Linux News #3 - Who Says Linux Doesn't Have Games!

Operating Systems & Open Source Open Source & Web-Based
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Linux and Free Software News #3

Who Says Linux Doesn't Have Games!

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In This Weeks News

Lots of gaming related news this week it seems. The last two didn't generate to much discussion though you all liked them, id love to see more talk.

Thoughts?

Code.gov - US Gov Releases Code on Their New Website

https://code.gov/

The US Gov has a shiny new website for there open sourced code. Their code being open is nothing new but a nice new site for a landing page is a pretty decent idea considering most of the Gov code are held on various separate repositories.

As mentioned by @miguel_Sensacion earlier this week

Nintendo's "NES Classic" Runs Linux (maybe)

There's not much actual concrete information on this, except to say that the new Nintendo NEX Classic appears to run some version of Linux.

The real question is, can you change it? And the answer is probably not. As with a lot of these pieces of hardware they see to get locked down to make them un-modifiable.

Time will tell.

MESA 13.0.1 Release Candidate With Improved Vulkan Support on Intel iGPUs

https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/mesa-dev/2016-November/135097.html

MESA just keep pushing the updates. The new release suggests a 30% improvement when using Vulkan on Intel iGPUs, which is a massive increase.

(it would be interesting to see how The Talos Principle with its new Vulkan beta (see below) fairs on an Intel iGPU with the new MESA build).

Unity Engine is Moving Towards Display Server Independence and Vulkan Support.

The unity engine is currently tired to X11 on Linux as they implement their own interfaces with it. With Unity 5.6 this should begin to change as they have committed new code to implement an SDL layer.

This should leave unity completely independent of the display server, allowing the engine to run on X11, Wayland, or similar without issue.

The 5.6 release should also see the implementation of Vulkan support as well which should bring performance improvements across the board for any games that implement it.

Gaming

New Releases

There's a few new game releases here. I wont say anything on them but will provide some links. I am looking forward to playing all three though they look pretty good.

Tyranny released

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In Tyranny, the grand war between good and evil is over – and the forces of evil, led by Kyros the Overlord, have won.

https://www.tyrannygame.com/

Beholder Released

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You’re a State-installed Landlord in a totalitarian State. You must spy on tenants, peep, eavesdrop and profile! You must report on anyone capable of plotting subversion against the State. You MUST! But WILL you?

https://beholder-game.com/promo

Silence, Releasing on the 15th

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Can you save Silence, the grim, but also serene world between life and death? Can you help Noah find his little sister Renie in this suffering world? Can you bring her home? Explore Silence and join the siblings on their adventurous journey.

http://www.daedalic.de/de/Game/Silence

http://silence-developer-diary.tumblr.com/

The Talos Principle Gets Improved Vulkan Support

I had a little play around and ran the games benchmarks as well. Vulkan is definitely an improvement, with an overall higher average frame-rate (60fps in my case) and almost no frames dropping below 30.

You can test out the new vulkan beta by enabling the "publicbeta" branch of the game.

These benchmarks are on the following system

Fedora 25
Kernel: 4.8.6-300.fc25.x86_64
GPU: AMD RX480 8GB
Screen:  1440p 60Hz
RAM: 16GB (6 in use)

16:28:58 INF:  - benchmark results -
16:28:58 INF:  
16:28:58 INF:    Gfx API: OpenGL
16:28:58 INF:   Duration: 59.3 seconds (2758 frames)
16:28:58 INF:    Average: 46.5 FPS (53.6 w/o extremes)
16:28:58 INF:   Extremes: 128.8 max, 4.8 min
16:28:58 INF:   Sections: AI=4%, physics=1%, sound=1%, scene=81%, shadows=10%, misc=4%
16:28:58 INF:      Highs: 18 in 0.2 seconds (93.6 FPS)
16:28:58 INF:       Lows: 378 in 15.0 seconds (25.2 FPS)
16:28:58 INF:   < 20 FPS:  1%
16:28:58 INF:  20-30 FPS: 10%
16:28:58 INF:  30-60 FPS: 55%
16:28:58 INF:   > 60 FPS: 34%

