Linux-based operating systems can be used for playing video games. Because few games natively support the Linux kernel, various software has been made to run Windows games, software, and programs, such as Wine, Cedega, DXVK, and Proton, and managers such as Lutris and PlayOnLinux. The Linux gaming community has a presence on the internet with users who attempt to run games that are not officially supported on Linux.
Doom was one of the first major commercial games to be released for Linux.
The beginning of Linux as a gaming platform for commercial video games is widely credited to have begun in 1994 when Dave D. Taylor ported the game Doom to Linux, as well as many other systems, during his spare time.[22][23]Shareware copies of the game were included on various Linux discs,[24] including those packed in with reference books.[25][26][27] From there Taylor would also help found the development studio Crack dot Com, which released the video game Abuse,[28] with the game's Linux port even being distributed by Linux vendors Red Hat[29] and Caldera.[30] The studio's never finished Golgotha was also slated to be released by Red Hat in box.[31]Ancient Domains of Mystery was also released for Linux in 1994 by Thomas Biskup, building on the roguelike legacy of games such as Moria and its descendent Angband, but more specifically Hack and NetHack.
id Software, the original developers of Doom, also continued to release their products for Linux. Their game Quake was ported to Linux via X11 in 1996, once again by Dave D. Taylor working in his free time.[32][33] An SVGALib version was also later produced by Greg Alexander in 1997 using recently leaked source code, but was later mainlined by id.[34] Later id products continued to be ported by Zoid Kirsch[35] and Timothee Besset,[36] a practice that continued until the studio's acquisition by ZeniMax Media in 2009.[37] The ports of Quake and Quake II were released physically by Macmillan Computer Publishing USA,[38] while Quake III was released for Linux by Loki Software.[39] Red Hat had previously passed on publishing Quake for Linux, since it was not open-source at the time.[40]
In 1991 DUX Software contracted Don Hopkins to port SimCity to Unix,[41] which he later ported to Linux and eventually released as open source for the OLPC XO Laptop.[42] Other early commercial Linux games included Hopkins FBI, an adventure game released in 1998 by MP Entertainment,[43] and Inner Worlds in 1996, which was released for and developed on Linux.[44] In 1998, two programmers from Origin ported Ultima Online to Linux.[45]The UNIX Book of Games, a 1996 publication by Janice Winsor, described various games with an accompanying CD-ROM containing executables and source code for Linux and SCO Unix.[46]
A website called The Linux Game Tome, also known as HappyPenguin after its URL, was begun by Tessa Lau in 1995 to catalogue games created for or ported to Linux from the SunSITE game directories as well as other classic X11 games for a collection of just over 100 titles.[47] It was taken over by Bob Zimbinski in 1998 eventually growing to over 2000 entries, sponsored by retailer Penguin Computing and later LGP until it went down in 2013, although mirrors still exist.[48][49]
1998–2002
The Simple DirectMedia Layer provided platform independent abstraction.
The site LinuxGames covered news and commentary from November 1998 until its host Atomicgamer went down in 2015.[50][51] It was established by Marvin Malkowski, head of the Telefragged gaming network, alongside Al Koskelin and Dustin Reyes;[52] Reyes passed away August 8, 2023.[53]
On November 9, 1998, a new software firm called Loki Software was founded by Scott Draeker, a former lawyer who became interested in porting games to Linux after being introduced to the system through his work as a software licensing attorney.[54] Loki, although a commercial failure, is credited with the birth of the modern Linux game industry.[55] Loki developed several free software tools, such as the Loki installer (also known as Loki Setup),[56] and supported the development of the Simple DirectMedia Layer,[57] as well as starting the OpenAL audio library project.[58][59] These are still often credited as being the cornerstones of Linux game development.[60] They were also responsible for bringing nineteen high-profile games to the platform before its closure in 2002.
