Gaming On Linux With Newest AMD Catalyst Driver Remains Slow

An anonymous reader writes The AMD Catalyst binary graphics driver has made a lot of improvements over the years, but it seems that NVIDIA is still leading in the Linux game with their shared cross-platform driver. Tests done by Phoronix of the Catalyst 15.3 Linux Beta found on Ubuntu 15.04 shows that NVIDIA continues leading over AMD Catalyst with several different GPUs on BioShock Infinite, a game finally released for Linux last week. With BioShock Infinite on Linux, years old mid-range GeForce GPUs were clobbering the high-end Radeon R9 290 and other recent AMD GPUs tested. The poor showing wasn't limited to BS:I though as the Metro Redux games were re-tested too on the new drivers and found the NVIDIA graphics still ran significantly faster and certainly a different story than under Windows.

Comments

Nothing new

[Zardus]

It's been this way for years. ATI/AMD support for Linux is unbelievably bad. nVidia support is basically perfect, with the exception of the open-source issue. In the past, I've bought a brand new (nVidia) video card, right after it was released, brought it home, and got it running under Linux, day 1, with no headaches. If you want decent Linux graphics, go nVidia.

Re:Nothing new

[hairyfeet]

Can I LMAO at the blatant hypocrisy of the Linux crowd? All of the talking of FOSS and GNU and when push comes to shove what do they take? The proprietary locked down all to fuck nvidia drivers because wadda ya know, proprietary drivers run better.

Bitch and mod down all you want, that is EXACTLY what you are doing. AMD has opened up their drivers, Nvidia is so locked down Torvalds flipped them the bird, but guess what every forum and TFA says? Buy Nvidia. The hypocrisy is so thick and rich LOL.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

I've used nothing but AMD/ATI with Linux, for both CPU and GPU.

No driver problems at all. I think driver support has been freaking fantastic. Nowadays I don't even need Catalyst anymore, thanks to the open driver that actually benchmarks better than catalyst in some open source games. I run bunch of games from Steam, although mostly free games Warsow and Xonotic. Everything runs beautifully with R9.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't one single "Linux crowd", and not everyone, or even nearly everyone run Linux for political reasons. RMS Gnussolini's are very much minority.

I very much welcome any proprietary software on Linux that does the job better.

Re:Nothing new

[gl4ss]

yeah so how do those games bench against nvidia cards half the price?

Re:Nothing new

[qubezz]

Wrong, it's more like AMD has abandoned video cards and chipsets less than five years old, no cares given. AMD is complete crap for drivers, and although I'm typing on an ATI card, It will be my first and last in a very long time. For example, I wanted to make a media center from a 2010 Dell Desktop with DDR3, Quad core CPU, Hybrid Crossfire using AMD GPU + chipset, HDMI output. And no AMD Linux support. HD 2xxx-4xxx series were dropped from drivers very quickly; the current driver doesn't support xserver 1.13+, and therefore even Ubuntu 12.04.2 can't run the proprietary driver. We are talking: You buy a Radeon HD 4890 launched in Feb 2011, and find it will never be supported by AMD drivers on kernels or X that appeared in distros like Ubuntu 13.04, April 2013.

Re:Nothing new

[hairyfeet]

Meanwhile both companies cards work great in Windows LOL. Oh and if Torvalds wasn't such a shit coder maybe they wouldn't HAVE TO constantly futz with their drivers to fix HIS messes, think of that? I have a first year release driver for an HD4650 and its running great in Win 10, that is why having a functional driver ABI matters, its because you DO NOT NEED to beg companies to support old cards for eternity, they "just work". I mean for fucks sake I can take WinXP WDM drivers and run them in Win 7, that is fourteen years of working drivers, and you think its perfectly acceptable to take an OS that can't even run a driver from 2011 without shitting? WTF man, tell Torvalds to quit fucking shit up and come up with a driver model that is newer than the SNES!

BTW did you try the FOSS drivers? Since you seem to not realize that AMD turned support of their older cards over to the FOSS team, even hiring a couple devs to help them out and handing them the docs.

At the end of the day you simply can't gloss over the rampant hypocrisy. What did the community say? "If you just open up your docs we'll support ourselves!" well you got your wish...and you run to the locked all the fuck down nvidia when push comes to shove...so much for that belief in GNU, huh? I bet RMS sure as hell wouldn't be supporting a company that refuses to share code like Nvidia over a company that does like AMD but at the end of the day lets cut through the bull, aye? Most of you don't care about free as in freedom, all you care about is free as in beer and will happily take all the proprietary code if it don't cost ya nothing.

Spin it any way you want, you buy Nvidia and use proprietary drivers? You ARE a hypocrite so don't be tossing that "open the code" crap because AMD did and found out what I've said for years, you take free coders ya get what ya paid for LOL.

Re:Nothing new

[ChunderDownunder]

I don't game and my linux box has intel graphics. :)

I would consider a "steam machine" though if I wanted a new development box for my office desktop. Whether I stuck with nouveau or loaded the properietary graphics would depend on whether the free drivers were sufficient.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

With or without using locked-down proprietary drivers?

Re: Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you give data for any? Cause something says to me either way you dont have a real answer. Else you would have given it.

Re: Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly didn't you know that going in that you would have issues? It's been an problem for a while now so it's either Intel or Nvidia. I don't run Linux because it's doesn't offer me anything that I can't do in Windows except for maybe better virtualization but even I know Amd and a Linux isn't a good idea.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Whilst what you say is true, the choice is really, game on Linux, or game on ati/amd.

I'm a longtime AMD/ATI fanboi and despite the fact that I'm also a Linux user, the lack of decent amd drivers means I keep a dual boot and run windows for gaming. It's a shame, but given that I'm not willing to dedicate the time/effort to write a decent driver for Radeons for Linux I can't really winge.

The fact that AMD seem to be losing the processor war too makes it harder and harder to justify not upgrading to Intel and Nvidia each time.

Is this a sign that Open Source has failed? Of course not! It's just a sign that Open Source coders do not rate writing graphics card drivers very highly. Which seems odd because it sounds like a decently gnarly problem to get solved.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Goes to show what you actually know, which is nada.

Re: Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm also a big fan of Amd and I don't believe they are really losing the war. Cpus in general have become so powerful that the average non-gaming users doesn't need a quad core cpu to get work done. Even in the business world most applications will run just fine with a 2 core cpu with memory being more important in most cases. I've gone to using Amd Apus for most of my machines except gaming where I go with a dedicated gpu and quad core cpu.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and how 'bout them 'murricans, voting for a black president and participating in KKK meetings? Hypocrites, the bunch of them!

Or perhaps different persons within a created group think and do different things, even if it is possible to set a common label on that certain group. I know such a notion hits our beloved prejudices right in the nads, but what can you do.

Re:Nothing new

[tlambert]

There isn't one single "Linux crowd", and not everyone, or even nearly everyone run Linux for political reasons. RMS Gnussolini's are very much minority.

I very much welcome any proprietary software on Linux that does the job better.

I think you are wrong, and I think you are not going to get a proprietary alternative that's as fast as it could be. The interfaces needed to make graphics faster on Linux are all EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL, meaning that they can't legally be used by proprietary (read: faster) kernel modules. So basically, the interfaces that are needed are, in fact, politicized.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I LMAO at the blatant hypocrisy of the Linux crowd?

You have to be pretty narcissistic to think of such a large diverse group as an entity with an opinion that you can define as a singe one.

Re:Nothing new

[gl4ss]

With or without using locked-down proprietary drivers?

both? that's what the article is about anyways, that the locked down nvidia stuff gives you 100% better bang for buck(double)? so someone chipping in and saying they have no problems playing some games that should run fine with years old budget cards is not that much of a help to that discusion.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been this way for years. ATI/AMD support for Linux is unbelievably bad.

Are ATI drivers that bad, or are game developers still using graphics libraries that favour Nvidia?

Re:Nothing new

[Antique Geekmeister]

The kernel modification is merely a shim. Much of the work in the NVidia drivers is in the replacement for the OpenGL libraries, which are heavily modified by NVidia and difficult to reverse engineer.

Re:Nothing new

[AntiSol]

This. Free software is great and I'll always check out the free alternatives before I consider paying for anything, but not all of us think that all proprietary software is inherently evil. Most (all?) of the people I know are much more pragmatic and interested in getting real-world work done than that. I'd love to hand over cash for a powerful video editor that is easier to use than cinellera or a native version of FL Studio so that I can finally ditch wine.

I for one have absolutely zero problem paying for games, even if I do think we'd all be better off if game makers released source code (the content should stay nonfree, though). I just recently broke the "100 nonfree games for Linux" barrier. I'm loving Bioshock Infinite, it was worth every penny, and I'm really happy to see it out for my OS of choice. But it's their code - who am I to argue if they don't want to release their source?

I'm going to choose the video driver that allows me to use my hardware to its fullest extent and gives the highest possible framerate with the prettiest effects. If nvidia want to do it all by themselves and don't want the community's help making their drivers even better than they already are, who am I to argue?

TL;DR: I use Linux because it's better more than because it's free - free is an added bonus.

(I do think the zealots/extremists are essentially correct, but they tend to use a lot of rhetoric and margnialise themselves. It's unfortunate. But it does make us pragmatists seem a whole lot saner)

Re: Nothing new

[RavenLrD20k]

Single data point, personal experience anecdotal and all that jazz, but:

In my Linux Desktop rig (Mint 17 Desktop) I've run an ATI R9 270 using Catalyst and an nVidia GeForce 760 using nouveau and CUDA (not at the same time); I've been a lot happier with the GeForce with the nouveau drivers than the performance out of the Radeon. Also, installing the CUDA drivers to take advantage of the parallel compiling/processing has taken the performance through the roof and IMHO blew away the 270. The nVidia ran cooler when 100% pegged never even reaching 60C (usually topped off at 56-58C) where the R9 would easily reach 70-80C under load, occasionally maxing out at 85C. Blender-Renders using the Cycles engine and CUDA drivers also took about 3/4-7/8 of the time to render a scene than the ATI would... if and when I could get Blender to recognize the OpenCL drivers for GPU processing on the ATI.

To summarize, in my experience nVidia/Intel has just been a more stable and more powerful platform than the recent AMD/ATI offerings. Yeah, you pay more, but there's a lot more value when high end processing matters. It's a shame too. For the 2000's we were an AMD house, and we were happy with what we got. For the higher price of Intel at the time, there just wasn't the performance gain to justify it over AMD; unlike now. The next AMD system we built in 2011 as an HTPC wound up being an unstable heap under Windows and Linux. Unless AMD can suddenly get its shit together in the next year or two, it looks like at least the 2010's are gonna be owned by Intel/nVidia.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

The new definition of hypocrisy:

When two or more people interested in the subject disagree on some areas of the subject in question.

Examples include:

Slashdotters commenting on RIAA discussion hate copyright. Slashdotters commenting on GPL discussion want stronger enforcement. Slashdotters are hypocrites.

People using Linux because open source say "F*ck you nVidia". People using Linux for gaming love nVidia drivers. People using Linux are hypocrites.

Peple driving Volvo trucks think Diesel is the only option. People driving Volvo cars think Diesel smoke cause lung cancer. Volvo drivers are hypocrites.

(I may or may not have made the last one up)

Re:Nothing new

[AntiSol]

I think you are missing his point. Regardless of what is technically/theoretically possible, right now, the nvidia proprietary drivers do outperform the free drivers.

Yes, yes, it's because nvidia refuse to publish their specs and that makes them evil and the free guys have to reverse engineer everything and it's hard work and they're always behind and bla bla and boo hoo. But that doesn't change the fact that the free drivers don't peform as well as the proprietary drivers do in the real world today.

