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Games Entertainment

Gentoo Games 349

Posted by michael from the compile-your-own dept.
TheSurfer writes "Today, Gentoo announced the creation of Gentoo Games, 'a gaming technology company created to deliver innovative Linux-based game technologies to the public'. They also released a GameCD with the full version of America's Army. For more information, see the threads in the forums here and here."
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Gentoo Games More

Gentoo Games

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  • Possible legal problems? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by borgdows ( 599861 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:07AM (#5972092)
    Their logo looks very like the Nintendo Gamecube logo.

  • The description is very vague (Score:5, Interesting)

    by defile ( 1059 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:09AM (#5972101) Homepage Journal

    1. Are they going to produce a super optimized distro for games?

    2. Are they planning to aggressively port popular games to Linux?

    3. Are they planning to develop games from scratch?

    From the announcement, it suggests that they're doing 1 and/or 2...

    • Re:The description is very vague (Score:4, Interesting)

      by _|()|\| ( 159991 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:32AM (#5972273)
      Every time Slashdot posts a Linux games story, there is a "what-if" post about bootable game CDs--basically turning your PC into a PlayStation. I believe this America's Army CD is just that.

      • Re:The description is very vague (Score:5, Interesting)

        by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:43AM (#5972355) Journal
        I've always thought that was a cool idea, and I've made some of my own bootable game cds, with emulators and other stuff on 'em. It works great for the little PC I have setup on the TV.

        I also have a mini-distro on a HDD that will load up quick, and play a VCD/DVD on bootup if one is in the drive. (I like the Mini-ITX boards with DVD software in firmware, I'd love to be able to have a real PC mobo with that capability)

        Anyways, the only real problem is the drivers and the ever evolving hardware. I replace my video or sound card, and all of a sudden my old game cds are useless.

        They're easy enough to recreate, but it's enough that it can never really turn a PC into a playstation.

      • completeness (Score:5, Funny)

        by rodolfo.borges ( 415394 ) <barrett@9hel[ ]org ['ls.' in gap]> on Friday May 16, 2003 @10:21AM (#5972766) Homepage
        Just create a mod for q3a that turns quake console into a shell terminal, make a boot CD with it, and I'll use nothing else. :P
        Please, I *need* this mod!

    • Re:The description is very vague (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:39AM (#5972326) Journal
      Are they planning to aggressively port popular games to Linux?

      How the hell does one port "aggresively"? Like this?

      Programmer: COMPILE!!! COMPILE YOU WHORE!!! EVEN IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO, I WILL MAKE DUKE3D RUN ON LINUX, YOU GODDAMN PIECE OF INTEL SHIT!!! I'M GOING TO TEAR YOUR PROCESSOR OUT AND PISS ALL OVER YOUR CHIPSET IF YOU DON'T COMPILE SUCCESFULLY THIS TIME!!!

      • Re:The description is very vague (Score:5, Funny)

        by ecc0 ( 548386 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:49AM (#5972391)
        I don't think GCC has support for that yet. I've tried it several times with different software, no luck.

      • How the hell does one port "aggresively"? Like this?

        Contact a whole assload of game publishers and offer them free Linux ports? That sounds aggressive to me. ;)

      • Speeking as a game developer who had to "port" SSX Tricky into a web-based game (in 3 months): Yes. That is exactly how you do it.
      • How the hell does one port "aggresively"? Like this?

        In my experience, passive agressive works best:

        Programmer: Okay, you don't have to compile. It's not like anything you do will impact anyone anyway. You're just Linux, a geek-coder's OS, I understand... no no, I am not angry. Far from it. You are open source, you can do whatEVER you want... and if you don't want to let people play fun games on you, hey, who am I to judge? It's not like I can compile. I am sure that you feel not compiling games i

    • Re:The description is very vague (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @10:48AM (#5973099) Homepage Journal
      Are they going to make it easier to install their operating system? [slashdot.org] Gamers aren't going to go through the mind numbing process of installing gentoo when they can install windows by pressing enter twice.

