What's up with Mac and Linux?

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by neutrino, June 7, 2013.

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  1. neutrino

    neutrino low mass particle Uber Employee

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    The mac and linux builds both function and compile. Both of them still need some work in terms of making sure basic stuff works correctly. Most of the specific work is just making it play nice with OS specific features we need to support.

    The plan is to roll them out as soon as we can during the alpha. Mac is slightly easier and will probably come online first. I don't have an exact ETA right now because it depends on how the next few days of the windows alpha rollout goes.

    We are still absolutely dedicated to mac and linux and they will both show up during the alpha.
  2. Error323

    Error323 New Member

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    Sweet, was scanning the forums to find this post. Can't wait to play this game on my linux system! Already got the alpha key ;)
  3. sportpeppers

    sportpeppers New Member

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    Excellent! I just signed up to the whole uber thingy now after funding the kickstarter for $150!! Only pledged because of linux support. :)

    Can't wait to get my alpha key!
  4. eeyrjmr

    eeyrjmr Member

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    good to know,
    have you considered pushing out what you have? The thing about linux users is we are generally a bunch of tweakers who know their system better then a windows users knows theirs.

    lots of crashlogs, console dump's etc (even if it doesn't full launch) are very useful.

    I mean that is the point of an alpha... People here are saying they paid for alpha access (which is a very wrong point of view to take...). Uber reached out so they didn't have to have funding (and dictatorship) from a distributor... one of the "perks" was early access.
    if EA find out they people would pay for Alpha access just think about it...



    Its odd that you are finding OSX easier than linux... I have provided techsupport, bugtracking, coding for S2 and HoN since closed-beta and I know their main *NIX guy really well (he is also a gentoo user) and he says the inconsistancy of osx is a pain.
    HoN at one point was ogl2... but during closed-beta it was shown that certain versions of osx on certain hardware were misreporting their ogl capability and it couldn't acually do what the drivers stated it could...

    HoN got downgraded to ogl1.4 to ensure compatibility...
    Last edited: June 7, 2013
  5. GoodOak

    GoodOak Active Member

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    Thanks for the update! I'm a linux user, so key or no key, I'm awaiting the linux build.
  6. arm2thecore

    arm2thecore Active Member

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    Thanks, Jon!

    Looking forward to providing testing.
  7. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    Probably that's because Uber can't release Linux version on Steam at moment.
    viewtopic.php?p=727146#p727146
    So they want spend more work on Mac builds for Steam before 13th.

    Agree, Mac's graphics drivers lack of functionality. OS X still only have OpenGL 3.2 even on best configurations with Nvidia cards. And Intel HD driver performance is actually worse than on Linux. :(

    I totally sure most of Linux users got decent and much more powerful hardware. ;)
  8. neilmcg

    neilmcg New Member

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    Mac backer here - got my alpha key in hand and can't wait to try it out whenever the build appears. Keep up the good work!
  9. redstar427

    redstar427 Member

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    I also became a backer because of Linux Alpha support.
    I do have 2 computers, but my windows computer is 5 years old and my Linux computer is 2 years old and more powerful. :)

    I will be happy to start in Windows at first, but think I can be helpful with Linux.
  10. liamdawe

    liamdawe Active Member

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    Thank you for the update, I only purchased for Linux BTW
  11. eeyrjmr

    eeyrjmr Member

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    Well steam not being 64bit doesn't mean it can't launch 64bit processes.
    Seems reasonable That packaging for Linux could be a bit daunting.

    Hon uses the mojo installer so it might be worth considering.
    Since this will have its own ipdatinder doing a deb targeted at Ubuntu might be counter intuitive and face permission issues
  12. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    Uber said that Steam version will be strictly steam-only (you can't connect to UberNet bypassing Steam), so they need Steamwork SDK been linked with game executable. There is no Steamworks SDK for x86_64 at moment. It what's garat talk about.

    I don't think there will be any package at all, I bet it will be tgz. ;)
  13. eeyrjmr

    eeyrjmr Member

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    Ahh yer... that would do it... if it is tying in via STEAM then yes it would need to be 64bit (that or some messy worker process to talk via sockets... not work the issue).

    and yes a tgz would be hte most probable - ill probably wrap a mojo around it. S2 just use mojo since they have provided linux support for like 10years and have got quite a good support for it internally


    I still say they throw together something and throw it at the linux users who know how to debug stuff, use those who have alpha access for what alpha is meant for
  14. plague11

    plague11 Member

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    thats good to hear that both are able to run the alpha i can't wait for that game key to come in the mail. :D
  15. gnatinator

    gnatinator New Member

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    LINUX SUPPORT NEEDED. GoGoGO!!!!
  16. trialq

    trialq Post Master General

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    tgz sounds fine, if I can't work it out someone else can. Sounds like linux alpha could be as little as a week away, better hit the buy button on a graphics card sharpish :D
  17. liamdawe

    liamdawe Active Member

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    Until Steam issues are worked out they can just release the pa client directly for Linux users as they are doing now for Windows, no need to push the Linux release back because it will have problems with Steam.
  18. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    Be patient, there is tons of issues and very few developers. I don't think that I need bugged Linux client, so better if Uber release client when it's stable enough.

    It's will be much harder to track bugs if all 3 versions released together.

    E.g I got key and access to alpha forum, but launcher (i use dual boot) says that I have no access to PA. :lol:
  19. trialq

    trialq Post Master General

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    How? All you have to do is add mac or linux in the bug report, oh crap 5 whole letters the world is going to end :eek:
  20. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    Be realistic and check how "PA Alpha Discussion" looks like. There is 200-300 threads for last 24 hours and most of them about bugs of different kind. Some of bugs in drivers, some in game and some in people who try to run game on 10-years old hardware. Most of people doesn't have experience with bug reporting, so it's take time to understand what's going wrong.

    So there is actually 10 developers to manage problems of 5000 players.

    When Uber release new build of server/client they need to test it before deploying it. For you it's 5 letters, for them 3x time for making new build. Because developers need to be sure that servers and client are compatible with each other on all platforms.
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