80 % for a Linux client news

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It is nice to hear that a majority of the active Desura users like to have a Linux client.

Posted by giselher on Feb 27th, 2011

It is nice to hear that a majority of the active Desura users like to have a Linux client.

In the last Desura poll, 80 % of the 618 votes are for the Linux client and also the comments are pro
Linux.

Dinaroozie wrote: I say go the Linux client. I'm a developer and I'm currently

working on something that will be easy to port to Windows, MacOS, and
Linux. I'm currently not sure how to go about selling on Linux though...
Desura having a Linux client would make things awesome.
Also, that is the only feature on the poll that would give you something that Steam lacks, which would be pretty sweet. :)

More interestingly is the reaction from the Desura team itself. One of the members of the german linux-gaming.de community wrote an email to the Desura Team asking them about the current state about the Linux client. Their response was very positiv as seen below.

Desura wrote: 80%... that is amazing. We are in talks with a developer now about how to
proceed. We are a small team so we estimate it to be a 6 month project but
it is definitely high on our list as Linux is a golden opportunity as you
point out

We all hope that this is going to happen, for real this time :).

Post comment Comments

feillyne - Feb 27 2011 - 5,816 comments

Uh... 6 months, that's quite long. But if Linux gets supported, it'll be great. ;-)

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Staff

INtense! - Feb 27 2011 - 4,098 comments

It is, but it is also a significant amount of work - first step will be making the UI compatible (which is the easy part).

Hard part is the installing / patching process

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joeka - Feb 27 2011 - 52 comments

yea, but please don't start worrying about different distros and path structures etc. I've often read stuff like this, when people thought about how difficult porting to linux is.

I would recommend to offer local installation for every user (just in an subdirectory of ~/.desure , or let the user choose), so that you don't need root permissions to install,
and an additional option to install to /opt/whatever for all users.

That's easy and works everywhere. But maybe that's already how you're planning to do it :)

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Author

giselher - Feb 27 2011 - 14 comments

So, I guess the UI is in OpenGL.

I think joeka is right, installing in ~/.desura or /opt/desure is the way to go. You schould also only provide a tar archive as download and let distributions repackage it for you. That would makes things easier, because there are a lot of software, which doesn't allow redistribution.

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Tech|Rogue - Mar 3 2011 - 57 comments

I had a look at the DLLs and It's my guess that the UI is in Webkit. It never occurred to me that the client interface would be a problem.

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Dragonlord - Feb 27 2011 - 1,934 comments

Unfortunately it's not so simply. What Desura does is one problem (they easy to solve one) but what existing games are doing is an entire different story. And that's where it breaks. If the devers of the game in question didn't handle porting properly the hell of dealing with distros falls back to Desura which is a pain and slows things down. And you would be surprised how many games with broken or inadequate linux clients are around.

So Desura on Linux: Easy
Supported games on Linux: Difficult

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This came to my mind, too, just after submitting my last post: You're right, supporting existing games is more complicated.
Nevertheless, there are (more or less) standard paths to look for software and for the other cases, like if custom installers were used, you could just ask the user to choose the directory, when manually adding games that could not be found.

Another (or additional) way to go, could be options
1st) to set a games directory, if the user installs all his games that have a standalone installer to a specific directory and
2nd) to call an external script (or plugin) to find additional games. If you do this, the community could make their own scripts, to search their package manager databases/lists of installed software, or do all the other stuff you haven't thought of. You then could possibly adopt good solutions.

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Okey then, my last question. Is it possible to apply as beta tester after you created an initial linux client? Would be nice :)

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Dragonlord - Feb 28 2011 - 1,934 comments

Actually Desura does already allow to set custom path per game. Had to use this for one game which installed out of it's mind somewhere ugly. After the path is set it's the game's problem to run properly. For that though I've my own solution :P

MrCal3x - Mar 9 2011 - 60 comments

Good idea.

The root permision is bad for the newbie user and the game not need user restriction. It will can install on the ~/.desura/game or other folder, like DJL.

Look, free games on Desura are installed in: C:\Program Files\Desura\Common ...

Dragnadh - Feb 28 2011 - 2 comments

If this happends, it will be awesome.

Specifying game paths is probably not going to be a problem for mods...remember that we users of Linux are our own tech support. ;) For example, installing the Dark Mod for Doom3 on Linux, I simply had to run the executable with the mod's folder as an argument, like so:

/opt/Doom3/Doom3 /opt/TDM

and I was good to go. I think having easy access to command line switches (like Steam used to have) is a must.

Installing/Patching will almost definitely be the hardest, but still definitely doable...Developers who know what they're doing usually bundle libraries in with the game, sometimes even including entire managed code runtimes. Nearly every Linux game I've bought has worked without having to install additional libs, which is nice. I assume the patching works similarly to Dropbox etc, comparing a checksum of the downloaded archive to the most recent update on the server.

I really hope they don't bother with packages and such...I like all my games tucked away in /opt/{Game name}, or hopefully /opt/Desura. :) Heck, I'd be perfectly content in having to download a shortcut app for a game and set the paths and commands myself.

If Desura is really going on Linux and Mac, it will be awesome!

Because many game in the Desura's list game is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux.

"Penumbra, World of Goo, Steel Storm, ..."

(sry for bad english)

tpapastylianou - Mar 30 2011 - 11 comments

While community support is not necessarily the answer to compatibility issues and technical problems, Desura is still the best model for linux to thrive on, on account of its user involvement and contributions. If a game runs on linux, and Desura releases a linux client, then even if the 'Automation' systems fail, the desura-linux community will be present on the comments to resolve issues instantly, as has been proven time and time again with linux.

Certainly, a chat feature would make this even easier (though presumably the solution may be as simple as pointing to an official #desura-linux irc channel instead. You can be sure this will fill up with regulars pretty quickly.)

As for the small number of trollish users who feel they need to resort to 'reverse psychology' and 'passive aggressive' comments like "until then I won't buy" etc ... I think I'm not just speaking for myself when I say these don't represent the linux community as a whole, which has otherwise proven itself as a very mature and appreciative one.

It's not that we feel we have any right to demand a desura client -- it's just that, well, if you did, that would be awesome! And the trust you'd show us would most definitely not go unappreciated or unnoticed. I'd bet my right testicle (ok, maybe just the left), the word would spread instantly (slashdot, anyone?) and many linux users would just join and start buying out of principle.