After Loki's closure, the Linux game market experienced some changes.[104] Although some new firms, such as Linux Game Publishing and RuneSoft, would largely continue the role of a standard porting house,[105] the focus began to change with Linux game proponents encouraging game developers to port their game products themselves or through individual contractors.[106] Influential to this was Ryan C. Gordon, a former Loki employee who would over the next decade port several game titles to multiple platforms, including Linux.[107]
Around this time many companies, starting with id Software, also began to release legacy source code leading to a proliferation of source ports of older games to Linux and other systems.[108] This also helped expand the already existing free and open-source gaming scene, especially with regards to the creation of free first person shooters.[109] In addition, numerous game engine recreations have been produced to varying levels of accuracy using reverse engineering or underlying engine code supporting the original game files including on Linux and other niche systems.[110][111]
The company TransGaming marketed as a monthly subscription its own proprietary fork of Wine called WineX in October 2001, later renamed Cedega in 2004 and discontinued in 2011, which aimed for greater compatibility with Microsoft Windows games. CodeWeavers also offered an enhanced version of Wine called CrossOver Games.[112][113] The reliance on such compatibility layers remains controversial with concerns that it hinders growth in native development,[114][115] although this approach was defended based on Loki's demise.[116][117]PlayOnLinux, established in 2007, provides a community alternative,[118] with various guides being written on how to get games to run through Wine.[119] A special Gaming Edition of Mandrake Linux 8.1 was released that featured WineX packed in with The Sims.[120] The fact that the fork of Wine did not release source back to the main project was also a point of contention, despite promises to release code after achieving a set number of subscribers.[121][122]
The Linux gaming market also started to experience some growth towards the end of the decade with the rise of independent video game development,[124] with many "indie" developers favouring support for multiple platforms.[125] The Humble Indie Bundle initiatives inaugurated in 2010 helped to formally demonstrate this trend,[126] with Linux users representing a sizable population of their purchase base, as well as consistently being the most financially generous in terms of actual money spent.[127][128] The Humble Indie Bundle V in 2012 faced controversy for featuring a Wine-based release of Limbo prepared by CodeWeavers,[129] while a native version was later released in 2014.[130] Humble eventually began offering Windows-only games in their bundles and on their store.[131][132]
In 2009, the small indie game company Entourev LLC published Voltley to Linux which is the first commercial exclusive game for this operating system.[133][134] In the same year, LGP released Shadowgrounds which was the first commercial game for Linux using the Nvidia PhysX middleware.[135] The GamingOnLinux website was launched on July 4, 2009, and eventually succeeded LinuxGames as the main source of news and commentary.[136]
The release of a Linux version of Desura in 2011,[137] a digital distribution platform with a primary focus on small independent developers, was heralded by several commentators as an important step to greater acknowledgement of Linux as a gaming platform.[124][138][139] Shortly before this, Canonical launched the Ubuntu Software Center which also sold digital games.[140] The digital store Gameolith also launched in 2011 focused principally on Linux before expanding in 2012 and closing in 2014.[141][142]
2012–2016
Lutris, an open source launcher for various distribution platforms
In July 2012, game developer and content distributor Valve announced a port of their Source engine for Linux as well as stating their intention to release their Steam digital distribution service for Linux.[143][144][145] The potential availability of a Linux Steam client had already attracted other developers to consider porting their titles to Linux,[139][146][147][148] including previously Mac OS only porting houses such as Aspyr Media and Feral Interactive.[149]
In November 2012, Unity Technologies ported their Unity engine and game creation system to Linux starting with version 4. All of the games created with the Unity engine can now be ported to Linux easily.[150]
In September 2013 Valve announced that they were releasing a gaming oriented Linux based operating system called SteamOS with Valve saying they had "come to the conclusion that the environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself."[139][151] This was used for their Steam Machine platform released on November 10, 2015, and discontinued in 2018.[152]
In March 2014 GOG.com announced they would begin to support Linux titles on their DRM free store starting the same year, after previously stating they would not be able due to too many distributions.[153] GOG.com began their initial roll out on July 24, 2014, by offering 50 Linux supporting titles, including several new to the platform.[154]
Towards the end of 2014 the game host itch.io announced that Linux would be supported with their developing open source game client.[162] This was fully launched simultaneously on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux on December 15, 2015.[163] The service had supported Linux since it was first unveiled on March 3, 2013, with creator Leaf Corcoran personally a Linux user.[164] The similar Game Jolt service also supports Linux and has an open source client released on January 13, 2016.[165][166]GamersGate also sells games for Linux.[167][168]
2017-present
Steam Deck, a handheld game console running a Linux-based operating system
On August 22, 2018, Valve released their fork of Wine called Proton, aimed at gaming.[169] It features some improvements over the vanilla Wine such as Vulkan-based DirectX 11 implementation, Steam integration, better full screen and game controller support and improved performance for multi-threaded games.[170] It has since grown to include support for DirectX 9[171] and DirectX 12[172] over Vulkan. The itch.io app added its own Wine integration in June 2020,[173] while Lutris and PlayOnLinux are long-standing independent solutions for compatibility wrappers.[174][175]
As with Wine and Cedega in the past, concerns have been raised over whether Proton hinders native development more than it encourages use of the platform.[176][177]Prodeus dropped native support in favour of Proton shortly before final release[178] and Arcen Games cancelled planned native support for Heart of the Machine.[179] Valve has expressed no preference over Proton or native ports among developers.[180]
The Steam Hardware Survey reports that as of January 2024, 2% of users are using some form of Linux as their platform's primary operating system.[196] The Unitygame engine used to[197] make their statistics available and in March 2016 reported that Linux users accounted for 0.4% of players.[198] In 2010, in the first Humble Bundle sales, Linux accounted for 18% of purchases.[199]
Linux as a gaming platform can also refer to operating systems based on the Linux kernel and specifically designed for the sole purpose of gaming. Examples are SteamOS, which is an operating system for Steam Machines, Steam Deck and general computers, video game consoles built from components found in the classical home computer, (embedded) operating systems like Tizen and Pandora, and handheld game consoles like GP2X, and Neo Geo X. The Nvidia Shield runs Android as an operating system, which is based on a modified Linux kernel.[citation needed]
In 2013, tests by Phoronix showed real-world performance of games on Linux with proprietary Nvidia and AMD drivers were mostly comparable to results on Windows 8.1.[200]Phoronix found similar results in 2015,[201] though Ars Technica described a 20% performance drop with Linux drivers.[202]
Software architecture
An operating system based on the Linux kernel and customized specifically for gaming, could adopt the vanilla Linux kernel with only little changes, or—like the Android operating system—be based on a relative extensively modified Linux kernel. It could adopt GNU C Library or Bionic or something like it. The entire middleware or parts of it, could very well be closed-source and proprietary software; the same is true for the video games. There are free and open-source video games available for the Linux operating system, as well as proprietary ones.[citation needed]
Linux kernel
The subsystems already mainlined and available in the Linux kernel are most probably performant enough so to not impede the gaming experience in any way,[citation needed] however additional software is available, such as e.g. the Brain Fuck Scheduler (a process scheduler) or the Budget Fair Queueing (BFQ) scheduler (an I/O scheduler).[203]
Similar to the way the Linux kernel can be, for example, adapted to run better on supercomputers, there are adaptations targeted at improving the performance of games. A project concerning itself with this issue is called Liquorix.[204][205]
Several game development tools have been available for Linux, including GNU Debugger, LLDB, Valgrind, glslang and others. VOGL, a debugger for OpenGL was released on 12 March 2014.
