Hi everyone, For the past two months or so I have been engaged in modifying the Genesis Engine, and have created a cross-platform version called Open G3D which is Mac OS and Linux compatible. So as a result as of Mysteries of the Ancients beta 14 there will be an official Linux version of the game. The only question left to decide upon is what you would prefer to have in terms of an installation method for the game. The first possibility is to use a packaging tool like dpkg. The advantage here is that I could create an official *.deb package for Debian, Ubuntu, and Vinux distributions of Linux. The advantage here is that by running a command like sudo dpkg -i mota-0.14-i386.deb the package would install everything for you, and would check for dependencies such as SFML, OpenAL, etc. It would be a surefire way of knowing if the system requirements were met before installing. The disadvantage of using a specific package manager like dpkg is that not every Linux distribution out there uses dpkg. I happen to know a few who are fans of Fedora Linux which uses rpm instead. Suse Linux has a different package manager. So if I created a deb package the end user would likely have to use something like alient to convert it if they were using a non-Debian based Linux distribution. That's not quite as good as having a package specifically built for your own distribution of Linux. The second possibility is to write a custom installer such as a bash shell script that simply copies all the libraries, files, and documentation into the directories where they belong. This way is obviously the least distribution specific, and would work on just about any Linux distribution out there with the required dependencies. The only problem I have with this way is that unlike with a package manager like dpkg there really isn't a good way to check if all the requirements are met to install the program. The final possibility is to do what RS Games does and just create a zip file of the game, and have the end user extract it into his/her home directory. This is the absolutely easiest possible installation method out there, but is also kind of messy too. This method takes the least amount of work for me, but like I said it is kind of messy. Generally Linux programs are installed to /usr, /usr/local, or /opt and are not directly installed to someone's home directory. So this method of installation is really up to you guys and if you don't mind creating a Games folder in your home directory to install USA Games titles. So if any of you are Linux users and plan to download and run the Linux version of MOTA beta 14 I'd like to know in advance what is your prefered installation method. I am willing and able to do any of these options.
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