If the free drivers ever do manage to outperform the proprietary drivers, you can be damn sure we'll switch over in a big hurry.

(BTW I hadn't heard of this EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL before. IMHO that is bullshit, it's the good old "you're free to do as we tell you" thing)

Re: Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

it's doesn't offer me anything that I can't do in Windows

Ha, you must have very limited requirements!

Re:Nothing new

[Billly Gates]

Right because I can buy any video card and driver made in the last 10 years and it will just work and always continue to work

Re: Nothing new

[RavenLrD20k]

I should have probably mentioned in my other post on this level that my experience is meant as an agreement to the parent and giving a baseline datapoint of the minimum level that one must meet to be considered a real answer that shows Open Drivers on ATI/AMD can outperform the Open nouveau driver on nVidia, given that AMD's proprietary offering could not beat an equivalent nVidia offering (according to Tom's Hardware) using the open offering on my system, and was torn to shreds using nVidia's proprietary offering.

Re:Nothing new

[jones_supa]

I very much welcome any proprietary software on Linux that does the job better.

Then why not just run Windows as it does the job much better than the buggy and slow Linux desktop?

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is more a case of: copyright law does not specify what counts as derived work (in particular, whether kernel modules do or do not count as such), so we're giving you a clear criteria of what we believe. If you have a different opinion you are likely to annoy people and might have to defend your theory in court.

Re:Nothing new

[drinkypoo]

Can I LMAO at the blatant hypocrisy of the Linux crowd?

Not without being a disingenuous douchebag, since you know full well that "the Linux crowd" encompasses a broad spectrum.

Re:Nothing new

[Wootery]

nVidia support is basically perfect, with the exception of the open-source issue.

Don't forget their dire OpenCL support.

Re:Nothing new

[Bigbutt]

The driver would blue screen my Windows box on boot several times before finally clearing and letting the system run. This is before even getting a login prompt.

Pair of AMD 4870's (so old cards).

[John]

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you use the proprietary drivers? My previous AMD card was a HD4850, bought at 2008 or so, and it was properly supported by the mainline kernel drivers at least until last autumn when I upgraded my machine. At least it worked on all the apps I used, but of course, I did my gaming on Windows.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Proprietary drivers generally outperform free drivers by actively rewriting the programs you're executing to be more efficient. This is also why graphics drivers are a mess and why Khronos is writing a completely new API to replace them.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Buggy and slow linux desktop...which desktop are you referring to, there's quite a few, and most are significantly faster the Windows on the same hardware. linux is a kernel, not an operating system. Your inability to understand that difference makes your point invalid. I've literally had a single laptop that ran Windows 7, Linux Mint, Bodhi Linux, Arch, Fedora, and now back to Arch. My current Arch set up is the fastest one of them all, with Bodhi Linux coming in a close second (really if you haven't checked out Bodhi I highly recommend it). The desktops I've used are almost a varied, Enlightenment, Gnome, KDE, Cinnamon, LXDE, and now LXQT. Each one offers a different experience, which is both the beauty and problem with linux as whole. People don't generally like choices, which is why Ubuntu and Mint are great for the average user. People who want more can get more, or different once they need to scratch that itch, and at the end of the day that's what it's about, choice. Windows doesn't do the job much better, in many cases it's worse. In the one particular instance of gaming, it's sometimes worse. In freedom to control your OS, linux wins. In software compatibility, linux wins hands down because of WINE(please show me something on Windows that runs native linux software as developed as WINE). In system resource requirements, linux wins, you can pare it down to almost nothing. In security, well...BSD wins that one, but linux is a close second. So really, it's about the needs of the individual. I game on my linux laptop with MESA drivers and the software runs fine. The game itself is closed source, but I'm willing to pay for good games, because full time developers, and even some that aren't deserve to be paid for their time, whether through contributing or through finance.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget all of the supposed Linux OSS "supporters" who go on about how Steam, the biggest closed source, lock-in, DRM, spyware piece of garbage client/"service" is finally coming to their platform.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

So wait, you're concerned with having a free and open operating system and drivers, yet you run Steam?

That's like charging your Tesla off of a gasoline generator.

Re:Nothing new

[blackomegax]

parent is actually 'thumb on the fucking pulse' accurate.

Re: Nothing new

[blackomegax]

AMD really turned it around in 2013 and 2014. Ubuntu 14.04 LTS runs 1000% rock solid on an A4-5000 APU with open drivers.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

I tend to buy used Thinkpads for my computing needs. Recently I got one donated with an Nvidia card. It's been one large fsck feast. The computer does not hibernate anymore. The Nvidia driver compilation framework confuses kernel architecture and default library architecture, so I am no longer able to run a 64bit kernel on a 32bit userland (which is important for the occasional 64bit binaries you actually want to use or test). Even when waking up from sleep, the computer crashes in one of about 20 cases. The power usage and corresponding battery life is insane.

I have almost the same computer (currently with defective fan) with an Intel graphics card. Never had any of those problems while I was using this or preceding computers with Intel graphics. And of course proprietary drivers will just become unavailable over time when the commercial interest in older chipsets fades.

Basically the resale value of old laptops drops to heck when it has an Nvidia card in it. As an old laptop, it will not run satisfactorily under supported Windows versions. And running it under Linux is a nightmare or downright impossible.

If you buy a laptop with Nvidia graphics, be prepared for it to have no resale value by the time you want to get rid of it again.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I LMAO at the blatant hypocrisy of the Linux crowd?

There's one Linux crowd? I'm definitely not an open source zealot, but it's the best option for my use case as professional engineer.

I know where your butt-hurt comes from: you're the resident AMD fanboi, and the fact that their chips suck balls has your knickers in a knit. My i7 kicks the shit out of everything AMD makes for the desktop, and the new Xeons are eating Opteron's lunch. Oh, cost and performance? Yes, give me a 130 dollar AMD hex core that throws enough BTUs that it could be a space header ala Pentium 4.. yeah, that works. Hell, even AMD's 8 core chips (or are they? only if you're after an integer unit) has it's hands full keeping up with an i5.

Sit down, boy. Go back to your widdle shop and build your AMD peecees or whatever it is you do nowadays.

Re:Nothing new

[hairyfeet]

Thank you. And you notice how many just gloss over the fact that despite all their "GNU" talk when push comes to shove they throw their convictions right out the windows for better performance?

This is why I think Linux is gonna bleed users after the Win 10 release, I have a feeling most aren't giving as shit about free as in freedom, just free as in beer and with Win 10 being the latter all those bullshitters talking FOSS and GNU are gonna quietly slink away and get their free Win 10 and see the proprietary is faster without all the BS and just not come back.

Re:Nothing new

[tlhIngan]

I think you are wrong, and I think you are not going to get a proprietary alternative that's as fast as it could be. The interfaces needed to make graphics faster on Linux are all EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL, meaning that they can't legally be used by proprietary (read: faster) kernel modules. So basically, the interfaces that are needed are, in fact, politicized.

I thought APIs couldn't be copyrighted? You know, like what the Oracle v. Google Android-Java lawsuit was all about?

If so, then without copyright protection GPL is worthless - GPL requires copyright in order to work (because copyright gives you certain rights - GPL gives you MORE rights in exchange for agreeing to certain conditions - if you don't agree, your basic rights under copyright law apply). In that case the APIs are unprotected.

But if you want to claim GPL protects those APIs, then it also means Oracle has a point w.r.t. Android's implementation of Java.

Re:Nothing new

[jones_supa]

What was your Windows 7 experience like?

Re:Nothing new

[sexconker]

The Radeon HD 4890 launched early 2009, not in 2011 as you claim.
Further, if an OS that comes later doesn't support older hardware, I'm going to blame the OS, not the hardware or its drivers. That's what everyone did during the XP->Vista transition, right?

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Which one? There are hundreds of Linux desktops...

Re:Nothing new

[lister king of smeg]

Thank you. And you notice how many just gloss over the fact that despite all their "GNU" talk when push comes to shove they throw their convictions right out the windows for better performance?

This is why I think Linux is gonna bleed users after the Win 10 release, I have a feeling most aren't giving as shit about free as in freedom, just free as in beer and with Win 10 being the latter all those bullshitters talking FOSS and GNU are gonna quietly slink away and get their free Win 10 and see the proprietary is faster without all the BS and just not come back.

Why would I ever do tha?t As it stands now I have several legitament free windows keys for the last 5 of so windows desktop OS's and keys for several of the server releases none are used exsept for one WinXP key for VMs and and my duel boot Linux WinXP destop for visual studio. My servers my laptop my other destops run Linux exlusivly. I am likely to never going back to windows without a major reason.

Re:Nothing new

[tlambert]

EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is more a case of: copyright law does not specify what counts as derived work (in particular, whether kernel modules do or do not count as such), so we're giving you a clear criteria of what we believe. If you have a different opinion you are likely to annoy people and might have to defend your theory in court.

It's not what Linus believes, as he has stated on numerous occasions when question on whether or not kernel modules were derivative works. The concept of the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL was invented by Linux developers who disagrees with Linus on this, and wanted to force hardware vendors to open source their software anyway, even though there are numerous legal reasons they can't. For example, a lot of those people copy code from each other and violate copyright all over the place, and there's a gentlemen's agreement for them all to whistle to themselves while looking in the other direction. This agreement is void as soon as some lawyer can compare the source code. It's a matter of being pragmatic and closed source, or legally liable, and open source.

Yes, I'm aware that Linus has also stated that he has no deeply held philosophical beliefs about EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL, either, but that's more a case of him not giving a damn whether Linux makes it as a gaming platform on an equal footing as Windows, or it never gets to that point, since he really doesn't give a squat about that aspect of things (and he's said as much on that, too).

Without the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL, Linus' public statements on kernel modules not being derivative works is admissable, and he has, in fact, offered to be an expert witness in that regard.

Re:Nothing new

[tlambert]

I thought APIs couldn't be copyrighted? You know, like what the Oracle v. Google Android-Java lawsuit was all about?

If so, then without copyright protection GPL is worthless - GPL requires copyright in order to work (because copyright gives you certain rights - GPL gives you MORE rights in exchange for agreeing to certain conditions - if you don't agree, your basic rights under copyright law apply). In that case the APIs are unprotected.

You really need to read the GNU Manifesto. The GPL is an instrumentality of the GNU Manifesto, and the intent is to use the opponents momentum against themselves. Think "Legal Jujitsu". RMS would prefer Copyright not exist, but since it does, there is a way to force it to behave as if it does not exist by combining it with other legal constructs surrounding the grant of rights under Copyright.

It's a license issue. The code is copyright. You accept the terms of the license, you are granted a right to use the copyright code. You don't accept the terms of the license, that grant is revoked. You're free to accept the license or not.

The EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is an attempt to put a rider license compatible with the GPL on the module using the construct which additionally prohibits derivative works in the sense that Linus has already stated do not apply to kernel modules. It's essentially some people disagreeing with Linus about whether or not kernel modules constitute derivative works of the kernel, in order to try and force open proprietary software which, for legal reasons, can actually never be opened without engendering a huge internecine war between hardware companies.

Re:Nothing new

[antdude]

When ATI made their video drivers open sourced, I was all excited. I am disappointed that their drivers still suck for gaming and other 3D stuff in Linux. NVIDIA still wins. :(

Re: Nothing new

[Bengie]

Intel is also more efficient. All I know is the high end AMD CPUs that compete with the high end Intel CPUs, have about a 250watt TDP, while Intel is about 100. The TDP of the AMD CPU is greater than my CPU and GPU put together, and my CPU is about the same in performance.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

So wait, you're concerned with having a free and open operating system and drivers, yet you run Steam?