Available interfaces and SDKs
There are multiple interfaces and Software Development Kits available for Linux, and almost all of them are cross-platform. Most are free and open-source software subject to the terms of the zlib License, making it possible to static link against them from fully closed-source proprietary software. One difficulty due to this abundance of interfaces, is the difficulty for programmers to choose the best suitable audio API for their purpose. The main developer of the PulseAudio project, Lennart Poettering, commented on this issue.[235] Physics engines, audio libraries, that are available as modules for game engines, have been available for Linux for a long time.[timeneeded][citation needed]
As the result of their cooperation with Valve, Nvidia announced a Linux port of GameWorks.[236] As of June 2014, PhysX, and OptiX have been available for Linux for some time.
Beside majority of the software which acts as an interface to various subsystems of the operating system, there is also software which can be simply described as middleware. A multitude of companies exist worldwide, whose main or only product is software that is meant to be licensed and integrated into a game engine. Their primary target is the video game industry, but the film industry also utilizes such software for special effects. Some very few well known examples are
The specifications of the Mumble protocol are freely available and there are BSD-licensed implementations for both servers and clients. The positional audio API of Mumble is supported by e.g. Cube 2: Sauerbraten.
Wine is a compatibility layer that provides binary compatibility and makes it possible to run software, that was written and compiled for Microsoft Windows, on Linux. The Wine project hosts a user-submitted application database (known as Wine AppDB) that lists programs and games along with ratings and reviews which detail how well they run with Wine. Wine AppDB also has a commenting system, which often includes instructions on how to modify a system to run a certain game which cannot run on a normal or default configuration. Many games are rated as running flawlessly, and there are also many other games that can be run with varying degrees of success. The use of Wine for gaming has proved controversial in the Linux community as some feel it is preventing, or at least hindering, the further growth of native gaming on the platform.[239][240]
The game engine is important for players and developers alike. The development-kit is built around it, game editors use it to build levels. Tools such as Blender or 3ds Max are employed to create the geometry of object and/or animations of those. Game data has reached enormous amounts. While game engines are sometimes released under some free software license, instead or additionally to licensing them, the game data is usually not.
The game engine is the software solely responsible for the game mechanics, or rules defining game play. There are different game engines for first-person shooters, strategy video games, etc. Besides the game mechanics, software is also needed to handle graphics, audio, physics, input handling, and networking.
Game engines that have been used by a number of video games and run on top of Linux include:
There are many free and open-source video games as well as commercially distributed proprietary video games that run natively on Linux. Some independent companies have also begun porting prominent video games from Microsoft Windows to Linux.
Warzone 2100 is a real-time strategy and real-time tactics hybrid computer game. Originally published by Eidos Interactive and later released as open source.
Bill Kendrick has developed many free software games, most inspired by games for the Atari 8-bit and other classic systems.[250]
Proprietary games
Available on Steam
Steam is the leading distributor of games for Linux.
Valve officially released Steam for Linux on February 14, 2013. As of June2020[update] the number of Linux-compatible games on Steam exceeds 6,500.[251] With the launch of SteamOS, a distribution of Linux made by Valve intended to be used for HTPC gaming, that number is quickly growing. Listed below are some notable games available on Steam for Linux:
Half-Life 2, a launch title for Steam, was ported to Linux for the service's expansion in 2013.The Stanley Parable was ported to Linux following Valve's release of the Source Engine for Linux.
Hemisphere Games has released a Linux version of Osmos. Koonsolo has released a Linux version of Mystic Mine. Amanita Design released Linux versions of Machinarium and Samorost 2. Irrgheist released a Linux version of their futuristic racing game H-Craft Championship before later releasing the source code. Gamerizon released a Linux version of QuantZ. InterAction Studios ported several titles mostly in the Chicken Invaders series. GridWars was released for Linux by Canadian developer Marco Inciti.
UNIGINE Company developed Oil Rush using its Unigine engine technology that works on Linux. Unigine Corp was also developing a "shooter-type game" that would have been released for Linux, but development was later frozen while OilRush developed.[254] The MMORPG game Syndicates of Arkon was also supposed to come to Linux.[255] The game Dilogus: The Winds of War was also being developed with Unigine and was planned to have a Linux client.[256]Cradle was released for Linux in 2015, as was Sumoman in 2017.
Visual novels based on Ren'Py have forged a niche on Linux.
The Java-based sandbox game Minecraft by then indie developer Mojang is available on Linux, as are any other video games compiled for the Java virtual machine. Linux support was maintained even following Mojang's purchase by Microsoft in November 2014.
