Re: Loki...

[Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>]

Marcus Ilgner wrote:

> I don't know if we really only need full-scale commercial games for
> linux to attract hard-core gamers. I can imagine a lot of them being
> scared away if they have to recompile the kernel just to have support
> for joystick xy.

If you have to recompile your kernel to enable joysticks, you need to
get a better distro!

I use joysticks all the time and I've certainly never recompiled the
kernel!  That's why we have 'insmod'.

The whole installation/admin thing is largely solved these days...but
what's really needed is computer manufacturers to pre-install Linux.
There is some hope that this may start to happen if Microsoft are
prohibited from banning the manufacturers from doing that (as they
currently do).

> So the installation and administration will need to be
> simpler, too. My point is, that it's not only the game developer's task
> to "save linux on the desktop".

Well, I think if this had come up a year or two ago, I'd have agreed with
you - but everyone is now *VERY* sensitive to this issue and ease of
setup is *THE* major selling point of the distro guys.

> And then there's the issue, that those gamers, who succeded in setting
> everything up, will want to play their games together with their friends
> who still use Windoze, so you would also have to add "&& win" to "free
> && great && linux".

Well, most Linux games port pretty well onto Windoze - all of mine were
running under windoze within a week of the Linux version going out the
door.  I don't think that's a biggie.

> Besides that, I'm still not 100% convinced, if Linux was ever meant to
> be a desktop system. It's design is still very server-oriented... But
> that's another question, which is a bit offtopic ;)

I use (and have always used) Linux as a desktop system...I don't see
anything especially "server-oriented" about it.  Come to think of it,
I can't think of anything that would be good for a server that wouldn't
also be good for a desktop system.

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