Elite:Dangerous for Linux?

lenna

lenna
Old Duck said:
I also really dislike PC-based DRM.
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You do realise that most consoles these days are basically PCs in a slightly different form and still include comparable DRM. :rolleyes:

Despite Microsoft Windoze, PCs are still the best platform for cutting edge gaming IMO.

I used to run a dual boot system and actually prefer Linux/UNIX as an operating system to Microsoft's "Toy Town" operating systems. However, as most of my professional work is done on Windows and Linux support for various items of hardware and software is lack lustre I have stepped away for having Linux installed on my system as a primary/secondary OS. I would love to be able to go back to the good old days of using Linux most of the time, providing I am not tied to specific Linux distros.
 
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PvtTUX

P
Remus said:
3 reasons why a linux version is likely to never happen.

1.) 1.68% of desktop/laptop market share ( statcounter )
http://i.imgur.com/LmQltfx.png
2.) 13 different versions of Linux distributions, and a plethora of derivation of each one, so which one should they work on ?

( warning, BIG list ahead )
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg

3.) Linux users are more likely to use Wine, or double boot so why bother ?

Honestly, grow up and give it a rest, not gonna happen.
No one is pointing a gun at any Linux user and ask them to use ONLY Linux ! If you are so stubborn as to only use one OS for whatever reason you can only blame yourself if not everything you want runs on it.
Most Linux users point out at steam sudden burst of Linux compatible games. But have they noticed that the burst has stopped ?
The only reason why some developers suddenly gained interest in linux was because Valve tried ( and failed miserably ) to steal the market from MS after the Win 8 fiasco.
But after the BIG flop of the steam machines that worked on Steam OS, another Linux based OS, big developers again stopped developing on Linux.
You will find small indie games, but not a lot of big games.

I'm not saying this out of Linux hate, I couldn't care less if Frontier decided to port the game on Linux, Kudos to them if they do. It is just that just like some apple users, Linux users seem to be borderline fanatical about it ! And I'm sick of it !

Linuxians must somehow understand that their OS is not the best OS only because it is free or open source !
A LOT of people don't want to bother with it, and they must understand this.
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If it sickens you so much then why bother shooting your mouth off ?
We have all encountered this exact same attitude on this thread before so, meh good for you !
Just ignore the thread and don't wind yourself up so much ;)
 

shadragon

shadragon
Remus said:
3 reasons why a linux version is likely to never happen.

1.) 1.68% of desktop/laptop market share ( statcounter )
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First, your numbers are wrong. Second, they are incomplete.

a) Linux OS installs compose of 2.09% of all OS installs. I'm not counting the 12.5 million Rasp Pi's either.
Source: https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

b) Playstation 4 OS is based on FreeBSD and there are 60+ million of those in the world.

c) Mac OS players (all OS versions are essentially Unix) would equally benefit from a Linux distro and they comprise 6.23% of all OS's in use. When teamed with the Vulkan API, most existing issues with the Mac E: D client vanish and they could receive updates again.

So roughly 15-20% of players by my calculation would get benefits from a Linux client, directly or indirectly. Your statement of big developers stopping further development is also flawed. Indeed, development on Linux is picking up.
A LOT of people don't want to bother with it, and they must understand this.
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Lots of other threads to participate in if not interested. We're not telling other players what to use.

Full disclosure, this was typed in a Chromium browser on Kubuntu 16. Now, if you'll forgive me I'm going to go play DOOM on my Linux box.
 

BurntJello

BurntJello
Only posting to say: I would like it very much if ED had a linux version available.
Reason: I have no intention of buying another Microsoft OS (win10 spyware was the final nail in their not-trustworthy coffin). So without a linux version, I will be stuck playing this game forever on my current (future old) win7 rig.

FD, you've done xbox and ps4 now, you should be getting good at porting this thing to other platforms by now. [yesnod]
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
You know, ED could roll their own version of Linux and make a BOOTABLE version of ED! Now that would have smoking performance! I'd happily dedicate some PC hardware to ED running on a super-light, Cobra-customized OS.

Elite Dangerous, my operating system of choice :D
 

lenna

lenna
WRT the targeting specific Linux distros, in the main it should be unnecessary to target a specific distro.

Linux may come in different flavours but under the hood they are essentially the same OS. The problems largely come from how dependencies are managed and how software is redistributed but such things are far from insurmountable.

