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John Carmack on Linux
Jburkholder writes
"John Carmack
[?]
has
some complimentary things to say about recent Linux developments, including the
lastest Gnome and Matrox open-source drivers. Here's the best quote: -The cool part is that this driver is completely open source. I downloaded
the project code, browsed through it a bit, and changed
two lines of code to
fix the bug. That RULES. -" Comments on the new GLX stuff,
CodeWarrior for Linux, and other stuff. Worth a quick read.
I'm sure you're not seeing my point =)
:P ?
The original poster's elitism is as follows: Linux was special, different, geeky, and that is why he used it.
But I got into Linux because it was a geek's world.
Now it is becoming mainstream and accepted, and in doing so, it loses it's appeal. He wants it to be geeky, and I implied, technical, arcane, difficult, and hard to use, thus always remaining a tool of geeks.
So is this the future of Linux? Or will it remaine something that only smartguys like us use
Unless he's joking, he wants to separate Linux for use only by 'smartguys' and not by 'idiots'. That is elitism. A racist discriminates based on skin color, while an elitist discriminates based on some measure of status, ability, or talent.
So it's elitism to come from another OS, and try to change it to make it what you've came from.
This is not at all what the original poster is complaining about, except for his little bit about Linux being adopted by NT people; he doesn't want it to become easier to use, to become useable by 'idiots'. It's elitism to not want others to use your OS because their not smart enough, or something like that.
So if I changed over to the Mac and then complained that it didn't do the command line like my previous OS, and the Mac users complained about it, would they be elitist?
I assume your statement, clearly read, is as follows: You switch over to MacOS, and don't like the command line, compared to Linux or another OS. You complaing about the command line, and then the Mac users complained about you.
That's not elitism: Elitism would be the case if Mac users complained about the addition of a command line to their OS, on the basis that such an addition would pollute their user interface and attract *nix geeks and nerds to *their* OS. For one thing, elitism in any situation is wrong, belief that something should only be allowed and used by *our* group and not by *your* group, on whatever basis *our* and *your* is divided. For the Linux poster, it's about intelligence and geekiness; for the hypothetical Mac people, it would be about the holiness of their UI and the mindset of using MacOS *without* a command line.
Linux shouldn't pretend to be anything but itself for to be otherwise would be denying its own identity.
The question is, what identity are you talking about. Are you denying Linux the chance and potential of growth? Nothing stays the same, and people are currently working to improve it. Sure, you may not agree that adding a UI, a desktop environment, a simple installer, etc, are improvements, but with OS you're free to do your own work to improve it.
What is it's identity?
I would say it's open and free. It's about power *with* flexibility, and it's about being able to do what you want to do. If something doesn't perform or work, open up the source, tinker and code so that it does work.
Adding useability and UI and such is just the next step of Linux's evolution in being both powerful and flexible. Some users *don't* care about learning about the OS. Is that a crime? Why should they care about the OS, when all they want to do is use it? It is powerful and it is flexible, so it will attract a lot of people. Are you also of the belief that only those who learn the OS should use it?
It would be a waste if only people who could learn the OS should use Linux, because it is so powerful, flexible, reliable, and stable. It would do the world a great disservice if people couldn't use it as a viable alternative to M$ or Solaris or IRIX because of it's great strengths, and if it were hampered by a constituency who thought it should not be polluted so others would be allowed to use it.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
My opinion: I'm willing to accept closed drivers to extremely hi-end cards, particularily 3D hardware. In this space, the intelectual property is truely all these companies have. Giving away the register specs will reveal way too much detail on how they're doing things.
Although Open processes are often superior to closed, they are not always. 3D accelerated hardware solutions involve hardware, and thus a whole new area of hard costs have to be managed which OSS projects don't tend to deal with well.
But then, I run Word Perfect from time to time too, and I've never been given the chance to look at it's source either.
