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50 games for the free OS available right NOW!

A while ago, [url=http://www.gog.com/news/gogcom_soon_on_more_platforms]we've announced our plans to add Linux support as one of the features of our digital platform, with 100 games on the launch day sometime this fall. We've put much time and effort into this project and now we've found ourselves with over 50 titles, classic and new, prepared for distribution, site infrastructure ready, support team trained and standing by, and absolutely no reason to wait until October or November. We're still aiming to have at least 100 Linux games in the coming months, but we've decided not to delay the launch just for the sake of having a nice-looking number to show off to the press. It's not about them, after all, it's about you. So, one of the most popular site feature requests on our community wishlist is granted today: Linux support has officially arrived on GOG.com!

The first 50+ titles we've have in store for you come from all the corners of our DRM-Free catalog. Note that we've got many classic titles coming officially to Linux for the very first time, thanks to the custom builds prepared by our dedicated team of penguin tamers. That's over twenty fan-favorite GOG.com classics, like &[url=http://www.gog.com/game/flatout_2]Flatout 2, , <a href="http://www.gog.com/game/darklands">Darklands, or Realms of the Haunting we've personally ushered one by one into the welcoming embrace of Linux gamers. That's already quite a nice chunk of our back-catalog, and you can expect more from our dedicated Linux team soon!

Now, for the recent titles. We've got some indie games with native Linux versions that finally find their well-deserved spot in our store. Among them, debuting on Linux, - a well received original comedic Sci-Fi puzzler. On top of that, be on the lookout for two new additions to the GOG.com catalog: [url=http://www.gog.com/game/gods_will_be_watching]Gods Will Be Watching (coming in a couple of hours) and Unrest:Special Edition (Linux build coming right up!), both of them very fresh and intriguing. This is the very first time we can provide you with all the PC versions of a premiere game, and we will continue to do so in the future. If there's a Linux version of a title we're releasing, our aim is to deliver it to you Day-1. But enough about us, let's talk about the games. Here's what you can be playing on Linux today:

Anomaly Warzone Earth
Ascendant
Bionic Dues
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold - first time on Linux!
Blake Stone: Planet Strike - first time on Linux!
Bloodnet - first time on Linux!
Braveland
CLARC - first time on Linux!
Darklands - first time on Linux!
Darwinia
Defcon
Don't Starve + DLC
Dragonsphere - first time on Linux!
Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition
FlatOut - first time on Linux!
Flatout 2 - first time on Linux!
Fragile Allegiance - first time on Linux!
Gemini Rue
Gods Will Be Watching
Hammerwatch
Hocus Pocus - first time on Linux!
Kentucky Route Zero
The Last Federation
Legend of Grimrock
Litil Divil - first time on Linux!
Long Live the Queen
MouseCraft
Multiwinia
Normality - first time on Linux!
Pinball Gold Pack - first time on Linux!
Pinball World - first time on Linux!
Pirates! Gold Plus - first time on Linux!
Realms of the Haunting - first time on Linux!
Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender - first time on Linux!
Rise of the Triad: Dark War - first time on Linux!
Shattered Haven
The Shivah HD
Sid Meier's Colonization - first time on Linux!
Sid Meier's Covert Action - first time on Linux!
Sir, You Are Being Hunted
Slipstream 5000 - first time on Linux!
Space Pirates and Zombies
Spacechem
Stargunner - first time on Linux!
SteamWorld Dig
Super Hexagon
Surgeon Simulator 2013
Sword of the Samurai - first time on Linux!
Teslagrad
Unrest:Special Edition (Linux build on the way!)
Uplink
VVVVVV

As if this wasn't exciting enough, we've put more than half of these titles on a special promo! Head out to the promo page and find out which of them you can get up to 75% off until Tuesday, 9:59AM GMT. Of course, all of the games from the list above that you already own will be updated with Linux versions with no additional cost for you, just as you might have expected from GOG.com.

