This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #305 · Gaming on Linux revisited.
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This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #305 · Gaming on Linux revisited.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux, Episode 305. Linux Gaming Revisited. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Mary Boushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are new to Linux, upgrading from Windows to Linux, or just thinking about moving to Linux, this podcast will provide you with valuable information and advice that will help you in going Linux. We hope that you find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and its applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, Gaming on Linux Revisited. So, Bill, I can tell that your audio sounds a lot clearer. What's going on? Did you suddenly get magic fairy dust sprinkled all over your computer and microphone and stuff? Well, yes. How'd you know? No, actually, I finally got my new studio set up away from trains, planes, and automobiles. And it's almost completed, so this is the first time I'm actually recording in it. And it's a lot quieter. I don't know. I think I need to introduce noise for you because I (1/42)
don't want you to have too easy of a job. Yeah, I don't know what I'll have to do if I don't have to edit out train noise, airplane noise, sirens. Although I didn't hear too many sirens, to be quite honest. Well, if you get lonely or just think it's too easy, let me know. I will get an air horn and just go, and you'll be all great. Okay, all right. Or just introduce some background, you know, recorded background noise. The only thing you're going to hear is the dog chewing on a bone. Well, if we hear that, then we know that we've got really good audio. No, that's great. That's great. You're adjusting to life here in California, okay? Yes, yes. I love California. There's this stuff called sunshine. Yeah, hey, I'm just telling you. I've been out in it almost every day. It's really weird, but I'm getting used to it. I really enjoy California. I don't think I've lived anywhere else. All the memories are disappearing from anybody else but this wonderful state. But seriously, I'm really (2/42)
adjusting well. I like it out here. My exciting, happy new stuff is I got a new Keurig. Oh, nice fresh brewed coffee. Yeah, it's like an old one died and I'm like, ah, then I went and said I'm going to pick out, you know, go get another one. And then I didn't realize that mine was only about 52 models behind. So, I'm looking at all this stuff and I'm like, wow, new Keurig. Happy day. So, got that and so now I get fresh, fresh hot coffee. I get sunshine and I get to talk about Linux. What more can anybody want? Yeah, yeah, and a whole new studio and I think, yeah, you're still east of me. So, you still have studio east and I still have studio west. So, that works out. By the way, I want a raise for the cost of living. So, I want 100% raise for what you currently pay me. 100%? That seems a little steep. How about 50? Okay, but 50% of nothing is still nothing. Right, right. I can do 50%. Okay, next year we can talk about a more appropriate raise. I think this is like the second or third (3/42)
raise this year for you. Yeah, but you know, I'm such a nice guy. I know you're a wonderful leader and, wait a minute, kissing up is not going to give me any more money. So, anyway, let's move on to the talk I want to talk about. I finally, I've played a few of these games and we're going to talk about gaming on Linux. Because, you know, I'm a gamer and it is looking really good. So, anyway, it's been a while since we've talked about gaming on Linux. Yep, it has, yeah. And I am pleased to report that it's looking better. We're going to be looking at some of the titles that have already been released and some upcoming games and even review a few of them. I'm not going to go into too much detail because I don't want to take all the fun out of it. But anybody that hasn't looked up for gaming on Linux or said, you know, Linux is only for work, you're going to be surprised. So, before we go on, do you game? I'm not what you would call a gamer, but every once in a while I'll install, you (4/42)
know, not a Steam game. I haven't subscribed to Steam, but, you know, I'll look in the repositories, find a game that looks interesting. I'm kind of the first person shooter kind of guy. So, I'm looking at things like Alien Arena and anything that's a Quake engine game, you know, built on the Quake engine or something like that. So, that's my speed for gaming. Well, I thought your speed would be more like Minesweeper and that doesn't count. No, it doesn't because, you know, although it's available on Linux, it's really an old Microsoft game and I can't bring myself to play that. I can never understand, walk around, what's all this button do? I never win. But, you know, let's chat about Steam for a few, just a few minutes. Sure, yeah. Although I'm not a Steam subscriber, I do know a little bit about it. Well, tell me what you know about Steam and then... Well, I know how to spell it and... Okay, we're already ahead in the game. Yeah, so I know that Steam has been a very popular way to (5/42)