If they do target a particular Linux distro, it should probably be Steam OS.
 
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WR3ND

WR3ND
rlsg said:
WRT the targeting specific Linux distros, in the main it should be unnecessary to target a specific distro.

Linux may come in different flavours but under the hood they are essentially the same OS. The problems largely come from how dependencies are managed and how software is redistributed but such things are far from insurmountable.

If they do target a particular Linux distro, it should probably be Steam OS.
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And SteamOS is basically just a reskin of Debian. Either way, all the Linux games on Steam that I've tried work fine for me on Debian/KDE without any tweaking or anything, even if they list Ubuntu or whatnot as a requirement. Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions are likewise heavily based on Debian, so I don't think it should come as much surprise.

But yeah, I don't think the distribution fragmentation is the issue that some people seem to think it is, at least not in this regard.
 

veelckoo

veelckoo
shadragon said:
First, your numbers are wrong. Second, they are incomplete.

a) Linux OS installs compose of 2.09% of all OS installs. I'm not counting the 12.5 million Rasp Pi's either.
Source: https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

b) Playstation 4 OS is based on FreeBSD and there are 60+ million of those in the world.

c) Mac OS players (all OS versions are essentially Unix) would equally benefit from a Linux distro and they comprise 6.23% of all OS's in use. When teamed with the Vulkan API, most existing issues with the Mac E: D client vanish and they could receive updates again.

So roughly 15-20% of players by my calculation would get benefits from a Linux client, directly or indirectly. Your statement of big developers stopping further development is also flawed. Indeed, development on Linux is picking up.
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1) Don't mention Raspberry PI because you can't play ED on it so it is irrelevant in this discussion - next time you're going to be mentioning few billions of android users too?
2) Don't mention MAC. There is already MAC version https://www.frontierstore.net/games/elite-dangerous-cat/elite-dangerous.html
3) Because pf above your calculation of 'roughly 15-20%' benefiting from a Linux client is complete nonsense.
 

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
veelckoo said:
1) Don't mention Raspberry PI because you can't play ED on it so it is irrelevant in this discussion - next time you're going to be mentioning few billions of android users too?
2) Don't mention MAC. There is already MAC version https://www.frontierstore.net/games/elite-dangerous-cat/elite-dangerous.html
3) Because pf above your calculation of 'roughly 15-20%' benefiting from a Linux client is complete nonsense.
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  1. You can't play E:D on the vast majority of Windows machines either - the bulk of Windows machines in the world are potatoes in corporate offices. This means that it's far more about Frontier knowing the levels of demand for their game on various platforms, rather than looking at absolute numbers, which was Shadragon's point.
  2. The point of mentioning the Mac client is that MacOS is architecturally a very similar beast to Linux and the PS4 OS - it's a licensed and modified BSD. The reason that Horizons never made it to MacOS is down to Apple's alleged omission of compute shader support in its OpenGL and Metal APIs. Linux does not have this limitation, and Vulkan is cross-platform.
  3. The PS4 supports Vulkan. Windows supports Vulkan. Linux supports Vulkan. Now that the game is no longer an Xbone exclusive, FD have their hands free to develop for other platforms that are more similar to Linux.
  4. DX12 and Vulkan are actually very similar in terms of the pipelining and programming.
While I agree that hard numbers are very difficult, if not impossible, to determine in discussions of this nature, It's still, I feel, a worthwhile discussion. We'd like a Linux client. Only FD can give us one, so we're asking.

Hell, I'd be happy if FD just passed compatibility to Crossover or other compatibility layer providers and gave them the specs that would let the game run in WINE. Even with a performance hit, I'd be happy, as I probably wouldn't notice.
 
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alierum

alierum
WR3ND said:
Just use whatever version Steam uses... ;)

All my "Linux" games on there work fine on my distribution. :)

This stuff is only rocket science to non Linux users, apparently.
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WR3ND said:
And SteamOS is basically just a reskin of Debian. Either way, all the Linux games on Steam that I've tried work fine for me on Debian/KDE without any tweaking or anything, even if they list Ubuntu or whatnot as a requirement. Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions are likewise heavily based on Debian, so I don't think it should come as much surprise.

