What in the hell? This is like the third or fourth troll I've read from you in this thread. Linux has FANTASTIC Truetype font support. There are just very few Truetype fonts that have a GPL license, so there aren't many that are included in Linux distributions.
Who are all of these "Linux people" that you are talking about? most Linux users that I know really hate WINElib (or WINE). I know I do. Why do you think that people aren't that interested in the WordPerfect for Linux? It's a Windows program that runs on top of another layer (WINE). Most Linux users want native, cross-platform applications.
I also got a cap, but don't run Windows or a Mac. I did try it on a Windows machine at work, but after I saw all of the crap that had to be done to register to download a "free" $.99 song, I decided to just throw the cap in the trash. The work involved in redeeming it just wasn't worth it.
Skies is one of the greatest RPGs I've ever played, and truly shows that modern RPG games can still be fun. It's a bit cliche in many respects, but I've not played another RPG that was nearly as good since Xenogears or the old SNES games like FF IV/VI and Chrono Trigger.
I liked MSR, but it didn't hook me as much as Test Drive LeMans did. Infogrames Melbourne House are some talented programmers that really managed to squeeze a hell of a lot out of the Dreamcast (and they claim that they had plenty of room to spare!). Anyway... Back to MSR. It's definately one of the most unique racers I've played, and has a lot of cool aspects that make it very original.
Shenmue will always be one of my favorite game series. I loved the first game, and was blown away by the sequel, which I imported from Europe. I wish all the time that we'll see a third game in the series, to close the story... Maybe next generation. The games have some quirks, but it definately does a lot very well. It's a great series. In fact, I love Shenmue 2 so much, that I started playing it again a week ago; probably my fourth time through it.
SEGA Bass Fishing is fantastic, especially with the fishing controller. Marine Fishing is also quite cool, even though it feels a lot more arcadey. I have unfortunately not had the opportunity to pick up the second bass fishing game.
Soul Calibur is a classic that we played the hell out of before the DC was released in the USA. My buddy had the game, imported from Japan, and we played it all the time through the first half of 1999. We ran a game store and had the unit set up on a kisok, hooked to a 17" monitor with the VGA box, connected to two official arcade sticks. I can't tell you how many pre-orders we got for those things, just by having his personal demo unit. I kinda feel like we were a part of gaming history, peddling the amazing console by tempting people with the greatness of Soul Calibur.
There are other games that I really enjoyed as well. Near the end of the Dreamcast's life, it was possible to score TONS of fantastic games in the $5-$10 price range. I managed to get lots of great games; Sword of the Berserk, EGG, Vanishing Point, Expendable, Draconus, etc., at super low prices. Great stuff.
All totalled, I think I have about 60 Dreamcast games. I was pretty crushed when SEGA stated that they were going to halt the production of the system and the games, and thought that I might stop buying console games all together. My Gamecube has filled part of the gaming void with a few Dreamcast ports and unique and original titles, but it still doesn't have some of the flair of the Dreamcast, even if it does have its own style of excellent games.
I think that this is one console that will be remembered for a very long time. It's a shame, actually, that many people didn't really start to notice it until it was too late. I see countless stories about people who picked up a $50 Dreamcast and couldn't believe that there were so many kick-ass games avaiable for the system, wishing that they had purchased one earlier.
The Hitachi SH4 is classified as a 32 bit CPU, however, it has an 128 bit floating point bus and 64 bit data bus. The PowerVR2DC "Highlander" graphics chip has a 128 bit memory interface. The console is no less "128 bit" than the XBox or Gamecube would be.
I don't think that the point was about wheather or not Valenti cares about Linux. The point was about fair use. Valenti's answer was just the same - that Linux users would not be authorized to use it. The author fired back that an estimated two-million Linux users are alienated by these policies.
It's *not* about greed and freebies. How can people buy a product that lets them play movies "legally" on non-Windows/Mac systems? I suppose you have an answer to that? No... Cyberlink is not selling their mythical DVD software to end-users.
Cyberlink and Intervideo couldn't write good players even if it meant their lives depended on it. Hell, their Windows software is so bad, I'd be afraid to see how their port to an X11 system turned out. MPlayer can play DVDs in a framebuffer *console*, on a low-end Pentium II, with less than 50% CPU load. It's too bad it's not legal.