get, purchase, obtain for free and to play games. It's a subscription service that allows you access to lots and lots of games. It's been available for other platforms for a lot longer than it has for Linux. They, a couple of years ago, decided they were going to support Linux and go all in on supporting Linux and possibly even build what they were calling a Steam Box hardware that would be based in Linux and would run a Linux operating system but would be specific to Steam and Steam games. Now, I'm not aware that that box ever came to reality, correct me if I'm wrong, but I do know that Steam has offered many, many, many of its games for... that they've had in their archives and library and whatever else you want to call the backlog of games that they have, back catalog, that all of those or many of those are now available for Linux as well as for the platforms they've been available for for a while. And I know that many of the new games are brought out for Linux before they're (6/42)
brought out for the other platforms. So they've really put their efforts behind supporting Linux and we in the Linux community really appreciate that. Okay, so you're right, but let's look at this for just a minute. Steam has a few advantages to that. One, I don't have to go look in stores or online or even in the repositories of the games, excuse me, of Linux. If you have a Steam client, if you have the Steam client in your repository, you can of course install it. And then what's nice is, if you see a game that you want to be available for Linux, you don't have to install it with a CD and you don't have to goof, mess with wine. You know, it just works 90% of the time that I've found. Now, depending on your distribution, depending on your hardware and your machine, you might have a little more trouble. But as a general rule, now I've run, both of us use Debian based systems and that seems to be one of the better systems that support it. I cannot speak to Red Hat based or RPM based or (7/42)
even some of Arch Linux. I'm sure they have it, they have everything. But as a general rule, it works really well. And thanks to Steam, we have now over 700 games that run on Linux. And from what I have seen, I'm a gamer, but I haven't played 700 Linux games. I wish I had that much time. But most of them, you don't have to mess with wine. Wine did enable us to play some games, but it wasn't perfect. I mean, remember we had Play on Linux. We had a couple of different versions of wine and you had to get the DirectX and try to get that installed. And sometimes it was just a big hassle with graphics drivers. And since we have people listening to this for the first time, listening to our podcast for the first time, people thinking about coming to Linux, maybe they don't understand what wine is. So just to define it for a second, wine is an application that allows you to run Windows programs on Linux, including games, without having to install Windows. So it simulates the Windows (8/42)
environment, not 100%, but enough of it to allow you to run Windows programs. So you're able to run the games designed for Windows on Linux using wine. But it's another layer that you need to account for and may, in theory, reduce the speed and the reaction time and so on of the game, the performance of the game or the performance of the program. So it's actually in reality not too bad. But for those gamers who are looking for that fraction of a millisecond advantage to run a game in wine is probably not optimal. And, you know, when I was a Windows user... Did that cause you pain to say that? Yes, it did. And I did go out and purchase games to run under Windows, you know, run them from the CD, install them from the CD. And of course, you have to have the CD always in the CD drive, even though it didn't use it, but it did check every once in a while to make sure you had a licensed copy of the games and all that sort of stuff. None of that happens on Linux. I remember it would drop into (9/42)
a DOS terminal or reboot the system into a DOS environment, and then you had to use a text environment to adjust the graphics resolution, the screen resolution. And you had to go through all kinds of gyrations to actually get the computers so that the game would run after you booted into an environment that actually didn't use Windows at all. It was as close to bare metal as you could get to get the performance out of the game. How has that changed with Steam? And I don't mean under Windows, I'm just talking about Steam in general on any platform. How has Steam affected that kind of performance? Oh, that's easy. Oh, I see a game. Click, install, run. Nice. Done. Okay, it takes care of all those adjustments in the background. Well, you know, also if someone's like that has never heard of DOS, just so they know, DOS... Yeah, let's define all the terms. Okay, DOS is actually called Disk Operating System. And back in the day, if you didn't know, DOS was what you would install before you'd (10/42)
