Slashdot Mirror
Newly Released WineX 2.2 Supports EverQuest
Mattzilla writes "The latest release of
Transgaming's WineX (details available here) now supports EverQuest. You asked for it, here it is. This release also has Direct 3D and Direct Show updates as well as fixes for Mandrake 9.0 and RedHat 8.0 CD device auto-detection. With EverQuest now under Linux I'm sure a great deal of people won't find a need to be dual-booting any longer." The EverQuest support is called "preliminary"; check out those release notes for a few known problems and workarounds.
Who needs a Wintendo gaming system anymore if all these games run under Linux?
Now we will see penguins commiting suicide.
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!
Initial support for everquest has been added, and there is some functionality in place, but transgaming do NOT support everquest yet nor does everquest work properly yet. Going on previous track record for transgaming though everquest support will likely be finished by the next release.
Transgaming is nice and all, but it seems that all the momentum is over porting games. When are we going to see ACT! and VisiCalc running on a Linux box? What about Norton Utilies?
More games are good (even one with EverQuests fatal reputation) but it seems like it's the "sexy" side of WINE that causes the most "geek lust." What about the plainjane broad that's your ticket into corporate America?
It's the classic case of love vs. security. Will it be the penniless Citar player or the evil Majarajah? Right now, my pendulum is swinging towards the Majarah (maybe it's the recession?).
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
What your saying isn't true at all. I haven't downloaded winex 2.2 yet but when i do i hope for good things but im only gonig to be able to tell about 2.1. Sometimes linux ports/emus run faster and even more stable. You get the added benefits of linux on all your games. Trust me its nice being about to go from half-life to productivity in under 3 seconds.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Why would you need Norton Utilities to run under emulation on Linux? None of the utilities are going to help you fix anything on a Linux box.
While those are clearly not as good as native ports, their holistic approach seems to work much from an economical point of view than, for instance, Loki's. Transgaming also has a much better chance of actually creating a Linux gaming market, as it almost "eliminates" the unfair competition between Linux and Windows games (gamers are a very impulsive crowd, very few will actually wait a couple of month for a Linux port)
The Raven
The Raven
I really wonder: Do we need Wine anymore? Mono will open .Net programs for linux execution. Wxwindows and winelib enable easy ports. QT allows plattform independancy. Java - apllications run under Linux OS.
Hmm, would be nice to have a OO - fork that imitates WinWord-GUI, like Abiword (sorry, not mature yet).
There are much more applications than two years ago, games, great software.
Windows Software? Dreamweaver, of course. I also like the SQL wizard of MS-Access, despite of Acess sql syntax.
Perhaps even the big gaming companys like Sony and Nintendo will base future game engines releases on Linux OS.
OpenGL is fine, but directX is superior.
Even Windows is going to be cloned: www.xpde.com
I prefer KDE, 3.1 looks amazing (forget Bluefish!)
All Linux users will now be sucked into the downward spiral of Evercrack addiction.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
Uh, we HAVE been bugging developers to make native versions... newsflash: it isn't working. I think WineX is a good thing(tm .. sorry, had to say it) at first, as it will lure new users if they are able to play their Windows games under Linux. If the userbase increases, it gives developers more of a reason to write native versions of the software.
The entire purpose of Linux is to avoid MS? Oh, that's rich. Maybe you should start bitching at the Samba team and the kernel devs who add in optional support for the Windows file system.
Please... Linux is NOT a religion. It is an Operating System, a means to an end. Nothing less. Nothing more. (and before anyone says it, yes I understand the philosophy of Open Source and even agree with much of it. I just don't believe it is the be-all, end-all of software development)
-- Jim
The Linux version of Return to Castle Wolfenstien is both faster and smoother than the Windows version. Same resolution, detail level, etc. Sorry, try again.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Uh, right:
Click here
-- Jim
This is totally untrue.
I assume you're talking about the linux port of UT2003 which is slower than the windows version. This is because UT2003 was written using DirectX and was only later ported to use OpenGL. The OpenGL renderer *is* slower but that isn't the fault of the OS. The renderer just needs a some work.
