Need help porting very small open source game to linux

[engel_sanchez]

Hello there. I have a small ogre based open source project hosted on SourceForge (http://hunter.sf.net). I know it's a longshot, but I would like to know if another open source enthusiast can help me port it to linux. Again, it's open source, there is no compensation, sorry. I am myself unemployed (voluntarily, to learn about game programming, which should give you a hint about my level of sanity) with absolutely no income right now. The project is very small and there are no system specific function calls in it. My couple of HLSL shaders are really CG shaders, so they just need some setup to be used as both. Mostly it should be a matter of setting up compilation, makefiles and such. I have a couple of patches for PagedGeometry and one for Ogre (I may not need it, but my forum post asking about the problem I found got zero replies here: http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=49874). I would like to do it myself, but I don't have a game capable Linux system right now and setting up and maintaining one is a full-time job. I really can not handle it right now given my current situation. Yes, I know some of you will quickly say what a piece of cake it is and what a wimp I am, thank you .

If nobody is willing to help, which is understandable, any pointers or advice about how I could do it myself without having to install linux in my only dev machine would be really appreciated!

[jacmoe]

While I do hope you find one to help you out, you could give VirtualBox a go.

[engel_sanchez]

Thanks Jacmoe! I downloaded and I'm browsing the docs. Have you used this yourself before to run an ogre app within a Linux VM on a windows host?

Besides the technical aspect of running linux, there are other tips and tricks that people who write native linux applications know by heart. For example, is it viable to try to create binary installations with static executables for an ogre game or is it something only a giant team of people should do? Also if people have shipped linux games with a patched ogre or ogre addon, do they include all code with their project? Any advice on good and tried approaches would be very much appreciated.

So yes, I will give VirtualBox a try, but the devil in this software business is in the details and experience

[whig]

A linux binary distribution an Ogre app is possible, I managed it a while ago for an old version of Ogre. See here. Pick it apart to see the techniques.

[engel_sanchez]

Thank you very much whig! I'm dissecting the solar visitor right now.

[cdleonard]

For example, is it viable to try to create binary installations with static executables for an ogre game or is it something only a giant team of people should do?

It's possible; but difficult and not particularly useful. A lot of projects (I'd say most) either rely on distributions to do it or don't bother and tell people to just build the source. Again; most users also rely on distributions or build the source.

Also if people have shipped linux games with a patched ogre or ogre addon, do they include all code with their project? Any advice on good and tried approaches would be very much appreciated.

You probably want to read about vendor branches. The subversion book is amazing; documentation doesn't get a lot better than this.

[engel_sanchez]

Thank you for the pointer cdleonard! I just read it now. I need to figure out how to configure my profile so I get notified of new replies.

[dedesite]

Hi engel_sanchez,

I have no time to write a long post right now, but I am also porting my game on linux so I could give you a couple of advices.

* If you don't want to fully install linux on your machine but want 3D performance (which you can't get with am VM), you can install Ubuntu on your Windows Partition. It is easy as a program to Install/Remove.

*Use CMake, it's a very powerfull tool that allow you to generate Makefiles, Visual Studio, CodeBlocks, KDevelop projects etc. This way you only have to configure one time your build for all your platform (Windows, Mac, Linux). It easy to use and there are already people who use it with ogre so you can find some CMake files here on this forum (no time to search).

* If you provide and easy way to compile and deploy your program under linux, there is no need to build binaries beacause people would do that for each distribution. If nobdoy wants to create package for your game, focus on creating a .deb package compatible with Ubuntu. 1/3 of linux users use Ubuntu .

Good luck,
Andreas