've been using the nightly bulids of Mozilla (pre-M16) for a while now and they have been much more stable and fast then Netscape is.
Erm. You must be getting different nightly builds than me, because the average time between crashes with nightly builds for me is about five minutes.
Don't get me wrong, I hope that Mozilla will get a good future and check the nightly builds almost every day and admit that it seems to have became a bit lighter and faster lately. But stabilitywise it's far worse than Netscape 4.7 on my machine. NS crashes 'only' once in day or two...
After saying that I'm going to download the latest build and check if the stability has been improved dramatically during the last 24 hours though.;)
Don't you see? it doesn't >matternever encountered a Dx game which would not run straight out of the box, first time, every time, on my own hardware, or on friends/families machines. that's the level Linux has to get to before it will be an acceptable games platform. Ian.
Well, Windows doesn't fill that exactly either; I've seen quite a few times when a game doesn't run straight out of the box after installation, but something needs to be fiddled... Granted, it happens less frequently, but the problem is there too. Just less serious.
In my experience, the main problem with gaming under Linux is... it's a pain in the butt. After using Linux as an NOS mostly, I decided to try my hand at Linux games, to see if I could finally convert from Windows as a home OS. To date, I have tried Heroes III, Unreal Tournament, and Quake III and none of them have worked right out of the box.
What's your hardware? I've tried Quake III demo and played the Heroes III without any major problems. (I've noticed a mildly annoying slowdown bug in Heroes III but it's infrequent enough not to matter much) My hardware configuration of 128 MB ram, TNT2 and K6-2 504 work like a dream for them, I didn't have to do anything for them. So I'd suspect something about drivers for your hardware...
Are there good numbers anywhere on the number of Linux-only (or Linux-only-except-for-quakeV-and-force-feedback) desktop machines out there? How many of those users would actually pay money for good games on Linux? When was the last time _you_ actually bought a legit PC game?
I can't speak for anyone else but myself, but I don't have anything but Linux installed on this machine. (I do have Amiga 4000 and my GF with whom I live has NT, but I don't think this is very relevant for the discussion; I play some golden oldies on NT (Master of Orion 2 etc; hardly new;)
I would pay for good non - opensource games. In fact, I bought Heroes of Might & Magic III for Linux about two months ago. Anyone else?
Really, now be honest, how many of you people really need to use X over a network? Honest answers please...
I have used X for about 5 years and it's not that uncommon for me to use some application that is installed at the university machines but not at my own Linux box (or even isn't available for Linux) over network. I can't give exact figures of use, but about once or twice per month should be quite close. It's not very important, but I'd miss the feature if it would disappear...
'm guessing you're an ex (or current) Amiga user. This is how for so many years, despite inferior hardware, the Amiga managed to pull of some amazing graphics feats.
Then again, AmigaOS graphics system was tied heavily to the hardware until OS version 2.x, and even now it's not IMO as good with graphics cards as Windows or X.
Huh??? What is so difficult? just untar the source in/usr/src, do a make (menu)config.
And then: make bzImage; cp System.map/boot; cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage/vmlinuz; lilo; make modules; make modules_install; reboot
You don't keep the old kernel but always replace it with the new? I keep at least the previous kernel available (and entry for it in Lilo) just in case I've goofed something. Maybe perfect humans can survive infinitely with simple replacement of kernel, but I don't think I (or anyone else) am perfect, so...;)
AMD already produces second-rate chips. The last thing we need is a "light version."
Could you please specify the points that make current AMD chips second rate ones? The only major trouble I know is the less-than-perfect cache speed, but that hardly cripples the chip into second class.
I find it extremenly funny that people care so much about the appearance of the machine itself, while they could customize their desktop almost endlessly. After all, the picture on your monitor is usually the part of your computing equipment that you're going to stare most by far.
It's a service that uses the headers to track the probable spammer and sends e-mail to relevant abuse address.
A good point people seem to have forgotten...
on
Suck On Skins And UI
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· Score: 1
Skins aren't all happiness and joy, but there's one pro for them: While using a different operating system than usually, it gives a nice feeling of being home when you install skin/theme that makes the application or user interface to behave like your usual operating system.
