FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

Tried minetest from the launchpad PPA for the first time this week on a couple of machines running Ubuntu 13.10. Overall, I really like what I see!

Just a few notes of some minor niggles:
1. The link to the Ubuntu/Mint PPA links to the packages (https://code.launchpad.net/~minetestdevs/+archive/stable/+packages) instead of the more helpful PPA page (https://code.launchpad.net/~minetestdevs/+archive/stable)
2. The app icon appears to be missing (e.g. from launcher)
3. On my netbook, I had to disable shaders to get anything close to reasonable performance (20fps disabled vs 1-3fps enabled). Would be nice if the app did some tests and switched off shaders automatically if low end hardware was detected.

Looking forward to checking out some mods in the next few days. Who knows, I might just contribute something.

Never mind! These bugs apply to the 0.4.7 version that ships with Ubuntu 13.10. I didn't realize the PPA package name was minetestc55. 0.4.9 works a lot better than 0.4.7. My first and third comments still apply.

btw, I believe there were actually quite a few bugs with the "stable" version. You might want to try the latest -dev version, available through the "download" section of the main page, right below the "stable releases" for linux distros.

also, I recently created a "Tron Blocks" mod if you are interested. you can make some very interesting buildings with the different nodes it gives. it also is only dependent on default and dye. you can find it in modding general (waiting for them to move it to mod releases).

also, some "essentials" are moreblocks, moreores, and VanessaE's homedecor.

Another issue: The minecraft icons appear correctly in Ubuntu/gnome/kde launchers, but there is no icon set in the taskbar (get a generic default app icon instead). I know how to do this in a GTK or Qt app easily enough, but not sure how to do this in an Irrlicht based app. One approach would be to embed the Irrlicht device inside a GTK or Qt window. Any thoughts?