install the Windows. And a lot of games before Windows got all their stuff together, you had to run it in DOS. And one of them, if I remember correctly, was like their first Quake. Another one was Wolfenstein. Right. And we weren't talking super awesome graphics back then. Well, Quake was pretty good back then. Quake was at one time you're going, wow, this looks great. But now you'd go, man, it looks like garbage now. Right, think about 8-bit graphics. Yeah, think 8-bit graphics. What's that game that kids love right now? Where they build stuff? Oh, Minecraft. Minecraft, think about that. That was the state of the art back then. Hey, don't tell nobody. I actually play Minecraft once in a while. Hey, it's fun, right? Don't tell nobody. But one of the things that I like about Steam, and I think is a big, big benefit, and now if you don't like it, I understand some people like physical copies, but as we move more into the digital age, this is more of a Linux type of mentality. We don't (11/42)
worry about applications. If we have to reinstall or we just want to do a clean install and then reinstall everything, everything is in our repos. Well, it's the same way with Steam. You don't have a physical copy, but you can redownload your games again, so you never lose them. You don't have to load them back in with the CDs. You just have a high-speed Internet, which most people do now. I'm sure some have some metered Internet. Some of our friends in Europe and stuff. But as a general rule, in the States, most people have enough bandwidth, and even if they are capped, have enough to redownload the games unless you have been playing 700 Linux games, and then, I'm sorry, you might have to do it over a couple of months, but in general, you don't have to worry about misplacing your game disks or them getting just messed up. So it kind of offered a whole new paradigm of how to game, how to store your games. You don't have to mess with wine. Now, I'm sure there are some games that do (12/42)
require wine, and maybe some of the ones in your repositories. I'm not sure, because I usually tend to like the more modern-looking ones. Some of the text-based ones, you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff. And there are some really fun, independent games that you won't find on Steam, that you'll only find in your repositories. So I'm not saying Steam's the only place to get your games. I'm just saying, if you want some of the more current games that are friends on Windows and Mac play, then Steam is the way to go, in my opinion. But opinions, everybody has one. What do you think about this? Do you think that's a benefit that you don't have to worry about disks and stuff? Or do you prefer to have... Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's the innovation of the modern era. We're in the 21st century today. How many people have a word processor program where they write a quote letter or a quote memo? And how many people actually print those out anymore? Yeah, that's something that (13/42)
the word processor companies need to think about. Why do you have something that looks like an 8.5 by 11 or A3 size page on the... I think I got A3 right. I'm not familiar with the European sizes. Maybe A4. I think that's the bigger one. Anyway, why does the page look like a printed page in a word processor window? Why isn't it not just responsive like a web page is? I mean, that's the way it should be, because you don't print these things out anymore. And it's the same thing with games. You need to think about, okay, how do people use it today? And people don't want to go out to the store, rummage through some shelves, find a game that has a label that looks good, bring it home, pay for it, bring it home, install it, figure out that the label misrepresented how the game actually looked. You know, 99% of the time the graphics on the label were fantastic, and you open it up and install it and it's crap. But it's fun to play, so you keep it. And yeah, today people don't do that. People (14/42)
don't want to do that. People want to do click, install, play. And the way you've described Steam, it sounds like that's exactly what you need to do. So the next question is, how difficult is it to install Steam on your Linux machine? It used to be when it first came out, I remember people had to actually compile it, and then eventually the Steam folks got it to the point where there were some packages you could install, but then there was some tweaking you had to do afterwards. And these days, I bet it has changed, and I have one example of where it's changed. But you go ahead, you've had experience with this. Well, I always go to their website just because I want the latest version. And it's like, oh, install. And the package manager opens up, installs it, and I enter my credentials, and I'm like, wow, that was really tough. I think I need to... I know, I'm going to go create it and get a cup of coffee. Oh, I guess that's done. Darn. Sometimes I've heard that some people have to do a (15/42)
little bit of tweaking, because remember now, we still have in Linux some issues with our graphics. It's getting better. Some people might have problems, and there might be some people that can't get it to run because of their graphics hardware. That's something that has lagged behind in Linux gaming. But if you have an NVIDIA card, like I do, and I think you have an NVIDIA card or something... I have Intel graphics. Intel graphics. Well, those two cards are supported pretty well by those two companies. They release it so people can... they're drivers, so people can look at them. And those wonderful developers that we all love, we'll tweak them and put them in repositories, or send updates for you. The only thing that Linux gaming right now needs to concentrate on is its graphics, because even though the Intel and NVIDIA cards are well supported, we're always lagging behind, as a general rule, at least one or two versions from Windows. And sometimes that makes a big difference, because (16/42)
