Project:Games

The Gentoo Games Project manages some of the games in the Portage tree. We're the guys that put the fun into Gentoo. We also manage a few utilities that are used heavily in many games, such as the SDL* libraries. Please note that we don't manage heavily integrated games packages such as 'gnome-games' or 'kdegames'.

Goals
The games project aims to turn Gentoo into the premiere Linux gaming platform. We strive to have the best compatibility not only for free games, but also for commercial titles.

Should I attach an ebuild to a version bump request?
Usually, no. If simply copying the ebuild to the new name and creating a new digest works for the upgrade, then please mention that in the bug. It will save us time from looking at an ebuild and trying to determine what has changed. If there has been a few minor changes, then a diff between the two ebuilds using is perfect. If there has been major changes between versions, then an ebuild is appropriate and appreciated.

What information do I need to post with my bug report?
As in any bug report, you should always post the output of into every bug report that you submit (see Bug report guide). If you think there are other pertinent pieces of information that could possibly help us in tracking down the bug, then be sure to include that information, too. One example is the opengl implementation that you are using when filing a bug against an opengl-based game. Anything you can provide us could possibly be the one piece of information that we need to accurately and quickly resolve the bug. This could include information such as your method of installation in a CD-based install, or the situation in which the bug occurs.

When should I open a new bug rather than comment on an old one?
You should always open a new bug unless your problem is producing the exact same error, you have tried the workarounds or fixes in the ebuild, and your error is occurring on a same-versioned ebuild. Do not make comments on an already resolved bug if you are seeing a similar problem in a newer version of a game, as this makes it hard to track individual problems. You should also never add a comment about a new version of to an existing bug about the same package.

This download is too big. Can we make it download the patches?
No. In general, ebuilds are designed to be used as if one is not upgrading from a previous version. As soon as we start having people download version $foo and patch $bar, people complain that there is a $foo-$bar distfile. We can't please both camps, so we simply do not offer incremental downloads. While this can be a pain for users on dial-up, it makes things easier on us.

Want to help?
If you want to get involved with improving Gentoo's gaming experience, we'd like to hear from you! The main thing you'll want to do is be active on Gentoo's Bugzilla. A good start is to provide patches or ebuilds to bug reports that have already been filed by other users. Simply adding new bug reports is helpful in getting problems resolved in the long term, but does not help get them resolved in the near term. Also, please join games project members in on Freenode.

There is also a HOWTO for writing proper games ebuilds. You will definitely want to read it if you plan on contributing as it is the standard by which games ebuilds are written. This information is in addition to the standard ebuild policies and procedures.