Until Linux stops all their internal bickering and decides on one native standard for all gaming they will never been seen as better.
If people would stop referring to "Linux" as if it could have "internal bickering" like it were a single, homogenous company we'd be better off.
The reason Microsoft dominates is because they standardized the market on Directx.
The reason Microsoft dominates gaming on the PC is because they dominate PC operating systems as a whole and pushed their proprietary DirectX down everyone's throat.
For Linux it's not that easy yet and 3% performance doesn't outweigh the headaches.
That's why they're exclusively targeting an Ubuntu LTS release. Most popular Linux platform with the least amount of pain, and 4 years of stability.
Last time I checked, IE6 was the reason people stopped using IE. It's was never a monopoly, and it should have never been even accused of being one.
IE6 had over 90% adoption and sat unchanged for 5 years, it took the slow rise of competition that users pushed by word of mouth to get Microsoft to actually create the turd that was IE7, something I doubt they would have done if they had been able to suppress Firefox. That's the definition of a monopoly, and a perfect example of the damage they can do.
You don't have to use the app store to install a WinRT program. So either you're ignorant or a liar. There is no third option
Oh, are you going to call in the special Enterprise exemption? Or are you going to show me how it's possible to install a WinRT application without being a developer or enterprise user?
Since Win32 isn't going anywhere
Except on WindowsRT it's already gone. There's more evidence in my favor than there is in yours at this point; and given how much Microsoft has wanted this level of control over end-users for a long time, I don't see any reason to believe they won't pursue it as hard as they can.
It's not like game publishers are going to start using WinRT as a replacement for Win32.
The most important thing that this article just glosses over is the fact that Steam isn't a game API. It doesn't help run games in any way on Linux. The people responible for creating the game must make the game work in Linux. Steam is nothing but a DRMed front end launcher. I would much rather launch my games by running the game's executable and not have some TSR bloatware that acts as some sort of shortcut to the game executable.
No, it's not an API. It's a store front-end and distribution service with a minor DRM component. But Valve is also a game studio and are willing to put their money where their mouth is and port their games AND distribution platform to Linux. And if they can draw enough users over to Linux as their primary platform, they could probably draw publishers as well. I imagine they'll have more success with that than OS X, given that users don't need to buy all new hardware to adopt it.
WinRT is the new API that was introduced with Windows 8 and Windows RT. WinRT is locked down on all platforms. I have to keep reiterating this to enraged Microsoft fanboys because they miss it every time.
I doubt they will be moving solely to ARM anytime soon.
I didn't say Windows RT, I said WinRT. If you're confused, it's because Microsoft is masterful at making stupidly confusing names for things.
WinRT is the new API introduced with Windows 8 and Windows RT. It is available on both, and on Windows RT it is the only API available for 3rd party developers. It is locked down on both Windows 8 and Windows RT.
I see all the Microsoft fans who are terrified at the thought that Linux could become a viable platform for gaming and draw users away from Windows are here, defending Windows 8 and Microsoft's future roadmap (and their leverage of their monopoly) from its detractors.
Just because MS has a program exactly like your program, but not as intrusive, you have to go around name calling?
The last time this happened Microsoft was accused of being a monopoly, of tying, and managed to secure 5 nice years of growth-stunting dominance with IE6.
You can install still anything you like on it.
With the highly glaring exception of WinRT applications, which must come from Microsoft's store.
Indeed, therefore they should not ever try to support Linux.
I myself am a gamer and all my friends who also game aren't techies. There is no way in hell they will be installing Linux on their computers.
Good, they don't have to. They can continue to run Windows 7 or install and use Steam on Windows 8. But we'll probably be forced to make a decision in Windows 9.
If they focus their product dev to Linux it will sink the company.
Good to see people are still wholly ignorant about what Valve is doing.
It's quite likely that Steam could make Linux (Ubuntu, at least) viable for games. There's nothing inherently "good" about Windows for games other than the monopoly that Microsoft rides on.
WinRT is not open at all, and Microsoft intends on deprecating Win32 in favor of it. I imagine it won't happen until Windows 9, but eventually the newest version of DirectX will require use of WinRT (probably WinRT 2.0 when they iron out the last of the Win32 dependencies) at which point Microsoft will move to close off the openness of the PC completely, reserving Win32 access and whatnot to "legacy VMs" and "Enterprise" platforms.
And it's not really fair to call it "competition" when the store is pushed by the company whose OS holds a monopoly in the market it'll be pushed on.
Wouldn't you be concerned if the vendor of the OS you're dependent on suddenly comes along and decides to push their own store with it? You end up like IE6, one dominant platform for the OS. And given that Microsoft has very obvious goals of deprecating Win32 in favor of WinRT, which requires software using it come from the store, yes Valve has every reason to be worried. As does every other software vendor out there, because this gives Microsoft an overwhelming amount of power, over both them and you.
