ADOM is a great game. Its a Rouge-like, similar to Nethack, except that it has an interactive storyline, tons of NPCs, towns, villages, and more. I actually like ADOM better than Nethack, as far as gameplay is concerned. However, ADOM is only free as in beer (runs on Linux too). On the other hand, Nethack is free in every way.
I am wondering, when will Maxis release The Sims Complete, which contains The Sims and all 3 of its addons? With all of the addons, the game is killer fun.
Yeah, Nethack is great, and for those that want a graphical eye candy aplenty version of one of the best open source games of all time, check out Falcon's Eye: Nethack with eye candy. And for those who don't know what Nethack is... I guess you could say that its a game that inspired Diablo and Diablo II.
I agree, Uplink is the best Linux game released this year. Its also developed and sold by a garage shop group of guys. The game only costs $25, and it looks like it has and will continue to have a strong community following.
Oh, and the game is freakishly addictive. I think that they would be crazy not to make an XBox and Playstation 2 port.
All of those other guys copy Carmack, make clones of his games... so why don't all of those other guys open source their games like Carmack does? Really, it would be a good thing for the game industry... let the next generation learn from the last.
If you really wanted to be a good person, you could return the favor to Carmack by going out and buying a(nother) copy of Quake2. Its only right to return the favor.
Nah, I am not surprised. Carmack has always been a bit of a romantic (in a software engineer sort of way). He seems to like releasing his source code during the Christmas season. Not only that, I have heard that Carmack actually physically goes to a toy store and buys lots of toys for poor kids. I am telling you guys, Carmack is a romantic.
Well, I guess if he really wanted to get weird with it, he could release it on Dec 25th... but this way the code can be mirrored so that by the 25th, every boy and girl can have their own copy of the source code.
I agree. Its sick how some people actually want to destroy or harm the good things in this world. Why steal from someone who gives far more than his share?
Carmack deserves praise right now, and the fact that a few trolls need to feel their moment of power by doing something stupid... well, kind of ruins the Christmas spirit that Carmack started by releasing the source code in the first place.
I wish more game developers would adopt his model.
Make awesome game.
Sell awesome game.
Make lots of money in the process.
Gamers love game, gamers play game, gamers have fun for many years.
Instead of letting a game die ("bit rot", ala Darklands and many other great games), release game as open source to the community (this is true public service people).
Coders learn from one of the greatest.
Community grows.
Repeat ad infinitum.
Sure the hardcore open source fanatics will give a thumbs down to the fact that Carmack wants to make money, but then again, they are fanatics.
I also love how Carmack does it during Christmas... kind of puts a tear in your eye:-) Oh, and I also heard that Carmack does more traditional charity works like buying toys for poor kids during Christmas.
Well, I have bought every game that Carmack has made since Wolf3D... and I am going to buy the new Doom game too. Its important to support the greats.
A user-friendly GUI installer for Debian is being worked on as we speak, and will be available soon. It supposedly uses some of the Progeny installer's code, and it is going to be a part of the next release of Debian after Woody, but it won't be part of the official Woody release. Sure that is over 1 year away, most likely, but I am sure that there will be several roll-your-own Woody ISOs that make use of the new user-friendly installer.
I always thought that if Debian got an OS installer that was as automatic and easy to use as apt, then Debian would truely and undeniably be the best thing that was ever available, as far as operating systems are concerned. Taking care of a Debian install after it has been installed is easy, as long as you stick with the stable branch. Installing, removing, and updating software is idiot-proof. Its time Debian does the same thing for OS installation, hardware auto-detection, and configuration.
Just install Progeny 1.0, which is a commercial version of Debian, and then dist-upgrade to Woody. The Progeny installer is easy, user-friendly, and fully automatic. dist-upgrading to Woody is almost completely automatic, with the exception that you need to change the URLs in the/etc/apt/sources.list to point to the standard Debian server and the Woody distribution. So yes, you have to use your mouse AND keyboard, but the amount of keyboard usage required is extremely minimal. Its as difficult as typing a URL into your web browser's "Address" textfield. If you can do that, you can install Debian.
