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Open Week -- Gaming on Ubuntu -- Ben Crissford -- Fri, May 7

EDT -5

(01:01:11 PM) ClassBot: Slides for Gaming on Ubuntu: http://people.ubuntu.com/~nhandler/slides/openweeklucid/GamingOnUbuntu.pdf
(01:01:34 PM) bencrisford: Hello everybody!
(01:02:27 PM) bencrisford: Well, this session is gonna be about Gaming with Ubuntu
(01:02:43 PM) bencrisford: structure-wise, I am sorting this session into 3 main parts
(01:02:51 PM) bencrisford: [SLIDE 1]
(01:03:29 PM) bencrisford: after a quick introduction, I will briefly talk about emulation, free games, and finally - what OW is all about - community
(01:03:54 PM) bencrisford: at the end of each session I will do a quick Q+A, so please save your questions for then :)
(01:04:12 PM) bencrisford: right, so lets get started :D
(01:04:41 PM) bencrisford: First - let me make something clear, Ubuntu wasn't designed for games, and most games werent designed for ubuntu, so it was never going to be easy
(01:04:55 PM) bencrisford: But for years now linux gamers have had to work around the problems faced, and have come up with many solutions that can be used.
(01:05:17 PM) bencrisford: Hopefully from this session you can learn about them, and learn to contribute to them
(01:05:51 PM) bencrisford: I have prepared alot of stuff to talk about :), so I think we'll move swiftly on to section 1 (unless there are any questions)
(01:06:11 PM) bencrisford: you can ask a question by putting a great big QUESTION: in front of it (jn #ubuntu-classroom-chat)
(01:06:31 PM) bencrisford: I take it that means I can move on...
(01:06:44 PM) bencrisford: so, Section 1 - Emulation
(01:06:49 PM) bencrisford: [SLIDE 2]
(01:07:15 PM) bencrisford: the unfortunate truth is that most games are developed for windows or mac
(01:07:25 PM) bencrisford: because that is where around 90% of the market share lies
(01:07:32 PM) bencrisford: (commercial games*)
(01:07:56 PM) bencrisford: In my experience as an ubuntu advocate, that can stop alot of people from changing OSes completely
(01:08:42 PM) bencrisford: what these people dont realise, is that softwares exist that allow you to run windows software with an "emulator" under linux (of which Ubuntu is a distribution)
(01:08:56 PM) bencrisford: there is a mistake in the slides - before anyone points it out :P
(01:09:09 PM) bencrisford: Wine is not *technically* an emulator
(01:09:18 PM) bencrisford: but we wont go in to the details of that :)
(01:10:13 PM) bencrisford: I'm going to keep this section short, because Wine was already covered in an earlier session by YoKoZaR
(01:10:39 PM) bencrisford: the logs are available here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/openweekLucid
(01:10:58 PM) bencrisford: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/openweekLucid/WineQA - or even - there :)
(01:12:01 PM) bencrisford: in this session, I am going to talk about playonlinux (PoL)
(01:12:10 PM) bencrisford: (available in the Ubuntu Software Centre in Ubuntu 10.04)
(01:12:24 PM) bencrisford: Which is a front-end for Wine that lets you easily install windows games and softwares on Linux, whereas often you need to fiddle about quite alot to get applications to work with Wine (I never said it was perfect!).
(01:12:35 PM) bencrisford: PoL (PlayOnLinux) comes with a wide range of scripts which can install applications and games with the click of a button.
(01:13:07 PM) bencrisford: contributing scripts to PlayOnLinux is a great way to contribute, which I will hopefully cover more in my "Community" section later on
(01:13:22 PM) bencrisford: Installing PoL, installs Wine.  So I like installing PoL instead because it provides me with both a graphical front-end and Wine itself.
(01:14:02 PM) bencrisford: However, if you are after the most up to date versions of wine, or beta versions etc, this probably isn't the way to go.  I'm not sure if the latest version of Wine is included in PoL, so if it is imperative that you have it, its probably best getting it from http://www.winehq.org/download/deb
(01:14:35 PM) bencrisford: Anyway, thats about it for emulators!  I said it would be short!
(01:14:51 PM) bencrisford: (even though as rafalcieslak pointed out - wine is not an emulator :D)
(01:15:10 PM) bencrisford: [SLIDE 3]
(01:15:23 PM) bencrisford: slide 3 shows a screenshot of playonlinux
(01:15:37 PM) bencrisford: [SLIDE 4]
(01:15:41 PM) bencrisford: time for some questions :)
(01:17:23 PM) bencrisford: Well, there doesn't seem to be any more questions
(01:18:04 PM) bencrisford: that either means that I have explained everything exceptionally, or I am talking to myself :)  its probably the latter ;)
(01:18:15 PM) bencrisford: well, if there is no more questions
(01:18:32 PM) bencrisford: I am anxious to move on to Free games, so we get plenty of time for Community stuff, which is what OW is about :)
(01:18:39 PM) bencrisford: [SLIDE 5]
(01:19:06 PM) bencrisford: For those of you that might not have heard the word "FOSS" before, it stands for "Free and Open Source Software" and it is what many people call software which is basically freely available and editable to anyone.