Dwarf Fortress, a sandbox management simulator / roguelike, has been made available for Linux by Tarn Adams.[263]
The realistic replay baseball simulation Out of the Park Baseball by OOTP Developments was made available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows, for single player and multiplayer online leagues.[citation needed]
LGP-associated but freelance consultant Frank C. Earl is porting the game Caster to Linux and has released the first episode and also developed the Linux version of Cortex Command being included in the second Humble Indie Bundle. He is also working towards other porting projects such as the entire Myth series. He is largely taking recommendations and he comments as part of the Phoronix community. icculus.org has ported beta releases for Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Devastation, versions of America's Army, and the titles Prey, Aquaria, Braid, Hammerfight and Cogs.
Trine was ported to Linux by Alternative Games in 2011.
The German publisher RuneSoft was founded in 2000. They ported the games Northland,[268]Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood[268], Airline Tycoon Deluxe,[268]Ankh, Ankh: Heart of Osiris,[268]Barkanoid 2, and Jack Keane to Linux, as well as porting Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom and Software Tycoon, for Linux Game Publishing. Hyperion Entertainment ported games to several systems. They have ported Shogo: Mobile Armor Division and SiN to Linux, both published by Titan Computer as well as porting Gorky 17 for Linux Game Publishing. Wyrmkeep Entertainment has brought the games The Labyrinth of Time and Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb to Linux. IGIOS ported Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds Survivor for Linux Game Publishing, and it shortly closed after it. Alternative Games brought Trine and updated Shadowgrunds games for HIB.
Aspyr Media released their first Linux port in June 2014,[269] they claim they are porting to Linux due to Valve bringing out SteamOS.[270] Aspyr Media later ported Borderlands 2 to Linux[271] in September 2014.
Having ported games to the Macintosh since 1996, video game publisher Feral Interactive released XCOM: Enemy Unknown, its first game for Linux, in June 2014. Feral Interactive stated they port games to Linux thanks to SteamOS.[272]
Other developers
GarageGames released several games for Linux in the 2000s before open sourcing their Torque engine in 2012.Abuse was one of the first commercial games for Linux.
MP Entertainment released Hopkins FBI and Crack dot com released Abuse for Linux, becoming one of the first developers to release a native port. Inner Worlds, another early commercial Linux title, was released for and developed on Linux. Philos Laboratories released a Linux version of Theocracy on the retail disk. Absolutist has supported Linux for a number of years.[273] GLAMUS GmbH released a Linux version of their game Mobility. Vicarious Visions ported the space-flight game Terminus to Linux. Oliver Hamann released the driving game Odyssey by Car in 2001.[274] Futureware 2001 released a trading simulation Würstelstand in 1999.
The Project Aon effort to digitize and distribute Joe Dever's Lone Wolfgamebooks distributed archives in the tar.gz format popular among Linux users,[277] and later player aid programs such as Seventh Sense have supported Linux directly.[278]
Revolution System Games released their game Decadence: Home Sweet Home through Steam only for Linux for a period of time after Mac or Windows release.[279]
On 12 October 2013 Lars Gustavsson, creative director at DICE, said to polygon.com[280]
We strongly want to get into Linux for a reason," Gustavsson said. "It took Halo for the first Xbox to kick off and go crazy — usually, it takes one killer app or game and then people are more than willing [to adopt it] — it is not hard to get your hands on Linux, for example, it only takes one game that motivates you to go there.
Tibia – A 2D Medieval fantasy MMORPG game. Free-to-play with premium content. One of the oldest MMORPG, created January 1997. With Official Linux client.
Native gaming is a form of Linux gaming that emphasizes using only native games or ports and not using emulators or compatibility layers.[239][115][295][296]
A number of games can be played from live distributions such as Knoppix, allowing easy access for users unwilling to fully commit to Linux.[310] Certain live distros have specially targeted gamers, such as SuperGamer and Linux-Gamers.[311][312]
Cloud gaming is the streaming of games from a central server onto a desktop client.[319] This is another way to play games on Linux that are not natively supported,[320][321] although some cloud services, such as the erstwhile Google Stadia,[322][323] are hosted on Linux[324][325] and Android servers.[326] GamingAnywhere is an open source implementation.[327]
On Windows
Although less exploited than the reverse,[328] as few programs are Linux exclusive,[329] support does exist for running Linux binaries from Windows.[330][331] The Windows Subsystem for Linux allows the running of both command line[332][333] and graphical Linux applications[334] from Windows 10 and Windows 11.[335] An earlier implementation is Cygwin,[336] started by Cygnus Solutions and later maintained by Red Hat,[337] although it has limited hardware access[338] and required adaptation.[339] The use of Wine can even allow for the running of Windows games on Linux from Windows.[citation needed] The LibTAS library for tool assisted speedruns currently recommends WSL to run on Windows.[340]Naughty Dog meanwhile have used Cygwin to run old command-line tools for use in their game development,[341] which is a broader use for the platform.[342] As with running Windows applications on Linux, there is controversy over whether running Linux applications on Windows will dilute interest in Linux as distinct platform,[343] though it has speciality uses.[344]
HarmonyOS with custom kernel[386] and OpenHarmony-Oniro based operating systems distros[387] of these newer platforms has a dedicated gaming ecosystem with compatibilities with third-party Linux libraries by developers on Linux kernel subsystem such as musl-libc of C standard library that targets the Linux syscall and POSIX APIs compatibility for native compatible games as well as limited virtual machines such as Android-based sandboxed ones.[388][389]
id Software LLC is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack.