      I see the future of gaming is boot cds and boot dvds. Take a knoppix type hardware detection base add a light weight graphics front end, the nvidia driver, the ati driver (who seriously uses a different card?), and a surround sound library. Load the whole mother into RAM and go for it. Read fmvs and load levels and maps from disc.

      No matter what your OS you'll be able to game. Lower system requirements will also be possible. It takes a processor of power X to run doom 3 and windows at the same time. With a minimal os boot off a disc it will take power X - some.

      • They're doing pretty much what you're asking for. I believe the first one they did was an Unreal Tournament CD that booted off CD and ran. Here (http://gentoogames.supercomputerinc.com) they're offering America's Army on a cd, no OS install required.

      • If its hard, maybe it's not for you. I'm not exactly sure how you didn't understand the help for it, though. Its got an excellent install guide which includes examples.

        I especially don't see how make.conf is hard to use. There's a guide specifically about that, too. It sounds like you haven't been reading.

        Many of the developers have in mind that Gentoo should be what it claims to be - a metadisribution - which means that you use it to make other distributions.

        Already, there is more work being done on

  • Games on Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by flokemon ( 578389 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:10AM (#5972106) Homepage
    There's just nothing as good as the BSD game collection :)
    *goes for another round of mille bornes*
  • gentoogames.com = just an image.

    Whats the point of a link to it?
    • You know, there's a very good chance that one day they're going to have put content there. Come on, you know that it's useful to know the future site's URL, so don't bitch for the sake of it.

  • I would have read the article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Neophytus ( 642863 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:10AM (#5972112)
    but I cann't seem to find one! A couple forum threads about the game doesn't really count.

    Anyone got more information about the company?

  • Give credit where it is due: (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:11AM (#5972116)
    Its nice that Gentoo includes America's Army, but the story should mention that Ryan Gordon(icculus.org) is the one that did the port.

  • Is this the answer? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by steelerguy ( 172075 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:11AM (#5972119) Homepage
    For some reason I just don't think this is going to make that much of a difference to your Linux user/Gamer. Unless they can get the game developers to actually develop Linux ports at the same time they are doing their Windows design then we will just continue to see a few old games ported over. By old I mean like 1 year of course.

    I think this is a great idea, and I love Gentoo, but I know I will be keeping a Windows partition around to dual boot until more companies like id (read Valve!!!) release for both Windows and Linux at the same time.
    • Hell, I would love it if even 1% of games over 1 year old were available.

      Think about being able to play real classics like Dungeon Keeper again - on Linux - for a start it would probably cost you only $15 a copy or so, you wouldn't have to worry about your next upgrade breaking it (at worse a couple of extra kernels would be required).

      New games are horribly expensive, so I just wait a year and get them from the bargain selection, with the exception of Unreal Tournament 2003 (which I paid my $50 for). If t

  • Excellent! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xchino ( 591175 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:13AM (#5972127)
    Daniel Robbins and the rest of the Gentoo crew have done an amazing job with Gentoo as a Linux distro, and even though it's a relative new-comer, it has exploded onto the scene as a force to be reckoned with. I really believe that they will be as huge a success in the game industry as they were in the Linux distro field, they are competent coders and they know what the average Linux user wants, because they ARE your average Linux users. Also, I've had a few chats with drobbins in #gentoo on freenode. When was the last time you saw the head of your favorite distro kick it wif da homies on #IRC. He was even providing basic support for total newbs. Maybe that's why there's so many of us Gentoo zelouts who just won't shut up about it :)

    • But Gentoo? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )
      Gentoo is great, but I don't particularly care to 'emerge ut2006' and wait 6 hours while it compiles. ;)

      • Re:But Gentoo? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by checkyoulater ( 246565 )
        Gentoo is great, but I don't particularly care to 'emerge ut2006' and wait 6 hours while it compiles.

        Then bite the bullet and invest in broadband. It only took me about an hour to "compile" ut2002, and 58 minutes of it was for the download of the binary.

