OStatic

What's the saying? The road to ruin is paved with good intentions? Though I am not a fellow Alabamian like reporter Dan Whisenhunt, I had my own reasons for hoping the Envizions EVO Linux Game Console would at least -- well, get a better review than it did.

The open source gaming console undoubtedly made a few mistakes long before it shipped its beta version to Whisenhunt for review. I'd dare say the first was calling it a gaming console. It isn't even quite right to call it an early adopter gaming console. Early adopter means, to me anyway, ready for the general public that is willing to accept a more than average amount of bugs, crashes, and temporary glitches -- it doesn't necessarily mean they are all developers. As a computer, I think the EVO console sounds as if it is probably workable. As a game console? Not yet.

Whisenhunt's criticisms were very valid (I certainly felt his pain as he reported them), and in conjunction with his observation that there's been a lot of local advertising for the console, I can't help but thinking this may be a significant step back for Linux gaming.

I have a confession: When I read press releases about Envizions' EVO Smart Console I am unsure if the company is run by self-assured, confident visionaries or if -- well, the situation is actually quite the opposite. I like (love?) the idea of an open source, Linux-powered gaming console. I like the potential it holds, the almost limitless features it could deliver, the creativity it could inspire.

I know that bringing hardware to market is rough, and that sometimes things get bogged down in regulatory processes and unexpected red tape. I know that balancing what you want to sell, what you want to deliver, and what your customers want, expect and request can be tricky. A company needs to hold on to its dreams and ideals -- and it needs to bring in cash in order to make those dreams and ideals happen.

It isn't easy, especially when you're selling something that isn't even at the early adopter stage. It's impossible to say if Envizions is going about this in the most logical manner -- it's uncharted territory. This is why Envizion's announcement of a 3-D online community (think Second Life) leaves me feeling even more conflicted about the EVO open source game console than ever.

Late last year I broke down and picked up Rock Band for the resident game console, a Nintendo Wii. From this statement, astute readers can safely make the assumption that neither I, nor other members of my household, are big into gaming. I am, however, better with balance boards and nunchuks than I am any musical instrument, be it a stylized controller or the real deal.

Given the humbling experience Rock Band (continues) to be for me, I wasn't exactly eager to try out the open source rhythm game, Frets on Fire. However, the open source aspect and the advantages that brings to the game's genre, the Guitar Hero-esque focus on one instrument, and the project being chosen as SourceForge's March Project of the Month, I figured my ego might benefit from a slight bruising.

My fingertips aren't raw, but this confirms I won't be joining a band, real or virtual, any time soon. Frets on Fire on an easy setting makes me long for the simplicity of kernel recompiles and the soft whir of a rebooting system.

Valve Software was in the market a little over a year ago for a software engineer who would, among other duties, work with porting Windows-based games to Linux. No word on who got the job, or how that engineer's first anniversary review went, but evidently, this year was productive.

It seems, according to Phoronix, the Left 4 Dead demo (Windows client version) shipped with some very suspicious sounding Linux libraries. The file names (such as steamclient_linux.so) lend some weight to the theory that these files have little to do with the Linux server build.

Last month I wrote about the EVO Linux-based gaming console. The term gaming console seemed a bit misleading to me at the time -- it is ultimately where parent company Envizions Computer Entertainment would like the EVO to be -- but it is an early adopter system in the truest sense of the phrase.

The EVO Smart Console was originally scheduled for release on November 18th. It seems the FCC approval and testing process is taking longer than planned. Envizions expects the consoles to ship in the next two weeks. There are also two versions (in four configurations) available. Two versions? You guessed it -- Linux and Windows.

Envizions Computer Entertainment announced recently that the Linux-based EVO gaming console will be available for sale November 18.

There have been dedicated gaming consoles that are able to run Linux, namely the PS3. In these cases, Linux made the console function more as a home computer than a gaming rig. The EVO system uses Linux to power the games.

It is a system geared for early adopters and developers at this point.