Beryl got merged with compiz and now is called Compiz Fusion

Quote:Original post by BenThereDoneThat
Thanks for all the suggestions, looks like I'll be downloading the new version of Ubuntu when it comes out (this month right?) and pick out some software to download once I get it all set up.

On a related note, what are some good libraries to look into for gamedev on Linux? My language of choice is C#, so I'll probably downloading Mono & MonoDevelop. Has anyone heard good things about Tao or MonoXNA, or have any libraries/engines you prefer to use?

Haven't used C# on linux much, but Tao is great if you already know SDL/OpenGL, but for 2D games I'm using my own engine I built in pygame and for 3D games I just use Torque.

Quote:Original post by BenThereDoneThat
On a related note, what are some good libraries to look into for gamedev on Linux? My language of choice is C#, so I'll probably downloading Mono & MonoDevelop. Has anyone heard good things about Tao or MonoXNA, or have any libraries/engines you prefer to use?

Um, as far as I have heard if you want speed you'll have to stay away from C# and Mono. Those few programs built around Mono I have been forced to endure were quickly replaced with something that did not bring my quad-core 3GHz machine with 4 GB RAM to its knees.

I work at a Linux desktop distro, and we spend a lot of time getting games to work right. The best ones are all written around SDL and OpenGL, which on Linux means the Mesa libraries. If you target OpenGL for graphics and a framework like SDL or Qt to handle interaction, you end up writing something that will be portable to most other platforms (but you need to take care with Microsoft's broken OpenGL implementation -- it reinitializes the entire context on a window resize, which means all your textures need to be reloaded).

There are a number of frameworks, such as Ogre3D, that are built on top of SDL and OpenGL.

For rapid prototyping, there are SDL, Qt, and OpenGL bindings available for languages such as Python, and well as gaming frameworks readily available.

So, my suggestion is you use C++ or Python as a programming language, OpenGL/Mesa for graphics, and SDL or Qt as a framework and just concentrate on game development from there.

--smw

Quote:Testing is both more stable and more up to date than Ubuntu's "stable" release at any given point.

Not always, but right now it is. Debian testing can be a pretty rocky ride shortly after a new stable version was released. That's because all of the things that have been waiting in the experimental repository suddenly get merged into sid and from there into testing. But about 6-12 months before testing becomes the new stable, it's pretty rock solid :-)

Quote:Original post by BenThereDoneThat
Also, you say Ubuntu won't cause any noticeable slowdown on these specs? Not even while gaming?

Alarm bells ringing. Games will be slow depending on your hardware & libraries they call into. However, that said; Linux is not made to play Windows targeted games. Using Wine is a perfectly good way to play games on linux, but you -will- get a performance hit most of the time, and occasionally, a game just won't work under Wine. If you want the most out of your hardware in -windows- games, buy a windows license.

On the other hand, if you want to make games -- nothing wrong with doing that in Linux. I vote for Python if you do ;)

~Shiny

Quote:Original post by Shiny
Using Wine is a perfectly good way to play games on linux, but you -will- get a performance hit most of the time, and occasionally, a game just won't work under Wine.

It really depends. I know of some dual-boot people who play WoW under Cedega (a commercial variant of Wine specially for games) because it runs faster that WoW under Windows Vista. Just test it out. You can't tell. It depends of too many factors (your hardware, the Linux distro, Wine, Cedega or Crossover-games, the Windows version you're comparing against. How bloated your Windows is, etcetera).

Of course, it helps if you use a Linux distro that is not as heavy as Ubuntu. And do turn off the 3D desktop effects under Linux.

Yup. I started using Ubuntu when 4.10 came out. By the time 5.10 rolled over to 6.06 I was so sick of it I installed Sarge on my server and Etch (then in testing) on my desktop and never looked back to Ubuntu.