[Feature] Ubuntu (or Linux) version

[Mondane]

Years ago, when I was still running Windows, I enjoyed your Marine Aquarium.

Just recently I remembered it and just wondered if there's a version for Ubuntu (or linux for that matter). Turns out there isn't.

I asked for it and this is the response I got:

Hello,

We had talked about a version for linux before, however it wasn't cost effective to do so. With some of the recent developments in the Linux world we are beginning to reassess this. Unfortunately it still means I don't really have an answer for you yet.

Of course we are constantly working to make SereneScreen a better product and your feedback helps make that possible. Your suggestion has been added to the list of recommendations for the artist and programmers.

Additionally I'd suggest you bring it up on the fan forums at https://www.feldoncentral.com/Sachs/

Would you like to see the aquarium on Ubuntu (and Ubuntu Touch) or other linux distributions?

[_bigdan_]

A port on Linux would be fine ... same thing with MorphOS but i presume Jim need special requirements for 3D support (OpenGL4 ?)

[Jim Sachs]

Marine Aquarium uses DirectX.

[_bigdan_]

Jim, thanks for your answer. So it would be hard to exit "windows world only"...

To me, DirectX12 is good for Windows users and Nvidia/ATI industry (except Windows XP users of course ;-)

OpenGL/Open GL ES is good for Windows / Linux / MacOS X / phones / etc... users

This morning, i watched this conf (oriented of course but i agree with most of the intervenants ) :

Moving Your Games to OpenGL -Rich Geldreich (Valve), Dan Ginsburg (Valve), Peter Lohrmann (Valve), Jason Mitchell (Valve)

Moving your Games to OpenGL (pdf, 65 pages)

http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Why-...nd-not-DirectX

Most of Indie games makers choosed OpenGL of course

Arnaud aka _bigdan_
an old french amigan who still use MorphOS and MacOS X in 2014

[Jim Sachs]

We've already got Mac and Android conversions, which use OpenGL. As far as Linux or Ubuntu versions - I don't really see it as a huge market. Are there really millions of Linux-only users out there eager to pay for ANY program?

[jnq]

We are legions using ubuntu and Linux. Billion of user not million. Do you think that the number of user is the most important thing ? Quality and security are not in windows.

[jnq]

Note that windoow maket is going down. Do you know that vbulletin of you favorit forum is running under ....

[Wizwad]

Originally posted by jnq:

We are legions using ubuntu and Linux. Billion of user not million. Do you think that the number of user is the most important thing ? Quality and security are not in windows.  

I think the point Jim was making was with regard to payment, not with regard to number of users. It doesn't matter if billions of users want free software versus millions of users who want free software. And that does seem to be the way things are going. Nobody wants to pay for good software any more.

[feldon34]

Originally posted by jnq:

We are legions using ubuntu and Linux. Billion of user not million. Do you think that the number of user is the most important thing ?  

The number of PAYING users is the important thing. There are millions of Linux users, but few will pay for software.

Originally posted by jnq:

Note that windoow maket is going down. Do you know that vbulletin of you favorit forum is running under ....  

Linux is a great server OS. But it's not bulletproof or idiotproof enough for desktop. If you switch everyone from Windows to Linux tomorrow, they would be screaming to switch back the next time they try to install a new Video card, new Sound card, or play a favorite game (even through WINE).

[Time Crystal Pilot]

I started computing in 1987. The first and only virus infection I ever suffered was in 2004 with a Win XP system -- the infection occurred without my interaction, just by the fact that the computer was connected to the internet.
That's when I resolved to quit the Windows world altogether and forever. (I do keep a small offline XP partition for MA3, however.)
I have been a happy Linux user ever since. Je ne regrette rien.

[Jim Sachs]

The current estimate of Linux desktop users is 72 million, nowhere near a billion. If it were a worthwhile market, we'd be seeing Linux versions of Photoshop, etc.

[jleslie]

Linux isn't a good desktop o/s (and I had my own distro briefly) as there are too many compatibility issues with libraries and you are usually stuck with just the programs available for your distro. It's always fun when you install software on linux and the installer starts compiling things, then starts complaining about missing libraries, then when you add them it breaks other stuff... BTW I got Enlightenment E18 running on Linux Mint 17 Mate in just a few hours last month, with much compiling... Gotta love Windows installers...

If you do want to try Linux on the desktop I'd suggest starting with linux mint 17 kde or the latest Elive beta (which is a real pain as they try really hard to get money out of you before you can play with it and see if you like it). Do this in a virtual machine like VMWare Player (BTW use the Ubuntu settings for Mint, IIRC Debian for Elive).

P.S. My notes on the trivial simple addition of one piece of software (E18) to Linux Mint 17 Mate, note the four extra things I had to manually install before I could install the thing I wanted:
(In a shell)
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vase/ppa
cd /etc/apt/sources.list.d
sudo chmod 666 vase-ppa-trusty.list
open vase-ppa-trusty.list in text editor and change the “trusty” entries to “saucy”.
(optional) sudo chmod 644 vase-ppa-trusty.list
Add file extra.list just containing the line:
deb http://uk.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy main universe
e.g. by:
sudo echo 'deb http://uk.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu saucy main universe' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/extra.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libtiff4
sudo apt-get install libefl
sudo apt-get install libpoppler43
sudo apt-get install evas-generic-loaders
sudo apt-get install enlightenment
If have auto-login set need to go to Control Centre, Window Manager, Options tab and choose Enlightenment as the default session. Note there is no save button.
Reboot and will get Enlightenment configuration questions.
Note advice was don't install Connman, stick to the Mint network manager, don't seem to get the option.
Next to make it look nicer...
Trying this theme: http://e17-stuff.org/content/show.ph...content=100923

P.P.S. How to install (program of your choice) in Windows:
(Double-click)
Setup.exe

[Time Crystal Pilot]

Originally posted by jleslie:

Linux isn't a good desktop o/s (and I had my own distro briefly)  

Thanks for the heads-up. I was just about to waste ten years of my life on it.