"OK, but how will Linux support actually work on GOG.com" - you might ask. For both native Linux versions, as well as special builds prepared by our team, GOG.com will provide distro-independent tar.gz archives and support convenient DEB installers for the two most popular Linux distributions: Ubuntu and Mint, in their current and future LTS editions. Helpful and responsive customer support has always been an important part of the GOG.com gaming experience. We wouldn't have it any other way when it comes to Linux, and starting today our helpdesk offers support for our official Linux releases on Ubuntu and Mint systems.

Diversity and freedom of choice have always been an important part of the GOG.com way. We're very glad that we could improve our service with the addition of the free (and DRM-Free) alternative to the commercial operating systems. Talking with gamers is just as important, so we're counting on your feedback! If you've got any questions, suggestions, or run into any trouble, just tell us in the forum thread below this post. Just please be gentle, this is [url=http://youtu.be/qBxbPts5tOk" target="_blank]our very first time[/url] with Linux. Happy launch day, everyone!
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JudasIscariot: Turn off all desktop effects if you are using a KDE desktop environment for an easier time, this is coming from someone who also is kind of a beginner as far as Linux is concerned :D
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bernstein82: Probably a bit off topic and many will disagree (or even hate me for saying so):

I always thought of OSX as the linux (or rather: unix) desktop done right.

(i know it's based on freebsd with proprietary parts, requires comically expensive hardware & the gui doesn't offer much customization, but unless one goes ultra low-level the console/shell works like on any unix... it's fully posix & X11 compliant & with homebrew one can compile & run most stuff from the debian repositories)

ten years ago i tried the linux desktop for two years and every time i test it again it's still a very rough diamond (unstable, insecure, unconfigurable & ugly) with ultra slow polishing applied (yes even the latest mint), however i do run all my servers on linux... cause thats what it does best.

but to each his own :)
What do you mean with "The Linux Desktop". There is a variety of desktops to choose from, this kind of customizability is what it's partly about. oO

Do you mean KDE, Mate, XFCE, Cinnamon or which one?
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Klumpen0815: What do you mean with "The Linux Desktop". There is a variety of desktops to choose from, this kind of customizability is what it's partly about. oO

Do you mean KDE, Mate, XFCE, Cinnamon or which one?
Eight years ago "the linux desktop" was gnome, kde & xfce. i even tried a dozen or so distros to find the best setup for each... in the end liked ubuntu with gnome the most but wanted the features & customizability of kde... today not much has changed i try the new stuff and walk away disappointed... unity is my preference, cinnamon/mate is second... kde's power is still unmatched.

the problem largely is that out of the box in polish & usabilty none of these come close to OSX... but it's worse, here the usual strength of open source : configurability is more a vanity point than of practical consequence... it's mostly a rapidly shifting target with zero documentation. plus i found it's mostly an excercise of re-programming one's own ui, because most of whats interesting is hardcoded... but i like where kde is headed...

the one exception is XBMC on a bare metal ubuntu server, which i use daily. it just shines *blingbling* :-)
Post edited July 29, 2014 by bernstein82
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Magmarock: Currently in the process of learning Linux. There are some things I like but also a lot of things I don't like. Linux fans really don't talk about the cons of the OS that much.
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JudasIscariot: Turn off all desktop effects if you are using a KDE desktop environment for an easier time, this is coming from someone who also is kind of a beginner as far as Linux is concerned :D
Nothing wrong with the Desktop if anything I wish there were more out of the box settings for it. My main issue with Linux which I didn't want to say out of fear of starting something is because two things.

User friendliness and offline functionality.

Obviously I'm not a fan of DRM but even without DRM Linux pretty much needs the internet to work. You can install programs without it but it's very difficult and I still can't figure out why I can’t get certain .deb and .run files to work.

I have no control where things get installed and the simple task of locating a directory for an installed program has proven to be a chore.

