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Open Source Linux Games

Desura Linux Game Client Goes Open Source 94

An anonymous reader writes "The Desura game distribution client for Windows and Linux and developed by ModDB is now open source software. The open source version of the client is called Desurium and is hosted on GitHub."
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Desura Linux Game Client Goes Open Source

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  • Ium (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cyphase ( 907627 ) on Sunday January 22, 2012 @12:49AM (#38778869) Homepage
    Is -ium the new suffix to describe the open source project of commercial products?
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Is -ium the new suffix to describe the open source project of commercial products?

      No, the name was chosen because the heart of the application is the Chromium Extension Framework, or CEF. Choosing Desurium as the name of the open source project was a way of giving credit to the CEF project.

  • I'm guessing.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tecker ( 793737 ) on Sunday January 22, 2012 @01:16AM (#38778973) Homepage
    Im guessing that they do want to support Linux as a platform but the maintenance of the thing is killing them. Linux gamers exist but for the small numbers they provide I but the upkeep of the client is killing them time wise. Open sourcing the client makes sense if this is the case, otherwise why bother?
    • by Anonymous Coward

      they've been able to manage to eek out a client with one developer working on it. opening it up to the community exposes it to much more support and improvement.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Because this will get them more customers in the Linux segment?

      Distro maintainers and experienced users do often think of closed source not only as a security risk, but also as a maintenance nightmare. If Desura is open sourced and reasonably easy to compile, it WILL make it into many distro repositories.

      That and the potential to attract some useful contributions from game modders etc. sounds like the most likely motivation to me, really.

    • by ornia ( 1225132 ) on Sunday January 22, 2012 @06:10AM (#38779851)

      Im guessing that they do want to support Linux as a platform but the maintenance of the thing is killing them. Linux gamers exist but for the small numbers they provide I but the upkeep of the client is killing them time wise. Open sourcing the client makes sense if this is the case, otherwise why bother?

      ...except that they released their Windows client under GPLv3 as well?

      With only a single developer being employed at the company for the native GNU+Linux port, of course the arguement can be made that they did a cost-benefit analysis and determined that crowd-sourcing development talent and time from the Internet would yield a superior product that improves faster. This is not a testament to small numbers of GNU+Linux users, but rather the efficiency of modern Free Software development methodologies. The fact that they GPLv3-ed their Windows client is further proof of this fact.

  • Never got around to buying a HD tv and a 600 dollar (for the longest time) console

    BUT, I just dont like download games

    I have a sucky internet connection (comcast economy) , its far more convenient for me to go 5 min down the road and get a disc from walmart, I do have a few games, but shit like now I just reformatted my machine yesterday, and those few games are going to take quite a few all night sessions to download ... again, for the 4th time since I purchased them, just so I wont hog up the internet con

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      you can backup local game files in steam either manually or using their own backup function.

      steam is incredibly well built in this regard, you can even throw _some_ game files into the corresponding directory, and steam will recognize them and skip them for download...

      for example, i installed steam on wine on a linux partition, and then copied game files manually from a windows installation in the same box, and voila, steam did not complain about anything, and all games worked fine.

      • by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

        yea but by the time I download it, archive it, use my discs .... is it really any less effort than driving to walmart and getting a boxed copy on a stamped disk?

        • by Anonymous Coward

          It's less effort than constantly having to stick/swap discs in the DVD-Rom drive every time I want to play a game...

          yea but by the time I download it, archive it, use my discs .... is it really any less effort than driving to walmart and getting a boxed copy on a stamped disk?

        • by gmhowell ( 26755 )

          yea but by the time I download it, archive it, use my discs .... is it really any less effort than driving to walmart and getting a boxed copy on a stamped disk?

          It depends on how drunk/stoned you are.

        • by Briareos ( 21163 ) *

          yea but by the time I download it, archive it, use my discs .... is it really any less effort than driving to walmart and getting a boxed copy on a stamped disk?