I've gotten things saying, hey, we have a new driver for you, and see huge gains. Yes. And so that's the only thing we need to worry about. We're not quite... we're not there yet with the driver for our video yet. And the other one, and it doesn't happen as much as it used to, and you know this one, sound. Yes. Sometimes sound works perfectly. Sometimes sounds really crazy. It's gotten better. I have had very few issues, but since Linux keeps machines running so long, sometimes we find out that, hey, your sound doesn't sound as good, or it only works halfway. And so sometimes there are still things that you have to go, well, I can play the game, but I might not have the full experience as far as sound, or I might not be able to get some of the advanced features. And then we have the other side of that, that someone buys a brand new piece of kit, a brand new computer with the latest hardware, and then you finally come into compatibility problems, because it's so new that the drivers (17/42)
haven't been written for it yet. Right. And so you have one end of the spectrum, and you have the other. So sometimes you have to find that sweet spot in the middle. Yeah, right, exactly. And that's true whether you're gaming or not on Linux. There are System76 and other computers built for Linux that are specifically designed for people who want to do gaming. So they've got high-performance video drivers, they've got high-performance GPUs, and various other components specifically designed for the gamer. And the other route you can go is to build your own. And there, just be cautious, as you always need to do with Linux, that the components you purchase for the computer you're building are actually supported by Linux. And that's about the only caution there, I think. Well, I agree with you, but from what I've kind of experienced, you know, other people might have different views, but most people now are buying their computers instead of building them. Sure. It's kind of dropped off (18/42)
because computers have dropped in price. And it used to be beneficial to build them, but I was actually looking at, I use a big laptop right now, but I was thinking maybe building a tower. And it's just not cost-effective anymore. So what I'd suggest, if you really want perhaps the best gaming on Linux, go look and buy from System76, AntraWare, someone that you know they've already done all the footwork for you, and you'll have a better chance of having a much better experience. But I think what we can kind of get from this conversation is, Steam has really thrown their support behind Linux, and because of that, these developers have opened up some of the games. So now, instead of having to work all, once you're done working, you don't have to go reboot into Windows to play your games. You might find all your games that you want to play already on Linux. And so after you've done the spreadsheets and you've done all the work for real life and adult and all that stuff, then you say, (19/42)
okay, now it's time to go kill aliens. What's better? Yeah, I like doing that too. So we've got Steam, they've put their resources behind supporting Linux, we've got over 700 plus games, it's really easy to install. Oh, and on that topic, I wanted to mention that in Ubuntu MATE, the software boutique, which is the curated version of a repository that comes with Ubuntu MATE, many of these programs that have in the past been rather difficult to install, they have a one-click install from the software boutique, and Steam's included in that list. So it is literally, open the software boutique, locate Steam, click install, ready to play. Too many steps. I'm sorry. I don't know if we can make it any quicker than that, unless it's pre-installed. In which case, you know, then you go out and you have a Steam box. So anyway, so we've got Steam, it's easy to use, it's easy to install, it's got plenty of games. Let's talk about what you do in Steam once you've got it installed. So what's your (20/42)
favorite game, Bill? Oh, well, Team Fortress 2, when I want to go shoot people. Okay. You're a violent, sorry guy, I guess, huh? Yeah, well, you know, running around with a big chainsaw, people tend to shoot you in the head before you get to them, so hey, what do I know? Yeah, you know, no, let's, to be fair, let's talk about a game that is actually Linux native that has been being developed for years now. Okay, so this is not a Steam game. This is a Linux native game. This is not. You can get this out of your repository. All right. And it's called Flight Gear. You've heard of that, haven't you? I have, yes. I may have played it once on someone else's computer. Well, not too long ago, I downloaded it and I had tried about, I think, maybe two years ago to play it. And it was just unplayable for me. So, you know, I said, well, you know, I'm revisiting this, the game, the Linux, so let me redownload this. And I'm sitting there going, wow, what an improvement. I like to fly planes. Usually (21/42)
