Rich Geldreich On The State Of Linux Gaming

[jbysmith]

Android is Linux, that's final.

Well, there's an easy test. Does Android run unmodified GNU/Linux software? Can GNU/Linux run unmodified Android software without help? No? Then it's not the same OS. Share a common ground, sure, but it's not the same.

[Awesomeness]

Actually, there is a need to pretend that Android is linux. That is the only way anyone can say that linux has more than 1.12%.

Android is Linux (no need to pretend) and Steam does not run on Android (except a simple non-gaming client).

[Awesomeness]

There are certain conventions used over the years. When people talk about Linux as a OS they usually talk about GNU Linux distributions. The same is true for "Linux Gaming".

When I brought up Android, I was explicitly also including Mesa which is the GPU driver layer both GNU/Linux and some Android variants (incl. all that are x86-based) which is what matters is a discussion around gaming.
bash and other parts of the ?GNU userland? do not matter here.

[Awesomeness]

I always have to smile when people are so desperate that they need to bring up Android as a proof for Linux marketshare.

I wasn't talking about market share. You claimed something about dead horses. I was talking about technology.

[pal666]

Well, there's an easy test. Does Android run unmodified GNU/Linux software? Can GNU/Linux run unmodified Android software without help? No? Then it's not the same OS. Share a common ground, sure, but it's not the same.

yes for both questions. installing additional package does not count as 'help'. it's like asking 'can fedora run unmodified debian software ?' stupid question

[Michael_S]

beside the point

I think the "Linux Gaming" under discussion is AAA titles on desktops and laptops. While Firefox OS, Chrome OS, Web OS, and Android all qualify as Linux, none of them has even 1% of the market share of traditional Linux distributions like Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch, etc... on desktops and laptops.

[pal666]

I think the "Linux Gaming" under discussion is AAA titles on desktops and laptops. While Firefox OS, Chrome OS, Web OS, and Android all qualify as Linux, none of them has even 1% of the market share of traditional Linux distributions like Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch, etc... on desktops and laptops.

arbitrary requirement. when tablet stops being laptop and turns tablet ?

[DanLamb]

Regarding gaming, the entire gaming market seems to be moving to iOS/Android rather quickly.

I know, you can't play Starcraft or WoW or CoD or GTA or Dark Souls on Android/iOS. For those big epic AAA releases, Android/iOS still don't compete with consoles and Windows PCs.

But the quantity, quality, and diversity of Android/iOS games has skyrocketed. For many genres and gaming habits, Android/iOS has already completely passed the Windows PC and consoles. Children games for example, are far better on tablets. Tower defense too. And consider racing games: there are better "serious" racing games on PC/console with better graphics and more features, but I suspect more people are spending more time with <$3 race games on phones & tablets.

Linux gaming is basically an offshoot of Windows PC gaming and it looks like that is shrinking in favor of Android/iOS gaming. Traditional desktop computer sales have been in absolute free fall decline. Laptop sales are stagnant. Sure, serious workers and programmers and 3D artists and servers are going to use traditional OSs, but the mass consumer market that just does email, web, social media, movies, games, and basic productivity work like spreadsheets and docs, that is all moving to Android/iOS.

People keep saying "Visual Studio's debugging/development capabilities far exceed anything else" but so far I'm not convinced.

It is really not. It's just a tool. If people want to use it, fine. But, notice that people can never point to an actual specific thing it does better, it's always a vague fan comment. Personally, I often prefer command line tools over a heavy IDE.

[yakman2020]

yes for both questions. installing additional package does not count as 'help'. it's like asking 'can fedora run unmodified debian software ?' stupid question

That said, if games are first developed on linux (say, Ubuntu) and then ported to android as a normal part of their development, then "android" and "linux" are a meaningless distinctions except for QA overhead. I'm developing that way right now. It seems like for an OpenGL program, the porting effort is quite small, and more than made up by the convenience of not having to cross develop until the very end. Am I missing something?

What would be nice, and behooves the linux distro market ASAP, is to get android apps running seamlessly on linux. I can't believe there is that much of a hurdle to cross. At that point, the "people don't like to learn new things" consideration benefits the likes of ubuntu, rather than harming.

What is the problem involve with incorporating/modifying android facilities into the usual distros?


BTW, I've actually done fairly extensive benchmarking on Java, and even at the time, using the stock javasoft JVM, it seldom payed a perf burden of more than 40% on any task. That is something that most CPUs wouldn't even notice in normal interaction. Memory wise the java was actually more efficient, though when it hit garbage collect on very tight memory you certainly could see it. But JVMs are much better now than they were then, and folks increasingly use distributed garbage collect rathert han the old "crash and burn" version.

[jbysmith]

yes for both questions. installing additional package does not count as 'help'. it's like asking 'can fedora run unmodified debian software ?' stupid question

Really? Ok, so what needs to be installed for me to run whatever apk on a Linux desktop? Sounds awfully useful, would figure something like that would get a bit more attention.