[vox-tech] Why Mac but not LInux?

[Bill Broadley]

On 06/27/2013 11:25 AM, Darth Borehd wrote:
> I see a lot of games that have Mac versions but not LInux versions.
> Why?  Wouldn't it be trivial to get the same program to run on Linux as
> they run on Mac because they are both POSIX based?

"Wouldn't it be trivial?", in a word, no.

Take the hardware differences:
* different input devices (keyboards, mice, various grafted on game
   controllers, touch pads, etc.)
* different displays, even multiple screens each with a unique
   resolution
* different video cards, often more than one driver for each major
   type of video card.
* different CPUs, differing clocks, different number of cores, etc.
* different audio hardware (stereo, surround sound, etc)
* basically infinite combination of hardware.  Even the number
   of keyboards is huge.  Can you count on a numeric keypad?  Function
   keys?  Windows key?  Dedicated arrows?

Then the operating system differences:
* zillions of linux distributions
* numerous versions of each
* various user customizations (I started with... replaced the window
   manager ... then disabled pulseaudio...

Different runtime environments:
* various opengl, audio, and UI libraries
* innumerable number of desktop environments (gnome, kde,
   unity, cinmamon)
* often requested full screen functionality... sometimes
   across one monitor, all monitors, or one of N monitors.
* various network configurations (ipv4, ipv6, ipmasq/nat)
* Often crappy graphics drivers, making performance and
   functionality problematic.

Then take all of the above and multiply then together getting a 
nightmare for support.  Thus the attractiveness of a console.

The good news is that steam is working hard on linux, just in the last 
day or so portal and half life 2 came out of beta and their list of 
games is pretty long these days.  Additionally the humble bundles have 
been regularly releasing games for linux and seem to make about as much 
money from linux users as mac.  As a result various small indy game 
developers are targeting linux.

However the humble bundle games tend on average to be:
    A) flash, wine, or java based (relatively portable)
    B) not performance intensive
    C) 2D
    D) not networked.

So I'm hoping that gaming on linux continues to improve.  I'll have to 
see if I can get my old versions of Civilation call to power, Majesty, 
myth II soulblighter, and random other games I bought working on a 
current linux install.

Apparently the new xbox one and ps4 are basically x86 boxes.  I believe 
the ps4 runs a bsd variant.  Lets hope that makes it even easier for 
games to be ported to linux.  Sadly the BSD license means that any 
improvements Sony makes to support gaming do not have to be contributed 
back to the community.