Resurrect happypenguin.org

This particular site appeared in the year 1998 with the goal to make gaming on Linux easier and more fun.
Unfortunately, 2013 the site went down due to lack of funding and time for the creator Bob Zimbinski. He released the database to the public but removed the code itself because it was created in the 90's and was a big security risk.

I want to resurrect happypenguin.org and I want some brave souls who want to participate with this. I am not a coder (I can only sysadmin) so It would be awesome if someone wanted to help out with this.

Would be awesome if you could make if look like the classic site, or make it very similar to it or https://distrowatch.com/ that also has a very retro style to it. It would also be great if the site was ad-free.

I will take care of the hosting part (servers, DNS, domain).

This was actually posted as a collab with the devrantron application. Dont know why it was not "placed" there

@tahnik

But but... It looks like shit.
If the aim is to encourage windows people to switch to Linux by helping them with their games then this design won't help one bit, if anything it will be off putting and make people think Linux is stuck in the 90s 😄

Tho if it's just a hobby project with little real purpose then its all good 😄

@Froot
I looks great in Lynx m8, that is all that matters. ;)

@Linux What's Lynx? 😄

Also do I understand it right that this was a site similar to PlayOnLinux? Well the latter is an application but still. It helps people get windows games running on Linux?

@Froot
Lynx is a terminal based browser ;)

PlayOnLinux is a wrapper around Wine, not a website. Happypenguin was a portal (similar to distrowatch) for native Linux games

@Linux Ah cool.
Well in any case it's apparently not meant for people new to Linux or looking to switch so the design won't really matter 😄

I would like to help but I also still have to work on @linuxxx privacy site

So much awesome Linux stuff I want to do :D

Subbed, and also i can probably help

@Rollo
What kind of language do you know?

@Rollo wanna use vaadin?

@MurmeltierS @ThatDude

@Rollo basically java swing but made for the web, check it out its really cool

@Linux tried ELINKS instead of Lynx before? It has some CSS support (I still use lynx for really quick browsing) and is really great for when you only have terminal access ;)

@RAZERZ
Never heard of ELINKS actually :O
But I have used LINKS

@Linux devRantron doesn't support creating or editing collab. As you might have noticed, there is no collab option in the top right hand dropdown when you are creating a rant.

📌

@ThatDude
Lets talk m8.
linux@linux.pizza

I'd like to help but I suck at webdev so I'll just enjoy watching the sites progress (hopefully)

@ThatDude
Well, I can email it

@b3b3
You are more like backend dev?

@ThatDude
Haha, it does not want to resolve .pizza :'(

@Linux yeah deep algos and shit are the thing I like. You can always contact me and I'll give my best ✌💪

@b3b3
You have my email further Up!

@ThatDude
I will write tomorrow :) just got the email

Btw, if you need any help with the backend, feel free to ping me ;) I work with php and mysql (hopefully we can make it more secure!)

@RAZERZ
Send me an email too!

@Linux Wilco!

Backend/Frontend here! 🙋
Still needed?

@kolaente
Send me an email also :)
I will answer all of you

You got me already for the sysadmin stuff mate when do we start

@inpothet @kolaente @RAZERZ @ThatDude @b3b3

Is it ok for you guys that I start a mail convo with everyone included?

@Linux yeah sure

How about a Github repo so everybody could easily contribute?

No offense, just a serious question: Is this really helpful? Noone wants to move from Windows to Linux to play games there. If there would be some demand, then someone would download Steam and play via Linux but the market share for Linux based Steam installations is falling every month. In November it was below 0.3%. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsur...

Will be similar for non steam game installations, probably. I know some Linux users but noone is interested in gaming. And who is interested in gaming is most often not interested doing kernel updates, regular distribution upgrades.

I encourage you to do whatever you want to do but keep in mind that your community will be smaller than Trumps brain. ^^

@Benedikt
I'd like to see this project on GitHub or another online git host too! We'd just need some maintainers, but other than that everybody could contribute!

@MrThompson that troll has a brain??!
Maybe the site will not attract windowsers to Linux but currently there is like no real market for games on Linux. You want to play a game? Fine, its free but only in the official repo of distro u and v, everybody else has to compile it from source. Then the multiplayer doesn't work because distro u's package is out of date. And the next game is some other story anyways and everybody is pissed off. A platform like steam where games can be published easily and as a publisher you can be sure that you'll reach at least a few people. IMO it would be great for people already using Linux and don't accept dying while installing freeciv or whatever.

I'm interested in gaming and I'm using Linux and (sadly) still have to waste a SSD for windows just to play games. Now you know one linuxer looking forward to playing games.

It'll need that good ol' 2017-2018 look for anyone to even touch it let alone visit the site.

Linux as a platform is just not worth it (for gamedevs). It has a very small user base and they are mostly techy people, who has no intrest in gaming (they just want to browse the web in a terminal haha 😁) or just “omg i have chinese windows”. Plus the graphics drivers and performance are just terrible (and buggy) compared with the same hardware on windows. We made some of our games avilable on linux via steam, it has literally not worth the 30 min platform switch+build time. Maybe as a bigger game studio or with a more hyped game linux would made sense but as an indie its just meh...
And bigger studios just dont care because of the small user base.
Still love linux tho :)

@b3b3 As sad no offense. A website for a single person might not be worth the effort. ^^
All the distros and their different approaches to solve the same problems with only slight variations is another story and one of the reasons why Linux doesn't get a higher market share. But that's something for another discussion.

@Linux maybe @dfox changed the API recently. We'll look into it :)

@ThatDude I get more fps in csgo than windows lol

@Dacexi
Thanks :)

Glad to the the discussion!
If you are interested in participating in one way or another (or just hang around), just send me an email:
linux@linux.pizza

@ThatDude i meant in csgo, in Linux vs windows :p but I guess you understood :)

@Linux Godaddy

@RAZERZ

Never

@Linux you don't want me to call you daddy? ;)

@RAZERZ
No T_T

@Linux ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I'm in