AGS engine Linux port

[Crimson Wizard]

The old forum thread may still be found here. Please beware that it was started many years ago and may contain alot of outdated information.

This new thread is dedicated to discussing the Linux port of AGS engine. Following is a brief cover of the topic.



AGS engine runs on 32-bit and 64-bit Linux.
To run AGS games on Linux you need the Linux engine and a game data.
The same game data may be run by any engine port. Some ports require repacking it up in certain way (e.g. packing into APK for Android). For Linux this is not necessary.
Note that you may even use games created for e.g. Windows, because Windows version of a game is usually just an engine exe with game data appended to it. Normally any engine port can detect the game data in a file and load it up itself.

Currently the v3.x.x engine branch supports running games created with AGS 2.50 and higher.

If you have an engine executable coming with the game itself you may run it, or use a startup script supplied by the game authors.
If you have an engine installed on your system, all you have to do is to go into the game's directory and run the engine from there. Alternatively: run the engine, passing path to the game dir as a command line argument.

More information about command line args and runtime configuration may be found in our repository:
https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/blob/master/OPTIONS.md



Building games for Linux in the Editor

When you compile your game using the Editor, it produces "raw" game data in Compiled/Data directory. These files alone may be enough to run a game using an engine port.

However, Editor also comes with an optional feature that lets you deploy for Linux using a prebuilt Linux engine and libraries. Please note that these will normally run only on Debian and related systems (Debian, Ubuntu, etc). For other systems you, or your users (players) would have to either build an engine from sources or get one from the system's maintainers (see more info below).
To use this feature make sure you have installed the "Linux build component" along with the editor. This creates a "Linux" subfolder inside the Editor's program folder. After that a "Linux" option will become available for selection in "Build targets" list in the General Settings of your game project. The compiled game for linux will be placed into Compiled/Linux folder.

KNOWN ISSUES

1. As of time of writing, because the linux files will be deployed on a Windows machine, the engine and launch scripts will loose their "executable" flags. The only known solution currently is to move these files onto the Linux machine and set this flag there before creating an archive. Alternatively, the users themselves may do that after your game's installation.

2. If your game uses any engine plugins, you MUST supply linux variants of these. If these are not available, the only workaround is to modify the script of your game specifically for Linux version to avoid relying on these plugins or using any plugin's commands. Otherwise the game won't run correctly, or at all.



Getting a stand-alone Linux engine

There are roughly 3 ways you may get a Linux engine onto your system.

1. Our build server makes engine binaries and Debian packages, runnable on Debian and related systems.These may be downloaded from Releases section of our repository:
https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/releases

2. Some system maintainers may include ags engine into the official list of packages; in such case you may install the engine using your system software. Usually that may be found using a package manager on your OS, or asking system maintainers for information.

3. If nothing of above works, or you simply want to, you may build the engine yourself from the sources.
Our repository is: https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags
The information on Linux port may be found here: https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/blob/master/debian/README.md

We have a Makefile, so if you prefer using make, then it may be as easy as

Code: ags

cd Engine
make

(assuming you have all the dependencies installed)

If you prefer CMake, then refer to https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/blob/master/CMAKE.md

If you encountered bugs or have feature suggestions, you may open an issue in our tracker.



Any other useful information may be added to this post later.

[cibersheep]

Hi!
I'm helping the SST remake with a translation but we seem to get random output depending on the host machine.

I'm using Ubuntu 20.04, the developer of the game uses Windows. I send him the translation files and he compiles everything.

-When he plays on Windows translation to Catalan is full
-When I do the same with the same build on Linux, I get mixed untranslated/translated strings
-Same result (mixed strings) if I test the same build on the web engine.

What would be the next steps to find the possible issue?

[Crimson Wizard]

Hi!
I'm helping the SST remake with a translation but we seem to get random output depending on the host machine.

I'm using Ubuntu 20.04, the developer of the game uses Windows. I send him the translation files and he compiles everything.

-When he plays on Windows translation to Catalan is full
-When I do the same with the same build on Linux, I get mixed untranslated/translated strings
-Same result (mixed strings) if I test the same build on the web engine.

What would be the next steps to find the possible issue?

This is a strange issue, where translation not fully works or fully not works, but works only partially.

I don't have a lot of immediate ideas, but to start somewhere, there are few questions:

Are the non-working lines same all the time?
Can you compare the tra files (e.g. by size) to see if these are indeed identical in both windows and linux/web build?

If I understand correctly, you are using AGS 3.6.0 Editor (judging by the web port). Is your Text Format in this game Unicode or ASCII (may be found in Game Setiings)? What about the translation source format (TRS file)?

