I'm running Thief II: The Metal Age on Windows XP (and previously, on 2000 and 98SE) with no troubles... it even installs properly. I do have to re-install the flaming Indeo codecs every few months though so the movies will play, but that's not a big hardship.
I'm running a dual P3 666MHz at home. It's named "beast".
Unfortunately, I'm running it on a Tyan Tiger 133 motherboard, featuring the wonderful VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset... I can't even use a USB mouse or joystick properly, and the chipset doesn't actually support the AGP 4x it claims to support...
Unless you're just trolling, you should probably try reading the GPL and understanding what it says.
You can charge whatever you want for GPL'd applications.
Applications running on top of GPL'd software (such as, say, Tribes 2 running on top of Linux) are not subject to the GPL. "Linux" in that case isn't even all GPL; the system referred to by "Linux" incorporates all kinds of extra things covered by different licenses (check out the X license sometime, it's not GPL).
One massive flaw in this suggestion... nobody (where nobody = "not enough people to make it worth the expense") buys games for Linux (or BeOS or $your_pet_os).
Look at Loki (bankrupt) and Wildcard Designs (BeOS game developer, also bankrupt).
Think about development costs and (here's the biggie) tech support costs.
Most developers don't even do MacOS versions and that community's managed to keep several Mac-only game developers in business over the years.
He made some icons for some BeOS applications, but didn't make "the icons for the BeOS and much of its widgets"... AFAIK he didn't design any of their widgets, they were already done when he arrived at Be. I'm not sure where this idea came from.
Bill has designed the GUI and icons and whatnot for QNX's Photon 2 microGUI; I imagine he dropped his Artillion site because he was too busy with "real" work.
(I used to work for QNX. I used to use BeOS. Less choice on the desktop is a bad thing. Computers suck.)
Mosfet's experience with Future Technology sounds just like my experience with Catharon Productions, Inc..
Of course, I'm stupid/naïve enough to buy the "we're getting funding from our new investor in two weeks!" line for long enough that I can't send the Ontario Ministry of Labour after them (New York State Dept. of Labor says the can't do anything because I did the work in Canada). I really should've sent the lawyer after them earlier (that's my only recourse, hooray I'm so happy)...
Massive bad taste in my mouth, if I end up being a contractor ever again I'm going to be such an asshole while negotiating the contract (pay me within 2 weeks or you've got compound interest; fail to pay in 4 weeks and you're talking to a lawyer, etc.) that I won't get hired.
Nothing like getting told "we prefer to pay the people who are still working for us." Bastards. I'm so glad I worked hard to finish up my stuff and leave it in a good state before I bailed.
Considering that BeOS has no pthreads library, I'm not surprised that you weren't impressed with its pthreads compatibility.
And the "littany of devices you had to lock to access memory"... uh, ok. Sure. malloc() and friends must have slipped your mind.
Unless you were working on specialized low-level stuff (you don't say), you're totally blowing smoke and FUD. Doing POSIX programming... no need to worry about threads or locking or anything (well, maybe you'd worry about sockets not being file descriptors). Doing GUI programming, you lock your window when you access it and unlock it when you're done... not a big deal, and not a totally alien concept.
BeOS was by no means perfect, but it certainly wasn't pure hell to program.
I'm sure nVidia's drivers are great if you happen to use one of the operating systems they've blessed, since they won't release programming docs to anyone.
Another monopoly in the making (well, probably not, ATI is pretty healthy), and nobody cares because there are binary-only Linux drivers.
I posted an Ask Slashdot article on April 4th wondering how to choose a distro. Still not posted. Whee.
Since then I've chosen Mandrake 8, since it seems to support the things that I, as a BeOS fan/developer/user, need and expect from an operating system.
Be's kernel isn't a microkernel because drivers and services like the filesystem are loaded into kernel space, not as separate processes.
If Be ever gets around to releasing a BeOS update with the new networking (BONE), it'll be even less of a microkernel, because BONE moves networking into the kernel.
