Unfortunately I feel the same way. I know it's stupid - we want Windows to suck so we'd have a motivation to move to Linux, but Windows 7 doesn't (not really anyway). However, I still try to future-proof things by sticking to games that have (or are likely to have) Linux builds because I don't expect to be running Windows forever, and I'd like to have an "exit strategy" so that I can go back to Linux with the least amount of pain and the greatest amount of compatible software, should I decide that it's counter-productive to stick with Windows any longer. Windows 8 might be the first step, but it's gonna take a while.
Sounds like you're more concerned about the purity of the task rather than the outcome. If Word can be used to write a thesis (completely with diagrams, tables and other elements), then it has done its job. Doesn't matter if LaTeX was a better option for this sort of thing - Word is easier, more accessible and more approachable (partially due to its pervasiveness, and partly due to its interface). It still gets the job done, and if your thesis is approved and published and you get your Ph.D out of it... then it did its job properly too.
I wrote my thesis using LyX (a LaTeX GUI frontend for, well, humans) because my supervisor told me to, and said if I write it in Word he would "kill me". That was the only reason I did so - without prompting I would have gone onto use Word like almost everyone else in my department. I doubt he'd literally destroy me (I hope anyway), and LyX to be honest is quite nice and capable and I finished the thesis just fine using it. But... Word would still have worked. Nowadays I would have used LibreOffice just because I like FOSS, but the same point remains.
You can argue about how things should be, but the OP's issue is with regards to how things are. I know you're right, but ultimately any issues I've had between version of Office pale in comparison to the failure to parse.doc/.docx files in say, LibreOffice. LO is getting better all the time of course and they kinda have their hands tied, and I appreciate the work they do to provide an alternative. But it's still a Microsoft world and using what everyone else does (so MS Office) is pretty damn useful.
What's with the double-quotes around "alternatives"? People have poured a ton of development time and effort into things like the GIMP such that even if it isn't appreciated by those who probably pirated the Creative Suite to begin with, it's still of significant value particularly as a cross-platform bitmap editor.
Maybe I'm just wired differently, but I see using things like GIMP to be somewhat liberating, as it means I'm not tied to Adobe's whims and licensing bullshit, plus I know my files will be accessible on Linux even if I don't use Linux right now (so they're future-proofed). The feeling of knowing you can create great content with open tools is pleasant. All one needs to do of course is learn them, just like one learns Photoshop.
Having said that, I'm just defending the alternatives from blanket dismissal. It's quite possible things like GIMP cannot do what you want, in which case sticking with Windows sounds perfectly reasonable. Except for Nero - good God man, that cannot be defended!
Xcom 2012, Civ 5, Elemental Fallen Enchantress, Fallout New Vegas, Battlefield 3, and Medieval 2 Total War
Umm... well...
We have OpenArena, will that do?:)
Ok, well it sounds like there's no reason to move to Linux for you (and to be fair to OpenArena it's not that bad, it's just not what you'd want). To be honest I'm trying to eliminate my love for gaming because it's a huge time-sink and I fear I'm addicted to it (I want to do more productive things in my free time, otherwise I'm gonna regret all the gaming I did when I get sufficiently older). So if I have to give up certain games I will not feel to bad about it. But not everyone feels regret over spending so much time playing them, so I do not judge those who won't move because of it.
Still, your comment "I find Linux more frustrating to use" is gonna piss off some as apparently this is impossible - Windows is supposed to be the frustrating OS, not Linux!:)
I welcome you to point out anything that is wrong or incorrect in my post. Anything that so many people who've failed to completely switch to Linux have encountered themselves.
Remember even WINDOWS gaming is too hard for a lot of people, with DX updates, various runtimes, licensing, etc,etc.. thus, IMHO, console sales
I'm not sure what you mean by licensing (DRM maybe? In which case I agree), but as for DirectX updates and various runtimes, virtually all games which are distributed via an installer have the redists available and either automatically install what's missing, or give a checkbox option to do it at the end of installation. If people can't handle this then I fear for the level of computer literacy of the modern gamer.
Why though? You can guarantee the game would also be available for Windows (if it wasn't Valve would piss off a shit-ton of people), plus you'd lose access to a lot of other very useful proprietary and Windows-only software like MS Office and the Creative Suite, or that little niche application you might only use so often but would be a pain to try to get WINE to run.
And once you eventually get bored of Half-Life 3 (and you will), you'll get annoyed at yourself for being swept up in the Linux hype. I've been there way too many times to fall for it again, no matter how Linux keeps growing.