Why would you want to use windows and have the bulk of your memory taken up by a bloated OS when you can use linux and have the vast majority available for gaming?
Games are very demanding and technically complex programs, so it only makes sense to use an OS that can do a good job of handling such programs.
Hmmm... Your right. Guess that we shouldn't pay attention to THIS
Or THIS
Also, my results in RTCWolf (and other "ports") with a Kyro 2 are MUCH faster than under Windows. Perhaps you need to do a bit more research before you post lies about something that was only true two years ago, when Linux video card drivers and APIs were really immature.
To slighty paraphrase you: So, your post is nice, but it is really just there to appease Windows zealots.
The advantage of Wine is that a developer could write their game for DirectX and have it work for both Windows, XBOX, and Linux. If WineX was a perfect implementation of the Win32 gaming APIs, then everyone wins!
Linux people can use linux to play games and do work.
Windows people play their games.
Some people will never switch from windows, but those that are on the edge (because of games) could be easily swayed because of projects like this.
If enough people are using linux, then eventuatly people will start to write games for them. It's only a matter of time.
Descent has a native port (all three sequals).
Under the AFPL. You can download all the source code at sourceforge (http://www.sf.net/projects/winex/) via CVS. The only parts not released are the portions that you need ot read Copy-Protected CD's (with SafeDisk). But many games don't even require this.
I primarily play military turned based games and the dearth of those games for Linux has led me to a mixed bag of solutions. One of them has been to use Freedos to run DOS games such as Steel Panthers (MBT) Main Battle Tank and Steel Panthers III. But is has been the Safedisc protected CD of the Talonsoft series of game which has been the most frustrating for me. I have spend a couple of years in a wargaming club working for a club wide game using East Front II running on a Linux box under Wine. Why not Win2000 or WinXP? Try the cost for starters, and then security issues and finally the EULAs and the service packs. I want, I NEED to run east Front II on a Linux box. To that end I have been a subscriber to Transgaming and even though I don't care for the voting system (only because East Front II isn't as popular as some of the others) I will continue to subscribe to transgaming on the hope they can finally get EFII to run. It has been a frustrating year for me, and I have gone as far as gaining some of the tools needed to crack EFII so I can run it on a Linux platform. Is Transgaming efforts doom to failure in a commercial sense? Who cares? For me the issue is to get these games running well on a true multitasking/multiuser platform and I will as well as hopefully more people will continue to subscribe to Transgaming. Microsoft's main strength has been in computer gaming but even that market is apparently moving onto the "more secure" Xbox. Windows games on Linux is an economic alternative to rising license/OS costs, and as I said before Transgaming is well worthy of continuing support. It's only $5.00 USD a month. Disclaimer: I have no financial stake in Transgaming.)
Dawn of the Dead
According to its makers, it stops being Open Source if you exercise your rights under the AFPL and produce a LSB standard installation of WineX (also known as an RPM). Which is kinda sad - either its Open Source or it isn't.
I don't mind a good closed source app (I'm a WineX subsciber), its just that I think WineX isn't a half bad product but you'd be surprised by the amount of people (users new to Linux) who jump on IRC, try an incredibly broken CVS install and then think that WineX is an unstable pile of shit because CVS often is. I think this odd licensing is bad for Transgaming too.
As a system administrator, I also find the idea of installing software in any other method than RPM very bad practice.
As for the people who don't have 2 (or 4 or more) computers that want to run linux but are tied to their games, there are games that will come out for linux, and there are games that will never come out for linux. Wine helps bridge that gap and this release of wine may very well bring a signifigant number of people over to linux.
I do security
I distinctly remember someone commenting on how they preferred EQ in Wine because they didn't have to run it full screen.
There was a win32 hack to EQ awhile back for windowed play, but I think updates later broke it. Which is rather sad. Not everyone wants to run their games full screen.
> And the Descent series is one of the best of all time.
