Games on Linux

[Alan Evans]

On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 8:37 PM, Bruno Wolff III wrote:

>>
>> Apple is essentially single-platform and Microsoft at least tries to
>> keep things backward-compatible. The Linux kernel devs seem, at least
>> to the uninitiated, to have some kind of animosity to the very idea of
>> ABI compatibility.
>>
>> Witness VMWare basically recompiling itself every time the user
>> updates his kernel. No game developer wants that kind of headache.
>
>
> That applies to device drivers, not user space. Differing library versions
> and limitations of graphics support are more likely to be an issue than the
> kernel.

Of course. I was only using that as an example. What I meant to convey
(and I clearly did a poor job) was that this problem runs through the
system, starting at the deepest levels. I don't even bother sending
binaries to a co-worker, who uses a different distro than I do. Much
easier to give him the source and have him compile against the
libraries on his own system. That's just not something that's going to
work for game companies who want to pay the army of specialists that
they employed to produce a modern game.