[Fury]

I've had several requests for linux support ever since we released TBP 3.0. I would like to hear your honest opinion if it would be worth it.

What I am worried about mostly are:
- Are linux executables at least as stable as windows executables?
- Do linux executables have a lot more problems than windows executables?
- Would TBP even work with a linux executable as intended?
- Since like only 2% of the HLP community use linux, I'm naturally worried about the support we could possibly offer.

[WMCoolmon]

I've installed and run TBP 3.2 on Linux fine...I think there were some minor gripes I had that I posted in the release thread.

Once I had it 'installed', I got rid of the windows executables and stub VP files and tossed in a symlink to my hot-off-the-CVS-tree executable.

[taylor]

There is one bug which is OpenAL specific, I think, dealing with mono 16-bit sound files.  They have static in them and it only happens with streaming sound (voices).  Converting the same files to 8-bit PCM, OGG or MS-ADPCM will result in them working fine.  I haven't figured that problem out yet, but it's not really a TBP specific thing either.

As a primary Linux user/developer and avid Babylon 5 fan I have no problems supporting Linux/TBP stuff.  If it's broken, and an actual code problem, you can be damn sure that it will get fixed pretty quickly.  I've been playing 3.2 (RW 2.0) for the past few days nearly non-stop in fact.  Other than a few problems which would affect Windows as well (mainly hitting Assert()'s and Int3()'s from mission problems) the only real problem with TBP is that it requires Windows to actually install.  That's the only thing that sucks right now as a Linux user.  It's a pretty good bet Linux users are going to be B5 fans but your installer is a pretty big turn off for that crowd.  And the FS2 Linux community is quite a bit bigger than you would think too.  I would say that only about 5% of the FS2 Linux users I know of actually post in these forums.  When 3.6.7 actually goes official, FS2_Open will even end up in a Linux distro or two apparently so the user base could nearly double from that.

Regarding bugs, the big problems seem to mostly be graphics related at the moment.  The Linux version is quite a few steps ahead here since it doesn't support D3D and all drivers focus on OGL support.  The Linux specific code has been well tested and optimized over the past few years so pretty much every bug that the Linux version sees are bugs that hurt the Windows version as well.  There is the ocasional exception but with me using Linux almost exclusively and WMCoolmon getting into it more and more and two, possibly three, of the other developers are at least playing with Linux.  And quite a few of the better bug reporters/fixers who aren't official developers use Linux too.


Holy crap!  I just realized that I sound like one of those freaky Linux advocates!
I'm not doing the whole GNU/Linux thing yet though so maybe there is still hope for me.

[WMCoolmon]

Don't worry, I can always find something lacking in Linux to ***** about.

[taylor]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Don't worry, I can always find something lacking in Linux to ***** about.

Yeah but in reality those are all user errors.  Come on, admit it.  

[WMCoolmon]

Too bad we can't use that logic for fs2_open. "It's a user error - you're not supposed to use the feature."

[Fury]

Alright, when 3.6.7 is released, I'm seriously considering putting a zip version with linux executable(s) for download.

I do not play with linux system, even though I will soon replace my home server's XP x64 with Ubuntu x64. The server has no keyboard, mouse or monitor of it's own, so even trying TBP on it would be little inconvenient.

That said, if you have any further comments about future linux support in TBP, I'm all ears.

[taylor]

Don't worry about including binaries, most people will build their own anyway.  You can probably just include the 3.6.7 source tarball and be ok since it would give easy access to the source and require less space than debug/release/32-bit/64-bit binaries would.  I don't even plan on releasing binaries right away but will have 32-bit and 64-bit loki installers made up in another month or so.

You may or may not want to add a link to this Linux forum in the documentation for people to report bugs to.  That may help keep the TBP forums clean of the small, Linux specific stuff, and if something TBP data specific comes up then we can direct the person to the right place.  And I don't remember what you documentation is like right now, since I only copied the VPs over from my Windows box, but I think that they were either .url, .html, or .doc.  If there really isn't a plain text version then including one may help get the lazy Linux people to actually read it.

[dizzy]

Originally posted by taylor
That's the only thing that sucks right now as a Linux user.  It's a pretty good bet Linux users are going to be B5 fans but your installer is a pretty big turn off for that crowd.  And the FS2 Linux community is quite a bit bigger than you would think too.  I would say that only about 5% of the FS2 Linux users I know of actually post in these forums.  When 3.6.7 actually goes official, FS2_Open will even end up in a Linux distro or two apparently so the user base could nearly double from that.

Well said, I complained about this on another thread too (should have searched the forums better I believe). Speaking of including fs2_open in linux distributions you can bet it will be included with Gentoo shortly after release. You know they still wait for an official release (for icculus version too heh)....