The shitty and hacked-up Linux 'distros' which appeared on the first netbooks certainly didn't help. Buggy, slow and lacking in functionality when compared to a clean install of something like Ubuntu. It's almost as if they wanted the bloody things to fail...
(1) Something Debian based (mainly due to my familiarity with apt and Debian systems) (2) Something with modern enhancements for a desktop system (e.g. pre-patched font libraries so they have proper hinting and don't look like ass) (3) Something which supports PPA or other external repos so I can remain as up to day as possible with the latest software (official repos are frozen bar security updates). (4) Something which has out-of-the-box functionality for power users as well as regular users (there's no reason why you can't have both). No reason why you should have to live with a neutered DE like Unity when it should be more configurable for example.
It's a pity that Ubuntu is moving away from this. Every version seems to require further post-configuration from it before I'm satisfied - out-of-the-box settings are no longer optimal. On the other hand, Debian lacks PPAs and I have no idea how to get good looking font rendering compiled on that thing. Linux Mint is the closest option so far, but I'd prefer a straight Ubuntu distro for reasons of compatibility. All these changes between Ubuntu versions seem to be less about genuine improvements and more of a test to see what new features stick, and use the community as beta testers. And worst of all, Mark S has shown no interest in listing to the community. Global menus would be fine if they didn't frigging HIDE all the time, yet the automatic hiding feature will remain apparently despite wide complaints.
I WANT to use Linux, but I hate this shit of not finding something I like.
If Valve's servers get hacked with disastrous consequences (Steam accounts get deleted/hacked/etc, credit card details, other personal info), all hell will break loose. There will also be much smugness from those who don't use Steam for this very reason.
If you don't like the current Government and the policies created and enforced by them, you only really have about six choices:
(1) Vote for someone else - doesn't work because all politicians are either corrupt, will end up corrupt as the system takes hold of them, or despite their best intentions will not be able to do much because their ability to change the system is completely unmatched by the size and inertia of the system (as well as the corruption of their peers). Result - you're fucked. (2) Vote for the current bunch of weasels - better the devil you know. Result - you're fucked. (3) Form a new political party - you won't be elected. Result - you're fucked. (4) Don't vote for anyone - keep the status quo. Result - you're fucked. (5) Grab a lot of guns/ammo/explosives and attempt to raid the White House in frustration. Result - you're dead. (6) Leave the country for some other country which has not quite so shitty a Government. Result - hardest option, but probably the only one with a realistic outcome.
Never. We can laugh at everything because nothing is sacred, not even your precious sensibilities
He's an asshole who deserves jail time, but rape is not deserved punishment under any circumstances. Human dignity is sacred. Deny that and you risk becoming uncivil yourself.
Sometimes I wonder if Stallman has anything positive to say about modern computing and technology. Even if he has valid points a lot of the time, a lot of people eventually become tired of his schtick because he's not willing to compromise, and more importantly, even if you try your best to follow similar ideological standards, odds are you'll have compromised somewhere down the line which means (in his mind) you basically shouldn't have bothered despite your best intentions. That's kinda what irritates me about the man most - he doesn't give out partial credit.
The man must surely be very depressed about how the world is moving in terms of technology, and how many closed systems seem to be going from strength to strength despite the problems we see in them. I just want to read something he says is positive for a change. All this "you're losing your freedom" business is getting repetitive, even if it has a basis.
If true, does this mean that game studios should be adjusting their demographics accordingly?
The game studios already are, that's WHY the demographics have changed. The influx of mainstream casual games are the primary reason for the shift. Good games like Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies, OK games like Angry Birds, and particularly dodgy ones like FarmVille, they all exist because the studios have wanted to tap into the casual market which traditional games was not suitably targeting. The Wii is also part of this of course, as well as party games like Guitar Hero.
In other words, no, the studios don't have to change a damn thing because it's the studios themselves, by tapping an untapped demographic, which has resulted in the average gamer being 37. Finally all gaming sectors are suitably covered now, from your regular hardcore crazies to my mum.
I do wish we had less regenerating health and popamole combat games though...
I've seen people using Tux iconography in totally non-computer related areas
I've seen Tux used on the front cover of a recipe book for cakes. I regret not having a camera phone on me at the time (and I wasn't going to buy a book just from the cover, though cakes are always nice...)
Yes you could do that if you're a masochist who wants to suffer an inferior, possibly unusable gaming experience. Meanwhile people who want to use their hardware to its potential rather than in some gimped, buggy form will take any driver that's going whether it is open or closed.
I wish more GNUtards understood this. People have standards - they don't want to have to "live" with an inferior experience when compromising yields great benefits, particularly if they gain very little from sticking to the inferior option. It's just how the computing experience is at the moment.
