ELITE on LINUX Please.
- Thread starter ShogunToyo
- Start date
Yeah, I would shell out for second copy of ED and Horizons if Linux would come around.
Also I would support Kickstarter/crowdfunding campaign for doing port in first place (as it would be actually nice way for FD to vett interest).
Not a bad idea at all commander!
The only thing that comes to mind (playing the advocate) is that we could potentially end up with a similar situation to the one FD are facing now with DX9/10 (can't remember) and the 32bit issue.. would we end up with more branches being maintained? Obviously only FDev know the answer to this so I'm purely speculating.
I would rather have one almighty version, than split resources across multiple platforms (if it were to impede development).
Don't get me wrong I love linux as much as the next man, but my lust for Elite to be the best it can be, is far beyond that!
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Any value-proposition (aka business case) for a Linux port would have to cover three points:
1. What percentage of total PC market share does Linux represent?
2. What percentage of Linux users do not also have any of a Windows or Apple PC or xbox machine?
3. What are our likely sales in Linux? For this multiply the number from answer 2, by the percentage of PC owners who own ED, to estimate likely sales.
Some data: https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0
To put things into perspective it was news when "Windows drops below 90% market share for the first time in years"
I'm utterly neutral on the subject, and if it can make FDev money, then great. But unless the effort to port and support Linux is broadly zero, then the numbers strongly suggest it won't.
Sorry. [blah]
1. What percentage of total PC market share does Linux represent?
2. What percentage of Linux users do not also have any of a Windows or Apple PC or xbox machine?
3. What are our likely sales in Linux? For this multiply the number from answer 2, by the percentage of PC owners who own ED, to estimate likely sales.
Some data: https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0
To put things into perspective it was news when "Windows drops below 90% market share for the first time in years"
I'm utterly neutral on the subject, and if it can make FDev money, then great. But unless the effort to port and support Linux is broadly zero, then the numbers strongly suggest it won't.
Sorry. [blah]
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All this WINEing about Linux.. have any of your tried WINEing a little louder?
Yeah, I know, WINEing isn't everything, and may or may not work, but I suspect someone must have tried at least.
Yeah, I know, WINEing isn't everything, and may or may not work, but I suspect someone must have tried at least.
I don't support this, but only because I don't need the temptation of playing Elite while I'm working 
I'm honestly not sure ED would be doable on linux without a lot of other stuff around it that isn't in FDs control.
This machine I'm on presents me with a boot menu that asks me to choose between Windows, Fedora, Debian, FreeBSD and Solaris, and my virtualization software lets me host most of the others in a container on whichever one I choose to boot. I've tried ED in a windows container on some of the others, just to see what would happen, and it kinda sucks but there is a graphics setup for the container that lets me get a barely-usable framerate that way. The main thing that makes me play only on a native windows boot is that it is the only way I get the full functionality out of my X52. Even if FD were to release a native linux client, unless there was a linux version of the X52 profiling software that gave me the same macro capability as I have under windows, I'd probably still play it exclusively in windows.
This machine I'm on presents me with a boot menu that asks me to choose between Windows, Fedora, Debian, FreeBSD and Solaris, and my virtualization software lets me host most of the others in a container on whichever one I choose to boot. I've tried ED in a windows container on some of the others, just to see what would happen, and it kinda sucks but there is a graphics setup for the container that lets me get a barely-usable framerate that way. The main thing that makes me play only on a native windows boot is that it is the only way I get the full functionality out of my X52. Even if FD were to release a native linux client, unless there was a linux version of the X52 profiling software that gave me the same macro capability as I have under windows, I'd probably still play it exclusively in windows.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/202695-ED-under-Linux-(WINE)-progress-discussion
The effort is underway and we are looking forward to the end of the year, as noted in another thread, there are many commits upstream for DX11 support going in almost daily: http://source.winehq.org/git/wine.git/?a=search&h=HEAD&st=commit&s=d3
o7
Yes, it is a tough sell, but I don't understand why that means we shouldn't try to influence Frontier, the more players we find that are interested, the more chance that Frontier will investigate.