      • Re:But Gentoo? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @10:38AM (#5972989) Homepage
        Just 6 hours to reach into the future and compile UT2006? Hell, where do I sign up!

        Perhaps I can download other classics from the distant future, like Doom 4, Red Alert 7 and Duke Nukem Forever...

      • Re:then RTFM (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Bastian ( 66383 )
        and try an 'emerge -b ut2006'

        duh.

      • Re:But Gentoo? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Unregistered ( 584479 )
        ut2003 installs faster than it does on any other distro since it's a binary(no compiling) and gentoo knows where to dl it. I assume ut2006 will be the same

    • Re:Excellent! (Score:4, Funny)

      by ryanvm ( 247662 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @11:07AM (#5973288)
      He was even providing basic support for total newbs.

      Suhweet. All this Perl and Python stuff is killing me. We're finally going to catch up with Microsoft when we get our BASIC interpreter for Linux.

      • Re:Excellent! (Score:3, Informative)

        by xchino ( 591175 )
        Actually there is a visual basic clone called Gambas for Linux. Of course no respectable developer would be caught programming in any form of BASIC :P

  • America's Army (Score:4, Insightful)

    by anarchima ( 585853 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:14AM (#5972133) Homepage
    Anyone else find that America's Army game kind of sick? Sort of glorifies the horrors of war by caricaturing it through a cartoon-like portrayal. Plus, it makes it look like war is a cakewalk for a teenage audience. Reality is people dying, not losing 20 points off your health.

    • Re:America's Army (Score:5, Funny)

      by fobbman ( 131816 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:19AM (#5972160) Homepage
      Totally agree. I've had a problem with the lack of reality in games ever since that giant ape took my girlfriend captive and started rolling barrels at me.

    • Re:America's Army (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      AA is one of the more realistic war simulations I've seen. If you get hit *once* you die, it does not get more real than that. I think the game teaches you how important teamplay and keeping your head down is. It's the best FPS out there IMHO.

      • Re:America's Army (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Skyshadow ( 508 )
        Of course, you say "die" and you really mean "have to sit out several minutes before I respawn". AA is about as close to the reality of combat as paintball (at least in paintball it stings a little when you get shot).

    • But you miss the point... (Score:5, Funny)

      by nastro ( 32421 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:38AM (#5972318)
      Which, of course, is:

      Yrma Eht Nioj!

      All that game needs is belly dancers to sing it ad nauseum.

    • Re:America's Army (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lscotte ( 450259 )
      No, it doesn't make me sick because I know the difference between reality and fantasy. The average teenager is not an idiot and knows this difference too (I have a 15 year old, and I assure you she knows the difference). Sure, there will always be problem people who don't know the difference, but guess what: they have always existed in society, and always will exist. Welcome to the real world.

      How did the parent get modded up as insightful? Oh, /. pushing politics as usual. Sigh...

  • Errr... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Davak ( 526912 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:17AM (#5972148) Homepage

    I really hope this is better than it looks.

    20 or so posts in a forum plus a logo doesn't form the foundations of a great company. Especially when half the posts are discussing installation and politics of America's Army.

    Yeah, we have America's Army... but surely the fledging company was helped by the Army's obvious goal of getting the game out to as many people as possible...

    That being said, I don't know how many of us geeks they want to recruit onto the front lines... (pizza boxes under the bunk beds, wars would have to be scheduled between 3pm and 2am, Simpson's battle crys, etc.)

    Anyway, I hope this is more than it now appears.