Answer from the perspective of someone working on the project:
Actually both of you are correct. John Changed something in both places. He submitted a few patches to fix bugs in the GLX driver (The main one being that our texture manager was broken and using a MRU decision to throw a texture out, not the correct LRU). From what his plan says he also made a change within the quake 3 source to fix an incorrect assumption.
For those non programmer types: MRU and LRU are most recently used and least recently used respectively.
He is a nice addition to the project b/c he brings many years of experience that most if not all of the developer's can't match. Even though our code is doing well and maturing fast, I think a few of these bugs would have gone unfound for prolly at least 2-4 wks more then with him looking at the source.
-Jeff
Not a complaint, but a question...
Can anyone explain how some of this moderation is working?
I'm sorry if I'm taking advantage of a highly ranked post to get seen =) Hi moderators!
Anyway, some of my posts on this thread are like 2s and 3s, but attached as responses to -1s; the really odd thing is that the -1s dissapear, but the 3s doesn't, something having to do with highlight in overflow mode or something?
I mean, the 3 is high enough not to get compressed into the title, and is displayed in its entirety... but it's weird that the original post got moderated down to nothing. Is this just a side effect of highlighting good posts conflicting with moderating a comment down below threshold levels?
I wonder how the Slashdot code decides to order the comments in that case... the 3 point post obviously doesn't float up towards the rest of the 3s in the thread, constrained as it is by a parent with a -1 ranking...
Wanna see? Try this link:
My post
It doesn't 'quite' work; remove the extra space in the link between '3&mode' and '=thread&pid'
3&mode =thread&pid=549#568
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I actually don't know where they come from, these Linux coders...
Here's the question then, where do they come from now? Where are they going to go, that they will disappear?
Has the landscape changed such that Open Source coders have stopped being born?
Do they come off of work, disgruntled and unhappy with their job programming for something really stupid, and in their recreational time code something wonderful like Linux? Or are they more self serving, and do it so they can get some functionality to their non M$ OS? Or something else? Something in between?
Unless someone starts a school who's emphasis is CS and Open Source...
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
How refreshing. Intelligent comments =)
You are right that at the moment, the core of Linux and OSS are it's contributors and developers, but very soon secondary effects due to growing user base will kick in as well:hardware and software support from commercial entities looking to make a profit from the user base. 3dfx and Nvidia releasing source and specs for their 3dcards to be used under linux, Apple releasing server code, and hopefully some client stuff too, for their Quicktime software, SGI releasing source for their JFS, while also supporting Linux on their sparkly new shiny Visual PCs. Yes, for Linux to remain it's own 'product', it cannot rely on the agenda of companies who invest in it, but I don't think that was the intent of the original post either.
The original poster was complaining about Linux losing it's geekiness and becoming too mainstream for his/her taste.
You raise good points, though. If Linux is not maintained by people, what will happen to it? I'm pretty sure that as long as it's open source and as long as M$ or Apple does not offer a much superior OS and starts to open source their own software, there will always be disgruntled users who want things to 'work'.
I don't really think Linux is about elitist you vs me geeky vs mainstream users. It's about people who want to tinker and play with their OS, who want to do things, but are constrained by the conventional OSes, or people who need things, and can easily add them because Linux is open source. As long as Linux remains strong in these areas, I don't see it fading anytime soon.
One real competitor, actually, may be MacOSX, with it's BSD core; especially if it gets synched with one of the open source BSDs, then there is an alternative OS for people to tinker and play with, especially if Apple makes public or open the APIs to interface with the PPC hardware and UI...
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
All three have "Start" menus. I can't tell you how many times I've heard WinXX and KDE cursed over that thing, and now all three have it.
I can't tell you how many times KDE and WinXX have been cursed over their file manglers,...and now all three have just about the same thing, interface-wise (though Exploder sucks rocks in comparison to gmc & kfm).
Granted, KDE is much less unabashed about its roots, interface-wise, in Windows, but as far as I'm concerned the three are about equivalent.
And take a look at the default desktop for RH6 if you want to see something "reminiscent" of Windows.
