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Games Entertainment

Indrema Announces Partnership With Red Hat 79

Posted by CmdrTaco from the video-games-for-everyone dept.
Jacek Fedorynski writes "Indrema (the Linux gaming console guys) and Red Hat have announced that they have formed an alliance to "jointly manage branding and distribution" of DV Linux, a Linux distribution for gaming consoles."
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Indrema Announces Partnership with Red Hat More

Indrema Announces Partnership with Red Hat

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  • I figure they'll use the same plan as Microsoft with their X-box, whatever that plan happens to be.
    The X-box seems to be using off-the-shelf components (IIRC, which I may not), which lowers the construction and R&D price. As stated in another post, you don't have to open source the development kits. Some may scream bloody murder at that, but in my mind, it's no different from selling some other piece of software to run on linux. The profit may come from using an online network (much like the game NeverRest) or by selling other online services (email, what-have-you). Since it wouldn't take too much (I would think) to add on a web-browser, it could become something like WebTV.
    Now there's a scary notion.
  • Oh FFS, read the damn article. They aren't making a distribution for games. They are making a distribution for games consoles. This has a completely different set of requirements to a general-purpose-run-on-your-pc distro.
  • You *can* script in Windows - perl, bash, python - the gnu utilities - you can get them all for Windows. True - many system settings have to be done via the registry or GUI dialogs, but the labyrinthine settings files of Linux are hardly easy to work with either...
  • We are doomed!

    Lessee..
    Linux watches
    Linux game machines
    Linux in microcontrollers
    Linux for x86-64
    Linux Lego Toys
    Linux infested with AOL
    LinuxWorld in full swing in San Jose (across town, but I'm stuck at work :(

    Yeah, I guess it's not just for breakfast anymore, but it still stays crunchy in milk!

    "Resistance is useless" - Popular saying aboard big yellow things which hang in the atmosphere exactly like a brick doesn't.

    Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
  • Read the fsck'ing webpage. For your two grand, you get 24*7 tech support for a year, plus access to updates as they come out (no doubt before the non-paying users.)... PLUS, if you read the web-page, you'd also discover that that particular distro of Red-Hat is available FREE-OF-CHARGE on Red-hat's site, albeit without the support. Also take a look at the rating ZDnet gave it... No less than a B on any of the points covered - Not bad for a first shot! Not bad at all! Now take into account the fact that win2000 enterprise server (?) costs at least twice as much, is probly more than three times as buggy, and that the cost of Win2000 undoubtedly does not include the level of support RedHat are willing to provide, and I'd actually say that redhat high availability Server is exceptional value for money! Please DO NOT BAG RED-HAT! Without them, I don't think Linux would be as popular as it is today in the mainstream.... And thanks to their efforts, it's likely to become even more popular. Mainstream popularity for Linux is not a bad thing - it provides a viable alternative to Micro$loth.
  • I think you're missing the point. this isn't a distribution for gaming, its a distribution to put on gaming and entertainment devices. So it will be just whats needed for those systems to run, none of the stuff that is needed for desktops or servers. So stuff like sendmail obviously won't be included.
  • >As Indrema will have an open system, developers will not have to pay them anything to produce software for it.

    They will have to unless they plan to release it under a free beer/speech license.

  • Alrighty, I will take a stab at this

    Point 1.) If this is being implemented into a console a ROM to boot the OS from makes perfect sense.

    You want to pick a stable version of Linux and you never really want to change it, if so flash the ROM, this helps out with point number one and is kind of something you would want with a console isnt it?

    Point 2.) OpenGL coupled with one specific video card in a setup like the NV20 with very well tuned system for OpenGL, also you could offer SDL something the Loki guys use for porting games to the *nix platform, seems pretty stable since a business more or less ports their games using it

    Anyone who can write C, can pick up Ogl, and SDL rather easy, there is also an Open Audio library Loki has) So, I think that with a little work that issue is already solved no since in reinventing the wheel, maybe highly tune each of these for your specific hardware but its pretty much there isnt it?

    Point 3.)Easy of programming, as I said if you can write C, it dont get much cooler than SDL, OpenGL and or Loki's open Audio library.

    The things I would be worried about are making sure this thing is secure and just tuning the entire platform specifically to one set of hardware, it gives you much more freedom and ability to make stable a system

    So boottime, system stability all of that when you can just pick and support ONE set of hardware period supporting it, coding it, tuning it just everything would become easier.

    It sounds like a do-able project Sega did it.

    Jeremy


    If you think education is expensive, try ignornace
  • 1. I have no idea, but if x-box can solve this problem, i don't see how indrema won't.

    2. I thought the NVidia drivers were almost as fast as the windows drivers, at least according to tom's hardware. Since it would be on a TV, you could run it at low resolutions, so it shouldn't be a problem.

