Hi! I was wondering if it would be easy to create a game system based on linux. I have linux(Ubuntu 8.04 and 9.04). I use it once in awile. Does anyone know why games are never released for linux? Does it have anything to do with how linux is licensed as open-source? What is the meat of linux? What would I need to run linux executables compiled in C/C++? The kernel? I wouldn't want any GUI stuff. I would simply want whatever ran compiled programs/games. I would wright an interface in C++. If anyone can answer anything, please do...Thanks!

Games are not released for linux because linux isn't profitable. It has terrible desktop market share.

If you want to program a game on linux, that's very doable. In fact, i learned to program C++ on a linux system and it is very easy to get all the tools you need for free (you already have them, just type "sudo apt-get install build-essential").

How to use those tools is a far greater topic than i could possibly answer in this post. You'll want to read up on "GCC" and "make" and "autotools" to do it the traditional way. Otherwise, you'll have to find a linux IDE that you like.

You can also browse around here for linux games.

Whether or not if developing games or not on Linux is "easy" depends on what you need. As far as 3D games, if you're reliant on technologies like DirectX, or for some other reason are prohibited from implementing other technologies like OpenGL, then you're going to have a relatively hard time making a game work out for you. There are, however, a number of cross-platform 3D engines that are nice enough to use in either environment, so as far as 3D gaming goes, it comes down to what you know/don't know/are willing to know in order to get all of the graphics going.

2D games usually aren't all that hard to get into. There are plenty of libraries out there to choose from. The same goes for audio as well. For the most part, if you're going into Linux, if C/C++ are your thing, the gcc and g++ compilers are available by default on most distro installs. The language is totally up to you though; a popular alternative is Python as it's widely available on many Linux machines right away. Personally, I find SDL/C++ is working out for me, as I really don't have to change any of the code when compiling on Linux or Windows. Also, there's plenty of production tools for music, sound and graphics. If you're using C++ to make executables, the gcc/g++ can spit out a runnable binary file. Depending on what libraries you compiled it with, it'll either need to be run from the commandline/script or merely clicking on it in a file browser. The latter has been my experience with GUI libraries, e.g. FLTK.

I would guess that there aren't many commercial offerings for Linux simply because of market share. Most developers wouldn't be getting a fair amount of money if they made something to specifically only run on Linux. As such, they're much more likely trying to bring a Windows or other OS based game into Linux, but like I said earlier, the technologies behind the game might not be cross-platform. The effort involved in porting the game might be less than the profit to be received. That said, one good Linux games publisher that springs to mind would be Linux Game Publishing. The name basically says what they do. Also, there are plenty of games that indie people develop just for fun or sometimes to boost their portfolios. Some games have even got some real polish to them; Neverball and Alien Arena are two. I don't think it has anything or much at all to do with the nature of Linux being open-sourced, Linux is just a kernel after all.

For me, I use Linux everyday, Kubuntu 8.04 at home and Slackware 13 at my university. Making games with cross-platform technologies virtually makes it the same as if I were doing all my work on Windows, sans the commandline compiling. Anyway, it's not hard at all if you get used to how Linux does things and if you're utilizing good tools.

[Edited by - Shonumi on March 14, 2010 12:17:36 PM]

Quote:Original post by leiavoia
Games are not released for linux because linux isn't profitable. It has terrible desktop market share.

Quote:Original post by Hodgman
Games are rarely released on Linux because it's a small market place. The cost (extra development time devoted to another SKU) is probably higher than the benefit (extra sales). The Linux-demographic aren't known for their love of proprietary software after all.

Obviously and unfortunately, this is an all too common misconception. Once again I have to point to 2DBoy's birthday pay-what-you-want sale results. In case you want to be lazy, the point is this:

Linux accounted for 17% of sales, which isn't high but it is higher than the marketshare. More importantly, Linux users paid on average a third more than Mac users and nearly twice as much as Windows users. So in terms of revenue, Linux had a much higher percentage. As shown in the previous post, several other indies have similar surprising results for developing Linux games.

AAA Commercial games do not have similar results because they simply do not try. Or it is some half-assed try where they give it to someone else to port and it's more expensive and much harder to find than the Windows version. You only need to look at the popularity of Wine (and Crossover and Cedega to a lesser extent) to see that there is demand. Yes, some Linux gamers deliberately buy Windows games to run through Wine. Some games like Doom 3 and Neverwinter Nights have native Linux binaries, but you have to buy the Windows versions. So Linux gamers look just like Windows customers as far as they're concerned.

Of course, the best results are by developers who deliberately set out to make their game cross-platform. The popularity of DirectX, however, limits the majority of games to Windows (at least natively, as Wine can do earlier DirectX stuff pretty well).

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Whew, okay, I got carried away. This wasn't even the original question!

OP, I encourage you to check out OpenPandora, as well as its cousin, the GP2X Wiz. Also see their predecessors, the GP2X and GP32. As for the setup, I'm probably not the best one to answer, but I'll give it a shot.

The kernel takes care of interfacing with the hardware, but you'll really need the other parts of the operating system to do anything useful. The Pandora, for example is using a full graphical (albeit lightweight) Linux distribution. Doing something similar would simplify your task a great deal. You could easily use one without a graphical interface, but you'd either have to develop your own windowing system, or more likely you'd just have the X Window System installed anyway. A basic GUI isn't going to cost you too much, and it'll make the device much more useful outside of gaming. Remember, the more like regular Linux distributions it is, the easier it will be to develop and port games for your system.

One of the easiest ways to write games for Linux while still supporting Windows (or even Mac) is to use Java. Tribal Trouble used it and they were able to take advantage of Linux in their sales. Java supports OpenGL if you need 3D graphics.

Quote:Original post by flodihn
I would say it is better to choose cross platform libraries, such as Ogre3d, ODE and SDL.

Java is very much cross-platform. LWJGL (OpenGL + input + OpenAL) is also cross-platform (Mac, Linux, Windows, Solaris). The engines that build on top of these (Slick, jME, Aviatrix, Ardor) are cross-platform by extension. For physics we also have jBullet, a Java implementation of the Bullet library - which means it can run anywhere Java SE can run. Anyone aspiring to build an MMO is well served by Project Darkstar. So one could do worse than Java if one was looking to start a cross-platform game project.

Quote:Original post by flodihn
This leaves you with greater choice of implementation language while making it easy to maintain platform independence.

Well, assuming you don't make the mistake of making the game in C/C++, you are left with few good choices. C# is a possibility, but you'll have to rely on Project Mono while Java people get to use the official JVM. Python is another popular choice. Apart from that there doesn't seem to be much else.