Because Progeny stopped making a commercial version of Debian, you will have to buy the operating system from a store that still has a copy, or you will have to find a Linux site that still offers the ISO for free download.
No one thing makes one distribution better than another. You can't make your "favorite" rpm based distribution as good or better than Debian without making your distribution actually become Debian, shape and form.
If you really want to do yourself a favor, then when Woody is released, download a copy and install it. Sure the install requires a little more work than other popular installers, but once you get the OS running, system administration is a snap with apt-get and the standard apt-lines. Its time we all put these commercial distros down and use the one true Linux distro... the distro made by the people for the people.
Here is a quote from the famous mathematician L.E.J. Brouwer, who saw the sciences as flawed due to their underlying philosophical foundations, which I think applies to the "Physicists War Over a Unified Theory":
Every branch of science will therefore run into ever deeper trouble; when it climbs too high it is almost completely shrouded in even greater isolation, where the remembered results of that science take on an independent existence. The "foundations" of this branch of science are investigated, and that soon becomes a new branch of science. One then begins to search for the foundations of science in general and knocks up some "theory of knowledge." As they climb higher and higher confusion grows until they are all completely deranged. Some in the end quietly give up; having thought for a long time about the elusive link betwen the intuiting consciousness (which develops from the perceptional world) and the perceptional world itself (which in turn only exists through and in the forms of the intuiting consciousness) - a confusion which arose from their own sin of constructing a perceptional world - they then plug the hole with the concept of the
ego, which was self-created with and at the same time as their perceptional world; and they say, "Yes, of course, something must remain incomprehensible, and that something is the ego that comprehends."
But there are others who do not know when to stop, who keep on and on until they go mad: they grow bald, shortsighted, and fat; their stomachs stop working properly; and moaning with asthma and indigestion they fancy that equilibrium is within reach - and almost reached. So much for science, the last flower and ossification of culture.
I had a DSL connection, and all of a sudden, one day it died. Soon after that, I moved and got a cable modem connection, and just 3 months after that, its dying.
Give me a break! This is no way to treat customers, just so that a few fat corporate pigs at AT&T can get an ISP on the cheap. The government bailed out the airlines, but seems to give two shits about the internet. Just imagine if the government let AT&T drop our phone service... people would freak. Well guess what? I don't have a phone line because a fast net connection was enough for communication and entertainment.
My connection is still here (and its past midnight CST), but I would appreciate more QoS and reliability than what I have experienced so far from broadband service providers.
Its what you get for supporting a closed network..
on
Kazaa to be shut down?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
...support GNUtella instead. Noone can shut down that network, short of shutting down millions of users.
Thats funny. I have been running Debian (stable) for a long time now, and I haven't had any filesystem corruption. In fact, I haven't had the OS crash either.
Its better to compare Windows 2000 to another complete operating system, NOT a bleeding edge kernel. Compare Windows 2000 to Debian (stable), and Windows 2000 will look like a house of cards.
Will the Progeny OS installer be ported to Woody? One of the most important things to improve in Debian is its installer. User-friendly installers mean more Debian users.
Until then, people will have to get an old Progeny CD, install Progeny 1.0, and change their apt lines, then apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade.
Sure its not difficult to change a text file full of URLs and then type "apt-get update" and "apt-get dist-upgrade" (which would automatically upgrade your entire OS from Progeny to Woody), but then again, I have seen people claim that its difficult to install applications on Linux, which is as easy as typing "apt-get install whateveryouwant".
Devolution of the Computer Keyboard
on
Concept PC 2001
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· Score: 2
Judging from the looks of this Concept PC's keyboard and from HP's past keyboards - looks like the trend is continuing. Keyboards are devovling.
Is it me, or have computer keyboards actually gotten crappier over the years? More keys, buttons, dials, and knobs. Fancy colors, new computer interfaces (USB, IEEE1394, bluetooth). However, the actual performance, functionality, and durability of computer keyboards has gone down hill over the past 10 years. The strange thing is that almost every other aspect of computers has improved significantly over the past 10 years. CPUs are god-like compared to those available 10 years ago. RAM is fast, plentiful, and costs next to nothing. Same goes for harddrives. Video displays have gotten larger, and have better quality.... etc... Hell, even the other major input device, the pointing device has improved (trackpoints, laser and mechanical mice, etc).
