Summary

LAN Party Ubuntu (LPUbuntu) is a LiveDVD version of Ubuntu that brings along games.

Rationale

It is commonly said that there are no games for Linux. We could attract casual PC gamers to Ubuntu with LiveDVDs, which also introduce a Linux desktop.

Use cases

LPUbuntu aims to cover the niché market of computer gamers. This is a narrow market with both a cultish or "hard-core" and a casual following. In addition, both followings engage in single- and multi-player gameplay.

The following use cases can be considered:

Scope

A set of games needs to be chosen from diverse categories to attract a good user base; these should range from the large and complete to the small but fun. Additionally, a number of games not requiring 3D acceleration should be chosen.

Action:

Turn Based Strategy:

Real-Time Strategy:

First Person Shooter:

Pure Fun:

The initial goal of LPUbuntu should be to get games from MOTU/Teams/Games packaged and maintained so that they can be fully supported as if they were in Main; this means proper .desktop files and up-to-date versions.

Non-Free

While the DVD will probably only contain FOSS, some demos for non-free and/or closed sourced games may be considered. This would require authorization from the game publisher/developers. For example, game demos for id Software games:

JohnMoser: .... why?

Design

LPUbuntu should be intentionally based on XFCE and Xubuntu to provide a low-footprint but still highly usable environment. Many games are very memory intensive; the desktop environment will not be used much, and so should be kept out of the way. Something like Fluxbox would be smaller, but both more of a shock for new users and more packages to maintain.

A minimal XFCE desktop should be installed with another seed. This can be shared and used by Xubuntu and LPUbuntu.

lpubuntu-gaming should not depend on the XFCE environment if ubuntu-desktop or kubuntu-desktop; these already bring a desktop environment, and installing LPUbuntu on a system including these already would indicate that the user is simply adding games rather than creating a gaming-focused installation.

LPUbuntu should bring a basic text editor, Web browser, and instant messaging client. These tools are useful for gamers posting on forums and coordinating remotely over AIM, YIM, MSNIM, or ICQ. A text editor is a basic must-have. Again, having a desktop seed already makes these unnecessary; and besides, Gaim and Firefox will be there already.

LPUbuntu should supply all games through the Games menu. A simple LPUbuntu Launcher could be written as well to categorize games by type and perhaps even track play frequency to control the order in which games appear.

Implementation

Implementation is straight forward.

Code

Many games will have networking code, which requires security fixes be maintained. If the game has no upstream maintainers, then the only choices we have are to either not ship the game; or fork/take over the project and support it ourselves with bugfixes. It is highly unlikely any non-maintained games will be packagable.

Data preservation and migration

Not applicable here.

Outstanding issues

Games can be quite large, especially 3D FPS and real-time strategy games involving lots of character models, levels, and sounds. This may be DVD aimed, but there's no reason to fill a full DVD and make people download 5 gigs. Some data for game sizes:

Also an issue, nobody probably cares about games on Ubuntu, so this spec is highly subject to rot.

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec

LanPartyUbuntu (last edited 2008-08-06 16:22:54 by localhost)