Cyberlink's deal with TurboLinux probably really means: "Can you help us write a better Linux player? Pretty pwease? We'll let you license it from us."
It's sad. Years after Cyberlink touted Linux support, we've still not seen a product released to end-users. Guess it doesn't matter anyway, if the quality of their previous Windows products is any indication.
The sad truth is that it's only a crime to reverse-engineer something if you are an individual. Companies, with lots of cash in the coffers, reverse engineer products and technologies all of the time, in order to create their own products and keep a leg up on the competition. DMCA doesn't apply to you if you have money. Sure, you can sue your competitors until the end of time, but when has that stopped companies like Intel and AMD from hacking on rival products? It's about control. Valenti wants you to mindlessly buy into his schemes to control all of your content and the way it is distributed, without regard to wheather or not it is being used "fairly".
I suspect that it has a lot more to do with CPU load than hard drive use. Or, it's a factor of both. Vorbis requires a substantially higher-powered CPU with a floating point unit for decoding. I'm guessing that FLAC may also need a bit more power for decoding. FLAC's algorithm is probably pretty simple for decoding, since it doesn't have to do all of those bizarre compression tricks that are used for lossy audio, but there is probably a lot more data moved in and out due to the large file sizes. Most reference MP3 decoders have several years of optimizations that have been put in place for improvement in decoding speed. I can recall MP3 playback on my Cyrix pr200+ back when Winamp was still young. After a few years of improvement, MP3 decoding got better and better, and playback was more smooth on my old machine. I was able to do more stuff (like browsing) with less MP3 skipping. It probably helped that Nullsoft also eventually ditched that crummy Nitrane decoder in favor of a true FIIS MP3 derivative.
I don't know. I could be wrong, but it's just a theory. I'm looking into buying a Karma, by the way. If battery is still 50-60% as good with FLAC files, it shouldn't be a problem.
I'd buy a high-capacity I-pod if it supported FLAC, but it does not seem that it ever will. The Rio Karma is a good substitute, and it's loaded with features, like network connectivity and the likes. But what in the hell is this "Apple Lossless Audio" codec? Is it some hybrid, DRM encumbered thing from some BSD licensed codec that they ganked (like WavPack)? I'm doubtful that Apple wrote this from scratch, and simply added FairPlay to some other codec... They have no details on their site.
I'd be grateful if someone could post a comparison of file size (and other details) to Apple's new lossless codec in comparison to some of the standards, like FLAC and WavPack.
It's not necessary, but it's just a practice I have, since I like to start fresh every once in a while. Generally, upgradpkg will work just fine to keep Slackware up-to-date, but I like to experiment with installing and removing software, and it's a just-in-case thing to keep things clean.
Does that mean that since I have legitimate Windows licenses (as many people do) from the purchase of a PC, or by buying the Windows software outright, that I have the right to use Windows media codecs on Linux?
I guess that's the shady issue. I would assume that is the case, but licensing issues are very touchy.
For instance, what about the new NTFS kernel module that links to Windows' own NTFS dll to do the dirty work? I guess that's about the same type of thing.
I don't have these problems on Linux, with MPlayer. It plays just fine. The unfortunate fact is that the codecs are proprietary and closed, and future versions will probably not work with Linux without more reverse engineering, and without any help from Microsoft. Essentially, TurboLinux is just fueling the fire, but I guess that could be said of all of us that use the codecs on Linux to play our pr0n.
Interesting. Thanks for the Autopatcher link. I don't use Windows anymore, but it will be good for when I am forced to use it for patching machines for my family.
I've noticed a pattern here. Most users, regardless of the OS, seem to install a few web browsing tools, music tools, video tools, and maybe an office suite. I've installed the same or similar programs to yours, on my Linux machine, almost immediately after reinstallation of Slackware. Exceptions are XMMS in favor of Winamp, MPlayer in favor of Media Player Classic, etc.
Heh. Don't have such the pleasure of Windows hotfixes. On my machine (After a fresh Slackware install), in no particular order:
Dropline Gnome ATI Radeon Drivers Newest ALSA drivers MPlayer MPlayerplug-in Newest version of XMMS or Beep K3B Prozilla RipperX A few Linux games, like UT2004, Majesty, or some current LGP beta
I normally do this every once or twice a year, wiping everything but my home directory, with every Slackware release.