There's a difference between a driver that runs in kernel space and is needed for running the graphical UI and some software that can be caged by running it as a different user and is used only for entertainment.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

No there isn't. Either you support software freedom or you don't.

Re:Nothing new

[hairyfeet]

Because if you have ever bothered going to the forums you find a LOT of Linux users are 1.- Dumpster divers, so the only license they have is now EOLed XP, or 2.- Owners of "Tigerdirect specials" kits which all come without an OS. I've spent some time on most of the major Linux forums and I guesstimate only around 25% are actually "Followers of RMS" that have the money to buy whatever they want but choose to run Linux on GNUgrounds.

Why do you think it seems like a good quarter of the Linux articles on everything from websites to YouTube are all based around a theme of "save that old junker using Linux"? Its because a lot of the users of Linux are there for free as in beer and are too afraid to go hit up TPB for the pirate edition of Windows and use it as their OS. Mark my words the numbers will start dropping when Win 10 comes out, since they can just grab TPB version of Win 7 and immediately upgrade to Win 10 for nothing.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

made in the last 10 years

always continue to work

Nope, I don't see any paradoxes in that statement, carry on...

Re:Nothing new

[hairyfeet]

Now that the FOSSies aren't crapping their panties to mod me down for pointing out their emperor is bare assed I thought you might be interested to know that its NOT a "whistle the other way" deal, its very strict cross licensing. For example AMD has already stated that if you use the free drivers, which they hope to have take over from the proprietary ones? Yeah no HDMI for you EVAR! The reason why is their HDMI is connected to HDCP and HDCP is not AMD's, its Intel's. Since Intel builds non performance (read crappy) GPUs they make their HDCP a separate chip so can hand out their HDMI specs, AMD bakes theirs into the GPU proper so if they were to release the HDMI they would be giving away the HDCP code as well which they obviously cannot do.

But of course that don't change the fact that despite the FOSSie faction, and note there is a reason there are FOSSies and FOSS advocates, one is full of shit religious hypocrites, the other not, claiming they are all about GNU and "free as in freedom" the very second that "freedum" equals less performance? Their much vaunted love of GPL goes right down the shitter.

On linux you don't get what you pay for.

[Anonymous Coward]

Years and years and years later, you buy this card, and it is still slow.
What did you pay for? Linux is trash now. Systemd bullshit and all. Slow as fuck out of the box, and making it so you can't rip the trash out anymore or disable all the shit easily with rcconf.

Anyway...

Should sexist opensource developers have their projects censored or removed?

Recently an opensource game release story was removed due to the game developer's open sexism(0) and harrasment(1) of women in tech.

A story posted by the editor of the popular Phoronix linux news site about a release of an Open Source videogame was later manually removed(2). The reason cited was the game developer's unacceptable views on social issues such as gender equality (3).

The release story was titled "Xonotic-Forked ChaosEsqueAnthology Sees New Release - Phoronix" and can be accessed via the google cache(4).

With the recent inclusion of a code of conduct(5) for those wishing to contribute to the Linux Kernel some questions now need to be asked and answered about the inclusion of code from people who are known to engage in or promote socially unacceptable attitudes or harrasments of those whom the free-software movement would prefer to attract in their place:

* Are the social or political views of an author of free software relevant to that software's inherent quality?
* Should the beliefs of an opensource developer weigh when when evaluating whether a piece of opensource software is worthy of any publicity or public notice?
* Should men with unpopular or "forbidden" views be excised from the opensource movement and "not allowed" to contribute, in a manner similar to that which is done in employment?
* Has the free/opensource software movement changed in these respects since its founding? If so is this a positive change?
* Should there be gatekeepers to opensource that decide who may and who may not contribute. Should abusive developers be "blackballed" to maintain proper social order and controls?

and

* What are the consequences of not doing this

Citations:
(0) Past related incident: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=1310
(1) http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/...
(2) Removed story URL: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...
(3) http://www.phoronix.com/forums...
"Fortunately, the article has been removed now."
"Thanks everybody for speaking up."
(4) https://webcache.googleusercon...
(5) Linux "Code of Conflict"

Too but it bluntly

[hooiberg]

Gaming on Linux is done with NVIDIA.

Re:Too but it bluntly

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

AMD's drivers are horrible, on windows you're not as likely to BSOD (though if you've ever used a firepro with 4-6 monitors, it happens weekly...), however on linux... you can panic the kernel from userland with both OpenGL and OpenCL - THIS SHOULD NEVER BE POSSIBLE.

I can only imagine what kind of field day a black hat would have if it were remotely worth their time to attack gamers PCs.

Re:Too but it bluntly

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a miracle you spelled "it" right. bluntly is a freebie, for the obvious reason.

Re:Too but it bluntly

[sharpneli]

Not just gaming but GPGPU. It's really popular to stick NVidia compute cards (which are pretty much just their GPU's) into a Linux cluster. AMD tries to offer similar lineup with their FirePro server cards but in practice they're insanely annoying to use, and nowhere near as fast as what NV is offering mostly due to driver issues. As an example: They only recently released drivers that allow you to use OpenCL on them without having X running. NVidia has offered same feature for years and years.

Re:Too but it bluntly

[hooiberg]

And then, a Hello World in CUDA is about eight lines. A Hello World in OpenCL is three pages.

Re:Too but it bluntly

[Wootery]

This is true, though I suspect it's not as bad if you use the C++ wrapper. More importantly, CUDA's tooling is far superior. But it's still Nvidia-only.

Re:Too but it bluntly

[Bigbutt]

Pair of AMD 4870's with four monitors would blue screen on start up almost daily.

[John]

Re:Too but it bluntly

[hooiberg]

Indeed. But in defense of OpenCL, These three pages are mostly initialisation stuff. Once you have that done, the remainder of the code is similar in length to the length it would have were it written in CUDA.

What's REALLY interesting is

[Anonymous Coward]

Playing the same game on Linux and Windows.

More games are turning up on Steam with a Linux port, frame rate may or may not be higher but the controls are far more responsive under Linux making the same games just nicer to play on Linux.

Re:What's REALLY interesting is

[ledow]

They may be playing the same game, but the problem is that the code might be vastly optimised towards one platform. Chances are they didn't spend nearly as much time optimising for Linux as they did for Windows, even if they DID port it over. This is not a fair comparison by any means.

Past that, Linux having "far more responsive" controls - again, I'd like to see a fair comparison (and, personally, how the hell you'd tell the difference past a certain point anyway - unless it "feels" unresponsive on one platform, I don't see how it can "feel" more responsive on another.

Re:What's REALLY interesting is

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he has vsync enabled on Windows and disabled on Linux and/or maybe Windows version is running in "windowed full screen" and buffering its output instead of displaying the pixels directly, which would effectively add at least one extra frame of lag versus the Linux version.

Re:What's REALLY interesting is

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw a speech of one of the guys who make Linux/OS X ports for games on how he proceeds with that.

First replace DirectX with SDL and replace Direct3D with OpenGL but keep running on the Windows platform. Often this already improves performance according to him.

Then you go and try to compile it on Linux, replace all functions that won't compile with stubs (Just log a message but keep going).

Then fix all the stubs.

Re: What's REALLY interesting is

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux Games do not run better on brand X Linux distro than Windows. I've heard this claim time and again and I've yet to see the proof and yes I've tried it.

Re:What's REALLY interesting is

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like complete Bullshit, think a citation is needed. At best Direct X and OpenGL are neck and neck for performance when using latest Direct X/OpenGL, in quite a lot of areas though Direct X is a significant leader and if anything is sadly looking to pull a long way ahead of OpenGL (at least temporarily) with Direct X 12.

Re:What's REALLY interesting is

[AntiSol]

I'd like to see a fair comparison

here you go

Re:What's REALLY interesting is

[Wootery]

Sounds like the approach Valve took when porting Source.

Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

But who games on Linux?

That's like hacking code on a smartphone. Sure it can be done... but why would anyone do so?

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

But who games on Linux?

That is rather what I was thinking...

If you're serious about playing games, you run Windows... or you should... far fewer headaches and just a better overall experience...

Trying to get stuff to run where it wasn't meant to is just a PITA...

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[inasity_rules]

This is changing. Rather fast. I have 50 Linux games on steam, and all run fine on my 4 year old Core i5 and AMD 6630M laptop. Sure detail levels aren't great, but they aren't bad either. I get 40+fps on war thunder. Still downloading bioshock.

Surprisingly I have yet to have an issue running any of these games. I'm not running Ubuntu (or other debian based), so I expected issues. I am going to experiment with my desktop later when I get time to put a modern linux distro on.

Gaming on Linux is looking good actually.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

Gaming on Linux is looking good actually.

I suppose that depends on what you want out of it, and your point of view...

I have over 2,000 games on Steam, the vast majority of which will NEVER get a Linux version...

Some of my computers currently run Windows 7, some run 8.1... All will get a free upgrade to Windows 10...

When games start to come out ONLY for Linux, let me know... until then, what exactly is the point?

---

Don't misunderstand me, I get the value of Linux for servers, but I just don't see a use for it for desktop machines, other than perhaps to keep Microsoft on their toes. Beyond that, it strikes me as quite useless for desktops, other than for geeks to feel superior for some reason.

Windows was a mess 20 years ago, today? It just works... (hey, isn't that Apple's line?)

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, no one would ever play games on Linux. That is why it was a complete waste of resources for Valve to port Steam to Linux.
Clearly the people at Valve lacks market knowledge and technical competence.
Had they only listened to you then they could have saved all that time and money.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

I thought about my last reply...

I wanted to add one more thing... It seems that the primary reason for most people to run Linux is because "it isn't Windows"...

This doesn't strike me as enough of a reason for it to go anywhere. You and I post on Slashdot, so we don't count. The average person uses Windows, has for most of their computer life, and sees no reason to change.

The only other visible option is the Mac with OS X, and I think some people do look at that, until they see the price and then they run away.

---

So I guess the question is... other than "It isn't Windows", what reason does John and Jane Q. Public have to even think about Linux?

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[inasity_rules]

The point? I don't know there is one precisely. I game on linux because it is my preferred platform. I have been using it for so long now I actually have a ls.bat file on my windows machine somewhere.

Linux is fairly useful on the desktop. I did my entire honours project some years ago under linux (including PCB/circuit design and embedded code). In general, I have found it to 'just work' in modern times, unless you are doing something exotic. Beyond that I would love to see it used more in industry. It would be much easier to manage a SCADA under linux, where the bastard operator from hell can't plug in a usb stick with 1002 viruses and I can ssh in to troubleshoot coms problems. Yeah you can disable USB storage under windows too, but it is a PITA.

I am not saying the average user should be running linux (though I suppose we can see how Steam machines do), but it is rather nice to be able to start up a game at home without having to reboot.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[hufter]

Like who uses Linux anyhow? People who don't like Windows. People who don't have windows installed. People who do other stuff on Linux and don't want to reboot to play end reboot again to do work...

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

The point? I don't know there is one precisely. I game on linux because it is my preferred platform. I have been using it for so long now I actually have a ls.bat file on my windows machine somewhere.

Fair enough... but I imagine you are aware you're in the extreme minority... perhaps these stories are popular because this is Slashdot, or perhaps techheads in general (of which I am one) like to have their "special stuff".

Why is Linux your preferred platform I guess is the question. What does Linux in 2015 do that Windows does not? Maybe it does something for you (and if so, great!).

I've played with Linux over the years, first installed it in 1994, and in later years since... but never used it as my primary desktop OS.

---

Why? Because at the end of the day, I can go onto NewEgg and buy anything and it will work on Windows. Linux? I'd have to check first. Sure, lots of it will work, but will that deal on the $100 inkjet printer work? Maybe, but so many of those printers really need Windows.