    3. I can't imagine a linux platform being harder to code than a platform were you have to do everything in assembly (most other consoles). Hell, maybe you don't have to program in assembly for dreamcast and playstation, but in a few years, if the any of those consoles takes off, programmers would probably have to do assembly, to get the most out of it, like all sucsesful platforms.

  • "They have to give the OS and any kernel patches away, sure, but don't expect to see libraries and documentation for free."

    from http://alllinuxdevices.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=20 00-08-15-013-03-PS-LF-GM [alllinuxdevices.com]:

    "The IESDK, composed completely of open source tools, will be freely available to anyone who cares to download it, though use of the package isn't mandatory to program for the Indrema. Gildred explained that developers are free to use whatever tools they choose. Those already comfortable with some common API's found in many desktop Linux games will have little trouble adapting to coding for the Indrema, which takes advantage of OpenGL and OpenAL, among others. In addition, Indrema is currently working on OpenStream Video, a technology Gildred describes as "pioneering," which it will release under an open source license. "

    Indrema does have a couple things that won't be open source, like Extrema their xserver. And of course the games that people write for it.

  • Who are they?
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I don't want a lot, I just want it all ;-)
    Flame away, I have a hose!
  • nVidia's drivers actual did quite well on Toms Hardware, though the Windows drivers seemed to be better in almost every case.
    But they are working on it...that is the important thing
  • As for docs on config files...
    well, perhaps I'm just being thick, but I've often found the docs for much Linux configuration rather incomprehensible...

    On the other hand, how well is Windows' "own part" of the registry documented?
    Not very well... in fact I haven't seen any such documentation... I guess I may be able to buy it from Micros~1 some way... I don't know...

    And how many Windows applications come with documentation of it's registry settings?
    Almost none...

    And yes, most Windows software has some kind of GUI configuration tool, but it's fairly common that you can't change all settings with it! (this is certainly the case with Windows itself!)

    The (GNU/)Linux programs on the other hand usually come with an example configuration file with comments which briefly explains all the settings, and often you get "real" documentation too!
    A big plus on the Linux side...


    --
  • I'mm afraid he's correct. The best thing to come out of this would be a direct-x-like gaming toolkit. A linux-based console is pointless....The last thing we need is another 500 buck-plus console! A console would be a waste of Linux. My idea is this : Redhat buys Indrema. Builds Indrema technology into Red-hat (thus we get proper 3d drivers for our video cards, a proper GUI - read working and easy-to-use -, etc..). Red-hat could have two modes - full workstation mode, or console mode. Console mode cuts out a lot of the crap such as multiuser, command-line etc leaving a streamlined OS for graphics. console-mode could boot into a graphical-menu where you select the game you wish to play out of the ones you have installed on your hard-disk, or load a game off CD-ROM/DVD-ROM. Workstation has the works plus a direct-x equilavent. The result? BYO console out of spare computer parts! Shove mobo, cpu, memory, 3d graphics card, hard-disk, keyboard and mouse/joystick together and away you go!
  • YHBT.YHL.HAND.

    Lamenes s filter encountered. Post aborted.

  • you wouldn't really need a "full-featured, normal distribution." We all know why - you only need what's necessary. I mean, maybe not a completely stripped down version (like, say, uCLinux), but you won't need xbill where that distro's going to be, you know ?

  • When Red Hat goes out of business, maybe they could come back as a charity.

  • Re:lol (Score:1)

    by erat ( 2665 )
    LOL is right... I'd like to know where they got their crystal ball. I had no idea Indrema and Red Hat predicted the future.

    What was I thinking?
  • You must be in superuser to use wizard mode.

    Oh, that'll be fun for the cheat-codes publications.

    Ten Easy Ways to Gain su Access

    Seriously, if the game consoles come with a standard video card, why is it a concern about drivers?

    These consoles only attaction will be in downloading games (probably crammed with advertisements) off cable and playing head-to-head. Once the newest version, scenery pack, etc., etc., comes out you update (probably for a nominal fee) same way you got it. Screw CD's and everyone knows the first thing you do with manuals is throw them away.

    I dunno, tho, if I'm gonna be ready for Larn 3D: The Lance of Death

    Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
  • How does DV Linux plan to rectify the bloody-feather jam bug? The last time I tried to put a penguin in my game console the damn bird just bit me and waddled off. I even had to buy a new console due to the cartridge slot being jammed full of with blood-soaked feathers. Damn Linux!

  • Doomed to fail like any "second rate" platform (Score:3)

    by tsangc ( 177574 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @01:02PM (#853091)
    If Linux users despise how corporate IT has been sold into indenture by pervasive marketing from the folks from Redmond, they've got a lot coming in the gaming market.

