Linux Installer - GUI

[CaptainDeSync]

With the end of Windows 10, and many people jumping ship from Windows, is it at all possible to get Linux support seeing BeamNG already supports Linux natively?

As with any I've alternatives I've considered, none.

[WiserTixx]

BeamMP already has native linux support.
https://docs.beammp.com/game/getting-started/#2b-linux-installation

[CaptainDeSync]

My apologies, I swear I can read.

Updating my request to having a Linux installer GUI of some sorts, that’s why I never noticed Linux support. Possibly something that even just runs in console like Windows.

Sorry about that!

[Blenux]

I created a prototype gui demo of my own few weeks back, but I wouldnt call myself a proper developer.

[CaptainDeSync]

I created a prototype gui demo of my own few weeks back, but I wouldnt call myself a proper developer.

Damn! That is a really nice UI. I'd love to see that implemented in some way. Great concept!

[Starystars67]

Indeed, that is very nice looking.

What did you use to make it if you don't mind me asking?

[CaptainDeSync]

Ok, so instead of a launcher, what if the launcher was just packaged as an appimage? GearLever can handle most of this. Of course I'm new to this so I have no idea.

[gerelef]

@Starystars67 I don't know how well versed the BeamMP team is regarding linux app distribution, so excuse the redundancy; the traditional way to distribute applications in most linux distros is to provide them as a native package.
More of a personal note, as this is a FOSS app which puts it within the strict copr licensing guidelines, I'm currently working on a fedora copr package for my own personal use (I am not an expert in packaging whatsoever, and rather new at this).

The big minus here, and one of the biggest pain points, is that you'll have to set this up for every different distribution method, aka in each packaging format for most base distributions; .deb for debian / ubuntu & derivatives, .rpms for rpm-based distributions such as fedora / opensuse / rhel & derivatives, with some (personally unknown) nuanced differences for bazzite (which is closely aligned with the gaming usecase, and more importantly, an immutable distro), and a pkgbuild for arch (and by extension steamos).

Alternatively, you can distribute BeamMP via flatpak (or, god forbid, snap), which should be pretty easy to deal with, and you can also verify that you're the original packagers so that users know where to report issues.

AppImages are preferred by a small minority of users, and they're decent but they do not integrate nicely at all with environments, and GearLever will have to be used & set up by each user individually; if you provide a Flatpak or a native package instead, users will receive updates automatically instead, at their own leisure.

edit: the BeamMP-Launcher Fedora pkg (copr) has been implemented & tested; it works well afaik.

[CaptainDeSync]

Yeah actually I don't know why I entirely ignored Flatpak. I use Bazaar to download almost everything I use so that would be uber mega ultra convenient.

[gerelef]

I have no experience with packaging flatpaks, but from a cursory look, during flathub builds there is no network access, which is rather standard practice, so vcpkg dependencies would have to be downloaded beforehand (while building BeamMP-Launcher):

All dependencies needed to build and run the application must be present in the manifest as sources with publicly accessible URLs or must be included as local sources in the submission pull request. Binary or precompiled files must not be present in the submission pull request.

[Blenux]

I created a prototype gui demo of my own few weeks back, but I wouldnt call myself a proper developer.

Damn! That is a really nice UI. I'd love to see that implemented in some way. Great concept!

Sorry for late reply, was done in C++/WebkitGTK.

Do note I'm not a developer (or knows what he is doing exactly) and was aided with cursor etc (yes I know), just wanted to create things.

Though the prototype did work, the launcher would load the server/start the game etc, and with some other edits I did to the git repo (that pem cert issue for arch, auto updates functionality, appimage version etc).