1

Topic: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Hello community,

there are a bunch of free, libre games available within the repositories of Hyperbola and also outside. This concurrent thread stands therefore to share your experiences with "games under GNU/Linux-libre" and I think we can include also some classics from the DOS-era and perhaps DRM-free games running under Wine. But please keep in mind: It is your system and yours alone but it would be better when running proprietary content just within your HOME-directory for your account, keeping the basic system free from those packages without a copyleft or permissive licensing.

So feel free with sharing your impressions, perhaps the last big buildout in Minetest for example? Or the fight within Warzone 2100 and Megaglest? Or did you have a nice network-session with friends using Hedgewars? Or some games running in DOSBox, ScummVM or under Wine?

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

2 (edited by throgh 2019-12-17 00:20:06)

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

See you, cynicfm. smile But perhaps I have a direct answer about your question regarding Amiga-emulator and emulators in general: Link

Some of them need a proprietary firmware to run. The reasoning behind the developers removed Vice from the repositories as the C64-emulator is semifree. Code is free, but for execution you'll need another bunch of firmware-blobs. And I think it is the same with Amiga-emulation, but therefore the question: What did you two use? Was it fs-uae from the AUR? Regarding this I'd recommend to build your own portable version for the emulator, if there is need for proprietary firmware-blobs. So you are in control in your HOME-directory when installing something new. But that's a good hint: Yes, of course you can also share console-classics if you execute some. But have in mind that you should own the cartridges. I'm using therefore the Retrode to archive my older cartdriges for the SNES, Sega Genesis or the Sega Master System (Link).

Regarding Wine: You can use your own so-called prefix. These are own packaged folders with everything needed for a further execution or you can use of course the default prefix called .wine. If you want I can give you more insights later on regarding the technique behind and how to use this for saving and really preserving your classics for reuse everytime you want. That's an absolute benefit with Wine, also have look for the prefix-concept here. Good night and have a good sleep! smile

EDIT: Ah and because of Minetest I've also to tell some stories. But better tomorrow to share some first pictures here.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

3

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Some impressions using Minetest 0.4.15!

https://framapic.org/9rgdzih41o9H/axCcFZa1ZA38.png
https://framapic.org/wXceRBpRJiAF/9JlVCorFGoMo.png
https://framapic.org/qYsRNgjUO7Iw/2TmCOBEQloHL.png
https://framapic.org/Y81s7zI7o9Zy/aTDWByDaC5V3.png

Yes, those buildings are done by myself as Minetest is about creativity with so many modifications and additions. smile

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

4

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Emperor - Battle for Dune using Wine!

https://framapic.org/rRJDZVlVnzFf/O5476wQuH29O.png

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

5

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Emulation an older GBA-title with mgba-qt.

https://framapic.org/d731dyd0JHAT/dL7qHFm0GiKW.png

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

6

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Just as an addition: About Emulators
It's a pity but really many emulators are non-free or just semifree. Therefore I have to look after alternatives and I think I have found with mednafen one good in the repositories for SNES, Master System and Genesis! cool

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

7 (edited by throgh 2019-12-18 02:34:02)

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

First things first: Yes, those pictures from Minetest are just my own, taken last evening. I can share the world-data with everything included, if somebody is interested - but therefore also a warning: Bunch of modifications added as my nephew started with this world along about four years ago with his first tryouts on GNU/Linux and he is playing until today, building also. I can also share newer creations more focussed about farming and integration for other modifications in Minetest 5.0. The world-data for version 0.4.15 is about 800 MB, with all modifications. smile
And there is much more regarding Wine, ScummVM and DOSBox for example.

Regarding the older titles: There are bunch of possibilities outside Steam or GOG. Perhaps the initial question: What game exactly? I would therefore trying a search using ebay - warning therefore: this has also a price and you should keep in mind that ebay is also collecting data. I think it is better to try searching for original disks instead of downloading the data. The problem besides legal issues: You never know if the data is corrupted or modified. Some websites offer you games from the DOS-era but cut out FMV-sequences, music or further sounds. And as those games rely on everything creating atmosphere it is not helpful having a silent "Monkey Island" for example.

Another idea would be searching in local stores near you - if there are some offering cartridges or boxed versions. Our times are changing and even within hard- and software this is clear to recognize. When using my X200 with Libreboot some people look at me as I have taken away one item from the museum and it is also about sweet bitterness: As I've said back in 2004 to friends that I have qualms regarding the upcoming trend for using more and more of Steam most of them laughed at me. Today it is even more bad than I've ever thought it could get as digital distributions are the defacto standard and people see the normal installation and setup of a title as senseless. And this is just the top as younger generations doesn't even know about older things coming up from the DOS-era, the needed things to know regarding computing in general. It's just some wording called "retro". hmm
In the end I have another problem with the thing called "copyright": The wording is clear as All rights reserved. is just nothing more than you as shorttime user - in these days fitting more than ever before. I'm in favorite for copyleft as the licensing is clear what is allowed and what exactly not. And sharing is also part of preserving as I have also the version of Minetest 0.4.15 up and running here. The reasoning behind proprietary, older titles are just the memories and the perservation of knowledge as some of those titles are artistic masterpieces.

