is not working on easy peasy

Story: Linux users show their love for indie gameTotal Replies: 21
Author Content
padrian

Sep 15, 2009
3:33 PM EDT
I wanted to take the demo for a spin but the game is not working... :(

Unexpected error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cx_Freeze/initscripts/Console.py", line 29, in File "monorail.py", line 615, in File "monorail.py", line 607, in main File "koon/app.py", line 62, in run File "monorail.py", line 80, in before_gameloop File "menu.py", line 26, in __init__ File "menu.py", line 359, in __init__ File "koon/res.py", line 28, in get File "koon/res.py", line 58, in get_from_node File "koon/res.py", line 28, in get File "koon/res.py", line 55, in get_from_node File "koon/gfx.py", line 22, in __init__ pygame.error: File is not a Windows BMP file

without any luck from google how to solve this...

the website http://www.koonsolo.com have no support section. Sad since the product cost $19.95. Why should I buy this game?
bigg

Sep 15, 2009
3:38 PM EDT
They have a Help tab on the site you linked. Click that and you get the email address for support.
jdixon

Sep 15, 2009
7:50 PM EDT
As a quick guess, I'd say you have an incompatible version of python, but that's strictly a guess.
mortenalver

Sep 16, 2009
3:18 AM EDT
I got the exact same error, running under Linux Mint (the version based on Ubuntu 9.04). Don't remember the Python version, but I can check later.
jacog

Sep 16, 2009
3:28 AM EDT
morten: And bizarrely it is working for me under the same Mint. Missing python libs maybe?
mortenalver

Sep 16, 2009
4:00 AM EDT
Could be... I haven't installed anything Python-related, just needed libsdl-ttf or something like that to get past a different error message.
bigg

Sep 16, 2009
9:13 AM EDT
This is not the sort of thing the user should have to figure out. The devs would probably be happy to know it's not working and fix it, or at least post the requirements for it to run.
jacog

Sep 16, 2009
9:35 AM EDT
Agreed... for things that are commercial and cannot exist in your distribution's repository... the vendor should ship it self-contained if possible, or otherwise sell it through some form of "app store" *cough* like Steam, or whatever equivalent exists for your platform of choice. Then it can manage its own dependencies... preferably also in a more or less self contained way that won't mess up your system. Games may be executables, but they are also entertainment media, and methinks it should be kept seperate-ish where possible.
theboomboomcars

Sep 16, 2009
10:30 PM EDT
I am running it on Mint 7 as well.

There are distinct advantages to software that is maintained by the distribution.
caitlyn

Sep 16, 2009
11:00 PM EDT
Quoting:There are distinct advantages to software that is maintained by the distribution.


I agree 100%. Yet when I complain about a distro have small repos I get flamed for it, particularly if I mention it in a review. I'm told a script or a third party repo is just as good or, better yet, that I must be some sort of wimp since I can always compile from source.

Fair warning for Slackware fans: I'm repeating that complaint in my review of 13.0.
gus3

Sep 16, 2009
11:15 PM EDT
@caitlyn:

Fair's fair. Go for it.

(as he typed on his Ubuntu Netbook Remix installation)
bigg

Sep 17, 2009
5:56 AM EDT
> I'm told a script or a third party repo is just as good

Ugh. You have to bring this up yet again.

You've never bothered to give a definition of "third party repo" in a way that makes your point clear - for instance, explaining how Vector's somewhat larger "official repo" is better than Slackware plus the high-quality work of slacky.eu and Robby Workman. Nothing about being an official repo magically makes those packages better. You may never have used, say, the official repos of the early Fedora versions. They set the standard for low quality packaging and were all official.

Can you provide some evidence of problems with slacky.eu or Robby Workman's packages? Anything at all?

The point of SlackBuilds is that they make it trivial to build your own packages. Bigger repos (compare Slackware to Debian Stable) mean absolutely nothing if the package you need is outdated.