In my opinion, if you're gonna play games on Linux for any length of time, stick to native games. There are quite a few of them if you know where to look, and they're not all crappy Quake clones either* (Amnesia and the Penumbra series come to mind). If you want to play Windows games, there's nothing wrong with dual booting simply for Windows games. The best tool for the job is sometimes not the one you'd prefer, but if it gets the job done the best, so be it.
*I use "crappy" subjectively. Most Quake clones I happen to like.:)
There are a lot of games on the Steam platform - make sure you're specific on what works. I tend to avoid Wine because I've encountered regressions going from one version of Wine to the other, and having a game start bugging out just because of a bump in Wine's version number does tend to suck (particularly if there have been improvements in other areas of Wine which benefit other games).
my mom has programming experience and holds bachelor's degrees in physics and math â" she's pretty qualified to teach
Not necessarily. Just because someone is learned in a particular field does not mean they have the skills to dispense the knowledge in an effective manner. I'm not the only one who's encountered people who are experts in their field, yet lack the ability to coherently explain even the basis because they don't have the skills to do so.
As much as I hate Activision's fuckhead CEO Bobby Kotick, there's a reason he's still in the job despite the hate which comes his way from the PC community - he knows how to extract more and more money from people. Sure there will be some people who boycott CoD (seriously this time), but they will be totally outnumbered by those who open their wallets for stat monitoring.
Mainstream gaming has arrived. Don't you just love it?
Oh, I don't know, I've never had a wifi based machine that would not work under linux.
A friend was having a problem trying to get wireless working on his Linux laptop. Turns out the ssb module had to be blacklisted as it would interfere with the wireless system. He could do it (manually messing around with the necessary.conf file), but it's still a joke and completely demolishes the argument that Linux is ready for the desktop.
I would have thought Germany, with it's technological leanings and expertise, would have been more resistant to knee-jerk reactions about nuclear power. But I guess politicians are the same no matter where you are - a bunch of pussies.
It was not fun to read half the comments complain about Quicktime/Flash, whereas a thread regarding the illusions anywhere else would have focused on, I dunno, discussion about the ILLUSIONS.
I've been fucked my Linux so many times as well (bad quality software, badly thought-out interfaces, lack of support for hardware, etc). Sure it's not a company or corporation I can be angry with, but at least Windows and Microsoft are consistent.
Clarifies it enough, at least for your purposes. At least it's more thought out than HURR HURR MICROSOFT = SATAN, which I see a lot around here.
Having said that, Skype (before Microsoft's acquisition) was already shown to be scum with regards to having possible backdoors and bowing down to regimes so that they could conduct business in less politically desirable areas. It's only when something involves Microsoft that people become irrational. Most major corporations/companies are scum or have done scummy things in the past - why take action only when it's Microsoft?
skype on linux is buggy and so so. I give it two chances to get better under MS management, slim and none. Thus as an avid promoter of thin-client linux boxes, I'm not unlikely to want to risk investing in corporate multi-screen-sharing chat accounts, and or skype centric voip phones.
Skype has been crap under Linux for ages, and hadn't shown much sign of getting better even before Microsoft bought them out. I remember the announcement that the Skype UI would be open sourced - what's happened since? Absolutely nothing.
Point is, if you look at the direction Skype has been going on Linux (nowhere), you probably wouldn't have picked Skype to use on your Linux boxes with or without Microsoft's influence, and would have looked elsewhere. Besides, I thought the commercial side of VoIP was already a mature market, with many alternatives to Skype (we're talking corporate level here, not consumer).
Devil's advocate: MSN Messenger has gone through a number of protocol revisions, and IIRC only a couple of those are supported at a time. It's not inconceivable that MS would revise the Skype protocol (adding new features, say) and leave the legacy non-Windows clients to rot.
That is something which would happen. It's probably likely I'd say - Messenger already has audio/video support and integrating the Skype protocol would mean not requiring a separate Skype application anymore, at least on Windows.
Don't suppose the EU would be interested in making MS open the Skype protocol.
You'd have the Windows fanboys in an uproar over that, even if the EU has been one of the few organizations able to stand up to Microsoft.
Even though it's technically your fault (as in you shouldn't trust strangers bearing gifts), Valve were pretty shitty for not restoring your account for reasons basically of out your control. They have really bad support service.
It's crap like this which makes me extremely wary of Steam. As the saying goes, never put all your eggs in one basket. I've seen someone's Steam profile which had 900+ games - what if that guy has his account disabled for whatever reason and can't get Steam to restore it? He's fucked. Having access to a large collection of software accessible solely by an account which is in the end controlled by someone else and not you is dangerous.
Skype outpaces all other alternatives by far, particularly with regards to satisfying the "very easy to configure and use, reliable, multiplatform and has good video/voice quality" requirements. There's a reason so many people use it, and there's a reason Linux users still installed Skype when they were thrown scraps in terms of support and updates.