Yes it is, and that's why the wonderful people at the d1x and d2x projects have worked so hard to make it portable. It's now running on the Win32, Linux, and Mac (and maybe Linux-PPC, dunno) platforms. Check it out...
d1x: http://d1x.warpcore.org/
d2x: http://www.icculus.org/d2x/
You'll want to get the CVS versions of both, as there hasn't been a release in some time now. You can read the mailing list at
http://ml.warpcore.org/descent-source/
Enjoy the goodness that is native Descent...
Just don't actually try to exercise any of your rights.
The latest release of Transgaming's WineX (details available here) now supports EverQuest.
In other news, Transgaming has announced future plans to support bulk heroin distribution and high-margin cocaine resale.
moto411.com
But when will we see some decent parallel port support? VMWare's too heavy for what many of us embedded people need; we just need decent Win32 parallel port accesses so we can connect up our in-circuit emulators and run the IDEs through WINE.
... which is the core of ... an Operating System! Ok, what do you want me to call the rest then? How about I call it "GNU/Linux"? Will that be more technically correct? I have to call the kernel and the rest of what makes up the OS SOMETHING, right? I could call it "Redhat" but then that wouldn't really be correct either, would it?
-- Jim
Yes, but this was not what I was rebutting. He claimed that native Linux versions of Windows software is not as fast -- which is wrong (all other things being equal, of course)
-- Jim
What joystick device does WineX use? How do I get joystick support for X-Plane, and I asked for the name of a WineX game/demo that joysticks are known to work for. I get a half assed instructions on how to install a joystick under kernel 2.4.x and ticket closed.
Well my joystick has always worked under Linux, I complained about the response, they said they answered my question, I asked them to reread the question, they then gave me the name of a demo, my joystick worked with that demo. They also said it was a their practice to close tickets without customer feedback. In general they were plain rude.
My joystick still does not work with X-plane, I would also like to have a descent combat flight simulator like Aces High both games load and run well except the joystick does not work!
Get a free ipod.
For the most part I have never been really impressed with wine-x as a whole. I had issues with warcraft III and all i got from transgaming was something along the lines of "oh that don't work, sorry your SOL" kind of response.
One thing that irks me about winex and to complete the subject of this reply is that most Linux applications that i have actually bought, winex is the worst support oriented one yet. By this you will notice that nothing is ever mentioned on thier web site about using SuSE, and it isn't like SuSE isn't some backwater distro ? So why is it that SuSE seems to be silently ignored.
I guess they have investments mostly in mandrake and only support mandrake fully, and if the word "linux" is utter in a public forum red hat comes to mind.
I guess i take the stance that if you are making a linux product then you should at least support the big 3 (Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE) and have instructions and more info for the Gentoo crowd. To me this would make wine-x a complete product.
For what it is worth i won't be updating my subscription, since this is really just a temporary fix and don't see much long term value in thier product as games are moving more and more to the console market. I play mostly on my PS2 anyhow warcraft 3 was a small exception. But now i just play on my Mac with no goofy tricks i just play it, which is all i wanted to do in the first place.
But to handle the GUI aspects of
Kind of a vicious little circle, isn't it?
This is a difficult question for anyone to answer. You see, Sony Online Entertainment (SoE) puts people in an uncomfortable position: If you admit to having used ShowEQ, you can get your account banned. For those for whom the game is an important part of their life, this would be a horrible blow and they should consider very carefully whether they wish to acknowledge such use even on a semi-anonymous medium such as Slashdot.
:) I just shelled out $35 today, after a five-month hiatus, for a 3-month account because it's supported under Transgaming WineX. However, the remedies for being caught using infringing software are quite clear that one forfeits the subscription and monies paid to SoE and cannot use the service any longer. I can live with that penalty if I decided to use ShowEQ again.
That said, it is not illegal to run ShowEQ. It is, however, definitely a violation of Sony's End User License Agreement to which one affirmatively agrees each time one plays the game. If you are comfortable with the potential consequences for violating the "contract" you have entered into with Sony Online Entertainment, or else confident enough in your discretion that you don't believe they will find out you have abrogated your agreement, read on.