    The gaming market is all marketing and hype. Yes, there are technological innovations every day, but what consoles are about is marketing, marketing, advertising and more marketing-just note how the ages old R3000 Playstation keeps selling billions of titles against the technologically superior N64 and Dreamcast. All about ads on TV, gaming magazines and viral marketing intended to get youngsters into buying more.

    Worse, there are no developers. If you look at firms that failed like Atari (Jaguar), Commodore (CD32) and 3DO, all had put in significant developer relations in SDK's, copublicity, etc. Hell, CD32/CDTV had the fscking Amiga to copy games off.

    Put Indrema into this market without the developer support of hundreds of games, plus no marketing engine the way Sony, Sega, Nintendo or Microsoft have, and that's the end.

    Unfortunately, most Linux firms these days don't seem to get the idea of marketing, period. They take great software technology, throw it into commodity hardware and watch it flop. You can't keep selling to the converted!

    This is exactly like the Amiga market about five years ago. Applications like the Toaster, go BEYOND and open new markets up. Linux vendors have to really start building something more than what any guy would run make on some beat up old box in his closet...especially with early adopters who will tear things apart and judge value on sight of the thing :)

    --Calum


  • yes, but the point is that a) each config file, however messed up and crack-addled the author was when he came up with the format, usually has accompanying documentation (minimum being commented examples), and b) all config files can be mutilated and worked on with perl/sed/awk/bash/c/scheme/python/whatever, based on the fact it's a text file.

    in windows, if i want to change the setting of a program, then i have to pray it's stored in an ini file. if it's in the registry, i might be able to figure it out, same with a config file. but modern programs both assume that the user will never be touching the file, so never document/give examples of the formats/ways to change the configuration.

    even with vbscript/wsh (which is nifty, despite it's bad rep), the authors of the program had to keep user-use in mind when designing the objects and making certain properties/methods available, which is rarely done except in high-profile applications (word, etc).

    in conculsion, umm... "SPOON!"

    [The Tick started it's run from the start of the series on Teletoon last night.]

    --
  • Even if the config file is in the registry, it should be workable on from a scripting language.

    As for docs on config files...
    well, perhaps I'm just being thick, but I've often found the docs for much Linux configuration rather incomprehensible...

    Ah well, each to his own I suppose...
  • It?s no accident -- I actually made them question marks.

    This shouldn't be mashed.

    --

  • True both have config files that are a mess. But try this...

    hose for XF86Config to the point X won't start
    -no problem go in and fix with vi

    hose your registry to the point Windows won't start
    -no problem go in and fix with....
    wait a minute there is no command line program
    that can edit the registry with windows, its
    not ASCII text. If you are going to write some
    funky file format at least have a good command
    line based editor for it. Oh sure regedit can do
    imports from the command line. So you could DUMP
    the whole registry, find the problem, patch, and
    test, but DAMN what a hassle

  • > >As Indrema will have an open system, developers will not have to pay them anything to produce software for it.

    > They will have to unless they plan to release it under a free beer/speech license.

    How so? Unless they plan to lock their CDs in some cunning way, so that only they can produce CDs that work on the machine?
    I don't see how they can charge developers to develop for it, as they're basing so much of their stuff on existing Open Source code.

  • Will it be a super-stripped-down version of linux, like M$'s Win2k for XBox? Or will it be a full-featured, "normal' distribution? I think they both have their advantages.....for a stripped version, you have no boot time. But for a real version, you have, well, coolness.

    Martee
  • Maybe this will help boost those not-so-good linux game sales, and encourage more developers to port games to linux.

  • lol (Score:1)

    by Money__ ( 87045 )
    From the article:
    . . . the companies have formed an alliance to jointly manage branding and distribution of DV Linux, an upcoming universal standard operating system for console video gaming and TV-based entertainment applications.

    lol . .Standards are great!, I think everyone should have one.

  • Now, don't get my wrong: I do like rh6.2 and use it at work and at home, but why would you use it for a game console? There are other distros out there that are streamlined, hence run faster. The faster they can get the base os to run, the less memory and processor speed we need to run games and the lower the cost. Of couse, I'm sure a free os like rh would lower the cost anyway, as opposed to the Dreamcast running Windows CE!

    But why not choose another distro that is made for smaller devices. uCLinux might be a little too cut down, but aren't there better ones out there? I think I remember reading some right here at /. , but I don't remember.