To be honest, I'm relatively happy with the combination of FOSS games, indie games like in the Humble Bundles, and older commercial games like Doom 3 and Wolf-ET such that gaming solely in Linux wouldn't be an issue for me. The problem, however, is a question of effort. Let me list one example:
- Doom 3 -
Windows: * Install game * Patch * Play
Linux: * Install using the latest Linux installer using the text interface (which was only supposed to be a backup in case the GUI works, which it doesn't anymore because it was built to use the GTK1.2 libraries which don't work properly/aren't available with modern distributions). * Copy the required.pak files from the game's CDs to where the binary is installed, because the official installer won't do it automatically (though it's possible someone's written a script to do this by now). * Run, then find out there's no sound because OSS was deprecated in modern Linux distributions. Spend an hour googling and trying different options until you find out the correct method to launch D3 with sound:
doom3 +set s_alsa_pcm plughw:0 +set s_driver alsa
* Create a.desktop file/link because the installer fails to do so properly, otherwise you don't get a shortcut in your DE of choice. * Play, then discover you have massively jerky framerates because the Linux kernel changed to use a different method of timing (too complicated for me to understand) which affected how Doom 3 determines timing. Fixed using this additional variable during launch
set com_fixedtic 1
* Play and enjoy the same game that worked with far less effort in Windows.
Sure, half the problem was in iD not giving a crap at producing a good installer that would do most of the work for you (like copying required files) and not using static GTK libraries that would survive changes to distros. But things like the removal of OSS within the default builds of distros as well as the change to kernel timings, kinda do make a few problems for older games.
Newer stuff tends to works better, but often there are quirks even in newer Linux ports (I won't keep listing stuff but there are a number of complaints about bad Linux ports of a number of Humble Bundle games - look them up). For gaming, I get tired of messing about when things just fucking WORK in Windows. It's suppose to be entertainment and escapism after all.
Why would someone use an internet browser from a third party when you can use the one built into the operating system?
This logic was enough to get IE to be the majority browser for a time, but if the alternatives are better, people will find them and use them. I really doubt the Windows Store will be better than the ecosystem Steam supports. At worse, it's a competitor to Steam. Surely Gabe can handle a little competition. Or is that why he hates Windows 8?
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Unfortunately I feel the same way. I know it's stupid - we want Windows to suck so we'd have a motivation to move to Linux, but Windows 7 doesn't (not really anyway). However, I still try to future-proof things by sticking to games that have (or are likely to have) Linux builds because I don't expect to be running Windows forever, and I'd like to have an "exit strategy" so that I can go back to Linux with the least amount of pain and the greatest amount of compatible software, should I decide that it's counter-productive to stick with Windows any longer. Windows 8 might be the first step, but it's gonna take a while.
Sounds like you're more concerned about the purity of the task rather than the outcome. If Word can be used to write a thesis (completely with diagrams, tables and other elements), then it has done its job. Doesn't matter if LaTeX was a better option for this sort of thing - Word is easier, more accessible and more approachable (partially due to its pervasiveness, and partly due to its interface). It still gets the job done, and if your thesis is approved and published and you get your Ph.D out of it... then it did its job properly too.
I wrote my thesis using LyX (a LaTeX GUI frontend for, well, humans) because my supervisor told me to, and said if I write it in Word he would "kill me". That was the only reason I did so - without prompting I would have gone onto use Word like almost everyone else in my department. I doubt he'd literally destroy me (I hope anyway), and LyX to be honest is quite nice and capable and I finished the thesis just fine using it. But... Word would still have worked. Nowadays I would have used LibreOffice just because I like FOSS, but the same point remains.
You can argue about how things should be, but the OP's issue is with regards to how things are. I know you're right, but ultimately any issues I've had between version of Office pale in comparison to the failure to parse .doc/.docx files in say, LibreOffice. LO is getting better all the time of course and they kinda have their hands tied, and I appreciate the work they do to provide an alternative. But it's still a Microsoft world and using what everyone else does (so MS Office) is pretty damn useful.
What's with the double-quotes around "alternatives"? People have poured a ton of development time and effort into things like the GIMP such that even if it isn't appreciated by those who probably pirated the Creative Suite to begin with, it's still of significant value particularly as a cross-platform bitmap editor.