Yes, ShowEQ works with EQ under Transgaming WineX. You have to know what you are doing in order for it to work, however. Check out their message boards at http://seq.sourceforge.net for details.
In the interest of full disclosure, and since I really don't give a rat's third left whisker if SoE cancels my account or not, I have used ShowEQ. I am currently using Transgaming WineX. However, I'm not using ShowEQ anymore, least of all alonside EQ under WineX. It just seemed to take a lot of the fun out of the game to have all the monster locations disclosed. The stat-tracking stuff is pretty cool, though, but you can get similar functionality using a non-agreement-infringing log parser. While I wouldn't discourage curious hackers from checking out what ShowEQ can do, I would encourage them also to avoid using it in day-to-day play. It tends to lead to either boredom or conflict.
Umm, that said, if any SoE employee reads this, I'd rather not have the account terminated if it can be avoided
The question, before you plunge into the world of ShowEQ, is:
Can you live with the consequences of getting caught?
I say, check it out, and write up your experiences at seq.sourceforge.net. Hell, they even have an Electronic Frontier Foundation donation account set up so you can get a warm fuzzy supporting software freedom while supporting EULA-infringing software. To top it all off, you don't even need the binary package release of Transgaming's WineX to have easy installation of WineX. Gentoo has winex as part of their portage system, and their are binary builds of the CVS checkout available on the net. Those work perfectly well for playing EQ. The only reason Transgaming has a binary-only release for subscribers is because they have licensese for certain copy protection schemes which require them not to release the source for that particular application of the suite.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
It's a compelling argument you make. My office is currently investigating a Microsoft Outlook deployment. I eagerly searched for open-source/free software alternatives that achieve the same integrated functionality, and came up lacking.
It's better to use free software on a non-free operating system than to use no free software at all, but it's worthwhile to examine the possibility that the Cygwin project, among others, are making it easier for people to stay with Microsoft Windows than use GNU/Linux, just as it's worthwhile to wonder whether Wine and WineX are are keeping more people tied to Windows as well.
My personal experience? Administrators using Cygwin become very impressed with the power of the *nix-like environment. They begin using it on a day-to-day basis, and see no reason to stop using Microsoft Windows on their desktops.
Until the day they run up against the huge limitations of using Cygwin, be it the performance penalty, lack of target platform support in many popular software packages, or simply any one of a string of painful interoperability problems. They then install GNU/Linux on a second partition or a second machine, and experience the full power of the operating system, and amazing graphical user interfaces which have been blazing trails for the last 2 years that Microsoft has attempted to follow. In turn, the best innovations of the MS desktop have been integrated into these free projects, as well.
So I'd have to say that because of the enormous minority situation GNU/Linux is in, Cygwin and running free software applications on a proprietary operating system like Microsoft Windows is an excellent "Gateway Drug" for power users, and eventually lesser users. Likewise, being able to run non-free software on a free system eventually leads to the replacement of that non-free piece by those who value software freedom over the convenience or entertainment value of the non-free software.
From my point of view, all roads lead to the ultimate "killer app" of the GNU/Linux world: the General Public License and the open culture it forces on otherwise selfish individuals and corporations. Yep, it's viral, and those who wish to take away software freedom hate it. Heck, a lot of freedom-loving individuals hate it too because it infringes on *their* individual freedom by requiring them to contribute their code back to the common pool. Love it or hate it, it's the reason why people are migrating to GNU/Linux from proprietary systems (of all types) in unheard-of numbers.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
Hmm... not exactly "side scrollers", but these are some 2d-ish fun games I play on GNU/Linux quite often:
Chromium. Requires 3D acceleration, however. Nifty particle effects, runs at 50fps even on crappy accelerators if they have decent GNU/Linux support.
Super Methane Brothers: Easy enough for a child to play, but rather addicting.
Plus an assortment of other 3D and 2D games that are quite comprehensive on Mandrake Linux.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
RPMSs are OK. Read the license. TG does discourage them (so there is an incentive to subscribe) but it's permitted legally.