I end up crashing them into mountains or buildings or actually just into the ground because I can take off, but I have a hard time landing. Hey, gravity sucks, okay? And it's a lot less expensive to do it in a game than it is to do it in real life. Yeah, I think it's much more beneficial for people that would be riding in the plane with me, you know? Ah, okay. Yes, true. So, as a general rule, I tend to crash the plane. So, I like to flight simulators a lot and, you know, try crazy stuff with them. But anyway, flight gear was so much improved that it actually is getting close to another flight simulator I have that unfortunately is, it does have Linux support. But I've run it on my small little Windows petition so I can play and it's called XPlane. And I found that I was in flight gear more now than I was in XPlane because it's getting better and better. And I'm like, this is really a fun game and there's a whole bunch of add-ons and stuff. But they're not quite there, but they're (22/42)
getting close. I was really impressed on how much they've done. Now, you remember now, XPlane is a very expensive product. Okay, how expensive? Yeah. For home use, you know, because they also have a pro version for people that are airline pilots or whatever, but for the home use, I paid about $65 for it. Okay. And, I mean, that's just one game. And, you know, they release updates all the time and sooner or later, okay, we're at XPlane 10 now. XPlane 11 is coming out and that's another 65 bucks. Ouch. Yeah, so I've upgraded twice from XPlane 9 to XPlane 10, but I found that flight gear is now starting to be able to save me 65 bucks. Yeah, every time you need to get the latest version, right? So, they're doing it for, just for the love of the product. And so, it's getting close. And I think, you know, a little bit more time, XPlane's going to have a real hard time against flight gear. I don't think it'll be done in six months, whatever. And, you know, then again, maybe there's some other (23/42)
people that have hardware that runs XPlane even better than I do. And they say, you know, you're an idiot. You know, it runs great. But I was able to play the game, enjoy it, and not have a bunch of little, you know, crashes and, you know, glitches and big, you know, blocks. You know, it's all disappeared. It was very smooth and, you know, it was a great, had a great toil. And I was really impressed. And then I started looking around and said, you know, XPlane has all these add-ons for jets and prop planes and everything else. Well, guess what? Flight gear does too. Not all of them are as good, but I found a few gems in that and you don't have to buy them. That's a general rule. So guys in flight gear, you guys are doing a great job. And Larry, I think you should download it and because you don't have enough to do. Right. Right. And see what you think. But as a general rule, flight gear is now a very viable flight simulator that I can play and enjoy. All right. Well, yeah, exactly. (24/42)
Well, and this whole thing about free software. So let's talk about that for a second. Again, for the people listening for the very first time or people thinking about getting into Linux as opposed to whatever they've used in the past, whether that's OS X or whether that's Windows or Sun Solaris or wherever they're coming from. So unlike XPlane, which is developed by a company for use on a specific platform, and the developers of that software are employed by that company and by contract. They are not allowed to go to other companies and share that information because it's very proprietary and they want to make a profit on it. And they do make a profit on it over and over and over again. Under Linux, the developers of the Linux operating system itself oftentimes are also involved in their favorite applications or the applications they want to contribute to. And they contribute their time for free and vice versa. The application developers are contributing to the development of drivers (25/42)
because, for example, the developers of Flight Gear, I'm sure when they run into an obstacle on an NVIDIA driver or on an Intel graphics driver, they don't just go, You know, we can't do anything about this. We're just going to have to work around it. No, this is open source software here. They actually go in and are allowed to, by the licensing of the software, to go in and modify the driver so that Flight Gear works better. And so they go fix that problem. So there's a lot of cross-pollination of knowledge between projects, the Flight Gear project, the NVIDIA driver project, and so on. So that's one of the advantages of using Linux and open source software is the fact that people do this because they want better software, because they use the software, and because they want to, and can legally, share their knowledge between projects and make everything better as a result of their knowledge in a specific area. And yeah, some of these projects are making money on, in the case of games, (26/42)