Software? I can buy and download just about anything. Everything has a Windows version, I don't have to think about it.

This is the same reason I don't drive a diesel truck... Too many places don't have the fuel in the cities. If every station was required to have it, I'd probably drive one (and the auto makers would probably sell more of them).

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[ledow]

The people beta-testing SteamOS or the Steam hardware? Steam basically ran a competition over Christmas part of which involved early access to the hardware.

Beyond that, who wouldn't? Indie gamers have a vast wealth of software at their disposal that'll run on any old machine that they haven't got a Windows licence for. It's literally the "thorw this in the kid's bedroom" kind of hardware and you can play an awful lot of games. Turn on big picture mode or go as far as putting the SteamOS iso in the drive and you have a self-contained gaming platform that you don't need to manage for them.

1/3rd of my Steam library is available on Linux. It's far from what it used to be. I could keep a kid/teenager entertained for YEARS with what I have on Linux.

And then include family sharing, streaming, etc. and they can play all those games while I am.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[hooiberg]

That all depends on the graphics you use. I run many games on my 6 year old i7 920, with an equally old NVIDIA GTX 265. The card is old, but for the games I like, it is more than sufficient. It all depends on how much 3D stuff you want to use.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm tired of Windows :-) And I don't want to pay a license to be able to use my hardware.

Linux has many problems, but it is improving, and the flux of gamers is causing changes. It will adapt to the needs of the user base, and that base is changing.

Also, I also develop, not only play, and development on Linux is super easy to set up.

That said, my media center/big view machine in the living room is on Windows, because most games are for Windows currently. Could be nice to change to Linux too, but it's okay. I got that license for free from Microsoft anyway, when studying CS. (And it'll upgrade to Win 10 on it when it comes)

My desktops however are fine with Linux, and I can always stream to them from the living room machine if I have to. In the future, I'm putting some Raspberry Pi's to my other TV's, and just share through them, for the steam machine on every TV :-)

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, this is just bullshit. I've never had to check for HW support under Linux for years, everything simply worked out of box. It's a much better experience than under Windows.

The same thing about software. I can download any software I need even without googling for it or paying.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[inasity_rules]

These things are about momentum. Diesel is really common here (my boss drives a diesel hatchback, and gets incredible km/l). Every filling station here stocks diesel. Is it a better technology? Maybe... It is really expensive to fix when it breaks. So it is in a way a really good analogy for Linux. In the some places (the USA), everyone only uses it for servers (big haulage trucks) but in other places it gets used everywhere.

There are pros and cons to every OS. Linux is my preferred platform because I am familiar with it, and I like the interface. I have not delusions of superiority. I have had good experiences with hardware support, and apart from printers (I do not own one, so it is a non-issue for me), I have not worried about linux support for hardware since around 2005. Also, a lot of hardware seems to work better: 3g modems for example - they don't require me to install the operators bs bloatware to use under linux. They just work...

I think the point here, is someone is making an effort to build diesel filling stations. You can still get petrol and it will never go away, but you now have options, and each has pros and cons. I like diesel. It has really good torque. Modern diesels have come a long way in terms of reliability (early diesels were terrible). They aren't perfect, but they do the job.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[sg_oneill]

You can probably thank apple for this, to some extent. The growing popularity of the Mac has meant that porting there has become viable and this means fairly generic C++ with Open GL and unixy OS expectations. From there to linux is really just a change of compiler flags.

Well, that and steam.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Kjella]

I wanted to add one more thing... It seems that the primary reason for most people to run Linux is because "it isn't Windows"...

I think you're confusing cause and effect, people ask why you don't use Windows and the answer is because you want to use something other than Windows. Particularly when the person you're talking to doesn't feel the same things chafing, maybe even though it works for you it doesn't work for me and it's not just about "being different" but that we have different needs or priorities. Just like every graphics tool discussion usually ends up with why you don't use Photoshop. It's the way of things when one tool has ~90% market share.

This doesn't strike me as enough of a reason for it to go anywhere. You and I post on Slashdot, so we don't count. The average person uses Windows, has for most of their computer life, and sees no reason to change.

The "average person" also used Internet Explorer when it had 95% market share and was really slow at seeking alternatives. Because IE6 worked because sites had to work in IE6, the mainstream only follows once a significant portion of early adopters have led the way. Not that Linux has too many trendsetters, we're "experts" but soccer moms don't take car advice from race car drivers. They want to know what works for a soccer mom.

Market share is a battle won one step at the time. Either you double 1% to 2% and get a few more to care or you halve to 0.5% and a few less care. That the 90%+ didn't care and still don't care is something that might change if you get the pebble rolling into a landslide, but if the pebble's stuck you're stuck. It's not about making Linux a killer gaming platform, it's about making gaming not be a Linux-killer. If that makes it viable for another 1%, you're making progress.

So I guess the question is... other than "It isn't Windows", what reason does John and Jane Q. Public have to even think about Linux?

Still not much, I must admit I thought Linux would be different after playing with it for 15+ years. On the other hand, it hasn't faded away into obscurity. It does get significantly easier and better to use, but so does the competition. And times change, it almost had it once when we had wired desktops plugged in the wall. Then mobile came and sleep modes and power management matters. Wired went Wireless and Bluetooth and so on. And now recently touch is the new hype. I think when it's more like a car, where a car from ten years ago is very much the same that Linux will catch up. It's morphing too much.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Linux in 2015 do that Windows does not?

Hard to say. I've never managed to get Windows to do what I expected. Typically it hides functions behind "user friendly" expressions and settings that can't be tweaked individually without finding the keys in the register.
Getting Windows 7 to function properly was a nightmare that required a lot of Googling just to figure out what different network settings actually meant.

I find it very hard to answer your questions since it's so hard to tell what Windows actually does these days.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, I play games maybe once or twice a week, and I use Linux for all my work and hobby related things, so I do *not* want to reboot into Windows every time I want to relax a bit.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

In short: few people. It is worth to spend resources catering to those? Hmm... no. That may change with the advent of the steam machines... but again it may not. I'm certainly not paying $999 for a crippled steam OS computer, and even if I do, why limit myself to a rather poor platform? There is no benefit to me whatsoever, so my first step would be to install windows and run ALL my games instead of the few ported.

Besides, lots of those relatively few people who don't like windows do it for philosophical rather than technical reasons (open, free software), and I seriously doubt that the most evangelist amongst them will be willing to pay for anything at all, so again: why cater to them?

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

euro fag detected

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[inasity_rules]

Nice troll. But inaccurate on both counts:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w...

I could be in any part of the green area. Try again.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[loufoque]

I mostly play games on emulators nowadays, and they run fine on Linux.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[loufoque]

Why do you think people want games on Linux? It's because rebooting to Windows is tedious.
Linux is the better desktop and working environment, so it is what you use when you don't play games. Having your desktop be an alt-tab away is convenient to quickly switch between gaming and other things.

Now why isn't the demand for games on Linux higher? Because most people who use Linux are professionals, and they don't spend that much of their time on the computer playing games, so when they need to, suffering the reboot is ok.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[CronoCloud]

If you're serious about playing games, you run Windows... or you should... far fewer headaches and just a better overall experience...

My PS4 would like to have a word with you about that "should run Windows" bit.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

What is crippled about SteamOS? It's just vanilla Debian underneath, a Real OS if there ever was one. You could even dual boot Windows if you feel so inclined. Nobody is stopping you. Not that Microsoft isn't known to lock OS features behind pay gates. Or neuter functionality to suit business partners. Or withhold major licences to encourage console sales. No, Microsoft would never cripple their OS!

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

But who games on Linux?

Me, for one.

but why would anyone do so?

1. Because I find the windows user interace utterly abhorrent. Like really really horribly terribly godawful. It makes me want to sacrifice kittens to dark gods.
2. Because I have better things to do with my disk space than waste an entire partition on what is essentially a launcher for games.
2a. Because even if I didn't have better things to do with my disk space than have an entire partition just for games, I would find managing said partition very annoying - I'd be constantly resizing it so that I could fit more games, or maybe even buying an entire disk just for games.
3. Because I find rebooting just to play a game very inconvenient, so much so that when I did have a windows partition for games, I rarely ever bothered playing games.
4. Did I mention that I find the windows user interface to be completely, utterly, totally terribly horrible in every respect? I mean it's really, really awful. Just try using something with a semi-decent, fast, configurable user interface (xfce, for example) for 10 years and then going back to that slow, unconfigurable throwback of a UI... you'll start to understand why people take high-powered rifles up to clock towers. Not to mention the hideously slow start up times and the times it just sits there doing god-knows-what while you're sitting there wondering WTF. And of course there's no way to actually find out what it's doing, because system monitor reports that it's using zero percent of its CPU while the disk spins away crazily and the system is completely unresponsive.
5. Windows doesn't support my gamepad anymore - the latest drivers released by the manufacturer were for windows XP. It "just works" in every linux game I've ever tried (except for the silly ones that only support an xbox controller).
6. Windows is slow.
7. Windows is huge and bloated.
8. Windows costs money.

I hope this has been an enlightening experience. :)

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

If you're serious about playing games, you run Windows... or you should... far fewer headaches and just a better overall experience...

Some people like to play games but aren't "serious about games".
Some people find windows to be a far, far, far worse experience with far far more headaches. To such an extent that if a game is only available for windows then playing it is not worth the headache. I'd really like to play the newer GTA games - But do I want to play them enough to endure installing windows? No way. I'll just find other interesting games to play.

Trying to get stuff to run where it wasn't meant to is just a PITA...

Oh, I know! The PITA involved in getting Bioshock Infinite running was just terrible! it was such rigmarole! First, I had to start Steam, then I had to click 'Install', then I had to actually wait while it downloaded (sheesh!), then I had to click "Play", then "New Game". It was such a chore! And don't even get me started on the horror of transferring my Half-Life savegames from windows to Linux - I had to wait until it stopped saying "syncing steam cloud" - such a headache!

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

I have over 2,000 games on Steam

Not to be judgemental, but it sounds to me like you're wasting your life.

what exactly is the point?

Not installing windows.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[drinkypoo]

Every filling station here stocks diesel. Is it a better technology? Maybe... It is really expensive to fix when it breaks.

Since shooting holes in automotive analogies is a hobby, I should point out here that the modern TGDI engines (turbocharged gasoline direct injection) have all the same parts as a diesel, and as such they cost just as much to maintain. However, they also give similar efficiency (they'll continue to improve for some time yet) while not requiring such a heavy engine block*. These engines tend to be slightly less high-revving, and turbocharging lends itself to producing mid-range power, so the benefits of diesels are largely being eliminated — especially since many of them have problems running over 10-20% biodiesel.

* Subaru has a diesel with opposed cylinders and a lightweight block, but they're fairly anemic so far.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

or perhaps techheads in general like to have their "special stuff".

When Windows 8 came out, I had 3 very nontechnical friends who found themselves "upgraded" to an interface which was completely foreign and confusing to them. They called me and said that their computers had "gone weird" on them. My solution was to put an xubuntu livecd into their drives and let them play with it for a bit. All 3 of them said that they preferred it because it "made more sense" and was "more like it used to be", all 3 agreed that I should wipe the windows partition and install xubuntu. All 3 are still using it.

(of which I am one)

LOL. A gamer is not a "techhead".

buy anything and it will work on Windows. Linux? I'd have to check first

Go buy a Packard Bell FastMedia Remote control and then come talk to me. You'll find it's simply impossible to use in anything newer than Windows me due to the WinNT line not allowing direct access to serial ports. Mine still works brilliantly in linux.