Window Maker & AfterStep are genuinely different in interface from Windows; I'm not even sure you could make them look like Windows without adding at least the GNOME/KDE panel to them.
My random opinion,
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Okay =)
I guess I'm at fault for misinterpreting. Apologies!
It really is up to the individual what desktop UI/environment is usable and what is not, so the original poster's disagreement does not mean anything to John's view that Gnome in Red Hat 6.0 is... a valid alternative to commercial desktop environments.
I'm sure Gnome users think it's a valid desktop environment as well =)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
You missed the whole point.
I still am =)
So what was the point?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Disagree about what? That he likes Gnome and feels its almost at the useable level for him?
Who are you to judge which GUI/environment is best suited for The Man(tm)?
I mean, you might as well take offense at the fact that he installs Linux every year, feels it is not good enough, and continues using WinNT/NeXTStep whatever. Or that he seriously disses VI and emacs, for CodeWarrior(despite bugs), etc.
If one really wanted to delve deeply, one could think his next development platform might be MacOSX Server/Client; NeXTStep environment, *honest* OpenGL support from the vendor, classic refined UI, CodeWarrior(native!), and G4 with Altivec coming soon.
But that is a guess, and not grounded in any fact =)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I was just lookin' through the sunday ads from the paper (CompUSA, Computer City, Best Buy, etc) and I found that id is selling quake and quake 2 for linux packaged now..
"Short, tall, fat, skinny, from the highest king to the lowest man, everyone uses the potty." - Brak
An excellent resource for information is the 3dfx.glide.linux news group, available on the news server news.3dfx.com. There are lots of messages from people detailing how to get things running on the various distributions and versions.
Enjoy -- it's pretty sweet!!!
i expect he did know this, but theres a difference betweek "knowing" or being told something and experiencing it.
John Carmack's plan is probably read by more people than slashdot (albiet often via quake news sites) so its good propaganda.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
If closed-source drivers come out that outperform open-source drivers, which one do you think 99% of the gamers out there will use? Now, don't misunderstand, I think OSS is great, but it's a means to an end for the majority of end-users like me. The goal is to produce the greatest software, and I don't care how you get there, OSS or closed, I just want it to be the best.
This is just FUD made up by corporations to have an excuse for not releasing specs. SCSI controllers are complex, would you accept a proprietary driver for that? Reverse engineering a 3d card with full specs would take longer than it is worth, by the time they figure it out it would already be obsolete. I think the problem is the flood of anything-but-microsoft people coming to linux who dont really care if its opensource or not, they just want to play quake. You should not lose sight of the fact that opensource is what sets linux apart, 3d drivers are no exception.
And we will be getting WARP support eventually, I think they are just waiting to see how well we do with what we have now...
It appears that he figured out that his assumption was wrong because he had access to the driver sources and could see that it was his code, not the OpenGL code, that was incorrect. So, not only do Linux users benefit from the Open Source drivers (the textures that were broken before are working now), but all gamers will benefit. He says in his plan that the fix will improve performance on most cards by a couple of percentage points...
Just another reason why Operating Systems and drivers benefit from being Open Source.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. -- Oscar Wilde
A mouse, like a keyboard, is a tool.
If it works and gets the job done, then I would imagine it would be preferred over another tool.
To each tool, their most appropriate use, and for Carmack, as fast as he is with the keyboard, he feels most productive and powerful with his mouse I guess, though I'm not sure where you get this idea or notion.
Some things, for example, require a mouse or alternate pointing device: Artistic endeavors, 3 dimensional navigation, graphics arts, architectural or cad design, etc.
Keyboards are good for text, and for some people, even navigating the UI; but not for everyone.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Let me tell you a little story about my little brother playing Quake2:
:). No more lockups. No more awkward scripts that require open and switchto to be setuid root.
