My interpretation was: "Microsoft (overrated + expensive) is to OSS (free + good enough) as Evian (overrated + expensive) is to tap water (free + good enough)"
Well, I could go along with that interpretation, with the proviso that one must be living in an area that has decent tap water. Trust me, I've been in some places with really nasty tap water, I'd choke on the stuff...
Johny says: --Microsoft is to OSS as Evian is to tap water
Cute saying, but unfortunately it makes no sense. What was he thinking? Who knows - possibly, tap water might represent the public domain? But that's a very different thing from the GPL.
Hmm, come to think of it, it actually makes more sense to say that Linux is to microsoft as aquafina is to tap water, since tap water has viruses, everybody uses it, and aquafina just tastes a lot better. I work with windows a few times a week (I actually take money to work on windows pcs, in addition to my unix/linux side work), and after the taste of windows (tap water) I'm always relieved to get back to the Linux (aquafina) environment.
f you do something wrong installing video drivers in Windows, you get a smack on the hand by the OS forcing you to 640x480, where you have to deal with what you did. Make that same mistake in Linux, and without knowing what file to edit in a command line editor, most Linux newbies are looking at an OS reinstall.
I have not found that to be the case. As far as installing drivers in linux, if I make a mistake clicking on the "install nvidia drivers" checkbox, at the very worst I would still be without hardware accelerated 3D, and that's it. I might not even notice unless I fired up ut2004 or something, and in that case I'd go back into yast and click the checkbox again, and get it right this time. I certainly would never think of reinstalling the OS. (but maybe that's just because it's been awhile since I used a microsoft OS);)
The one thing that I do not like about it, is how long it takes to boot.
(shrug) I usually boot my linux boxes every year or so, and never really thought about booting times being a problem... If you really want a fast boot, there is a linux bios project that allows a system to come from a powered off state to "ready for login" in a few seconds...
I use SUSE at home and I enjoy it, that said I don't see how this posting is -1 troll.
Easy, he's painting a distorted picture, using innuendo and carefully selected opinions to make it sound as though linux doesn't work, and windows does.
I will definitely want to go to 9.2 for various reasons, I don't see any benefit to staying on 9.1 when it's easy and free to upgrade. While current and older releases will continue to get security fixes for awhile, many packages will never get upgraded, and you'll need to move forward to get some of the fresher goodies in 9.2 (and later versions)
As far as upgrading 9.1 to 9.2 via apt, it is just a matter of pointing your apt sources to a 9.2 repository - next "apt-get update; apt-get upgrade" cycle will get you on 9.2 -
"Any closed source firm does it" represents a firm, say Intel, doing what is suggested here.
Doing "what is suggested here", being in fact, defending open source. I'm hard pressed to see how any of us who depend on open source software for their livelihood would be "barking mad" about that.
I'm not sure why you call Novell an "open source company", but the last I checked, they weren't open sourcing netware or edirectory or dirxml. The fact is, almost all companies enjoy the use of open source in some way, but some like to pretend otherwise.
BTW, when you mention "slashdotters", you do realize that most slashdotters are users of microsoft windows, not linux or other open systems, right?
Nah, I'd bet there are others, plenty of slashdotters that don't RTFA I'm afraid.
Any closed source firm does it and it is just another evil corporation
"Any closed source firm" defends open source and it is just another evil corporation? Sorry, that makes no sense, could you cite an example in support of your position? What company, closed source or otherwise, has been branded "an evil corporation" for defending open source? I'd like to understand your position, but I'm having trouble making sense of it;)
So are you saying that you're a luddite, or that you'd be more comfortable with something like ms windows? (gives a whole new meaning to "crash" and "blue screen of death" doesn't it?)
Seriously, I can't think of any OS I'd trust more than linux for the really critical stuff.
tuxgames.com will be packaging the linux binaries with the data files and a linux installer - I've got doom3 for linux on order with them - if you want a doom 3 for linux boxed set, you might consider giving them your business.
If you don't have the kernel source that was used to build the kernel you're running, you'll need to either obtain it, or in many cases, obtain the latest kernel source and build a kernel to match it.
