LLVM 2.8 Released With Feature-Complete Clang C++

[plonoma]

The repositories do act a lot like app stores. Limiting you to what one entity has collected. However programs like OpenShot have a download section where you can download DEB's:

http://www.openshot.org/download/

For Ubuntu 9.10 and higher it seems you have to use a PPA.

[dnebdal]

Dudes, the fact that repositories are being controlled by the distro kinda defeats the freedom idea of Linux. It's not as bad as the walled gardens of e.g. Apple but it does has similarities, shortcomings goes a wrong way. The situation is improving for deploying binary software only. But there is still a long way to go. The proprietary closed-source products often keep people cling to MS Windows. Let's make it happen that there are versions for Linux, that only use free api's. So that any OS developer can implement those api's, making the programs work. Then at least the platform api's are free. Which is a huge win and more important than having only open-source software. Seriously, free standards and api's make completely free software (built upon it) possible. Even proprietary programs become more free in the sense that they require less proprietary technologies.

Again, not really. A repository is a convenience, not a limitation: It's meant to be the first place you look for a program. If it's not in the repositories, or you don't like their version, you're free to add other repositories, or get a standalone package file, or compile it from source. In other words, it's not a walled garden, it's just the most convenient park.

As for your free API point, well: There are already suitable technologies, the problem is making companies use them. It would be nice, of course.


BTW, and this is off-topic even from the current offtopic thread: "API's" means "API is"; you want "APIs". (The apostrophe means something was cut out.)

[susikala]

This whole discussion is ridiculous. package formats, deb or rpm or Arch's tars are just all compiled binaries plus meta information about dependencies and where to put the files.

If you wanted, you could create a wrapper around all these formats. As long as a binary was compiled for your platform and has the needed runtime libraries, it will run.

It's a lot more important in my eyes that distros agree on a unified packages tree. Why does debian need x11-common for its base install? There's no reason servers should contain per default x11 stuff for default. It's unnecessary bloat.

Once there's a unified packages tree, and only the minimum dependencies are used (without extra support for anything), then you can easily abstract over the wrapping package formats.

[Wyatt]

Until DEBs work with RPM systems, or RPMs work on DEB systems...

From what I've seen, you can just install the other package managers anyway; nothing really prevents you from using all of them if your perversity demands it. Or you could just use alien...

wyatt@Yue ~ $ eix -ec alien
[I] app-arch/alien (8.74@03/08/2009): Converts between the rpm, dpkg, stampede slp, and slackware tgz file formats

[Micket]

Dudes, the fact that repositories are being controlled by the distro kinda defeats the freedom idea of Linux. It's not as bad as the walled gardens of e.g. Apple but it does has similarities, shortcomings goes a wrong way. The situation is improving for deploying binary software only. But there is still a long way to go.

They are not controlled by the distros. The distros obviously control their own versions, just like Microsoft would obviously control the system updates related to IE etc.

Lots of places have repos, or individual deb's or whatever. They are trivial to make, can be made to work across several distros, and is click-of-a-button easy.

The proprietary closed-source products often keep people cling to MS Windows. Let's make it happen that there are versions for Linux, that only use free api's. So that any OS developer can implement those api's, making the programs work. Then at least the platform api's are free. Which is a huge win and more important than having only open-source software. Seriously, free standards and api's make completelly free software (built upon it) possible. Even proprietary programs become more free in the sense that they require less proprietary technologies.

What API are you going on about? I honestly have no idea.
There isn't a problem to distribute closed source software, and there never has been.

And your other reply about openshot. Are you actually correcting yourself?

There is no issue here. Move along people. The repositories are the best thing ever, as free as it gets, and is the biggest selling point for GNU/Linux.

[Svartalf]

Seriously, Michael, when are you going to cover that major problem on Linux and what progress, if any, is being made towards a unified standard? This issue should be PARAMOUNT to anyone interested in getting games onto Linux as a platform. For any and all developers, and users, having one solution for installing and registering software on user's systems across all distros is critical for widespread Linux adoption. No one wants to compile their software against 10 different distros, and users shouldn't want that either. It's a form of DRM in a sense, and is almost like Steam, because if you decided to change distros and you only had an RPM or DEB for a game you bought, you'd be screwed with a pineapple. Seriously, it's ridiculous.

You know, you'd do much better if you'd back your remarks up with facts.

Right now, each and every thing you mention there have NOTHING to do with getting games onto the Linux platform. In fact, there's no barriers there with any of those. I can point to an example that HAS shipped and another one that goes into beta today that dispel pretty much all of your remarks.

It isn't hard to make Linux games. It's not a "sort of DRM" with the differing packaging, etc. It takes understanding how the system actually works and finding the least common denominator that works- much like on the Windows world you keep alluding to having done it better (they've not...it's just different...). More to the point, it's not rocket science what I've managed to do not once but four times now and about to go grubbing for a lot more. (Here's a hint: Except for the stupid thing I did with 1.1's packaging for Caster, I've managed to make not one but four games that will go onto pretty much any distribution and place themselves in the menus even. Caster and Cortex Command right now do single user installs because I've not had the time to correct their file accesses with the system through something like PhysicsFS yet. (Caster 1.3 or 1.4 will have this feature and if time permits, so will Cortex Command when it ships...).

In the end, you are seeing something as a problem and you've been told by someone that DOES know something of the thing you're trying to "point out" as being a "problem" as it being a non-problem. Not once, but several times.

Lashing out at Michael for not discussing it is LAME. The major problem in getting games on Linux isn't ANYTHING of what you speak of. Hasn't been for YEARS now.

What the problem is is a perception thing with the studios and publishers that have less to do with the tools or API's available or how it gets packaged and installed, and more to do with the perception that there's less than 1% of the total market that will buy Linux versions of ANYTHING.

[V!NCENT]

Maybe it would be for the best if every distro keeps their own package voodoo and have a standard for foreign packages...