What I will never understand is the fact that some users of Linux-distributions cheer up when something within the cosmos of Steam happens and they think the freedom was widened when Steam was available in 2013 for the Linux-platform. Nothing was widened since then. Just another bunch of proprietary waste was released and many titles with proprietary middleware flooded onto Linux, with false promises.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

8

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Pictures from Super Mario World 2: Yoshis Island using mednafen.

https://framapic.org/HnofFpstggcR/NkvqYAoG8ghb.png
https://framapic.org/GWcUGgzlZfTs/y9mMJsNrWZEO.png

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

9

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

cynicfm wrote:

Well last game i played on hyperbola is the Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor GOG version, but i downloaded it from torrents... Not sure if i should state that publicly yikes. I don't want to be a pirate but this game as well as heroes of mignt and magic III is something i can't buy in a shop, and not really keen on buying digital versions from corporate steam or gog, if i can have the same from torrents... Why would i want to give my money to billionaire corporations... Is it really wrong to download one game or two from torrents instead....

this mario looks so cool... Do you have to download games for mednaffe from some website??

First thing: There is no such thing called "piracy". Looking here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to … tml#Piracy
But it is better looking out for official versions. It is your thing alone using torrent for download content, but to remember: That is not recommended and got legal issues on many countries if content is "protected". You can search for old games using the Internet Archive for example: https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

And it's not about the support for billionaire corporation. If you don't want to support GOG or Steam, this is no problem. Looking out for old software and especially games can be done on many ways these days. I can only list you some examples: Like shops for example.

For mednafen you have to use a ROM-file of the original game. Mine was done by myself throughout reading the cartridge with Retrode.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

10

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Look here: https://archive.org/search.php?query=mi … ic&and[]=mediatype%3A%22software%22

Well, the sad fact is that i have read somewhere on internet once, that company cdprojekt that is behind gog.com made it's first chunk of cash by unauthorized copying of games in 90s...

Do you have some more information about that? I mean: I liked GOG in the past but their poor communication, the arrogance of the community itself and many points more had driven me back as their also false arguments about being DRM-free - surprise: they are not. It's all about marketing again and more of the same known false paradigm.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

11 (edited by throgh 2019-12-20 00:55:31)

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

You can post images of games you get ready running under GNU/Linux-libre - bah, that sounds just too bad as I have no right to decide here anything or neither permit nor forbid it. It's just the problem about as on the website of the GNU-project written. Besides that: There are many other games being really free. Perhaps you have fun with Battle for Wesnoth? It's a bit comparable to Heroes of Might and Magic. wink

Thanks for the information regarding CD-Projekt itself. I was not aware about that or better to be said: I only had in mind that CD-Projekt started with "publishing" back in the early days until they've got the license for "The Witcher". Never got that deep into this game until today: Have the original box here in the cupboard, but didn't had the time until today. Just managed to install the game once for seeing it running onto a free notebook with Coreboot and Hyperbola installed.

Here from the repositories of Hyperbola: https://www.hyperbola.info/packages/com … 4/wesnoth/

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

12

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

cynicfm wrote:

Yeah i have played wesnoth before ;P
it relies on dbus though

https://www.hyperbola.info/todo/dbus-mitigation/

Yeah, but it is time for rebuilding those packages enforcing bloatware. wink

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

13

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Managing the usage of makepkg is not that complicated at all. Yes, the first entry can be full with risks, but in the end it is very interesting getting a deeper look into free software.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

14 (edited by throgh 2019-12-21 23:21:36)

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Could you give more insights about the new user you've created? Try the following:

groups <USERNAME>

And you should include following groups at minimum for the user you've created:

sys
video
audio
optical
storage
users

You can reach this with the execution of the following command (sudo is needed therefore):

sudo usermod -aG <GROUPNAME> <USERNAME>

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

15

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Try adding the user fifi to the groups listed above / below (command above in the posting):

sys
video
audio
optical
storage
users

You should create a user with the following command:

sudo useradd -g users -m -s /bin/bash fifi

The basic group for users is the one with the same name. Afterwards you can go more extended with the memberships of needed groups. Perhaps a look for my groups:

[tobias@notebook-ThinkPadX200 ~]$ groups
sys wheel network video audio optical storage input users
Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

16 (edited by throgh 2019-12-26 19:09:32)

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

One moment in Minetest, build from my nephew and myself on our little dedicated server:

https://framapic.org/2guErWxbMFVb/Dftu59lZMn72.png

Underwater expeditions:

https://framapic.org/XN7PMY3O28M4/2whwVN3yAXQj.png

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

17

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

If you want I can give you more insights into Minetest later on, because most is done via additionals modifications. But as you see: There is literally no further border and you can make nice buildings, even fight on with additional game-content and visit "Middleearth". smile

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

18 (edited by throgh 2019-12-30 02:12:20)

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Are you sure about the folder /usr/bin/local? I've looked into the created package for physfs at Arch Linux: https://www.archlinux.org/packages/comm … sfs/files/

There are no further binaries for installation as it is a library. Or is there another dependency? Well, I'm looking into it.