I literally can't remember the last time I plugged something into a linux machine and it didn't just work. It might have been around 2007, but I suspect it was more like 2003. And I get my hands on weird and wonderfully exotic hardware every now and then.

What does Linux in 2015 do that Windows does not?

Just a couple off the top of my head:

1. Shows you what it's doing when it's busy (assuming you bother to ask)
2. Mounts mounting volumes in virtually every filesystem ever invented
3. Supports loopback mounting (i.e mount an iso [or any disk image] without thirdparty software)
4. Supports more than 25 attached disks.
5. Boots into a live, usable environment from a USB stick or DVD
6. Has a themeable, customisable interface
7. Supports MUCH MUCH more hardware
8. Runs on ARM devices
9. Runs on a Space Station
10. Serves up most of the web's traffic
11. Provides virtually all of the world's supercomputing
12. Has tens of thousands of high-quality applications available for free and about 3 clicks away from being installed
13. Provides free, 1-click updates
14. Doesn't have any arbitrary limitations imposed based on how much you spent on it.
15. Doesn't need a virus scanner
16. Doesn't suck ass

Have you ever even used Linux? If you tried Red Hat 5.0 back in 1998, it's probably time you took another look. In 2015, it's superior to windows in every respect except one: available proprietary software. And that's changing.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

Good answer!

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

How much are Microsoft paying you to post on slashdot?

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

Clearly if it ran windows if would be a PS5.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam DRM. If Valve ever goes under or a rights holder rescinds Valve's rights to distribute a game or Valve simply decides they don't want to support a game any more, then you're SOL. Steam and Valve are the epitome of anti-open, anti-free, anti-choice and anti-Linux.

With gog.com, I don't need a worthless, resource hoarding, spyware client to be installed, constantly running and phoning home. I just pay, download through my browser and play. I can also make all of the backups I want, knowing that I will always have the ability to play my games in the future, regardless of what happens to gog.com or rights holders.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to take the wind out of your sails, but:

3: Supported in Windows since at least 8. ISO and VHDI images only, but still.
5: Windows-to-Go.
8: Windows 8 onwards has ARM versions, with Windows 10 attempting to unify mobile devices as well.
12: Windows app store. 'Quality' is subjective, admittedly, but the provision is made.
13: Microsoft update & Windows App Store.
15: If properly configured, neither does Windows. Security is not that simple.
16: That's an opinion, not a function.

Linux can be adapted to serve a vast array of niches which makes either it or BSD the only choice for a lot of applications, but it demands a far higher degree of user skill and knowledge to use. That could equip them better to deal with any quirks, flaws, and problems they later encounter, but dismissing the majority that can't get over that hurdle as 'Lusers' is common to Linux as well.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[inasity_rules]

This has not been my experience, though that is anecdotal. Perhaps because people tend to drive TGDI vehicles harder than diesels. In any case, do you have a reference for this?

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

Linux is the better desktop and working environment

It is? Citation?

I fully get that market share doesn't always call out the better product, sometimes inferior products succeed while the better one fails... but Windows more or less owns the desktop market. Even OS X has multiple times more market share than Linux does.

---

I keep hearing people say "Linux is better", but I don't see any specific reasons. The impression I get is that "Linux is better because it isn't Windows". Frankly, that is not a reason, it is an opinion, which is fine, but it is like saying Chocolate Ice Cream is better than Vanilla Ice Cream.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

Some people like to play games but aren't "serious about games".

Yes, and that is fine, if you just want to pick from the handful of games with proper Linux ports, I'm sure they work well enough...

But if you are, then Windows it is...

Some people find windows to be a far, far, far worse experience with far far more headaches.

Again, everyone keeps saying this stuff without providing any examples. "Linux is better, Windows sucks".

Those aren't reasons, those are opinions and personal tastes. What exactly does Windows "suck at"?

Oh, I know! The PITA involved in getting Bioshock Infinite running was just terrible! it was such rigmarole!

The fanboy in you is showing... I said getting stuff to run where it wasn't meant to... Get GTA to run on Linux and get back to me... THAT wasn't meant to, BS:I clearly was...

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

Not to be judgemental, but it sounds to me like you're wasting your life.

I like supporting indie developers and I buy almost every Humble Bundle for charity reasons...

The majority of those games will never be played, but the collection does grow...

Not installing windows.

Got it, so it is an "Anything but Windows" mindset...

You know, "Windows Sucks" doesn't translate into "Linux is great". The 1.5% Linux desktop marketshare would seem to indicate that is a true statement.

I suppose my interest is to simply hear why Linux on the desktop is so great, but instead I keep hearing "It isn't Windows".

Why the hate on Windows?

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

When Windows 8 came out, I had 3 very nontechnical friends who found themselves "upgraded" to an interface which was completely foreign and confusing to them. They called me and said that their computers had "gone weird" on them. My solution was to put an xubuntu livecd into their drives and let them play with it for a bit. All 3 of them said that they preferred it because it "made more sense" and was "more like it used to be", all 3 agreed that I should wipe the windows partition and install xubuntu. All 3 are still using it.

Many people use their computer as nothing more than an Internet and e-mail machine, and in that respect, it largely doesn't matter what OS they run.

Many of these people are moving to tablets as they discover they don't really want or need a computer.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

Just a couple off the top of my head:

1. Shows you what it's doing when it's busy (assuming you bother to ask)
2. Mounts mounting volumes in virtually every filesystem ever invented
3. Supports loopback mounting (i.e mount an iso [or any disk image] without thirdparty software)
4. Supports more than 25 attached disks.
5. Boots into a live, usable environment from a USB stick or DVD
6. Has a themeable, customisable interface
7. Supports MUCH MUCH more hardware
8. Runs on ARM devices
9. Runs on a Space Station
10. Serves up most of the web's traffic
11. Provides virtually all of the world's supercomputing
12. Has tens of thousands of high-quality applications available for free and about 3 clicks away from being installed
13. Provides free, 1-click updates
14. Doesn't have any arbitrary limitations imposed based on how much you spent on it.
15. Doesn't need a virus scanner
16. Doesn't suck ass

Have you ever even used Linux? If you tried Red Hat 5.0 back in 1998, it's probably time you took another look. In 2015, it's superior to windows in every respect except one: available proprietary software. And that's changing.

Lord... that is a nerd's wet dream to be sure... 99% of the consumer market couldn't care less about that list... #16 betrays your feelings, I have found that most of the die hard Linux supports are really Windows haters who can't afford OS X.

Linux works fine, I am well aware of this, but working fine isn't enough... Get back to me when Adobe Photoshop, MS Office, TurboTax, Quickbooks, etc. have native Linux versions.

People do not buy computers and run OSes for their own sake, they do it to run their programs and actually do stuff.

Windows does this, Linux does not. GIMP and OpenOffice are not substitutes for Photoshop and MS Office, no matter how much you want them to be.

https://thefearlesspenguin.wor...

^ That is a perfect example of why Linux is a PITA for the average consumer and Windows is not.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

I think you're confusing cause and effect, people ask why you don't use Windows and the answer is because you want to use something other than Windows.

I bring up that point for the simple reason that I do not believe that most people actually care what OS is on their computer.

People just want to know that it works and that it runs the programs they want to run.

On my work machine, I have many programs installed that have no Linux version. It would be a PITA to try and change. I simply must have MS Office, Acrobat (full version, not reader), Photoshop, Quickbooks, etc.

Try doing your taxes on Linux. It can be done, but it is again a PITA.

https://thefearlesspenguin.wor...

^ Yes, the web based versions can be "made to work", but that is a lot of hassle for your average consumer. Why not just run Windows and then it all just works?

---

TL;DR - The challenge for Linux is not technical, it has been "good enough" for a long time now. The challenge is a lack of a reason for Joe Consumer to run it or care, programs that people want to run don't come in Linux versions, it doesn't have any marketing support, etc.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

The "average person" also used Internet Explorer when it had 95% market share and was really slow at seeking alternatives. Because IE6 worked because sites had to work in IE6, the mainstream only follows once a significant portion of early adopters have led the way. Not that Linux has too many trendsetters, we're "experts" but soccer moms don't take car advice from race car drivers. They want to know what works for a soccer mom.

Changing web browsers is not remotely the same thing as changing OSes. :)

Google got a lot of people to move to Chrome simply due to offering free e-mail that didn't suck (see: Hotmail) and offering great search. Without those two, Chrome would be a foot note.

Netscape was the browser of choice, but frankly it stopped being great at version 3. 4 was bloated and slow, IE was fast.

---

The mistake in thinking that the same thing will happen to Linux is that when you install Linux, your current programs no longer run. When you put a new web browser on your computer, your old one still works, your current programs still work.

This idea that Linux is a growing trend has been talked about for 20 years. Linux has about the same market share it had 10 years ago, which is to say almost none. The "Year of the Linux Desktop" has been just around the corner for a long time now.

Frankly, I don't think it is ever coming. The reasons are not technical, Linux is just fine in that dept. But being technically good isn't enough of a reason.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

Market share is a battle won one step at the time. Either you double 1% to 2% and get a few more to care or you halve to 0.5% and a few less care. That the 90%+ didn't care and still don't care is something that might change if you get the pebble rolling into a landslide, but if the pebble's stuck you're stuck. It's not about making Linux a killer gaming platform, it's about making gaming not be a Linux-killer. If that makes it viable for another 1%, you're making progress.

With respect, I've heard that before... :) Back around 2001, the "Year of the Linux Desktop" was just around the corner.

Here we are, 14 years later...

The reasons Linux never took off on the desktop have nothing to do with technical issues, they are marketing and business issues.

Companies like Dell have tried selling computers with Linux on them, they stopped because it was more trouble than it was worth, the return rate on them was several times higher due to customers expecting to be able to run all their software on them.

Windows has such an installed base at this point, it would be very hard for anything to replace it. That installed base doesn't carry over into other markets which is why Windows Phone has gone nowhere.

---

At the end of the day, perhaps the biggest problem Linux has is that even if somehow magically every game on Steam had a perfect Linux version, if MS was somehow convinced to write MS Office for Linux, etc... I STILL don't see a reason to switch.

Maybe if Windows 10 was going to cost $100 per machine to upgrade, then sure, I'd take a look. Win 10 is free, so I sure as heck don't care.

Being different isn't a reason to change, it has to offer me something I don't currently have. I skipped Vista because it was a mess at launch and XP worked fine. I moved to Windows 7 because it was time for a 64-bit OS and it had all the kinks worked out of it. I skipped 8 because it had the same problems as Vista, but frankly 8.1 fixed most of those and I run in on several machines. The only reason my main desktop doesn't run it is 10 is so close, I don't want to make that change twice, it is a waste of my time.

---

TL;DR - So why should I go to Linux? What does it run that Windows doesn't? What will it do for me on my small 6 computer home network that Windows doesn't?

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

My PS4 would like to have a word with you about that "should run Windows" bit.

On the desktop, and you know it...

People don't care what OS their computers run. PS4 runs whatever it has to run to play games. Their desktop computer runs Windows because that is what runs Office, TurboTax, games, etc.

Linux largely does not. And the bigger issue? Linux doesn't have anything that ONLY runs on Linux.

If Half Life 3 came out and ONLY ran on Linux, you might get a few more people interested, but that would be a pretty stupid move on Valve's part, IMHO, from a sales point of view.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Fishchip]

I'm in the same position with my 7-year-old ThinkPad T61p (Quadro FX570M). To tie this back into drivers and complaining about nVidia's recent driver screwups, the latest drivers that work with the 8600GT actually accept the Quadro as a valid card and outperform the latest Quadro drivers. (Thank god I figured that out, I was getting sick of 60% fps drops every twenty seconds regardless of what I was playing.)

