Game Devs Chime in Tips for Developing on Linux

Some very valid points, especially the one regarding Arch. I used Arch for a period in my earlier Linux days when my Linux PC was a secondary machine and it was great, but when games are specifically coded for Ubuntu derivatives, it's important that you check for issues under Ubuntu before bothering the devs and swamping them with bug fixes until they give up on Linux as a platform completely simply because you were running an unsupported distro.

These days I run an Ubuntu derivative and I've never had an issue with any game I've run.
 
BulletDust said:
Some very valid points, especially the one regarding Arch. I used Arch for a period in my earlier Linux days when my Linux PC was a secondary machine and it was great, but when games are specifically coded for Ubuntu derivatives, it's important that you check for issues under Ubuntu before bothering the devs and swamping them with bug fixes until they give up on Linux as a platform completely simply because you were running an unsupported distro.

These days I run an Ubuntu derivative and I've never had an issue with any game I've run.
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Yeah I think many developers seem to think that by supporting Linux they must support all those hundreds of distros and it just isn't the case. I think many also underestimate how helpful the Linux community can be. Pretty much any developer will get swamped with help if they ask the community for beta testers, bug testers or just general Linux advice.

I run Mint and I agree that issues are minimal for me. I dare say I have had less crashing or other issues than I had gaming on Windows. Not saying crashes were frequent on Windows but much more common than my experience on Linux the last few years. If anything my biggest gripe is the performance difference but I recognize that it is getting better and to be expected in many case so I don't dwell on it.

My biggest point of agreement with the article is the bit about devs choosing incompatible middleware. So many of them decide to have a Linux version and just expect to hit a few buttons in the compiler and out pops a working Linux version. They really need to do more research and make an effort from the start to be cross platform compatible.
 
Simmonz said:
My biggest point of agreement with the article is the bit about devs choosing incompatible middleware. So many of them decide to have a Linux version and just expect to hit a few buttons in the compiler and out pops a working Linux version. They really need to do more research and make an effort from the start to be cross platform compatible.
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Here here!!! How I wish more developers would choose to use Vulkan instead of DX. Granted, then you get companies like Bethesda who use Vulkan (Doom) and still don't port to Linux. I'm still really upset about that one.
 
I think a good note would be to develop on the base platforms first, like Debian or Fedora. Developing on Ubuntu is also great, but it's still a derivative of Debian.

I would also help to get a cooperative group together of various developers to share their trials in Linux. If nothing else, it could help them develop standards, techniques and a more unified approach that will help drive other development within Linux as well. That really is the point of Linux and open source anyway.

Realize that developing on Linux is going to be an ongoing struggle in many ways as the environment is fast moving and will likely adopt newer standards quicker which may outdate your older builds. Be prepared to find better upgrade/patch methods to keep the game development current.
 
Lunar said:
Here here!!! How I wish more developers would choose to use Vulkan instead of DX. Granted, then you get companies like Bethesda who use Vulkan (Doom) and still don't port to Linux. I'm still really upset about that one.
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The most frustrating thing about doom... is they could put out a "wine" style port with vulkan support and it would run faster then the windows version. It seems like it would be such a small amount of work... that could even be contracted out to a company like feral or eON tech from vpltd (the wine like VM "wrapper" used for games like witcher 2 and the saints row games ect, eON+vulkan should be about as good as it gets short of native bins... based on Doom+wine/vulkan benchmarks the solution could well best win 10 performance wise).

On the very bright side though... more and more of the middle ware / frameworks and licensable engines are now (or in the progress of becoming) fully cross platform. Mobile gaming is Linuxes friend right now no doubt... its driving cross platform tool usages even with developers that don't seem to care about Linux at all, and if they use tools that support android, chances are there tools support Linux. It doesn't ensure they will support Linux, but it will remove the need for wrappers and VM porting tricks down the road.
 
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NoOther said:
I think a good note would be to develop on the base platforms first, like Debian or Fedora. Developing on Ubuntu is also great, but it's still a derivative of Debian.

I would also help to get a cooperative group together of various developers to share their trials in Linux. If nothing else, it could help them develop standards, techniques and a more unified approach that will help drive other development within Linux as well. That really is the point of Linux and open source anyway.

Realize that developing on Linux is going to be an ongoing struggle in many ways as the environment is fast moving and will likely adopt newer standards quicker which may outdate your older builds. Be prepared to find better upgrade/patch methods to keep the game development current.
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One thing I've noticed, is that almost every issue I've ran into running a game on non-Ubuntu distros has been related to rolling distros having more up to date libraries. One thing that would help is if games distributed via Steam just came packaged with the necessary versions of the libraries they use instead of relying on what's on the system. I have to install compat libraries to fix these issues anyway, so I feel like it wouldn't really be a problem. Basically package them like an appimage, flatpak, or snap application. Could potentially solve so many issues. Plus, Steam games do this one Windows considering Steam installs requisite "libraries" such as .Net if the game in question requires it.
 
Opensuse tumbleweed fixes the rolling issue by installing steamtricks by default when you install the repo version of steam. I don't think its an official part of any other distros repo... it is very slick. It checks against its database of known issues whenever you install or update a steam game. For instance when I checked the Dota2 vulkan add on, it ran a quick script to ensure I had Vulkan libs installed. It would be nice to see that project get wider Linux support and be made a part of other non-debian distros like manjaro/fedora ect.

https://software.opensuse.org/package/steamtricks
 
Simmonz said:
I run Mint and I agree that issues are minimal for me. I dare say I have had less crashing or other issues than I had gaming on Windows. Not saying crashes were frequent on Windows but much more common than my experience on Linux the last few years. If anything my biggest gripe is the performance difference but I recognize that it is getting better and to be expected in many case so I don't dwell on it.
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Your findings re: Stability reflect my own experiences perfectly.
 
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