Wine is a free and open-source compatibility layer to allow application software and computer games developed for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Developers can compile Windows applications against WineLib to help port them to Unix-like systems. Wine is predominantly written using black-box testing reverse-engineering, to avoid copyright issues. No code emulation or virtualization occurs. Wine is primarily developed for Linux and macOS.
In computing, cross-platform software is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software requires a separate build for each platform, but some can be directly run on any platform without special preparation, being written in an interpreted language or compiled to portable bytecode for which the interpreters or run-time packages are common or standard components of all supported platforms.
Loki Software, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Tustin, California, that ported several video games from Microsoft Windows to Linux. It took its name from the Norse deity Loki. Although successful in its goal of bringing games to the Linux platform, the company folded in January 2002 after filing for bankruptcy.
A source port is a software project based on the source code of a game engine that allows the game to be played on operating systems or computing platforms with which the game was not originally compatible.
The Build Engine is a first-person shooter engine created by Ken Silverman, author of Ken's Labyrinth, for 3D Realms. Like the Doom engine, the Build Engine represents its world on a two-dimensional grid using closed 2D shapes called sectors, and uses simple flat objects called sprites to populate the world geometry with objects.
The Quake engine is the game engine developed by id Software to power their 1996 video game Quake. It featured true 3D real-time rendering. Since 1999, it has been licensed under the terms of GNU General Public License v2.0 or later.
id Tech 3, popularly known as the Quake III Arena engine, is a game engine developed by id Software for its Quake III Arena. It has been adopted by numerous games. It competed with the Unreal Engine; both engines were widely licensed.
The Quake II engine is a game engine developed by id Software for use in their 1997 first-person shooter Quake II. It is the successor to the Quake engine. Since its release, the Quake II engine has been licensed for use in several other games.
Cube 2: Sauerbraten is a first-person shooter released for Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Mac OS X using OpenGL and SDL.
Alien Arena is an open-source, stand-alone first-person shooter video game. Begun by COR Entertainment in 2004, the game combines a 1950s-era sci-fi atmosphere with gameplay similar to the Quake, Doom, and Unreal Tournament series. Alien Arena focuses mainly on online multiplayer action, although it does contain single-player matches against bots.
Linux Game Publishing was a software company based in Nottingham in England. It ported, published and sold video games running on Linux operating systems. As well as porting games, LGP also sponsored the development of Grapple, a free software network library for games. As well as acting as a Linux game porter in of themselves, they also functioned as a publisher for other Linux game developers and porters. The company was dissolved on 3 May 2011.
Mac gaming refers to the use of video games on Macintosh personal computers. In the 1990s, Apple computers did not attract the same level of video game development as Microsoft Windows computers due to the high popularity of Windows and, for 3D gaming, Microsoft's DirectX technology. In recent years, the introduction of Mac OS X and support for Intel processors has eased the porting of many games, including 3D games through use of OpenGL, and more recently, Apple's own Metal API API. Virtualization technology and the Boot Camp dual-boot utility also permit the use of Windows and its games on Macintosh computers. Today, a growing number of popular games run natively on macOS, though as of early 2019, a majority still require the use of Microsoft Windows.
An open-source video game, or simply an open-source game, is a video game whose source code is open-source. They are often freely distributable and sometimes cross-platform compatible.
Ryan C. Gordon is a computer programmer and former Loki Software employee responsible for icculus.org, which hosts many Loki Software projects as well as others. Gordon's site hosts projects with the code from such commercial games as Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Quake III Arena and other free and open source projects for multiple platforms.
Timothée Besset is a French software programmer, best known for supporting Linux, as well as some Macintosh, ports of id Software's products. He was involved with the game ports of various id properties through the 2000s, starting with Quake III Arena. Since the development of Doom 3 he was also in charge of the multiplayer network code and various aspects of game coding for id, a role which had him heavily involved in the development of their online game QuakeLive. Since departing id in January 2012 he has worked as a software contractor, including for Valve Software.
GoldSrc, sometimes called the Half-Lifeengine, is a proprietary game engine developed by Valve. At its core, GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of id Software's Quake engine. It made its debut in 1998 with Half-Life and powered future games developed by or with oversight from Valve, including Half-Life's expansions, Day of Defeat and games in the Counter-Strike series.
SteamOS is a Linux distribution developed by Valve. It incorporates Valve's popular namesake Steam video game storefront and is the primary operating system for the Steam Deck, Valve's portable gaming device, as well as Valve's earlier Steam Machines. SteamOS is open source with some closed source components.
Besides the Linux distributions designed for general-purpose use on desktops and servers, distributions may be specialized for different purposes including computer architecture support, embedded systems, stability, security, localization to a specific region or language, targeting of specific user groups, support for real-time applications, or commitment to a given desktop environment. Furthermore, some distributions deliberately include only free software. As of 2015, over four hundred Linux distributions are actively developed, with about a dozen distributions being most popular for general-purpose use.
Proton is a compatibility layer for Windows games to run on Linux-based operating systems. Proton is developed by Valve in cooperation with developers from CodeWeavers. It is a collection of software and libraries combined with a patched version of Wine to improve performance and compatibility with Windows games. Proton is designed for integration into the Steam client as "Steam Play". It is officially distributed through the client, although third-party forks can be manually installed.