Keep using Skype until such time that it NO LONGER WORKS (which I suspect will be for a very long time). Just because Microsoft owns it now doesn't mean it's dead. If it finally falls over in something like Linux, then you can move onto something such as Ekiga or whatever else has been developed, but there's simply nothing else in the consumer world that compares.
Heh... "Skype having just been borged". You could at least explain how Skype no longer works for you instead of letting emotions cloud logic.
Slashdot Mirror
The shitty and hacked-up Linux 'distros' which appeared on the first netbooks certainly didn't help. Buggy, slow and lacking in functionality when compared to a clean install of something like Ubuntu. It's almost as if they wanted the bloody things to fail...
I've just realized - Stephen Elop is only one letter away from 'flop'...
What I want out of a Linux distro:
(1) Something Debian based (mainly due to my familiarity with apt and Debian systems)
(2) Something with modern enhancements for a desktop system (e.g. pre-patched font libraries so they have proper hinting and don't look like ass)
(3) Something which supports PPA or other external repos so I can remain as up to day as possible with the latest software (official repos are frozen bar security updates).
(4) Something which has out-of-the-box functionality for power users as well as regular users (there's no reason why you can't have both). No reason why you should have to live with a neutered DE like Unity when it should be more configurable for example.
It's a pity that Ubuntu is moving away from this. Every version seems to require further post-configuration from it before I'm satisfied - out-of-the-box settings are no longer optimal. On the other hand, Debian lacks PPAs and I have no idea how to get good looking font rendering compiled on that thing. Linux Mint is the closest option so far, but I'd prefer a straight Ubuntu distro for reasons of compatibility. All these changes between Ubuntu versions seem to be less about genuine improvements and more of a test to see what new features stick, and use the community as beta testers. And worst of all, Mark S has shown no interest in listing to the community. Global menus would be fine if they didn't frigging HIDE all the time, yet the automatic hiding feature will remain apparently despite wide complaints.
I WANT to use Linux, but I hate this shit of not finding something I like.
I hope Iran upgraded Photoshop to support the features required this time.
If Valve's servers get hacked with disastrous consequences (Steam accounts get deleted/hacked/etc, credit card details, other personal info), all hell will break loose. There will also be much smugness from those who don't use Steam for this very reason.
If you don't like the current Government and the policies created and enforced by them, you only really have about six choices:
(1) Vote for someone else - doesn't work because all politicians are either corrupt, will end up corrupt as the system takes hold of them, or despite their best intentions will not be able to do much because their ability to change the system is completely unmatched by the size and inertia of the system (as well as the corruption of their peers). Result - you're fucked.
(2) Vote for the current bunch of weasels - better the devil you know. Result - you're fucked.
(3) Form a new political party - you won't be elected. Result - you're fucked.
(4) Don't vote for anyone - keep the status quo. Result - you're fucked.
(5) Grab a lot of guns/ammo/explosives and attempt to raid the White House in frustration. Result - you're dead.
(6) Leave the country for some other country which has not quite so shitty a Government. Result - hardest option, but probably the only one with a realistic outcome.
He's an asshole who deserves jail time, but rape is not deserved punishment under any circumstances. Human dignity is sacred. Deny that and you risk becoming uncivil yourself.
Sometimes I wonder if Stallman has anything positive to say about modern computing and technology. Even if he has valid points a lot of the time, a lot of people eventually become tired of his schtick because he's not willing to compromise, and more importantly, even if you try your best to follow similar ideological standards, odds are you'll have compromised somewhere down the line which means (in his mind) you basically shouldn't have bothered despite your best intentions. That's kinda what irritates me about the man most - he doesn't give out partial credit.
The man must surely be very depressed about how the world is moving in terms of technology, and how many closed systems seem to be going from strength to strength despite the problems we see in them. I just want to read something he says is positive for a change. All this "you're losing your freedom" business is getting repetitive, even if it has a basis.
The game studios already are, that's WHY the demographics have changed. The influx of mainstream casual games are the primary reason for the shift. Good games like Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies, OK games like Angry Birds, and particularly dodgy ones like FarmVille, they all exist because the studios have wanted to tap into the casual market which traditional games was not suitably targeting. The Wii is also part of this of course, as well as party games like Guitar Hero.
In other words, no, the studios don't have to change a damn thing because it's the studios themselves, by tapping an untapped demographic, which has resulted in the average gamer being 37. Finally all gaming sectors are suitably covered now, from your regular hardcore crazies to my mum.
I do wish we had less regenerating health and popamole combat games though...
I've seen Tux used on the front cover of a recipe book for cakes. I regret not having a camera phone on me at the time (and I wasn't going to buy a book just from the cover, though cakes are always nice...)
I wish more GNUtards understood this. People have standards - they don't want to have to "live" with an inferior experience when compromising yields great benefits, particularly if they gain very little from sticking to the inferior option. It's just how the computing experience is at the moment.