(01:19:29 PM) bencrisford: A good example of free games are the games in your "Games" menu when you install Ubuntu, and there are 488 available in the software centre in Ubuntu 10.04.
(01:20:35 PM) bencrisford: One of my favourite free games at the moment is "Yo Frankie!" it is based off the film "Big Buck Bunny" (which I am sure many of you will have seen) and was made entirely with free software by the blender institute.  Its good fun, and it is in the Ubuntu repos.
(01:21:26 PM) bencrisford: [SLIDE 6]
(01:21:33 PM) bencrisford: there is a screenshot of the game :)
(01:21:48 PM) bencrisford: the picture quality was lost a bit when I exported the presentation to PDF
(01:21:54 PM) bencrisford: but the graphics are pretty awesome ;)
(01:22:40 PM) ClassBot: sebsebseb asked: POL is like a free Crossover Games or Cedega?  I have known about it for quite a while, but I don't remember ever having it installed.  Also I assume that POL and Wine can both be installed on a system without causing issues with each other.  Just like Wine or Cedega/Crossover could both be installe on the same system without conflickting with each other.
(01:22:56 PM) bencrisford: sebsebseb: I'm pretty sure they will install along side each other OK
(01:23:24 PM) bencrisford: that is something I will check for you in a minute ;), i'll PM you at the end of the session if not before :)
(01:23:52 PM) bencrisford: PoL is basically an alternative to just installing wine, and it comes with a more user friendly gui
(01:24:03 PM) bencrisford: and the games that are supported with scripts are much easier to set up
(01:24:15 PM) ClassBot: Chopsticks asked: Is there a way to fix bugs on games without having to report them to the people to made it?
(01:24:54 PM) bencrisford: Well, if you hack (edit the code) of an open source game, you don't have to tell the upstream (original) developers about it....
(01:24:57 PM) bencrisford: but if there is a bug
(01:25:02 PM) bencrisford: its best to let them no
(01:25:04 PM) bencrisford: know*
(01:25:20 PM) bencrisford: unless its a bug unique to your machine/operating-system
(01:25:35 PM) bencrisford: I think that is what you meant when you asked?  if not, ask again in chat :)
(01:25:54 PM) ClassBot: rafalcieslak asked: when it comes to Yo Frankie: what makes it MUCH slower than other games? My computer has a quite nice hardware, and is capable of running lots of awesome games with amazing graphics, but I could never manage to run Yo Frankie smoothly... I get about 8 FPS even in low-datail mode, and I doubt it's my hadrware fault: so I am simply interested in what makes this game different to others, that is much slower? Does
(01:27:12 PM) bencrisford: rafalcieslak: Well, I couldn't tell you that, because I don't know :P.  the developers created the engine, and it is blender's first game
(01:27:14 PM) bencrisford: so..
(01:27:28 PM) bencrisford: I won't try and answer, because I don't know enough about the project :)
(01:28:04 PM) bencrisford: so.. lets move on :)
(01:28:25 PM) bencrisford: If you are after educational games
(01:28:35 PM) bencrisford: then Ubuntu supports this well :)
(01:29:03 PM) bencrisford: and many are available in the software centre
(01:29:15 PM) bencrisford: but if you are only after educational games (and other packages) they ship with "Edubuntu" Ubuntu's educational derivative.  There are games for young children there but also for slightly older kids
(01:30:27 PM) bencrisford: or there is Qimo, which is an Ubuntu based system, which ships games for young children such as gcompris and childsplay
(01:30:46 PM) bencrisford: http://qimo4kids.com/
(01:31:02 PM) bencrisford: [SLIDE 7]
(01:31:14 PM) bencrisford: time for some questions again :)
(01:31:52 PM) ClassBot: Chopsticks asked: How do you fix bugs if you know that it's something wrong with your machine/operating-system? Because I know someone who has the same game and it works on their machine fine but it's a different computer and operating system.
(01:32:39 PM) bencrisford: Chopsticks: if your friend uses a different operating system, then the actual code and packaging is likely to be very different across different OS versions (unless you are emulating ?)
(01:33:01 PM) bencrisford: the windows/mac and the linux versions will probably have different bug trackers
(01:33:05 PM) bencrisford: and certainly different bugs
(01:33:21 PM) bencrisford: when I said if it is specific to your operating system:
(01:33:40 PM) bencrisford: I meant that if the game was say developed for linux, and the problem only existed in a particular distribution like ubuntu
(01:34:09 PM) bencrisford: sorry if I wasn't clear
(01:34:24 PM) bencrisford: Ah, if you are emulating, then you can get all sorts of problems L.
(01:34:26 PM) bencrisford: :/*
(01:34:35 PM) bencrisford: wine really isn't perfect
(01:34:41 PM) bencrisford: not all games will work
(01:34:58 PM) bencrisford: and alot can be buggy and not great
(01:35:04 PM) bencrisford: (under an emulator)
(01:37:18 PM) ClassBot: ExceptionIO asked: Have you heard of The Humble Indie Bundle aka Pay what you want ? http://www.wolfire.com/humble . What to you think of this method "Pay What You Want". You get 5 games at a lower cost and by this way you support either some charities/developers  ?