Plenty of people discussed Windows 2000 a year in advance. You might say that it was far more probable to appear than a new Amiga (and you're even right), but quite a few of them managed to do that in quite sensible and rational manner, unlike people who either elevated it to be the best operating system ever, chanted "fuck your win2000" or tried to make fun about the more rational ones.
Somehow I find it far easier to respect those persons who do not fall into cheap laughter and fun, but try to discuss things rationally. Of course everyone needs humor, but I find Monty Python far better humor than cheap jokes about computing hardware or software.
How about just not posting articles with content like "Amiga ruulezzzz!!!!" or "Amiga zealots suck and fuck my brotha"? That's a sure way to prove that poster doesn't really have anything to say, just to scream mindlessly.
How about waiting until the given date and then commenting things that happened or didn't happen on the show sensibly and rationally, in a way that doesn't give the impression of screaming teen-aged religious fanatic that wants to kill everyone who doesn't agree with his/her view of world? Honestly, that's the feeling that most of posts in one way or other has given so far.
Sorry for sounding pissed off, but that's the feeling that any kind of fanatics generally give me.
How is this news? I don't get why Slashdot keeps on posting stories about Amiga. Sure, Amigas may have been cool at the time, but they haven't been made for years, and with all the advances in computing technology since then, I don't understand why everyone keeps fawning over them, much less why they're still relevant to any of us. I can sort of understand why the story about the PET was posted -- that was a true original revolution in personal computing, and it was a one-time nostalgiafest post. But the Amiga is a dead platform, yet Slashdot has a whole category for Amiga posts.
Doesn't anyone else here get tired of constantly hearing about Amiga? Rob & Co., I appreciate all the effort you put into Slashdot, but I think all of us would like stories that cover what we're interested in today
Oh my. If you would have read even a bit about the point of the article, you would have noticed that it's not about Amiga, but a piece of software which has so far been available only for Amiga. Now it's possible to get this program ported to other operating systems. Where exactly in this thing is the Amiga-specific content, I ask you?
Why, oh why did they release first Linux version compiled for 686, not 386? This limits severely the amount of users that can initilally jump into the 2.0, IMO...
One thing about VLIW is it is different on both chips - the 400mhz and the 700mhz. It sorta points out that a cpu core instruction set does not matter anymore. As long as you have a good software morphing program, you can actually design a special instruction set that tailored to your specific needs, like just playing dvd, and still be compartible to any platform using software morphing technique.
I'll wait until they make a seti@home - enchanted instruction set.;) -
No. Attempting to run Linux on an Athlon will result in a Blue Screen of Death.
I think that this was a joke, but in case someone takes it seriously; this isn't true. There was some initial trouble with Linux and Athlon, but it's all sorted now.
I liked Blursk and Synaesthesia plug-ins. OK, Synaesthesia is not a new thing, but I've always liked it more than any other single visualizer (or at least any other single mode in any programs;) so...;)
Blursk is nice because of the number of options and the general blurry feeling. I'd wish that all options could be made to change randomly, though.
Other plug-ins were quite OK, but didn't make me drool like those two.
I have really seen some pretty amazing stuff on low end machines like these. All you have to do is optimize, optimize, optimize, and do some work arounds and there you are.
Yes, I have seen plenty of optimized stuff; there are some Amiga (and DOS too) demos that run a lightsourced 3d-world and other effects on 4 kilobytes program. That's rather nice display of skill.
Ever seen a program called gtop? This is a GNOME version of top and it just plain is a memory hog on systems or at very least significantly contributes to generally bad system load. An ncurses program run from the console is also safer. Linux dosn't crash or hand except if you use the graphical interfaces. Then you can have windows resource type problems in terms of the mouse barely being able to move or not at all and no commands can be send to the X server at all.
