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Which OS for game development

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Started by Franks May 25, 2014 11:20 AM

3 comments, last by SeanMiddleditch 9 years, 11 months ago

Franks

128

Author

May 25, 2014 11:20 AM

Hi,

I'm a beginner in game development and I'll like to know which OS is the best for game development. Windows or Linux ?
I want to make a multi plateforme 2D game like Mario, SuperMeatBoy or Rogue Leagcy. I can use Java, Python, C# or others.

In Windows we can have a lot of design tools like Photoshop, Illutrator or Flash ... But in Linux which are the tools ? And it's the same for game engine ...

Can we develop a game for Windows with Linux OS ?

Thank you for your answers

gezegond

624

May 25, 2014 01:46 PM

In Windows we can have a lot of design tools as Photoshop, Illutrator or Flash ... But in Linux which are the tools ? And it's the same for game engine ...

Linux has Gimp and Inkscape as alternatives for those. I use them regularily and they work great. Gimp specially has a lot of plugins and using them it's just as versatile as Photoshop. (Edit: As for flash, what do you need it for? The scripting language (Actionscript), the vector graphic tools, or the animation tool? There are alternatives in linux for these separately, but not as a bundle as far as I know)

Edit: As for game "engines", most open source libraries such as SDL, SFML, and allegro are multi-platform, so you can use them to design your game in linux.

Can we develop a game for Windows with Linux OS ?

Yes, games written with Java and Python work on any OS that has Java Virtual Machine or a Python interpreter installed respectively. (meaning you only code your game once and it runs on all OSs) It is also possible to use other languages such as c++ through cross compilation.

kop0113

2,466

May 25, 2014 01:55 PM

I'm a beginner in game development and I'll like to know which OS is the best for game development. Windows or Linux ?

It pretty much entirely depends on what tools and technologies you plan to be using. If you use Unity, you are tied to either the Mac or Windows platform (though Unity does provide a Linux exporter (though not currently as well supported as Win or Mac).

If you plan to be using Java or Python then Linux or Windows will make no difference. I find Python development a little bit smoother on Linux because the package manager handles dependencies a bit nicer than Windows.

Mono on Linux is fine but you might want to keep with Windows so you can use Microsoft Visual Studio. It is well known to be a very decent IDE and MonoDevelop and Xamerin Studio are not quite as polished (plus they are still changing quite a lot).

In Windows we can have a lot of design tools as Photoshop, Illutrator or Flash ... But in Linux which are the tools ? And it's the same for game engine ...

Linux alternatives would be Gimp and Inkscape. On Linux there is only the Flash Compiler (flex).

As for engine, you pretty much have the same options as on Windows. If you are sticking with 2D, you probably don't even need an engine. Some solutions might be SDL, SFML, OpenGL or pygame. Java and Mono also provide their own GUI libraries so you might look into the drawing capabilities of those (unless you need hardware acceleration).

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Mutiny - Open-source C++ Unity re-implementation.
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Gooey

2,186

May 25, 2014 02:15 PM

If you are more comfortable using windows use windows like wise for linux or osx if you dont feel comfortablewith what your using it will hold you up more

SeanMiddleditch

17,596

May 25, 2014 06:23 PM

I'm a beginner in game development and I'll like to know which OS is the best for game development. Windows or Linux ?

Whichever you're most comfortable with. Neither OS is definitively better than the other.

If you want to write cross-platform anything, you need all the OSes you're targeting on test machines (or VMs) anyway. Your continuous integration servers can run on some of the test machines (VMs) to ensure things continue to compile/run on all platforms while you work on one primary OS.

Sean Middleditch – Game Systems Engineer – Join my team!

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