Or run a distro which provides a wrapper around the nvidia driver and does not require driver rebuilds when the kernel is updated. Of course, in the case of suse 9.1, that means using the 1.0-5336 driver, and not the latest and greatest. The choice is yours: Do you want simplicity? fine, stick with the out of the box suse experience. Do you want to get your hands dirty with the latest and greatest? Good, download the latest nvidia driver and perform the 3 steps:
1. cd to kernel source and type "make cloneconfig", then "make prepare-all" 2. type e.g. "sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6111-pkg1.run -q --kernel-source-path=/usr/src/linux" 3. type "sax2 -m 0=nvidia" if this is a new driver install, otherwise skip this step.
Of course this means you must rebuild the driver if you update the kernel, and you must have kernel sources if you update the kernel, but it's your choice, and if you don't like the idea of having to maintain the driver/kernel synchronization, just stick with the default nvidia wrapper.
Re:Better drivers and licensing please
on
Linux GPU Performance
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The situation right now is quite frustrating - all distributions should be able to ship the binary drivers for the vendor kernel. It would make it so much easier, than having to get the kernel source and headers before building the module on your own.
I'm not sure what distro you're using, but with suse 9.1, no such contortions are needed. I simply checked the box in yast that says "install nvidia drivers" and a message popped up saying "nvidia drivers will take effect next time X is restarted".
The article contained some incorrect statements as well - in particular, claiming that the kernel must somehow be "recompiled" to allow the nvidia drivers to be installed. That's never been true, so seeing such a statement is mystifying.
To recap, with suse 9.1 and nvidia drivers:
recompile kernel? no edit config files? no. time to install drivers? about 30 seconds.
Novell has NDS/eDirectory which is soon to be a major Linux product.
Soon to be? edirectory runs really well on linux, in fact our onsite novell guy told me that they are seeing better performance in their labs from edirectory on suse linux than they are from edirectory on solaris...
But agreed, linux needs an inexpensive and easy to use directory server in order to gain significant ground in small and medium businesses.
Will it be supported on platforms other than red hat linux?
Hopefully redhat will do the right thing here and not pull a microsoft... I'd love to run their product on suse linux, just as there are those who would want to run it on solaris...
I hate to burst YOUR bubble, but your statement seems to fly in the face of certain hard facts, as underscored by the chronic microsoft ie specific security woes which have buffeted microsoft users for the past few years.
While there's no panacea, and this is no time to relax our security vigilance, there's no question that firefox is a much safer choice of browser than ie - to deny that is just plain silly.
Bad idea for a couple of reasons, off the top of my head -
#1, ms will fight tooth and nail against the idea of giving ms office users more choice of OS on which to run ms office since obviously, some will choose an OS other than ms windows.
#2, the ms office port would divert resources from the excellent alternatives such as open office.
Rather than rushing in to prop up the faltering ms office monopoly, we should be support the increasingly capable ms office alternatives, encouraging interoperability via document and file format standards, not vendor lock in.
Get real, how many game makers will have incentive to make a Linux port while Linux is only 1-5% of the market?
Gee I dunno, why don't we ask atari, activision and idsoftware, for starters. The fact is, linux does have a foothold, albeit a small one, in the form of native linux versions of games from these vendors, and that foothold needs to be encouraged, because it's the only foothold that's of any substance.
Your argument is self defeating, because if the game vendors want to do it your way, all they need to do is ignore linux - after all, if linux users want to run games, they can just struggle with an emuated version of the windows games, right? OS/2 went that way and died, I want to see much better things for Linux.
If wine/x fills a need for you, great - it's just not for me. Lord knows, I spend way too much time gaming anyway. I don't have enough time to explore, let alone play, all the native linux 3D FPS games out there - but I get my fill of it with a handful, basiclly ut2004, RtCW, and that old standby, Q3A.
Shelrem said: Guess what? Almost all of it (game development) already is (windows centric).
Fact is, linux does have a presence, a mindshare with the game developers. That's why I can go to the store and buy a copy of ut2004, install it on my linux system and start playing without any hassle. That's why idsoft has made available linux versions of every one of their titles from doom on - and games based on the Q3A engine are easy to port to linux. If we lose that, and end up stuck with merely trying to run windows games under emulation, what happens when microsoft fscks us with the next version of windows? or attacks wine in the courts? and don't think they're not going to do it. That's why I see wine as a useful but temporary kludge. To depend upon it long term is a dangerous game, which will end at some point.