EDIT: The PKGBUILD needs the package ghc-libs. Did you created this also?

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

19

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Ah, thanks for the insights. smile
Do you use PKGBUILD to create packages for further installation? From your notes I've only seen you're using make install. This is so far okay, but you could get afterwards problems with further dependencies when installing new packages and applications looking in different folders - okay, this is obvious regarding the reported error.

What I had done:

- Downloaded the PKGBUILD from Arch here, best into a seperated folder.
- Navigating with console to this created folder and executed makepkg.

Afterwards I had the package ready for further installation, done with sudo pacman -U [PACKAGE]! smile

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

20

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

No problem, but you've got also an alternative: Building a so-called "portable" version for being executed just in-place. You could create therefore a seperated folder named for example "hedgewars" into your HOME-folder. Next time you install a newer version you could take this with you just by installing the needed packages. smile

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

21

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Spawnpoint rework:

https://framapic.org/WKPkLoKzWp1J/SZb0WINGy9J5.png

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

22 (edited by throgh 2020-01-03 21:40:36)

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Some impressions from the proprietary but DRM-free game Eagle Island running under Hyperbola.

https://framapic.org/qtPbTvQY5rSC/EMAUtDnDyU5g.png
https://framapic.org/a4H9w5n1HSut/paclY1DBXIhC.png
https://framapic.org/Jw05zPxBf64E/1Te8x4z3ROkd.png

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

23

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Housing in Minetest:

https://framapic.org/zmAVDrPYvJdZ/8d9zWugCP9Hd.png

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!

24

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

If I may, my $0.02 CAD is as follows:

I know a guy, who has no qualms with anyone procuring non-free and/or proprietary software because, as he says, 'They (the developers) didn't make it for my OS (GNU), so they're not losing any money since I wouldn't have bought it in the first place.'.

25 (edited by throgh 2020-01-18 12:40:10)

Re: Games under GNU/Linux-libre

Thanks: That's also a perspective, but I think buying a package is something I can give back. Meaning also not the present situation and more the past. I'd like to buy the boxed versions for the early consoles for examples. And I look back onto beautiful boxes for System Shock 1 + 2 or Ultima 9 for example. Those are even examples for the ideas and artstyle back the days. Therefore I'm willing to give money and of course for running those classics, with ports and free, libre software itself.

Yes this is not completely free and libre for sure. But it is possible to send those games back into a "sandbox" where they can run. So when I talk about gaming most the time I think of exactly this and the fun running those classics, trying to get them working exactly the way they were meant once released. And of course there are also some interesting indie-titles, but most of the games released now are nothing more than really expensive productions. Good graphics, but is there more behind? Some, but most the time just "more graphics". Some games are to mentioned where the developers did some brave decisions for gameplay and design: Starbound for example and I'd love this game being "free and libre", but it isn't. The entertainment-software is just a good approval why "free culture" is not compatible with capitalism in general because there is this ever growing picture of "more": Money, people involved, more of everything without reflections and the "people" just accept this all without questioning and buy more "hardware" as new games need more "power" (CPU, RAM, graphicscard). Breaking through with this is on possibility and just not ignoring to give something back, speaking about "money" as one but support and favor for free and libre games itself as Minetest for example is one big thing with such wonderful possibilities and there are more of them. wink

And last but not least: Meaning also to preserve the older titles with toolsets like ScummVM, Wine and DOSBox! I'd love to have all those classics ready for selection without paying anything from sources like archive.org, selectable as wineprefix with all needed, just as an example. But I doubt this will ever happen and sooner or later movies, series, books and yes, also software, will just be one thing: Services to be payed! So the amount of money one could pay decides of accessing different levels being such important for learning - of course not referring to "all games and software in general" - but at last and there we have the case fixed as capitalism always leaves a really big toxic waste and we have not even talked about hatred, greed and so much more coming up with it. The question to the anonymous reader(s) here: Did you ever recognized Netflix and Co. being some big problem? Think again about it when really everything is just behind a "paywall" and some other comparable mechanisms. But that's the thing with idealism and perhaps one day it could be possible to overcome the concurrent situation, because that's what called "modern gaming" is nothing about "playing a game" more about just making money.

Human being in favor with clear principles and so also for freedom in soft- and hardware!

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices: For a life of every being full with peace and kindness, including diversity and freedom. Capitalism is destroying our minds, the planet itself and the universe in the end!