He dropped out of high school, mostly because he would skip school so damn much he couldn't keep grades up.
Later he got a GED (like that is hard at all).
He passed basic tests to get into a community college.
(all this while he continued to play EverQuest)
Now, he eventually got so pulled into the game and some guild that he flunked right out of college.
When his parents found out about the 0 GPA crap, they kicked him out because they weren't going to support him if he couldn't keep his act together.
Now, the last I've heard... he lives in an apartment hardly getting by with the job he has. He still plays EQ....
The game can and will ruin your life. Avoid it. The game is a drain on your soul. It's no more than a mental leech designed by Sony.
I could go into the abnormal social behavior the game causes too... but thats too much to write.
btw, the guild this poor sap plays in EQ is found here. http://www.thehouseofrequiem.com . He used to brag about being such an awesome web designer... *sighs*
He's a pathetic soul now... wasted energy.
Given that:
a) most Everquest addicts only eat/sleep/shower after a Windows BSOD ends their 15 hour EQ session;
b) Linux can run for months or even years without a reboot;
I conclude that this is a bad idea.
--All your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson
No its no winex. Its a kernel problem which they dont have control over. If they code their own kernel module for Winex it might be able to be fixed but thats too much work. Honestly 50 fps is fine and its only some games anyway.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
On my system, which (at one point) had WinNT 4.0 on it as well as my Linux install, running Q3A yielded slightly better frame rates under Linux.
May we never see th
I'm in a class taught by one of the people that recently was doing work on the UT engine, and he seems to pretty strongly prefer OGL.
Come to think of it, Nvidia liked OGL over DX as well (easier to get support for new features in).
May we never see th
Worms Armageddon is really poorly written. I doubt if it'll ever work in Linux - it barely even works in Windows. :P
You have neglected Uhrmacher's Theorem, which states that every new technological development will find first application in gaming and pornography.
I eagerly searched for open-source/free software alternatives that achieve the same integrated functionality, and came up lacking.
What, precisely, is it that you want "integrated"?
Administrators using Cygwin...
CygWin is awfully slow. When I'm on Windows, I stick with the native, though less capable (i.e. no usable alternative shell) UnxUtils and CygWin.
God, Windows has an *awful* virtual terminal, though. I keep wishing that I could use PuTTY's interface to talk to the local machine directly.
May we never see th
No need to buy WineX for that.
If you play Dark Age of Camelot, try out DAOx, which will let you play DAoC in a window - so you can alt-tab.
If you play EverQuest, try eqw. Same as above.
Anarchy Online, Ragnarök Online and Ultima Online can already be played in a window. Any others that still suffer from "forced full-screening"?
Starting a new character and levelling to about 15 is quite fun. But after that it is dull and repetitive. There is no sense of accomplishment or variety to the game, you go up a level, get a few new skills, kill different creatures, you twink, you camp (a lot), you craft, you sit around,
I'm not saying other MMPORPGs of the same generation are much better either. I tried Asherons Call (excruciatingly boring and crap graphics) and Dark Age of Camelot (beautiful UI & scenery but anally retentive looting and other misfeatures).
Still I guess that Wine would benefit from supporting EQ if only because whatever had to be implemented to support it will benefit other games and apps too. I recall that Wine couldn't do CreateProcess calls properly and perhaps that is what has changed to support the EQ launching mechanism.
As a system administrator (among other things), I find that using RPMs are the sure path to unmaintainability and broken systems. Considering that it is *easier* to build from source as well as less problems, I can't imagine any serious admins using RPMs.
Debians apt system at least keeps track of dependencies and test the stuff they release... but RPMs? Give me a break. Just do something else while the source compiles, and you will save yourself a lot of future problems. And you'll often get better software. :)
I find your post quite typical of /. myself: loud, rude, lacking supporting arguments, and illustrating a fundamental misunderstanding of your topic.
As a system administrator (among other things), I find that using RPMs are the sure path to unmaintainability and broken systems.
Why not provide some supporting arguments? I'll go first: standardized install, uninstall, querying, verification, GPG signing, and repeatability, LSB compliance.
