Games * Design * Art * Culture

Friday, June 08, 2007

Query on Linux Games

We're planning on getting a bunch of Linux games up soon (and perhaps changing the distribution files for some we already offer), and I thought I'd post here to get people's opinions.

When you get a new app, do you prefer to see:

1. A tar.gz file, so you can put it wherever you want and fool around with it yourself (but if you're a GUI user and not a Linux guru, you may have a hard time finding and starting it).

2. A .sh or .run file that auto-extracts nicely to a folder under usr/local, but may not work well with your GUI.

3. A .package file (see autopackage.org that does integrate well with most Linux distros and gives you a link in KDE or Gnome --but some people have criticized for design flaws and security vulnerabilities.

4. Give me the choice of a .deb or an .rpm file, and who cares about other distros.

5. Source only! I'll made my own binaries!

(Uh, the last isn't actually an option in all cases, as some of these games aren't open source.)

posted by Greg at 9:23 PM 37 comments

37 Comments:

hi greg, I would have said .deb and .rpm for the majority and let the other distro hard core figure out how to install from these, but I hadn't come across autopackage, which looks pretty interesting. awesome blog btw

By botheredbybees, at 10:09 PM

Industry standard (such as it is) seems to be kind of 'all of the above': one of .tar.gz or self-extracting .sh and also a .rpm or .deb. Autopackage looks okay, but IMHO most desktop linux users (your target market) are going to be running Ubuntu or SuSE or Redhat, so .deb+.rpm covers them; the outliers can install from a tarball.

By Paul, at 12:32 AM

I'd order the choices as follows (first preference to last)

- Deb/Rpm
- .sh to /usr/local
- .package (prb should be higher; but I've had bad experiences personally)
- tar.gz (fine for me, but I realize not for most folks)
- source (likewise, fine [preferred] for me, but not for most folks)

I'm excited to see the new Linux games! I always love when they're open source, but I understand the reluctance some people have.

By Ken, at 1:11 AM

Great news.

1. deb/rpm
2. .package
3. .sh
4. tar.gz

By Iain Cheyne, at 2:45 AM

I'd have to say .deb/rpm will cover most cases, but having another, distribution-agnostic binary format is also essential. Autopackages or self-extracting shell scripts are pretty much the same thing to most users, so don't worry about providing both on every case.

By B. Dias, at 2:46 AM

A .sh (or whatever) that installs
into a single directory under...

/opt

Please, not under /local or
/usr/local: those places are
supposed to follow a regular
layouts, whereas /opt is the place
where it's traditional to have
one app per directory.

By Anonymous, at 4:52 AM

Sounds very interesting :)
BTW, I think you'll satisfy most of the Linux audience with a deb and rpm.
As a possible bonus, the tar.gz may be good for the rest of the users, who should be expert enough to handle it.

By Drake, at 6:52 AM

It's got to be a distro-neutral sh. Would be nice to include the source, in addition to this, when available.

By James, at 7:30 AM

Obviously, you can't make everyone happy with just one format. Actually you can't make everyone happy at all, but you'll need multiple formats if you want to make most people happy. I would say most people fall into two groups:

-People like me who want to have as much control over the process as possible. I'd like to have the choice to install to my home directory as a normal user or to any other directory I want as root. A .tar.gz file is ideal for me.

-People who just want it to work. Your only goal for them should be to install the program as well as possible for as many users as possible with as little work as possible (flexibility doesn't matter; it was covered by the manual install). I don't know what the best option is here.

It sounds like autopackage could easily cause problems for people, since it installs things to /usr and therefore can interfere with the user's distro. Making things work for people now at the risk of horribly breaking their system would be irresponsible.

That pretty much leaves 2 or 4.

The main thing that's important to me personally here: I don't want to have to do anything as root (except maybe install some dependencies) to run any program. Yes, I am the administrator of my computer, but I shouldn't have to give your game's installer that level of trust. If you can only pick one and must cater to the second group, I'd prefer debs and rpms because I can at least manually extract those.

By Vincent, at 10:19 AM

Being a relative Linux newb, I realize that my opinion might not reflect the 'best' or most open way to do things, but:

1. .deb/.rpm
2. .tar.gz
3. .package
4. .sh

Frankly, I didn't know .sh was an option. While the majority of people who are going to download a Linux game are probably far more experienced (or hardcore) than I am, starting from a .sh seems like a lot of work to make my casual game work.

By Kuma_Pageworks, at 5:28 PM

Id software games use a sh/run that loads a graphical installer that allows you to choose an install directory... that's probably the most windows-like solution, which some recent switchers might be more comfortable with.

DEB/RPM is probably most preferable to me personally (I use Ubuntu).

By JP, at 5:43 PM

1. .deb/.rpm
2. .tar.gz
3. Source

Chris

By Anonymous, at 11:17 PM

1. .deb/.rpm
2. .tar.gz
3. source

I probably wouldn't install the others. I don't like autonomic installers in Linux. Either give something that the distro can handle or something that can be manually installed.

