Godot founders had desperately hoped Unity wouldn't 'blow up'
gamedeveloper.com
gamedeveloper.com
Presumably they didn't want Godot to suddenly get an influx of help tickets or message forum posts that were all rephrasings of "This interface doesn't have a button exactly where I expect it from Unity. Godot sucks."
or in general what is wrong with it, i am sincerely curious
Where I think the friction is the distance between new migrants coming to linux with glowing advertisements of it mostly being a drop-in replacement for windows but the GUI not offering everything, and crucially not hinting where to go to find things, so people head off to do web searches and play the lottery of if they get good/recent information appropriate to the distro and version they chose. Linux seems to be polarized between great for simple use cases (browser, gaming within the steam walled garden, etc) and those willing/able to dive into the terminal, but between those can be a wide gulf which is hard to cross.
This suggestion comes up implicitly in a lot of weird hardware cases. It really isn’t a selling point for a user wanting a good first (or recurring) impression.
Just to call out: X11 isn’t all rainbows and unicorns either. Wayland (for the various defects I’ve encountered) is a desperately needed improvement.
Okay, so you're willing to change your whole operating system to something which is quite different than what you're used to.. but you're not willing to switch off of Wayland even though you know you don't like wayland and know the alternative fixes your problem, because you feel somehow compelled to stick with a default? Makes no sense. You should either not use wayland, either by sticking with windows or switching to X11, or buy hardware that supports wayland better, or learn to live with wayland as it is without feeling sorry for yourself. Using wayland even though you don't like it is 100% a self-inflicted harm. Nobody is making you do that, the "push" is in your head. Just stop doing that.
NixOS plug: If you swap kernels it'll automatically build the nvidia bridge code for the kernel and it'll work.
I wouldn't buy nvidia for Linux still, but it's hardly the issue it was
Then there's the minute ambiguities that continue to perplex me, which are mostly down to lack of standardization across distros. Most distros come with a bunch of premade user groups, but good luck figuring out what each of those groups give access to. The actual purpose of various root level folders is inconsistent, making manually installing programs confusing, and oftentimes figuring out where the package manager put an installed program is vague as well. The other day I installed openSUSE on a server, went to disable password access in /etc/ssh_config, only to find it doesn't exist. Had to google around before finding out they moved it to /usr/etc/ssh_config. I am used to googling as part of how I navigate daily life (so much so that I pay for it with Kagi), but most people don't want to be arsed with googling things.
Dotfiles are also annoying, and I think that is a universal complaint among users given how many dotfile management solutions there are around. The fact that you have to edit config files at all is a turnoff for many people (I prefer the benefits config files bring, but not everyone is so easily convinced). Things like this are navigable with enough experience, but people have gotten so used to Windows' quirks and error resolution process that learning a new system with a whole new set of pitfalls just isn't worth it.
On Windows, it's just an AutoHotKey script. On Linux? Literally impossible. I've spent days dicking with various config files, rebooting and relogging dozens of times. Even got so desperate I asked chatgpt. Gave up after a week or two.
To anyone else reading this: this is not an invitation for fixes. Whatever you're going to suggest, I've already tried it and I'm super not interested in any opinions about it.
No mention if you tried to compile the firmware, or use the custom mapping configuration available to your keyboard, what kind of keyboard you have, or what specifically hasn't worked.
It runs in the background as a systemd service, and the config is just:
$ cat /etc/keyd/default.conf
[ids]
*
[main]
capslock = end
* Active Directory / Group Policy has no equal to the point where FreeIPA and sssd threw in the towel and supplement AD and support group policies directly.
* RDP is the better technology full stop. X forwarding is really cool and VNC is… there but RDP got the abstraction right.
* SMB for all its warts is better at file sharing than anything that Linux has to offer and FUSE, while great, is a band-aid over the wrong permission model— why Linux does mounting a filesystem have security implications? Why after 30 years do we still pretend the filesystem is reliable and paper over the reality that it isn't.