[cibersheep]

This is a strange issue, where translation not fully works or fully not works, but works only partially.

I know it is a bit difficult to debug.

I don't have a lot of immediate ideas, but to start somewhere, there are few questions:

Are the non-working lines same all the time?

Yes they are. Same lines every time I run the game, and between both engines linux and web

Can you compare the tra files (e.g. by size) to see if these are indeed identical in both windows and linux/web build?

It is the same file (we are sharing it) and it is available online (the windows build): https://emabolo.itch.io/super-star-trek-25th

and using the Linux engine from github: https://github.com/adventuregamestudio/ags/releases/tag/v.3.6.0.43

If I understand correctly, you are using AGS 3.6.0 Editor (judging by the web port). Is your Text Format in this game Unicode or ASCII (may be found in Game Setiings)? What about the translation source format (TRS file)?

The dev using Windows machine is using 3.6.0.43 editor indeed (is it a way to build the project in Linux? Or at least the translation trs<->tra?)

I have double checked: trs file is a plain text using utf-8 unicode and Windows end of lines

The most puzzeling fact is other translations (Czech for example) work as expected.

Thanks

[Crimson Wizard]

Well, the fact that the translation works on Windows means that tra is at least built correctly, as this data is used equally everywhere. (At least supposed to...)

It is the same file (we are sharing it) and it is available online (the windows build): https://emabolo.itch.io/super-star-trek-25th

I might check that out. But I see that Linux version is not available for download yet, do you test the Linux build prepared in the Editor, or combine the game files with linux engine port by hand?

Also, could you please tell, how do I reproduce this problem on Linux; what is the easiest way to get there?

[Crimson Wizard]

Oh, I actually just spoke with the game author on AGS Discord, so I might also ask him some questions.

[cibersheep]

Well, the fact that the translation works on Windows means that tra is at least built correctly, as this data is used equally everywhere. (At least supposed to...)

I'm comparing the trs file from Czech (ascii/eol windows) vs Catalan (utf8/eol windows)

Czech looks more complete but also some of the strings are not translated only on Linux. I'm thinking: may the strings in the game and the strings in the trs be in different case? That would be ignore on Windows but not on Linux, right?

I might check that out. But I see that Linux version is not available for download yet, do you test the Linux build prepared in the Editor, or combine the game files with linux engine port by hand?

I combine the game files by hand

I did a zip file: https://we.tl/t-5wj68cxzUQ

Also, could you please tell, how do I reproduce this problem on Linux; what is the easiest way to get there?

-Download the file
-unzip the content

and do one of those

-edit data/acsetup.cfg editing line

Code: ags

translation=

to

Code: ags

translation=Catalan

and save file
-double click on startgame

or

-open a terminal and do:

Code: ags

./startgame --translation=Catalan

[cibersheep]

Once in game (after introductory text, which looks half translated) tap on Energy (center top of the screen)

On Windows looks translated


On Linux looks in English

[Crimson Wizard]

I'm comparing the trs file from Czech (ascii/eol windows) vs Catalan (utf8/eol windows)

Czech looks more complete but also some of the strings are not translated only on Linux. I'm thinking: may the strings in the game and the strings in the trs be in different case? That would be ignore on Windows but not on Linux, right?

You are probably referring to the differences in name case in filesystems? There's no relation to this, the TRS must have lines 100% identical to the lines in script, including letter case. This is the internal engine logic, it does not depend on platform you're running on.

EDIT: again, supposed to... unless there's some error there.

[Crimson Wizard]

So, I found a bug in the engine, which happens when:
1. You have a ASCII format game and UTF-8 format translation.
2. You're running on system where original game's ANSI locale is not supported (or maybe the locale's name is not correctly defined for that particular system)*
In such case the engine makes a mistake an randomly corrupts some of the translation keys.

I'll be fixing this bug soon.

condition 2 - that's an issue on its own, and we'll hopefully look into this later; but it only matters if you are using extended ASCII/ANSI characters in your original game text.

Also, if this is a game you're making in 3.6.0, my recommendation is to convert to Unicode format anyway, which would help to avoid all these problems altogether.

[eri0o]

@cibersheep , can you test if it's solved in the new AGS release for you (3.6.0.44 release) ?

[cibersheep]

@cibersheep , can you test if it's solved in the new AGS release for you (3.6.0.44 release) ?

It works perfectly on Linux. Thank you!

[cibersheep]

I have tested also with the web engine. It works as well

[eri0o]

Thank you @cibersheep !! If you find any problems, please let us know!