If I ever complain about needing weeks to do something as simple as installing a Linux distro and creating a development environment, feel free to say it.

I'm just curios, how would you imagine the dev environment for C4 would look like?

Autotools, gcc, needed libraries, binary blob drivers for the video card, a terminal emulator and vim with a bunch of scripts.

I like how you gloss over the "needed libraries".

But seriously, let's take a quick look (here)[http://www.terathon.com/architecture.php] and think, what might be a clear pain point in Linux, even if the "needed libraries" worked perfectly with all the hardware and all distros and the blobs were perfect.

Did I hear someone say "Linux sound support"? Yes, that is a correct answer. Sound in Linux is a know clusterfuck.

What else might be not as trivial? Did someone say support for multiple graphic cards? Yes, even with OpenGL it might be an issue.

Not to mention all the GUI tools.

So yeah, those all things obviously would never have any less than functioning dependencies on Linux...

Use PortAudio for sound (MIT license), Qt for the GUI and various OS dependent abstractions (threads, mutexes, etc.) - LGPL. If you don't like the OpenGL wrapper from Qt, go with FreeGLUT (MIT) or SDL (zlib license).

I'm not arguing that there aren't any libraries.

No, you're just spreading FUD about Linux. There is no audio clusterfuck, just incompetent developers like those working on Skype that only support PulseAudio instead of using a library that would give them ALSA, JACK and OSS support.

Seriously, buddy, I gave you like a ton of ways to deescalate the douche in your response, but you went right through the wall.

C4 isn't the only case where developers are frustrated with Linux. And if Windows and OS X fare better in attracting developers (which these systems do), even though Linux is essentially free (and the competition isn't), that's per definition a sign of a shit product.

So, you can of course, think that all of this is FUD and everybody in the world is incompetent, while more and more people drop support for a system that's too much duct-taped together for its own good.

Actually, in this case, glossing over the "needed libraries" is appropriate. Eric some serious NIH. Choosing to write his own video codec, for example.

I'm not sure I get your point. Although writing your own video codec seems a bit overkill.

The spec here isn't that trivial, I mean the thing has clearly strict performance and portability constraints across systems and compilers, not to mention maintainability and quality consistency across the releases. Finding libraries that fit well with those constraints, especially for a large project like this, isn't easy. So I can imagine scenarios where NIH would be justified.

I was mostly making a point, that using such broad strokes to claim someone to be incompetent, while assuming all the libraries and tools required are in perfect condition and perfectly work is dumb and Stefi's hissy-fit here is just self indulgent ego-stroking.

Yes, sorry. I should have better explained. In this case, C4 is capable of building with nearly zero libraries, afaik, only requiring OS libs, and OpenGL. In this case, I think we can expect the libraries to be in perfect working condition.

It depends if (s)he abandons the project because installing a distro is too hard or (s)he had a legitimate roadblock.

I'd guess installing a distro and installing a distro with all dependencies for developing a complex game engine might be different things.

If they say it's a legitimate roadblock for them, then I tend to believe it.