* NTFS got the permission model right where for the most part Linux is still clunking along with chmod. You don't have to deal with user ids sharing a single global namespace. Directories only being able to be owned by one group. NFSv4 even adopted NT ACLs wholesale as well as NT's identity model.
* Windows has undergone truly heroic efforts to make remote home directories work where Linux you will never stop dealing with issues.
I think the, deserved, Microsoft hate has blinded folks a bit to the good things Windows has going for it. I know, tragic, the worst person had some good ideas.
A few distros/DEs have straightforward ways to do this with a GUI but there's no universal solution, and this is something almost anyone using Linux for a home media server is going to run into.
If you aren't using one of the big two, it's your own fault (or the fault of whoever sweet-talked you into trying their non-mainstream DE).
So I guess I could either go back to X and have uncomfortably large letters or stick with Wayland and tolerate slightly off colors. Yay.
The IME shows Korean characters in slightly wrong size whenever I type and gvim keeps throwing UI error messages in the console. At least it allows the input to go through, so I guess it's fine?
Hibernation used to work, and then stopped working for about two years, and then started working again after the latest upgrade. No idea why, I'm not gonna question the system when it works.
(BTW, I think the last time I had to worry about IME or hibernation in Windows or Mac was about twenty years ago.)
I had 2 Linux Dell laptops in a row that either had Wifi OR bluetooth, never both. I swapped the radio in the second one and things were okay for awhile.
Neither of these, nor the Asus laptop I later purchased supported sleep/hibernate when the lid closes. Out of 4 laptops in 7 years, the only one that supported this incredible future technology was my Lenovo Carbon X1, the two Dells and the Asus all repeatedly tried to commit head-death suicide in my backpack.
My current workstation that runs Ubuntu 22.04 and now 24.04 was going great until I got some update that swapped me back from Wayland to X11. Now things are weird and I've got to make time to fuck with it to figure out how to make this RTX 4080 work with Wayland.
It's the worst operating system in the world, except for all the others.
Back then of course it was simple, closing the lid instantly wrote RAM out to the HDD and shut everything down.
In the name of copying the iPad's instant on, we've killed countless batteries and made countless laptops completely useless.
Progress!
I can nitpick and find issues with all of these systems. I think there is a bit of a little saying that sometimes go around that, "all OSes just suck." On Windows 11, I've got ads, inconsistency between different windows provided by Windows (some have the newer UI look and some are still stuck with their Windows 7 like when adjusting print settings or advanced settings), and I can never get Bluetooth headphones with a mic to just work consistently (same with my co-workers). On macOS, the reorganization of settings have sucked for a number of settings, clicking with my mouse half the time does the view where it shows all the applications in my virtual desktop view (don't know the proper name of this) and having to augment macOS with Magnet. With Linux, some of the pains you've already mentioned. And of course those are same what even worst on desktop BSD. If I sit down I can probably think of more for all the platforms.
At the end of the day, all of them suck, its just a pick your pain. So just as you said, each one is the worst operating system in the world, except for all others.
Initializing hardware is hard, reinitializing hardware is harder, so now when chips are power focusing we can just ignore the annoying steps :)
Wait, what?? Just re-discussed the other day:
State of S3 – Your Laptop is no Laptop anymore – a personal Rant (2023)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41442490
> S0ix would be great if it worked. But unfortunately it does not - laptops die from overheating, draining their battery in the process.
> This issue is not limited to Linux, as Dell officially warns to power down your Laptop before placing it in a backpack.
Laptops have been successfully closed to sleep, and inserted into backpacks for literally decades.
My 2024 Lenovo X1 Carbon has not ever woken up and tried to commit heat-death suicide.
I am quite sure this isn't a widespread problem with Apple products.
I can't imagine what the hell people are even doing with laptops if they don't consider close-to-sleep, wifi and bluetooth bare minimum functional requirements.