Of course it's silly to make a program that works well with text-based interface to use a heavy GUI. For many uses Linux can indeed work nicely without X, and that's a fine thing. But I also want to be able to use something like GIMP, a graphical browser (althought Netscape is a 'nice' example of bloat...) and hell, why not some nice games as well. (I like roguelike text-based games but if there's more choice than them, it's a good thing; availability of choice is IMO always a nice thing.) Those are just things that do not work as well without GUI.
So, I'm all for the following way:
Use as little resources as you can get away with
When a thing can be done without GUI, do it without GUI
When it can't be done without do it with GUI, but in sensible way
Operating systems and applications for them are two entirely different matter. Sure, Linux, AmigaOS and some other operating systems can run on pretty low-power hardware but would you really want to tell the software developers that they aren't allowed make anything else but programs that work on 386 or 68000?
If a certain program really can do its job on a low-power machine, it's fine and it shouldn't be 'enchanted' to need more than it really needs. But should we forbid programs like Quake3 (complex realtime 3d needs modern hardware) or applications for large scientific visualization (need pretty lot of memory and preferably CPU too) if they do not work on older machines? IMO not.
This might be a bit off-topic, but I can't see strategy and role-playing game folks jumping to consoles; there are just far more of them for PC, and with more variety too.
Slashdot Mirror
've been using the nightly bulids of Mozilla (pre-M16) for a while now and they have been much more stable and fast then Netscape is.
Erm. You must be getting different nightly builds than me, because the average time between crashes with nightly builds for me is about five minutes.
Don't get me wrong, I hope that Mozilla will get a good future and check the nightly builds almost every day and admit that it seems to have became a bit lighter and faster lately. But stabilitywise it's far worse than Netscape 4.7 on my machine. NS crashes 'only' once in day or two...
After saying that I'm going to download the latest build and check if the stability has been improved dramatically during the last 24 hours though. ;)
Well, Windows doesn't fill that exactly either; I've seen quite a few times when a game doesn't run straight out of the box after installation, but something needs to be fiddled... Granted, it happens less frequently, but the problem is there too. Just less serious.
What's your hardware? I've tried Quake III demo and played the Heroes III without any major problems. (I've noticed a mildly annoying slowdown bug in Heroes III but it's infrequent enough not to matter much) My hardware configuration of 128 MB ram, TNT2 and K6-2 504 work like a dream for them, I didn't have to do anything for them. So I'd suspect something about drivers for your hardware...
I can't speak for anyone else but myself, but I don't have anything but Linux installed on this machine. (I do have Amiga 4000 and my GF with whom I live has NT, but I don't think this is very relevant for the discussion; I play some golden oldies on NT (Master of Orion 2 etc; hardly new ;)
I would pay for good non - opensource games. In fact, I bought Heroes of Might & Magic III for Linux about two months ago. Anyone else?
I have used X for about 5 years and it's not that uncommon for me to use some application that is installed at the university machines but not at my own Linux box (or even isn't available for Linux) over network. I can't give exact figures of use, but about once or twice per month should be quite close. It's not very important, but I'd miss the feature if it would disappear...
Then again, AmigaOS graphics system was tied heavily to the hardware until OS version 2.x, and even now it's not IMO as good with graphics cards as Windows or X.
And then: make bzImage; cp System.map /boot; cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /vmlinuz; lilo; make modules; make modules_install; reboot
You don't keep the old kernel but always replace it with the new? I keep at least the previous kernel available (and entry for it in Lilo) just in case I've goofed something. Maybe perfect humans can survive infinitely with simple replacement of kernel, but I don't think I (or anyone else) am perfect, so... ;)
Could you please specify the points that make current AMD chips second rate ones?
The only major trouble I know is the less-than-perfect cache speed, but that hardly cripples the chip into second class.
I find it extremenly funny that people care so much about the appearance of the machine itself, while they could customize their desktop almost endlessly. After all, the picture on your monitor is usually the part of your computing equipment that you're going to stare most by far.
It's a service that uses the headers to track the probable spammer and sends e-mail to relevant abuse address.
Skins aren't all happiness and joy, but there's one pro for them: While using a different operating system than usually, it gives a nice feeling of being home when you install skin/theme that makes the application or user interface to behave like your usual operating system.