↑ Jowitt, Tom (May 26, 2017). "Tales In Tech History: Unix". Silicon UK. Retrieved March 5, 2023. The developers wanted to play the game on a PDP-7, a minicomputer built by Digital Equipment Corp found in the corner of their building. But the game couldn't be run run on more modern (and hence costly) equipment, as computing resource was a precious commodity back then. By the summer of 1969 they had developed the new Unix OS that could run the computer game and in 1971 the first ever edition of Unix was released. A second edition of Unix arrived in December 1972 and was rewritten in the higher-level language C.
↑ Toomey, Warren (December 2011). "The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix"(PDF). IEEE Spectrum. Apart from the text-processing and general system applications, the first edition of Unix included games such as blackjack, chess, and tic-tac-toe.
↑ Stallman, Richard. "Linux and the GNU System". GNU Project. Archived from the original on March 19, 2017. Retrieved July 20, 2022. Some of our system components, the programming tools, became popular on their own among programmers, but we wrote many components that are not tools. We even developed a chess game, GNU Chess, because a complete system needs games too.
↑ Hellums, Duane (March 1, 1999). "Red Hat LINUX Secrets, Second Edition". Linux Journal. Retrieved July 2, 2023. It would be nice to see some extra CD goodies included, such as Doom and Quake which are freely available elsewhere.
↑ Tackett, Jack (1997). Special Edition. Using Linux. United States: Que Corporation. p.287. ISBN9780470485460. The X Windows version supplied on the accompanying Slackware CD-ROM in the /contrib directory is a complete hareware version. (The Red Hat distribution automatically installs the game during installation.) Although this version runs on 386 computers, it was built to run on high-end 486 systems. If you run DOOM on a 386 with a small amount of physical RAM, be prepared to be disappointed; the game will be too slow to be enjoyable. You need lots of horse-power to play DOOM under Linux.
↑ Barkakati, Naba (1996). Linux Secrets. United States: IDG Books Worldwide. p.96. ISBN9781568847986. This disk set contains a collection of well-known UNIX games (X is not required), such as Hangman, Dungeon, and Snake. The set also includes id Software's DOOM. (This game comes in two versions, one runs under X, and the other runs without X.) You may want to install this disk set just so you can try out DOOM.
↑ Parker, Tim (1996). Linux Unleashed. United States: Macmillan Computer Publishing. p.981. ISBN0672313723. DOOM - This exciting, though controversially gory, game is now ported to Linux as well. Complete with sound support and exquisite graphics, this Linux port does its DOS counterpart justice.
↑ Wilson, Hamish (December 12, 2023). "Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer Part 36: Entertainment for X Windows". GamingOnLinux. Retrieved December 15, 2023. While still being the most elaborate, 100 Great Linux Games was far from the only shovelware set of games released for Linux, with several UNIX CD-ROM vendors such as Walnut Creek CDROM and Omeron Systems also seeking a piece of the action for themselves.
↑ "Walnut Creek CDROM Catalog". Walnut Creek CDROM. December 17, 2000. Retrieved April 7, 2023. Linux Games (Linux) - Large collection of games, graphics, sound, and video applications, plus related development tools.
↑ "PHT Products". Pacific Hitech. 1998. Archived from the original on December 6, 1998. Retrieved April 4, 2024. Formerly known as 'Linux Games++', this is a collection of the best entertainment and multimedia programs for the Linux operating system. It also contains multimedia development tools to assist you in creating your own games and multimedia applications for Linux. This is the latest issue, volume 4, and features a new and improved user interface. The CD contains packages for i386, DEC Alpha, and PPC platforms. This product is only available through Walnut Creek CD-ROM.
↑ "Linux is Best". SOT Finnish Software Engineering Ltd. Archived from the original on August 16, 2000. Retrieved April 7, 2023.
↑ Wilson, Hamish (August 8, 2023). "Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer Part 31: The Fear of Loss". GamingOnLinux. Retrieved August 10, 2023. I did discover that Phobia III was later packaged as part of the Russian made LinuxCenter Games Collection Vol.2 compilation, a selection of Linux gaming files that was sold on either four CD-ROMs or a single DVD, but this too appeared to have been scrubbed from the internet.
↑ Aznar, Guylhem (July 2, 2002). "Applications for the Sharp Zaurus". Linux Journal. Retrieved October 28, 2023. An excellent way to start using the Zaurus is by playing games. The best way to play games on the Zaurus is to install an emulator.
↑ Kendrick, Bill. "Zaurus Software". New Breed Software. Retrieved October 28, 2023.
↑ Vaughan-Nichols, Steven J. (June 12, 2008). "Finally, it's time for Wine". Linux.com. Retrieved May 27, 2024. According to White in a 2006 NewsForge interview, this forking caused Wine's development to slow down for years. "Historically, the main interest for volunteer Wine developers was games; that was the primary focus for most of Wine's early years (~1993-2000). When Transgaming started in 2001, they promised that they would release their DirectX improvements back to Wine. That cast a chill over games in Wine — why work on DirectX if all these improvements would 'soon' be coming back? Of course, no meaningful improvements have ever come back, which had the effect of creating a huge hole in what had been Wine's very best facility." By 2007, White says, "The Wine community had recovered from the hole created by Transgaming."