Malkavian said: Without numbers, many businesses will simply say "We don't think there's a market. Do you know of any that use Linux as a gaming platform? No? Oh well then, lets ignore it".
Exactly - and when we buy native linux games, we generate those numbers - but when we buy windows games, we send a very different message.
The article raises some good points, but is focusing on the wrong things - Lets face it, transgaming wine/x is a neat hack, and what it does is very cool.
I am a pretty regular gamer, and have wasted far too much time on 3D FPS titles like q3a, RtCW, ut2004 etc - and I have the doom3 linux version pre-ordered. I use linux, and really don't have any plans to set up a pc just for gaming, as the games I like are available natively on linux. I feel that the market should decide the success of transgaming - if you like it, feel free, but count me out, thanks!
The reason I'm not interested in in running windows games in linux via wine is that if we take that to its logical conclusion, there will be no market for native linux games - idsoft has it right, their games are written in a portable fashion, and have pretty much the same performance on linux/X11/DRI as on the simple pc GUI used by ms windows. Let's face it, once a gamer plays native linux games, he will be dissatisfied with the emulated variety, and it would be a real shame if that's all there was.
All in all, the wine solution is a nice hack, and useful as a temporary kludge, but we are sunk if that becomes the norm and all game development becomes ms windows centric, and we become the new OS/2, inhabiting a shrinking niche and dying a slow death. Fsck that! The native linux gaming market is the thing we need to support with our wallets, if we want to see it thrive.
Slashdot Mirror
My interpretation was: "Microsoft (overrated + expensive) is to OSS (free + good enough) as Evian (overrated + expensive) is to tap water (free + good enough)"
Well, I could go along with that interpretation, with the proviso that one must be living in an area that has decent tap water. Trust me, I've been in some places with really nasty tap water, I'd choke on the stuff...
Johny says: --Microsoft is to OSS as Evian is to tap water
Cute saying, but unfortunately it makes no sense. What was he thinking? Who knows - possibly, tap water might represent the public domain? But that's a very different thing from the GPL.
Hmm, come to think of it, it actually makes more sense to say that Linux is to microsoft as aquafina is to tap water, since tap water has viruses, everybody uses it, and aquafina just tastes a lot better. I work with windows a few times a week (I actually take money to work on windows pcs, in addition to my unix/linux side work), and after the taste of windows (tap water) I'm always relieved to get back to the Linux (aquafina) environment.
f you do something wrong installing video drivers in Windows, you get a smack on the hand by the OS forcing you to 640x480, where you have to deal with what you did. Make that same mistake in Linux, and without knowing what file to edit in a command line editor, most Linux newbies are looking at an OS reinstall.
;)
I have not found that to be the case. As far as installing drivers in linux, if I make a mistake clicking on the "install nvidia drivers" checkbox, at the very worst I would still be without hardware accelerated 3D, and that's it. I might not even notice unless I fired up ut2004 or something, and in that case I'd go back into yast and click the checkbox again, and get it right this time. I certainly would never think of reinstalling the OS. (but maybe that's just because it's been awhile since I used a microsoft OS)
The one thing that I do not like about it, is how long it takes to boot.
(shrug) I usually boot my linux boxes every year or so, and never really thought about booting times being a problem... If you really want a fast boot, there is a linux bios project that allows a system to come from a powered off state to "ready for login" in a few seconds...
I use SUSE at home and I enjoy it, that said I don't see how this posting is -1 troll.
Easy, he's painting a distorted picture, using innuendo and carefully selected opinions to make it sound as though linux doesn't work, and windows does.
It's an obvious troll.
I will definitely want to go to 9.2 for various reasons, I don't see any benefit to staying on 9.1 when it's easy and free to upgrade. While current and older releases will continue to get security fixes for awhile, many packages will never get upgraded, and you'll need to move forward to get some of the fresher goodies in 9.2 (and later versions)
As far as upgrading 9.1 to 9.2 via apt, it is just a matter of pointing your apt sources to a 9.2 repository - next "apt-get update; apt-get upgrade" cycle will get you on 9.2 -
Dunno about Dell, but HP will ship an NX5000 laptop with suse preinstalled right now.
