(Updated) Thoughts on a native GNU/Linux Raft release

[Felix]

Edit 2020/12/25: I retract the original statement of this post (below) posted in 2018 and apologise for the impolite tone.
At this point, I have changed my stance regarding this issue: As GNU/Linux is an operating system built around the concept of having freedom, it is best not to wish for proprietary games to be made available natively on it. It may increase our userbase, but the intent is not mere popularity, it is freedom. If we must discard the ideas of freedom and suggest that it is good or at least okay for proprietary games and software to exist on GNU/Linux for the purpose of gaining popularity, then it is not worth the price.
If Raft is to come to GNU/Linux natively, I would much prefer it be released as libre software beforehand. We should have freedom in computing in every area, including games. It may seem 'unimportant', but to have freedom you must be free in all respects. I also don't think that people should have to trade their freedom in order to experience an enjoyable game.

Original title: Do not leave Linux in the dust, please
Original post: Linux is a legitimate operating system for gaming. The fact that developers choose not to create versions of their games for it are perpetuating the myth that it's not for gaming. No, it's no harder to make a Linux version. You will in fact make it more difficult to add a Linux version whenever you decide that us "lesser" persons deserve it. What do you even mean in the FAQ by "certain parts of the game making porting more difficult"? What parts? And what do you mean by "porting"? A Linux release is not a "port".
Please do the right thing and develop a Linux version alongside the Windows version. You had Linux releases of the game on itch.io for every version except 5. Why stop now? Why abandon us?

[456qwejos]

It is a legitimate software it just cannot be supported as of yet. The new raft has changed so much that they had to build an engine that for now, only works on windows. They will hopefully add it in the future. But not yet

[Felix]

An engine that "only works on Windows" is their fault, not Linux's. Why didn't they think of this in the first place? Why prevent part of your customer base from purchasing and playing the game?

[norritt]

+1 please keep supporting Linux

[Trassan]

Originally posted by Felix:

Linux is a legitimate operating system for gaming. The fact that developers choose not to create versions of their games for it are perpetuating the myth that it's not for gaming. No, it's no harder to make a Linux version. You will in fact make it more difficult to add a Linux version whenever you decide that us "lesser" persons deserve it. What do you even mean in the FAQ by "certain parts of the game making porting more difficult"? What parts? And what do you mean by "porting"? A Linux release is not a "port".
Please do the right thing and develop a Linux version alongside the Windows version. You had Linux releases of the game on itch.io for every version except 5. Why stop now? Why abandon us?

Hi there!
We have not developed any new engine as stated by ForgottenPsycho. We are creating Raft in the well known engine Unity which does support builds for Linux. However it is not as easy as just selecting Linux instead of Windows and expect the game to work.

We have come across multiple issues regarding shaders and other errors when creating a build towards Linux. Supporting Linux is not viable for us right now because we do not have the man power to develop and test for both Linux and Windows. Because we and most of our audience is using Windows we decided to focus on a stable Windows build first.
If possible we will try to get a Linux version out there as well.

If you are wondering how we supported Linux back in the day over at Itch.io the answer is pretty simple, there was almost no special shaders or any assets in the game that gave us problem when building for Linux. We could easily build for both Linux and Windows but that is not the case anymore.

Hopefully that gives you some insight on why Linux is currently not supported.

[Minz0r]

I will support this Game as soon as it gets the Linux Version.

[Тамбовский Волк]

Originally posted by Trassan:

Originally posted by Felix:

Hi there!
We have not developed any new engine as stated by ForgottenPsycho. We are creating Raft in the well known engine Unity which does support builds for Linux. However it is not as easy as just selecting Linux instead of Windows and expect the game to work.

We have come across multiple issues regarding shaders and other errors when creating a build towards Linux. Supporting Linux is not viable for us right now because we do not have the man power to develop and test for both Linux and Windows. Because we and most of our audience is using Windows we decided to focus on a stable Windows build first.
If possible we will try to get a Linux version out there as well.

If you are wondering how we supported Linux back in the day over at Itch.io the answer is pretty simple, there was almost no special shaders or any assets in the game that gave us problem when building for Linux. We could easily build for both Linux and Windows but that is not the case anymore.

Hopefully that gives you some insight on why Linux is currently not supported.

Nothing prevents you from making a version on Linux exclusively using the VULKAN API.
This way It will be much easier for you to make a game for our platform.
It is also worth supporting Ubuntu 18.04, and what or other is not necessary.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

+1. Please continue to support Linux.

[False]

Originally posted by Trassan:

Originally posted by Felix:

Linux is a legitimate operating system for gaming. The fact that developers choose not to create versions of their games for it are perpetuating the myth that it's not for gaming. No, it's no harder to make a Linux version. You will in fact make it more difficult to add a Linux version whenever you decide that us "lesser" persons deserve it. What do you even mean in the FAQ by "certain parts of the game making porting more difficult"? What parts? And what do you mean by "porting"? A Linux release is not a "port".
Please do the right thing and develop a Linux version alongside the Windows version. You had Linux releases of the game on itch.io for every version except 5. Why stop now? Why abandon us?