Pushing to make Linux a viable platform is good for everyone.
Seriously, I've seen an install on Windows 7 behave very differently between systems as well. Rock solid on one and willing to puke at the drop of a hat on another.
I specifically pointed out we spend the equivalent of $60,000 per poverty family (triple the poverty limit) YET still have 15% living in poverty.
And you're quoting crap numbers that are being spouted exclusively throughout the neoconservative echo chamber. Take Medicare out of it, and its way smaller. And this goes back into the healthcare cost fiasco that the Republican party absolutely refuses to allow to be solved.
How much would you suggest spending on poverty? $2 Trillion a year, $3 Trillion a year? It isn't working.
Perhaps that's because just throwing money at the problem like this won't solve it. People fall into poverty because costs for everything rise but their wages are stagnant.
As a matter of fact, since welfare began poverty was at around 15%, so in addition to not helping its not helping one tiny bit.
Welfare isn't supposed to reduce poverty. It's to keep those who are suffering from poverty or are at risk from starving or living in their cars or on the streets.
I'll come to the conclusion I always do discussing things with liberals.
Which is what, exactly? Give up, mumble something, claim "victory" and run away? There's a reason you're posting as an Anonymous Coward. Like that lady on CNN who screamed that Obama was a communist, but was mentally incapable of defending her irrational, baseless statement when pressed and ran away.
Once they give up on facts and turn to name calling I consider it a win for me on the topic at hand.
Nonsense. Your point is utterly ridiculous and full of holes. You scream that something is a problem, use a number arrived at via bad means deliberately designed to rile the base up, and offer no solutions whatsoever. None. And you expect to be taken seriously.
You have just lost completely and fully and shown everyone else who reads this that not only has liberalism lost, it has lost in a manner that it can't even come up with a cognative point to refute its complete failure.
What? You made no point to refute! You simply spout an invalid number and use it as an excuse to do what? Cut welfare? Why? What will you do with the people whose welfare you cut? "Make them get jobs?" What jobs? What will you do about the richest in this nation who move jobs out of the country? People end up on welfare because they can't support themselves for some reason and while I'm sure you console yourself by thinking "it's cause they're lazy" I am pretty sure that there are millions of people out there who WANT to work but can't because the jobs aren't there, or ARE working but are still suffering from poverty because the pay is crap.
Liberalism is the lack of helping others and showing bigotry and intollerance for other people's opinins.
No. That's just your twisted, self-centered view on those who reject your destructive worldview, namely that cutting taxes is the only solution, the poor should live in their cars (if they have them), the sick should die in the streets, and the only thing that matters are corporate profits and the size of the portfolios of the richest in the nation.
Libertarians believe that bankers will behave when they're accountable to their customers, rather than to the regulators who have failed spectacularly for all of the 20th and this portion of the 21st century. We've gone from regional bank failures to national bank bailouts. No improvement there, I think.
They're accountable now to their customers and shareholders, even with regulators. Remove the regulators and you'd get the exact same behavior. Worse, probably, because there's no one ever looking over their shoulder.
Libertarians believe that companies who "doctor" their drugs will fail by popular opinion.
Indeed. We'll just have to wait for people to die from adulterated drugs and pay when a loved one dies to determine if it's the fault of the drug.
Would we be better off without the FDA
No.
And if the two biggest companies in a field colluded, in a Libertarian society, they wouldn't be able to collude for long. Number three would wipe its' arse with their remains, in very short order.
Bull. In a Libertarian society, number 3 would never be able to appear.
(By the way, I work a government. Too many of the people I work with are real shitheads for me to believe that the government works on the behalf of its citizens. I recall a recent significant reorganization to de-fang a minor long-lived shithead. ..)
Indeed. Corporate law and governance is always better than government by the citizens.
That comes to an average of $60,000 per family in poverty.
But you know as well as I do that we aren't giving each of them $60K annually. In fact, they explicitly included Medicare to inflate the number.
So no, I am not mistaken.
I'm trying to find a corroborating analysis but there's lots of noise from the "we hate Obama" camps. In fact, whenever I try to search on welfare to get any numbers I get Fox News, Heritage, and Cato, all well known neoconservative think tanks and media organizations that hate Obama more than anything else. Further searching does nothing to support your numbers, but does pull in madhouses like Free Republic.
But the truth is that you're angry that the lower 50% of this country is in need of assistance because wages are so bad and jobs are so scarce for them. Not because things are so bad for them, but because this takes money away from the super rich whose taxes, quite frankly, should be higher. The true solution rather than just forcing people into abject poverty would be to give them jobs, but the people at the helm of the companies I noted above are busy ensuring that there are as few good paying jobs out there as possible.
Sorry I couldn't find a CBS/ABC/CNN source for you, but since they are all in election mode for Obama this month they are basically refusing to report anything that could possibly hurt his reelection chances.