Wine is in my opinion one of the most essential and at the same time most annoying thing to get working in Linux. Installing it from the software manager is fine. Installing it offine from a .deb file... is a lot more complicated.
You are doing something wrong if you spend much time with some deb files. One should always use package managers for all software installations under linux. The only exception to this is commercial software which doesn't exist in official repositories. It's not that linux isn't user friendly, you are probably just using it the wrong way.
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Magmarock: I have no control where things get installed and the simple task of locating a directory for an installed program has proven to be a chore.
That's because, by design, there are strict guidelines for where things are expected to go and things installed outside /opt and outside your home directory aren't grouped by what program they belong to. Instead, they're grouped by what purpose they serve. That makes it easier for the system to find things.

(You just need to check /usr/share/doc for documentation, the shell just needs to look in a small number of "bin" folders to resolve commands you type, the compiler and the dynamic loader just need to look in a small number of "include" and "lib" directories to resolve linkages, etc. etc. etc.)

When you do need to know where a .deb's contents are, use dpkg -L nameOfPackage. (For example, dpkg -L openttd)

If you don't know which package owns a file, use dpkg -S keyword to show which packages contain files with the given substring in their names (eg. dpkg -S nebular) and then use dpkg -L to investigate the ones that look likely.

Note: Both of those commands are case-sensitive.

(The idea is that the system looking for something happens often and listing all files owned by a program happens rarely, so optimizing the former should determine the on-disk layout and the latter should be handled by a less direct route.)
Post edited July 29, 2014 by ssokolow
Suggestion to GOG:
Set up a linux-related forum under General Forums where users can ask questions, share solutions and help each other.
Maybe also for Mac/Windows, but Linux has way more possible configurations.
Could be a great improvement for linux beginners to have GOG-linux-game-related stuff all at the same place :)
Post edited July 30, 2014 by Hecke
Every title or series has a dedicated forum so I don't see the point but you're free to make a request for site features and advocate it. If enough votes accumulate, it'll probably be implemented.

Check the bottom of the page under "Help us improve GOG.com"
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silviucc: Every title or series has a dedicated forum so I don't see the point but you're free to make a request for site features and advocate it. If enough votes accumulate, it'll probably be implemented.

Check the bottom of the page under "Help us improve GOG.com"
Well, the point I see is the wide variety of different linux distributions etc. If someone got an specific problem with libraries, drivers, configurations those information may be not only helpful for user X on distribution Y with game Z, but also apply for others with similar problems. Not to speak of distributions GOG can't support on their own. (Nobody would demand that).
Do you really want to search each forum for those informations? :)

At least I haven't found a suitable search throughout the forum for things like that.

It's only a suggestion, feel free to discuss ;)
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Magmarock: I have no control where things get installed and the simple task of locating a directory for an installed program has proven to be a chore.
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ssokolow: That's because, by design, there are strict guidelines for where things are expected to go and things installed outside /opt and outside your home directory aren't grouped by what program they belong to. Instead, they're grouped by what purpose they serve. That makes it easier for the system to find things.

(You just need to check /usr/share/doc for documentation, the shell just needs to look in a small number of "bin" folders to resolve commands you type, the compiler and the dynamic loader just need to look in a small number of "include" and "lib" directories to resolve linkages, etc. etc. etc.)

When you do need to know where a .deb's contents are, use dpkg -L nameOfPackage. (For example, dpkg -L openttd)

If you don't know which package owns a file, use dpkg -S keyword to show which packages contain files with the given substring in their names (eg. dpkg -S nebular) and then use dpkg -L to investigate the ones that look likely.

Note: Both of those commands are case-sensitive.

(The idea is that the system looking for something happens often and listing all files owned by a program happens rarely, so optimizing the former should determine the on-disk layout and the latter should be handled by a less direct route.)
Thanks for your helpful advice, but I'm afraid I only understood about half of what you said.
Something that's been bothering me: Slipstream 5000's DEB is only 37MB, but the tarball and installers for other operating systems all exceed 100MB.

Either that's some epic compression in that DEB or something seems off. O____O
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ssokolow: That's because, by design, there are strict guidelines for where things are expected to go and things installed outside /opt and outside your home directory aren't grouped by what program they belong to. Instead, they're grouped by what purpose they serve. That makes it easier for the system to find things.