I recall that in the late 90's early 00's Mac gaming was in a similar position, things changed, if we can get an OS X port when Apple appear to be diverging from OpenGL standards with Metal, then a Linux port is technically feasible, it is about showing demand.
As I've said elsewhere, I'm watching to the DX11 WINE effort closely and as soon as it is viable, I'll be switching, as the hardware report will show up to Frontier as a Linux machine.
o7
Where you say container, I'm thinking you mean Virtual Machine. Containers are not best suited to running cross platform binaries. http://www.itworld.com/article/2915...-is-the-right-choice-for-your-enterprise.html
On the other hand, Containers are ideally suited to sidestepping the fragmentation problem you rightly point out http://www.flatpak.org
The video problem on virtual machines is to be expected, unless you assign hardware directly to the VM via PCI Pass through, you will always be running some sort of Emulated video hardware (usually QXL if using boxes/Libvirt on Fedora). That is the only way (whatever method the hypervisor uses) to enable performant graphics on virtualised machines.
Now, the X52/joystick/input/macro question you raise, is something of interest and concern, thank you for bringing it up, I'll go and do some digging later to see if there are any viable projects that would meet that requirement, it is something that would benefit all games on Linux, so it seems worthwhile investigating.
o7
It is no brainer PS4 port will be done next.
I fully support the idea of E: D on Linux for many reasons. BUT...
This is driven by the sheer number of disparate distros out there. If Frontier decides to put E: D on SUSE, the Debian, Mint, Ubuntu, Gentoo, BSD crowd would go gaga that "their" distro should be the one. You think the threads are contentious now? You've never seen the vitriol Linux geeks toss around arguing whose distro is better. Linux is an amazing OS, but is fragmented.
I was going to buy and build a complete new gaming rig around the new AMD Zen chips, but discovered only Win10, OSX and Linux will be supported. As I have zero intent on installing Win10, that idea is out the door until I can support my gaming on Linux. SteamOS is a viable option, but again the distro wars would rage.
For the record, I'd pay for another account to finance Linux development for E: D. Then I could VM my Win7 install and run that on my Linux box when needed.
Here's a breakdown of Linux distros by server and workstation as of 2015.
https://brashear.me/blog/2015/08/24/results-of-the-2015-slash-r-slash-linux-distribution-survey/
https://brashear.me/blog/2015/08/24/results-of-the-2015-slash-r-slash-linux-distribution-survey/
Not really. Way it is handled these days is develop against Steam Runtime, which is essentially Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Way other distros do it is chroot Ubuntu filesystem against local system. There's efforts on standartize OpenGL access (vendor neutral OpenGL library linking, now supported by Mesa, AMD binary and Nvidia binary drivers).
digitalscream
Banned
The problem with that survey is that it's based on the Reddit /r/linux group - that's massively self-selecting for uber-techies. If it was even close to correct, Arch would be the dominant desktop Linux distribution, which it very much isn't (Ubuntu and Mint are at the top).
I'd be perfectly happy with Debian / Ubuntu, but using Vulkan instead of OpenGL.
Poll irrelevant, there's no difference between ubuntu, mint, xbuntu, whatever-buntu, as they all use ubuntu repos. kdm/gdm is also irrelevant, you can add whatever packages you need to any desktop to get your fav program to work.
When you get down to it the major difference to think about is .deb or .rpm based distro.
Even then, building from source makes this irrelevant too.
It's always been, and always will be about game developers use dX or openGL.
When you get down to it the major difference to think about is .deb or .rpm based distro.
Even then, building from source makes this irrelevant too.
It's always been, and always will be about game developers use dX or openGL.
Yeah, when I was trying ED in a virtual machine I directly assigned one of my two graphics cards to it. If you do find a linux solution for highly capable HOTAS setups, where on the hardware side alone you could be handling 8 or more analog axes and dozens of buttons, and on the software side any of those axes might need a custom response curve, or to be configured in bands acting as a multi-position selector, where any of the buttons could trigger a shift state reassigning the functions of all the other controls, where any button can be a raw controller button press, a keystroke or a macro with distinct actions for press/hold/release, then shout it from the rooftops! So far I've seen nothing for any midrange or high-end HOTAS that makes full use of its capabilities other than the manufacturers own software and unfortunaterly they don't do linux.