Thinking of buying... Linux!

[Danger Mouse]

I've heard the same, so if anyone is playing under wine flawlessly, please leave a comment. I really don't see a nessicity for a linux version when it's already been played on it and so many people already on the forums have said it works. If you are worried about version changes of wine breaking it, then I suggest making a backup or not changing to a version that has known problems. As for Aquaria suddenly not working,.. that's just not going to happen. Anyways, good luck with your decision. You're missing out on a wonderful game if you choose not to buy it.

[Xiagan]

It works very fine and flawless with Ubuntu Hardy and the latest version of Wine.

And it worked fine with the old version of Aquaria and with a previous version of Wine.
Chances that it will stop working are negligibly small. I have more the feeling that it is defiance why you aren't buying it (means: If Bit Blot isn't releasing it for my OS, then I'm not buying it even if it runs without the need of a special port).

[beemer]

It works very fine and flawless with Ubuntu Hardy and the latest version of Wine.

And it worked fine with the old version of Aquaria and with a previous version of Wine.
Chances that it will stop working are negligibly small. I have more the feeling that it is defiance why you aren't buying it (means: If Bit Blot isn't releasing it for my OS, then I'm not buying it even if it runs without the need of a special port).

You're feeling is close but not quite correct - try "If Bit Blot isn't releasing it where they'll support it, then I'm not buying it."  Sorry, it's as simple as that.   Alec says it's not worth his time or energy to build a linux specfic version or to support the windows version under wine - thats *OK*.  It's his decision.  It appears final.  He did a great job with this game (from what I saw in the demo) and maybe in the future, he'll come up with other stuff.  Hopefully, at that point, the market will be such that a linux port (or a supported port) will make sense to him - linux could use more games like his.

Beemer

[Danger Mouse]

I say your feelings are still out of sheer stuborness. If you bought the game, and took the time to see how much more is really in the game versus the tiny little demo, then you'd most likely realize that it was well worth the insanely cheap price for a game that took 2 developers 2 years to make, and did a 5 star out of 5 on quality and continuing to fix bugs. I'm just going to say it's well worth the experience even if you don't get support. I hate to recommend this, but if you are really concerned weather or not it will work, I would say get the torrent, test it, if you don't have any issues, then buy the game.  I suppose it couldn't hurt since it doesn't sound like you had any intention on purchasing the product. I'm not sure how Alec would feel about me making the recommendation, but I think even he sees that downloading via the torrent still in some form is supporting their work. Specially if you like the game, and purchase it or share the knowledge of it's existance. Alec you can remove this post if you see fit, I'm just feeling like this guy is really missing out on a great experience.

[Hiro]

Well, even if it is just him being stubborn, wanting to have an assurance that Alec will try to help out if he comes across any issues doesn't sound like that big of a deal to me. Sounds pretty fair.

[Danger Mouse]

Well it's a dead topic now, and Alec has stated that he'd have no idea how to fix something if there were problems under linux. As is, it works fine in Wine. With the knowledge that I have of how good this game is, I'd still get it. But you're entitled to your own opinions. Perhaps your loss.

[Chameleon]

From what I've heard, Aquaria (all versions) works excellently in Wine.

That's not the point tho - It may work flawlessly now and forever. But - what if it doesn't?  Then I've spent X amount of money for a game I can't play.  If they won't do a linux port or officially support it under wine, then there's no reason to buy it if it could break (with a new version of wine or new version of the game itself) and the seller won't do anything about it.

Heck, I'd be happy with a version for linux that used a wine wrapper like Google's Picasa.  That way the game and the version of wine being used are under the control of Alec - easier to support for him without the headache of the user changing the wine version.

I only learned about this game and even Bit-Blot a couple days ago. I found it from Wolfire.com which is another independent game producer making quality games... Since Wolfire supports Linux natively I was hopeful that Bit-Blot would as well. Upon realizing this was not the case I was a bit disappointed and voiced my opinion in a comment on a recent blog post in a Linux-or-nothing diatribe similar to what's gone on here... But then I actually searched the forum to see if anybody had asked about Linux support and to my gleeful surprise I found many reports of the game working very well with WINE. I decided to try for myself and have been very pleased with the results. I duly intend to purchase the full version very soon in order to show my support... While I would prefer a Linux port, I feel that WINE is an acceptable compromise...


In the past I have also supported Pom Pom Games. They are an example of where Linux-native support can go awry.

Several years ago they had two kick ass games. SpaceTripper and Mutant Storm. Both were available for Windows, Mac & Linux... I enjoyed playing the games in Windows and as I was trying to migrate toward Linux was very excited to play natively within my favorite distro (Red Hat at the time). In fact I had purchased a copy of each game and the same license key worked in Windows & Linux which was fantastic. Initially the games worked great and even continued to work for one or two more releases of Red Hat... But then, eventually they quit working. The problem seemed to be fundamental changes to the 3D rendering infrastructure of Linux (a good thing in the long run) that broke compatibility with the Pom Pom games. Unfortunately the developer was either unable or unwilling (or both) to continue supporting Linux and I was forced to give up on it and write off the investment... In fact, I didn't even get to finish either game before they were no longer supported in Linux!