    Davak

  • Bootable CD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by awakened tech ( 630189 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:18AM (#5972158)
    How does this work? Ideally it would the CD would have the following: - A micro kernal with just the services needed by games (LAN, video, sound, disk management, not much else). This would install itself on your HD for future use, auto-update if the one on the CD is newer. - Smart driver finder (searches the disto currently installed on your machine for the necessary drivers) - Game files (obviously) This would have a number of advantages, from console like loading (stick the CD in, turn PC on, quick boot and run). To optimizing the operating environment (no unnecesary services running, should be easier to agree to standards for a micro-kernal like this). Could also be run in UML so you don't have to reboot. Hopefully this would give games developers at common target to aim at whilst also making the games easy to install and run (would only really use HD space if needed, shouldn't be a problem at all) Quick, I'd better patent all that ;o)
    • The kernel of a distro can't be specified down to that level of just your hw config. It doesn't install on your HDD, most things that need to be written to are mounted on a ramdisk, otherwise a bootable CD is kinda useless. The point, IMHO, is to run it on a machine without an HDD. Gentoo has already had a game CD with the nvidia drivers and UT2k3 demo on it, and bootable cd's themselves have been around for years and years (I made one with Win95 and my first 2x burner)

      If you really want to know more abo

    • UML (Score:2)

      by KPU ( 118762 )
      Isn't your whole point about a micro kernel and few services running defeated by running it in user mode linux where the host is a larger kernel with more services?
  • I caught them just as they were grinding to a halt and the meat of the threads was "Dude, that TOTALLY rules!"

  • Fortune is a really boring game. I hope they spice it up with some new cookie files!
    • My home computer uses simpsons quotes [cdlug.net]! Just keep hitting refresh, it will get you through a slow afternoon. Or a slow morning. Or a whole Friday, actually.

      (E-mail me if you want the fortune file. I forget where I got it from, but I remember it took a while to find it)
    • See if you can read every fortune in ten seconds! watch -n 10 fortune
      Or get the offensive fortune package:
      watch -n 10 fortune-o

  • Mirror in case of slashdot (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:21AM (#5972183)
    <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
    <html>
    <head>
    <title>Gentoo Games, Inc.</title>
    </head>
    <body>
    <center>
    <img border="0" src="gentoogames.png">
    </center>
    </body>
    </html>
  • They either can:

    1) port games to Linux; very positive move, since gaming is important for the home PC market.

    2) maintain the very best Linux distribution aimed for games; not very important by itself, since the games will be still missing.

    3) create an intergrated development solution ala DirectX with 3d, 2d, sound, controllers, etc support. Maybe unify current solutions under a common and consistent API ?

    4) provide the tools for writing games ?

    From the above three, number 3) seems to me the most innova

  • BitTorrent ISO Download (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:23AM (#5972203)
    you can download the ISO using this bittorrent link: http://gentoo.twobit.net/misc/aa-20030513.iso.torr ent

  • What I'd like to see (Score:5, Funny)

    by timothy ( 36799 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:24AM (#5972216) Journal
    OK, I don't have a modern enough video card to play with this ISO yet, but the concept is cool. To the extent that the U.S. Army uses tax dollars to advertise itself (though I find government advertising mostly unpalatable, whatever your particular stance on militarism, the U.S. military etc), at least this way they're also creating a game ;)

    Other government agencies should get off their duffs, though: How come we don't see a good flight sim from the Air Force (with fighters, helicopters, in-air refueling ...), a good submarine sim from the Navy (c'mon, guys!), and a NORAD Control Ops?

    Also, where is Taxpayer Bingo? That's the exciting game from the IRS where loopholes and ambiguities are used to calculate wildly differing results from the same income / liabilities scenario! Find ways to imply guilt by analyzing a packet of information written on menaingless and contradictory forms. In a second round, you get to follow up in the Audit Zone. Shoot to kill, shoot to kill, presume guilt.

    And ATF Deathmatch, where you can choose exciting Massive Force attacks (you get tanks and lots of shooters; the opponents are mostly harmless but have some guns), or Sneak Attack (just you vs. a wacky racist family; hitting the mom gets you a bonus and a letter of commendation, the dog gets you a bonus life).

    And the MVA Castle, a non-violent game where you must play the part of an MVA bureaucrat by lying to and avoiding customers. You only get a certain number of "This Window Closed" signs before the crazed citizens overwhelm you though. Because it's a non-violent game, the citizens have to hug you to death.

