Running Arch? Good! I can assume you're a Goger too since you're here.

Xyem and I have setup a little project to create a bunch of PKGBUILDs for your GOGs. Our immediate goal is to package up ScummVM and DOSBox games and then move on to native, official ports (such as Uplink) later on.

The basic structure is this, we give you a PKGBUILD for the base datafiles of a game, which are installed to /opt/, and also give you a script for launching the game via ScummVM or DOSBox. Additionally, we've created an sh script that is installed to /usr/bin so you can launch it from wherever you like; we're even working on xdg compliant .desktop files. So far we have two working DOSBox PKGBUILDs set up.

And what's required of you? Nothing. You just need to put the GOG installer in the right directory (the PKGBUILDs do not download the GOG for you, although we did look into using lgogdownloader, we couldn't make it safe enough).

We have a github repo set up here which contains all the work so far. We will submit the packages to the AUR when we have a handful of standards compliant, uniformed scripts.

We also have a project page on the GOGWiki which outlines some of our ideas; none of the words on this page are set in stone just yet, it's more or less just a working draft.

If you're an Archer and you'd like to contribute, come see us in the GOG IRC (#gog on Quakenet) or just post here. If you'd like to get in on the github, all you need is a github account with a verified email address.

If you have any questions or comments, we'd love to hear them. And please test the scripts and let us know how it goes!

We will do in time, we'd like to get everything established before we move on to greener pastures. We're planning on setting up an Arch Wiki page once we have all the guidelines and standards codified. We'll probably announce the project on the Arch forums around the same time.

Right now I run a dual-boot into Baby's First Linux (Ubuntu), but I will definitely keep this in mind should I move over to a real man's distro. Favorite/Uprep for awesome community members.

Been looking at ArchLinux for a while now because I don't like where Ubuntu is going... I mean... Pulse Audio... really? Talk about cramming things down my throat I don't want.

I'm intrigued over this project. Keep us posted. :)

PulseAudio (which does suck, btw) showed up in 8.04, meaning we've been dealing with it for years.

I'd highly recommend trying Debian first, since it's upstream of Ubuntu you can see where the magic comes from. Then if you want Arch you can try that, I'm still sketched out by the argument over package signing so I've never tried it and it'll probably take a lot to get me to, however a lot of passionate folks seem to be involved so it can't be all bad.

Well, I've only ever dealt with Pulse when I wanted to get the latest Ubuntu (9.10 at the time) and boy it sure sucks. Now I'm reading about Unity desktop... PulseAudio wasn't ready for prime time. Another piece of junk is the Empathy Instant Messenger... after a year of tolerating it, I ripped it out and installed Pidgin.

Sounds great guys!
Once I move my pc to my gf's house I'll join the happy community.
No arch on my work laptop unfortunately, and gf complains enough already about installing games on her laptop :P

Those arguments are now more or less over. There are still a few people jumping in and saying they don't want it, but all the package maintainers agree and it's working well. It's also still configurable so if you really don't want it, you don't have to have it. But package signing is now the default behaviour of every new installation.

Anyway, since these are packages that you make yourself, they don't have to be signed. Although I guess you could if you were weird.

Gonna have to give this a bump because it's been a busy day. The packages for HOMM 1 and 2 should now be fully working, as should Master of Magic. Additionally I've just finished making packages for Broken Sword 1 and 2. Furthermore, Xyem is preparing a whole bunch of DOSBox packages which he's going to push in one commit - a whole BUNCH of games are incoming.

Freespace 2 has also been added which offers support not only for the GOG version, but also the retail CDs. ZekeS has put a lot of work into this and it's our first foray into source port packages. Not only that but he's also packaged MediaVPs as well! If you're planning on installing Freespace 2 on Arch this is the way to do it.

We would greatly appreciate feedback and testing, on the packages we've made so far because they also serve as templates for other packages. However, by no means should you consider these packages as 'working' until they are in the official AUR.

Another bump (it's been two days, what are you gonna do?). Xyem and I are both going away this week and thus the project will basically be on pause until we get back from our respective trips.