Keyboards on the other hand are degenerating into cheap pieces of crap. They no longer have crisp clean tactile feedback, which makes fast and accurate touch typing possible. Keystrokes often fail to register. Keys stick, and even sometimes fail to press. All in all, the modern keyboard fails at its most basic task: typing.
Why are keyboards getting worse?
Here are some of my theories:
Most modern GUIs require a pointing device, and in these GUIs, the pointing device has replaced many of the tasks previously accomplished by a keyboard.
The average computer consumer isn't very educated about keyboard technology.
For many reasons, it is difficult to make a high-tech keyboard a key marketing feature of a new computer.
The huge influx of novice computer users within the past 10 years has diluted the market with people that don't know how to type.
So yeah, this Concept PC looks cool, and I am glad that overall, computer technology is improving, but I wish that the "few steps back" taken in the keyboard technology department didn't have to happen from generation to generation. Of course, some people still make and sell good keyboards with the high quality and durable capacitive aka buckling spring keyswitch technology.
It is contradictory for you to slam people for debating the merits of three different package mamangement systems (deb, rpm, slack), and then you yourself argue for a fourth package management system which is used by Gentoo Linux. Hello! Pot calling kettle! Where are you? The scary part is that you got modded up so high. I mean, Gentoo has been mentioned many times on Slashdot.
Debian and Gentoo are the two Linux distros with the most promising package management systems. I am a Debian user myself, but once Gentoo releases a non-beta version of their distro, I will give it a shot. However, Debian works so well because of its open community. Only time will tell wether Gentoo will develop a similar community. In addition, apt-get'ing KDE, for example, is fast and painless on a low end PC with a cable modem connection. However, using Gentoo's system, not only would the download be larger, but there would be the overhead of building the software! So Gentoo might be great for workstations and servers, but for desktops and low end devices... it might not be the way to go.
Well, considering that the LSB is commonly, yet jokingly referred to as the RSB (Redhat Standards Base)... I would have to say that LSB isn't doing too well. I mean, why don't they just cut to the chase and have the LSB state that "anything Redhat does is the standard"? Are we to go from one corporation controlling our standards (MS) to another (Redhat)?
Are you sure its supposed to be part of Woody? That would be great if it is true, but I would like a notable source saying that such is true before I start counting my chickens.
This coming from a Debian user... Gentoo Linux's new package management system sets it apart from the others.
Unlike other distros, Gentoo Linux has an advanced package management system called Portage. Portage is a true ports system in the tradition of BSD ports, but is Python-based and sports a number of advanced features including dependencies, fine-grained package management, "fake" (OpenBSD-style) installs, safe unmerging, system profiles, virtual packages, config file management, and more.
If you have a fast cpu, lots of ram and disk space, Gentoo seems like a good fit. However, Debian's apt-get seems like the best fit for slower resource restrained systems.
No radical changes are allowed in the stable branch and the stable branch must go under lots of testing to be approved to be released as stable. I now know why BSD hackers love there development model. Cutting edge is great for some users but please do not include it in the kernel where a lot of people count on it for servers and mission critical applications.
Yeah, the Linux equivalent is called Debian Linux. You can run the main or stable branch of the distro, and while you give up bleeding bloody edge software, you gain stability and reliability unheard of in Redhat land. There is more to this world than Redhat based Linux distros (Debian, etc...). Just as there is more to this world than Linux (BSDs, etc...) The software is free and runs on nearly everything, so you have no excuse for not giving alternatives a try.
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Without belittling Mozilla, as it is truly an excellent browser, it is not in the same league as Konqueror.
ADOM is a great game. Its a Rouge-like, similar to Nethack, except that it has an interactive storyline, tons of NPCs, towns, villages, and more. I actually like ADOM better than Nethack, as far as gameplay is concerned. However, ADOM is only free as in beer (runs on Linux too). On the other hand, Nethack is free in every way.