In my opinion, if you're gonna play games on Linux for any length of time, stick to native games. There are quite a few of them if you know where to look, and they're not all crappy Quake clones either* (Amnesia and the Penumbra series come to mind). If you want to play Windows games, there's nothing wrong with dual booting simply for Windows games. The best tool for the job is sometimes not the one you'd prefer, but if it gets the job done the best, so be it.
*I use "crappy" subjectively. Most Quake clones I happen to like. :)
EDI: Really, Commander?
EDI: Probing Uranus.
Steam games? Or Source engine games?
There are a lot of games on the Steam platform - make sure you're specific on what works. I tend to avoid Wine because I've encountered regressions going from one version of Wine to the other, and having a game start bugging out just because of a bump in Wine's version number does tend to suck (particularly if there have been improvements in other areas of Wine which benefit other games).
Not necessarily. Just because someone is learned in a particular field does not mean they have the skills to dispense the knowledge in an effective manner. I'm not the only one who's encountered people who are experts in their field, yet lack the ability to coherently explain even the basis because they don't have the skills to do so.
As much as I hate Activision's fuckhead CEO Bobby Kotick, there's a reason he's still in the job despite the hate which comes his way from the PC community - he knows how to extract more and more money from people. Sure there will be some people who boycott CoD (seriously this time), but they will be totally outnumbered by those who open their wallets for stat monitoring.
Mainstream gaming has arrived. Don't you just love it?
A friend was having a problem trying to get wireless working on his Linux laptop. Turns out the ssb module had to be blacklisted as it would interfere with the wireless system. He could do it (manually messing around with the necessary .conf file), but it's still a joke and completely demolishes the argument that Linux is ready for the desktop.
I would have thought Germany, with it's technological leanings and expertise, would have been more resistant to knee-jerk reactions about nuclear power. But I guess politicians are the same no matter where you are - a bunch of pussies.
It was fun to look at all these illusions.
It was not fun to read half the comments complain about Quicktime/Flash, whereas a thread regarding the illusions anywhere else would have focused on, I dunno, discussion about the ILLUSIONS.
I've been fucked my Linux so many times as well (bad quality software, badly thought-out interfaces, lack of support for hardware, etc). Sure it's not a company or corporation I can be angry with, but at least Windows and Microsoft are consistent.
Clarifies it enough, at least for your purposes. At least it's more thought out than HURR HURR MICROSOFT = SATAN, which I see a lot around here.
Having said that, Skype (before Microsoft's acquisition) was already shown to be scum with regards to having possible backdoors and bowing down to regimes so that they could conduct business in less politically desirable areas. It's only when something involves Microsoft that people become irrational. Most major corporations/companies are scum or have done scummy things in the past - why take action only when it's Microsoft?
Skype has been crap under Linux for ages, and hadn't shown much sign of getting better even before Microsoft bought them out. I remember the announcement that the Skype UI would be open sourced - what's happened since? Absolutely nothing.
Point is, if you look at the direction Skype has been going on Linux (nowhere), you probably wouldn't have picked Skype to use on your Linux boxes with or without Microsoft's influence, and would have looked elsewhere. Besides, I thought the commercial side of VoIP was already a mature market, with many alternatives to Skype (we're talking corporate level here, not consumer).
That is something which would happen. It's probably likely I'd say - Messenger already has audio/video support and integrating the Skype protocol would mean not requiring a separate Skype application anymore, at least on Windows.
You'd have the Windows fanboys in an uproar over that, even if the EU has been one of the few organizations able to stand up to Microsoft.
Even though it's technically your fault (as in you shouldn't trust strangers bearing gifts), Valve were pretty shitty for not restoring your account for reasons basically of out your control. They have really bad support service.
It's crap like this which makes me extremely wary of Steam. As the saying goes, never put all your eggs in one basket. I've seen someone's Steam profile which had 900+ games - what if that guy has his account disabled for whatever reason and can't get Steam to restore it? He's fucked. Having access to a large collection of software accessible solely by an account which is in the end controlled by someone else and not you is dangerous.
Skype outpaces all other alternatives by far, particularly with regards to satisfying the "very easy to configure and use, reliable, multiplatform and has good video/voice quality" requirements. There's a reason so many people use it, and there's a reason Linux users still installed Skype when they were thrown scraps in terms of support and updates.
Keep using Skype until such time that it NO LONGER WORKS (which I suspect will be for a very long time). Just because Microsoft owns it now doesn't mean it's dead. If it finally falls over in something like Linux, then you can move onto something such as Ekiga or whatever else has been developed, but there's simply nothing else in the consumer world that compares.
Heh... "Skype having just been borged". You could at least explain how Skype no longer works for you instead of letting emotions cloud logic.