  • Traditionally, console manufacturers have dervied a large portion of their revenues from the sale of development kits and development licenses. Since all Linux-based console OSs have to be released under the GPL, it would no longer be possible for Linux console manufacturers to sell their consoles as loss leaders. They will either have to build less-powerful consoles and sell them at the same price point, or sell their units for significantly more than competing systems. Could the restrictive nature of the GPL end up preventing the development of competitive Linux consoles?
  • I don't think it will help much. With poor support for newer video cards Linux isn't going to get much in the way of gaming.
    Also, from what I have seen from the Xbox so far it will likely be the crushing blow for Linux gaming (with Linux's adoption on the desktop soon to follow). The Xbox can run 6 monitors for crying out loud! It has full screen texture rendering, surface mapping, and will likely have the most stunning array of games for any console ever produced. (Look at Age of Empires...)
    Linux isn't going to be able to keep up, it is fighting wars on too many fronts: servers; desktops; console; handhelds; etc.


    ..................................
  • This is quite true if you have been using Windows your entire life. There are no GUIs that are exact clones of Windows.

    Although, maybe 'ergonomics' is a better word. I think user friendliness would almost have to encompass stability (as it results in, at the very least, wasted time to reboot). Windows (and Office) is a lot of things, stable isn't one of them.
  • This is freaking annoying!!!! Why a new distribution or gaming? Why not improve and make RedHat that distribution? First of all, everyone knows Linux share will increase once gaming is popular, so why would they work on a different distribution from RedHat? Tommorrow, I guess they will start a new distribution just for web browsing. Anyway, My problem is that if this distribution they plan on goes well, It will kill Redhat, so what will happen? They will try to integrate them probably then! A whole new mess, so I hope they fix this small but big booboo they are about to make. We have enough linux distribution as is.

  • They are not using Redhat. They are using DVLinux. Redhat is just helping to develop DVLinux.

  • Re:Linux and Gaming (Score:3)

    by Gurlia ( 110988 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @12:10PM (#853106)
    Windows outperforms Linux in user-friendliness... Deny it all you want, but you know it is true.

    Perhaps so, but to me, the term "user-friendly" has been mutilated to mean "usable by people who don't know computers". The term "user-friendly" really should mean "easy to use by people of all skill levels".

    Windows may be more "user-friendly" in the sense that it lets newbies get things done easily. This is a good thing, but one peeve I have against Windows is that its so-called "user-friendliness" gets in the way of people who know what they're doing. If you know how to write shell scripts, a complex task can be done in a minute or two. But in Windows, you've to pray that the UI designers have thought of the possibility that you actually want to do such a task. Otherwise, you'll be doing it manually, navigating around all kinds of multi-level menus just to do one thing. This isn't exactly the most efficient way to specify the equivalent of a shell script.

    Now, I'm not saying that we should forget the newbies and force shell-scripting down the throats of all computer users. I'm saying that UI's that are boasted to be "user-friendly" are friendly only to newbies, but are actually unfriendly to experienced users because it gets in the way of what they want to do.

    A real "user-friendly" UI should be one that is conducive to both beginners and advanced users. I know that it's probably not possible for one UI to integrate both of these aspects; but at least the user should be given the choice. Linux GUI's may not be as good as Windows yet, but Linux at least gives the user the choice of what interface is most efficient for him/her. Windows shoves a GUI down your throat. Guess which one wins when Linux GUI's catch up to Windows.


    ---
  • who wonders how RedHat can possibly do everything they announce. Every other day they announce a partnership with someone. Aren't they getting spread out a bit? I haven't seen them posting on monster or dice or techies or anywhere wanting Linux gurus (I would have at least tried to get a job there). Just wondering...
  • This console should help linux get a foothold in the mainstream market and also bring gaming companies to begin to support linux in the computer market also an open structure would allow ANY person (with the nessary skills) to create a game, instead of an elite few.
  • Yeah, in the form of Sony's PlayStation 2...

    I love linux, but do you really think Indrema has that much of a chance in such a crowded console market where the other players are throwing as much as $500 million dollars into the marketing blitz for launch? (As X-Box is doing).

    Also, both the PS/2 and X-Box will have a ton of games at launch, where as the Indrema will have .. ?

    • My Celeron/466 Linux box boots in less than three minutes, and that's with Apache, Samba, Sendmail, and MySQL all starting up. Move the OS into ROM or flash, and you've got yourself a winner -- even without custom-tweaked drivers and hardware.
    • Check out XFree86 4.0.1 -- the DRI and modularization redesigns for this version are really freaking impressive. AFAIK, the 3D is all done w/OpenGL, and quite a few cards already have accellerated support.
    • Remember, we're talking Linux here. Assuming they're looking at using off-the-shelf hardware, coding for these consoles shouldn't be any more difficult than writing for a desktop machine. Game consoles are often incredibly difficult to code for because they don't follow any sort of industry standards for either hardware or software, and require a lot of low-level hacking to get good results.
    Linux consoles could easily put the smack down on the X-Box and proprietary boxes, because they could have the same availability of development tools and a much more reasonable learning curve for new developers. However, they could also easily die a quick, painful death if the X-Box beats them to the punch with game support. That is the biggest problem I see dealing with, since the X-Box will already be largely Windows-compatible, and ports of old Win32 games will be trivial, if necessary at all.
  • I have heard RedHat partner with AMD [yahoo.com], Motorolla, IBM [marketwatch.com] and the GNOME Foundation [yahoo.com] in the last week. While I am sure that stragetic partnerships are good for RedHat and Linux, I begin to wonder how much resources RedHat has to offer.