(You just need to check /usr/share/doc for documentation, the shell just needs to look in a small number of "bin" folders to resolve commands you type, the compiler and the dynamic loader just need to look in a small number of "include" and "lib" directories to resolve linkages, etc. etc. etc.)

When you do need to know where a .deb's contents are, use dpkg -L nameOfPackage. (For example, dpkg -L openttd)

If you don't know which package owns a file, use dpkg -S keyword to show which packages contain files with the given substring in their names (eg. dpkg -S nebular) and then use dpkg -L to investigate the ones that look likely.

Note: Both of those commands are case-sensitive.

(The idea is that the system looking for something happens often and listing all files owned by a program happens rarely, so optimizing the former should determine the on-disk layout and the latter should be handled by a less direct route.)
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Magmarock: Thanks for your helpful advice, but I'm afraid I only understood about half of what you said.
Which half? (I'm giving you a simplified version, but I still want to know where I got too lazy)

Basically, there are multiple ways you can lay out files on a hard drive, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Windows and MacOS said "Let's keep everything together so users can easily add and remove stuff. The OS will just have to work harder to find things once they're installed".

Linux, on the other hand, said "We've got tools that keep track of packages and handle adding and removing stuff for the user, so let's arrange things in the way that makes it easiest for the computer to do day-to-day tasks."

The commands I offered were:

List files installed by a package: dpkg -L package-name

Search for the package which provided a certain file: dpkg -S filename_fragment
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MrPointless: Something that's been bothering me: Slipstream 5000's DEB is only 37MB, but the tarball and installers for other operating systems all exceed 100MB.

Either that's some epic compression in that DEB or something seems off. O____O
It's possible that it's related to how .debs compress things versus tar.gz compression :) I am sure someone more knowledgeable than myself will know this better than I do :)
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Magmarock: Thanks for your helpful advice, but I'm afraid I only understood about half of what you said.
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ssokolow: Which half? (I'm giving you a simplified version, but I still want to know where I got too lazy)

Basically, there are multiple ways you can lay out files on a hard drive, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Windows and MacOS said "Let's keep everything together so users can easily add and remove stuff. The OS will just have to work harder to find things once they're installed".

Linux, on the other hand, said "We've got tools that keep track of packages and handle adding and removing stuff for the user, so let's arrange things in the way that makes it easiest for the computer to do day-to-day tasks."

The commands I offered were:

List files installed by a package: dpkg -L package-name

Search for the package which provided a certain file: dpkg -S filename_fragment
I think it would be easier to give him a link to the FHS and a short overview of dpkg-commands :)

FHS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard

dpkg/rpm-Reference:
http://packman.linux.is/

:)

Edit: rpm not yum....
Post edited July 30, 2014 by Hecke
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Tolya: XFCE ftw.

*runs away after igniting GUI-al violence*
FVWM. 1. (2 is crap).

(I did eventually give up and switch to XFCE.)
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ssokolow: Which half? (I'm giving you a simplified version, but I still want to know where I got too lazy)

Basically, there are multiple ways you can lay out files on a hard drive, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Windows and MacOS said "Let's keep everything together so users can easily add and remove stuff. The OS will just have to work harder to find things once they're installed".

Linux, on the other hand, said "We've got tools that keep track of packages and handle adding and removing stuff for the user, so let's arrange things in the way that makes it easiest for the computer to do day-to-day tasks."

The commands I offered were:

List files installed by a package: dpkg -L package-name

Search for the package which provided a certain file: dpkg -S filename_fragment
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Hecke: I think it would be easier to give him a link to the FHS and a short overview of dpkg-commands :)

FHS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard

dpkg/rpm-Reference:
http://packman.linux.is/

:)

Edit: rpm not yum....
Point. I should've done that... but it's also necessary to explain why the FHS layout exists as an alternative to the Windows and MacOS approach.