Plz port DirectX to Linux

[Kageru]

I love linux, use it at home and at work, but the request doesn't make much sense.

- It's a massive amount of work.

- DirectX is owned by Microsoft and hardly a standard. If you could re-engineer it, without running
into a patent, there's still nothing to stop MS changing it and breaking your version at will. They have
a distinct interest in windows games being windows only.

- Most linux users just don't care too much, for most of them it's a quick reboot into windows and
they can play games at full speed with no issues other than those windows brings. This is a large part
of the reason why the movement to bring games to linux failed.

- The other part is that you can barely get retail shops to stock PC games under the onslaught of
consoles. Expecting them to stock linux games is optimistic. Maybe this one will fade if online distribution
takes of, but that's not the case yet.

[bhodi]

Which block?  I'm not a windows guy by any means -- much more embedded systems and suchlike.  I'm also not out there waving the "the future is linux on the desktop" flag, because that's kinda silly.

I was talking about your emulation work, as there are pretty large parallels between emulation and cross-platform APIs. :)

[Krakrok]

Sorry, I'm busy trying to port notepad to Linux.

I did that once. It's pretty bad when an OS doesn't even come with a decent text editor.

[Samwise]

I wouldn't say that so loudly.  vi users can be vicious if provoked.

[stray]

I'm a pico guy myself. Not any more arcane than notepad really.

[Stephen Zepp]

I'm a pico guy myself. Not any more arcane than notepad really.

Used pico for a long time myself until I found Joe!

[Lum]

Bah, nano is better.

(And Cedega has issues with running most games. Also, the video driver situation on Linux is somewhat borked.)

[raydeen]

The only way I see the game tide turning from DirectX to something else is for Linux (or OS X) to get some huge killer app that is only available on that platform. Something along the lines of a WoW or Half Life. In theory, that could happen if enough of the talent out there got togethor, but it's very wishful thinking.

On a side note, and this may have been before DirectX really took off, weren't quite a few of the major games/engines developed in Linux/Unix first and then ported to Win and Mac? I'm thinking some of the early id games in particular. Or is it just that the major portions of the underlying code were developed on *nix workstatinos in C/C++? I seem to recall reading that or seeing that somewhere many moons ago.

Just keep praying to the WINE gods. They'll get us there eventually.

[stray]

Doom 1 and 2 were originally developed on NeXTStep ([edit] And Quake as well). It was Objective C, not C/C++. They didn't come on to Linux until much, much later though.

One reason why Apple even got Carmack back to supporting them again was because he loved the NeXT tools so much. Didn't really pan out though, I guess.

[fuser]

On a side note, and this may have been before DirectX really took off, weren't quite a few of the major games/engines developed in Linux/Unix first and then ported to Win and Mac? I'm thinking some of the early id games in particular. Or is it just that the major portions of the underlying code were developed on *nix workstatinos in C/C++? I seem to recall reading that or seeing that somewhere many moons ago.

If you want a great read about this exact topic pick up a copy of Masters of Doom. John Carmack used a NeXT cube to build Wolf 3d.

A thing about John Carmack is his support for OpenGL which most of the games id makes are based upon, also why you see the cross platform support very quickly (Note: I mean in regards to engines after and including Tech 2). But I really wonder how long it will continue due to the license revenue generated for id by Linux(etc) gaming.

What's really interesting how Microsoft can deliver an amazingly good API/toolkit for developers to build upon. The OpenGL alternative leaves you still lacking in how to handle game controller/audio/network stacks across different OS's. Maybe I'm pessimistic but the time for open standards has come and passed as it seems the market has accepted DirectX as a standard. Will Microsoft aid in porting it? No reason for them too but we have seen progress in the development of a cross platform .NET.

[Yegolev]

My notepad.exe joke certainly took a bad turn.

I'd like to know how notepad is arcane, though.  Is it so arcane that I just can't find the real editor commands?

[stray]

Ah, I meant pico wasn't arcane, like notepad isn't arcane.

Vi is arcane. Emacs is arcane.

[Yegolev]

Derr, OK.  I got it now.  I like Vim.  It is far more arcane than vi.

[bhodi]

Bah, nano is better.

When I think of pico or nano, somehow "Baby's first text editor" comes to mind.

[stray]

I used to use pine on a bsd/os shell account. That's where I started using pico as well.

That I even remember shell accounts or bsd/os, or even used email in the command line days should prove that I'm not really a baby. 

But it's not that I can't use vi. I just don't want to. Llike thousands of other things in the unix world, it was originally intended as a joke.

[Yegolev]

I can't see how a baby could be expected to remember f = right, b = left, p = up, and n = down.

[Ookii]

I can't see how a baby could be expected to remember f = right, b = left, p = up, and n = down.

You can uses the arrow keys now!

What got me was 'G' (has to be upper case) takes you to the end of the document.

[Yegolev]

My quote was for pico keys.  Both vi and Vim use the more-useful-if-you-think-about-it h,j,k,l for movement.  Seems like f,n,p,b are for people who have to hunt for a key anyway.  Arrow keys are nice, but they are so far away.  I R LAZY.

G is not as bad as CTRL-L (not CTRL-l), in my opinion, but you won't use that nearly as often on modern terminals.  Vim has allowed gg to do what 1G does, which is awesome... until I have to use vi.

[Murgos]

b and w are far more useful in vim IMO.  v, CTRL+v and I, d, y and p are all winners too.  I mapped split screen and move cursor to other split to F2 and F4 though so I don't remember what they actually are otherwise I would point out those commands as well.

[Yegolev]

Oh, I don't actually use h,j,k,l very much.  I'm all about b,e,B,E,0,$, and sometimes w if I remember it.  Just saying those basic movement keys make more sense to me.

The window-switch keys are CTRL-W-movement_key, and you remind me that I should remap that... I just don't do splitscreen very much even though it is completely awesome.

[Ookii]

My quote was for pico keys. 

What is this, pico is so freaking easy I feel dirty using it.

[Yegolev]

You certainly don't have a lot of things to remember, so I agree there.  Have fun holding down f a lot.  I'm sure it's totally awesome but it's not something I want to do.  I also don't want to have a text-editor slapfight, so I'll just drop it.  Everybody use whatever they like.

[Signe]

[schild]

Someone do OS/2!

[Yegolev]

[stray]

The second guy is actually the other 3 in disguise.