I'm making a Linux Distro containing Touhou 7 & 8 (trial versions)

[iruel]

I'm making an increasingly important and popular Linux distro based on Chakra (Arch-based) GNU/Linux. Because I'm an idiot, I named all the version names after Touhou characters, like in Debian's Toy Story characters.

Actually, that was no accident; my Linux distro is based on research made by the innovative CirnOS by 4chan's /g/... (no, I'm not kidding)

Anyway, enough of that rambling and let's get to the point: This system will include trial versions of some of ZUN's Touhou games, preconfigured for Linux. Since my distro is becoming progressively important (for a certain important group of people I will not name)  Drat! I'd like to have the best, most full-featured ones.

Currently I have:

• Touhou: Perfect Cherry Blossom
• Touhou: Imperishable Night

th07 in AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=44324
th07 in CCR: http://chakra-project.org/ccr/packages.php?ID=1876
th08 in AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=49414
th08 in CCR: http://chakra-project.org/ccr/packages.php?ID=1884

However, I'd like to avoid those entirely if possible, as
A) They are trial versions,
B) They are Windows-only (not really a big problem)
C) They are not open-source.

So, what do you guys think are the best fan-made, open source Touhou danmakus? The selected games may very well be their first taste of Touhou; let's make it their best.

Or if that's not possible, what trial Touhou games work the best on Linux or are the best, quality wise? I'd make an Arch PKGBUILD for those trials if I have time.

[Blargel]

I don't think there are any open source Touhou games. Or at least, there aren't any good or well-known ones. Also, I'm 99% sure that all Touhou games (except for the random ass one that I'm building on the side extremely slowly) are Windows only.

Most importantly, if you want to distribute full version games instead of demos, chances are it'll be illegal. Since all Touhou games are not open-source, it's pretty safe to say that all Touhou games are also going to cost money. Distributing them with your OS for free is pirating.

As for which trial Touhou games work best on Linux.... I have no clue  :derp:

[iruel]

Windows-only is not a really big problem, (there is wine) but it's preferable to have one made for Linux.

So, no full versions. I will document an upgrade method "in case you have a full version".

Well, what trials show what Touhou has to offer the most?

[DX7.EP]

I'd recommend the trials for PCB, IN, and MOF. TD is also good too.

IaMP, SWR, and HSTS (Hisoutensoku / UNL), however, have issues under Wine on both Linux and OS X. So I wouldn't pack those in (and besides the last one has no trial version AFAIK).

[Tengukami]

IaMP runs fine in WINE. The other fighting games, not so much. PoFV also has issues.

I run 1.2.2, and all the other Touhou games run great.

[DX7.EP]

IaMP runs fine in WINE. The other fighting games, not so much. PoFV also has issues.

I run 1.2.2, and all the other Touhou games run great.

Welp. IaMP does work fine (also 1.2.2 user here, using WineBottler on Mac). Damn lack of testing beforehand....
Getting problems with PoFV as well (no rendering at all in XQuartz window)...maybe I need d3dx-whatever DLLs in there too, as with TD.

As for SWR and HSTS, it crashes shortly after load :derp:.

Oh, and TD requires d3dx9_43.dll to run under WINE and some Windows installs. Now, I'm not sure on the distribution policy of this file, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

[iruel]

IaMP runs fine in WINE. The other fighting games, not so much. PoFV also has issues.

As for SWR and HSTS, it crashes shortly after load :derp:.

Really? I've never had that problem, although a minor problem is that I have to kill the game manually because Wine restarts it. Maybe it's because I made a seperate wineprefix for it. Though the lack of trials is a killer problem.

Getting problems with PoFV as well (no rendering at all in XQuartz window)...maybe I need d3dx-whatever DLLs in there too

PoFV works totally fine on my side, unmodified, just need to get Timidity++ (for MIDI) working.

Note that I used my Arch-based Linux distro (installed) for all these tests. Hm.. It might be more important now...

No sign of good, open-source fangames? Okay...

[DX7.EP]

Really? I've never had that problem, although a minor problem is that I have to kill the game manually because Wine restarts it. Maybe it's because I made a seperate wineprefix for it. Though the lack of trials is a killer problem.

Tasofro has the SWR trial on its site. HSTS was more an expansion to the former anyway.

