Linux, or GNU/Linux as some people want to call it, was born 20+ years ago as an open source desktop operating system and despite its massive success on super-computers, servers, embedded and mobile devices it didn’t manage to gain the same traction on the space that was bred for, on desktop. Many people gave valid arguments on why desktop is a hard market to conquer but deep down I believe that video games is one of the most commonly desired features of a home computing system. Despite some notable efforts over the years Linux gaming never shared the same love as Windows PC gaming and console gaming but that may come to an end mainly due to Valve’s efforts to steer developers and gamers to Linux. As a Linux (game) developer for the past 6 years I think I can shed some light on the pros and cons of that system and who knows maybe some people will find this reading useful.
To be able to see and understand the big picture of developing on and for Linux we first need to identify the smaller areas that compose it. Things like tools (compilers, debuggers, libraries), hardware abstractions (graphics and sound APIs) and finally maintaining multiplatform capabilities are some key elements of that process. Keeping the multiplatform aspect of things in the back of our head is an interesting and sensible thing to do mainly because with careful planning and not that much effort a Linux application can be ported to other operating systems where the opposite may not be that easy.
Continue reading “Developing games on and for Linux/SteamOS”