Do Linux builds work on Darwin at all?

lysdexia · Mon 18/04/2005 07:54:45

From the OS X Terminal, typing ags-setup or ags makes it say "cannot open binary file". I'm mostly out of touch with CLIs, but I seem to have followed the FAQ, if not word for word, but to its ends.

Gilbert · Mon 18/04/2005 08:08:46

Judging from your description, that you use OS X, I think you're using a Power MAC right? In that case the Linux builds probably won't work, I think the Linux builds currently work for x86 platforms only.

lysdexia · Mon 18/04/2005 08:13:17

Will an emulator help?

Gilbert · Mon 18/04/2005 08:23:08

I can't confirm, maybe some other people can.

scotch · Mon 18/04/2005 13:14:26

Both the editor and the games are playable in an x86 emulator + windows, VirtualPC is the ones most use I think, some games have been made that way. Did you mean running 32 bit linux in an emulator and using that? It's possible... don't think anyone's tried it.

lysdexia · Mon 18/04/2005 13:35:13

or someone could port them to Darwin (open source)...

EvilTypeGuy · Mon 18/04/2005 18:41:53

Quote from: lysdexia on Mon 18/04/2005 13:35:13
or someone could port them to Darwin (open source)...

Extremely unlikely to happen, unless I get a Mac in the future

AGS and some of it's supporting libraries are not endian-friendly. Meaning, they don't support the different byte order that the PPC architecture uses.

Additionally, not all the libraries that AGS requires work on Mac OS X.

lysdexia · Tue 19/04/2005 02:09:36

it's -> its
Well, G5s are used in Xboxes and IBM Blade servers too. Since I have a Mac, what would someone like me need to do to port it? Buy a compiler?

scotch · Tue 19/04/2005 17:18:23

I expect there are free compilers for Macs, but as ETG says, there's an added complexity porting something to run on mac (PPC) CPUs from PC (x86) ones, and that is that the byte order of multi byte numbers is different.Ã,Â It's possible to make code work on both but some of the code in AGS or its libraries has been written in a way that assumes little endian (x86 style) hardware, macs are big endian.Ã,Â You'd have the same problem porting it to PPC linux.
So it's definately not something for a coding newbie.

Kweepa · Tue 19/04/2005 17:39:03

Macs COME WITH excellent free compilers these days.
I would imagine that the endian issue is trivial compared to most problems one would encounter, eg missing libraries.
PS The XBox does not have a PPC in it. It's an Intel chip. (Not exactly a Pentium.)

scotch · Tue 19/04/2005 20:08:24

Yeah, perhaps he meant the Xbox 2 (or Xbox 360), that's PPC based.

Kweepa · Tue 19/04/2005 22:46:47

True.
I guess I still don't see the point though. I don't see an XBox360 or IBM BladeServer port any time soon

(Kind of) back on topic:
I think opening up AGS to Mac users (without them having to pay for Virtual PC) would be beneficial to the community. After all, Mac users are supposedly more artistic than PC users.

This isn't an appeal to Chris to do it, mind you. I'm of the opinion that if someone volunteers, it should be considered. I realise that releasing the source code is a sensitive issue. Obviously there would be obligations on the part of the volunteer - confidentiality, quality, support, etc...

lysdexia · Wed 20/04/2005 01:13:05

Yes, I meant the new Xbox.Ã,Â But I'm not a he, and it's spelt definitely.

I had read about the endian issue in FOLDoC from Dictionary.com, but the entries didn't tell of the difficulty in translating between them. And how hard is it to learn? I made macro scripts and played with RoboWars code at 13, played with a shell and wrote in and edited ircii scripts at 14, then did nothing of the sort for awhile and forgot a lot, then wrote a few small IRC AppleScripts, then played with a little JavaScript and DHTML to make an animated signature in IE. But, as I said, I forget a lot.

RickJ · Wed 20/04/2005 01:32:17

lysdexia,

I don't know much about Mac OSX but perhaps something like dosbox would work for you. It's open source and you can download it from the link.

scotch · Wed 20/04/2005 02:18:16

Rick, Dosbox might be ok for running some old AGS DOS games or roomedit, but it's primarily designed for games, I can't see it running windows software.

lysdexia, converting from one to another might not take too long to understand, but identifying which bits of the code suffer from the issue would require C++ experience and as has been said, missing libraries is an even bigger problem... you'd have to find libs with equivalent functionality that have a mac ports, and that might not even be possible depending on what they are. Unfortunately a Mac port seems like quite a large undertaking. If an experienced C++ programmer was willing to spend a few months on it I expect CJ would give them the source, I'd like to see that but I don't think it'll happen.

For someone called lysdexia you sure like to correct spelling

RickJ · Wed 20/04/2005 06:15:53

Thanks Scotch, for the info. Like I said I'm not knowledegable about either. I saw a few references to DOSBOX only very recently when I had ocassion to ask myself the same question Lysdexia poses. I am curious to see it how this discusion come out.

Btw, here is a page I found that lists a number of emulators for the mac, some are free and some aren't. I don't know that it will be helpful but here it is anyway.

Cheers.

http://www.macwindows.com/emulator.html

strazer · Wed 20/04/2005 06:48:54

QuoteRick, Dosbox might be ok for running some old AGS DOS games or roomedit, but it's primarily designed for games, I can't see it running windows software.

Unless the game uses plugins, you should be able to run Windows-compiled AGS games with the DOS engine.
Or are we talking about the editor?

Gilbert · Wed 20/04/2005 06:56:44

I don't know about DOSBOX on other platform, but I think AGS games compiled with newer versions of AGS can run rather slow under DOSBOX, at least that's what I had tried with windows port of DOSBOX and a game compiled using DOS engine V2.6+ .

lysdexia · Wed 20/04/2005 09:08:44

occasion, discussion; also lots of missing semicolons...

Gilbot, what are you using? Someone did a lot of work on measuring up chips:

http://www.systemshootouts.org/processors.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/22/ibm_claims_massive_power_cut/

Gilbert · Wed 20/04/2005 09:19:01

On a P4 ~2.5MHz with 256MB RAM (when i was testing), crappy onboard graphics card though, I think that doesn't matter much, since the game was only 320x240, 256 colours. The problem is that newer versions of AGS are probably considered more "modern" programmes that might not work well with DOSBOX, compared to older programmes (especially those old real mode DOS apps.).

I don't own a MAC, so I can't comment on how it'll perform on a MAC though, maybe for some reasons the AGS games can be run smoothly using DOSBOX there.