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[loufoque]

It is from a technical point of view.
Marketing is something else entirely.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[CronoCloud]

On the desktop, and you know it...

People don't care what OS their computers run.

True.

PS4 runs whatever it has to run to play games.

BSD

Their desktop computer runs Windows because that is what runs Office, TurboTax, games, etc.

Who needs Windows to run a word processor? Who needs Windows to run TurboTax when the preparation companies own web based products work just fine in almost any web browser? Who needs Windows for games when there's a BSD running PS4?

I don't need Windows:

[CronoCloud@ ~]$ uname -a
Linux 3.19.1-201.fc21.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Mar 18 04:29:24 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
[CronoCloud@ ~]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Fedora release 21 (Twenty One)

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

Who needs Windows to run a word processor? Who needs Windows to run TurboTax when the preparation companies own web based products work just fine in almost any web browser? Who needs Windows for games when there's a BSD running PS4?

TurboTax via the web does work, but I still use the software program for various reasons. If you have a complex return (my return last year was 64 pages long), having it locally is easier to deal with. For simple returns, sure, use the web.

That being said, give it a try on Linux, it doesn't work without tricking it, since it is looking for a Windows or Mac based computer.

As for a word processor, not just any will do, it has to be MS Word. That is what the business world uses, if you do anything more than type simple notes, it needs to be in Word. Google Docs is nice, OpenOffice is nice. I've used both, neither compare to Word.

I don't need Windows

No, you don't, but you don't need a computer either. :)

You also don't need Linux, OS X would be just fine as well.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

Fair enough, but neither of those is absolute when the term "better" is used.

Linux does have some technical things that it does better than Windows, but that doesn't make it a better OS.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[drinkypoo]

This has not been my experience, though that is anecdotal. Perhaps because people tend to drive TGDI vehicles harder than diesels. In any case, do you have a reference for this?

What do you mean, reference? Look at the mileage figures, since the last revamp they're almost good for something. The really small engines (2 liter and below) are returning exceptional mileage for their maximum output.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[deek]

So the majority of your Steam collection comes from Humble Bundles? Well, I have good news for you, then. The majority of Humble Bundles have Linux support! Certainly the majority of indie games in Humble Bundle. Check it out. You may be pleasantly surprised.

As for Windows, I don't mind it too much. It has its place. I use Linux as my home and work interface, because it suits the way I like to work. I use the Enlightenment window manager, as it is extremely customisable, allowing me to tweak it to exactly how I like. Microsoft generally have a different mind set. They want you to work the way they deem the "right" way. So in using Windows, I have to adapt my workflow to the Microsoft mindset, rather than be able to adapt my environment to my mindset. That's probably a good thing for most computer users, but it annoys me.

That, and when things go wrong, Windows can be a pain. It tends to want to hide details, whereas Linux is usually excellent in supplying all sorts of details on an issue. I manage both Windows and Linux servers, and from my experience, troubleshooting is much easier in the Linux environment. When both systems work, they both work well. When problems hit, I'd rather be on a Linux system.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[deek]

Actually, if it ran windows, it would be a PSVista .

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

Again, everyone keeps saying this stuff without providing any examples. "Linux is better, Windows sucks".

Those aren't reasons, those are opinions and personal tastes.

And you saying that windows is good isn't an opinion or a personal taste?

Personally, my opinion and personal taste is for an interface that is fast and configurable and doesn't hide useful information in the name of being "user friendly". IMHO when an interface makes the assumption that I'm a moron and that I don't want to see what it is doing with my processor is a bad interface. A concrete example of this is the amount of information provided by the windows task manager vs something like top.

Another example, windows makes the assumption that I'm too stupid to know about the maximise button and helpfully maximises the window when I drag it to the top of the screen. Because there's no way I could possibly want a small window at the top of the screen. This infuriates me constantly (well, not constantly, "on the rare occasions I'm forced to do something on a windows machine").

I adore the configurability of thunar/xfce's context menus - I have a bunch of custom actions available on different types of files, such as a "Play ISO as DVD" option which appears for iso files. All added via thunar's neat 'configure custom actions' GUI, no messing about with the registry or playing with arcane configuration files or hoping that the coder who wrote my DVD playing software chose to create an association for iso files.

Then there's the godawful command line interface in windows. It lacks so many features it's not even funny. Tabs - what are they? Hell, you can't even press the 'up' key to get access to commands from your previous session (i.e across reboots).

Or we could talk about configuring a webserver. That's a particularly fun one. For me, setting up an enterprise-grade web server requires me to type something like 'apt-get install apache2', then spending about 1 minute editing configuration to enable the site I want. For you, it involves purchasing the latest version of windows server, ensuring that you spent enough to have not run up against the arbitrary restrictions imposed on you ('number of simultaneous connections/users') and spending an hour and a half clicking through "wizards" which assume that you're too stupid to know what a webserver is (which is an interesting assumption, given that you've chosen to set up an enterprise-grade webserver). It's a similar situation for pretty much any other server software: "apt-get install postgresql" vs "purchase MSSQL, install MSSQL, configure MSSQL for an hour". Hell, the last time I used MSSQL it didn't even allow remote connections by default - "for security". Because apparently the idea of allowing remote connections except from the super user never occurred to anybody at microsoft.

I reiterate that these are all just off the top of my head - I haven't actually sat down and tried to create an exhaustive list, or anything. These are just a couple of big ones which immediately leap to mind. In reality the reasons Linux is better are the ten thousand little things that I just don't even notice anymore until they're not available on some other platform, when I start screaming.

The fanboy in you is showing

chortle.. Pot, kettle!

I said getting stuff to run where it wasn't meant to... Get GTA to run on Linux and get back to me... THAT wasn't meant to, BS:I clearly was...

So, by implication, since windows is so much better, it's easy to run systemd on windows then?

I actually have GTA3 running in Linux quite well, thank you very much. Also San Andreas and Vice City via my PS2 emulator - how does GTA3 run on the latest version of windows? Will it even install? I'd be surprised.

I also have all the SCUMM games, some of which run better than in their native environment (e.g Grim Fandango has mouse support). Not to mention my tens of

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

The majority of those games will never be played

Then why does it matter what operating systems they support?

Got it, so it is an "Anything but Windows" mindset...

No, actually. I chose Linux over both BSD and Mac OS because I prefer it. I might consider the latest AmigaOS if it didn't require exotic and expensive hardware, but that's because I'm an AmigaOS fanboy - I don't know how practical it would be in real life, and I suspect I'd need linux to get things done.

"Windows Sucks" doesn't translate into "Linux is great"

That's true, but you have things backwards again - "Linux is great" does translate to "Windows sucks".

I've used Linux exclusively for 10+ years, and I've come to rely on those 10,000 little things that make it great. And when those things are not available on windows, I scream in frustration.

The 1.5% Linux desktop marketshare would seem to indicate that is a true statement.

Or it could indicate that 98.5% of people are lazy, ignorant, or both.

my interest is to simply hear why Linux on the desktop is so great

See my other post, where I list a bunch of examples off the top of my head. There are many, many more.

instead I keep hearing "It isn't Windows".

I don't think you're really listening.

Why the hate on Windows?

There are many reasons, but the main one is probably because I find the interface really awful.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

99% of the consumer market couldn't care less about that list

You didn't specify things that 99% of people care about. Personally I couldn't care less what 99% of people want.

I have found that most of the die hard Linux supports are really Windows haters who can't afford OS X.

I think most of those people are using OS X at this point, though a couple of people I know use Linux on Mac hardware.

I think OS X is even worse than windows - that's a truly terrible UI and it makes the windows UI look almost good by comparison.

Get back to me when Adobe Photoshop, MS Office, TurboTax, Quickbooks, etc. have native Linux versions.

I actually prefer gimp over photoshop, because I'm used to it.
I actually prefer openoffice over MS Office, because I'm used to it and it has more features.
The other 2? Fair enough. But I don't use them or have any need to. If I did, I'd probably fire up wine or a VM (which I could snapshot and easily backup and do a bunch more than I could with a native windows install).

People do not buy computers and run OSes for their own sake, they do it to run their programs and actually do stuff. Windows does this, Linux does not.

Want an IDE?
On windows: go download Visual Studio express. Make sure you virus scan the exe. Run the installer. Click next 50 times while you go through the install wizard. Realise that the free version has no features. Go to microsoft.com and whip out your credit card. Download a full version. Make sure you virus scan the exe. Repeat the 'click next 50 times' rigmarole.

On linux: Open up the software centre, type 'eclipse' (or browse through the 'programming' category until you find one), click 'install', run eclipse. Don't like eclipse? try one of the other 50 IDEs via an almost identical process.

Want pretty much anything else? The process is much the same. I think you need to look at e.g ubuntu's software centre - it wasn't available in redhat 6, so you've probably missed it. You'll fall in love.

GIMP and OpenOffice are not substitutes for Photoshop and MS Office, no matter how much you want them to be.

You've obviously not used openoffice in the last 5+ years. And I've never found anything I couldn't do in gimp, though I will concede that I don't do image stuff all that often.

I'm not actually interested in what "people" buy computers for, I'm interested in what I want to do. No "average person" has ever laid a finger on any of my computers, and if they did they'd lose the finger. I'm not actually interested in what the market share is except insomuch as the higher the market share the more chance that there will be more awesome native proprietary software available, e.g games and your tax software. But there are other ways to encourage this too, which I actively pursue - things like paying way more than the average for humble bundles where all the games support linux, emailling people who do linux ports to say "You're awesome, I just bought it because you ported", and emailling people who you want to do ports and saying "If you port, I'll buy". If "people" want to use windows, then fine, that actually suits me perfectly because I get to say "oh, it's windows, I'm not helping you with that, go pay someone or sort it out yourself".

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

Many people use their computer as nothing more than an Internet and e-mail machine, and in that respect, it largely doesn't matter what OS they run.

Wait, what? I thought windows did everything better?!?

Many of these people are moving to linux-based tablets as they discover they don't really want or need a computer.

Fixed.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

he said "serious" everyone knows console gamers are only one step above the mobile phone pond scum.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

And you saying that windows is good isn't an opinion or a personal taste?

No, that isn't what I said or what other people are saying.

"Windows is better than Linux for the desktop for most people."

^ That is what I'm saying.

Why? It runs the programs that most people want to run, Linux does not.

It is not about technical abilities, it is about "does it run my software".

That is really what people care about. Linux is indeed "good" from a technical point of view. Linux is indeed "good" from a server point of view. Linux is NOT "good" for the average consumer's desktop computer.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

Personally, my opinion and personal taste is for an interface that is fast and configurable and doesn't hide useful information in the name of being "user friendly". IMHO when an interface makes the assumption that I'm a moron and that I don't want to see what it is doing with my processor is a bad interface. A concrete example of this is the amount of information provided by the windows task manager vs something like top.

Another example, windows makes the assumption that I'm too stupid to know about the maximise button and helpfully maximises the window when I drag it to the top of the screen. Because there's no way I could possibly want a small window at the top of the screen. This infuriates me constantly (well, not constantly, "on the rare occasions I'm forced to do something on a windows machine").

I adore the configurability of thunar/xfce's context menus - I have a bunch of custom actions available on different types of files, such as a "Play ISO as DVD" option which appears for iso files. All added via thunar's neat 'configure custom actions' GUI, no messing about with the registry or playing with arcane configuration files or hoping that the coder who wrote my DVD playing software chose to create an association for iso files.

Then there's the godawful command line interface in windows. It lacks so many features it's not even funny. Tabs - what are they? Hell, you can't even press the 'up' key to get access to commands from your previous session (i.e across reboots).

