An unofficial hack has OnLive working on Linux.
Penguin Tribe rejoice! A Linux version of OnLive is apparently on the way but while the clock ticks on that, one of your own has figured out a way to make it work on your OS of choice right freakin’ now. With no small about of dicking around, of course, but if you’re such a diehard Linux nut that you’d rather do without OnLive than tolerate Windows on your PC, that’s probably second nature for you anyway.
Here’s a bit of a heads-up about what’s in store. The very first thing you’ll to do to get these wheels turning is open a terminal window and type this:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install git && sudo apt-get install autoconf && sudo apt-get build-dep wine1.3 && sudo apt-get install checkinstall && sudo apt-get install wine1.3
That’s no joke and it’s also the first [and, admittedly, worst] of about 13 steps involved in making the magic happen. But if you don’t feel like waiting for OnLive to flip the switch of officialdom or just enjoy tinkering with this sort of thing, the patch apparently works pretty well. There are a few bumps in the road; the audio cuts out occasionally, which can be fixed by exiting OnLive and “resetting pulse,” whatever that means, and some users have noted that the mouse sometimes only offers 180 degrees of movement, an issue the creator is still working on.
For those in the “this is too hard” or “I’m lazy and dangerous” camps, a premade package is available that can simplify the process, although the author makes it clear that it’s a “very dirty way” of installing the patch and says he doesn’t recommend using it. The instructions for getting OnLive running on Linux, along with an ongoing help thread, are up at OnLive Informer, which claims it sat on the story for a few days and put the author through “extensive testing and rewrites” to make sure the patch actually works as promised. Good luck!