Considering that it is *easier* to build from source as well as less problems
Er, if you think that building from source is somehow seperate from RPM than you have very little understanding of the packaging system you're dismissing.
Debians apt system at least keeps track of dependencies and test the stuff they release...
Huh? Comparing apt to RPM makes no sense and again shows very little knowledge of packaging systems and their function. rpm and dpkg are packaging systems. up2date, apt, and urpmi are frontends (which all work on top of RPM - one works on top of dpkg too) to index the packages and then resolve dependencies using these indexes. Again, comparing a front end to a packaging system makes little sense. Again, there are many other tools that to automatically resolve dependencies using Linux Standard Base (RPM) packages and these tools have existed for years (in up2date's case, since Red Hat 6).
>Uh, we HAVE been bugging developers to make native versions... newsflash: it isn't working.
As a game developer I can give some insight for why. These are all inter-related but I'll break them down regardless:
1. Money - It's a believed (rightly or wrongly) to be a bad investment to spend money paying extra developers to write a product when the market (Mac/Linux) is, unfortunately, 5% of your total sales.
2. Time - With today's tight deadlines, there is no time to develop for other platforms. The attitude is: compile it, fix it, ship it. The more platforms you confine your code to, the less unknowns you have to deal with. This goes the same for PCs and consoles.
3. Complexity - Writing cross platform code introduces another level of abstraction. New code needs to be debugged.
Why can Id, and Epic develop native Linux versions? Because they can afford to -- their schedule is not mandated by their publisher.
That said, there are a few programmers who see the advantages in cross platform development:
- Your code ends up being way more robust as you find hidden bugs amongst the various OS implementations
- You're forced to abstract to a common API (i.e. better design)
I'd like to end with this note: register Linux UT2K3 -- because the only way there will ever be mass Linux support for games, is by having one person at a time do their part.
Cheers
--
" The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite."
~ T.'. Jefferson
> What, precisely, is it that you want "integrated"?
:)
At this point, I want just a few, simple things that I take for granted in a business accounting package:
* Automated invoicing. This means that I enter the invoice information, and the accounts receivable information is automatically entered into my books. Also, that I can print out the invoice from the accounting package, and record that I printed it. Envelope labelling based on invoice information, and the ability to get the address information when I click on the accounts receivable entry would be a nice bonus.
* Check printing
* Payroll "understanding". I mean, enter the tax information for the employee one time, and from that point on when you verify gross pay the taxes will already be resolved.
These three things would make a business accounting package usable for me. At this point, GNUCash is a nice personal finance utility, but fairly inadequate for business usage. If it annoys me enough, eventually I may get around to writing some modules for it, but my business has been shelved temporarily (due to the economic climate) while I do a regular, full-time gig to pay the bills
>native, though less capable (i.e. no usable alternative shell) UnxUtils
I've used unxutils as well. They are OK. For routine, automated systems administration, though, they are simply maddening! I'm not terribly concerned about the latest software rollout working "fast", so Cygwin's slowness is irrelevant. I just want the software update rolled out across some 300 NT/2K workstations at some point over the course of the day.
However, I've tried to use cygwin to run KDE before (in hopes that I could somehow have an "integrated" platform to work from, using the GNU/Linux interface with which I'm familiar, running atop Win32), and it definitely is incredibly slow for some apps. Wine is lightyears ahead of Cygwin, performance-wise, IMHO. Of course, we're comparing apples and beach balls, here, so it's entirely my subjective opinion.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
Dude:
;)
http://openraider.sf.net
I'm getting it ready for multiplayer and per pixel lighting too. I'm just waiting for the parts to my new machine and some free weekend.
You know, you generate more pure textual data per time unit than anyone I've ever seen on Slashdot. :-)
Wine is lightyears ahead of Cygwin, performance-wise
I'd be more inclined to say that the Linux underpinnings are lightyears ahead of the Windows underpinnings...running on an operating system without support for shared fork and a couple of other fundamental features, there's not a lot that the cygwin guys can do.