1 2 "The State of Linux Gaming 2011". OSNews.com. November 14, 2011. Retrieved January 12, 2012. In short: indie games are thriving on Linux. The Humble Bundles have not only helped publicize the games, but have also helped prove that there is an untapped market for games on Linux, and that Linux users have no problem paying to support the developers who support them.
↑ Orland, Kyle (February 28, 2011). "GDC 2011: Humble Indie Bundle Creators Talk Inspiration, Execution". Game Developer. Retrieved April 5, 2023. Linux users tended to be the most generous of these, leading Graham to suggest indie developers go after underserved markets. "If you support Mac and Linux as an independent developer you have a good chance of doubling your revenue," Graham said.
↑ Makuch, Eddie (September 23, 2013). "Valve reveals SteamOS". GameSpot. Archived from the original on September 26, 2013. Retrieved September 25, 2013.
↑ Ackerman, Dan (October 9, 2017). "Hackers crack SNES Classic to add more games and features". CNET. Retrieved December 7, 2023. Fortunately, the SNES Classic, like its predecessor, is basically a Nintendo emulator built on a Linux foundation, so it's not impossible to hack.
↑ Takahashi, Dean (June 21, 2019). "Intellivision Entertainment prepares for its rebirth on 10-10-20". VentureBeat. Retrieved January 7, 2020. But our OS is a hybrid, a Linux/Android hybrid that we've created in house. It's very solid, but it's very flexible, with Linux being the flexible part and Android being the solid part.
↑ Petite, Steven (December 16, 2022). "Evercade EXP Review". GameSpot. Retrieved December 7, 2023. The custom Linux operating system that the EXP runs borrows from the VS home console.
↑ Wilson, Hamish (February 28, 2022). "Building a Retro Linux Gaming Computer - Part 13: Looks Almost Unreal". GamingOnLinux. Retrieved March 21, 2023. One of the selling points of Unreal Tournament pitched to the modding scene by Epic Games was its ability to load assets from the original Unreal into the new engine, further expanding the content base for what was already a highly modifiable game. After a few years this snowballed into a concerted community effort to make the entire Unreal singe player mode playable from within its own sequel, bringing it over to Linux in the process.
↑ Bisson, Marilyn (October 19, 2020). "Is Linux Good For Gaming?". Eldernode. You can also play through the terminal; Of course, it depends on your expectations and definition of the game! But if the goal is entertainment, the Linux terminal offers you funny and nostalgic choices.
↑ Zinoune, M. "Options for Linux Gamers". Unixmen. Retrieved March 19, 2023. The ever increasing popularity of social gaming is a definite threat to traditional forms of gaming. Social gaming comes in many forms, but an obvious example would be games that can be played on Facebook and other social networking websites where games and statistics can be viewed and shared online with a player's friends. This form of gaming is very limited as the games that can be played via social networks are usually targeted towards casual gamers and not the hardcore PC type. I don't see social gaming becoming an immediate threat to native gaming in the near future and will probably remain a casual space.
↑ "Hands on with WSLg: Running Linux GUI". Bleeping Computer. May 29, 2021. Retrieved March 18, 2023. While Hedgewars is not a Linux-only game, I wanted to include it to show that even games can run under WSLg. While WSLg is likely not designed for gaming, the fact that you can play games using it shows the full depth of this new feature.
↑ Fenton, Tom (February 8, 2017). "Running Graphical Programs on Windows Subsystem on Linux". Virtualization Review. Retrieved March 18, 2023. Blockout worked flawlessly, which surprised me as it is an extremely graphics-intensive application.
↑ McIntyre-Bhatty, Hamish (May 21, 2018). "Cygwin review part 1: Running Linux programs… on Windows?". Retrieved March 18, 2023. Can you run games? I have absolutely no idea, but I would guess the answer is no, because of the lack of hardware access. I did have a quick look for games like Neverball and Extreme Tux Racer, but they were nowhere to be found. When I follow this up, I'll look a bit harder, and maybe try compiling them. Really, it's kind of pointless, because you could just run the games in Windows.
↑ "LibTAS FAQ". Retrieved March 18, 2023. If you have Windows 10, the easiest way is to use WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) to run libTAS. Otherwise, you can install a Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu) on a virtual machine (e.g. using VirtualBox).
↑ Bisson, Simon (April 23, 2021). "Linux on Windows: This new upgrade allows you to run graphical apps simply and effectively". Tech Republic. Retrieved March 18, 2023. Mesa3D support should help developers using WSL 2 to port games to Linux, as well as allowing complex Unix CAD applications and other design tooling to use WSLg to work on Windows, without needing a full port. If you're worried about application support, we've yet to find anything that didn't work over WSLg. We've been able to run Ubuntu desktop tools, classic Unix games like Nethack's X11 port, Linux games from Steam, a host of different editors and IDEs, the LibreOffice productivity suite, as well as Microsoft's own Edge browser (using it to stream video and audio). The experience of using Linux applications on Windows is much like running Windows applications on macOS via Parallels.
↑ Lucas, Michael (March 22, 2001). "FreeBSD Gaming". ONLamp. Archived from the original on January 20, 2018. Retrieved July 9, 2023. If you're running KDE or Gnome, you already have a few simple games installed. I'm not a fan of either desktop -- both strike me as bloated and obtuse -- but their games packages are a nice way to pick up a dozen simple favorites such as Solitaire, Asteroids, and Tetris.