The only problem is that Tux is going to get pissed if Gully bogarts all of the fish. You know how they are all about free speech instead of free fish.
*.dot templates are still a little wanky. Still, those few MS Office compatibility issues are minor for most people. There are a few people that need to have it as accurate as possible, and need those advanced features of MS Office, but those people are using MS Office instead of OpenOffice.org. The rest can normally do quite well with OO.o for most home and business use. I especially love the PDF export feature. It eleminates any compatibility issues for me when I need to send a document to someone, or take a file to the campus to print it out (I'm not interested in buying a printer that I'll use only every once in a while). My mom's computer was using a really old version of MS Works for Windows 3.1. When we updated the machine a bit, I installed OO.o so she didn't have to use that crummy old version of Works, and she loves OO.o. She can't believe it's actually free software.
This topic about Epiphany really opens a new can of worms. Now, I'm going to go off about Gnome in general. Epiphany, itself, really is a good example of one of Gnome's major problems.
I'm finding that many Gnome developers are going with making things so ridiculously simple at times that it is almost getting stupid. I use Epiphany, but I prefer Galeon as well. Comparing Epiphany to more feature-rich browsers like Galeon/Konqueror/Firefox makes Epiphany seem almost like IE to some degree. I suppose that is the point. I can browse with Epiphany and still get a reasonably good experience, where if I am forced to use a Windows machine (and IE) I am greeted with a slow browser with no features, tons of pop-ups, lack of tabbed browsing, lack of middle click, etc. Sure, you can add these extensions, but that's not the point.
The Gnome project seems to be interested in keeping things as simple as possible without taking too many features away. There are some things about Galeon/Firefox that I never used. There are some things about Epiphany that I would love to have. Any choice is better than IE for most browsing. I guess that is the point.
What is really odd about Gnome's usability though, is that it is really inconsistent between apps. Even more annoying is that there are such major changes between different versions of Gnome, that really negate the "ease of use" concept that they seem to promote. For example, what in the hell is up with the new spatial Nautilus? Sure, it's fast. Sure, it works well in some respects. Sure, I'm getting used to it. Sure, I can enable "classic mode" and browse that way. But it seem to be *unfinished*. That's the big deal. Someone above mentioned that Gnome feels half-finished in many respects, and I tend to agree (in spite of it being my desktop of choice). Perhaps if they would stick to keeping major UI standards for major versions (between 2.x and 3.x, for instance), maybe someone could finish implementing a product or feature and make things consistent for once. Though I kinda like the new Nautilus spatial file manager, there are a lot of things that are missing that really make it difficult to use for certain things.
So, back to Epiphany... While I feel that it feels a lot like Galeon or Firefox in most respects, some design decisions are just weird! For example, the way that it manages tab organization, or the slim feature-set that give you the ability to customize it. I like the browser, but I feel that Marco is going way too far in some respects. I really appreciate his work; Don't get me wrong. It's just something that I'm seeing from many Gnome-centric projects as well.
It's just weird. You have an app like Evolution, which is kick-ass as far as mail apps are concerned, but other things seem to be broken or incomplete; Epiphany, Totem, (the new and improved) Nautilus in spatial mode, G-Streamer, etc. To the guy that posted that really long response of above; I feel your pain. I love Gnome, but I can't help but think that the head developers are a little lost at times. There really isn't a very good sense of group direction and planning... At least compared to KDE, in my opinion.
I don't know. I use Epiphany on Linux, with MPlayer and a browser plugin called MPlayerplug-in. I don't have too many problems with embedded media in web pages - even those that use Windows Media or Quicktime.
There is an obvious difference here. First, there were very few native OS2 apps. Second, OS2 wasn't free (beer). Third, OS2 wasn't nearly as sophosticated. Fourth, OS2 was not opensource.
See the difference? Why would anyone pay extra for an environment that really didn't offer a whole lot more?
Most jobs have a certain degree of stress. In most cases, it's not nearly as bad as people like to think it is. Modern day people think that they have stress, but realistically, their lives are pretty easy. They just always think that they need to be in a hurry to get things done. Pressure makes some people work better.