          Opening up Windows explorer, navigating to the steamapps folder then dragging the copied folder of the game I want to re-install from my NAS into the steamapps folder over gigabit ethernet is exactly how more effort than driving somewhere, buying something and installing that from several discs?

          Are you serious?

          np: Pink Floyd - Have A Cigar (Wish You Were Here)

    • 600? Really? I know your trying to make a point but making up shit just makes you sound dumb. Its been 4 or more years since the highest end ps3 was 600, and youve been able to get an xbox for under 200 for 3 or so. If walmart is just 5 minutes away you should know this.

      • by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

        fine give me 200 bucks for something I obiously dont care about, to me its not worth the money to pay 200 bucks for a 2004 computer

    • So, you're not their target audience. Move on.

  • by spektre1 ( 901164 ) on Sunday January 22, 2012 @01:47AM (#38779083) Homepage
    Or anything else, other than a surrender of a right, and a public sharing of it. A bit testimonial sounding here, so I apologize, but this is a doorway to getting game developers to start taking linux seriously. I just started using the Desura client and found that it runs faster on Ubuntu than on Windows. Just sayin'. Installing and purchasing are painless too. If you game, I wish you'd help promote it. Take it seriously and try not to be so flippant and judgemental. I'm going back to porting one of my projects to SDL now.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by emilper ( 826945 )

      just installed Desura:

        + had my Humble Bundle games in my account
        + Fallout 1 is in their list
        + very easy to install the games

        - Fallout 1 is more expensive than on GOG ...
        - trouble with two monitors: the few games I tried see them as only one in full screen
        - yeah, 1€ = 1$ ... come on, guys, really ?

      • 1$ = 1€ has been standard for everything electronics and software, ever since the dollar became weak. Be glad you're not living in the UK where it is 1$ = 1£. I don't like it either, but non Dollar users are second class world citizens.

        What the Desura client concerns: first thing to fix is that it gets installed multi-user in a correct way. Then it's up to the Distro maintainers to package it correctly and put it in their reporitories.

      • yeah, 1€ = 1$ ... come on, guys, really ?

        Prices expressed in € generally include VAT. Prices expressed in $ generally do not; sales tax is either added as a line item (for sales in person or mail order sales within one state) or payable to the state government at the end of the year (for interstate mail order sales).

        • For a long time it was the case that a CD selling in the US at $10 would be £10 in the UK. At the exchange rates back then that's more like $15, and VAT isn't 50%.

    • I just started using the Desura client and found that it runs faster on Ubuntu than on Windows.

      What the...

      What does that have to do with anything? So I'm going to switch from Steam, or GOG, or whatever because Desura "runs faster"? What does "runs faster" even mean in this context?

      Look, when I'm picking a game purchasing platform, I can guarantee you that "runs faster" is pretty much the last thing I care about.

      Take it seriously and try not to be so flippant and judgemental.

      I'm tryin' but your post ain't he

      • Yah, it was. I was a bit distracted when writing that, so I apologize. I only meant by "run faster" that it feels way snappier than on other platforms I had tried it on, which matters to me because I hate bad UIs. I deal with enough of those at work.
      • by delt0r ( 999393 )
        Why do you need to switch? I think you can use both.... If Desura has a game you really want, you don't have to dump all your steam games.
    • by mgiuca ( 1040724 )

      As a Linux user, it's become pretty hard for me to take Linux gaming seriously since Nvidia launched Optimus and left us Linux users out in the cold. I just bought a new laptop with an Nvidia card and I had no idea what I was getting myself into: even simple 2D games run sluggishly on my brand new $400 graphics card in Linux, because it falls back to the Intel integrated card and there appears to be no way to get the real graphics card to work without booting Windows. I've lost all respect for Nvidia, but m

      • by delt0r ( 999393 )
        ?? what? I have many linux boxes here with a range of nvidia cards. They all run at about the correct speed. As in at full speed with the expected performance you would get in windows.