But yeah, I don't think the distribution fragmentation is the issue that some people seem to think it is, at least not in this regard.
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I couldn't agree more. However, this is something that not everyone is aware of.
 

shadragon

shadragon
rlsg said:
Linux may come in different flavours but under the hood they are essentially the same OS. The problems largely come from how dependencies are managed and how software is redistributed but such things are far from insurmountable.

If they do target a particular Linux distro, it should probably be Steam OS.
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Nope, should be Debian based. Debian is the largest code base and Steam OS descends from Debian regardless. Basing it on Steam OS would leave you at the mercy of Valve. I'd much rather have a vendor neutral solution that worked across any Debian OS or derivative.
 

lenna

lenna
shadragon said:
Basing it on Steam OS would leave you at the mercy of Valve.
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Largely , Steam OS is still a generic Linux distro it is just has a better chance of being pre-optimised for running games from point of initial installation. Plus it makes commercial sense from the perspective of supporting the Steam Boxes.

Simple answer is to tar ball ED4Linux and then go from there... not specific to any particular distro then.

Way too much focus is put on targeting specific distros, but if they have to choose ONE it should make commercial sense and be easy to install and support.

As others have said, they have run SteamOS targeted games happily on Debian anyway.
 
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veelckoo

veelckoo
the100thmonkey said:
  1. You can't play E:D on the vast majority of Windows machines either - the bulk of Windows machines in the world are potatoes in corporate offices. This means that it's far more about Frontier knowing the levels of demand for their game on various platforms, rather than looking at absolute numbers, which was Shadragon's point.
  2. The point of mentioning the Mac client is that MacOS is architecturally a very similar beast to Linux and the PS4 OS - it's a licensed and modified BSD. The reason that Horizons never made it to MacOS is down to Apple's alleged omission of compute shader support in its OpenGL and Metal APIs. Linux does not have this limitation, and Vulkan is cross-platform.
  3. The PS4 supports Vulkan. Windows supports Vulkan. Linux supports Vulkan. Now that the game is no longer an Xbone exclusive, FD have their hands free to develop for other platforms that are more similar to Linux.
  4. DX12 and Vulkan are actually very similar in terms of the pipelining and programming.
While I agree that hard numbers are very difficult, if not impossible, to determine in discussions of this nature, It's still, I feel, a worthwhile discussion. We'd like a Linux client. Only FD can give us one, so we're asking.

Hell, I'd be happy if FD just passed compatibility to Crossover or other compatibility layer providers and gave them the specs that would let the game run in WINE. Even with a performance hit, I'd be happy, as I probably wouldn't notice.
Click to expand...

If it was down to me I would like to see the game on every platform possible with cross platform gameplay.
Investing in implementing Linux/Vulcan support at this point in time is probably to expensive.
How many new sales would it bring? That's where numbers come in play and that's where you can't say 15-20% people would benefit. Company is not creating the game for people to benefit but to make profit.
FDEV knows how many MAC copies were sold and they can estimate how many Linux copies would be sold if there was Linux support as Linux on desktops has similar adoption rate ~3%.
Since there is no Linux support and MAC was dropped (no Horizons) it's safe to assume that for FDEV it doesn't make sense financially to invest in those 2 platforms.
 

shadragon

shadragon
veelckoo said:
Since there is no Linux support and MAC was dropped (no Horizons) it's safe to assume that for FDEV it doesn't make sense financially to invest in those 2 platforms.
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Right, so do a Kickstarter and there's zero loss to Frontier. This could also fix the Mac issues as I said earlier.
 

lenna

lenna
shadragon said:
Right, so do a Kickstarter and there's zero loss to Frontier. This could also fix the Mac issues as I said earlier.
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Personally, I think FD have bigger fish to fry than worrying about Linux compatibility. Even if they ran a kickstarter for it, I do not believe it would be the right thing to do at this point in time.
 
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shadragon

shadragon
veelckoo said:
Investing in implementing Linux/Vulcan support at this point in time is probably to expensive.
How many new sales would it bring? That's where numbers come in play and that's where you can't say 15-20% people would benefit. Company is not creating the game for people to benefit but to make profit.
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Income isn't the only driving force in a business. Minimizing expenses is the biggest way a company can keep their bottom line solid. Maintaining a single multi-OS API that can be used across all platforms reduces costs for Frontier and lets them focus on ONE API for all. This affects 100% of the player base, present and future.
 
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