    Oh, don't forget Postal Wars. You must deliver the mail *and* fill the joint with lead. The Flourescent lights slowly lower to crush everyone, and you only score when *you* kill the citizens, not when everyone dies from the general oppression. Extra game for hitting private delivery service employees (like UPS), and Boy Scouts [truthnews.net].

    Some of those, it would be better to *not* see, except on the computer of course. But uh, Navy guys, about the submarine sim, could ya work on that?

    timothy

  • nice site (Score:5, Funny)

    by bilbobuggins ( 535860 ) <bilbobuggins@[ ]tjunt.com ['jun' in gap]> on Friday May 16, 2003 @09:26AM (#5972231)
    in a related story, not to be outdone by Gentoo's newest marketing move, other Linux companies have announced similar aggressive logo creation campaigns including the introduction of logos for RedHat Games, RedHat Dating and SUSE Tax Returns

    word is that we can also expect logos for Mandrake Mortgages whereas SCO has begun work on a logo for SCO DIY Lawsuit 2.3

    expect this stunning artwork sometime by second quarter 2004

    when asked about any actual code being written a top Linux executive responded 'you must not understand Linux' and 'logos want to be free, that's why we're putting them on the web for everyone to see. you don't see MS with whole site dedicated to a logo do you?'

    no mention was made if original EPS/PSD files would be available for download

  • I'm fetching this right now and will be sharing it on giFT.

    NOTE: giFT updated it's version of openFT to 0.0.9 recently, those of you who haven't udpated in a long time (which is horse shit, they ask you to update daily, so get with the program), will be on the old network. Update and see me, and help move the network forward.

    The filename will be aa-20030513.iso .

    I encourage other UPDATED giFT users to share this, as well.

  • Visiting icculus.org [icculus.org] regularly, I thought AA for Linux was still in closed beta. There's also no mention of the Linux version on AA's main site. I can only conclude that this version is a leak of the closed beta, and it can only spell problems for Gentoo and/or the leaker.

    Last thing: what's the point of having a Gentoo LiveCD? It'll sit there for a day or two after reboot while compiling everything needed? Or is it all precompiled? Anyway, I don't think AA will be available as source, so using Gentoo is ki

  • I am not interested in the American Army game but I can't wait for Gentoo Games to release French Army game.

    You won't kill anyone in this game but it will be fun to bothering USians!

    (hey I am not a troll, I am french ;) )
  • While I think this is cool for Linux & all, and technically quite interesting, if people had meant individual games & apps to not interoperate and boot up the whole machine from scratch, why did people bother writing operating systems in the first place?

    They are missing the fundamental concept of operating systems.

  • Hey everyone, check it out: I was right! [slashdot.org]

  • Reboot your machine, your computer loads the OS off your CD so the programmer has a standard platform to work from. Something Windows doesn't offer. The HD is only used for game save and updates.

  • I only game on Linux now, and my Linux is Gentoo (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dougnaka ( 631080 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @10:51AM (#5973137) Homepage Journal
    I play UT2003, and Neverwinternights. Both run amazingly well on my 2.4.20-gaming kernel with the latest Nvidia drivers.

    But the main reason I love gentoo is a good, working BSD style ports system. I've uninstalled Windows on my desktop, which was the last place I had it running... thanks Gentoo, and everyone in the Linux community. I will only buy games that have a native Linux port, and since UT2003 and NWN will last me a long time if nobody ports, I'll keep my money, and donate some to Gentoo and others who are advancing the cause of Freedom.

  • Booting games from CD? You're kidding, right? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cereal Box ( 4286 ) on Friday May 16, 2003 @01:09PM (#5974375)
    Wow, how many years has it been since we had to have a "boot disk" in order to run games? That's not something I want to go back to.

    Also, how could Linux geeks be in favor of rebooting their machine to play a game? You guys think dual-booting Windows for playing games is absurd, yet don't have any problem rebooting to play the game in Linux? Huh?

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