Back in “ye olde days” of Linux, there were no games. If you wanted to entertain yourself, you either played nethack or you tried to compile Gentoo, neither of them terrifically fun. (In those days I played a game called “learn to program” which was probably the most entertaining game on Linux at the time.)
These days gaming on Linux is a completely different story, we now have everything from Minesweeper ( KMines) to first-person shooters and flight simulators. While the gaming experience is far from perfect on the Linux Desktop, it’s miles ahead of where it was just four years ago.
Today gaming on Linux is becoming increasingly popular, so much so that my pals over at OMG! Ubuntu! are launching a new site called Ubuntu Gamer before the year is out. I don’t plan on launching a site called “openSUSE Gamer”, but I did want to jot down a list of some pretty stellar games available for Linux users of all kinds.
The full list of awesome Linux games after the jump
- 0 A.D.: A free, open-source, historical real-time strategy (RTS) game that focuses on the years 500 B.C. to 1 B.C.
- SuperTuxKart: An enjoyable kart racing game, similar to Mario Kart, featuring the Linux mascot Tux and other open-source project mascots.
- Battle for Wesnoth: A turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme, offering both single-player and online/hotseat multiplayer combat.
- Xonotic: A fast-paced first-person shooter, reminiscent of the classic Quake series.
- Minetest: An open-source voxel game engine and sandbox game, similar to Minecraft, that allows you to explore, dig, build, and craft in a blocky 3D world.
- FlightGear: A sophisticated and open-source flight simulator, great for both hobbyists and professionals.
- Frozen Bubble: A colorful and addictive puzzle game that involves shooting bubbles to form groups of the same color.
- Hedgewars: A turn-based strategy, artillery, action, and comedy game, quite similar to the Worms series.
- The Dark Mod: A free and open-source first-person stealth game, inspired by the Thief series by Looking Glass Studios.
- OpenTTD: An open-source simulation game based upon Transport Tycoon Deluxe where you create a transport empire.
To install these games on openSUSE, you can use the YaST software management tool or the zypper command-line tool. Most of these games should be available in the official openSUSE repositories or via community repositories. Remember to check the system requirements and compatibility for each game, as they can vary.