Hi there!
We have not developed any new engine as stated by ForgottenPsycho. We are creating Raft in the well known engine Unity which does support builds for Linux. However it is not as easy as just selecting Linux instead of Windows and expect the game to work.

We have come across multiple issues regarding shaders and other errors when creating a build towards Linux. Supporting Linux is not viable for us right now because we do not have the man power to develop and test for both Linux and Windows. Because we and most of our audience is using Windows we decided to focus on a stable Windows build first.
If possible we will try to get a Linux version out there as well.

If you are wondering how we supported Linux back in the day over at Itch.io the answer is pretty simple, there was almost no special shaders or any assets in the game that gave us problem when building for Linux. We could easily build for both Linux and Windows but that is not the case anymore.

Hopefully that gives you some insight on why Linux is currently not supported.

This game will get a hype already so you will got enough money to develop for both operation systems i think.
Also is the linux community larger then you think in my opinin, there are not so much games which works fine on linux so raft can be "that linux game".
Also you can try to patch the that it works with wine, because it doesn work with wine.

[Felix]

Originally posted by False:

This game will get a hype already so you will got enough money to develop for both operation systems i think.
Also is the linux community larger then you think in my opinin, there are not so much games which works fine on linux so raft can be "that linux game".
Also you can try to patch the that it works with wine, because it doesn work with wine.

The game works in Wine for me. I don't know if it's because I have vcrun2013 installed from Winetricks - but if it's not working for you, try that. It's the only Windows component/DLL I have right now and the game works for me, so if it doesn't for you even with that installed then I'm not sure why.

[Slayrix]

Why have Linux when you can have windows.

[False]

Originally posted by Felix:

Originally posted by False:

This game will get a hype already so you will got enough money to develop for both operation systems i think.
Also is the linux community larger then you think in my opinin, there are not so much games which works fine on linux so raft can be "that linux game".
Also you can try to patch the that it works with wine, because it doesn work with wine.

The game works in Wine for me. I don't know if it's because I have vcrun2013 installed from Winetricks - but if it's not working for you, try that. It's the only Windows component/DLL I have right now and the game works for me, so if it doesn't for you even with that installed then I'm not sure why.

I can start the game and see the logo animation after that i get this error :
0050:err:ntdll:RtlpWaitForCriticalSection section 0x7bd11e80 "../../../wine/dlls/ntdll/loader.c: loader_section" wait timed out in thread 0050, blocked by 0009, retrying (60 sec)

Originally posted by dragonslayer7531:

Why have Linux when you can have windows.

Maybe because Linux is better for anything else then gaming ?
Will more peoples use linux, gaming would be no issue on linux.

[Felix]

Originally posted by False:

I can start the game and see the logo animation after that i get this error :
0050:err:ntdll:RtlpWaitForCriticalSection section 0x7bd11e80 "../../../wine/dlls/ntdll/loader.c: loader_section" wait timed out in thread 0050, blocked by 0009, retrying (60 sec)
.

What distro are you on? I'm not very good at troubleshooting this stuff, a friend told me I needed vcrun2013 and that made it work for me, I'm on Kubuntu personally.

Edit: Oops, sorry, I'm thinking of Scrap Mechanic. For me Raft worked immediately but I do have vcrun2013 installed.

[False]

Originally posted by Felix:

Originally posted by False:

I can start the game and see the logo animation after that i get this error :
0050:err:ntdll:RtlpWaitForCriticalSection section 0x7bd11e80 "../../../wine/dlls/ntdll/loader.c: loader_section" wait timed out in thread 0050, blocked by 0009, retrying (60 sec)
.

What distro are you on? I'm not very good at troubleshooting this stuff, a friend told me I needed vcrun2013 and that made it work for me, I'm on Kubuntu personally.

Edit: Oops, sorry, I'm thinking of Scrap Mechanic. For me Raft worked immediately but I do have vcrun2013 installed.

After i saw your post i installed vcrun2013 (via command "winetricks vcrun2013") and tried it again..same error :/

I use Manjaro.

[Felix]

Originally posted by False:

After i saw your post i installed vcrun2013 (via command "winetricks vcrun2013") and tried it again..same error :/

I use Manjaro.

Sorry, I don't know how to help then. Perhaps my friend could help you.

Edit: Their advice is the following
"Wine version should be the latest (3.9), it should be tested on a fresh Wine prefix if possible to ensure that nothing's conflicting with it, and if all else fails, getting help from /r/wine_gaming and other related forums is good. Bugs and test reports should be put on the game's WineHQ page to be ideally fixed in the future."

[False]

Originally posted by Felix:

Originally posted by False:

After i saw your post i installed vcrun2013 (via command "winetricks vcrun2013") and tried it again..same error :/

I use Manjaro.

Sorry, I don't know how to help then. Perhaps my friend could help you.

Edit: Their advice is the following
"Wine version should be the latest (3.9), it should be tested on a fresh Wine prefix if possible to ensure that nothing's conflicting with it, and if all else fails, getting help from /r/wine_gaming and other related forums is good. Bugs and test reports should be put on the game's WineHQ page to be ideally fixed in the future."

I will try it... which windows do you have selected ? (win 7 ?)
32bit or 64bit ?

I already asked on that reddit but got no answer which can help.