    Do they have the manpower to effectively contribute to these relationships?
  • I think that XBox will do very well for launch titles...
    The XBox should be very easy to program for compared to the PS2 - and very easy to port from (although I don't think MS are that keen on ports right now...) and MS are keen to have a good quality lineup.

    The other thing to consider is that the XBox is very easy to prototype for, even if you don't have a devbox yet. If you get a high-end PC with the best GeForce you can get, you can get quite close to the XBox platform - much closer than you can on any other console.

  • Oh, ha haha, ha hahaha... it?s a Windows joke! Ha ha ha, hahahaha, good one! Ha ha, haha ha ha, I had to laugh at that one. Ha ha, tee hee -- you know, because Windows is unstable! Ha ha, hoo... boy, that was some creative stuff!

    The way some of you jokesters put it, Windows BSOD's twice a day. IME, even with Windows 98, it's more like twice a year. FUD is a two way street, buddy.

    --

  • This is not flamebait, this is a serious question:

    Why is Indrema using Linux as a console OS? On a console, you want the OS to be out of the way, providing as little interferance as possible. You don't need memory protection (landing at the command prompt instead of simply freezing is hardly an improvement, and it gets in the way of extremely high-speed code), daemons, a complex driver module, or anything like that. All you want is a tightly-coded microkernel written in assembly which provides the most rudimentary hardware abstraction and multitasking, and then hand off everything to the loaded game--something a lot closer to V2 OS than Linux. Linux just isn't suited for a console for the same reasons that it is very well suited for workstations and servers.

    So the question comes down to: why are they using Linux?

  • true, but windows does backup the registry for a couple of generations...

    but hell - I gotta stop defending Windows so much... I think it can do well enough on it's own. ;)
  • Mr King, is that you?
  • Dont make your first purchase in a while this one. You will be left with quite a bad taste in your mouth about consoles.
  • Indrema has no chance. Anyone who follows the console market knows this. No games = no sales.

    Those of you who say that this may be interesting because its Linux either know nothing about the console market or letting their Linux bias get in the way.
  • RedHat does a whole lot more than the "usual" RedHat distribution. Since they aquired Cygnus they've been trying to profile themselves as "The Embedded Linux Company", take a look at EL/IX [redhat.com] for instance... This partnership, together with the other ones in the previous weeks does indeed strengthen their profile in the embedded Linux market.

  • But without initiatives like these it will never happen.
  • So the question comes down to: why are they using Linux?

    Because Indrema is not meant to be used only for gaming. It will be a set-top box, providing net access & the works. And being easy to program for, there will be heaps of interesting stuff coming out for it. And this includes Emulators of various other systems, ability to access proprietary, encrypted content (tv?) etc.

  • According to John Carmack, linux drivers are almost never as fast as their windows counter parts.

    But for a console all you need is just one really awesome driver and you're set. In this case it would be an nvidia driver of some sort.

    Also aren't most "linux" graphics card drivers actually XFree86 specific? Indrema doesn't use XFree, so that may make a difference too.

    They have a proprietary server called extrema that uses a subset of X and is designed for TV screens.

  • Sometimes.

    When my network card failed the other day, Windows decided that it had detected a new network card, pushing me through that ridiculous new hardware wizard (the one that doesn't find the right drivers no matter where you tell it to look and needs you to have a Windows 98 CD on hand just to update your network drivers).

    Red Hat on the same machine, on the other hand, correctly spotted that I had no longer had a 3c59x network card in the system.

    When I replaced the card, I needed to reboot Windows 3 times (as well as use Linux to download some new drivers from 3Com's site) before it worked again.

    When I rebooted Linux, it just worked.

    So please don't try to tell me the Windows is user friendly.
  • BTW, about outperforming Windows: Recently our Java guy told me that Linux JVM is faster than Windows JVM in graphical apps - which surprised me, because I remembered Linux Java being slow as hell. Seems that many things are improving, that's good. Maybe gaming too will be there soon.