He plays on a Redhat 6 machine, dual p3 450, 128 mb ram. He used to play on a Voodoo2 card. It would freeze. And I mean freeze BAD. Sometimes you could telnet in and "killall quake2" to fix things, but sometimes the machine would be locked up so bad YOU COULDN'T EVEN DO THAT! So, we both got pretty sick of this. We go to the Fry's in Tempe and buy a Mystique G200 AGP 8MB. As soon as I put the card in, install the g200-glx rpm, and switch quake2 over to ref_glx.so, we get NO PROBLEMS (other than the mouse not working, but that's quake2's fault
Let me sum it up for you:
voodoo2: weird, unpredictable lockups. retarded scripts.
g200: works perfectly (even after the driver has only been in development a very short time). no retarded scripts. no setuid open and switchto.
Any questions?
what are you talking about. the arrows are a function of the window manager. gnome doesn't have a window manager. enlightenment and icewm go with gnome the best. I don't know about icewm but enlightenment's cursors are completly themable. which means that you can change them to what ever you want. You can even use color cursors. The default enlightenment theme is so far away from anything that has ever come previously you cant say it copies anything. Kde doesn't have this.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
I suspect he understands that perfectly, he *is* somewhat of a genius. ;-)
I don't think that this was a statement of discovery, Carmack seems to always be very open and honest in his communications (see the self-depricating (sp?) passage about a mis-assumption he made for 3 years). The way I read this is he is more expressing his delight at having *experienced* the magic of open source.
The *really* neat thing about this is that all the 3D-gamers who follow Carmack like some messiah will read this and maybe understand a little about what the whole linux/open-source concept it about.
Cheers, John -- we lub ya!
Yeah, and how long has the 3dfx drivers for linux been in development? 2 years maybe? The g200 drivers have been in development for about 3 months now, and we dont even have direct rendering OR DMA implemented yet, both of which will be done with Precision Insight gets their driver infrastructure finished.
I cannot believe that people are actually defending proprietary drivers here, wouldn't carmack be pimping glide if thought it was that great? well, he isn't... opensource is the way..
Lets see, if 3dfx had released Open Source drivers with their original VooDoo series chipset, and an intrepid engineer at spent a whole year deciphering and tinkering, even a year later, things could be learned and used against 3dfx; look how long they've used the same basic components(V, VRush, V2, VBanshee, V3), if they had released info someone could have used it against them, if only to write really excellent Glide wrappers.
Of course this also brings into the argument open and proprietary standards and APIs, patents, IP, etc.
Or if Matrox had released source with the G200, initially, DualBus stuff may have been copied or leaked into other hardware, to compete directly against the G400.
Hardware cycles are really not that far off from a two and a half years; we get incremental increases in between(riva -> riva ZX, then TNT, TNT2, G200, G400, V->V2, VB->V3, etc).
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Maybe a G200 OpenGl for Linux will be released before Matrox completes the one for Windows! Amazingly enough the G200 OpenGL is still in beta from Matrox while they are ramping up on the G400.
I agree fully. Linux might/will gain more functionality in the ease of use department, but due to its openness the ability of a geek to go under the hood, change things and customize the way they want will never be taken away. Linux is all about freedom, so you can choose gnome, kde, or choose not to install either of them and you still have linux.
Yup, that is the G200 project I started that he is pimping. ;)
http://www.on.openprojects.net/glx
Ideally, both computer geeks and casual users will BOTH be able to use the computer, and I imagine that's what is going to happen.
And this is a good thing.
I imagine it working something like this: When root creates a new user account, root is prompted: "Standard" or "Geek".
If root clicks on Standard, then the user gets a standard desktop, very simple, almost entirely applications, nothing like the hex editor, no mounting options, just a very simple system. The odd thing for the user would be a "Terminal" option, which the user would use about as frequently as "Command.exe" is used on Win9x. (This would be allowed so that a geek using a normal account could fix things up or what not.)
OR the root could click on "Geek", which is the environment that you are accustomed to. {:)}=
This is the best of both worlds, and a worthy goal.
Lion Kimbro: http://home.sprynet.com/~snowlion/
But the point you are making about Open Source drivers is still valid...