maybe the game itself is free, but then the add-ons you may have to pay for, or maybe there's a pro version that you need to fork over some money for. But the bottom line is the software is free because it's developed by people who are contributing to it out of love and out of a need to support the software that they actually use. It's also free because of the licensing, and it's specifically designed so that you can make changes legally and share them with other people legally. And in most cases, in open source software, you can actually give away the software, the original software, and redistribute it to your friends for free, legally. And you can also legally make those changes that you need and share those changes with everyone. And the obligation that you have is to share those changes back to the people who originally developed software so that if it's good enough, they will incorporate that into the version that they distribute from the original source. And so that's how Linux (27/42)
and open source software works in a nutshell, and why it can be given away for free. And in the case of gaming, that's no exception to the rule. And I think the fact that games have the need to stress video drivers and audio drivers and graphics in general to the point of stretching their capabilities, that just allows those developers to actually improve those capabilities going forward. And because of the licensing, it actually happens. There's no legal or proprietary boundaries between software programs and developers, and many developers are on multiple projects and helping out everything in the ecosystem they play in. By the way, you sound like a lawyer. You can legally do it this way. Well, you know, people coming from other platforms, they hear free and they think, ooh, underground bootleg, that kind of free. That's not what this is about. Linux is completely illegal. It's about the licensing. That's really what I want to try to emphasize. It's free for a reason. And the (28/42)
companies that develop these things benefit in other ways. And financially, I mean, Red Hat, they don't sell the product, they don't sell the operating system, they sell the support, and that's where they make their money. And not everybody purchases support from them, but there are enough people who do, enough organizations, enough companies that do, that they are making a very nice profit on developing, distributing, and supporting free software. You're right. If you're coming to Linux for the first time, you're going to run across some of those issues of licensing. And to give you just a quick example, when you download and install, like, Ubuntu, Amate, Arch, Linux Mint, or just plain Jane Ubuntu, you don't have to pay a license fee. It's actually yours. You have to change your mentality a little bit and say, okay, this is not a Windows license that has all these caveats. It's basic restrictions. You can do anything you want with it. The only thing they ask is if you do make changes (29/42)
to make it better that you send your changes back to the developer so everybody can benefit. Right. So anyway, you'll get it real easy. Just remember, Linux is fun. You also can do work. Larry does work with it. I play with it. So, but don't tell him he thinks I work, but oh, I think I just outed myself. Anyway, moving on. Speaking of fun. Okay. Linux runs Pokemon Go. Yes, it does. Oh, wait a minute. There's a caveat. There's a caveat. Don't get too excited, guys. Because I don't think we want to be walking around with our big computer laptops going, hey, where's that Pokemon? It actually runs on the Android operating system, which technically uses a Linux kernel. So we can say that, yes, we have the latest Pokemon Go. Aren't we the greatest? Okay, that's stretching it. But still, I had to throw it in there. Sure. Yeah, it has such great graphics. I actually, I couldn't understand what everybody was talking about this game. So I downloaded it on my Android. And three hours later, I was (30/42)
walking around the neighborhood trying to find Pokemon. I'm like, I can see why people take this off my phone. It's addictive. Yeah. Well, and it uses the latest in technology, augmented reality, right? Yeah, because if it sees a Pokemon and you've enabled this option, you can use your camera and turn until you find it. And really, if I found one and come up and it was inside my car, I'm like, hey, that car's locked. How'd you get in there? Come here. It was kind of funny, but no, I just had to throw it in there for a laugh, just because that's all I hear about these days. And so I had to sit, you know, me being a gamer, I had to try it out and then quickly realized that it's like a crack and had to stop immediately. Yes. So anyway, let's move on to some games that you might not have heard about. Now, we're not going to go talk in depth about a lot of them, but I want to throw out these names. So if you haven't heard of them, you should go check them out. Some of them are going to be (31/42)