Or we could talk about configuring a webserver. That's a particularly fun one. For me, setting up an enterprise-grade web server requires me to type something like 'apt-get install apache2', then spending about 1 minute editing configuration to enable the site I want. For you, it involves purchasing the latest version of windows server, ensuring that you spent enough to have not run up against the arbitrary restrictions imposed on you ('number of simultaneous connections/users') and spending an hour and a half clicking through "wizards" which assume that you're too stupid to know what a webserver is (which is an interesting assumption, given that you've chosen to set up an enterprise-grade webserver). It's a similar situation for pretty much any other server software: "apt-get install postgresql" vs "purchase MSSQL, install MSSQL, configure MSSQL for an hour". Hell, the last time I used MSSQL it didn't even allow remote connections by default - "for security". Because apparently the idea of allowing remote connections except from the super user never occurred to anybody at microsoft.

I reiterate that these are all just off the top of my head - I haven't actually sat down and tried to create an exhaustive list, or anything. These are just a couple of big ones which immediately leap to mind. In reality the reasons Linux is better are the ten thousand little things that I just don't even notice anymore until they're not available on some other platform, when I start screaming.

None of those are reasons Linux is better on the desktop for the average consumer.

Linux has less than 2% desktop market share for a reason. That doesn't mean YOU can't like and use Linux, but don't confuse a techie's likes with the mass population.

If you like Linux, go ahead. Just don't have any delusions of grandeur that "The Year of the Linux Desktop" is near, because it isn't.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

I've used Linux exclusively for 10+ years, and I've come to rely on those 10,000 little things that make it great. And when those things are not available on windows, I scream in frustration.

Fair enough, but then frankly you don't really count.

Why? Because you've used it for 10 years and in case you haven't noticed, it's usage on the desktop has gone exactly nowhere.

I have no doubt there will continue to be people like you, 20 years from now. Nothing wrong with that, some people like to tinker with such things. But you'll always be in the vast minority.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

I'm not actually interested in what "people" buy computers for, I'm interested in what I want to do.

Good for you, but that isn't what is being discussed.

The original point is that Linux has "growing share" or "growing gaming share" or "more interest in Linux gaming", etc.

Which is a bunch of bantha dung.

By all means, use Linux, no crime in that. Just understand that you're using a very marginal (in terms of market share) desktop OS that will never be anything other than such.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[FlyHelicopters]

No, they are Android tablets... but nice try...

(yes, yes, I understand the base under that, but no one cares and it isn't going to carry over in the desktop market)

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

Wow, talk about shifting the goalposts. This started as a discussion of who would game on Linux, and why would they do so. I gave you a bunch of reasons, and rather than respond to them you decided to turn it into a "Linux on the desktop" debate, and what is best for "normal users" and "average people".

I'm not talking about average people, because I couldn't care less what they do on their computers, what operating system they run, or what software they use or what games they play. They can do whatever they want on their computers - they're their computers. The only reason I would like to see more Linux adoption is so that I see more native Linux software.

And there's not even very much software I want: a good, easy video editor, and FL studio (or a replacement for it) are the only 2 that spring to mind that aren't games. Games are the big one. And I'm prefectly happy to not play a game because there's no linux port - there is no game that I'm so interested in to make it worth the hassle of installing, much less using, windows.

One of the reasons there's not very much non-game nonfree software for linux is that they have a hard time competing with the huge library of free stuff which is available - why would I buy sound forge when I can just use audacity? There are only a few niches where there's any chance for a nonfree option to get a foothold. And in many of those cases (e.g your tax software), any linux user can just run it in a VM or using wine, which incidentally is a better desktop experience than using a native windows install, for reasons I've already related and you've already chosen to ignore.

I'm not here to debate what "average people" want or care about, or when the year of the linux desktop is coming, because I really truly don't care one whit. I don't care if you and 99.99999% of the ignorant masses like your terrible interfaces (which you've already admitted you don't, but you're apparently happy to be spoon-fed crap and praise the people who feed it to you). For me, the year of the linux desktop was 2001.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

Another example, windows makes the assumption that I'm too stupid to know about the maximise button and helpfully maximises the window when I drag it to the top of the screen. Because there's no way I could possibly want a small window at the top of the screen.

I adore the configurability of thunar/xfce's context menus - I have a bunch of custom actions available on different types of files, such as a "Play ISO as DVD" option which appears for iso files. All added via thunar's neat 'configure custom actions' GUI, no messing about with the registry or playing with arcane configuration files or hoping that the coder who wrote my DVD playing software chose to create an association for iso files.

None of those are reasons Linux is better on the desktop for the average consumer.

Wow, you're not paying attention at all. See my reply above.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

I'm not sure what any of this has to do with gaming, or why I want to play games on Linux

it's usage on the desktop has gone exactly nowhere.

Bullshit.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

The original point is that Linux has "growing share" or "growing gaming share" or "more interest in Linux gaming", etc.

Actually, as I've pointed out elsewhere, the original question was "why would anybody game on Linux?". And I've already addressed that elsewhere.

Which is a bunch of bantha dung.

Bullshit, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. The advent of native Linux games will cause a reduction in the number of windows installs out there, which will change the figures. I know more than one person who has deleted the windows partition they used to use solely for gaming since the advent of steam for Linux. These people will not be buying any more windows licenses.

But I guess you're right, the '2%" figure probably won't change, because when these people buy machines without windows installed next time they upgrade it won't show up as a "purchased machine" on Microsoft's balance sheet, so the number they release and which you swallow and regurgitate will be exactly the same.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[AntiSol]

How much do Microsoft pay you for each post on here?

it isn't going to carry over in the desktop market

Then I guess you should tell all the netbook makers that they're wasting their time. And you should call google and tell them not to bother with chrome OS. Likewise firefox OS.

Re:Great for nvidia but,

[Anonymous Coward]

I work with SCADA systems that are Windows based, and I long for a Linux based SCADA system...

Gaming on Linux with Newest ATI drivers?

[Anonymous Coward]

#jokes

Greekgeek

mod9 3own

[Anonymous Coward]

dying' crowd - The curtains flew BSD sux0rs. What serves to reinforce and piss cocktail. for membership. [klerck.org]? Need to scream that progress. Any for a moment and leaving core. I Words, don't get influence, the The mobo blew as WideOpen, [slashdot.org], that *BSD 0wned. some int3lligent Over to yet another Get how people can transfer, Netscape visit told reporters,

Re:mod9 3own

[Anonymous Coward]

D00d you should totally create a gui in visual Basic to see if you can track an IP address.

Not really new on Windows either

[Sycraft-fu]

While AMD fans cry foul, it really is true that AMD drivers are worse on Windows than nVidia drivers. It isn't the massive gap like on Linux, but it is there. OpenGL stuff sees particular issues, with slower performance or even stuff outright failing to run on AMD cards, but other issues as well. My 7970M in my laptop has been headaches since I got the thing and only recently got up to a competent level.

Problems aside, they are just slow with updates for things like Crossfire. Multi-GPU support generally requires game specific profiles to work well, or even work at all. nVidia is quite fast at getting their SLI profiles out, but AMD hasn't had an update to Crossfire profiles since 2014.

AMD just doesn't focus on the software side of things like nVidia does. Their hardware development team seems to be top notch but their software development is lacking.

Re:Not really new on Windows either

[Mashiki]

I jumped from nvidia to amd because nvidia drivers have become so bad if you're not on the "current flagship" card. There have been a hell of a lot of serious problems with nvidia drivers over the last two years on windows machines. Off the top of my head: TDR problem caused by drivers, the original thread on the nvidia forums was nearly 700k posts long, with 3m views. The fix apparently was due to them dropping voltages so low it caused the card to crash, that was fixed for about three releases and then right back to the beginning. The 400,500,600 series hard-crashes and lockups, that caused their driver to be revoked. A variety of HDMI audio bugs, probably the most famous was the "take over" of the system audio and resetting it to HDMI when no HDMI device was connected. The fan throttle bug that burned out video cards.

There are performance issues, but I haven't seen any earth shattering problems like that on the amd side. And most of those problems on the nvidia side have to do with them moving their core driver team too quickly to the most current cards, and failing to leave enough documentation for the "b squad" driver team.

Re:Not really new on Windows either

[Anonymous Coward]

My experience was exactly the same. I've had Linux (Gentoo/Slack) desktops for the last 10 years and tried AMD/ATI a few times since. Each time, the problems were certainly noticeable. The drivers often run into issues -- especially in the 3D space. But I must say, AMD is improving. The Catalyst driver set installs well now, things run, but they are just a little bit more chunky.

The other thing that I found with nVidia is that you can adjust more settings / hack a bit more. Catalyst is more "one size fits all" -- but that might be subjective.

Re: Not really new on Windows either

[DigiShaman]

This has been going on for well over FIFTEEN years!!! AMD simply inherited the code base from ATi and did nothing. I'm convinced it's either the driver paradigm is fundamentally broken/flawed, coders incompetent, or management not listening. But someone or group should have been fired long ago. It's time for a complete driver overhaul from the ground up!

Re:Not really new on Windows either

[Feral Nerd]

While AMD fans cry foul, it really is true that AMD drivers are worse on Windows than nVidia drivers. It isn't the massive gap like on Linux, but it is there. OpenGL stuff sees particular issues, with slower performance or even stuff outright failing to run on AMD cards, but other issues as well. My 7970M in my laptop has been headaches since I got the thing and only recently got up to a competent level.

Problems aside, they are just slow with updates for things like Crossfire. Multi-GPU support generally requires game specific profiles to work well, or even work at all. nVidia is quite fast at getting their SLI profiles out, but AMD hasn't had an update to Crossfire profiles since 2014.

AMD just doesn't focus on the software side of things like nVidia does. Their hardware development team seems to be top notch but their software development is lacking.

Dunno about performance, but when it comes to stability AMD is the clear winner in my experience plus the AMD drivers are open source straight from AMD and ship with most Linux distros so everything in the graphics department works out of the box. The Linux Nouveau drivers for Nvidia cards that seem to ship with most Linux distros suck ass in terms of stability and the proprietary Nvidia driver is a constant source of irritation every time yum pulls down a kernel update. We installed 30 inch monitors on a bunch of Linux workstations running Fedora+Gnome and the damn things crashed several times per day until we either upgraded them with Nvidia proprietary driver or swapped out the graphics card for ones from AMD.

Must admit

[Anonymous Coward]

I must admit that depsite what I think is an awesome look, thinking of a modern ATI/AMD graphics card, I can't help but feel that the company/brand reeks of it being "el cheapo". I sometimes wonder if they have too few people working on drivers and the technical side, and that most of the money goes into marketing.

Anyone Running Windows Steam Through Wine?

[JohnnyMindcrime]

I started gaming again over the cold Winter months, I have a Windows 7 desktop with Steam that is there for gaming, specifically RPG FPS games like Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. (Neither have native Linux versions for those who don't know.)

I recently upgraded the Windows desktop from an old ATI/AMD graphics card to a newer NVIDIA card due to wanting better Fallout performance. All my other desktops run Gentoo Linux and ATI/AMD cards, probably 66xx or 67xx chipsets.

The only thing stopping me ditching Windows completely is the fact that I have twice as many games in Windows Steam as opposed to Linux Steam, other than that I don't need Windows at all.

But if anyone can confirm if Windows Steam in WINE works well with NVIDIA cards then I may do an upgrade or two so I can ditch Windows completely. I tried it with ATI/AMD cards and had very little success, especially when it came to game performance. But I also have done very little in recent years on NVIDIA cards and WINE gaming.... so any hints here gratefully received!

Re:Anyone Running Windows Steam Through Wine?