[jleslie]

Yeah, sorry, the time machine is in the shop or I'd have posted that earlier... :-)
(I probably should have put IMHO, but I'm sure people could assume that and I'm confident it's a good opinion for 99.9% of people...)

BTW my version was derived from Crux (which got a bit better known later on when Arch did the same, I started on version 0.9-something), but my one never made it into circulation as the product it was for died a death due to Sigma's linux drivers being too poor for production use (long, sad story)...

What do you use for your desktop and have you re-installed a few new versions over the years or changed to a rolling dist? I went (IIRC) SLS->Slackware->Caldera->Suse->(Misc) with some uClinux on the side (for Blackfin mostly). Caldera was perhaps a high spot.

(One side effect - I've just had my mind jogged about the elf vs. a.out wars, boy that seems a long time ago... I'd forgotten all that until the nudge.)

[ukstevef]

Originally posted by Jim Sachs:

As far as Linux or Ubuntu versions - I don't really see it as a huge market. Are there really millions of Linux-only users out there eager to pay for ANY program?  

I believe that people will pay the price for the quality screensaver that this is.

I can run the aquarium on my linux ubuntu 14.04 desktop under WINE flawlessly.
If there was a linux version I would happily pay for additional license key.

[feldon34]

Originally posted by ukstevef:

I can run the aquarium on my linux ubuntu 14.04 desktop under WINE flawlessly.  

Unfortunately that's an excellent reason *not* to rewrite the Aquarium to work on Linux.

[kaseki]

As an early adopter under NT4 at work, and later Win2k at home, I lost home use when MS dropped support for Win2k and I then moved to Ubuntu Linux. My work computer up through Win7 continued to provide my Marine Aquarium "fix" until I recently retired. I had previously checked out this thread a few years ago, and gave up hope for a Linux compatible version.

However, as may be seen above, ukstevef wrote, in part: "I can run the aquarium on my linux ubuntu 14.04 desktop under WINE flawlessly."

Aha! I thought, if it will run under Ubuntu using Wine, it should run under Mint MATE (derived from Ubuntu) using Codeweavers Crossover (commercial version of Wine) even though as far as I know neither Wine or Crossover provide DirectX emulation. (LInux uses OpenGL, I believe.)

So, setting up a new account here, because I couldn't find my old password, or even be sure of which ancient email address I registered under, I planned to provide confirmation of operation. No such luck so far. Aquarium 2 installs under Crossover 15.0, but does not function when opened. I have upgraded Crossover to 15.2 and will test the latest Aquarium against that at my next opportunity. However, given the different window managers in use between Mint and Ubuntu, and possible interactions with nVidia's drivers, considerable luck may be needed.

kas

[kaseki]

Having found my keycodes for versions 99(E - L), 1 and 2, I decided to do some experimenting.

It is possible to install versions .99L, V2, and V3 under Crossover on Linux Mint 17.3 MATE, and very likely most other distributions that Crossover supports. As installed, none of these installations will do more than present the initial keycode entry menu (and in the case of ver. 3, the configuration menu). The reason for this is pretty obscure, and not obvious in Wine's documentation that I've found so far. It is necessary with Wine to use an /s switch to get an executable screen saver to run even as a video window. This can be done by constructing a suitable command that can be built into a link (lnk).

Note that Crossover constructs individual "bottles" for instances of Wine tailored to particular programs using one of several Windows flavors.

Version 99L when commanded to run with the /s switch operates, but with two deficiencies: it is always night in the aquarium and there is a horizontal pattern in the background. Bubble sound works.

Version 2 when run with the /s switch crashes. I did not investigate it further.

Version 3.3 was my primary target to get running. With the /s switch in play targeted at drive_c/Windows/system32/MarineAquarium3.scr within the bottle established for this program under Crossover, the executable provides a black window, and presents the first menu for installing the keycode in a second window. The TESTFISH keycode when submitted opens the configuration menu. When this menu is OK'd the video window presents an even more beautiful dynamic seascape than the V2 and earlier versions did. Fabulous! Right clicking allows toggling between window'd and full screen operation.

In my case, s key actuation reports that Marine Aquarium is running at 60 fps (appropriate for my HP IPS monitor) with 1920 x 1200 x 32 resolution. This is using pure hardware video processing on my PC's GeForce 9800GT. I am using the nVidia 340.96 driver.

However, there is no sound. The bubbles are running, the sound is "ON" in the configuration menu, but nothing is heard. No guitar is heard either. Wine's console audio tab for this bottle contains an audio test button that when actuated produces a sound. Mint uses Pulse Audio and the Wine instance operating ver. 3.3 is using winepulse.drv as expected. An unrelated program in a different bottle generates sound normally.

So, at the moment I have a beautiful moving art form with quiet bubbles. This is worth the price itself. I will continue to pursue any hints I find for getting the sound running. (Of course, if I need a real keycode to turn the sound on, I guess I'll discover that soon.)

kas

[kaseki]

Found a solution to the issue of the missing bubble sound and guitar music. The solution was to install DirectMusic into the same bottle using CrossOver's installer. This process also seems to install DirectX9.

Now to send money.

[Jim Sachs]

Pretty clever. I'm amazed any of it works at all.