Somehow I find it far easier to respect those persons who do not fall into cheap laughter and fun, but try to discuss things rationally. Of course everyone needs humor, but I find Monty Python far better humor than cheap jokes about computing hardware or software.
How about waiting until the given date and then commenting things that happened or didn't happen on the show sensibly and rationally, in a way that doesn't give the impression of screaming teen-aged religious fanatic that wants to kill everyone who doesn't agree with his/her view of world? Honestly, that's the feeling that most of posts in one way or other has given so far.
Sorry for sounding pissed off, but that's the feeling that any kind of fanatics generally give me.
You use just as much insults and "I know all" - attitude as them...
So you do not use image processing software or renderers, compile large programs or do anything really cpu-intensive. Quite a few people do, though ;)
How is this news? I don't get why Slashdot keeps on posting stories about Amiga. Sure, Amigas may have been cool at the time, but they haven't been made for years, and with all the advances in computing technology since then, I don't understand why everyone keeps fawning over them, much less why they're still relevant to any of us. I can sort of understand why the story about the PET was posted -- that was a true original revolution in personal computing, and it was a one-time nostalgiafest post. But the Amiga is a dead platform, yet Slashdot has a whole category for Amiga posts.
Doesn't anyone else here get tired of constantly hearing about Amiga? Rob & Co., I appreciate all the effort you put into Slashdot, but I think all of us would like stories that cover what we're interested in today
Oh my. If you would have read even a bit about the point of the article, you would have noticed that it's not about Amiga, but a piece of software which has so far been available only for Amiga. Now it's possible to get this program ported to other operating systems. Where exactly in this thing is the Amiga-specific content, I ask you?
Why, oh why did they release first Linux version compiled for 686, not 386? This limits severely the amount of users that can initilally jump into the 2.0, IMO...
I'll wait until they make a seti@home - enchanted instruction set. ;)
-
I think that this was a joke, but in case someone takes it seriously; this isn't true. There was some initial trouble with Linux and Athlon, but it's all sorted now.
I liked Blursk and Synaesthesia plug-ins. OK, Synaesthesia is not a new thing, but I've always liked it more than any other single visualizer (or at least any other single mode in any programs ;) so... ;)
Blursk is nice because of the number of options and the general blurry feeling. I'd wish that all options could be made to change randomly, though.
Other plug-ins were quite OK, but didn't make me drool like those two.
Quake3 isn't available for C64, but there's a nice little clone of Doom called Mood available.
I have really seen some pretty amazing stuff on low end machines like these. All you have to do is optimize, optimize, optimize, and do some work arounds and there you are.
Yes, I have seen plenty of optimized stuff; there are some Amiga (and DOS too) demos that run a lightsourced 3d-world and other effects on 4 kilobytes program. That's rather nice display of skill.
Ever seen a program called gtop? This is a GNOME version of top and it just plain is a memory hog on systems or at very least significantly contributes to generally bad system load. An ncurses program run from the console is also safer. Linux dosn't crash or hand except if you use the graphical interfaces. Then you can have windows resource type problems in terms of the mouse barely being able to move or not at all and no commands can be send to the X server at all.
Of course it's silly to make a program that works well with text-based interface to use a heavy GUI. For many uses Linux can indeed work nicely without X, and that's a fine thing. But I also want to be able to use something like GIMP, a graphical browser (althought Netscape is a 'nice' example of bloat...) and hell, why not some nice games as well. (I like roguelike text-based games but if there's more choice than them, it's a good thing; availability of choice is IMO always a nice thing.) Those are just things that do not work as well without GUI.
So, I'm all for the following way:
If a certain program really can do its job on a low-power machine, it's fine and it shouldn't be 'enchanted' to need more than it really needs. But should we forbid programs like Quake3 (complex realtime 3d needs modern hardware) or applications for large scientific visualization (need pretty lot of memory and preferably CPU too) if they do not work on older machines? IMO not.
This might be a bit off-topic, but I can't see strategy and role-playing game folks jumping to consoles; there are just far more of them for PC, and with more variety too.
For action games, it's fine.