        Of course many of the mobile cards do have low expected performance... and are not cheap either. You pay for small or power saving it seems... But then laptops are not really where high performance gaming is at regardless of OS.
        • by mgiuca ( 1040724 )

          But do your Nvidia cards have Optimus [wikipedia.org]? My previous laptop (bought in late 2007) had an Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT 256MB, and that played games pretty well on Windows and Linux (but it was starting to get a bit old so I bought a new one). This laptop (bought in late 2011) has an Nvidia GeForce 540M 2GB, and it runs fine on Windows, abysmally on Linux. I haven't played any serious 3D games, but 2D games like Braid and Jamestown are sluggish, and I've tried my own (poorly optimised) 3D game and it runs at half th

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I can't wait for the far superior fork that utilises Qt instead of GTK!

  • by Anonymous Coward

    I've never heard of this company or its games and "client" before. Can someone please explain what exactly the open sourced software does? Is it anything of value or is it simply a portal through which you fill the company's pockets, a la Valves Steam client?

    I hate to sound negative about any software being open sourced, but so many companies use open sourcing as a marketing ploy or as a way to cut thier support costs, so I'm always suspicious about ones I've never heard of before.

    • by tenco ( 773732 ) on Sunday January 22, 2012 @10:37AM (#38781351)

      I hate to sound negative about any software being open sourced, but so many companies use open sourcing as a marketing ploy or as a way to cut thier support costs, (...)

      Companies use business practices and marketing to increase their revenue? Run for the hills!

    • Major differences between it and steam: 1) Major emphasis on independently produced games 2) Linux support 3) Inbuilt mod support It is made by the same people who run indiedb.com and moddb.com. It allows the creators of mods to quickly and easily reach people, it allows developers of games that have a linux version to easily and simply target every distro (rather than just Ubuntu with the Ubuntu Software Center, for example) and it gives independent developers a quick and easy way of getting their games
  • by Georules ( 655379 ) on Sunday January 22, 2012 @10:59AM (#38781521)
    ... but why did the user interface have to be a blatant rip-off of the steam platform? Could they not think of a different color palette at least?
    • Simple business decision. If the biggest cost of moving to a new platform is usability, then it would make sense to copy the competing platform to reduce the learning curve. Furthermore, hardcore gamers tend to go for the carbon, black, grey look more often than most. Personally, I've never understood why everything including the window shell has to be some form of black polished metal, but I don't use all of my free time gaming either.

      • I'd say this business decision is flawed. Most every gamer friend I have looks at it and thinks it's just a rip-off of steam. They dismiss it before they realize it offers a lot of interesting products steam doesn't have.
  • I'm not too familiar with this platform, but a quick browse of the site shows that the client supports some kind of DRM (if nothing else, their developer page [desura.com] lists "Check player authentication (are they allowed to play the game / banned)" under API Integration). Wouldn't open-sourcing the client allow anybody to produce a version that ignored any DRM checks in the client?

    When you open source a game, I suppose it's your choice as the developer. But when you open source a content delivery platform, doesn't t

    • by aiht ( 1017790 )
      I don't know the details of the implementation, but I'm pretty sure that any DRM could be included as part of the game, rather than the client (which, in case you're not familiar with it, is basically just a GUI shell for purchasing, downloading and launching games).
      Open-sourcing the Desura client itself would not necessarily impact any libraries that are linked into the games, even if those libraries were also provided by Desura.
      Actually, even if they open-sourced the DRM library itself, the games you do
      • by mgiuca ( 1040724 )

        Aha. Good explanation (especially about the static linking).

        If they did open source the DRM library as you say, it would still be a risk -- presumably if you have the source code to a statically linked library, it is not too difficult to recompile a given function and then hack it into the executable. But then, all client-side DRM is susceptible to hacking, and this would make it non-trivial to do so.

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