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Mandrake Linux Gamer Edition
JWhiton writes: "According to Blue's News, Mandrake and TransGaming are going to ship a new distribution of Mandrake Linux specificially aimed at gamers. It comes with The Sims and TransGaming's WineX for compatibility with Windows games. Apparently it's going to ship on November 9th."
I watched a co-worker attempt to use my laptop which has debian installed on it. How I laughed he actually asked me if I was running XP !!
The dork thought that KDE was XP
Although world domination is the goal, I can't help but wonder if the windoze using public is ready for it.
Be prepared for a whole load of newbie questions to clog up the mandrake mailing lists and newsgroups!
Finally there may be a distro that can capture the gamer and the techie. I hate dual booting! This could be the answer I have been looking for. I agree that I am not too hot on the Mandrake distro, but this does have potential.
LD
I currently use Manrake 8.1 and I use it for everything except multimedia and games. For which I use win2k. Of course most of everything I do is multimedia and games. Hopefully if this version of mandrake works well, and isn't an unstable piece of junk then I will only have to use windows for multimedia. I just wish it were free. I'm not willing to pay 70$, especially since I don't want the sims.
I think I might just keep trying to configure mandrake 8.1 to do all that stuff.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
This is a GOOD MOVE!!
,extra features, and perhaps make it easy enough to install, people will have a reason to use linux. To play their favorite games!
packing games with linux and calling it the gaming edition is genius.
Gamers who may not otherwise have ever known about linux will see linux plays games and may actually improve frame rates and speed, they might actually buy it just for gaming purposes considering they spend $500 almost for Gforce3 graphics cards and soundcard. Linux could be sold on the fact that it is a "gaming" OS.
Think about that.
Example. Linux Mandrake Gaming Edition (Starcraft)
Linux Mandrake Gaming Edition (Warcraft 3)
Linux Mandrake Gaming Edition (Quake 3)
And if they manage to somehow get these versions to have higher frame rates
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I always hear Mandrake derided by a signifigant portion of the
1. People who know what they are doing will build their own customised version from whatever version or distro they downloaded to work from.
2. I am firmly of the opinion that Linux should stop trying to compete with Windows on Windows's home ground - the office market. Those people are sluggish and resistant to change (we'll see how many even upgrade to Office 2000, not to mind Office XP, or Windows XP)
3. I think the linux missed out on exploiting a weakness in Windows - gaming - by the OS community concentrating on Windows one-upmanship with StarOffice vs. MS Office, etc., . WIn32 GUI vs. Gnome/KDE (who cares, like I said, people who know what they want will use FVWM if needs be, and the Office-lethargic group will stick with Windows/MS as has been shown).
Years ago (like 10 maybe) people would say to quit using that Amiga - it's a kid's computer and all you do is games or graphics, etc., . These days the thing that drives PC sales is exactly what MS lackey's would have scorned - games sell new PCs; that Clippy fucker doesn't.
Linux, if a direction should be made (I realise that that goes against general OS consenus, but I see more inventiveness and ingenuity from the demoscene (the real demoscene) with no OS at all IMHO), should aim to beat Windows at what it's weaknesses are, not by trying to beat it on it's strengths (Office, hardware support....I'd happily buy that one video card supporting everything than have a choice of 50 with shitty support).
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
I use Windows Media Player with Wine to watch my...uh...Multimedia Presentations. It really does a decent job with AVI files. I have only tested it with the older non-"themeable" release of Media Player.
The only problem that I have seen is that sometimes the colors will get messed up. It doesn't always do it with the same file. So, it is not like a perpetual bad coloration from the same file.
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.sig seperator
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Interesting idea, and I applaud the developers, but I really think it's not going to make any new Linux users.
Little Billy gets a new WinXP machine for xmas all ready to run *every* new Windows game with potentially less headaches than keeping a Linux box upgraded with the kernel du jour and the patch of the week.