↑ Chalmers, Rachel (June 1999). "Sun Releases Tool To Make Linux Apps Run On Solaris". AUUGEN. Australia: AUUG. p.29. Retrieved March 5, 2023. But the real strength of Linux over Solaris is the availability of games. Kay reveals, "If you've got a developer who's been doing heads-down coding for hours, they might want to take a break to use the latest greatest games," she chuckles. "If games are available on Linux now you can get them and use them on your new Solaris workstation. Managers like making sure that kind of thing is available to their creative end users."
↑ Dyer, Bill (December 28, 2022). "Getting Nostalgic With the Historical Coherent Operating System". It's FOSS. For a small package, it was remarkably complete. Not only was it a standalone operating system, but came with a big box of goodies, such as a Bourne Shell, C compiler, assembler, debugger, DOS disk support, uucp, at least three editors, some games, mail, and around 200 of the most used and useful UNIX commands.
↑ Larabel, Michael (February 13, 2024). "The Current State & Plans For Porting Linux/BSD Software To Redox OS". Phoronix. Retrieved February 24, 2024. While not yet having accelerated graphics and their Wayland support is still some ways out, they have ported some games/emulators to Redox OS already like DOSBox, Neverball, OpenTTD, ScummVM, 2048, and others.
↑ gameblabla (November 8, 2016). "ToaruOS - Unix-like "hobby" operating system". codewalr.us. Retrieved April 25, 2023. I ported Helicopters, one of my games, just to show you how easy you can port games to it.
↑ Saeki, Takaya (October 4, 2020). "How we ran a Unix-like OS (Xv6) on our home-built CPU with our home-built C compiler". Fuelled by Coffee. Retrieved April 25, 2023. However, some teams put more energy into doing fun such as running games or playing music by connecting a speaker with their CPU. Group 6, to which I belonged, was a group of such people who loved entertainment, and we decided to run an OS as our team goal.
↑ Pendleton, Bob. "Game Programming with the Simple DirectMedia Layer". ACM Digital Library. SDL officially supports Linux, Windows, BeOS, Mac OS, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Solaris and IRIX. SDL also works with Windows CE, AmigaOS, Atari, QNX, NetBSD, AIX, Tru64 UNIX and SymbianOS. However, those OSes are not yet officially supported. This means if you write your application using SDL, you can port it with minimal rework to all those OSes. SDL provides a portable way to write games and multimedia applications on every major OS currently in use.
↑ Williams, Al (May 3, 2017). "Your Next Desktop… QNX?". Hackaday. Retrieved March 5, 2023. The rest of the adventure went fairly well. He managed to build SDL and port over some games.
↑ "FORTRAN Computer Games". The Cyber Vanguard. November 18, 2022. Remake of Battle Zone (1986) by Justin S. Revenaugh for Apollo Domain/OS, using the GPR graphics library. The game was later ported as XBZONE to X11.
↑ "Games/Arcade". HP-UX Porting and Archive Centre. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
↑ Knight, John (May 2021). "Exploring Microsoft's forgotten Unix distribution". Linux Magazine. Retrieved March 18, 2023. Thankfully XENIX users weren't all business, and there are at least a few games available for the system. Although the IMG file from Archive.org wouldn't work, we found a working disk image from YouTube user MentionedBefore, who provides a link below his XENIX 2.3.1 VirtualBox tutorial. The disk comes with Worms (not the famous DOS game!), Rogue, Hack, and Trek, plus fortune and mathrec. (And there is a terminal-based version of Tetris somewhere out there!) Once installed, the executables for the games/amusements are found under /usr/games
↑ Armstrong, James; Kent, Les (November 22, 1993). "32-bit desktop operating systems". InfoWorld. United States: IDG Communications, Inc. p.75. Retrieved March 5, 2023. Once a user is logged in, a window displays a number of icons that group some standard applications: Accessories, Applications, Preferences, Disks, Games, Shutdown, System Setup, Utilities, and Folder Maps. User can open any file or folder by double clicking on the appropriate icon.
↑ Magee, Mike (September 6, 1999). "1.6GHz Alpha to be fastest Quake chip on planet". The Register. Retrieved March 5, 2023. The beast is not designed for Windows - its OS preference a version of real time Tru64 using current OpenGL for the platform. Real time versions of Tru64 might be used in a high end arcade game console, with workstations using a more "normal" Tru64 Unix with OpenGL. Quake and Quake 2 are native on Alpha Linux platforms.
↑ "Fiddling with NeXTSTEP". posts.boy. December 29, 2011. Retrieved March 18, 2023. This screenshot shows Facebook, looking rather broken, and DOOM in the front. id Software used NeXT systems to create the famous first person shooter. Relying on the Objective-C based development environment to create most of the tools, like the level editor.
↑ Hills, James (June 19, 1999). "Interviews - Dave Taylor, Transmeta". GA-Source. Retrieved March 21, 2023. Anyway, so it felt almost natural to do weird things. Here was a company where hundreds of thousands of dollars changed hands depending on moods and stories, Nextstep was the development environment, and showing up to work and seeing something truly miraculous in John Carmack's office or the art room about once a week was the norm. So when I started calling various workstation vendors like IBM, Sun, SGI, and asking they send workstations in exchange for typing "make", no one was terribly surprised. It was just one more of the weekly miracles, and a lesser one at that. "Oh look. There's our game running in a window on 5 architectures and as many OS's. Huh."
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