Hear that noise, Mr Ballmer? That is the sound of in-evit-a-bility.
Be careful what you say! I know Neo, and Steve Ballmer is no Neo!
"Any closed source firm does it" represents a firm, say Intel, doing what is suggested here.
Doing "what is suggested here", being in fact, defending open source. I'm hard pressed to see how any of us who depend on open source software for their livelihood would be "barking mad" about that.
I'm not sure why you call Novell an "open source company", but the last I checked, they weren't open sourcing netware or edirectory or dirxml. The fact is, almost all companies enjoy the use of open source in some way, but some like to pretend otherwise.
BTW, when you mention "slashdotters", you do realize that most slashdotters are users of microsoft windows, not linux or other open systems, right?
That read the article and said "hypocrits" ?
;)
Nah, I'd bet there are others, plenty of slashdotters that don't RTFA I'm afraid.
Any closed source firm does it and it is just another evil corporation
"Any closed source firm" defends open source and it is just another evil corporation? Sorry, that makes no sense, could you cite an example in support of your position? What company, closed source or otherwise, has been branded "an evil corporation" for defending open source? I'd like to understand your position, but I'm having trouble making sense of it
So are you saying that you're a luddite, or that you'd be more comfortable with something like ms windows? (gives a whole new meaning to "crash" and "blue screen of death" doesn't it?)
Seriously, I can't think of any OS I'd trust more than linux for the really critical stuff.
I much prefer going to a big computer retailer and asking for Linux software.
That's good too - but it need not be an either/or proposition, you can do both, as applicable.
Is ConsoleOne actually working (with all the plug-ins we have under Windows) with SUSE 9.2?
ConsoleOne (1.3.3 and 1.3.6) and plugins all good here under suse 9.1. I use it quite often to manage our edirectory servers...
tuxgames.com will be packaging the linux binaries with the data files and a linux installer - I've got doom3 for linux on order with them - if you want a doom 3 for linux boxed set, you might consider giving them your business.
If you don't have the kernel source that was used to build the kernel you're running, you'll need to either obtain it, or in many cases, obtain the latest kernel source and build a kernel to match it.
Or run a distro which provides a wrapper around the nvidia driver and does not require driver rebuilds when the kernel is updated. Of course, in the case of suse 9.1, that means using the 1.0-5336 driver, and not the latest and greatest. The choice is yours: Do you want simplicity? fine, stick with the out of the box suse experience. Do you want to get your hands dirty with the latest and greatest? Good, download the latest nvidia driver and perform the 3 steps:
1. cd to kernel source and type "make cloneconfig", then "make prepare-all"
2. type e.g. "sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6111-pkg1.run -q --kernel-source-path=/usr/src/linux"
3. type "sax2 -m 0=nvidia" if this is a new driver install, otherwise skip this step.
Of course this means you must rebuild the driver if you update the kernel, and you must have kernel sources if you update the kernel, but it's your choice, and if you don't like the idea of having to maintain the driver/kernel synchronization, just stick with the default nvidia wrapper.
The situation right now is quite frustrating - all distributions should be able to ship the binary drivers for the vendor kernel. It would make it so much easier, than having to get the kernel source and headers before building the module on your own.
I'm not sure what distro you're using, but with suse 9.1, no such contortions are needed. I simply checked the box in yast that says "install nvidia drivers" and a message popped up saying "nvidia drivers will take effect next time X is restarted".
The article contained some incorrect statements as well - in particular, claiming that the kernel must somehow be "recompiled" to allow the nvidia drivers to be installed. That's never been true, so seeing such a statement is mystifying.
To recap, with suse 9.1 and nvidia drivers:
recompile kernel? no
edit config files? no.
time to install drivers? about 30 seconds.
Novell has NDS/eDirectory which is soon to be a major Linux product.
Soon to be? edirectory runs really well on linux, in fact our onsite novell guy told me that they are seeing better performance in their labs from edirectory on suse linux than they are from edirectory on solaris...
But agreed, linux needs an inexpensive and easy to use directory server in order to gain significant ground in small and medium businesses.
Will it be supported on platforms other than red hat linux?