Some of us want apps that are always the latest version, in some cases two hours after the new version is released, and packages that work. I don't see why you have to push this discussion repeatedly with no understanding of those two points. I have a lot of things to do and run Slackware because it requires the least time to do everything I need to do, not because I think it's cool to compile software.
tracyanne

Sep 17, 2009
7:35 AM EDT
I emaied the developer, and explained the dependency problems. He gor back to me, and thanked me for my comments, and explained what he had done, and what he was going to do to fix the problem.
caitlyn

Sep 17, 2009
1:41 PM EDT
@bigg: If you don't understand the value of having the distributor support their packages as part of their distribution I will never be able to explain it to you. A single source of support is extremely important, particularly in the business world.

Also there is the little issue of conflicts between different repos, something I have run into with Slacky.eu. Of course that only matters if you try to use some sort of automated updates and automated dependency checking, something Slackware officially doesn't have, which, in IMNSHO, is absolutely insane in this day and age. The idea of having to figure out and track down your own dependencies may have been acceptable in 1995. It isn't acceptable today. Oh, and I would never use VectorLinux as an example of how repositories should be managed. When I compare in a review I compare to what most people know and use: Mandriva, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, etc...

I did run early Fedora versions and had few if any problems. In any case what happened years ago isn't relevant to how repositories are managed today.

I don't run Slackware on a regular basis precisely because it takes more fiddling and more time to do all the things I want to do.
bigg

Sep 17, 2009
1:56 PM EDT
> I don't run Slackware on a regular basis precisely because it takes more fiddling and more time to do all the things I want to do.

Good for you.

I pointed out reasons someone would want to use Slackware, reasons you don't understand. There's no reason in debating this further, because you simply don't want to understand what I'm saying, but I will continue to make the same comments on your articles.

> If you don't understand the value of having the distributor support their packages as part of their distribution I will never be able to explain it to you.

By itself, distributor support means absolutely nothing. Poor quality packages are poor quality packages regardless of whether you call them official.

Yes, you have to do things the Slackware way. If you do, as I do, it works and you will not have problems. I do all of my system updating automatically from the Slackware repos. I manage a small number of additional apps myself. Big deal. It works. No other solution has worked for me. I don't understand how the fact that you've found a different way to do things makes me crazy for using Slackware.

> It isn't acceptable today.

My first priority is that I need the latest versions of my apps, and my computer has to work day after day. What's not acceptable is a deviation from that. Slackware delivers the goods.
jdixon

Sep 18, 2009
1:41 PM EDT
> A single source of support is extremely important, particularly in the business world.

I'd say particularly for a certain type of business person, but otherwise I agree. And since that's a difference which makes no difference, you are correct.

> Yes, you have to do things the Slackware way. If you do, as I do, it works and you will not have problems .... Slackware delivers the goods.

And you're also correct.

It's entirely a matter of what you want from your distribution. Slackware doesn't provide what Caitlyn wants. It does provide what bigg wants. It also provides what I want. YMMV.
hkwint

Sep 18, 2009
9:20 PM EDT
To the slackware users, I'd like to ask (just out of curiosity):

How do you do your dependency resolution? And how much of your time does it take?

Quoting:A single source of support is extremely important, particularly in the business world.


While I understand your point, I could also argue that sounds like you're contradicting yourself.

If I'm in business, running Ubuntu and having a problem with Firefox, there is no single source of support: The problem can be with how Ubuntu packaged Firefox, or a bug made by Mozilla. I assume in that case your opinion is "Ubuntu" is the single source of support. But for lots of problems / issues, they'd have to answer "upstream". Look at any distro bugzilla and you will encounter that "solution" a lot. That's because the Ubuntu team simply doesn't know all about FF. Also, the Mozilla people will probably not be aware of how the Ubuntu people patched / changed / screwed FF. Well, maybe they'll know for Ubuntu, but not for all 100 distro's around.

If all distro's just shipped vanilla-FF (and vanilla kernels), life for bughunters from Mozilla / Linux kernel team would be lots easier. And if you had a problem with the kernel / Firefox, you'd have a single source of support. More important, kernel / FF developers would have more direct feedback.