Be's kernel is sort-of like a microkernel, although drivers and some services (such as the filesystem) are dynamically loaded into kernel space instead of their own space.
"I want someone else to take responsibility for my kids! I can't control what they watch on TV, listen to, or what games they play!"
My solution: Put all American children in concentration camps where special Parental Units can control their every move. 'cause someone has to take responsibility for the kids, since the parents can't do it.
I don't let my kid watch "violent" or "sexual" movies, listen to "violent" or "sexual" music, or play "violent" or "sexual" video games. Of course, he's only 5 months old, but you have to start looking after your kids early.
Thief was done by Looking Glass, and published by Eidos.
Daikantana was done by ION Storm, and published by Eidos.
id's stuff is published by Activision now.
Basically, all the large publishers seem to suck (ie, anything for the allmighty dollar buy hey, their shareholders love it and that's the point of running a business, as far as large businesses are concerned).
Where the heck are the SMP boards?!? Intel once again got $$$ from me just because it's taking so damn long to get an SMP board for Athlons... you can't wait forever when it's time to upgrade.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm running Thief II: The Metal Age on Windows XP (and previously, on 2000 and 98SE) with no troubles... it even installs properly. I do have to re-install the flaming Indeo codecs every few months though so the movies will play, but that's not a big hardship.
With Thief: The Dark Project, you need to use a command-line argument with the installer to force it to install on 2000 or XP...
export PS1="C:\\ "
What next, "BeOS is based on the Linux kernel because it has bash"?
My new box, taffer, has only one piece of legacy hardware... the floppy drive. Even that was only added under duress.
All the other crap (serial, paralle, PS2) is there, but disabled in the BIOS.
USB2.0, FireWire, SerialATA... sweet!
Good ol' geek pr0n.
This will rock, assuming it's got the reliability that Castlewood's ORB drive lacks (the last "great" removable innovation).
:-\
Anyone want to buy a mostly-dead ORB and handful of disks?
They should be forced to work for a huge corporate bureaucracy.
I'm running a dual P3 666MHz at home. It's named "beast".
Unfortunately, I'm running it on a Tyan Tiger 133 motherboard, featuring the wonderful VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset... I can't even use a USB mouse or joystick properly, and the chipset doesn't actually support the AGP 4x it claims to support...
I can't tell you that without a licensing fee... sorry.
Was a Linux version listed on the box? Nope.
What if someone screws the hardware for you?
My system... VIA Apollo Pro 133A-based motherboard, ATI Radeon video card. Nice hardware choices... if you like pain.
Unless you're just trolling, you should probably try reading the GPL and understanding what it says.
You can charge whatever you want for GPL'd applications.
Applications running on top of GPL'd software (such as, say, Tribes 2 running on top of Linux) are not subject to the GPL. "Linux" in that case isn't even all GPL; the system referred to by "Linux" incorporates all kinds of extra things covered by different licenses (check out the X license sometime, it's not GPL).
One massive flaw in this suggestion... nobody (where nobody = "not enough people to make it worth the expense") buys games for Linux (or BeOS or $your_pet_os).
Look at Loki (bankrupt) and Wildcard Designs (BeOS game developer, also bankrupt).
Think about development costs and (here's the biggie) tech support costs.
Most developers don't even do MacOS versions and that community's managed to keep several Mac-only game developers in business over the years.
- chrish
IIRC NTFS already supports arbitrary meta-data for files/directories (much like BFS's file attributes). Nobody uses it, because of compatibility.
D'oh.
- chrish
3D Labs is spearheading OpenGL 2.0, not 3dfx (which is long-dead at this point; their assets sold to nVidia).
Bill Bull works for QNX Software Systems Ltd..
He made some icons for some BeOS applications, but didn't make "the icons for the BeOS and much of its widgets"... AFAIK he didn't design any of their widgets, they were already done when he arrived at Be. I'm not sure where this idea came from.