Hopefully redhat will do the right thing here and not pull a microsoft... I'd love to run their product on suse linux, just as there are those who would want to run it on solaris...
I hate to burst YOUR bubble, but your statement seems to fly in the face of certain hard facts, as underscored by the chronic microsoft ie specific security woes which have buffeted microsoft users for the past few years.
While there's no panacea, and this is no time to relax our security vigilance, there's no question that firefox is a much safer choice of browser than ie - to deny that is just plain silly.
Maybe they could help MS port office.
Bad idea for a couple of reasons, off the top of my head -
#1, ms will fight tooth and nail against the idea of giving ms office users more choice of OS on which to run ms office since obviously, some will choose an OS other than ms windows.
#2, the ms office port would divert resources from the excellent alternatives such as open office.
Rather than rushing in to prop up the faltering ms office monopoly, we should be support the increasingly capable ms office alternatives, encouraging interoperability via document and file format standards, not vendor lock in.
So I'm wondering what this is? Tux games buys a win32 game, repackages it on dvd along with the linux binary and an installer?
Yeah, and IIRC they did something similar with RtCW...
You are generally right - but for the heck of it, where can you get a Linux native version of Doom3
It will be available through the usual channels, for instance tuxgames.com - as soon as the linux version and installer are finished.
Get real, how many game makers will have incentive to make a Linux port while Linux is only 1-5% of the market?
Gee I dunno, why don't we ask atari, activision and idsoftware, for starters. The fact is, linux does have a foothold, albeit a small one, in the form of native linux versions of games from these vendors, and that foothold needs to be encouraged, because it's the only foothold that's of any substance.
Your argument is self defeating, because if the game vendors want to do it your way, all they need to do is ignore linux - after all, if linux users want to run games, they can just struggle with an emuated version of the windows games, right? OS/2 went that way and died, I want to see much better things for Linux.
If wine/x fills a need for you, great - it's just not for me. Lord knows, I spend way too much time gaming anyway. I don't have enough time to explore, let alone play, all the native linux 3D FPS games out there - but I get my fill of it with a handful, basiclly ut2004, RtCW, and that old standby, Q3A.
Shelrem said: Guess what? Almost all of it (game development) already is (windows centric).
Fact is, linux does have a presence, a mindshare with the game developers. That's why I can go to the store and buy a copy of ut2004, install it on my linux system and start playing without any hassle. That's why idsoft has made available linux versions of every one of their titles from doom on - and games based on the Q3A engine are easy to port to linux. If we lose that, and end up stuck with merely trying to run windows games under emulation, what happens when microsoft fscks us with the next version of windows? or attacks wine in the courts? and don't think they're not going to do it. That's why I see wine as a useful but temporary kludge. To depend upon it long term is a dangerous game, which will end at some point.
Malkavian said: Without numbers, many businesses will simply say "We don't think there's a market. Do you know of any that use Linux as a gaming platform? No? Oh well then, lets ignore it".
Exactly - and when we buy native linux games, we generate those numbers - but when we buy windows games, we send a very different message.
The article raises some good points, but is focusing on the wrong things - Lets face it, transgaming wine/x is a neat hack, and what it does is very cool.
I am a pretty regular gamer, and have wasted far too much time on 3D FPS titles like q3a, RtCW, ut2004 etc - and I have the doom3 linux version pre-ordered. I use linux, and really don't have any plans to set up a pc just for gaming, as the games I like are available natively on linux. I feel that the market should decide the success of transgaming - if you like it, feel free, but count me out, thanks!
The reason I'm not interested in in running windows games in linux via wine is that if we take that to its logical conclusion, there will be no market for native linux games - idsoft has it right, their games are written in a portable fashion, and have pretty much the same performance on linux/X11/DRI as on the simple pc GUI used by ms windows. Let's face it, once a gamer plays native linux games, he will be dissatisfied with the emulated variety, and it would be a real shame if that's all there was.
All in all, the wine solution is a nice hack, and useful as a temporary kludge, but we are sunk if that becomes the norm and all game development becomes ms windows centric, and we become the new OS/2, inhabiting a shrinking niche and dying a slow death. Fsck that! The native linux gaming market is the thing we need to support with our wallets, if we want to see it thrive.