Idiot neoconservative persecution complex. Of course, that's why you linked me to a neoconservative website that's all-in on Mitt Romney (or whoever is the Republican candidate) and anti-Obama (for not being Republican.)
Of course, what would you rather spend it on? Bombs and guns? Or would you just ensure that it's given back to the richest in this country so they can sit on it while sending more jobs out of the country while continuing to whine about taxes?
Or we are too busy spending $1 Trillion a year on welfare.
Welfare? Can you explain to me how welfare is costing $1 Trillion a year? Or are you mistaken, and thinking of Social Security?
When you entire reelection strategy consists of giving out money to the majority of people while taking it from the minority, you don't have money for things like weather satelites or manned space missions.
Hold on, you're echoing the Idiot Republican talking points.
In fact "deniers" tried for over a decade to get more data from the CRU in England before Phil Jones deleted so no one else could peer review his research.
They didn't want his data. They wanted everything else so they could hang him with lies and insinuation.
If Ubuntu works then virtually anything else will. All that matters at the lowest level is the kernel.
The hard part is getting video to not suck as most of the GPUs have userspace blobs that only work with Android's libc. There's a means of making them work with X.org and glibc (libhybris) but I doubt many people will work on packaging them together.
Does this special version of Ubuntu have non-crap touch input?
I've loaded 12.04 and 12.10 on my Iconia W500 and it's never worked right. From the launcher breaking and never appearing again once the screen is touched to the Onscreen keyboard not actually supporting multitouch, as much as people claim that Unity is for tablets it doesn't work very well.
As locked down as tablets and game consoles. There was an additional exemption sought outside smartphones and tablets that was also rejected. So unless it's a smartphone, there's no exemption to bypass the security.
you've always been able to go online and download the browser you prefer through Windows
Only after starting Internet Explorer then... wait, I already have a web browser? Why would I want to download another one?
This is pretty much how IE6 became the behemoth that it is. IE has an unbreakable advantage over every other browser: it's owned by the vendor whose OS is a monopoly in its market. That's why.
I don't understand why the RT was released before the x86 model since RT seems to have a much more limited audience.
My guess is to push the adoption of formerly-Metro. Microsoft gets a platform out there that only supports that API (and only their store) and you force developers to start using it. Then when Windows 8 is released and x86 tablets come out they can simply release builds for it and go. There's no end-run to be had by simply using Win32.
Microsoft is really, really aching to get their own lock-in centric walled garden going, and Windows RT is the only way they can do it without getting strung up by every regulatory agency on both sides of the Atlantic.
Online video is getting less DRM oriented as shockwave / flash have gotten more open.
Not really. Netflix still uses silverlight and I imagine they're crapping themselves at the thought of Microsoft dropping it. And they've made no moves to any other platform, certainly none that support Linux.
Books are new and downloadable video is new. We'll see in 10 years how this pans out.
Ah yes, in 10 years. That's a long time these days.
Microsoft sells cheaply keys to allow you to put your own OS on. That's a fully supported feature of their system.
You don't know what you're talking about. Microsoft charges BUSINESSES and only businesses to sign their binaries so they may boot on x86 Secure Boot enabled platforms. You as an individual will need to generate and install your own key, or hope that your distro is blessed by Microsoft.
Apple has been mainly indifferent to the Linux on iPad / iPhone.
Bullshit. They work very hard to undermine every jailbreak and exploit that comes out and would attack that sort of project just as aggressively as any other if the DMCA exemption were dropped.
However they are working aggressively with Good to allow you put your own OS on.
Apple is not working with anyone to put a different OS on any of their products. They don't want you to, particularly not on iOS devices.
Slashdot Mirror
Steam is available on OS X too, even with the Mac App Store. The problem is WinRT, which is Microsoft's eventual replacement for Win32.
If people would stop referring to "Linux" as if it could have "internal bickering" like it were a single, homogenous company we'd be better off.
The reason Microsoft dominates gaming on the PC is because they dominate PC operating systems as a whole and pushed their proprietary DirectX down everyone's throat.
That's why they're exclusively targeting an Ubuntu LTS release. Most popular Linux platform with the least amount of pain, and 4 years of stability.
IE6 had over 90% adoption and sat unchanged for 5 years, it took the slow rise of competition that users pushed by word of mouth to get Microsoft to actually create the turd that was IE7, something I doubt they would have done if they had been able to suppress Firefox. That's the definition of a monopoly, and a perfect example of the damage they can do.
Oh, are you going to call in the special Enterprise exemption? Or are you going to show me how it's possible to install a WinRT application without being a developer or enterprise user?
Except on WindowsRT it's already gone. There's more evidence in my favor than there is in yours at this point; and given how much Microsoft has wanted this level of control over end-users for a long time, I don't see any reason to believe they won't pursue it as hard as they can.