16:35:23 INF:  - benchmark results -
16:35:23 INF:  
16:35:23 INF:    Gfx API: Vulkan
16:35:23 INF:   Duration: 60.0 seconds (3511 frames)
16:35:23 INF:    Average: 58.5 FPS (59.8 w/o extremes)
16:35:23 INF:   Extremes: 180.7 max, 17.6 min
16:35:23 INF:   Sections: AI=4%, physics=2%, sound=1%, scene=81%, shadows=8%, misc=4%
16:35:23 INF:      Highs: 255 in 2.9 seconds (89.2 FPS)
16:35:23 INF:       Lows: 335 in 8.3 seconds (40.2 FPS)
16:35:23 INF:  20-30 FPS:  1%
16:35:23 INF:  30-60 FPS: 48%
16:35:23 INF:   > 60 FPS: 52%

Total War: WARHAMMER Linux Stream, Wed 16 November

www.twitch.tv/feralinteractive

Feral Interactive will be live streaming a preview of their Total War: WARHAMMER Linux port this Wednesday the 16th. A good chance to ask any questions on the game and see how it performs.

Like all their ports, this is also a native port. Though no Vulkan implementation from them yet.

Distro News

Ubuntu Budgie Now an Official Flavour

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Ubuntu Budgie is now a thing. What was Budgie-remix has been given "community flavor" status by Ubuntu making it an official flavour or spin.

This will give the team access to build and hosting facilities, and Ubuntu Budgie users access to official Ubuntu sites for support.

I'm not a fan of the spin and flavour thing, but this seems like it will be good for the budgie desktop.

MP3 support Now Available in Fedora 25

https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2016/11/10/mp3-support-now-coming-to-fedora-workstation-25/

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/34NPNTJITRHRP2FRKKYGL2YMEUU4BDYF/

"what you on about its already there" might be your thought if you already use Fedora. Fedora by default doesn't ship with patent encumbered or legaly questionable software, of which MP3 used to be in the patent encumbered category.

The last few days this seems to have changed, and MP3 decoding software is now allowed in the main Fedora repos (where as up until now you needed RPMFusion).

A good move forward I think for those who have mp3 files laying around. Although id still encourage people to use open formats where they can.

Here's essentially what was said:

Red Hat has determined that it is now acceptable for Fedora to include MP3 decoding functionality (not specific to any implementation, or binding by any unseen agreement). Encoding functionality is not permitted at this time.

Community

Play games in Windows on Linux! PCI passthrough quick guide

Author: @GrayBoltWolf

Overclock your monitor with NVIDIA! Windows and Linux

Author: @GrayBoltWolf

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Stupid fucking post. See later remark.

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This will never happen. And it never should.

Not only would it go against the goals of the distro it would also set them up for legal issues.

If you want non-free software, its all in RPMFusion which is super easy to install. But the base distro imo shouldn't come with non-free software.

I think the fact that there are issues with codecs and similar libraries in the first place is a larger issue than them them just being non-free, the mp3 decoder is free software, its the fact that mp3 is/was patent encumbered which stopped it from being shipped in distros.

dvd, and bluray have a very similar issue.

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Dammit..A warhammer demo so soon..The launch must be dangerously close..

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See later remark

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That Adobe software not being in Fedora or Red Hat isn't anything to do with them being non-free, its that Adobe don't want to make their software for Linux. So its not really so much a licensing issue for Adobe, more that Adobe don't see a benefit in selling a Linux version of their software right now. When they do you'll be able to use it just like any other proprietary software suite on Linux. (though by then they will probably be packaged easier.)

Similarly Davinci Resolve software you mention is software for hardware, it again has nothing to do with it being non-free software, its that black magic are a hardware company and they want you to buy their hardware.

In that case theres nothing to port over, it works in Linux. Its software that goes with hardware.

