Elite:Dangerous for Linux?

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

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

Linux install almost every possible driver ever, and clever distros as Ubuntu automatically detects hardware with special, binary drivers, and promts user to install them with few password passes. This is true for almost 10 years now - way before Windows even got proper download sites for hardware.

At this point I can pop in Fedora flash and have running system in minutes, and Nvidia driver installed in additional few ones. Windows have never touched that. On same machine vendor DVD grinded for hours.

As for consoles choice is obvious, and I will welcome console versions of the game. There are renewed interest in space games (thanks to No Man's Sky) so it is obvious business choice too.

My argument has been only that a) for FD it won't be hard to do Linux port b) and it can make financial sense in a future or even now. WIll they choose to do so it's their decision.

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And one to be not so cheerful -



I suspect "other platforms" will more likely be PS4 and XBox One, simply because there are more users and therefore, potentially, more reward.

To be frank, Michael said same thing about console ports even after David hinted heavily they consider it. I think what Michael usually means is that they don't have any plans, but they thinking about it. They have said Linux isn't hard to do in the past, they know that. All what matters is numbers. I will try to provide them.

 

[sswam]

The sad thing is that Frontier could have written the game in such a way as to make it portable in the first place, using portable languages (C, C++) libraries (SDL, OpenGL, OpenAL) and a portable coding style. Their code would be better quality if they had done that, and completing the port to a new platform would be much easier for them.

 

[jabokai]

To be frank, Michael said same thing about console ports even after David hinted heavily they consider it. I think what Michael usually means is that they don't have any plans, but they thinking about it. They have said Linux isn't hard to do in the past, they know that. All what matters is numbers. I will try to provide them.

I prefer to take the devs at their word, otherwise there's no point them posting here at all. When they say nothing, it's time for speculation.

 

[sswam]

6) What, Linux don't use drivers? Does Linux install every possible driver for every device ever? What about proprietary hardware like Nvidia/Ati?

In short, yes. The Linux kernel includes open-source drivers (modules) for almost all PC hardware, the code is factored sensibly into generic and specific modules where possible. As I said, hardware is detected at boot time so even if you put your disk in a totally different PC it will work without any need to install new drivers or remove old drivers.

Apart from the open-source drivers, distros such as Ubuntu will offer to install proprietary drivers where that is the best option (e.g. for NVIDIA GPUs). It is easy to set it up so that the latest NVIDIA drivers are installed automatically along with other software updates.

Until you've tried it you won't understand how much easier it is to install and upgrade all software, the OS, and drivers with a single click or command, and no interactive "install wizards" or anything. It would literally take weeks to upgrade a Windows system in the same way that I upgrade my Linux desktop/development system in a matter of minutes with little or no interaction needed.

 

[graham.reeds]

The sad thing is that Frontier could have written the game in such a way as to make it portable in the first place, using portable languages (C, C++) libraries (SDL, OpenGL, OpenAL) and a portable coding style. Their code would be better quality if they had done that, and completing the port to a new platform would be much easier for them.

Jesus. How many times do I have to refute this?

Frontier have their own abstraction layer. Imagine SDL but written entirely in-house and called Cobra. This enables them to compile the code for various platforms. PC, XBox, PSX. They are adding a new target for MacOS. This involves writing the concrete implementation of that interface for that platform. I can't really explain it any simpler than that.

 

[jabokai]

It would literally take weeks to upgrade a Windows system in the same way that I upgrade my Linux desktop/development system in a matter of minutes with little or no interaction needed.

Literally weeks? Seriously? Are you like, really slow at doing stuff? Nothing would take literally weeks on a Windows system to upgrade unless you are teaching a blind ferret to do it for you?!

Slightly OT, but I'm an IT professional and a geek (prime target for Linux you'd think) but I'm primarily interested in gaming and that's just easier on Windows, all told. I do not care about the Microsoft "monopoly" and I don't care about the 50 odd quid Windows costs when I'm spending 1.5-2K on a new rig. If Linux ever gets to a level when it's the go to OS for gaming I'll be happy to switch.

