The Linux Situation

The issue here is not whether Linux export is 'worth it', it's the fact that part of C2's advertized functionality is broken and in need of fixing.

The problem is, that Scirra can't really fix this. The node-webkit dude must do this.

Maybe Scirra could leverage their userbase a bit. "We have 1.5 million angry users. It would be a shame if they knew where you live." Go all Don Corleone on him

Yeah, I know, that is the annoying issue. Linux support is clearly stated on their site, so I'd be very surprised if it doesn't work for non-C2 applications - the issue is probably C2's features/implementation of NW. So, I fear that we'll go years with neither party really taking any responsibility for getting it fixed.

No, everyone else has the same problem with NW. It's not a C2 implementation issue.

*Edit: Don't worry, I'm not the kind of guy to let them off the hook easily. But this time it really isn't their fault.

Eisenhans oh OK, fair enough. I didn't look into it too much to be honest, just seems like a weird problem for them to have left standing for so long.

— it's a matter of perspective I guess. Technically, NW exports run "on linux". They work perfectly well on Redhat, Centos, Scientific Linux, basically where all the corporate users sit.

Using it for games, where people use Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Mandriva etc. probably isn't the main focus of NW in the first place, that's why they have gotten away with it so far. But their forums are quite full of angry rants, for that matter.

As to Scirra.. the main argument pro NW was probably the ease of use and good performance - on windows.

Without accusing anyone of anything, I'd go as far as saying the linux exports probably were not tested too extensively when deciding to go for NW as a wrapper.

Without accusing anyone of anything, I'd go as far as saying the linux exports probably were not tested too extensively when deciding to go for NW as a wrapper.

That's the feeling I'm getting as well, but it's understandable, especially as at the time they implemented the NW export option it looked like they didn't have that much time to thoroughly test it.

And as there were no major complains from the C2 community nothing was done regarding the NW Linux export.

Maybe now we can put the pressure on Ashley, as the creator of a game engine with a huge community, to put the pressure on the NW guys and to show them there is interest in the Linux export.

This is something node-webkit needs to fix, or possibly even the Chromium developers. There may be a workaround though, such as shipping the older library with the game itself...

I just got my game running using the linking libraries trick...though it's definitely a bit buggy on the penguin side. It's really a bummer that node-webkit is setup this way on linux. To be clear, the fault does lie with node, not with C2. Certainly not as bad as the mega-lag issue some users are experiencing on osx.

FYI: there is a post on node's github that list a few workarounds for this issue. Eisenhans linked to it in this post:

Ashley is there any way at all you can put pressure on NW, or even work on a C2 optimized branch? It's getting to the point where I can't in good conscience advertize that the game works on mac and linux.

An issue on chrome was recently set to "fixed" regarding " Remove runtime dependency on libudev.so.0", does that mean we'll be about to run games on Linux easier soon?

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issu ... ?id=415212

I wonder if this fix will get rolled into Chromium v41? If so, we could have much better compatibility on linux within a couple months.

Good to hear I guess. I have no idea about any of this stuff, does this mean we'll be able to reliably deploy on Linux?

I agree. It would be dangerous to ignore linux.