/!\: This thread is not kept up-to-date anymore, please go to the following one if you want to discuss the latest ./play.it news:
[Linux] ./play.it, weekly news

-----

Hello fellow Linux fanatics!

As most of you probably don’t know yet, I write scripts allowing to turn GOG Linux .tar.gz archives and Windows .exe/.bin installers to .deb packages, allowing to easily install/uninstall them system-wide on Debian or any distribution based on .deb packages (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, SteamOS, etc.).
These scripts are written to take advantage of the system-wide WINE/DOSBox/ScummVM for games using one of these, or the native client when it exists.

The complete list of supported games can be found there:
List of supported games [./play.it]

In this thread, feel free to ask any question you might have about these scripts.
It is the place to request support for new games too.

The last game added to this list is Neverwinter Nights Diamond, the package built for this one does not use WINE but the official Bioware Linux client.
I’ll post here each time I’ll publish a new game to keep you updated.

I hope you’ll like using these scripts as much as I like writing and tweaking them ;)

That's neat. However I personally prefer to avoid using deb since it usually puts a predefined location for the package. Tarballs are fine for my needs, since I can unpack them easily to any location which I like. But some of course can prefer one-click installation, and this is great for it.

What I think can be even more useful are config files for DOSbox games which don't have the Linux release on GOG. Those often require a few tweaks for the Windows config, and while it's nothing hard to figure out, some users can benefit from it.

There is a thread for it here: http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/16917-How-to-run-GOG-DosBox-games-on-Linux
And one for Amiga games: http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/31794-How-to-run-GOG-Amiga-games-on-Linux

(Note: code formatting is messed up temporarily on CDPR forum, i.e. end of lines are swallowed).

Not a problem with my scripts: you can set the installation prefix of your choice at package building time.
(defaults to '/usr/local')

-----

About specific settings for DOSBox, I‘ve still to see a game needing some. Some of the scripts I wrote are for DOSBox games and until now they all worked "out-of-the-box" without needing any game-specific conf files.
Well, maybe I‘ve just been lucky…

Anyway, thanks for the links, I’ll have a look at this.

A common example is changing path syntax from Windows to POSIX. Another is setting output to opengl instead of ddraw, some MIDI tweaks can be needed and so on (all of those are brought in that linked thread).

----

I think we should start making some WIki instead of doing it all in such threads. It's much easier to maintain and has better formatting options. May be PCGaming wiki will be good for it?

Another good candidate is GamingOnLinux Wiki which is barely in use for anything now (and has a wrong name in the address): https://www.gamingonlinux.com/crowdfunding/

Alternatively, may be GOG can start their own user Wiki focused on GOG solutions.

I actually avoid using .deb files for commercial games for a different reason: I don't trust any proprietary software enough to give it (or its installer) root access. How do I know that the .deb file won't do something naughty (like installing the game suid root or installing over some important file)? I much prefer to install such games as an ordinary user, where the damage it can do is much more limited. (I also use a chroot to make it unlikely for the game to see my personal files.)

For my scripts I have a website in the making, seeing as they are not limited to GOG games.
My projects are not even limited to these scripts ;)
I do translation archives for Fench games with French version missing from GOG, and you might have already seen my unofficial Linux patches for GOG version of Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity.

------ Well, you can obviously check the code of my scripts before running them, they’re (POSIX) shell scripts so there’s nothing "cryptic" in them. They run entirely with current user’s rights, root access is only needed to install the built .deb package (this is not done automatically by the script).
By the way the resulting .deb package can be installed in a chroot with no problem.

You can even modify them and publish the modified versions if you want, I publish them under the BSD 2-Clause license:
http://www.dotslashplay.it/scripts/en/LICENSE

Why not use the community GOG wiki:
http://www.gogwiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

That's an option too. I think I saw it before, but never really looked closely into it. Who runs it?

UPDATE: The wiki engine doesn't look up to date though.

Okay, I understand why I never had any problem with this: my scripts simply dump the GOG-provided .conf files, and write a custom launcher instead. In the case of images to mount with Windows-style path in them (usually when the music tracks are provided as individual files while the game is looking for audio tracks on a CD), those get a sed pass during the package building process.

Here's who runs it:
[url=http://www.gogwiki.com/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=sysop]http://www.gogwiki.com/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&group=sysop[/url]

They are all long time GOG community members in good standing and the wiki has been in operation for 4-5 years. Don't know anything about the wiki engine, you might want to ask one of the wiki admins about that.

Right. I also encountered MIDI issues when timidity++ is not installed. In such case you might need some tweaks to use it with fluidsynth.

No problem with fluidsynth either (I never installed timidity on my Debian). I can’t remember exactly but I probably configured DOSBox once for my user, and all the games installed via my scripts use the user-wide configuration instead of some modified version of the GOG-provided one.

That’s one of the objectives of these scripts: providing a better integration with the system and the user’s configuration choices. Not needing to configure DOSBox once per game is one of the subsequent benefices ;)

Yep, that's one way of doing it. However the global config can be missing in general.

The GOG wiki is Ubivis's baby. Let me know if you need an account there. Ubivis disabled signups a couple of years ago to keep spambots out, but I or any other admin user can create an account for you easily - just ask.

Thanks, I'll keep that it mind. I'm not sure yet where to place those HOWTOs, but if I'll decide to use GOG wiki I'll contact you.