I am wondering, when will Maxis release The Sims Complete, which contains The Sims and all 3 of its addons? With all of the addons, the game is killer fun.
Yeah, Nethack is great, and for those that want a graphical eye candy aplenty version of one of the best open source games of all time, check out Falcon's Eye: Nethack with eye candy. And for those who don't know what Nethack is... I guess you could say that its a game that inspired Diablo and Diablo II.
I agree, Uplink is the best Linux game released this year. Its also developed and sold by a garage shop group of guys. The game only costs $25, and it looks like it has and will continue to have a strong community following.
Oh, and the game is freakishly addictive. I think that they would be crazy not to make an XBox and Playstation 2 port.
All of those other guys copy Carmack, make clones of his games... so why don't all of those other guys open source their games like Carmack does? Really, it would be a good thing for the game industry... let the next generation learn from the last.
If you really wanted to be a good person, you could return the favor to Carmack by going out and buying a(nother) copy of Quake2. Its only right to return the favor.
Nah, I am not surprised. Carmack has always been a bit of a romantic (in a software engineer sort of way). He seems to like releasing his source code during the Christmas season. Not only that, I have heard that Carmack actually physically goes to a toy store and buys lots of toys for poor kids. I am telling you guys, Carmack is a romantic.
Well, I guess if he really wanted to get weird with it, he could release it on Dec 25th... but this way the code can be mirrored so that by the 25th, every boy and girl can have their own copy of the source code.
I agree. Its sick how some people actually want to destroy or harm the good things in this world. Why steal from someone who gives far more than his share?
Carmack deserves praise right now, and the fact that a few trolls need to feel their moment of power by doing something stupid... well, kind of ruins the Christmas spirit that Carmack started by releasing the source code in the first place.
I wish more game developers would adopt his model.
Sure the hardcore open source fanatics will give a thumbs down to the fact that Carmack wants to make money, but then again, they are fanatics.
I also love how Carmack does it during Christmas... kind of puts a tear in your eye
Well, I have bought every game that Carmack has made since Wolf3D... and I am going to buy the new Doom game too. Its important to support the greats.
A user-friendly GUI installer for Debian is being worked on as we speak, and will be available soon. It supposedly uses some of the Progeny installer's code, and it is going to be a part of the next release of Debian after Woody, but it won't be part of the official Woody release. Sure that is over 1 year away, most likely, but I am sure that there will be several roll-your-own Woody ISOs that make use of the new user-friendly installer.
I always thought that if Debian got an OS installer that was as automatic and easy to use as apt, then Debian would truely and undeniably be the best thing that was ever available, as far as operating systems are concerned. Taking care of a Debian install after it has been installed is easy, as long as you stick with the stable branch. Installing, removing, and updating software is idiot-proof. Its time Debian does the same thing for OS installation, hardware auto-detection, and configuration.
Just install Progeny 1.0, which is a commercial version of Debian, and then dist-upgrade to Woody. The Progeny installer is easy, user-friendly, and fully automatic. dist-upgrading to Woody is almost completely automatic, with the exception that you need to change the URLs in the /etc/apt/sources.list to point to the standard Debian server and the Woody distribution. So yes, you have to use your mouse AND keyboard, but the amount of keyboard usage required is extremely minimal. Its as difficult as typing a URL into your web browser's "Address" textfield. If you can do that, you can install Debian.
Because Progeny stopped making a commercial version of Debian, you will have to buy the operating system from a store that still has a copy, or you will have to find a Linux site that still offers the ISO for free download.
Oh my gawd! I am soooo confused! Which religion should I choose. The world would be a better place if there were only one religion.
No one thing makes one distribution better than another. You can't make your "favorite" rpm based distribution as good or better than Debian without making your distribution actually become Debian, shape and form.
If you really want to do yourself a favor, then when Woody is released, download a copy and install it. Sure the install requires a little more work than other popular installers, but once you get the OS running, system administration is a snap with apt-get and the standard apt-lines. Its time we all put these commercial distros down and use the one true Linux distro... the distro made by the people for the people.
I had a DSL connection, and all of a sudden, one day it died. Soon after that, I moved and got a cable modem connection, and just 3 months after that, its dying.
