Thoughts on Linux Support

from Stardock.net Forums

There was a post on Steam a while back about Stardock possibly bringing Linux support to Ashes. Is Stardock still considering branching out to the Linux platform?

What are your thoughts about Linux? Given all the issues the Windows platform has had in recent days would you change your gaming OS to Linux if the platform saw more support from developers?

 

22,193 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I tend to run Linux on VMware within my Windows box.   I would be concerned about performance and mysterious driver issues--would probably have to grub it.   I will say this much, though:   modding Galactic Civilizations 3 would be a heckuva LOT easier on Linux.  I might even move all of my XML files over to my VMware partition and set up my development environment there, now that I think about it.

 

Reply #2 from Stardock.net Forums Top

Quoting tetleytea, reply 1

...I would be concerned about performance and mysterious driver issues--would probably have to grub it....
End of tetleytea's quote

Definitely valid concerns, I think the only reason that it has even been considered is Vulkan. Performance in Mad Max and other games that support Vulkan has been pretty close to the Windows counterpart. Sadly, I think this would mean Stardock games like GalCiv3 wouldn't be on the road map for Linux support.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I gave up on Windows about 12 months ago and moved exclusively to Linux.  I've never regretted it.

Having said that, I am an owner of SOASE and would love to be able to play it on Linux.  All other ports I've tried work really well and perform perfectly.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting tetleytea, reply 1

I tend to run Linux on VMware within my Windows box.   I would be concerned about performance and mysterious driver issues--would probably have to grub it.   I will say this much, though:   modding Galactic Civilizations 3 would be a heckuva LOT easier on Linux.  I might even move all of my XML files over to my VMware partition and set up my development environment there, now that I think about it.
End of tetleytea's quote

tip: you can set up a part of your host system as a shared read/write file space between the host and the VM. This way your files live on the host system but you can edit them via the VM. This is how many Linux dev stations are set up when they need to test against known web server configurations.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

My plan is migrating.  Was a linux user ~20 years ago and loved it.  Unfortunately couldn't keep it due to a combination of needing win-compatible proggies for school (and games that would never work correctly under WINE) so was forced to retain windows (win 95 at the time).  My big hope is Steam coming up with a solution of some sort for Linux users.

Currently on win 8.1 with start8, and it's alright.  From what I've seen win 10 has no redeeming qualities (and several odious ones), so the time to flip back to Linux is sooner rather than later. 

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting tetleytea, reply 1

I tend to run Linux on VMware within my Windows box
End of tetleytea's quote
Ditto, but via VirtualBox.

Quoting Matt0, reply 3

Having said that, I am an owner of SOASE and would love to be able to play it on Linux.
End of Matt0's quote

Same here, quietly hoping that should there ever be a Sins2 that it would be available on both Windows & Linux. I did re-install a previous laptop with OpenSuSE 13 and tried to get Sins Rebellion running under Wine. It started and showed the main screen with one of the titans in the background, but crashed as soon as you attempted to use the UI. Other users here (Thoumsin), running Ubuntu, have had far better results. IIRC, they even got past the 2Gb limit.

Quoting tetleytea, reply 1

I will say this much, though: modding Galactic Civilizations 3 would be a heckuva LOT easier on Linux.
End of tetleytea's quote
I've not modded GC3, but I'm not at all surprised by that statement. When I contributed to the SoTYR & SoA2 Sins mods I did consider doing some of the grunt scripting work on Linux VM, though that did seem overkill. Thankfully Cygwin sufficed for that.

Quoting tetleytea, reply 1

I would be concerned about performance and mysterious driver issues
End of tetleytea's quote
What may also be a concern for developers though is the variation between the different families of Linux distros, eg Ubuntu(Debian), Fedora(RedHat) and SuSE, which often have variations on naming conventions for stuff like shared libraries etc.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

My big hope is Steam coming up with a solution of some sort for Linux users.

 

That's what I'm using today; the Steam Linux client works perfectly.  Your experience in using Steam on Linux and Windows will be identical.

What may also be a concern for developers though is the variation between the different families of Linux distros, eg Ubuntu(Debian), Fedora(RedHat) and SuSE, which often have variations on naming conventions for stuff like shared libraries etc.

Ubuntu is the officially-supported platform for Steam & Steam games.  I run Fedora (accepting that it's unsupported) and have never had a single issue.  And, if I did, I'm confident that the community would find a work-around pretty quickly.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


Given all the issues the Windows platform has had in recent days would you change your gaming OS to Linux if the platform saw more support from developers?
End of quote

What issues may I ask? I have run a windows machine since 1992 and rarely have had issues. 

Linux people sometimes seem to come across so arrogant at times and think the operating system they like to run is the best ever. In the past I have tried OS2,  have set up and run a Linux operating system   and honestly wasn't that impressed with all the fiddling that had to be done to get it working properly so I can easily say that Linux run computers also have lots of issues. LOL