  • Agreed. Though, I hope they figure these (and other) issues out before they ship, and ship in a timely manner.
    --

  • The real question is if they do GPL ALL code and therefore do not make any money from licensing, will we all be delighted at the chance to buy at the increased price for the benefit of anyone (including ourselves) being able to create a program (let's face it it is not going to do games only) to run on the machine? How many more playstations would have been sold if it COULD have had free games!
  • It doesn't actually have anything except a lot of vapour at the moment, Microsoft may promise all these amazing features, but watch some of the features disappear as the shipping date gets closer. What on earth would you want to display on 6 monitors anyway?
  • As of the +3 patch to Windows 95 maybe, but trust me, I've hosed a registry on my windows 95 machine once or twice and the system is unusable until you either fix the individual setting (good luck if you know how, and where to make the correction... and I won't even get into the time I recently had a bad sector crop up in the middle of the registry file). I've recently upgraded to Windows 98 and seen it 'recover' the registry once or twice... usually shortly after I installed a new piece of hardware and its recovery conveniently removed the settings that the hardware installation made. I still haven't been able to get anything to realize I've got a SoundBlaster Live on my machine because of this little problem.
  • nVidia GeForce 2 Ultra (see previous story [slashdot.org]), let us get working on those drivers.
  • Just listening to the old Geeks In Space episode 31, and according to what they were talking about in the broadcast, Linux didn't really have that good of a standard for video drivers (or something like that). It had a hard time with video, they talked about how it would be good to get a port for Quicktime, and one of the mentioned that they would like to play Quake 3 at a decent frame rate.
    Has this all chanaged since then? I recently saw some benchmarks on Toms Hardware with Linux drivers...has it come that far along that we can do descent gaming now?

  • Linux and Gaming (Score:4)

    by Grasshopper ( 153602 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @11:35AM (#853131)

    This sounds like really interesting news actually. Linux outperforms Windows in nearly every category *except* gaming. Many games have been ported to Linux, but all those I know of are at least fractionally slower (I'm sure someone can point out an exception).

    If Linux were to become a good foundation for future gaming consoles, we would see a lot more attention paid to building extraordinary (as opposed to merely working) drivers for various video cards, etc. I know many people who use Windows for the purpose of playing games due to this fact.

    Also, if Linux were to become more of a gaming platform, we might see more games being released for it, instead of someone having to hack out a port to nearly everything we want to play.

    All in all, this has at least some potential. Oh, and for the sceptics that I'm sure are already popping up, making Linux perform better in these areas will *not* degrade its usefulness in all the areas it already dominates. I would even highly doubt that it will take away any of the motivation for progress in other areas. I'd even argue that this would bring more attention to Linux in general with the possibility of having more intelligent people working on some of the details.

    Not everyone who uses Windows is lame. Some haven't been exposed to anything else, so how can we judge them? There may be another Linus out there dialing into AOL on his Win2K machine just dying to find something better...
  • Looking at the business model that Nitendo and Sony seem to be following, I would have to agree that they need to apply some creative thinking in order to derive a revenue stream from this market. Let's not forget the many many people who said: "why would someone want to pay you for something they can get off the net for free?".

    If there's anyone who knows how to make money in this space, it's redhat.

  • Why does this matter? (Score:4)

    by Nexx ( 75873 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @11:38AM (#853133)

    Linux DV won't take off as a console platform until the following happens:

    1. Boot-up times slashed from the current implementations. Noone will want to wait minutes for the console to boot up, as most consoles go with the "boot for each game" approach. Will this approach be any different with the Linux-based console? Will it have "load game" and "exit to OS" functionalities?
      • Of course, having a unified and standardised hardware base will do wonders wrt the drivers probing hardware, dropping the bootup times a bit.
    2. A mature 3D driver/library support for the graphics hardware becoming released.
      • Currently, the Linux versions of the nVidia drivers lagg behind the Windows implementations. Can anyone comment on the 3Dfx side?
      • Is there an OpenGL implementation that is stable and fast? Without such a library, it will make ports difficult at best.
    3. Ease of programming will be paramount. Sega Saturn was legendary in its difficulty to program for, and we all know how successful that platform was. Sega learned its lesson with the Dreamcast, and subsequently, it became one of the most straight-forward consoles to program for. Yes, UNIX is easy to program for, but how about the graphics? Are they fast and easy to work with? Will there be accelerated libraries?

    I'm not saying that the X-box will be easy, but it will at least be easier for MS to port all the crap needed to the X-box's OS, seeing as it's basically a stripped-down Windows (9x? NT?)-based OS.


    --

  • Re:Could The GPL Hurt Manufacturers and Consumers? (Score:3)

    by EvlG ( 24576 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @11:40AM (#853134)
    Sure, the OS has to be GPL, but that doesn't mean that the development tools, libraries, and drivers for the thing have to be.

    Indrema can easily make money by licensing special development kits (likely packaged as RPMs) that turn a standard Linux box (with the right hardware) into an Indrema development workstation. They have to give the OS and any kernel patches away, sure, but don't expect to see libraries and documentation for free. Those will cost an arm and a leg, and rightfully so. It's not easy to put together a gaming platform like this.

