Last month saw the 0.8 branch of Desurium receive final polishes after entering a "feature freeze". We are on our third Release Candidate and are seeking feedback before moving to General Availability for our 0.8 release.
We have closed all of the remaining bugs in our 0.8 milestone, and we now need as much testing feedback as possible to make sure that Desurium 0.8 is stable and ready for release.
Please note that 0.8 will be a Linux-only release.
What To Look For
In particular, we are looking for comments on:
- Stability during general use
- Stability whilst uploading/downloading games, videos and other content
- The new CMake build system as well as ebuild (Gentoo) and PKGBUILD (Arch) scripts
- The new simplified build requirements (no longer requiring git/svn)
- Additional language translations (new localisations for Brazillian, Bulgarian, Czech, Greek, Japanese and Slovenian, and updates for all existing localisations)
Important Notes
In addition, the following key changes have been made that new users should be aware of:
- The default storage location is now separated from the Desurium application folder in Linux (default is ~/.desura)
- New Desurium specific branding featuring the "Desubot"
- Windows support is currently unavailable (this will be the primary focus of the upcoming 0.9 release)
Desurium can be installed at the same time as the official Desura client without conflicting, though we recommend against attempting to run them both simultaneously. As Desurium currently uses a different default storage location, users will need to use symlinks or hardlinks if they wish to share downloaded game files between the two clients.
Source and Builds
Testers are invited to compile Desurium from the 0.8 RC3 source snapshot tag in the Desurium GitHub repository, but to make testing more accessible, openSUSE, Ubuntu packages and Gentoo ebuilds have been made available in addition to a 32 bit distribution-independent build (Desurium can be built for 64 bit systems, we just don't have a pre-compiled 64 bit distribution-independent build available at this time). Please also note that 64 bit Desurium can install 32 bit versions of games in addition to 64 bit versions, though they will only run if 32 bit compatibility libraries are present.
- Desurium GitHub Repository: Github.com
- openSUSE packages (32 and 64 bit): Software.opensuse.org
- Ubuntu PPA (32 and 64 bit): Launchpad.net
- Gentoo ebuilds (32 and 64 bit): Github.com
- Distro-independent build (32 bit): Nemoder.homenet.org:8080
Additionally, Gentoo ebuilds and an Arch PKGBUILD can be found the distro folder of Desurium's source.
Additional Resources
Additional information can be found in the A Beginners Guide To Desurium document on the Desurium GitHub wiki, and in the README file from the 0.8 branch of the Desurium GitHub repository.
- Beginners' Guide: Github.com
- Desurium 0.8 README file: Github.com
Help and Community
If testers run into trouble, have questions or want to get involved in Desurium development, the Desurium contributors can be found in the following locations:
- Discussion on related "issues" in the Desurium GitHub repository: Github.com
- The #desura IRC channel on Freenode.net: Webchat.freenode.net
- The Desurium group on Desura: Indiedb.com
- The Desura developer forums: Indiedb.com
For Desurium's 0.9 release, we are intending to focus on Windows compatibility and other cross-platform fixes. We would like to welcome and encourage the involvement of any Windows oriented developers who would like to contribute to the project.
Enjoy!
"Please also note that only 64 bit Desurium can install 32 bit versions of games, though they will only run if 32 bit compatibility libraries are present."
I am pretty sure it should mean, only 64bit desurium can install 64bit and 32bit versions; and 32bit desurium can only install 32bit version
Ha, I knew there'd be something. Well spotted.
Can I make a request?
Make it compatible with a little outdated already distros, like Debian 6. Debian 7 is gonna be released in first or second quarter of 2013 so some guys will still use Debian 6 on their desktops.
we need pretty new libs libs gcc-4.6 and libevent 0.7 so it is too much work for now; we do try to get into debian Bugs.debian.org if you can help us there that would be much appreciated
I'm using it since a couple of weeks now, all runs fine, much more stable than the old desura client (which refused to exit sometimes). I noticed one game that wouldn't download (Reprisal I think) from the standard "play" window (the download window opened, but stayed there forever with an empty progress bar without beginning the download), but the same game downloaded and installed fine from the menu tools -> list CDs and keys. If I manage to reproduce that behaviour I'll post back. Sorry, I didn't think about looking better when it happened.
Anyway, so much better to have this open source client! The build system is pretty easy to use, I adapted what's inside the build_desura.sh script to make it build in a different directory (I would suggest adding comments in that file, showing possible options, etc... so users can use it as a base to make their tweaks). I also loved having the games placed outside of the desurium application folder.
Kudos to everybody working on this, it's maturing very well
Amazing work cheeseness and the Desurium team. We shall work on incorporating this into the main build once the testing phase is done.
Thank you for the openSUSE packages! :-)
Good to see Scott will use it on the official website, it's a vast improvement!
Feels great on my system, thanks!
Works really good. No problems and no crashes! Thank you!
Just installed the Ubuntu version from the PPA, used it for ~10 minutes, and crashed it. Segfault in Flash, of course :-)
great, thanks to everyone who contributed and contributes!
Thank you so very much of this free client!