Bill has designed the GUI and icons and whatnot for QNX's Photon 2 microGUI; I imagine he dropped his Artillion site because he was too busy with "real" work.
(I used to work for QNX. I used to use BeOS. Less choice on the desktop is a bad thing. Computers suck.)
Mosfet's experience with Future Technology sounds just like my experience with Catharon Productions, Inc..
Of course, I'm stupid/naïve enough to buy the "we're getting funding from our new investor in two weeks!" line for long enough that I can't send the Ontario Ministry of Labour after them (New York State Dept. of Labor says the can't do anything because I did the work in Canada). I really should've sent the lawyer after them earlier (that's my only recourse, hooray I'm so happy)...
Massive bad taste in my mouth, if I end up being a contractor ever again I'm going to be such an asshole while negotiating the contract (pay me within 2 weeks or you've got compound interest; fail to pay in 4 weeks and you're talking to a lawyer, etc.) that I won't get hired.
Nothing like getting told "we prefer to pay the people who are still working for us." Bastards. I'm so glad I worked hard to finish up my stuff and leave it in a good state before I bailed.
Considering that BeOS has no pthreads library, I'm not surprised that you weren't impressed with its pthreads compatibility.
And the "littany of devices you had to lock to access memory"... uh, ok. Sure. malloc() and friends must have slipped your mind.
Unless you were working on specialized low-level stuff (you don't say), you're totally blowing smoke and FUD. Doing POSIX programming... no need to worry about threads or locking or anything (well, maybe you'd worry about sockets not being file descriptors). Doing GUI programming, you lock your window when you access it and unlock it when you're done... not a big deal, and not a totally alien concept.
BeOS was by no means perfect, but it certainly wasn't pure hell to program.
*shrug*
I'm sure nVidia's drivers are great if you happen to use one of the operating systems they've blessed, since they won't release programming docs to anyone.
Another monopoly in the making (well, probably not, ATI is pretty healthy), and nobody cares because there are binary-only Linux drivers.
- chrish
Yeah, but we may never get hardware OpenGL in BeOS.
I posted an Ask Slashdot article on April 4th wondering how to choose a distro. Still not posted. Whee.
Since then I've chosen Mandrake 8, since it seems to support the things that I, as a BeOS fan/developer/user, need and expect from an operating system.
Be's kernel isn't a microkernel because drivers and services like the filesystem are loaded into kernel space, not as separate processes.
If Be ever gets around to releasing a BeOS update with the new networking (BONE), it'll be even less of a microkernel, because BONE moves networking into the kernel.
> but has anyone written a microkernel other than Microsoft
QNX Software Systems has been writing microkernels for quite a number of years now; both QNX 4 and their current OS are true microkernels.
www.qnx.com
NT's kernel is "micro" only by being "Microsoft".
Be's kernel is sort-of like a microkernel, although drivers and some services (such as the filesystem) are dynamically loaded into kernel space instead of their own space.
"I want someone else to take responsibility for my kids! I can't control what they watch on TV, listen to, or what games they play!"
My solution: Put all American children in concentration camps where special Parental Units can control their every move. 'cause someone has to take responsibility for the kids, since the parents can't do it.
I don't let my kid watch "violent" or "sexual" movies, listen to "violent" or "sexual" music, or play "violent" or "sexual" video games. Of course, he's only 5 months old, but you have to start looking after your kids early.
- chrish
Thief was done by Looking Glass, and published by Eidos.
Daikantana was done by ION Storm, and published by Eidos.
id's stuff is published by Activision now.
Basically, all the large publishers seem to suck (ie, anything for the allmighty dollar buy hey, their shareholders love it and that's the point of running a business, as far as large businesses are concerned).
Hmm, that sure sounds a lot like X11 to me...
Everything old is new again.
Where the heck are the SMP boards?!? Intel once again got $$$ from me just because it's taking so damn long to get an SMP board for Athlons... you can't wait forever when it's time to upgrade.