IMO one of the best reasons to prefer to buy/use a laptop from a Linux-first laptop company (Framework, Tuxedo, Slimbook, Starbook, System76, etc) is a better chance of sleep/suspend working properly. Even then, though, with the abandonment of S3 and the push for S0ix, it can mean that even "properly" working sleep can basically drain your battery overnight (sleep-to-hibernate can be set, but can be complex). For those interested in characterizing their laptop battery drain in Linux, I wrote a utility to help: https://github.com/lhl/batterylog
For Wifi + Bluetooth, I've found always swapping to an Intel card to be the best bet for stability, although BT still is always hit or miss for me.
I had some crazy intermittent crashes on suspend w/ one of my dev laptops, turns out that was a problem Nvidia introduced w/ their v550 drivers at the beginning of the year that still hasn't been fixed yet. That was pretty maddening: https://mostlyobvious.org/?link=/Reference%2FHardware%2FRaze...
> I had 2 Linux Dell laptops in a row that either had Wifi OR bluetooth, never both. I swapped the radio in the second one and things were okay for awhile.
I had a Windows laptop that came with broken wifi and bluetooth as well as a BIOS-enforced wifi card whitelist that prevented me from swapping out the wifi card.
> Neither of these, nor the Asus laptop I later purchased supported sleep/hibernate when the lid closes.
Yes, so does my Windows laptop. It's why I always shut it down completely before going anywhere.
> My current workstation that runs Ubuntu 22.04 and now 24.04 was going great until I got some update that swapped me back from Wayland to X11. Now things are weird and I've got to make time to fuck with it to figure out how to make this RTX 4080 work with Wayland.
An NVIDIA update gave people with my laptop model a blackscreen. NVIDIA only fixed this half a year or so later.
It was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life, I felt like I had to constantly work around the OS to get things done that would be trivial on linux.
I lasted a month before making the macbook dual-boot ubuntu. Eventually they just bought me a linux laptop.
Happy like a clam with Windows and Linux. Both have some ugly sides but neither stand in my way when need to do something.
It's many small things like that.
When I had to switch to Mac for work, it had no silly problems like that.
This was always the point, wasn't it? MS wanted Windows to compete more closely with the iPad with the Surface - it just turned out that only parts of what they tried were good (the Metro style turned into Fluent).
I've been using Windows since 98 and I frankly feel like the current UX is at a high point. It's responsive, thoughtfully laid-out, and supports modern stuff like omnisearch (I have configured my Start Menu to NOT give me Bing results) and multiple desktops.
The enshittification is a real shame because I've been really enjoying the changes.
it's much, much better than it used to be, but there are so many inconsistencies and annoyances that I would be hard pressed to recommend it. selecting text is painful. the on-screen keyboard is decent but swipe input won't register half the time and it routinely fails to open when it should or stay closed when it shouldn't.
with a pen, it's extremely picky with tap inputs. if the pen tip moves even a mm after touching, it's registered as a mouse drag, and unlike with mice there's no way to adjust the sensitivity or register a deadzone. handwriting to text is ok, but its constantly shifting interface regularly leads to errors and gestures like striking out or replacing a letter rarely works on the first (or even third) try.
with both pen and osk, text prediction / spell correct is utterly moronic. often reaching for unusual words or proper names instead of a more common word.
I will give them credit for getting to this point and I'm sure many of the inconsistencies come from having to support a wide variety of apps and backwards compatibility. regardless tho, it will be a long while yet before it's usable as a touchscreen-primary OS, let alone "really good".
On W10 you can use the full keyboard layout and undock it to move it where you want. On W11 this changed and once you undock the full keyboard layout it becomes a different layout. This has bitten me quite a bit as some fullscreen applications will disappear behind the keyboard.
Also it is impossible to turn off text prediction on the keyboard. I don't want and need it so it blocks screen space.
Surface Go 3.
Since then I subscribed to Linux Journal until it was no more.
Got most of Walnut Creek distributions, lost count of how many I have tried in the last 30 years.
My UNIX experience started with Xenix in 1993, and I have used most well known UNIX variants.
There are plenty of reasons to still complain about Linux in 2024, especially in regards to laptops.
In any case, even if we skip the subject of performance, GDScript is not a particularly good language comparatively speaking.
