Re: [pygame] Linux distribution(s) of a finished product

[James Paige <Bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 02:27:56PM -0700, James Paige wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 02:06:27PM -0700, Keith Nemitz wrote:
> > 
> > I'm currently investigating how to port my pygame game, 'Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!' to Linux. I tried to search the archives at ASPN, but failed to find anything relevant.
> > 
> > I should be able to setup and get the game running, pretty quickly, but it looks like the big barrier will be making distributions for enough flavors of Linux to be worthwhile. Which distros should I target? I read one series of articles on gamedev.net, but it wasn't pygamey enough for my needs.
> > 
> > My current plan is to run one or more distros under VMWare Fusion on my Mac Pro. Then collect everything in to one folder and use an alias to point to the executable. So when you unzip the download, you get a folder and an alias file. Exe the alias file to run the game. Is that too naive?
> > 
> > What advice or links can you offer?
> 
> http://www.autopackage.org/ is probably a good place to start.
> 

Hmmm. Sorry to double-post, but I thought you deserved a longer answer. 
Also, it would help to know whether or not your game is open source.

Your plan is actually pretty good, except I wouldn't bother with the 
alias (symlink in linux termanology). Just make a folder, put your game 
in it, and bundle it up as a .tar.gz file.

But if you want to go with a package manager:

Autopackage is designed top be distribution agnostic. It is not the 
preferred packaging method on any distribution that I am aware of, but 
it is a good choice if you are approaching Linux software installation 
from a "Windows Installer" mentality.

.deb files are for Debian and Ubuntu and all related distributions. 
Generally speaking, if you make a .deb that works for Debian, it is 
likely to work fine on all other deb-capable distributions.

.rpm is for Fedora core and Redhat and all related derivatives. Ditto 
what I said above about .deb

.emerge is for Gentoo, and if your project is not open source 
and doesn't ahve a publicly available version control server, it 
probably won't work out well for you.

There are lots of other packaging formats for the smaller distributions, 
but since most of those other distros espouse an even stronger "do it 
yourself" philosophy than the rest of the Linux world, users of other 
distros are far less likely to need your packages.

---
James Paige