    In short, just because they use Linux, doesn't mean they need to GPL everything.
  • I havn't purchased a gaming console in a long time, however this one looks interesting. I wonder what the games will be like, and what gaming production companies will support it?
  • This would definitely be a cool toy to add into my entertainment system. I wonder if all of the games Loki has already ported over to Linux would work on this thing. I read that they are developing their own distribution of linux especially for this and other entertainment devices. Would the Linux distro they are creating be too fundamentally different from your average Linux install for it to work? It would definitely save them a lot of time in getting out some cool games for the thing. At the very least maybe Loki could partner with Nintendo or something like that, but then that would make this L6000 thing nothing more than a boring clone...at any rate, this is neat.
  • Loki's OpenAL provides 3D sound support under Linux.
  • Kinda like the XBox will intorduce them to:

    <BLUE_SCREEN>
    *** STOP: 0x00000019 BAD_POOL_HEADER
    (list DLLs here)
    Please contact your system administrator.
    </BLUE_SCREEN>

    eh? ;-)
  • I've been looking at the X-Box and the Indrema and I've found advantages and disadvantages of both systems. First, let's look at selection of titles - X-Box will provide titles for a premium. Games will probably cost as much as PS games, if not more. That'll be $40 or something. They are guaranteed to be practically bug-free, as with the tradition of console games. With Microsoft doing quality assurance, bugs will probably be stomped from X-Box games before they're allowed to be released (although Windoze will continue to be buggy). Now, with Indrema, the PSX type of marketing approach is showing. There will be up to a hundred (if not more) games to play on the Indrema within the first 3 months because coders will hack up their own games for free release on the Indrema (with a free license). The selection of games will be huge, and that's what will draw the crowd - wide selection (ala PSX). Now, the only problem is that those games released by amateur coders will be buggy, and sometimes buggy to the point where it's unenjoyable. But that point I won't complain (I mean, it's free). The only thing is - who will pay for a game if they can get other games for free? Unless it's an amazing game, 70% of the target audience will avoid it like a plague because you have to pay for it. I mean, when was the last time millions of people flooded to a store to buy a Linux game or program? I hope that I don't get sued for this, but the only computer game I've ever bought in my life is Starcraft (battlechest). It's amazing (as most of the nation will tell you), and it's extremely replayable, so I bought it. Have I bought any other games of late? No. Hell, have I replayed any old games of late? No. I don't want to buy a game that I'll stop playing in a month. A month of playing ain't worth $60, and if you can play other games (without copyright protection) for free, why the hell not? I mean, if there are free games that will be better, if not on par with commercial games released for Indrema, who the hell is going to pay for a game? The only reason half-life is selling so well is because of counter-strike. How many people will actually buy TF2 now that CS is LORD of Internet Teamplay. Sure, CS boosted the sales of HL, but it also crippled somewhat the future sales of TF2 (then again, I heard a rumour that they'll make a CS mod for TF2). Indrema games will likely not sell as well as had hoped, and the machines will probably need to cost a tad more than the X-Box (which, because of the Indrema, probably won't sell as well, either, although the tekkies will like it). Brings me to another point - The X-Box has plastered hardware specs all over the wall for the past year, and those claims have been demoed to be pretty solid. Now, this NV20 (or was it 25?) chip has been much-touted - can the Indrema's GPU compete? Not knowing anything about Indrema's GPU specs (or even who's making it) scares me away from it. The X-Box is going with the KING of all GPU's, who's Indrema going with? X-Box will be for a market of kids who use both PC and Console to game (it'll be their new console) while Indrema will be for a lower budgeted gamer (kinda, considering the software doesn't cost anything) or the Linux tekkies.

  • I'm sorry, I don't think they will succeed. (Score:3)

    by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @12:39PM (#853140)
    I simply don't think that Indrema can cut the mustard. They just don't have enough money. For a console to succeed, it needs several things:

    a) Developer Support: Where is the developer support for Indrema? - even if you've got good hardware, hardly anyone will buy the system without some impressive games to play on it. I've seen hardly any developer support for Indrema.

    b) Marketing: To get a new console going, you need a whole load of marketing bucks. People (even lofty /. readers) *are* affected by advertising. What are people going to buy - something they've seen plastered all over the TV and magazines, or something they've heard of once on a website?

    c) A viable business model: Most consoles make a loss on the hardware for the first year or two, making all their money on the royalties from the software. As Indrema will have an open system, developers will not have to pay them anything to produce software for it. They'll therfore have to make all their money on the hardware and be at a severe disadvantage to the discounted hardware of Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sega.

    d) Brand: Even though Sony stormed the console market with the Playstation, they were still a well known brand. Most people will never have heard of Indrema and will go with a name they know.

