[Bug 185211] Review Request: prboom - GPL doom game engine

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Summary: Review Request: prboom - GPL doom game engine


https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=185211





------- Additional Comments From wart at kobold.org  2006-03-13 13:30 EST -------
(In reply to comment #4)
> >> About provide / req doom-game/-engine and Desktop files
> >> =======================================================
> >> I've been thinking about this and initially I came up with the following:
> [...]
> >> But this is /becomes a mess so I suggest instead:
> >> -doom-engines provide dataname-engine for all datasets they support
> >
> >I'm not too keen on this because it means that every time a new iwad becomes
> >available, the game engine package must be updated to signal that it can run it.
> > The game engine package should not have to know about all of the possible
> dataname packages that it can run.
> 
> I get your point, but what are the chances of new iwads comming out? We need to
> only take into account iwads which _might_ be packaged. So for prboom that would
> be free-doom and doom-shareware. For vavoom it would be doom-shareware and
> heretic-shareware. If people have registered versions they will need to install
> them themselves, we can't provide packages for thus we don't need provides
> doomxx-registered-engine. and besided the shareware versions and the free
> versions I don't know of any other iwads, but that could be me.

You've got a valid point.  There are a very limited number of iwads that we can
include in FE.

> Hmm, after doing a search I've found many interesting conversions, but these are
> all pwads and most don't have a clear license. Still lets assume some have an ok
> license, how do these fit in?

I was thinking about the pwad situation last night but didn't have enough
information to formulate a coherent plan.  While iwads are entire games (new
levels, sounds, sprites, music), pwads (also known as patch wads) replace only
some components of an iwad, though some of the better ones end up replacing
almost everything.  pwads require that an iwad be present in order to be played.
 I think the best way to handle pwads is to have a graphical launcher that lets
the user select from all of the installed pwads.  There were many of these
launchers for DOS back when doom was still new.  I found one for Linux, and
there may be more:  http://forums.newdoom.com/showthread.php?t=20863.  This
particular launcher lets you select the engine as well as the iwad and pwad.

> About your other comments, I tend to agree with your simpeler solution (which
> would make my comment above void) but I'm not sure yet, I need to think a bit
> more about this one.

I now think that a separate launcher is the way to go.  We can use an explicit
engine -> iwad and iwad -> engine requires (such as prboom requires freedoom,
freedoom requires prboom) with .desktop files to handle the simple case.  The
launcher is a separate package that lets the user select from multiple installed
engines, iwads, and pwads.

iwads and pwads would have to be installed in well-known locations so that the
launcher can pick them up automatically.  This may also require modifying the
launcher to look in these well-known locations automatically.

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