released. But from what I see, most of them are already out on Steam for Linux. You might even be able to find them right from the company's websites and they might be selling, have packages in them. I always suggest, look around, look at other Linux people that sell software. Sometimes they have little game sections. You just kind of have to, if you don't want to use Steam for whatever reason, you're not locked out. You just will have to work a little harder. So without further ado, Larry, you ever heard of Half-Life 2? Absolutely. And I may have played Half-Life as well. Maybe not Half-Life 2, but Half-Life. Half-Life Minesweeper does not count. Oh, sorry. Okay. Wasteland 2, basically. That one I haven't heard of. Yeah, it's a new, I think it's one of the newer ones. I haven't played it, so I saw some screenshots. It looks pretty good. So check it out. It's pretty much, from what I can tell, it's kind of a top-down, walk-around, kill things. One called Sama, which is kind of (32/42)
interesting. That's all I'm going to say because it's a weird game. It's kind of one of those explore games. I've heard the name. Maybe that's from the novel 1984. But I've heard the name. Seriously, though, I've heard the name of it as a game, not just from the novel 1984. But I have no idea what it is or what it does. Reading. I don't know what that is. That's what we did before we had internet. We had these pieces of dead trees with black ink on them. Sometimes the ink was different colors. Ah, well, you know, everything I need to learn, I learned from watching Doctor Who or YouTube. What do you want? No, just kidding. For all you zombie-killing people, Left 4 Dead 2. Okay. Not my speed, but that's okay. Baldur's Gate Siege of Dragonspear. Don't know much about this one, so if you're a Baldur's Gate fan, you should be really happy. Okay. Team Fortress 2. I wonder how that got into that list. Don't know. Don't know. Civilization 5, I think it is, because I don't know my Roman (33/42)
numerals, but I believe it is Civilization 5. If that's a Roman numeral, it is 5. Oh! Look who knows his stuff. No, I lucked out. Anyway, this one's a turn-based system game. It's kind of fun. You've got to go send the guys out to kill things. You've got to come over here and fight this army. So basically, you just kind of obliterate your things. Pro-tip guys, destroy the other people's crops works every time. Not always, but it helps. And a new game that I saw, I don't know much about it. It's on Steam. Go read this thing. It's called Dying Light. Okay, now for all Star Wars fans, Knights of the Old Republic 2, or KOTOR 2, as they like to say. Go sling them lightsabers, guys. It's time to kill some Sith, or if you're Sith, it's time to kill some Jedi. Okay, I'm just saying. And then, Serious Sam 2. And if you don't know what Serious Sam, just think a guy running around with lots of big ammo and bigger guns and just killing stuff, you know, Quake style. And I think you pretty much got (34/42)
it. Okay. Okay, now, what do you think, Larry? Do you think that's enough game to get them started? I think so. At least enough to get people interested in it. I'm interested in exploring some of these as well. And since it's such an easy install with Ubuntu MATE, I might install Steam. But then again, I might just go back and install some of the native Linux ones that you mentioned earlier on and give those a try and see what happens. And then, you know, three weeks later, I'll raise my head up and wonder what happened to those three weeks. I missed work for three weeks. How am I going to explain this? Yes. Before I get flamed out of existence, I realize these are games, most of them are games that you would have to pay for. Mm-hmm. The only reason I kind of focused on this type of game is that as people come over to Linux, they want games they've heard of or some newer looking games. I'm not saying that the games available in the repositories are garbage. I've spent hours finding (35/42)
little gems of games, you know, some of them text-based, some of them have graphics. And I've had a great time. I mean, Alien Arena, I ran around for days until I had to have an intervention, you know. So there are games that you don't have to pay for that are just as fun. So I'm not trying to say these are the only games available. I'm just trying to show that we have games that are fun, that are fairly current, or almost as new as the Windows versions. So people realize that Linux isn't just for work. Linux can be used for everything. And that's basically what this whole thing is. You know, most people use Linux to work, but they seldom think that, hey, I can do other stuff with it. And I just want to show you that one system can rule them all. Yeah. Right. Lord of the Rings reference there. So we've talked, Bill, just to recap here for a second. We've talked about the Steam engine and installing that on Linux and the support of the Steam games and many of those you have to pay for. (36/42)
We've talked about native Linux games, many of those you don't have to pay for because they're part of the Linux and open source ecosystem. So they will be free and many of them are of equal quality as the other games you might find on Steam. And so we've got a lot of choice for our listeners. Is there anything else that you think our listeners should know about games, gaming on Linux, Steam, anything else? I'm glad you asked. I always have something else. Now this is a little geeky. We are getting, or already have, Linux support for some of the best gaming engines out there, but I just kind of wanted to let people know what their names are so they can kind of, you know, when they're using the Google, to see where the status of these engines are or if they've made tweaks. The Unreal 4 engine, Crytek's CryEngine, and of course the Unity engine. I believe Unity is the open source version of a gaming engine and it's being used by several games. I don't know what they are, but I've heard (37/42)
