Hi everyone! It has taken a bit longer than many of us hoped, but work on a Linux version of World of Goo has finally started.

Note that although I'm not a 2D Boy employee, I am responsible for the Linux port, and I'll probably be answering most of your questions on the mailing list; so please don't bother Kyle or Ron directly with any Linux-specific issues at this point (they are busy enough as it is ;)) and use the mailing list instead.

UPDATE:
Beta subscription is closed now!

[quote author=Soultaker link=topic=1298.msg8710#msg8710 date=1231862970]
Hi everyone! It has taken a bit longer than many of us hoped, but work on a Linux version of World of Goo has finally started. I'm going to make a beta version available soon;
By "soon" you mean what, actual date might be more useful. After NWN(port year+ after win release) and UT3 (you know what) experience I'm afraid that it might took much longer than I consider sane.

[quote author=Soultaker link=topic=1298.msg8710#msg8710 date=1231862970]
if you want to give it a try and report back with any problems you may find, please subscribe to the Linux beta mailing list here: http://2dboy.com/mailman/listinfo/linux_2dboy.com

I'm so glad for it. I hate forums.

[quote author=Soultaker link=topic=1298.msg8710#msg8710 date=1231862970]
Note that although I'm not a 2D Boy employee, I am responsible for the Linux port,

I guess you wont elaborate more on this topic?
BTW we will see Soultaker in the linux version credits?

[quote author=sobkas link=topic=1298.msg8719#msg8719 date=1231874762]
By "soon" you mean what, actual date might be more useful.
It depends on how fast people subscribe to the mailing list. ;) A beta version is probably available over the next couple of days. The final version I can't say yet; it obviously depends on feedback received during the beta test.

That's great news! I subscribed to the mailing list and am happy to give the Linux beta a spin.

Great !
I hope I'll be able to play it with my intel integrated graphics chipset eventually.
It wasn't working with wine ! :)

Signed up here on the forums and the mailing list.

Have been visiting for quite some time continuing to check on the progress of the Linux port.

Excellent ! :D
I'm now registered to the mailing list. :)

Perfect, now I'll shoot the deadly questions :P

-) How will the beta work? A binary to use with the demo data?
-) For which architectures will there be a binary?
+) You could post progress-info on the mailing list, if you run into problems some of us might even be able to give you useful hints ;)

[quote author=Blµb link=topic=1298.msg8749#msg8749 date=1231959640]
-) How will the beta work? A binary to use with the demo data?
Figuring that out right now.

so you don't have a 64 bit system for a 64 bit binary? :(
I wonder how there can still be so many ppl with 32 bit systems :P (srsly, 32 bit runs on a 64 bit OS, but not vice versa, and not all 64 bit OS' have good 32-bit compatibility library support, a 32 bit chroot is the best option anyway :P)
I even need a 32 bit chroot for compiling 32 bit since my system doesn't have multilib support in gcc :P
I'd even provide a 64 bit building machine but that would give me access to the source so I guess that's not an option :S

oh and: I subscribed to the mailing list - shouldn't I have recieved some kind of confirmation mail?

Hi, everybody!
I wanted to thank you, Soultaker, for helping bring the Gooey love to Linux users, too. I actually thought to search for the game on a quirk after wondering if there would be a port available and wanting to buy it for my parents (who I just converted over from Windows XP to Fedora 10), as well as myself.

I'd be more than willing to try to find bugs or ways to crash the game if you want, haha. I got to beta a few games when GAP (Playstation Underground) was still going, plus am an avid game lover/player who wants to see and support more Linux ports.

[quote author=Blµb link=topic=1298.msg8751#msg8751 date=1231962087]oh and: I subscribed to the mailing list - shouldn't I have recieved some kind of confirmation mail?

Hmm, you should have received an e-mail containing a link to confirm your account, followed by a "Welcome" e-mail after confirming.

[quote author=Blµb link=topic=1298.msg8751#msg8751 date=1231962087]
so you don't have a 64 bit system for a 64 bit binary? :(
Actually, I built everything on my 64-bit system. That's not the problem. The point is that there is no good reason to provide separate versions while virtually all major distributions (at least those aimed at desktop users) are able to run 32-bit binaries too. The 64-bit instruction set provides little advantage for this game, as it doesn't need to map more than a few hundred MB of memory, and any CPU that has IA-64 support is fast enough to run the game in IA-32 mode too.

Everyone on the mailing list should now have mail.