By Anonymous, at 10:24 AM

my order of preference is

1. deb/rpm
2. tar.gz
3. autopackage

By Ron, at 10:19 AM

1. source
2. .tar.gz
3. .deb/.rpm
(below here I probably won't bother)
4. .sh
5. .package

(randomly passing Firedrake)

By Anonymous, at 4:24 AM

When I get a game, I want to extract it from a tar archive (or similar) and run it directly. I don't want to have to run any kind of custom installer.

dpkg packages are fine *iff* they are made correctly. But since the maintainer scripts inside them are run as root, they could do ANYTHING to a system (through malice, accident, or just ignorance) and so users should not trust them unless they come from their distribution's own repository; therefore I never use them.

IMO, distribution-specific packages should be left up to the distributions to create. This is done for you for free if your software is free software (or even just freely distributable). Otherwise distributions will often create and package a script that takes the archive of your program and turns it into a high-quality distribution-specific package (in Debian's case, examples are java-package, googleearth-package, etc.)

By Sam Morris, at 5:30 AM

I'd suggest to stick to what other games vendors are doing - that is, re-use the Loki installer (or lgp installer or the new icculus stuff).

so... my options would be:

1) a *.sh file that starts a gui.
3) .rpm/.deb

I wouldn't consider anything else, because most gamers will install games afterwards - and don't know about compiling from source or unpacking tgz and such.

By Anonymous, at 5:48 AM

I would be a little leery of using Autopackage right at the moment. While it works pretty good on x86 systems, anyone with a 64-bit configuration will have no end to the "fun" they will have trying to install your games with it. While it's a great idea, unfortunately it's still not quite there for everything. Now, if you can make it work for x86_64 in a manner that something like Installjammer, loki_installer, or the upcoming MojoInstaller does on things, then you'll have something. As for ordinary packaging, if you want to provide an RPM and a DEB that will work on the various distributions, you'd have something as well, but you'll be providing at least two if not four to five different binary sets for people for each game.

By Frank, at 9:05 AM

Egad, Greg. Don't release Linux games. It'll be a huge waste of time for almost no return.

By John Byrd, at 12:00 PM

I think it's a great idea but the current mentality of Linux types doesn't quite mesh with the gamer mentality (in so far as the concept of non open source code is terrifying to them).

Me I've got Linux and work and Windows at home because I like playing games. I'd go with the self extracting shell script that installed into one self contained directory plan (in /opt or wherever the user asked for).

Plus make sure they know about multi-user systems.

By Simon, at 12:09 PM

.rpm/.deb is preferred, with .tar.gz as fallback (and for the control freaks).

Please make use of -rpath $ORIGIN rather than LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Install packages into /opt rather than /usr/local.

http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Specifications
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html

By Anonymous, at 3:00 AM

Distro-specific packaging (rpm/deb), with a .tar.gz as fallback would be my preference - for what it's worth.

I say "for what it's worth" because, however you package them, I won't be able to run the x86 binaries inside. I run Linux on a PowerPC machine. Linux is not heterogenous.

That's one of the real reasons why it's good to have the source code to everything.

By lem, at 3:10 PM

Avoid rpm/deb - making your customer resolve dependency issues is not cool. You don't want to frustrate a potential customer.

Avoid autopackage - it doesn't provide a way to display a EULA or README, and it doesn't provide any install options. Also, installing requires an internet access because the binary package does not actually contain the install itself - it's only a stub that downloads the installer if it isn't already on the system.

Avoid loki-setup. Its outdated and isn't maintained anymore. MojoSetup would be a better choice, though it isn't ready yet (http://icculus.org/mojosetup).

If you're going to distribute binary, then I recommend using Bitrock or InstallJammer to create a universal installer. Make it easy on the customer. For examples of Bitrock, look at Dirk Dashing or Kachinko - they're easy to install, and you can install as user or root. Dirk Dashing even creates desktop shortcuts and system menu entries on LSB-compliant distros. Sweet!

By Anonymous, at 8:35 PM

lem: We intend to include chipset in "requirements." And actually, at least some of the games we're looking at support PPC.

By Greg, at 11:15 PM

Here's a thought!

DONT DISTRIBUTE IT.

By which I mean .. only provide the supporting static files (for most graphics and sound-intensive games, this is the largest amount of data anyway)... and then distribute a runtime capable of finding it (or prompting the user for it) through established distribution-specific channels. Of course you could include it on the CD too but that way you don't need to worry about users knowing how to install.

If you can sort out the distro-specific issues for the main distros (even if you do 10, that's LOADS) ... it will really make things easy without burdening the user (who is hopefully getting more clueless by now, ie: statistically more likely to be a recent windows refugee!).

I think it's an angle worth considering, anyway.

By Anonymous, at 3:56 AM

i like

- tar.gz
- deb/rpm
- .sh/.bin
- package
- source

By c_cinq, at 9:48 PM

With regular programs I rarely install anything that is not packaged for the distro. However, for games, I tend to prefer distro-neutral formats. So:

1. .sh possibly with the GUI installer
2. .tar.gz
3. .deb / .rpm

By Anonymous, at 3:35 AM

I think the best way will always be to use the package manager of the distribution.
The .sh is a equivalent of windows installation, and change from a game to an other. Same from tar.gz. For the source, just a part of the user can use configure and make, so...

1: .deb/.rpm in a common repository.
2: .sh and tar.gz
3: source

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