I do still check on Pom Pom's latest work from time to time. They seem to be primarily pursuing console platforms and distribution through the various consoles (X-Box, PS3) online services... Good for them, I truly wish them the best of success; I just wish that Linux was part of that success.

Maybe one day Linux will no longer be a second- or even third-class citizen, but unfortunately today is not that day and tomorrow isn't looking so good either. Brow-beating and stubbornly refusing to participate is not really the best way to "win friends and influence people"... No, we must use the time-tested strategy that gave Linux such great inroads into the server market and try to get along with everybody; speak their lingo (i.e. SAMBA, WINE). Hopefully then more and more people (users & devs) will realize what greater potential Linux offers when native games are written & run. When Linux has a commercially-attractive user-base with a voracious appetite for games (i.e. Windows converts) the games will come in droves... Unfortunately it really is a causality ("chicken or the egg") in that Linux won't get more gamers until it has a lot of great games and one way to leapfrog the problem is to use WINE. It's not the best solution, but it is one that is available and works for many games.


By the way, after the success I had with running Aquaria with WINE, I scoured the Internet and downloaded the last released versions of those two Pom Pom games I paid for and guess what.... They work well. My old serial numbers even work. Maybe I can finally finish them!!

So it would seem that WINE is a viable long-term solution.

[inkblob]

welcome to the forums Chameleon! that was a very pragmatic and almost philosophical post about the situation. wasn't this sort of the same situation with Macs a few years ago and now you can actually get some decent gaming in on them. I ran linux for awhile in a server /performance capacity and was amazed with the results but you have to be a stoic pioneer if you want to live there for a long time, something I wasn't and definitly not able to convince those I was living with to switch either. glad you found a viable solution with WINE and able to resuscitate some other titles too!

[Chameleon]

welcome to the forums Chameleon! that was a very pragmatic and almost philosophical post about the situation. wasn't this sort of the same situation with Macs a few years ago and now you can actually get some decent gaming in on them. I ran linux for awhile in a server /performance capacity and was amazed with the results but you have to be a stoic pioneer if you want to live there for a long time, something I wasn't and definitly not able to convince those I was living with to switch either. glad you found a viable solution with WINE and able to resuscitate some other titles too!

Thanks for the welcome...


That's the situation from my perspective as a long-time user and proponent of Linux on the Desktop/Workstation.

I was first exposed to Linux in 1995 by a friend. He was running a dial-up BBS with a small modem pool on Slackware in a multi-tasking color command-line environment. I was slightly intrigued, but at the time Windows 95 was in the spotlight and Microsoft held my attention for a few years due to the more modern-appearing GUI environment and the vast number of games and applications.

Eventually I started to tire of the upgrade treadmill and worse yet the stain of guilt on my conscious regarding the dichotomous cultures of commercialism and piracy permeating the Windows user communities. The fatal blow to my view of Microsoft and Windows was the inevitability of having to reinstall Windows (Win2K at the time) AGAIN after only 9 months use because it shit all over itself and some critical system libraries had become corrupt.
I was so MAD!

Fortunately I had been playing with some modern Linux distributions complete with GUI desktop environments. Although I was only occasionally poking at it, trying to wrap my head around the differences, I could see that the pace of innovation and development methodologies surrounding Linux were far superior. I also really identified with the Open Source & Free Software Foundation's idealism and concepts of preserving rights rather than stripping them away... It was so... refreshing.
So I decided to investigate what it would take to convert to running Linux as my primary OS, keeping a small Windows partition only for some games I was hopelessly addicted to.

I found that the distributions included many applications to accomplish the majority of what I needed to do with my computer, other than premium games. Some of the applications were rather mature and others were less mature, but stable enough to use. This was acceptable because even if an application died, it did not take down Linux with it, unlike what I was used to with Windows BSODs.

And I haven't looked back. In fact, I can't even remember when I last booted Windows on my PC... I actually deleted the partition on my Tablet PC to make room for 15 hours digital video I recorded of my recent 2,865 mile motorcycle trip to Death Valley with my wife. Those are the only computers I own with Windows on them. She switched to Linux long before me since she didn't play much games!

Finally, the one area I am still "stuck" with Windows is my work... I'm a Software Test Automation Specialist by day and freelance PC Technician by evenings and weekends. The majority of work in these fields is Windows-based, no doubt in part because I live and work very near Microsoft's headquarters, and partly because Windows software and commodity PCs break all the time...
I occasionally monitor the local job openings and hold out hope that one day I'll be able to derive sufficient and significant income to sustain my household by working directly with 100% Linux and Open Source technologies...
One fine day.