We have a whole bunch of packages up; ZekeS is eager for feedback on his Freespace 2 packages (which now support the retail CD and MediaVPs) and me and Xyem would both love to know how the packages we have up currently are working.

A few notes:
The ScummVM packages will, at the moment, save in the default ScummVM location. If I remember correctly, in ScummVM 1.4.1 (the version currently in the Arch repos), this is the game datafiles directory. As our packages do not allow you to write in that directory, please make sure you set your save game directory BEFORE playing.

We're moving our DOSBox packages to a new, global launcher. The old launchers are still left in, but every DOSBox package now depends on the global launcher. The new launcher is, at the moment, rudimentary in the fact that it's just a simply bash script that takes $1 and $2 variables. Later on, this will support --flags enabling you to be able to just launch a game via "gog-dosbox-launcher $GAMENAME" instead of typing the full path.

Additionally, Xyem has just created templates for DOSBox packages that you can now use to create your own. While you won't be able to push these packages directly to the git while we're away, you're free to make pull requests or to just leave a message and we'll get back to you.

The github has an issue tracker which you're free to report any bugs or issues with the scripts or launchers. Please don't request packages; we will eventually get round to doing all of them.

Lastly, Xyem may or may not have his massive collection of DOSBox packages up before he leaves, although we're not sure yet. Don't panic, they'll be here eventually.

See you next Friday!

Just added 48 DOSBox games but the PKGBUILDs are not useable yet. Will get the rest of the DOSBox games on there to this state and then work through them to clean them up, add MD5s, version numbers and the like to get them ready.

Back to work and looking into AGS games (Resonance, Gemini Rue etc).

Like ScummVM games, these will have to break convention and have a single package rather than a base (this appears to be becoming the standard for source ports/global natives).

The Linux version of the engine is still under development and I've put in a feature request for user-specified save directories, until then the launcher will have to use unionfs like DOSBox games for saves. I should have the Resonance package up fairly soon once I wrap my head around unionfs.

The Resonance script is up but I've hit a snag in continuing the AGS packages. I can't make a Gemini Rue one because I don't have a copy of it on GOG, but I have been looking into Blackwell and I'm not sure exactly what to do.

This issue on the hub explains the dilemma, but it falls down to me coming to several conclusions which might be unsatisfactory.

The Blackwell Bundle contains 4 games and so the obvious solution would be to have one package which installs all of them (with a single launcher returning a value where $1 is the subtitle of the game; `$ blackwell unbound, $blackwell deception` etc). This, however, removes a choice given by the official GOG installer to install any number of the games, or all of them in one.

But if we wanted to reintroduce that choice we would have to have four separate packages which in the longrun could be hard to maintain and simply cause extra clutter.

We can also combine the two options easily enough, but that's now five packages.

This, therefore, introduces a problem in the packaging standards. For other bundles, do we simply install all of the included games or do we break it up into its constituent parts?

I am leaning towards a single package, because it both complies with the Arch Way and in most cases won't make much of a difference, but I'm interested to hear any opinions about this.

I've done some tinkering and produced a somewhat workable version of Stronghold.

It launches, you can play it, but your savegames will be lost if you reboot at the moment because the uniondir will not unmount. I'm not entirely sure why this is.

The way we install Stronghold is dastardly and disgusting. The PKGBUILD actually [i[runs[/i] the Stronghold installer. You will have to install the game as you would on Windows. The PKGBUILD creates a wineprefix in $pkgdir, which is then present in /opt/gog/stronghold later. We then use unionfs to transfer this wineprefix to your ~/.gog folder.

However, it's not working quite as it should and so you really shouldn't be relying on this just yet. We'll get there, though, and you're of course welcome to help out.

The hub issue discussing this is and you'll find the sources for Stronghold [url=https://github.com/Tea23/arch-gog/tree/master/products/stronghold]here.

ALSO, Gemini Rue is now up and working. However there's no rain in Linux yet, so hopefully I'll get a Wine version of it up soon. Although at the moment if you'd like to run the GOG version of Gemini Rue with Wine, use innoextract to extract the installer and just launch Gemini Rue.exe, it works fine.