(01:37:30 PM) bencrisford: ExceptionIO: I haven't actually come across that website before
(01:37:39 PM) bencrisford: but it does look like a pretty neat idea
(01:38:52 PM) bencrisford: it still means its not free software, but its definately a step closer
(01:38:59 PM) bencrisford: and if the money is going to charity - great
(01:39:03 PM) bencrisford: but thats my personal view...
(01:39:52 PM) bencrisford: Anyway, time to move on, because its time for the Community section :D
(01:40:03 PM) bencrisford: [SLIDE 8]
(01:40:46 PM) bencrisford: OW (OpenWeek - sorry didn't make that clear earlier :S) is all about community and contributing to free software, so it wouldn't be right for me to leave it out of this session
(01:41:57 PM) bencrisford: there are teams inside Ubuntu and outside of ubuntu (Upstream) where you can contribute to linux gaming tools/marketing/etc and ultimately help the ubuntu distribution anyway
(01:43:17 PM) bencrisford: the most direct and obvious way to contribute to games in ubuntu, is simply packaging
(01:43:47 PM) bencrisford: you can develop new games, and fix bugs in games already in ubuntu
(01:44:20 PM) bencrisford: in the Ubuntu software centre (Ubuntu 10.04) there are - something like - 488 games available
(01:45:02 PM) bencrisford: there are obviously going to be bugs in these, and someone has to sort them out - you know how annoying it is when you encounter a bug - so why cannot the one who sorts them out be you?
(01:46:21 PM) bencrisford: launchpad is the bug tracker for ubuntu packages
(01:46:29 PM) bencrisford: so that could be a great place to start
(01:46:49 PM) bencrisford: to find the bugs in a specific package goto: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-chess
(01:46:59 PM) bencrisford: and replace gnome-chess with whatever other package you may want to look aty
(01:47:01 PM) bencrisford: at*
(01:47:43 PM) bencrisford: (you can use the skills taught by dholbach in the previous session :) https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/openweekLucid/Development1 (logs arent there *yet*)
(01:48:20 PM) bencrisford: If you aren't a technical use though, you can still help our great project, and the games that are included
(01:49:00 PM) bencrisford: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GamingTeam - Ubuntu Gaming Team (a branch of the ubuntu marketing team)
(01:49:08 PM) bencrisford: http://wiki.debian.org/Games       - Debian Games Team  (more focused on development/packaging so I understand)
(01:49:18 PM) bencrisford: http://playonlinux.com/en/         - PlayOnLinux        (click "I'd like to help Play On Linux" for information on contributing)
(01:49:24 PM) bencrisford: http://www.winehq.org/contributing - WineHQ             (information on contributing to the Wine project)
(01:50:01 PM) bencrisford: and for educational games -> edubuntu (ubuntu's educational derrivative) :)
(01:50:28 PM) bencrisford: you can get started with Edubuntu on #edubuntu (same network, if you are using lernid that is irc.ubuntu.com)
(01:50:42 PM) bencrisford: [SLIDE 9]
(01:50:58 PM) bencrisford: time for the final Q+A section of this session
(01:51:08 PM) bencrisford: looks like we might finish a little early...
(01:51:54 PM) ClassBot: Chopsticks asked: When I use POL, if there's a game I want to install, it usually asks for a cd-rom. Since I have a netbook, is there a way I can do that with a USB memory stick?
(01:52:48 PM) bencrisford: Chopsticks: when you use PlayOnLinux it wants the official CD, and I don't think you can purchase official USBs of games? (Im putting a question mark because I wouldn't put it past some of these game companies)
(01:53:12 PM) bencrisford: if you did have it on USB I assume it would have to be cracked, and that isn't what PoL is about
(01:53:30 PM) bencrisford: there might still be some way for PoL to support it
(01:53:44 PM) bencrisford: I would suggest asking maybe on the PoL forums :)
(01:53:47 PM) ***bencrisford finds link
(01:54:16 PM) bencrisford: http://www.playonlinux.com/en/forums.html
(01:54:40 PM) bencrisford: (18:54:17) komputes: bencrisford: what games do you play on linux? do you recommend certain games that do not have emulation glitches?
(01:55:08 PM) bencrisford: in playonlinux I mainly use steam
(01:55:30 PM) bencrisford: it installs allright and runs my favourite valve games OK most of the time.. :)
(01:55:48 PM) bencrisford: I don't suffer a noticable performance loss - but different hardware = different results :)
(01:56:38 PM) bencrisford: (18:55:04) Miroslav_RS: if you have another PC with CD/DVD-ROM you can make image of CD and mount it on ubuntu...
(01:57:00 PM) bencrisford: Chopsticks: ^ yes, that could work :), if you put the image on a USB
(01:57:26 PM) bencrisford: i'm not sure though, like I say, the PoL peeps would be better people to ask :)
(02:00:32 PM) bencrisford: Ok, my time is up!