Like it or not, Windows Update is much easier to use for the Unwashed Masses than is cvs (now my FreeBSD||OpenBSD bias is showing :))
Trolling is a art,
I think that one of the things holding Linux back is games. Yes there are some good games, but none of the phenominalo games (such as HL/CS/TFC/etc) are availible, or they come out a year plus later than the Windows version, so most people will have already played it if they're going to. Sure you can buy WineX, but then you have to hope you can set it up correctly. But to bundle that with a great distro like Mandrake (my favorite non-debian distro) is ingenious. To include The Sims is also smart. Good going guys, I look forward to the reviews. Maybe this will help Linux become more mainstream, IMHO. I mean, what's a desktop OS without Counter-Strike? Nothing! He he he.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
i'm sure they could have come up with a better game to package than the sims...a game that demonstrates the capabilities of the software. however, the biggest mistake here seems to be the lack of an 'gaming expansion pack' sold seperately...i know you can probably download it somewhere, but i think thats what should be on the shelves rather than a 'gaming distribution.' what about the whole already installed userbase? hmm...
I checked mandrake's site and transgaming.com but couldn't find any mention of this "gamers distribution" for 69.99 or whatever anywhere. I also checked google but no luck. I would think there would be an announcement since this is supposed to be out in 19 days... anyone have links?
While this probably comes as good news to some who want to play their windows games on linux, it may not be good news for linux.
If/when wine gets to a point where it can perfectly emulate 100% of all windows games, there will be no reason for software developers to release any linux games, and linux ends up losing exposre.
I don't know what will happen, but this is just one possible scenario to think about,
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Refer to the slashdot article about it:4 6&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/14/13182
I'd rather just purchase that, and be able to install it in my choice of distribution.
Linux, being free, wants to be free. Don't force people to buy it.
.. $4.95 - $9.95? You receive two things: the installer for The Sims and a coupon for $2.95 - $8.95 off your next purchase of a full-packaged game from TransGaming -- the goal being that if you do purchase another game from them, that installer kit download ultimately only cost you $2 - $3.
.. business major)
"The Sims" won't be free anytime soon, so here is my humble idea for making this successful:
They create a 'standard' game/application management and installer program for these type of applications. The entire package as a whole can be compatible with the standard add/remove for a distro, but to control the contents requires using its own tools.
They distribute the application manager/control panel part for free, and keep it opensource. An installer kit is developed *specifically* for installing these type of packages, which is also kept open. Anyone can go out and buy a game, get it to work, and create an 'installer' and distribute this freely to whomever they want.
License "The Sims" from Maxis for a reduced cost - 30-50% of MSRP. Include a single "Transgaming Kit," either in the box for The Sims or as an extra shrink-wrapped CD + manual on the outside (think magazines that come in plastic bags with posters and CDs) - the kit contains a distro, packages to install their application/game management on any of the popular distros, and the installer to install "The Sims" into their application/game management system. They sell this for the regular cost for The Sims +10-20%.
What if you already own The Sims? IANAL, but you shouldn't have to purchase it again. You download the toolkit for free, and if someone has freely released an installer for The Sims, you're in luck -- for free. If there isn't, or you don't want to go through the trouble, you go to their web site and pay them
This will encourage repeat business and allow them to recover some logistical/management costs without stifling the freedom of free software.
Many gamers use Linux at work, at home, but don't use it for games because it often won't run the games we want to play. If I were to pick up a game, and TransGaming could atleast compete in price for these new releases, I would purchase from them *just to support the cause* - regardless of whether I planned to play it on Linux. Why not? Their price competes. They get to keep things flowing. I get the same package either way, but now I also get the kit that will allow me to easily play it in Linux without killing myself.
..
But please, do not sell full-priced distributions with every copy of a game that you release. You're only doing this to justify the cost, not as a true value-add. How many of us are going to dump our current setup just to install that special gaming edition distro? 5%? How much of that full price are you trying to justify as being for "that special gaming distro?" 50%?
IANABM. (..