You just know his mailbox must be filled by now with requests to try KDE ;-))
All in all, another good development. Remember when he came out, saying how he disliked Direct3D and loved OpenGL? The man has influence. Nvidia, take a hint, you did on OpenGL....
Then why is he using Windows NT as his main development system?
Because it's the only platform right now that offers good IDEs, compilers, OpenGL support, memory protection, good multi-tasking, good SMP, and decent driver support.
He is very hopeful for MacOSX, because of it's NeXTStep heritage(despite a single mouse button), and with it's future support for OpenGL and all the standard OS features such as protected memory, pre-emptive multi-tasking, hardware GL acceleration, etc.
Linux is a future candidate, as soon as the UI and desktop environs get polished a little and hardware manufacturers support it.
He himself cares little for the *politics*, just for the results. He likes Open Source; he can work without it.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Although I'd have to disagree about Gnome, its good to see Carmack supporting Linux...hopefully other gaming people will see the path(read: cashcow) he's following and will fall in line :-)
--PimpBot (forgot my login)
I couldn't find it in stores in Cambridge, so I emailed LokiSoft and they said there had been logistical problems shipping to the brick & mortar stores. Be patient...
In the opinion of this non-programmer, Linux is special because of its flexibility and stability, not because of its open-source nature. Of course, open-source is a very cool thing, and I would like to think that source code is available for bug-testing and whatnot, but if you get software that's not open-source, it's nothing to get all huffy-puffy about.
I do recall Torvalds saying in several interviews that Linux users should not get into a debate over open-source vs. closed-source.
We can only hope that other Harware manufacturers will follow suit
Matrox are you listening? How about those Warp Engine Specs for the G200 ?
What the hell do you think makes it so flexible and stable? It's not cause linux somehow attracts the best coders, it's because the code people write for it is OPEN SOURCE, it makes all the difference.
Lets see you try to optimize glide sometime... oh wait, you cant.
So that when things get hairy, it STILL renders at 60fps, instead of dropping from 60-70 to 25-30
As a comparison of what's possible right now, I've got a Voodoo3 in a Celeron 300A@450, and am able to get 35 to 50fps in Q3Test at 1024x768 with all the quality options set to their maximum! (...under Linux, of course.)
Check out the www.linux3d.org site for more details on the Glide driver which makes this possible. It's not Open, but it's free and it's here now.
Disclaimer: I don't work for 3DFX, I'm just in awe of one of their cards.
You don't have to submit internal changes to GPL programs.
The GLX driver is developed under a XFree86 compatible license as well... (This is because it needs to be compatible with the license that is appropriate for Precision Insight's direct rendering architecture)
But he have submitted some changes even so.
I'm hoping this thread gets sent down...
Elitism is not something one should cherish; us vs them, we're better, nyaa-nyaa!
Linux will/can fork, so if you *really* insist on something arcane or bleeding edge, go for it!
Catering to the casual users also means catering to John Carmack, because he doesn't want to deal with minor useability issues, and learning things the hard way. He wants to program his games, and not learn how to use his OS any more than he needs to; are you willing to exclude Carmach from your elite group because he prefers more 'user friendliness' just so he can get his job done?
There are a good bunch of people who need their OS to just work, and has nothing to do with being an idiot; if they can get their stuff done in Linux because Linux 'just works', then power to Linux and to those users.
If Linux were to remain within the cadre of elite power users, then it wouldn't be very *useful* would it?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
You know, if Carmack really did ask Nvidia for the driver source for testing/programming/Open Source use, do ya think Nvidia may actually Open Source it?
I mean requests from thousands of users is much different than a request from The Man(tm) who helps to sell your cards with his games, right?
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
He knows what open source is, he has donated over $20,000 to the GNU project, for instance, and usually releases the source to his games after 4 years (though under a no comercial use licence). Also, he seems to have pioneered having games that were open enough for the users to come up with their own varients.
Plato seems wrong to me today
I hope he submitted the changes he made in, as outlined in the GPL. :)
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,