If you think that you have it tough, think about how someone felt working in a factory 100 years ago, or perhaps a farmer that had to break his back every day to feed his family. These are people that really worked hard... Modern day "stress" is only based on a person's desire to have things. Think about it... Are you really stressed because you need to make that deadline to get the work done, with risk of being fired, for fear that you won't be able to make your SUV payment? Or, could you deal with a different, but satisfying and more stable, job that might pay a little less even though you might have to make some sacrifices in terms of the things that you buy. Only you can be the judge of that.
In reality, web development can only take you so far, and the pay isn't really *that* great unless you become some uber freelance developer that is well-known. Just do the thing that you enjoy the most, regardless of what it is. If that is web development, then maybe you're in the right place. If you can't handle the deadlines, then maybe something else would be better for you.
You try running a modern game on less than a 5400 RPM drive. Several years ago, I tried playing a Q2 based game on a machine with an older drive, and there would be 5 second delays in-between loading points at different sections of the map because the drive was way too slow to send level data to the cache in physical RAM. Of course, modern machines are better at this because they have more RAM, but it is still a problem on slower drives. Data still has to go in and out of RAM, polling from the hard drive.
This is ridiculous. I'm not fond of the Playstation's inferiorities as much as the next person (Dreamcast forever!), but there is NO SUCH THING as "hardware cell shading". The "cell shading" is just applying colors to a 3D object, in a manner that makes it look like it is a cartoon instead of a "realistic" object. It's nothing new, and is certainly something that the PS2 can handle just fine. In fact, it highlights the PS2's abilities to produce high-quality 3D graphics without applying as many textures to the objects. PS2 lacks sophisticated texture compression features that the Gamecube and XBox shine at. Vietiful Joe doesn't use as many prefabricated textures for the characters. Those are instead used more often on the flat (but 3D) backgrounds in this game.
Since FLAC is an opensource codec, and is (allegedly) free from patents and the likes, I think that it will be pretty future-proof. Of course, you never know. Still, even if active development ever stops, the source will always be available.
With current tools, you can convert from FLAC back to WAV, or MP3, or anything else, just as if you had cleanly ripped it from a CD.
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What in the hell? This is like the third or fourth troll I've read from you in this thread. Linux has FANTASTIC Truetype font support. There are just very few Truetype fonts that have a GPL license, so there aren't many that are included in Linux distributions.
i ng.org/katana.png
http://borgerding.org/fonts.png
http://borgerd
Please, enlighten me with a good reason as to why the Truetype support sucks on Linux/X11.
Who are all of these "Linux people" that you are talking about? most Linux users that I know really hate WINElib (or WINE). I know I do. Why do you think that people aren't that interested in the WordPerfect for Linux? It's a Windows program that runs on top of another layer (WINE). Most Linux users want native, cross-platform applications.
I also got a cap, but don't run Windows or a Mac. I did try it on a Windows machine at work, but after I saw all of the crap that had to be done to register to download a "free" $.99 song, I decided to just throw the cap in the trash. The work involved in redeeming it just wasn't worth it.
Skies is one of the greatest RPGs I've ever played, and truly shows that modern RPG games can still be fun. It's a bit cliche in many respects, but I've not played another RPG that was nearly as good since Xenogears or the old SNES games like FF IV/VI and Chrono Trigger.
I liked MSR, but it didn't hook me as much as Test Drive LeMans did. Infogrames Melbourne House are some talented programmers that really managed to squeeze a hell of a lot out of the Dreamcast (and they claim that they had plenty of room to spare!). Anyway... Back to MSR. It's definately one of the most unique racers I've played, and has a lot of cool aspects that make it very original.
Shenmue will always be one of my favorite game series. I loved the first game, and was blown away by the sequel, which I imported from Europe. I wish all the time that we'll see a third game in the series, to close the story... Maybe next generation. The games have some quirks, but it definately does a lot very well. It's a great series. In fact, I love Shenmue 2 so much, that I started playing it again a week ago; probably my fourth time through it.
SEGA Bass Fishing is fantastic, especially with the fishing controller. Marine Fishing is also quite cool, even though it feels a lot more arcadey. I have unfortunately not had the opportunity to pick up the second bass fishing game.
Soul Calibur is a classic that we played the hell out of before the DC was released in the USA. My buddy had the game, imported from Japan, and we played it all the time through the first half of 1999. We ran a game store and had the unit set up on a kisok, hooked to a 17" monitor with the VGA box, connected to two official arcade sticks. I can't tell you how many pre-orders we got for those things, just by having his personal demo unit. I kinda feel like we were a part of gaming history, peddling the amazing console by tempting people with the greatness of Soul Calibur.
