Tough luck then - openGL is the standard gaming interface on linux,
well for the 3D graphichs part at least. You already have this,
so having a "standard" clearly isn't enough then.
More titles will be ported to linux when linux becomes more
popular as a home platform. It is that simple. And then it will
happen no matter what the interface will be. Although I
believe it will still be opengl - opengl is nice and don't need
to change. Also, the fact that it isn't in the _kernel_ doesn't
matter at all. It is in the standard distributions - that is what matters.
Wrong. This kind of people worry about market share and so
they decide on windows games for that reason alone.
It is wrong - it might be dead _on windows_ because
windows have directx as well as a "less useful" opengl.
Then you won't get support here - nobody cares about
"big words" here.
1. Linux don't support the lazy and dumb. Won't happen.
2. Even the lazy and dumb can use nice standardized unchanging
interfaces - provided by a library rather than the kernel. It is not
harder to do in any way.
Such a thing is nice - but it don't need to be in the kernel. Try
to understand that! An interface set in stone can be provided
by a standard library that all distros pick up. (No distro will
skip an important library, that way they get behind the other distros.)
The advantage of this is that such a library can keep the
game programmers interface constant even when the kernel interfaces
are mercilessly changed. And yes - they _will_ change. Everytime
that happens, people here laugh at commercial actors getting
in trouble. (Example - the tradition of ruthlessly breaking the binary-only
modules from ati, nvidia, vmware...)
Sure, and that official way is to use support libraries. Such
as opengl for 3D, and one of the well-supported sound libraries
for sound, and so on.
Depends on what you port them from!
People even write free games for linux, so it can't be that hard.
Professional game vendors even get paid, so they shouldn't
have any problem at all then.
Every _module_ isn't available on every distribution either,
so that's bad thinking. I think you will find the existing
gaming libraries on any distro aiming at "generic" or "home"
usage. Specialist distros aiming at "servers", "firewalls",
or "small embedded devices" will _not_ have opengl, and not
any kernel interfaces for graphichs either. Putting stuff in the kernel
won't change that.
Note that microsoft does the same thing with its special windows
distributions - I can't run directx games on the display of my
windows CE GPS navigator - even though I can install
third party software there.
You won't ever get gaming support in every distro - precisely
because some distros aim specifically for unfit machines like
embedded devices. I repeat - opengl is supported in the
distros aiming for home use.
Now you know that it can't happen, and also that the kernel is
the wrong place for game compatibility layers. Still, you can aim
for a standardized game interface present in all home distros.
That is possible. But you can't get it by posting suggestions here.
All the people who actually code for linux are able to come
up with enough ideas themselves. So nobody is going to
put your ideas into code - it don't work that way.
Either _you_ code your game interface yourself, or you fund
some developers to do it for you. It is that simple. You can
of course come here and ask advice about how to do it
and what parts will be accepted into the kernel and what parts
must stay outside it.
This is not the place to post an idea and then expect someone
to actually program it. This is the place where you may discuss
an idea, and then find out if Linus might accept your patch - or not!
Helge Hafting
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