but because it's using quite compatible OpenGL versions.
 

graham.reeds

G
sswam said:
1. Braben's support for Raspberry Pi makes it doubly disappointing that Frontier didn't code in a portable way from the get-go, and have made no commitment to a Linux port.
2. I do most of my gaming on Steam+Linux, there is a wide range of excellent indie games, and most Windows games I have tried work well in wine. We can thank Valve, Wine and Humble Bundle for this.
3. This is true, for several reasons: there are fewer games to choose from on Linux, and Linux users presumably have more disposable income on average, because many of us are employed in highly paid highly skilled jobs in the IT industry.
4. Linux is not for everyone, and that's fine.
5. Certainly it's a small step from Mac to Linux or vice versa, if they code it sensibly using portable APIs; and it would have been a small step from Windows also had they done so.
6. Yes, it's generally much easier to get new hardware working on Linux than on Windows these days, because there's no need to manually install or upgrade drivers.
7. Yes, there is very strong community support in the Linux community.
8. Yes, Linux users tend to be smart.
Click to expand...

1) It was written with portability in mind. They use their own internally developed abstraction layer called Cobra. To make the game work on Mac or Linux then they need to add a target.
3) Many of the forum are in highly paid IT jobs that don't use Linux.
5) They have done so. See 1.
6) What, Linux don't use drivers? Does Linux install every possible driver for every device ever? What about proprietary hardware like Nvidia/Ati? It detects it and downloads the drivers? Well recently I put an NVidia card in my box replacing the ATi that was in there. That automatically downloaded the WHQL drivers and installed it for me. I have since downloaded the most up to date drivers (done for me by clicking a single button) and installed them. I had to manually remove the unneeded Ati drivers but that was a massive hardship (a couple of clicks).
8) No comment:)
 

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
BoldyBald said:
The problem is the wide variety of all the distributions and the small differences between them.
Click to expand...
Someone mentioned earlier in the thread that Firefox, for example, bundles all the libraries it needs to run on any distro.

iD Software managed a generic Linux version of Quake Wars: Enemy Territory. The download for that was ~500MB; all of the resource files - textures, etc - were independent of the client and were available on the game DVD. The client for Linux was distributed via Bit Torrent, which saved on bandwidth costs.
 
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kirelicnh

K
BoldyBald said:
A HOTAS on a console? First is it possible? Second: Will there be a market for that? Will people want that?
Click to expand...


they made a hotas for consoles, many logitech ones work on ps4 and xbox had one made by siatek

Ace_Combat_6_-_Ace_Edge.jpg
 
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