More Libre games
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The more I delve into research regarding libre versions of old games. Ideally ones that would run on an x200 without too much problem. I stumbled across another game called OpenMW which is an opensource engine for Morrowind. Apparently it is available in most distros with the command 'sudo apt install openmw'. It seems I am unable to install on Trisquel however, could this be because there are nonfree elements required or it just didn't make the default packages list?
It is very possible that the game contains certain non-free assets so it doesn't meet Trisquel's guidelines.
You can always try to download the game packages and install them manually following the instructions on the official website (if you believe that said game is completely free/libre). You needn't to completely rely on Trisquel's main repository. It simply cannot collect every free/libre package.
My favorite approach for installing free/libre games is to download the official pre-built binary packages. Then extract and play. By doing so, I don't need to freeze certain package's version when I wish to upgrade my system but still want to play a specific older version of the game. Multiple versions can co-exist, too.
The official way of downloading for Ubuntu (Trisquel), it seems is a PPA. When you say official pre-built package, do you mean by the developers of OpenMW (It is their PPA)?
Introducing PPA to your system is not recommended, since this may open a floodgate of non-free software/firmware, and therefore defeat the very purpose of using Trisquel.
However, if you do want to play said game on Trisquel anyway (i.e., said game does require certain non-free assets), and no pre-built free/libre binary package is available, the only way I could suggest is to download the source code from official website and compile it by yourself. If no source code is available, then stay as far as possible away from it.
After reading a guide on how to install openMW I believe you need to have extracted the non-free game onto a computer, because openMW searches for the Data files from an installation of Morrowind. I don't know the advantage of doing it this way if it depends on the non-free game.
Those software that themselves are free/libre but depend on non-free ones are called "trapped free software". Playing such "trapped free/libre games" is slightly better than playing their completely non-free counterparts.
What if the files were downloaded on a windows computer but then copied to a libre machine so it could be installed? I have yet to do this because I don't know if I want to. I think it's only the assets like images,voice,music,story that are copyrighted and must have an original copy to play.
I really wish there were more libre games...
> What if the files were downloaded on a windows computer but then copied to a libre machine so it could be installed?
Then you would be making yourself reliant on additional non-free software (Windows). Is there no way to extract the game using free software?
It seems not to be the case because the game was given away gratis on some anniversary of Morrowind. It is downloaded through a form of DRM, you have to install the Bethesda Launcher, download the game, then copy the files to Trisquel. After installing OpenMW through a PPA, then you have to lead the OpenMW application to the Morrowind windows installed folder that was copied.
All in all it seems not so libre. I'm gonna pass on this but keep searching for some libre games. Thanks everyone
You don't need another (physical) computer to install Losedows. You can install hypervisor (e.g. virt-manager or gnome-boxes) on your GNU/Linux host system and create a Losedows virtual machine. You don't need to download Losedows installation media either. Microsoft provides certain VM images with pre-installed evaluation copies of Losedows.
When you launched the Losedows VM, install the non-free game as usual (if you really want to play it while neglecting any cost of freedom), then extract the non-free assets using the (also non-free) utility from the PPA. When you finish these "dirty works", you still don't need to use functions like shared folder or NAS to copy the extracted (and decrypted) assets to your GNU/Linux host. Simply configure SSH/SFTP server on your GNU/Linux host and then access it from the Losedows VM via Host Only network (i.e. non-NATed network, otherwise you have to configure port forwarding).
Ultimately, it is a very common phenomenon that free/libre games depend on non-free (i.e. heavily copyright encumbered) assets.
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