    Basically, Indrema don't have the money to compete with the other consoles in any big way. If they had vast amounts of money, they could pay developers to write games for them, but at the moment I doubt very many devlopers will. It's just a question of economics: Most console games nowadays require a team of at least 10 people at least 18 months to make. As a devloper gets about £5 for a £40 game, they'd have to sell at least a third of a million copies simply to break even. That's not counting advertising costs. I just can't see Indrema selling enough units to ensure a game could sell that many units, it's as simple as that.

    My background: I work for Fiendish Games [fiendishgames.com], which is the Games-Sold-Online division of Criterion Software [csl.com], who also make cross-platform graphics middleware like Renderware [renderware.com] and PC/Console games like Trickstyle [trickstyle.com].

    Please Note: My opinions may not represent the opinions of my employer.

    cheers,

    Tim

    Mail: tim@planettimmy.com [mailto]
    http://www.planettimmy.com/ [planettimmy.com]
  • I don't think the nvidia graphics card that indrema is going to use has been released yet. And since it isn't going to be the same driver that we use in X then it's a bit tricky to use the Tom's Hardware review.

    Also I agree with Carmack that it's not really important that the drivers are a little bit slow. In a couple years we'll all be using different graphics cards with different drivers.

    Instead it would be good to focus on speeding up Mesa because people will still be using that for a long time. Mesa is not the fastest implementation of OpenGL around. The guys who wrote it were not interested in playing games but in using it for modelling and educational stuff. Personally, I think education is good in it's place but computers should be used for what they do well: 3d games.

    Slashdot had an article a long time ago about SGI creating a Linux version of OpenGL and releasing it under the X license. But I haven't heard anything about that since. That should kick arse. :)

  • "Slashdot had an article a long time ago about SGI creating a Linux version of OpenGL and releasing it under the X license. But I
    haven't heard anything about that since. That should kick arse. :)"

    I remember that aswell, wonder what happened to that?

  • My Celeron/466 Linux box boots in less than three minutes, and that's with Apache, Samba, Sendmail, and MySQL all starting up. Move the OS into ROM or flash, and you've got yourself a winner -- even without custom-tweaked drivers and hardware

    My N64 console is ready for play in less than 10 seconds. Granted, a PSX takes *much* longer to boot (probably even a minute or two, but that's why I don't own a PSX), but you get the idea. Even when booting, I seriously doubt that the bottleneck is/will be the processor. Mind you, you're correct, a console would (hopefully :-) ) not have things like Apache, sendmail, and MySQL running. However, I will not want to wait for the bloody thing to boot if it takes more than a minute or two, regardless of the games involved. Hopefully, they will be able to overcome these issues.


    --
  • Since all Linux-based console OSs have to be released under the GPL

    The kernel, if changes were made, would have to be released under the GPL. But if they make all of their own tools, compilers, etc., those are their's to keep. I'm sure all game companies know how to make their own compilers and debuggers.

  • In reply to point 2, I can verify that the 3dfx drivers for Linux lag behind the Windows implementations. What makes me the angriest at that is how 3dfx wants to give the illusion of supporting Linux when other manufacturers won't.

    Yeah, right.

  • Common Ground to Stand On (Score:3)

    by Boiler99 ( 222701 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @11:44AM (#853146)
    This is great news, the more companies that back Linux as a gaming platform the better...games are the only reason I still have Windows installed, Linux does everything else better IMHO.

    Perhaps for Linux gaming to go up to the next level we need some kind of common application/driver/hardware etc. interface like DirectX...every single game that comes out nowadays is "Direct3D", and only some are OpenGL. I know OpenGL can handle the graphics (better than DirectX at that) and there has been a big push for 3D graphics support under Linux...but what about 3D sound support? DirectX includes all of this together...it is a good idea even if MS wrote it (for once).

    Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and there already is something like this...I just haven't heard of anything like it. It would developers some common ground though for sure...
  • see this is a good thing. while there are already many console systems out there (Dreamcast, PSX, N64) this will hopefully drive the prices down on these, as well as improve the quality of the X-Box and of the RH-Box (;) and drive their prices down too.

    is this thing going to only run linux games though? they should try to put a PSX emulator on there and some sort of system to run the X-Box games...then you could get three consoles for 1...heh! now thats practical

    JediLuke

  • Linux on a game console... (Score:5)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Tuesday August 15, 2000 @11:48AM (#853148) Homepage Journal
    What better way to introduce millions of children throughout the world with the words:

    Segmentation fault (core dumped)


    Welcome to the club, kiddies!

    Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
  • If there's anyone who knows how to make money in this space, it's redhat.


    Why do you say that? If you look at their most recent financial statements [yahoo.com] you will notice that Red Hat has never made a dime in profit.

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