PoFV works totally fine on my side, unmodified, just need to get Timidity++ (for MIDI) working.
Note that I used my Arch-based Linux distro (installed) for all these tests. Hm.. It might be more important now...

Ah. Which version of Wine are you using (as both Tengukami/Ammy and I use 1.2.2, that may be part of the issue. Also I tested on Mac OS...no idea which distro Ammy uses).
I know Arch is common amongst Linux gamers, but I can't really help with it (as far as Linux is concerned, Ubuntu/Mint and SUSE user here).

Also, from what I remember Timidity++ utilizes SF2s, DLSes, GUS patches, etc. to run things. Any idea which one(s) you'll put in? hopefully not THFont

No sign of good, open-source fangames? Okay...

It doesn't seem like "Touhou" and "open-source" go along too well. Otherwise we'd be seeing Linux and Mac source ports, for one.

[iruel]

Ah. Which version of Wine are you using (as both Tengukami/Ammy and I use 1.2.2, that may be part of the issue. Also I tested on Mac OS...no idea which distro Ammy uses).
Also, from what I remember Timidity++ utilizes SF2s, DLSes, GUS patches, etc. to run things. Any idea which one(s) you'll put in? hopefully not THFont

My distro uses "wine-1.3.22". You'll never find that in any other system for a long time, which is why my belief is that rolling release (like with Arch/Chakra) is more important for desktop users. And contrary to popular belief, being up-to-date is much, much more important than stability (except for servers)

Installed with the distro is a stock "timidity-freepats", which sounds something like a normal Windows one.

Tasofro has the SWR trial on its site. HSTS was more an expansion to the former anyway.

Maybe I'll try and make a package for SWR.

I know Arch is common amongst Linux gamers, but I can't really help with it (as far as Linux is concerned, Ubuntu/Mint and SUSE user here).

Actually, you can: the fork of Arch I'm using for my distro (Chakra) is designed for Linux users that have minor experience in Ubuntu (and possibly even fresh Windows users!), giving an actual installer and an extremely fast and usable Arch+KDE system right out-of-the-box. It was the only KDE system to work on my netbook. Try it out.

Or, try out the distro in the "www" link in my post, it's a liveCD and includes PCB and IN already.

[DX7.EP]

My distro uses "wine-1.3.22". You'll never find that in any other system for a long time, which is why my belief is that rolling release (like with Arch/Chakra) is more important for desktop users. And contrary to popular belief, being up-to-date is much, much more important than stability (except for servers)

Ah. Well as for the last bit it really depends on situation *looks at Final Cut Pro X and its overly forward approach compared to last version*.

Installed with the distro is a stock "timidity-freepats", which sounds something like a normal Windows one.

Oh, from Freepats project? Eh...they sound terrible if you ask me (MIDI enthusiast).
Windows and Mac OS use highly compressed samples from the Roland SC-55 synth. Sounds like crap, definitely.
What about configuring it to use other soundfonts or DLS banks? I can give recommendations for those.

Maybe I'll try and make a package for SWR.

Try IaMP first, since it already works well under Wine unlike SWR.

Actually, you can: the fork of Arch I'm using for my distro (Chakra) is designed for Linux users that have minor experience in Ubuntu (and possibly even fresh Windows users!), giving an actual installer and an extremely fast and usable Arch+KDE system right out-of-the-box. It was the only KDE system to work on my netbook. Try it out.

Or, try out the distro in the "www" link in my post, it's a liveCD and includes PCB and IN already.

I'm more used to XFCE and GNOME personally :derp:. But KDE is great too for its flexibility (GNOME's too restrictive IMO).

However, since I spend ~85% of computing time on Mac OS (and another 14% on various Windows OSes) I will likely be testing on VMs in Parallels or Virtualbox.

[iruel]

Ah. Well as for the last bit it really depends on situation *looks at Final Cut Pro X and its overly forward approach compared to last version*.

Well, maybe not for individual programs, but for operating systems it's important.

Oh, from Freepats project? Eh...they sound terrible if you ask me (MIDI enthusiast).
Windows and Mac OS use highly compressed samples from the Roland SC-55 synth. Sounds like crap, definitely.
What about configuring it to use other soundfonts or DLS banks? I can give recommendations for those.

I just got some generic one, so recommendations are nice.

