Portal 2: Now playable

Portal 2 is a big-name game that everyone is making a fuss about.  It's the sequel to the original Portal, which was a massively surprise hit.  Loving the original, and seeing how Portal 2 was going to be visibly new and improved, I decided that I would buy it on day two (or was it three) of release.  And buy it I did.

For several months it has been sitting on my shelf, completely unopened, plastic wrap and everything.  I learned after buying it that my computer would not be able to play the game at all.  What was wrong?  Was my processor too slow?  Is my video card not up to date enough?  Is 2GB of RAM not enough?  Actually, none of the above; I'm not using the right operating system.

Being a penniless nerd, I use Linux Mint exclusively as my computer's operating system.  The operating system is the interface on the computer, what ultimately lets you do just about anything.  Microsoft Windows XP is currently the most popular, but Widows 7 will soon overtake it.  For the most part, programs and games only run on operating systems they're designed to run on.  However, Windows XP is no longer sold, and at the low, low price of only $150, I can't justify buying Windows 7.

Did you notice how I said, "for the most part?"  That's key.  A group of people far more nerdy than I have created a program called Wine, which allows programs made for Windows work on Linux, Mac, and other far more obscure operating systems.  By no means is it perfect, but that they even found a way is amazing.  Even more amazing is how they haven't been sued out of existence by Microsoft, but that's another story.  Most of Wine's imperfections are relatively minor, but occasionally a major one will rear its head, and one did when Portal 2 came out.

When Portal 2 came out, Wine users noticed that it would crash the very same moment that the menu is supposed to appear.  That alone was odd, because the original Portal as well as every other game created by the same developer worked basically perfectly - aside from being somewhat slower than running them on Windows, which is a universal issue.  Even more odd was that there was no apparent cause.  No real error messages were reported, causing wild speculation as to the cause.  Then Wine's developers told everybody to shut up unless they actually have evidence to support their theories.

Several months later, somebody realized that the problem was really technical, related to Wine not handling breakpoints correctly.  I barely even know what that means, but this somebody quickly fixed it, and Portal 2 would then actually start up!  It was then discovered that Portal 2 would then crash within a few minutes of starting to run around.  This time, the cause was obvious; error messages indicated Wine didn't support a function needed by Portal 2.  The same somebody from before fixed that too, and now Portal 2 doesn't have any crashes, other than those that also occur on Windows.

As of right now, the first fix is now a direct part of Wine, starting with version 1.3.25.  The second fix was released too late to make it, but it should be appearing in 1.3.26.  If you're nerdy enough, you can implement the fix into 1.3.25 yourself, but it involves programming; something you shouldn't try unless you know what you're doing.

I still have yet to even open up Portal 2, but now that it works, I should probably go and do that.  I hear the puzzles in co-op mode are insane, and I intend on testing them with my brother...right after I help one of my friends with a pyramid scheme getting an achievement which in no way at all resembles a pyramid scheme, despite all appearances.