There are other games that I really enjoyed as well. Near the end of the Dreamcast's life, it was possible to score TONS of fantastic games in the $5-$10 price range. I managed to get lots of great games; Sword of the Berserk, EGG, Vanishing Point, Expendable, Draconus, etc., at super low prices. Great stuff.
All totalled, I think I have about 60 Dreamcast games. I was pretty crushed when SEGA stated that they were going to halt the production of the system and the games, and thought that I might stop buying console games all together. My Gamecube has filled part of the gaming void with a few Dreamcast ports and unique and original titles, but it still doesn't have some of the flair of the Dreamcast, even if it does have its own style of excellent games.
I think that this is one console that will be remembered for a very long time. It's a shame, actually, that many people didn't really start to notice it until it was too late. I see countless stories about people who picked up a $50 Dreamcast and couldn't believe that there were so many kick-ass games avaiable for the system, wishing that they had purchased one earlier.
I still keep meaning to buy one of those so I can really enjoy Samba De Amigo. Lik-Sang still has the EMS brand controllers for $29.
The Hitachi SH4 is classified as a 32 bit CPU, however, it has an 128 bit floating point bus and 64 bit data bus. The PowerVR2DC "Highlander" graphics chip has a 128 bit memory interface. The console is no less "128 bit" than the XBox or Gamecube would be.
I don't think that the point was about wheather or not Valenti cares about Linux. The point was about fair use. Valenti's answer was just the same - that Linux users would not be authorized to use it. The author fired back that an estimated two-million Linux users are alienated by these policies.
It's *not* about greed and freebies. How can people buy a product that lets them play movies "legally" on non-Windows/Mac systems? I suppose you have an answer to that? No... Cyberlink is not selling their mythical DVD software to end-users.
Definately.
Cyberlink and Intervideo couldn't write good players even if it meant their lives depended on it. Hell, their Windows software is so bad, I'd be afraid to see how their port to an X11 system turned out. MPlayer can play DVDs in a framebuffer *console*, on a low-end Pentium II, with less than 50% CPU load. It's too bad it's not legal.
Cyberlink's deal with TurboLinux probably really means: "Can you help us write a better Linux player? Pretty pwease? We'll let you license it from us."
It's sad. Years after Cyberlink touted Linux support, we've still not seen a product released to end-users. Guess it doesn't matter anyway, if the quality of their previous Windows products is any indication.
The sad truth is that it's only a crime to reverse-engineer something if you are an individual. Companies, with lots of cash in the coffers, reverse engineer products and technologies all of the time, in order to create their own products and keep a leg up on the competition. DMCA doesn't apply to you if you have money. Sure, you can sue your competitors until the end of time, but when has that stopped companies like Intel and AMD from hacking on rival products? It's about control. Valenti wants you to mindlessly buy into his schemes to control all of your content and the way it is distributed, without regard to wheather or not it is being used "fairly".
I suspect that it has a lot more to do with CPU load than hard drive use. Or, it's a factor of both. Vorbis requires a substantially higher-powered CPU with a floating point unit for decoding. I'm guessing that FLAC may also need a bit more power for decoding. FLAC's algorithm is probably pretty simple for decoding, since it doesn't have to do all of those bizarre compression tricks that are used for lossy audio, but there is probably a lot more data moved in and out due to the large file sizes. Most reference MP3 decoders have several years of optimizations that have been put in place for improvement in decoding speed. I can recall MP3 playback on my Cyrix pr200+ back when Winamp was still young. After a few years of improvement, MP3 decoding got better and better, and playback was more smooth on my old machine. I was able to do more stuff (like browsing) with less MP3 skipping. It probably helped that Nullsoft also eventually ditched that crummy Nitrane decoder in favor of a true FIIS MP3 derivative.
I don't know. I could be wrong, but it's just a theory. I'm looking into buying a Karma, by the way. If battery is still 50-60% as good with FLAC files, it shouldn't be a problem.
