ggz(7)

NAME

ggz - The GGZ Gaming Zone

DESCRIPTION

The GGZ Gaming Zone is a standards-conforming online gaming infrastructure which provides many applications and games to people who like to play on the internet or in local networks. GGZ, how the (recursive) acronym is called, is available for many computer systems. This document focuses on the installations on Linux, BSD and Unix.

APPLICATIONS

There isn't a single executable named ggz, instead a multitude of programs is available to the user, and even more which operate on the system level or are used by developers and administrators. Users will most likely want to connect to a GGZ server on the internet, such as ggz://live.ggzgamingzone.org, to play games against other people. Core clients are used to perform this task. Functional clients exist in the form of kggz for the K Desktop Environment (KDE), ggz-gnome and ggz-gtk for GNOME or XFCE users, and ggz-txt for people who prefer command-line applications. Of course, the clients are not bound to a specific desktop, but the choices above will likely be influenced by the level of integration. A client under development is the SDL-based víbora.

Special clients exist in the form of ggzap, a quick-launcher for the KDE panel, and ggz-wrapper which is used for launching GGZ games from instant messenger applications.

GAMES

Games are usually launched by the GGZ server, with corresponding game clients running on the user's desktop. Plenty of games are available for GGZ, most of them coming from the GGZ project itself but several independent game projects do now provide GGZ support. Game clients are implemented using multiple toolkits, some of which stem from certain desktop environments. However, all games work equally well under all desktops, it's just a matter of personal choice which of them are to be installed - having all of them is just fine.

While some GGZ game clients are suited for online gaming only, others also run locally like normal games happen to do. Those will be found in the desktop's application menu.

FILES

The following layout can vary from site to site, depending on the completeness of a GGZ installation and the operating system distribution in use. It adheres to the File Hierarchy Standard (FHS) as much as possible.

/usr/bin
    GGZ applications, tools, and the games which provide single player mode.

/usr/lib/ggz(d)
    GGZ game clients and servers.

/usr/share/ggz(d)
    Data files for game clients and servers.

/etc/ggz.modules
    Game module registry for game clients.

/etc/ggzd
    Configuration for the GGZ server, including rooms and game types.

CONFORMING TO

GGZ Design Document and Protocol Reference, available at http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/docs/design/

GGZ Client-Client Protocol Reference, available at http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/docs/design/clientspec/

GGZ Server-Server Protocol Reference, available at http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/docs/design/serverspec/

Freedesktop.org specifications for desktop integration of games and applications, more information at http://www.freedesktop.org/

File Hierarchy Standard for unix-derived operating systems, at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/

AUTHORS

The GGZ Development Team <ggz-dev@mail.ggzgamingzone.org>

SEE ALSO

kggz(6), ggz-gtk(6), ggz-txt(6), ggz-java(6)