I'm more used to XFCE and GNOME personally :derp:. But KDE is great too for its flexibility (GNOME's too restrictive IMO).

However, since I spend ~85% of computing time on Mac OS (and another 14% on various Windows OSes) I will likely be testing on VMs in Parallels or Virtualbox.

Well, I test it in VMs too. Just remember to set the RAM to 1GB or so and turn on hyper-virtualization in the BIOS for best performance.

Try IaMP first, since it already works well under Wine unlike SWR.

Alright, I'll look at that too.

[Tengukami]

Actually, you can: the fork of Arch I'm using for my distro (Chakra) is designed for Linux users that have minor experience in Ubuntu (and possibly even fresh Windows users!), giving an actual installer and an extremely fast and usable Arch+KDE system right out-of-the-box. It was the only KDE system to work on my netbook. Try it out.

Hey, yeah, Chakra is one of the distros GNU recommends, too. I wanted to try Arch, but there wasn't a LiveCD/LiveUSB/try this without installing it option. Is that the case with Chakra?

Also, brave dude using 1.3.22. I don't trust dev versions of WINE; strictly stable or older for me, thanks.

[DX7.EP]

Well, maybe not for individual programs, but for operating systems it's important.

* EP looks at Vista, ME, and Mac OS 10.0

Yep, that is the case.

I just got some generic one, so recommendations are nice.

Hm...for complete single-file soundfonts I highly recommend SGM v2.01, Titanic GS v1.2, and GM Thai Mix. They are very large (>100-200MB), however.
As far as multi-file ones are concerned, Fluid R3 is my pick. THFont is also common, especially amongst some of the musicians here.
For good miniature (<50MB) ones stick with Musica Theora or Chaos Bank.
There are also even smaller ones (1-8MB) if space is a priority, namely a few from Creative (which were used with its sound cards).
Lastly, Scct12 (~4MB) is the closest approximation of the MSFT and AAPL default MIDI synth that I know of...sounds just as bad! :V

Well, I test it in VMs too. Just remember to set the RAM to 1GB or so and turn on hyper-virtualization in the BIOS for best performance.

Already do both (usually put 2GB RAM, 2 emulated cores, and Intel VT-x).

[iruel]

* EP looks at Vista, ME, and Mac OS 10.0

Yep, that is the case.

It seems I phrased it incorrectly.

Hey, yeah, Chakra is one of the distros GNU recommends, too. I wanted to try Arch, but there wasn't a LiveCD/LiveUSB/try this without installing it option. Is that the case with Chakra?

Chakra does have a LiveCD option, and I'm developing a persistent USB system. Arch Linux actually has LiveCD forks too, such as ArchBang and CTKArch.

Also, brave dude using 1.3.22. I don't trust dev versions of WINE; strictly stable or older for me, thanks.

Wine 1.3 is already 1 year old, and it's pretty stable, it's never crashed. 1.3.22 isn't even the dev/unstable version, which are the actual risky ones. The only problems would be zero-day exploits, which almost never occur on desktops (they are saved for servers) and can be mitigated with a simple Apparmor profile.

Hm...for complete single-file soundfonts I highly recommend SGM v2.01, Titanic GS v1.2, and GM Thai Mix. They are very large (>100-200MB), however.
As far as multi-file ones are concerned, Fluid R3 is my pick. THFont is also common, especially amongst some of the musicians here.
For good miniature (<50MB) ones stick with Musica Theora or Chaos Bank.
There are also even smaller ones (1-8MB) if space is a priority, namely a few from Creative (which were used with its sound cards).
Lastly, Scct12 (~4MB) is the closest approximation of the MSFT and AAPL default MIDI synth that I know of...sounds just as bad! :V
Already do both (usually put 2GB RAM, 2 emulated cores, and Intel VT-x).

Well, I'll check them out and make packages for them if I have time.

[DX7.EP]

How come there's all this adversion to newer versions of software? Wine 1.3 is already 1 year old, and it's pretty stable, it's never crashed. 1.3.22 isn't even the dev/unstable version, which are the actual risky ones.

...1.3.xx didn't have problems for me on Ubuntu either. I just use 1.2.2 on Mac due to that being the latest one in use by WineBottler. Haven't toyed with Wineskin, and PlayOnMac (as well as PlayOnLinux) simply fails on my end.