I'd buy a high-capacity I-pod if it supported FLAC, but it does not seem that it ever will. The Rio Karma is a good substitute, and it's loaded with features, like network connectivity and the likes. But what in the hell is this "Apple Lossless Audio" codec? Is it some hybrid, DRM encumbered thing from some BSD licensed codec that they ganked (like WavPack)? I'm doubtful that Apple wrote this from scratch, and simply added FairPlay to some other codec... They have no details on their site.
I'd be grateful if someone could post a comparison of file size (and other details) to Apple's new lossless codec in comparison to some of the standards, like FLAC and WavPack.
It's not necessary, but it's just a practice I have, since I like to start fresh every once in a while. Generally, upgradpkg will work just fine to keep Slackware up-to-date, but I like to experiment with installing and removing software, and it's a just-in-case thing to keep things clean.
Does that mean that since I have legitimate Windows licenses (as many people do) from the purchase of a PC, or by buying the Windows software outright, that I have the right to use Windows media codecs on Linux?
I guess that's the shady issue. I would assume that is the case, but licensing issues are very touchy.
For instance, what about the new NTFS kernel module that links to Windows' own NTFS dll to do the dirty work? I guess that's about the same type of thing.
I don't have these problems on Linux, with MPlayer. It plays just fine. The unfortunate fact is that the codecs are proprietary and closed, and future versions will probably not work with Linux without more reverse engineering, and without any help from Microsoft. Essentially, TurboLinux is just fueling the fire, but I guess that could be said of all of us that use the codecs on Linux to play our pr0n.
Interesting. Thanks for the Autopatcher link. I don't use Windows anymore, but it will be good for when I am forced to use it for patching machines for my family.
I've noticed a pattern here. Most users, regardless of the OS, seem to install a few web browsing tools, music tools, video tools, and maybe an office suite. I've installed the same or similar programs to yours, on my Linux machine, almost immediately after reinstallation of Slackware. Exceptions are XMMS in favor of Winamp, MPlayer in favor of Media Player Classic, etc.
Heh. Don't have such the pleasure of Windows hotfixes. On my machine (After a fresh Slackware install), in no particular order:
Dropline Gnome
ATI Radeon Drivers
Newest ALSA drivers
MPlayer
MPlayerplug-in
Newest version of XMMS or Beep
K3B
Prozilla
RipperX
A few Linux games, like UT2004, Majesty, or some current LGP beta
I normally do this every once or twice a year, wiping everything but my home directory, with every Slackware release.
The only problem is that Tux is going to get pissed if Gully bogarts all of the fish. You know how they are all about free speech instead of free fish.
*.dot templates are still a little wanky. Still, those few MS Office compatibility issues are minor for most people. There are a few people that need to have it as accurate as possible, and need those advanced features of MS Office, but those people are using MS Office instead of OpenOffice.org. The rest can normally do quite well with OO.o for most home and business use. I especially love the PDF export feature. It eleminates any compatibility issues for me when I need to send a document to someone, or take a file to the campus to print it out (I'm not interested in buying a printer that I'll use only every once in a while). My mom's computer was using a really old version of MS Works for Windows 3.1. When we updated the machine a bit, I installed OO.o so she didn't have to use that crummy old version of Works, and she loves OO.o. She can't believe it's actually free software.
This topic about Epiphany really opens a new can of worms. Now, I'm going to go off about Gnome in general. Epiphany, itself, really is a good example of one of Gnome's major problems.
I'm finding that many Gnome developers are going with making things so ridiculously simple at times that it is almost getting stupid. I use Epiphany, but I prefer Galeon as well. Comparing Epiphany to more feature-rich browsers like Galeon/Konqueror/Firefox makes Epiphany seem almost like IE to some degree. I suppose that is the point. I can browse with Epiphany and still get a reasonably good experience, where if I am forced to use a Windows machine (and IE) I am greeted with a slow browser with no features, tons of pop-ups, lack of tabbed browsing, lack of middle click, etc. Sure, you can add these extensions, but that's not the point.
The Gnome project seems to be interested in keeping things as simple as possible without taking too many features away. There are some things about Galeon/Firefox that I never used. There are some things about Epiphany that I would love to have. Any choice is better than IE for most browsing. I guess that is the point.