Now in saying that, in these kind of cases proprietary software tends to only work with certain distros or certain libraries etc. That again is another issue, one that's hopefully going to be solved with flatpak, in which case they can make one download that will work in any distro.

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Tyranny isn't bad. very much like Pillars of Eternity and Baldur's Gate. it's interesting because instead of just choosing your hair and class, the character creation ends with a multiple choice questionnaire take on how you've handled recent events.

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Who says Linux doesn't have games?

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Thx for the heads up on ffmpeg in fc25. I tend to read over such stuff lol.
Actually I needed ffmpeg and libavdevice from rpmfusion anyway to export as mp3, but if I didn't, I wouldn't be installing the rpmfusion repo any more, that's for sure.

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There are no distro wars. There is a lot of choice for different needs and different tastes.
Distro wars is sooooo Ubuntu lol...

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Yay thanks for the mention! Y'all let me know what topics you'd like to see in future videos from me. :)

And this is a great thread.

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Adobe can't even get their shit together on Windows, on Mac it lacks features and stability, please let them not bring another port of their crap to Linux...

People should open their minds instead of being addicted to brands. But that is happening! Look at Krita, it has taken the world of the animation/drawing world by storm in no time, and a lot of people have migrated to Linux for it. These are creatives, who will also use the Gimp and Darktable or Digikam. There is a reason why all the software manufacturers move into hardware... because they see what's happening, and they want to be able to lock down hardware. There is a reason Microsoft comes out with the creatives orientated tablet pc which is nothing but old tech, and why they have bought a digitizer company instead of going forward with Wacom... because Wacom works better on other platforms, it's one of the first peripheral companies of big fame that have supported linux the whole way. Microsoft touch interface requires a feedback over a dedicated I²C interface. Even that has been cracked and kernel 4.8 now supports these devices out of the box.

Fact is that the traditional commercial pillar companies are starting to run out of places to hide, and they're getting exponentially more evil in the process.

That should never come to the open source world. I was never a big fan of GPLv3, but in some instances, I'm actually happy that GPLv3 became the standard, because it thwarts market manipulation through hardware. You just know that all the investments in hardware the big software manufacturers make to keep their monopoly and grip on the market, are not going to work out for them in the end. They might fool consumers with it, but they're not fooling the professional markets any more, and every developer they lay off, becomes an open source competitor, and there is nothing they can do about it.

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You know, what. That was a lazy post, and really need to expand on it.

First off, I want to say that in my mind, fedora is the only linux distro doing things right. AFAIK, they are the only stable distro that sticks very close to upstream development. Everything else in the linux world is either horribly old, or a somewhat unstable rolling release.

So as far as a good desktop distribution, I think the fedora MODEL (key word) just destroys everything else. My issue with the distro is that their stupid free software goals are stunting the growth of fedora, and potentially preventing fedora from being one of the few marketable distributions linux has to offer.

My use of the term non free means pretty much any commercial software. You will hopefully see in a second why I grouped them together. But for the moment I will say that non free means stuff like google chrome, nividia drivers, MP4 support, and stuff like that.

Fedora should absolutely support these things. Too many people rely on this software and IMO, they are just shooting themselves in the foot by not officially supporting it. They clearly have the power and finances to license this software without any issue. If ubuntu can do it, red hat can do it too.

Quite frankly, I would not be surprised if fedora alone had enough funds to make that happen.

As for non linux software, here is kind of where my mind is. I have been watching apple for a long time. Apple at one point had little to no real software for it. Adobe, microsoft word, and a bunch of other programs did not work on OSX. They faced the same challenges back then that linux faces today. Low market share. Apple had to make a bunch of deals for adobe and microsoft to port their software over to OSX. In doing so, their market share started to climb.

Linux can not sit on its hands and wait for this software to come. Linux has to go to the software and pull its teeth.

As selfish as it sounds, I think it is incumbent upon red hat to be the organization to reach out to adobe, davinci resolve, etc to make similar deals because unlike cononical, red hat actually has a distro that doesn't fuck itself in the ass every single new release.

