Re: I welcome any of you to join me on this Port to Linux...

[Pierre Phaneuf <pp@ludusdesign.com>]

HellcatV HellcatV wrote:

> Being very familiar with Windows OpenGL and D3D libraries, I am completely
> unfamiliar with Linux equivalents... GLUT and the like...

[...]

> I am tired of Microsoft's domination, and would be disappointed if I
> released a Windows only game--yet I don't feel I have the skillz to port it
> to Linux... so if any of you has the time or energy to help me at least get
> started, if not finished, then please respond and help me make a truly
> wonderful game for Linux :-D

I suggest you check out SDL (and its companion libraries, on the same
web site). http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/projects/SDL/

If you know OpenGL, then it is no problem. Just use that, but instead of
using DirectInput, DirectSound and others directly, use SDL instead. It
works on Windows just fine (where it uses DirectX). Recently, SDL has
added support for OpenGL in the form of a layer over WGL and GLX (the
unportable parts of OpenGL), so this makes it now kind of like a game
oriented and actively maintained GLUT.

SDL has been used successfully in big commercial ports of games like
Civilisation: Call To Power, Heretic II and others.

So even if you don't directly port to Linux, your code should be a lot
easier to port if you use SDL and avoid unportable things like DirectX,
WGL and Win32-specific functions.

-- 
Pierre Phaneuf
Ludus Design, http://ludusdesign.com/