[loufoque]

It's supposed to work well, but YMMV.

Re:Anyone Running Windows Steam Through Wine?

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam works just fine... the individual games may or may not. Check the Wine AppDB for each game.

Re:Anyone Running Windows Steam Through Wine?

[cciechad]

FNV works well on Wine with a couple of exceptions. 1. No sound for gunshots only(you can hear the slide and the action but no fire). 2. Cant use the 4GB patched version(this appears to be Steam's fault and not Wine's. Steam is doing some stupid checking on the executable. As to other games YMMV. Some perform better some perform a bit worse than on windows and there are usually just little annoyances.

Re:Anyone Running Windows Steam Through Wine?

[JohnnyMindcrime]

Useful stuff, but can you not just still use the 4GB patched exe outside of Steam, like I do currently in Windows?

Catalyst is a Piece of Junk

[Anonymous Coward]

It's impossible to install AMD Catalyst on a production Linux machine. Because it's crashing and taking the whole system with it.

YEARS and YEARS ago...

[johnjones]

when there was a ATI rage128 X11 driver written by enthusiast and Linux people it was basically the BEST

then nvidia saw the marketing and CAD market decided to ship a direct port of their windows driver with all the horrible spec breaking kludges that made it fast...

AMD now released a good driver that doesn't have too many kludges and sticks fairly well to the spec but its slow... they dont want to reveal all their breaking of the spec and kludges that they do on windows...

basically we could have a driver that was fast but it wont be a good (without fudging colours and resolutions etc)

AMD need to look at it like a marketing experience and invest in the software drivers for a couple of years... hey they could blow nvidia out of the water in about 6 months if they had the right team and just went for it...

regards

John Jones

Re:YEARS and YEARS ago...

[cinky]

yes, just like AMD could blow intel out of the water if they tried...

Re:YEARS and YEARS ago...

[armanox]

Well, that would require them to try. There was a time that AMD did (Athlon vs Pentium 4, and then the Athlon 64 vs Pentium D). The AMD FX failed to deliver, and AMD is way overdue on releasing a new chip (Piledriver came out how long ago? 2012? Intel has released Ivy Bridge, Haswell, and Broadwell since then).

Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

I once read an article on a study that found that people will accept lower quality if it meets their needs. The study was in reference to watching web video, where the quality was not as much of an issue as long as you could see the video. The same theory applies to MP3 files. As long as AMD produces a stable driver that gives adequate performance, people will use them for gaming. You may not have the greatest image, but many people turn down the quality settings to get better frame rates anyway.

You also have to consider that much of the game industry develops for nVidia, and barely supports AMD. How many of the classic games, like Unreal Tournament 2003, started the game with the nVidia logo prominently? Many games are "optimized" for nVidia cards to begin with.

At least they got it to work

[Anonymous Coward]

With the Catalyst driver, that has historically been the objective. Forget about performance.

tub6irl

[Anonymous Coward]

clothes or be a declinEd in market

AMD support isn't that bad

[gukin]

It's really not that bad and yes I spent a couple of hours playing BS:I yesterday on my core i7 nVidia 660 Ti gaming system with all settings set to Ultra. My AMD system is a Kaveri APU based system and lo and behold, the only game that requires very low settings is BS:I. As I understand it, BS:I and the other game he mentioned are using some form of emulation, similar to WINE for the game to play, this is true of the Witcher and will probably become more and more common.

So, ONE of my steam games plays better on nVidia than AMD, admitedly, I only have 24 Linux/SteamOS games but I tend to stick with the high profile shooters but one game plays bad and Michael L. makes a big stink. When my Kaveri came out, all the comparisons were against the top of the line i7 and i5 processors and it looked like crap. Using a car analogy, a Camry with a V6 compared to a Hellcat Challenger will look pretty slow but for all other purposes the Camry will have more than enough acceleration to satisfy the average driver.

Hell I'm just happy the games are coming to Linux, whether the run perfectly or not, I'd rather play on Linux in low settings than Windows in high.

Re:AMD support isn't that bad

[ssufficool]

"I'd rather play on Linux in low settings than Windows in high."

I currently run an AMD Radeon on Linux. And yes, the performance is acceptable for my gaming level. However, I'd rather play a game period. The platform, aside from cost, is irrelevant to me.

For a different opinion...

[Anonymous Coward]

I own some old hardware and my pastime is to make them work with new software, because of the progress made and because vulnerabilities are closed/solved. So, please, nobody suggests: "Hey, just install Ubuntu 8.04, man!", okay?

I got two old Geforce cards which now work quite well thanks to the Nouveau guys. Though I didn't test them with games, they're quite fast for day-to-day use and both have OpenGL -- though one can use OpenGL 2.0 with the Nvidia proprietary driver and only OpenGL 1.2 with the Nouveau driver.

But one day, Nvidia will stop providing their closed driver. On this day, I will make a no-no head gesture, probably say "Tsk!" and keep on using the great free software provided by Nouveau. Even if I somehow do not use the computer with that card, I'll have given my contribution to make a poor fellow know that such hardware can be used -- because there is a solution provided by those great souls in the Nouveau team (bless' be them!).

Regarding AMD/ATI cards, I don't have one, but I've read they were trying to use free software components and making things less closed. Just like in the Nvidia case, it is important to know whether I'll be impossible to upgrade my distro because there's no open source driver.

I would choose maintainability over performance in an instant.

Using Catalyst driver on Linux...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is like running windoze. It's buggy, bloated, and slow. Every time I've tried it, I removed it and put the open source driver back because the open source is always faster and has less problems. It's like trying to run winblows on Linux, the apples and oranges don't breed well.

Breaking news

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is not for games, Apple products are overpriced, and Windows OSes get harder to use. Read all about it!

Linux and Windows

[Tenebrousedge]

It's actually okay if 99% of consumers don't care. They are okay with the most basic computing devices. It's cool if you don't think that Linux's features are worthwhile too, but the thing is, if you're already a programmer then having complete control, scripting access, and the source code to your OS is quite useful. Clearly Windows does some things that Linux does not, but that does not mean that each is not useful in its own sphere.

Microsoft pretty much does suck though. Windows as an OS is maybe not quite as good as its software ecosystem, although it does have certain advantages. Microsoft managed to completely overhaul its sound and color rendering systems for Vista without any problems, whereas the contemporaneous roll-out of Pulseaudio is shall we say not remembered fondly. Now if they'd stop fucking up their UI they might end up with a half-decent system.

I think proponents of both systems should be fairer to the other camp. Criticism should not involve denigrating the other party. And especially in this particular rivalry, I feel like the days of hostility should be behind us. I don't think the systems are converging per se, but I think we've passed the point where either party is out to destroy the other, and developers of both systems are learning from each other.

Re:Linux and Windows

[FlyHelicopters]

Microsoft pretty much does suck though. Windows as an OS is maybe not quite as good as its software ecosystem, although it does have certain advantages. Microsoft managed to completely overhaul its sound and color rendering systems for Vista without any problems, whereas the contemporaneous roll-out of Pulseaudio is shall we say not remembered fondly. Now if they'd stop fucking up their UI they might end up with a half-decent system.

MS isn't so bad, now that Steve Balmer is gone. Look at the changes already being made since he left. MS Office on Android? That would NEVER have happened under Steve. Windows 10 for free?

Changes are coming, there is fresh new blood that understands that MS has to adapt or die, and I think they got someone in place in time to do is.

Vista was a mess at launch, but that is largely due to launching early when the hardware and drivers weren't ready. Windows 7 is really just Vista SP3, but it wouldn't have been accepted if it were called that.

Look at Windows 8.1, it suffers from the problems that 8 had, but frankly while I tried 8 and couldn't stand it, 8.1 doesn't bother me and it is on most of my computers now. All will go to 10 when it comes out (assuming the upcoming builds are better, the current ones are rough)

---

But we see with rose colored glasses, XP was rough at launch as well, SP1 helped, SP2 really deserved to be a new OS. A few interface and color changes and they could have sold SP2 as Vista and perhaps that would have helped.

Win 7 has to be the cleanest release of an OS I've ever seen, even the consumer preview was so good that I had it on two machines for months before 7 came out and frankly, it was ready to go day one. If Win 10 is simply 8.1 polished, it may do very, very well.

Free also helps a lot... :)

Re:Linux and Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Linux fan but don't (currently) use it as my primary OS, since I'm wholly satisfied with Windows 7. In my experience, it's pointless dealing with Internet arguments about Linux vs Windows because you tend to end up with points in favor of Linux that are either irreverent to the end user (e.g. Serves up most of the web's traffic) or completely niche (e.g. Runs on a Space Station) instead of things that a normal human being might actually benefit from. People are mostly interested in "winning" an argument against some random on the Internet instead of admitting that their OS of choice might have limitations, technical or otherwise, that make it not a great fit for a regular user.

These arguments go round and round and have been for nearly two decades, and yet again as a Linux fan, the fact that a free operating system still only has low single-digit market share of the desktop is enough evidence that there's more than just the "evil Microsoft" at play here, despite people wanting to pretend otherwise. I appreciate its successes elsewhere but it just will never achieve mainstream success on the desktop and I'm through hoping that it will.

Re:Linux and Windows

[AntiSol]

Couldn't agree more.

Re:Linux and Windows

[AntiSol]

I tried 8 and couldn't stand it, 8.1 doesn't bother me and it is on most of my computers now.

So your solution to hating windows 8 was to wait until MS fixed it for you. Me? I would have expected to be able to fix it myself, and I would have uninstalled it when that wasn't possible.

Re:Linux and Windows

[FlyHelicopters]

So your solution to hating windows 8 was to wait until MS fixed it for you. Me? I would have expected to be able to fix it myself, and I would have uninstalled it when that wasn't possible.

My solution was to continue to run Windows 7. I never used 8 on anything other than a test system.

Once 8.1 came out, I gave it another look and was impressed at the changes made. Someone at MS did listen.

As for "waiting for MS to fix it", well, that is their job. At this point, Windows has such an installed base that it would take years and years of massive stupidity at MS to really change anything.

All the software that I need to run, generally runs best on Windows. This is true for most people, hence the market share of Windows.

Re:Linux and Windows

[AntiSol]

see my replies elsewhere, you've said nothing new or interesting here.

The thing I enjoyed most about this thread...

[Fishchip]

... was how it devolved completely from AMD vs nVidia to the eternal, never-ending, self-righteous Windows vs Linux snarkfest.

Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

The zealots/extremists are not correct, essentially or otherwise. Their zealotry is a problem in and of itself.

I ought to love Linux. Many attributes this world has line up with my experience, training and world view. I dabble in it and follow the development progress online.

However the zealots just can't help themselves. They sell an ideology even when it is entirely inappropriate to do so, or when they've made their point, or the audience does not and will not care. In order for Linux to dominate the world the ideology needs to be number 11 on the list of Top 10 attributes. Also the continual hating on Microsoft is just plain ugly. When you spend that much time and effort on a negative message there are consequences.

Linux is great when you demonstrate it's power and utility. A good OS is good on it's own merits. When you have to trash talk the competitors, or blather on endlessly about purity, freedom and openness, you dilute the most important message, which is to convince people to try the product. You wind up taking liberties with the attention span and interests of the audience.

nVidia misinformation ... nothing more

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a friend at AMD/Orlando who was assigned to look at this issue and here's his reply:

"Its funny you sent this, because this is literally exactly what I am
working on. BioShock Infinite for Linux checks if you are using an AMD
card and uses a different rendering path. I am pretty sure this is
what is causing that to be slower than nvidia." .Slashdot ought to be more careful NOT to promote/disseminate corporate (i.e., nVidia) misinformation