Id Software - Linux

Linux

Id Software was an early pioneer in the Linux gaming market, and Id Software's Linux games have been some of the most popular of the platform. Many Id Software games won the Readers' and Editors' Choice awards of Linux Journal. Some Id Software titles ported to Linux are Doom (the first Id Software game to be ported), Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Doom 3, Quake 4, and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Since Id Software and some of its licencees released the source code for some of their previous games, several games which were not ported (such as Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny, Heretic, Hexen, Hexen II, and Strife) can run on Linux and other operating systems through the use of source ports.

The tradition of porting to Linux was first started by Dave D. Taylor with David Kirsch doing some later porting. Since Quake III Arena Linux porting has been handled by Timothee Besset. The majority of all Id Tech 4 games, including those made by other developers, have a Linux client available, the only current exceptions being Wolfenstein and Brink. Similarly, almost all of the games utilizing the Id tech 2 engine have Linux ports, the only exceptions being those created by Ion Storm. Despite fears by the Linux gaming community that Id Tech 5 would not be ported to that platform, Timothee Besset in his blog has stated "I'll be damned if we don't find the time to get Linux builds done". Besset has stated that Id Software's primary justification for releasing Linux builds is better code quality, along with a technical interest for the platform.

John Carmack has expressed his stance with regard to Linux builds in the past. Todd Hollenshead has also expressed support for Linux: "All said, we will continue to be a leading supporter of the Linux platform because we believe it is a technically sound OS and is the OS of choice for many server ops." However Carmack revealed that "there are no plans for a native Linux client" of id's most recent game, Rage.

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