[Danger Mouse]

Wow, entertaining read. I've had many times where I've wanted to make the move to Linux, yet still haven't had the gall to do so. I'm now on a new laptop and it's running windows vista 64... while there are many security nightmares with it, I haven't had a crash yet and it runs extremely fast. My major pet peeve with it is Setting up Wired LANS. Specially with other windows OS's such as XP. My older laptop is running Windows XP just fine.. but it's an extra computer to toy and tinker with, and so it may be interesting to setup a dual boot on it and test out some linux distros.

At any rate, I'm glad that you got the chance to play Aquaria on WINE, and happy to see that you got a chance to re-live your old pom pom games. Congratulations.

There are games for Macintosh that I wish I could play,... however I have yet to find a decent Leopard Emulator. One of these days I will finally get a chance to re-live my old school OIDS fandom from my Atari ST, and get to play the newer one that they released only on MAC. : /

Since you got a chance to dable with several Linux Distros, would you be able to make a recommendation on which works best? Are they each geared to a different purpose? Yellowdog...Redhat... any recommendations?

[Chameleon]

Wow, entertaining read. I've had many times where I've wanted to make the move to Linux, yet still haven't had the gall to do so. I'm now on a new laptop and it's running windows vista 64... while there are many security nightmares with it, I haven't had a crash yet and it runs extremely fast. My major pet peeve with it is Setting up Wired LANS. Specially with other windows OS's such as XP. My older laptop is running Windows XP just fine.. but it's an extra computer to toy and tinker with, and so it may be interesting to setup a dual boot on it and test out some linux distros.

At any rate, I'm glad that you got the chance to play Aquaria on WINE, and happy to see that you got a chance to re-live your old pom pom games. Congratulations.

There are games for Macintosh that I wish I could play,... however I have yet to find a decent Leopard Emulator. One of these days I will finally get a chance to re-live my old school OIDS fandom from my Atari ST, and get to play the newer one that they released only on MAC. : /

Since you got a chance to dable with several Linux Distros, would you be able to make a recommendation on which works best? Are they each geared to a different purpose? Yellowdog...Redhat... any recommendations?

I have plenty of experience with Windows Networking. PM me if you'd like assistance.
Windows File & Printer Sharing can be a pain in the ass if you don't have things setup the way it wants.


Check out these links for your OIDS pursuit...
http://www.emulators.com/
http://www.osx86project.org/


As I said, I ran Red Hat Desktop for a long time, then the Desktop edition became Fedora when Red Hat decided to focus on Enterprise Linux. I stuck with it for a while until FC4, then I decided to check out Ubuntu which I had been hearing good things about. That was about 3 years ago and I haven't looked back since. I really enjoy Ubuntu... It's very nice.

FYI, Yellow Dog was started as a port of Red Hat for the older Apple hardware (prior to Intel). Now it's based on CentOS (free Red Hat Enterprise Server) and can even run on the PS3. Any x86-compatible distro will run on a modern Intel Mac.

http://ubuntu.com/
http://fedoraproject.org/


Finally, check out "Compiz" on Google Video.
That was developed when Vista's Aero interface was being hyped prior to Vista's release.
Compiz was working well for many people before Vista even came out. 

Oh, and Linux had native 64-bit support before Windows, too...


p.s. Here's some videos I've made on my motorcycle... Still editing the rest of the Death Valley trip. I have it down to 5.5 hours of video. Need to cull more.

[Chameleon]

Now returning to the originally scheduled topic of this thread...


I finished the demo a couple days ago and have purchased a license.
I'm looking forward to exploring more of this beautiful game!

[Danger Mouse]

Thanks for the info, however not much of it was news to me. I do happen to have ubuntu, and it too can run on ps3, yellow dog isn't the only OS to run on PS3. The links are appreciated though for the OIDS.X I'd definitely like to play it. Oh, and I've had NO desire to install a different OS on PS3 since it runs extremely slow. PS3 just isn't meant to be used as a computer. It is cool though to see it be done. Perhaps a dual boot would be benificial to get XVID codec support and other codec support other than just DiVX, so I can watch the hundreds of movies that I have backed up.

Congratulations on getting the full game. You're going to love it!

And thanks again! Let me know if you have any other cool links to share. : )

[Chameleon]

Thanks for the info, however not much of it was news to me. I do happen to have ubuntu, and it too can run on ps3, yellow dog isn't the only OS to run on PS3. The links are appreciated though for the OIDS.X I'd definitely like to play it. Oh, and I've had NO desire to install a different OS on PS3 since it runs extremely slow. PS3 just isn't meant to be used as a computer. It is cool though to see it be done. Perhaps a dual boot would be benificial to get XVID codec support and other codec support other than just DiVX, so I can watch the hundreds of movies that I have backed up.

Congratulations on getting the full game. You're going to love it!

And thanks again! Let me know if you have any other cool links to share. : )

No doubt there are many different distributions that can run on the PS3. I didn't mean to make it sound like Yellow Dog was the only one.
I agree that the PS3 isn't meant to be a general purpose computer.

This is a cool software:
http://www.virtualbox.org/

[Danger Mouse]

Hmm, with that VirtualBox, can I install Leopard as long as I have a CD or CD Image for it in a Windows Vista 64bit environment?