Good luck,
Jason
...the Linux jihad complaining that Windows users can't see the light about Linux, or the other Linux jihad complaining that now all these Windows users will start using Linux!
Installing Windows isn't much easier... you still have to create/delete partitions; I have had very good luck setting up friends with Mandrake. Most recently, I set up three friends who live in a house together with a network running Mandrake 8.1 on most of the systems; this distro is very, very nice. Easy to use for newbies, but still configurable for those who know what they're doing. I am very impressed with the hardware support, as well - it even worked out of the box with my Samsung ML-1210 laser printer, which was a gigantic pain in the ass to set up manually even with Samsung's directions.
I think that this new gaming distribution is a step in the right direction for Linux. The only way that Linux will gain market share as a desktop OS is to cater to desktop users needs. Gamers are a large part of desktop users, probably the largest segment other than business users. The beauty of Free Software is that you can specialize distributions towards different segments very easily.
"To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
I tried out Mandrake a couple of years ago and it already shipped with BSDgames and several versions of Tetris.
Sheesh. What more could anyone possibly want?
- Derwen
http://fsfeurope.org/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What kind of bloat do you have running on that Windows machine? Games typically DO run better on Windows, though there are exceptions. (Quake is NOT by any means one of them).
HOWEVER, it is well known that Windows does not Multitask well compared to Linux, so anything you have running in the background is going to have some kind of ill effect on your gaming experiences. How ill that effect is depends largely on how powerful your PC is, what type of game you are playing, and what other software you have running.
Also, if your video card supports T&L, or other really nice very modern features, and the game you are running also supports those features, I seriously doubt Linux gaming performance will even come close to comparing with Windows.
This isn't even so much a "Can't Do" issue so much as "Just not done yet" issue.
Fortunately, things like SDL and Mesa are paving the way for this to change. And of course, Wine is getting more mature all the time.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
There's a difference between technical suitability and marketplace suitability. Windows gets the games first because it's a big market. It's a big market because it gets the games first. Round and round it goes - infinite recursion without a base case. From a technical standpoint, it's not very good at all for games.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Thats why I run a dual cpu winxp box. I can run IRC/Winamp/SSH/Xwin/email/xwin in the background, and it doesnt take any cpu time away from my counterstrike or tribes. In fact, I dont even reboot anymore. I dont even close tasks for memory, I just load a game and play. I still get 60+fps
WinXP cleartype and stability make it a perfect workstation. *Note I didnt say server, nothing beats *nix for a server.
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If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. - Abraham Maslow
A dual system to do all that? A bit excessive, perhaps. It really shouldn't take a dual system for all of that.
...
I tend to get a quite a bit out of just a Pentium III 800, but this is all beside the point.
The things I run in the background are not CPU demanding, and they go into Wait status pretty quietly. (Explorer uses hardly any CPU time if it's not actively doing anything, and that's true for WinAMP, Outlook, ICQ, AIM, AVG, etc... basically anything most people are likely to be running)
But even if MS Operating Systems DO perform "Well enough", the point I was trying to make originally is that the level of multitasking they perform isn't really on the level of Unix. It's certainly not as efficient, and it's definately not preemptive.
But yes, I certainly agree that Windows XP makes a great Workstation OS; Windows 2000/XP is a serious improvement over the previous Windows 95/98/SE/ME
Windows is becoming stable. Linux is gaining viability as a gaming platform. Pretty soon the merits of one over the other will be judged less over technical features and more over such things as cost and legalities.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
There is an interesting transcript of a chat with Jacques Le Marois, head of Mandrakesoft. Most of his 44 answers are predictable but I didn't expect that he would predict a 99% market share for linux on the PC in the next years !(with 20% or 30% for mandrake)
Yes 99 percent !
The text is in french but I used this excellent translation engine and mirrored the original translation.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
It will start october 22. From their website :
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TransGaming's subscription services will be available in fall 2001. For just $5 a month, subscribers will be able to directly support our work on Wine and will be able to vote on which games we should work on next. We want you to be a full participant in the development process, not just an innocent bystander!