And they wouldn't be dependent on distro's like Ubuntu as to which versions would be shipped. For example, if Mozilla makes a version that has 'severe' problems, they're now dependent on the distro's to ship newer versions / patches. If the distro keeps shipping the version that sucks, there's not much they can do. But people would still complain about "FF sucking" and "Mozilla not doing anything about it", while the fault in that case would be at Ubuntu.

Moreover, if Firefox ships a new version because the old one had 'security issues', my sister (running Windows) normally has the new secure version the next day. Not so for Linux users like me, because it takes some days (sometimes weeks) before distro's deem the new 'fixed version' stable and promote it to 'stable' / unmask it / start shipping it to everyone. Meaning I run a vulnerable version of Firefox for about 10 days longer than Windows users do. This leads to the conclusion that - when it comes to Firefox - Windows users may be vulnerable fol less days than Linux users. And why's that? Because for Windows Mozilla can test the patched versions for themselves, and if it's OK they can start shipping it. The Windows user clicks "OK" when asked to update and it's done. Not so for Linux, because Mozilla doesn't decide about when their new version will be distributed to Linux users. The distro's do. What would you say if Mozilla patched Firefox for Windows and started distributing it, but Microsoft prevented users from updating because Microsoft would first like to test if the new update was stable? Probably you should say that Microsoft shouldn't interfere with these issues - and in my opinion you'd be right.

So I agree distro supported packages do have their advantages, but I'd also say you'd have to admit they also have _severe_ drawbacks.

Some other thing I noticed: If my business runs SAP and Microsoft (my company does, and also Adobe and PTC BTW), I don't have a single source of support either, but normally in current business that doesn't seem to be a problem. While at the same time I encountered problems where Windows-settings screwed up PTC (blocker!)- in subtle unlikely ways you could almost not imagine. Except for some past colleague having spent two full days in the past to find out what happened - and documenting that in some (physical) folder normally nobody looks at.
jdixon

Sep 18, 2009
11:34 PM EDT
> How do you do your dependency resolution? And how much of your time does it take?

Almost all Slackware packages have their dependency information available when you download them, so it's simply a matter of downloading the additional packages too.

See linuxpackages.net, slacky.eu, or slackbuilds.org for examples.

Alternatively, you can use one of the third party package managers like slapt-get.
bigg

Sep 19, 2009
8:12 AM EDT
> How do you do your dependency resolution? And how much of your time does it take?

In addition to what jdixon said, let me add that with Slackware, dependency resolution is not much of an issue. If you do a complete installation of Slackware, you already have most of the low-level dependencies. Slackware is designed differently. If you use Debian or Fedora (and probably Gentoo as well) it would not be possible to get by without automatic dependency resolution.

I install most of my additional apps from slacky.eu using gslapt, and those packages do include dependency information, so dependencies are automatically resolved (just like Ubuntu). The apps I get from Robby's Slackware packages (like OOo) either have no dependencies or just a few, and the information is provided. The few packages I build myself are built using SlackBuilds from slackbuilds.org. To this point, I've not needed an app that wasn't available in one of those three channels.

I used Debian and Arch before Slackware, and I spend less time dealing with dependencies now than I did when using those distros.
hkwint

Sep 21, 2009
5:18 AM EDT
Quoting: If you do a complete installation of Slackware, you already have most of the low-level dependencies.


That would probably be the answer as to the difference with Gentoo. A complete installation of Gentoo comes with only a complete build environment, but installing FF / OOo involves resolving / installing about 300 dependencies as well. So that's why I was wondering.
jdixon

Sep 21, 2009
9:43 AM EDT
> ...but installing FF / OOo involves resolving / installing about 300 dependencies as well

Firefox is included with Slackware, and Open Office is available from Robbie's site:

"This script builds a Slackware package from the official binary (RPM's) distributed by openoffice.org. Everything needed by the application should be built statically into it, so there aren't any dependencies not satisfied by a normal installation."
bigg

Sep 21, 2009
9:58 AM EDT
> installing about 300 dependencies as well

One thing I didn't disclose is that my Slackware installations tend to be large by Linux standards as a result. In this day and age where 250 GB is a small hard drive, that is a small price for me to pay.

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