 

[amigacooke]

How many times do I have to refute this?

One more at least it seems.

 

[gogereaver]

i think the question Linux is a viable gaming platform was tossed years ago with steam being for it and plenty of other games with native Linux. hell andorid uses a linux kernel. windows 8 was a flop yes but i dont think microsoft will make that mistake with windows 10. kinda a pattern with them every other os they do flops.

 

[Twyst]

Let's keep this on topic, people! This is not a thread for OS wars!

Anyone old enough to remember the Amiga vs Atari wars?

So you're not old enough to remember the BBC vs Commodore vs Sinclair wars

 

[sswam]

Literally weeks?

Yes, I have thousands of software packages installed on my Linux development system including the kernel, drivers, compilers and interpreters for many languages, several office suites, graphics programs, music programs, games, desktop environments, database systems, web servers, mail servers, software development libraries, etc. To install or upgrade a similar collection of software by hand on windows would take literally weeks, working day and night through moronic "install wizards", rebooting over and over again... except that I would give up after a day or two and switch back to a proper operating system where it can be done with ease, and at most one reboot (to start using the newest kernel).

The only Windows progams I know with a tolerable upgrade system are: Steam, and Mozilla Firefox. Chrome doesn't quite qualify since it's upgrade process seems to bring my computer to its knees. Fortunately Chrome on Linux does not have that problem, it updates in the regular way like other software packages.

Also on Windows I have to be aware that most software 1. costs money 2. comes with some sort of "crapware", virus, ads, toolbars and the like 3. costs more money and pain to upgrade it.

On Linux that is not the case, most software is free (and open source) and none of it comes with crapware, which is not tolerated at all by the community, and it's easy to upgrade everything all at once.

TL;DR? Windows sucks compared to Linux by every measure that matters to me.

 

[jabokai]

TL;DR? Windows sucks compared to Linux by every measure that matters to me.

That's fair enough, but I still call bull on the minutes/literally weeks thing. You're obviously an exaggerating evangelist - the evangelist part I don't mind, but really no need to exaggerate to that degree.

 

[graham.reeds]

Yes, I have thousands of software packages installed on my Linux development system including the kernel, drivers, compilers and interpreters for many languages, several office suites, graphics programs, music programs, games, desktop environments, database systems, web servers, mail servers, software development libraries, etc. To install or upgrade a similar collection of software by hand on windows would take literally weeks, working day and night through moronic "install wizards", rebooting over and over again... except that I would give up after a day or two and switch back to a proper operating system where it can be done with ease, and at most one reboot (to start using the newest kernel).

You have thousands installed, but how many are any good and how many do you actually use? To upgrade such a collection would take weeks, but guess what. I don't need to because I don't need to have thousands installed and updates appear rarely and when they are updated the program is generally inclined to inform you that there is an update available. Also rebooting after application updates are extremely rare, usually when a driver is updated.

The only Windows progams I know with a tolerable upgrade system are: Steam, and Mozilla Firefox. Chrome doesn't quite qualify since it's upgrade process seems to bring my computer to its knees. Fortunately Chrome on Linux does not have that problem, it updates in the regular way like other software packages.

Dunno why you have a problem with Chrome as I never know when it is upgrading. It just does, quietly in the background. Just checked and it is on the latest version (2171.99).

Also on Windows I have to be aware that most software 1. costs money 2. comes with some sort of "crapware", virus, ads, toolbars and the like 3. costs more money and pain to upgrade it.

On Linux that is not the case, most software is free (and open source) and none of it comes with crapware, which is not tolerated at all by the community, and it's easy to upgrade everything all at once.

You can purchase software or you can use free stuff from SourceForge, CodePlex and various other places on the Net. You can also purchase stuff for Linux too. E isn't free either. As for (2) didn't Ubuntu link to search results in Amazon?