Once 20,000 subscribers are signed up, TransGaming will release all its current code under the Wine license. In many ways, TransGaming subscription model is an economic experiment in novel mechanisms for funding Open Source projects. For more insight, please have a look at our Open Source Philosophy.
If you are interested in subscribing, please fill out our Survey, and we'll get back to you when our code is ready for widespread public consumption.
Interesting, yes but 5$ each month just to vote
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
Fred is a DBA, so Windows "major major asset" is DB modeling tools.
Recent Oracle clients run on Java technology. Java technology runs on Linux86; Fred can download a Linux version of the SDK or the smaller JRE.
Sally is a project manager, so Windows "major major asset" is project tools.
She can use MrProject or Toutdoux.
Biff is an accountant, so Windows "major major asset" is spreadsheet software.
Like Gnumeric?
The situation with office apps does not parallel like the situation with Photoshop vs. GIMP. Most office suite users do not need the "high-end features" that Microsoft pushes on users with each new relea$e. Even then, those who clone MS Office don't have to worry about broad color-correction patents that play a significant part in keeping GIMP from matching Photoshop's feature set.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I tried out Mandrake a couple of years ago and it already shipped with BSDgames and several versions of Tetris
Mandrake has never shipped with a Tetris brand product. The Tetris Company has not licensed the TETRIS trademark for software running on any POSIX system. Of course, the Windows 3.1 Entertainment Pack (which contains an outdated version of Tetris) will probably run under Wine, and Mandrake shipped with a lot of independently produced falling tetramino games (i.e. clones of Tetris).
If you really want an innovative tetrisclone, don't spring for Tetris Worlds on GBA. Get TOD: Tetanus On Drugs. Source and Windows binaries are included; DOS and Linux binaries are just a recompile away.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'll probably get modded down for this, but it needs to be said:
I really don't care if Linux is accepted as a desktop OS. It works great for me now. X, Emacs, and TeX are all I need anyway. What else could you want?
My other car is first.
This is just an advertising gimmick; nothing new is being advertised (winex is already available, they are just putting it in a pretty package with some windows game).
There are people out there that do not use the computers as 'general purpose' machine but for a specific purpose, and always the same. And many PC are sold expecially for a purpose: Games. So it quite logic to build a distribution to address this need (if Linux is ready for that is another question).
Linux distributors starts to realize that the 'package and support' business model pays more when you address vertical market segments. Want a web server/firewall/game machine/database engine/whatever ? Just insert the CD, follow installation instructions and you are done.
Linux and open-source software, because of flexibility and aboundance of tools, are quite good to build vertical solutions. Moreover, this allows distributors to sell basically the same things in more than a shrink-wrapped box, sort of like car manifacturers uses the same engine/components for more than one car.
If these pre-built solutions are valid and the price is right, most people will buy them, instead of try to build their own out of pieces downloaded from the Net.
Ciao
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FB
x86 hardware takes a 20-25% hit on IO alone, a dual cpu machine can help with this, you don't feel the sudden loss of responsive when you open a floppy or work with files.
With PC hardware getting so cheap, 512meg-1gig of ram should be common in machines. Might as well have as much of a IO buffer as you can use. I'm waiting for the AMD XP/MP 1800+ duals to come out. Thou, I'm my FPS is just starting to drop in newer games, I might wait for 2000+ and a gf3 ti500.
I don't think any system can be excessive for a home machine. The more power you have the better, video games, video/audio editing, compiling, etc...
I agree with this, but I didn't mean "excessive" as in "More than Anybody Needs", but rather -- more than enough to perform the tasks requested.
There will always be situations where more is better, but there will also be points where more isn't noticable.
I was simply stating you can get great performance in the 800 to 1 ghz range -- but that doesn't mean Windows multitasks as well as Unix, it simply means our machines are getting so fast we hardly notice anymore.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.