Personally I find C# to be a fantastic language with both high (eg. pattern matching, dynamic) and low level (eg. value types, Span<T>) features as well as amazing tooling (eg. Rosylyn Analyzers) that come in very handy.
If performance is an issue, or I want to do something that GDScript doesn’t lend well too, I’d probably just jump to C++.
This is the first time I hear that. Do you have any sources for that? Reposting unfounded "casual reports" isn't helpful.
Godot pronunciation is documented at https://godotengine.org/press/
Godot is named after the play Waiting for Godot, and is usually pronounced like in the play. Different languages have different pronunciations for Godot and we find it beautiful.
For native English speakers, we recommend "GOD-oh"; the "t" is silent like in the French original.
https://github.com/godotengine/godot-website/pull/638
https://github.com/godotengine/godot-website/commit/c9053182...
What? I'm pretty sure "no stress anywhere" is right. (I did play a few words in my head to check, but really, syllable stress is just a foreign concept in french.)
Like, okay, let's take a random sentence:
"C'est impossible!"
There's a bunch of different ways you can pronounce it: you can pronounce all syllables in one breath (no accent), you can enunciate three syllables for heavy emphasis ("C'est im, po, ssible!"), you can put the accent on the first syllable for light emphasis ("C'est IMpossible"), but you're almost never going to put the accent on the last syllable ("C'est impoSSIBLE!") unless you're doing a bit.
You can modify unreal. It’s source available.
Because "you" in this case is typically a game studio. "Solving your own problem" means shipping your game.
Virtually everyone modifies Unreal C++ code. Some indie projects are blueprint only. But modifying the engine C++ source code is practically an expectation.
Can those source code modifications be easily shared with other developers? Well they can't be publicly dumped on GitHub. Can they be shipped to consume in a compiled binary? Absolutely.
They have a marketplace for selling or sharing stuff like that. If it's a huge chunk of code that's mostly original Unreal code, there are probably some license issues (I have no idea) with just sticking it in your github, but I actually have seen stuff like that on github, so, maybe not.
Being a fork it will only be available to other people in the Epic Games github org which is only people who have agreed to Epic's licensing terms, and your modified engine remains under that same license.
There are macros-as-descriptors like in Godot but they don’t really work in the same way. But if you’re asking whether you have access to base level objects so that you can extend them, yea you can.
Furthermore, many of these devs have been on Unity for many years, not because it was the best, but because it was pretty much the only accessible and modern choice for smaller projects before Godot and other open-source engines were mature enough to release games with.
> Free
> Game developers (royalties apply after $1 million USD gross product revenue)
> Individuals and small businesses (with less than $1 million USD in annual gross revenue)
> For educators and schools (no revenue limits)
Free for educational purposes means it is not free, since the royalties still apply if the game is released.
Last time I checked, free means free.
Epic is not claiming any rights on your IP.
Mario v1.3 typically means Mario 1 with some patches unless you’re kingdom hearts, so yes that is still the same game. I believe dlc is bundled into the parent game.
So is trying to make a game engine during the worst industry contraction since the collapse of Atari.
Being open source is kind of saving them right now.
It's even worse over in Rust land. Bevy is making progress, but it's slow.
There are several parts to this. There are the run-time components - the graphics stack, the physics engine, and the 2D user interface components are the big ones. There's the gameplay programming system - schematics in Unreal Engine, scripts for most others. Then there's a developer user interface to provide a GUI for all this.
Open source development can do the run-time components. There's general agreement on how those are supposed to work, and many examples to look at. The developer user interface is tough. Open source development has a terrible time with graphical user interfaces. Those need serious design, not just a collection of features and menus that happen to compile together.
Is that true? It feels like we've been in a indie renaissance for a while now
That said, its really a double edged sword. Unity can turn into a buggy mess if you try to get too clever about mucking with domain reloads and such.
Unreal has some of this, in that you can see dynamically spawned AActors(game objects) but their properties and components are not updated and are not editable while playing.