Give me a break! This is no way to treat customers, just so that a few fat corporate pigs at AT&T can get an ISP on the cheap. The government bailed out the airlines, but seems to give two shits about the internet. Just imagine if the government let AT&T drop our phone service... people would freak. Well guess what? I don't have a phone line because a fast net connection was enough for communication and entertainment.
My connection is still here (and its past midnight CST), but I would appreciate more QoS and reliability than what I have experienced so far from broadband service providers.
...support GNUtella instead. Noone can shut down that network, short of shutting down millions of users.
Thats funny. I have been running Debian (stable) for a long time now, and I haven't had any filesystem corruption. In fact, I haven't had the OS crash either.
Its better to compare Windows 2000 to another complete operating system, NOT a bleeding edge kernel. Compare Windows 2000 to Debian (stable), and Windows 2000 will look like a house of cards.
Will the Progeny OS installer be ported to Woody? One of the most important things to improve in Debian is its installer. User-friendly installers mean more Debian users.
Until then, people will have to get an old Progeny CD, install Progeny 1.0, and change their apt lines, then apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade.
Sure its not difficult to change a text file full of URLs and then type "apt-get update" and "apt-get dist-upgrade" (which would automatically upgrade your entire OS from Progeny to Woody), but then again, I have seen people claim that its difficult to install applications on Linux, which is as easy as typing "apt-get install whateveryouwant".
Is it me, or have computer keyboards actually gotten crappier over the years? More keys, buttons, dials, and knobs. Fancy colors, new computer interfaces (USB, IEEE1394, bluetooth). However, the actual performance, functionality, and durability of computer keyboards has gone down hill over the past 10 years. The strange thing is that almost every other aspect of computers has improved significantly over the past 10 years. CPUs are god-like compared to those available 10 years ago. RAM is fast, plentiful, and costs next to nothing. Same goes for harddrives. Video displays have gotten larger, and have better quality.... etc... Hell, even the other major input device, the pointing device has improved (trackpoints, laser and mechanical mice, etc).
Keyboards on the other hand are degenerating into cheap pieces of crap. They no longer have crisp clean tactile feedback, which makes fast and accurate touch typing possible. Keystrokes often fail to register. Keys stick, and even sometimes fail to press. All in all, the modern keyboard fails at its most basic task: typing.
Why are keyboards getting worse?
Here are some of my theories:
So yeah, this Concept PC looks cool, and I am glad that overall, computer technology is improving, but I wish that the "few steps back" taken in the keyboard technology department didn't have to happen from generation to generation. Of course, some people still make and sell good keyboards with the high quality and durable capacitive aka buckling spring keyswitch technology.
It is contradictory for you to slam people for debating the merits of three different package mamangement systems (deb, rpm, slack), and then you yourself argue for a fourth package management system which is used by Gentoo Linux. Hello! Pot calling kettle! Where are you? The scary part is that you got modded up so high. I mean, Gentoo has been mentioned many times on Slashdot.
Debian and Gentoo are the two Linux distros with the most promising package management systems. I am a Debian user myself, but once Gentoo releases a non-beta version of their distro, I will give it a shot. However, Debian works so well because of its open community. Only time will tell wether Gentoo will develop a similar community. In addition, apt-get'ing KDE, for example, is fast and painless on a low end PC with a cable modem connection. However, using Gentoo's system, not only would the download be larger, but there would be the overhead of building the software! So Gentoo might be great for workstations and servers, but for desktops and low end devices... it might not be the way to go.
Well, considering that the LSB is commonly, yet jokingly referred to as the RSB (Redhat Standards Base)... I would have to say that LSB isn't doing too well. I mean, why don't they just cut to the chase and have the LSB state that "anything Redhat does is the standard"? Are we to go from one corporation controlling our standards (MS) to another (Redhat)?
Are you sure its supposed to be part of Woody? That would be great if it is true, but I would like a notable source saying that such is true before I start counting my chickens.
If you have a fast cpu, lots of ram and disk space, Gentoo seems like a good fit. However, Debian's apt-get seems like the best fit for slower resource restrained systems.