What is really odd about Gnome's usability though, is that it is really inconsistent between apps. Even more annoying is that there are such major changes between different versions of Gnome, that really negate the "ease of use" concept that they seem to promote. For example, what in the hell is up with the new spatial Nautilus? Sure, it's fast. Sure, it works well in some respects. Sure, I'm getting used to it. Sure, I can enable "classic mode" and browse that way. But it seem to be *unfinished*. That's the big deal. Someone above mentioned that Gnome feels half-finished in many respects, and I tend to agree (in spite of it being my desktop of choice). Perhaps if they would stick to keeping major UI standards for major versions (between 2.x and 3.x, for instance), maybe someone could finish implementing a product or feature and make things consistent for once. Though I kinda like the new Nautilus spatial file manager, there are a lot of things that are missing that really make it difficult to use for certain things.
So, back to Epiphany... While I feel that it feels a lot like Galeon or Firefox in most respects, some design decisions are just weird! For example, the way that it manages tab organization, or the slim feature-set that give you the ability to customize it. I like the browser, but I feel that Marco is going way too far in some respects. I really appreciate his work; Don't get me wrong. It's just something that I'm seeing from many Gnome-centric projects as well.
It's just weird. You have an app like Evolution, which is kick-ass as far as mail apps are concerned, but other things seem to be broken or incomplete; Epiphany, Totem, (the new and improved) Nautilus in spatial mode, G-Streamer, etc. To the guy that posted that really long response of above; I feel your pain. I love Gnome, but I can't help but think that the head developers are a little lost at times. There really isn't a very good sense of group direction and planning... At least compared to KDE, in my opinion.
I don't know. I use Epiphany on Linux, with MPlayer and a browser plugin called MPlayerplug-in. I don't have too many problems with embedded media in web pages - even those that use Windows Media or Quicktime.
There is an obvious difference here. First, there were very few native OS2 apps. Second, OS2 wasn't free (beer). Third, OS2 wasn't nearly as sophosticated. Fourth, OS2 was not opensource.
See the difference? Why would anyone pay extra for an environment that really didn't offer a whole lot more?
Most jobs have a certain degree of stress. In most cases, it's not nearly as bad as people like to think it is. Modern day people think that they have stress, but realistically, their lives are pretty easy. They just always think that they need to be in a hurry to get things done. Pressure makes some people work better.
If you think that you have it tough, think about how someone felt working in a factory 100 years ago, or perhaps a farmer that had to break his back every day to feed his family. These are people that really worked hard... Modern day "stress" is only based on a person's desire to have things. Think about it... Are you really stressed because you need to make that deadline to get the work done, with risk of being fired, for fear that you won't be able to make your SUV payment? Or, could you deal with a different, but satisfying and more stable, job that might pay a little less even though you might have to make some sacrifices in terms of the things that you buy. Only you can be the judge of that.
In reality, web development can only take you so far, and the pay isn't really *that* great unless you become some uber freelance developer that is well-known. Just do the thing that you enjoy the most, regardless of what it is. If that is web development, then maybe you're in the right place. If you can't handle the deadlines, then maybe something else would be better for you.
You try running a modern game on less than a 5400 RPM drive. Several years ago, I tried playing a Q2 based game on a machine with an older drive, and there would be 5 second delays in-between loading points at different sections of the map because the drive was way too slow to send level data to the cache in physical RAM. Of course, modern machines are better at this because they have more RAM, but it is still a problem on slower drives. Data still has to go in and out of RAM, polling from the hard drive.
This is ridiculous. I'm not fond of the Playstation's inferiorities as much as the next person (Dreamcast forever!), but there is NO SUCH THING as "hardware cell shading". The "cell shading" is just applying colors to a 3D object, in a manner that makes it look like it is a cartoon instead of a "realistic" object. It's nothing new, and is certainly something that the PS2 can handle just fine. In fact, it highlights the PS2's abilities to produce high-quality 3D graphics without applying as many textures to the objects. PS2 lacks sophisticated texture compression features that the Gamecube and XBox shine at. Vietiful Joe doesn't use as many prefabricated textures for the characters. Those are instead used more often on the flat (but 3D) backgrounds in this game.
Since FLAC is an opensource codec, and is (allegedly) free from patents and the likes, I think that it will be pretty future-proof. Of course, you never know. Still, even if active development ever stops, the source will always be available.
With current tools, you can convert from FLAC back to WAV, or MP3, or anything else, just as if you had cleanly ripped it from a CD.