May we never see th
> You know, you generate more pure textual data per time unit than anyone I've ever seen on Slashdot. :-)
:-) I'm thinking of starting my own blog so that I can expound in more detail, and simply provide a link from Slashdot so I don't exposit more than the underpinnings of the argument in the thread of the discussion, saving the reams of ruminations for another forum...
.01 Linux kernel was not yet ready for prime-time, real threading was not introduced until the 2.2 series (with varying definitions of "real"), yadda yadda yadda. Fundamentally, the operating system that "took over the world" was Microsoft Windows 95. It has now been largely abandoned in favor of Windows XP, just released last year. For much of the last seven years, however, GNU/Linux has remained fundamentally the same: a 32-bit UNIX-like kernel using free GNU tools. No painful migrations, like for MS Windows users in 1995, to a 32-bit shell running on a 16-bit operating system.
Non-geek translation: I write too much
> I'd be more inclined to say that the Linux underpinnings are lightyears ahead of the Windows underpinnings
Again, I concur. However, I try to avoid such language generally because people come to regard it as flamebait for a Microsoft Windows vs. GNU/Linux debate. That said, many Linux kernel abilities (such as true multithreading) are of comparatively recent date... there's definitely some mutual "chasing the taillights" going on.
Interesting to me, however, is that Microsoft Windows NT development was inaugurated in 1987, with release in 1993. Linus Torvalds unleashed the Linux kernel on August 25, 1991. It seems the reality is that GNU/Linux, far from being an "upstart" operating system, predated Microsoft's second 32-bit operating system (OS/2 was their first) by two years. However, it's tough for me to be positive of the data prior to 1995, when I discovered GNU/Linux and started goofing with it from time to time, finally using it seriously and full-time in 1997.
The usual weasel-words apply: the
My personal feeling is, with tools like WineX, we are bringing more and more advantages to the GNU/Linux table. People I know are converting, or at least running a second box to check it out, which would have been almost unheard of outside of geek circles seven years ago. The consensus-based development model for many free software projects may be a very slow process, but it is one that develops an enormous momentum. Eventually, Windows users that are accustomed to making upgrades every 2-4 years will simply make the ultimate upgrade to a GNU/Linux system.
Wow, cripes, I'm lapsing philosophical this morning. And long-winded, as always.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
It IS possible (read the forums) to get beyond the patcher.
:(
The patcher opens up a VERY large number of files, larger than the default max # of open files under most distros. There's info on the forums on how to increase this number.
Of course, you don't get very far beyond the patcher...
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
What's your problem with his post?
He states that DAoC doesn't run under WineX, and that the people on Transgaming's site have actively been devoting any and all RPGs with a scant few exceptions. (I've seen this firsthand. I retaliate by negatively nuking every non-RPG I see.)
You then state that DAoC is the only thing keeping Windows on your machine...
p.s. What server/realm? 44 theurg (Ezra) Lancelot Albion
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I think John Carmack would disagree with you here.
In fact, a few years ago, after leaving MS, the guy in charge of marketing DirectX admitted that DX was inferior to OpenGL and had some SERIOUS flaws. (Mainly, a REALLY ugly and unclean API - GLQuake was done in a VERY short time, whereas Carmack said that after looking at the ugliness of the DX APIs he didn't even know where to start)
Let's not forget that a lot of features that are "bleeding edge" in DX are usually standardized long before in OpenGL. (This can be attributed to the fact that OGL has a heritage in high-end graphics, which usually leads consumer 3D by a year or two or more, or at least used to.)
Also, OpenGL is fully cross-platform, wherease DX is extremely closely tied down to Win32 - Another strike against DX.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
You obviously have no clue what you're talking about. The "alt-tab" bug is an APPLICATION problem, not an OS problem. (Well, maybe a generic Win32 problem)
Win2k doesn't help you in the situations the original poster is talking about. Neither does XP. I have firsthand experience with this issue with DAoC under 98SE, Win2k, and WinXP. (Currently running 2k)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?