good things that it's promising, but I haven't seen any games based on it yet. But you know, Crytek, the CryEngine is probably one of the most advanced engines out there. Because when they first come out, I remember even the high end machines had trouble running Crytek's engine. So it could just do so much. And Unreal 4 engine, hey, everybody's, well, let me say, a lot of people played Unreal. And it was, you know, so you can do a lot with these engines, you know. So what I would like to say, hey guys, these games are going to be based on these engines. So I think it's important for us as a community to get together and support the devs so they continue making these ports for the games. So we can have, I wouldn't say, parity with Windows, because we're better than, no, I better not say that. Yeah, I'm going to get in trouble. Hey, but you know, if the dev developers of these games see that, hey, letting people spend money on games, maybe we should continue doing it. Yes, they might not (38/42)
be as much, but I have found in my endeavors, money speaks. Now, if you don't want to buy a game, that's fine. But if you're a gamer, and my suggestion, and I am not paid to endorse Steam, is to wait until one of those games goes on sale from one of these developers and grab it. So you save some money, and get a current game, and you support the devs, and they say, well golly, we've had a thousand downloads of our game from Linux. Maybe it's worth it to us to go ahead and do the extra work so, hey, we're not going to turn down free money. So I have to say, if you can, support the developers that do work for Linux games. And if you don't want to, you don't have to, but I'm just saying, the more we can support them, I think we're going to continue seeing all these games, because Steam can't do all the work. Right, exactly. And it's the same with any open source project. If you like it and you use it, continue to provide your support in whatever way you can. And if they ask for money and (39/42)
you have the money to give them, whether it's a donation or a payment for one of their software programs, or if you have no money but you have time and you can contribute your time to improving, either the software itself, if you have that kind of experience and that kind of skill, then go ahead and do that. Or perhaps even in documentation, or teaching people how to use it, as we do here on the Going Linux podcast. So lots of ways you can contribute support and help the development of software that's oftentimes given away for free. Yeah, and this kind of ends this part of the conversation. The gaming on Linux has come a long way since when I first got in. Larry used to have to listen to me whine because I couldn't get something to work and I was banging my head against the wall. And he's like, well, try this. And he remembers days. I spent days trying to get a game to work and just utterly failing. And then now it's just so much easier. It's getting to the point that Linux is coming (40/42)
closer and closer. Just being a system you can do anything you want with without all the hassles of license agreements and stuff. If you want to change the background, you don't have to buy the super premium version. It just works. And that's what we're trying to aim for. I know some of you say, oh golly, a gaming episode. But people like to have fun too. Absolutely. And you keep saying Linux is getting there. I think from the way you've described it, Bill, based on your experience, that we are there in many cases with many games. It's as easy as click, install, play. And how much easier can you get it than that? Okay, so it is now the year 2016, the year of the Linux desktop as it was in 2014, 2015. And now we're the year of the Linux gaming desktop. Hey, that's an idea. So I hope everybody enjoyed it. Check out some of the games. See what you think. Feel free to flame Larry all you want. No, if I made a mistake, please let me know. So Larry, unless you have anything else to say, do (41/42)
you have an application pick? Well, no. How about you, Bill? And I think I can guess what it's going to be. I'm going to cheat. I'm going to cheat because you know I'm lazy that way. It's steam. How did you know? I did. I did. I did know. All right. Well, with that, thanks, Bill, for putting the show together. This was all your work. And you've done a phenomenal job putting this together. And it's good work. Larry, what's our next episode? Our next episode is listener feedback. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinks.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We are the website for computer users who just want to use Linux to get things done, even if that's gaming. Oh, that is slow. If you'd like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux Podcast Google Plus community. Until next time, keep on gaming. 73. Thanks for listening. (42/42)