Maybe I'm just wired differently, but I see using things like GIMP to be somewhat liberating, as it means I'm not tied to Adobe's whims and licensing bullshit, plus I know my files will be accessible on Linux even if I don't use Linux right now (so they're future-proofed). The feeling of knowing you can create great content with open tools is pleasant. All one needs to do of course is learn them, just like one learns Photoshop.
Having said that, I'm just defending the alternatives from blanket dismissal. It's quite possible things like GIMP cannot do what you want, in which case sticking with Windows sounds perfectly reasonable. Except for Nero - good God man, that cannot be defended!
Umm... well...
We have OpenArena, will that do? :)
Ok, well it sounds like there's no reason to move to Linux for you (and to be fair to OpenArena it's not that bad, it's just not what you'd want). To be honest I'm trying to eliminate my love for gaming because it's a huge time-sink and I fear I'm addicted to it (I want to do more productive things in my free time, otherwise I'm gonna regret all the gaming I did when I get sufficiently older). So if I have to give up certain games I will not feel to bad about it. But not everyone feels regret over spending so much time playing them, so I do not judge those who won't move because of it.
Still, your comment "I find Linux more frustrating to use" is gonna piss off some as apparently this is impossible - Windows is supposed to be the frustrating OS, not Linux! :)
I welcome you to point out anything that is wrong or incorrect in my post. Anything that so many people who've failed to completely switch to Linux have encountered themselves.
You can't possibly be that much of a hermit to believe that. Surely. That's a troll post, I hope.
I'm not sure what you mean by licensing (DRM maybe? In which case I agree), but as for DirectX updates and various runtimes, virtually all games which are distributed via an installer have the redists available and either automatically install what's missing, or give a checkbox option to do it at the end of installation. If people can't handle this then I fear for the level of computer literacy of the modern gamer.
Why though? You can guarantee the game would also be available for Windows (if it wasn't Valve would piss off a shit-ton of people), plus you'd lose access to a lot of other very useful proprietary and Windows-only software like MS Office and the Creative Suite, or that little niche application you might only use so often but would be a pain to try to get WINE to run.
And once you eventually get bored of Half-Life 3 (and you will), you'll get annoyed at yourself for being swept up in the Linux hype. I've been there way too many times to fall for it again, no matter how Linux keeps growing.
To be honest, I'm relatively happy with the combination of FOSS games, indie games like in the Humble Bundles, and older commercial games like Doom 3 and Wolf-ET such that gaming solely in Linux wouldn't be an issue for me. The problem, however, is a question of effort. Let me list one example:
- Doom 3 -
Windows:
* Install game
* Patch
* Play
Linux: .pak files from the game's CDs to where the binary is installed, because the official installer won't do it automatically (though it's possible someone's written a script to do this by now).
* Install using the latest Linux installer using the text interface (which was only supposed to be a backup in case the GUI works, which it doesn't anymore because it was built to use the GTK1.2 libraries which don't work properly/aren't available with modern distributions).
* Copy the required
* Run, then find out there's no sound because OSS was deprecated in modern Linux distributions. Spend an hour googling and trying different options until you find out the correct method to launch D3 with sound:
doom3 +set s_alsa_pcm plughw:0 +set s_driver alsa
* Create a .desktop file/link because the installer fails to do so properly, otherwise you don't get a shortcut in your DE of choice.
* Play, then discover you have massively jerky framerates because the Linux kernel changed to use a different method of timing (too complicated for me to understand) which affected how Doom 3 determines timing. Fixed using this additional variable during launch
set com_fixedtic 1
* Play and enjoy the same game that worked with far less effort in Windows.
Sure, half the problem was in iD not giving a crap at producing a good installer that would do most of the work for you (like copying required files) and not using static GTK libraries that would survive changes to distros. But things like the removal of OSS within the default builds of distros as well as the change to kernel timings, kinda do make a few problems for older games.
Newer stuff tends to works better, but often there are quirks even in newer Linux ports (I won't keep listing stuff but there are a number of complaints about bad Linux ports of a number of Humble Bundle games - look them up). For gaming, I get tired of messing about when things just fucking WORK in Windows. It's suppose to be entertainment and escapism after all.
At least he post under a username to allow some credibility and history to his posts, AC.
-- wallbase (a fresh account for an old Slashdotter).
Why would someone use an internet browser from a third party when you can use the one built into the operating system?
This logic was enough to get IE to be the majority browser for a time, but if the alternatives are better, people will find them and use them. I really doubt the Windows Store will be better than the ecosystem Steam supports. At worse, it's a competitor to Steam. Surely Gabe can handle a little competition. Or is that why he hates Windows 8?