Help us red hat, you are our only hope.

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You've gotta be shitting me. No MP3 support in Fedora until NOW? WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DEVELOPING THATS SO IMPORTANT TO NOT HAVE MP3's.

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There are distro wars. They are all fighting for developers, maintainers, and just help with maintaining the distro over all.

Think about it. If the survival of a give distro revolves around community contribution, then you want your distro to have as large of a community as possible.

If there is another distro that is stealing some of your community away, then it drives the team to make that distro better.

The ultimate goal is to have a lot of the distros to converge into one distro that hopefully does everything right. Or close to it as possible.

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Red Hat will never do that, and they shouldn't.

Chromium was once available in the Fedora repos. It wasn't removed because of some Google proprietary crap or something, it was removed because of code hygiene: Google tends to break upstream or take shortcuts with old or tampered with code to cut corners. Fedora, like all open source projects, strive for code quality... that makes sense, because it's open source, so people can actually see the quality of the code, there is no place to hide. It is primordial to the reputation of a company like RedHat or SuSE that they make no compromises on code quality. That means: no closed source code of any kind! Because closed source code invariably means cut corners and garbage code that's hidden from the customers.

Second important thing is, that the economic model of RedHat and SuSE and other open source companies, is much more advanced that the economic model of closed source software companies, that have to start alternative activities to still make money, while open source companies do very well sticking to their core activity. The economic model of open source software is all about efficiency, about maximum asset usage, maximum collaboration so that there is access to much more assets. Closed source software companies simply don't have the money to buy even a small fraction of the ressources that are available to all open source software companies. It's a matter of simple economics. Closed source software is just not cutting it any more economically. The share price of RedHat has surpassed the share price of Microsoft a long time ago. Job stability in open source is much higher than job stability in commercial closed source software companies. Open source software companies have nothing to prove, they hold all the aces, they should not weaken themselves by opening up towards the losing commercial closed software dinosaurs lol.

Oh and Apple had a lot of success early on because they had THE enterprise software of the time, a spreadsheet program. MS-Office was late to the party, and it took some huge amounts of market manipulation and a bribe of 150 million dollars from Microsoft to Apple to make it into the standard it was in 2003. Before, MS-Office was not loved at all, enterprises used IBM Lotus Notes Suites, WordPerfect, dBase, Harvard Graphics, etc..., and smaller enterprises and home office users used Ashton Tate Framework and things like that on PC. Apple by that time already had the McIntosh out, which was too expensive to have really big success, and that's where Apple came into trouble, but they took a long look at Ashton Tate and other software suites, and made an integrated GUI system that was copied later by Microsoft into Windows. Microsoft also never made MS-DOS, Bill Gates bought MS-DOS from a small company in Seattle for just 25000 dollars. Do not let yourself be blinded by brands and marketing... these brands have created relatively little advance in technology, they are just marketing masters. If you want quality and economical benefit, you should go in the opposite direction!

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the MP3 Codec is not "Free Software" that's why. a lot of distros don't have the MP3 codec installed out the box.

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It's been in the RPMFusion repos. Just add fedy repo and you got it. along with sublime, vscode and a bunch of other stuff

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Huh?

There is no distro that does everything right for everyone lol.

Just Debian offers like 16 different spins, each of those in like 3 different branches, and that's just Debian alone. Fedora offers spins and remixes in 2 or 3 different branches, depending on the timing. OpenSuSE offers SuSEStudio, because the 42 different distros they offered weren't enough and there was a need for unlimited unique distro creation by users, and it's a great success.

Distros will never merge, should never merge, choice is important, different tools for different jobs are important.

As demonstrated by the success of SuSEStudio, if anything, there should be more distros, certainly not less.

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I thinks that's what great about Linux, the ability to choose and customize.

Thanks for the mention. I hope some of that it will help us get some things going in the Code section of the forum.

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