I want a native Linux client

[Solado]

I agree with OP. I hate windows with all it's viruses and errors, would be nice for a linux client I hate going into windows just to play a game.

You only get viruses if you are computer illiterate.
You only get errors if you have no idea how to maintain a computer and don't use common sense.

In response to the native Linux client, I cant see it being viable for the developers to put the time and effort into it. Reworking a client from the ground up takes a lot of man hours and money, Rift isn't exactly big enough to put the time and effort into that project on top of having to add extra support to an operating system that has only JUST this year really started to flourish in the gaming market.

While you claim the linux community isn't small, I agree it does have a following but no where near the numbers of windows users. The return on a Linux client to me wouldn't cover the development costs and time put into the project making it a non-feasible investment.

As such. Not viable investment of time and money. Maybe when Linux driver issues get sorted and it has more of a following it might be worth it. But at this moment in time it's a bad call to make a client.

[Bonzodog]

I actually think the development of a linux client would not only be feasible, but quite easy -- One advantage of using wine is that it gives you feedback and debugging info from the API's, and it appears that Rift is already OpenGL friendly.

So, in actual practice, to build a linux client requires just some code alterations to the libraries referenced and possibly developing some kind of installer. A self contained binary build that can be executed locally in the home directory is the easiest way of creating an "all-distro" installer.

Most linux devs simply use Ubuntu LTS as a reference point to create a workable build, as other distros can work outwards from there, and adapt their libraries. Thats the advantage of the LTS release -- its an uber-stable release guaranteed to be easily workable as a build base for most major software.

[Caitie]

Linux is no more less secure than any other computer. For one, virtually no one writes viruses for them, same goes for macs. If we look at that Mac virus a while ago we see that Mac is no less secure than Windows and that was just one virus. Windows has built in security measures to question you if there's a suspicious program but what good is that if people click yes. If everyone is running Linux do you think those same people wouldn't enter the root password when asked. You bet they would. It's the users fault 99.9% of the time.

I actually think the development of a linux client would not only be feasible, but quite easy -- One advantage of using wine is that it gives you feedback and debugging info from the API's, and it appears that Rift is already OpenGL friendly.

So, in actual practice, to build a linux client requires just some code alterations to the libraries referenced and possibly developing some kind of installer. A self contained binary build that can be executed locally in the home directory is the easiest way of creating an "all-distro" installer.

Most linux devs simply use Ubuntu LTS as a reference point to create a workable build, as other distros can work outwards from there, and adapt their libraries. Thats the advantage of the LTS release -- its an uber-stable release guaranteed to be easily workable as a build base for most major software.

That's not a Linux version, that's a 'hacked' windows version. Wine just tricks the program by pretending that it's Windows by using libraries that have identical links. The stuff after that is not remotely compatible with Windows and that's when problems occur. As far as I'm aware Rift has no Open GL support. It's pretends it's Direct X 9c. They have enough problems getting a Windows version to work with out problems.

It's the same reason we don't have Mac version - there is not enough people that would play Rift on these platforms to invest money in this. They struggle as it is with the small development team they have.

[Techie Will]

Linux is no more less secure than any other computer. For one, virtually no one writes viruses for them, same goes for macs. If we look at that Mac virus a while ago we see that Mac is no less secure than Windows and that was just one virus. Windows has built in security measures to question you if there's a suspicious program but what good is that if people click yes. If everyone is running Linux do you think those same people wouldn't enter the root password when asked. You bet they would. It's the users fault 99.9% of the time.



That's not a Linux version, that's a 'hacked' windows version. Wine just tricks the program by pretending that it's Windows by using libraries that have identical links. The stuff after that is not remotely compatible with Windows and that's when problems occur. As far as I'm aware Rift has no Open GL support. It's pretends it's Direct X 9c. They have enough problems getting a Windows version to work with out problems.

It's the same reason we don't have Mac version - there is not enough people that would play Rift on these platforms to invest money in this. They struggle as it is with the small development team they have.

One thing Trion has done in the past though is be very... "fair" with WINE though. They broke compatibility during a patch and even put it in the hotfix notes about a week later.

[Gruntled]

But if you want to really game, you need Windows to run games smoothly the first time everything. I haven't met anyone yet that uses Linux and had a game up and running in 5 mins. It normally took hours of tweaking this or that and downloading another one of "this thing" to make "that thing" work properly.
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isn't that part (most) of the reason linux users use linux? all the tweaking and customisation and geeky nerdy goodness

oh and the cube desktop OMG love that thing