ubuntu-gaming team mailing list archive

[Ingo Ruhnke <grumbel@xxxxxxxxx>]

2009/5/24 sakuramboo <sakuramboo@xxxxxxxxx>:
> And commercial games don't cost?

Older ones easily cost a tiny fraction of a Windows XP license.
Anyway, the real issue is that people care about games, they might not
really care about wasting money on Windows, so an alternative solution
to run those games is more then welcome and Linux with Wine such one.
And there is always the dual-booting issue that is annoying enough on
its own.

> Oh really? Zero hassle? Get Final Fantasy 11 to work. Oh, that's right, you
> can't! Use configuration tools all you want, they don't always work. To
> claim that they are a god send is just plain wrong.

The point isn't that Linux can run all games, its that it can run a
lot of games and information and automation on how to install those
that work should be promoted.

> As I was hinting at with my last email,
> my hardware may be different from yours, driver version may be different and
> because of that, my usage of Wine may yield totally different results than
> you.

That argument doesn't make any sense. Wine is using OpenGL and other
hardware abstraction layers just as a native game would. If you have a
graphics card that doesn't support this or that feature that the game
needs, you are out of luck, no matter what.

> This is why Wine is not the answer. Native game ports are.

Native ports just don't exist and never will for 99% of the games out
there. And even those that do aren't always that great, as they are
often incomplete (lacking level editor and other moding tools) or
break over time (old Loki games on current day Linux doesn't mix well,
Wine would often be easier alternative).

> However, even though Wine has matured, it is no where near ready,

If you want to wait till Wine has a 100% compatibility you can wait
for a long long while, even Windows isn't always compatible to itself.
The point is that there are plenty of games that run perfectly,
promote those and don't claim that Wine is somehow a perfect
replacement for all Windows gaming needs, but simply that its a decent
one for some.

> What in particular would this attempt offer that the others didn't?

Well, doing a completely separate distro would certainly be a failure
and a waste of time, as solving problems in the Linux world with yet
another distro only makes matters worse. However Ubuntu derived
distros (Edubuntu, Ubuntustudio, etc.) really aren't separate distros,
they are just package collections that can be installed on any normal
Ubuntu via a simple apt-get. So they are more a means to promote
certain applications then a replacement for your already existing
Ubuntu installation and it really couldn't hurt to have such one for
gaming.

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