Hi Soultaker... I didn't get any email  :o :-[

I should be on the mailinglist. my name's rob, and my email ends with @googlemail.com

that should be enough to identify me?

yay, recieved the confirmation mail few hours ago, took quite some time tho :>

[quote author=Soultaker link=topic=1298.msg8761#msg8761 date=1231978051]
[quote author=Blµb link=topic=1298.msg8751#msg8751 date=1231962087]
so you don't have a 64 bit system for a 64 bit binary? :(
Actually, I built everything on my 64-bit system. That's not the problem. The point is that there is no good reason to provide separate versions while virtually all major distributions (at least those aimed at desktop users) are able to run 32-bit binaries too. The 64-bit instruction set provides little advantage for this game, as it doesn't need to map more than a few hundred MB of memory, and any CPU that has IA-64 support is fast enough to run the game in IA-32 mode too.


guess I should put 32 bit libs on my laptop too now, ewww :P
or actually, it's better not to do that, to force myself to waste more of my time with studying for my exams instead of playing WoG :P and only play at home on my PC ;)

[=6pt]still, I can't keep myself from adding an argument analog to your last one: People who have enough disk space for the game also have enough disk space for the 64 bit binary... (now you're supposed to answer: just as they also have disk space for 32 bit compat libs :P - but those make the system ugly, so that argument doesn't count ;D)[/]
but sure, 32 bit version should work, doesn't mean I have to like it though :)

Just joined the list and looking forward to trying out the beta, just got the cd today!

[quote author=the-wOndErEr57 link=topic=1298.msg8776#msg8776 date=1232028944]
Hi Soultaker... I didn't get any email  :o :-[

I should be on the mailinglist. my name's rob, and my email ends with @googlemail.com
I don't think you're on the list? Try subscribing again (and read up on previous messages in the archive).

Silly me, I hadn't confirmed subscription in the 2nd email... now testing the beta.....

thanks !

Finally. I was waiting for the linux version to buy the game. I've suscribed to the mailing list. Hope I'll get the beta soon. Keep up the good work.

I have suscribed to the Mailing List and I hope it isn't too late for the beta test. I had tried the demo in Wine but it was too slow on my computer.

I would also like to see a x86_64 binary version, I have recently wiped every single 32 bits library from my system thanks to Adobe who released a 64 bits Flash plugin and I would prefer not to have to use those to play World of Goo. 64 bit is the future too, we won't have 32 bits compat libs forever and I want to be able to play the game in a few years too.

Anyway I'll reinstall every compat lib I need to play this for now, and that won't prevent me from buying the game, but it doesn't mean a 64 bits version would be useless :)

EDIT : I have downloaded the beta and tried it, I take back what I said. I still had a bunch of lib32 packages for Wine, and the only extra one I had to install was lib32-libxdamage (I use Archlinux). I've played 3 levels and it looks like it works fine for now. Good job on this one, I'll definitely buy the game!

[quote author=catwell link=topic=1298.msg8796#msg8796 date=1232113852]
I would also like to see a x86_64 binary version, I have recently wiped every single 32 bits library from my system


Wait, you wiped some libraries from your system and there should be special version of WoG to reflect that? Don't forget they need to test Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse ... and you want to double their effort by requesting needless 64-bit binary? Your CPU is not 64-bit, to begin with, it is 32/64-bit, and AMD had very good reason to design it that way. Reason is that you can run smaller applications in 32-bit mode and use 64-bit for applications that eat lots of RAM (like browser, Office or database). 32-bit libs are not "old" or "legacy" libs and are not going anywhere soon. It has some advantages over 64-bit, like better memory usage: data structures _and_ code tend to be smaller then in 64-bit mode, many applications (not all, depends on lot of variables) are faster in 32-bit. So, 10 years from now 32-bit libs will still be there in Linux, whether you wipe it or not.

Hooray! I was away for a few days (eg. too busy to read the forum), it's good to see
some linux news.

I do have a question though. one of the things I have experienced a lot
is the fact that linux binaries tend to die after a while because the API's they
rely on seem to move pretty fast (so they get outdated). many previous games
with linux binaries (lugaru, darwinia, etc.) tended to stop working because
they required older versions of GTK, or just seg faulted.

my question is, is there going to be any effort made to avoid this in any degree?,
or should we just enjoy it for as long as we can (eg. there's nothing that can be done.).

Mashandar: my goal is to rely only on LSB features (this is a bit of a loose goal, I don't formally test for this) so in that case, the game should in principe always remain working. Of course, many things can change, so it's hard to guarantee nothing comes up that breaks compatibility, especially with OpenGL implementations changing fast on Linux. But limited number of library dependencies should avoid sudden breakage as much as possible.

Cool. thanks for responding.