Also you don't have to upgrade. I have boxes that are on Win8, Win7 and a lappy that is on Vista.

TL;DR? Windows sucks compared to Linux by every measure that matters to me.

 

[VictorT]

That's fair enough, but I still call bull on the minutes/literally weeks thing. You're obviously an exaggerating evangelist - the evangelist part I don't mind, but really no need to exaggerate to that degree.

this is the last kind of conversation i want to promote in this thread, but I have to second the original assertion.

Patch Tuesday in the Windows world upgrades windows, and that's it. Automatic updates on windows desktops update windows, and that's it. There really isn't a one-process-that-upgrades-all-applications on Windows, and frankly I have no idea how people can stomach that.

Running an update on a linux machine (be it yum uprade or apt-get upgrade, for example) literally does take minutes, and upgrades ALL packaged applications on the machine. It's not an exaggeration at all, actually.

I generally have 3 office suites on any given Linux desktops, and use different components of each. I also have a package called "unattended-upgrades" installed, which basically upgrades the majority of software without my having to know (like Chrome on windows, it seems, only way more).

When you have (literally) thousands of pieces of software installed on a box, it's not really a question of "how many do you use", because it's not about "This App" or "That App" on Linux, so much as, what do you expect to DO with the box, and does it do it? no? add that functionality, not think about it again.

No, you don't have to upgrade everything all the time. but that's not safe no matter -what- OS you're running.

The bottom line is.. again.. It doesn't matter how much better or worse Windows or Linux is from each other, that's not what this thread is about.

Nobody in this thread expects to apt-get install EliteDangerous, or rpm -ivh EliteDangerious.rpm.. We all expect to pay for it, and we all expect to see its upgrades happen magically like they do on steam, Free Software advocates be damned.

But it's still a matter of IF not WHEN, and -THAT- is what this thread is about.

 

[Darth Ender]

I've been linux-only since 1997. About a week ago I bought a ssd, installed windows 7 and setup my computer to dual boot for the first time ever just to install and play this game vs wait for it to maybe never come to linux. It's a shame it doesn't have a linux port and if it ever gets one I'm jumping on it day 1 and hopefully never booting into windows again. Steam is slowly but surely convincing triple A game producers to put out linux versions so there is hope. I normally would tend to wait for the linux version of something but in this case, i'm tired of waiting for a good space combat game/sim. It's been so long since the days of wing commander and privateer
[edit] I'd like to mention Elite titles but my experience was with the mentioned games for the most part, be that as it may[/edit]
and nothing has been able to successfully take their place beacuse this is such a niche market game genre. I'm sorry I couldn't hold out for a linux port to show my support but it is what it is.

Port this to linux, you probably will have to do the majority of that work anyway to support any platform other than windows.

 

[mr. Berg Mos]

Extremely good news

I have moved from win to linux, and I have played ED on windowz when it was still installed on system (Yes I have bought the game.)

Can't wait for linux port of Elite: Dangerous

 

[deMangler]

Love it when this thread gets bumped by someone....
If ED is ported to MAC, then I am pretty sure it won't be long before we can make it run under a proper OS.
Just thinking too that for all you lot who like 3rd party tools like commanders log - think how great it will be when us linux people start coding tools. I personally can't be bothered to develop for windows, not for fun anyway, whereas, developing under linux is FUN! And there will be an explosion of tools if it ever runs under linux because I am definitely not the only one there.
So, there is that to look forward to...

 

[GlumReaper]

Another +1 here for a Linux version.

Not up there with other things I think the game needs first, but still, it'd be nice at some point.

 

[kyuser101]

Hopefully they have most of the porting process done after the Mac release. A Linux port would be fantastic!

 

[nagyga1]

I have to agree, I was FORCED to install Windows on the PC I play ED just because of ED, otherwise I am having Linuxes on all of my computers.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I made a formal petition for Linux port https://www.change.org/p/frontier-developments-plc-port-elite-dangerous-to-linux-desktop