selectparks - Ubuntu-6.06: OpenSource Game-dev platform of choice.

Ubuntu, the free OS used by millions of people the world over reached it's 6.06 milestone today. It's a stunner of a release and now has a try-before-you-buy 'LiveCD'; just boot up without installing anything and if you like what you see, click the 'Install' icon. Download it here (try the torrents for a snappy download).

Ubuntu comes with the Selectparks Special Nod for those interested in a solid, easy to use, low-maintenance platform for open-source game development. Like many Linux distributions Ubuntu is based on the all incumbent Debian, reknowned for it's excellent software management system and stability. There are 17000+ software free-software packages available in Ubuntu and are downloaded from a secure and geographically local repository on demand. There's no hunting around websites to find and install software and all software on your machine can be upgraded simultaneously, at any time, with just a few clicks.

This makes it fantastic as a stable development machine (and also as a desktop). If you want to install Python OpenGL bindings, SDL joystick support along with the sourcecode for an RPG you find in the package manager, they are just a click away..

Once Ubuntu is installed you'll probably want to setup other bits and pieces that can't be legally shipped with a Linux distribution, due to them being covered by patents and other silliness. The fastest way to do this is with the Easy Ubuntu program which will install the proprietary ATI/NVIDIA drivers for Linux (needed if you're into hardware shaders), all the video and audio codecs you'll ever need, Flash, Java etc).

From there install the 'build-essential' package, this will give you a compiler (GCC) and a heap of other tools handy/needed during the process of compiling software you find in archives online or write yourself. You'll need this especially for non-Ubuntu packaged projects like Quake3 and Ogre3D,

Make sure you keep help nearby.

enjoy!