The most important thing that this article just glosses over is the fact that Steam isn't a game API. It doesn't help run games in any way on Linux. The people responible for creating the game must make the game work in Linux. Steam is nothing but a DRMed front end launcher. I would much rather launch my games by running the game's executable and not have some TSR bloatware that acts as some sort of shortcut to the game executable.
No, it's not an API. It's a store front-end and distribution service with a minor DRM component. But Valve is also a game studio and are willing to put their money where their mouth is and port their games AND distribution platform to Linux. And if they can draw enough users over to Linux as their primary platform, they could probably draw publishers as well. I imagine they'll have more success with that than OS X, given that users don't need to buy all new hardware to adopt it.
WinRT is the new API that was introduced with Windows 8 and Windows RT. WinRT is locked down on all platforms. I have to keep reiterating this to enraged Microsoft fanboys because they miss it every time.
I didn't say Windows RT, I said WinRT. If you're confused, it's because Microsoft is masterful at making stupidly confusing names for things.
WinRT is the new API introduced with Windows 8 and Windows RT. It is available on both, and on Windows RT it is the only API available for 3rd party developers. It is locked down on both Windows 8 and Windows RT.
I see all the Microsoft fans who are terrified at the thought that Linux could become a viable platform for gaming and draw users away from Windows are here, defending Windows 8 and Microsoft's future roadmap (and their leverage of their monopoly) from its detractors.
The last time this happened Microsoft was accused of being a monopoly, of tying, and managed to secure 5 nice years of growth-stunting dominance with IE6.
With the highly glaring exception of WinRT applications, which must come from Microsoft's store.
Indeed, therefore they should not ever try to support Linux.
Good, they don't have to. They can continue to run Windows 7 or install and use Steam on Windows 8. But we'll probably be forced to make a decision in Windows 9.
Good to see people are still wholly ignorant about what Valve is doing.
It's quite likely that Steam could make Linux (Ubuntu, at least) viable for games. There's nothing inherently "good" about Windows for games other than the monopoly that Microsoft rides on.
WinRT is not open at all, and Microsoft intends on deprecating Win32 in favor of it. I imagine it won't happen until Windows 9, but eventually the newest version of DirectX will require use of WinRT (probably WinRT 2.0 when they iron out the last of the Win32 dependencies) at which point Microsoft will move to close off the openness of the PC completely, reserving Win32 access and whatnot to "legacy VMs" and "Enterprise" platforms.
And it's not really fair to call it "competition" when the store is pushed by the company whose OS holds a monopoly in the market it'll be pushed on.
Wouldn't you be concerned if the vendor of the OS you're dependent on suddenly comes along and decides to push their own store with it? You end up like IE6, one dominant platform for the OS. And given that Microsoft has very obvious goals of deprecating Win32 in favor of WinRT, which requires software using it come from the store, yes Valve has every reason to be worried. As does every other software vendor out there, because this gives Microsoft an overwhelming amount of power, over both them and you.
Pushing to make Linux a viable platform is good for everyone.
And this is somehow worse than Windows?
Seriously, I've seen an install on Windows 7 behave very differently between systems as well. Rock solid on one and willing to puke at the drop of a hat on another.
And you're quoting crap numbers that are being spouted exclusively throughout the neoconservative echo chamber. Take Medicare out of it, and its way smaller. And this goes back into the healthcare cost fiasco that the Republican party absolutely refuses to allow to be solved.
Perhaps that's because just throwing money at the problem like this won't solve it. People fall into poverty because costs for everything rise but their wages are stagnant.
Welfare isn't supposed to reduce poverty. It's to keep those who are suffering from poverty or are at risk from starving or living in their cars or on the streets.
Which is what, exactly? Give up, mumble something, claim "victory" and run away? There's a reason you're posting as an Anonymous Coward. Like that lady on CNN who screamed that Obama was a communist, but was mentally incapable of defending her irrational, baseless statement when pressed and ran away.
Nonsense. Your point is utterly ridiculous and full of holes. You scream that something is a problem, use a number arrived at via bad means deliberately designed to rile the base up, and offer no solutions whatsoever. None. And you expect to be taken seriously.
What? You made no point to refute! You simply spout an invalid number and use it as an excuse to do what? Cut welfare? Why? What will you do with the people whose welfare you cut? "Make them get jobs?" What jobs? What will you do about the richest in this nation who move jobs out of the country? People end up on welfare because they can't support themselves for some reason and while I'm sure you console yourself by thinking "it's cause they're lazy" I am pretty sure that there are millions of people out there who WANT to work but can't because the jobs aren't there, or ARE working but are still suffering from poverty because the pay is crap.
No. That's just your twisted, self-centered view on those who reject your destructive worldview, namely that cutting taxes is the only solution, the poor should live in their cars (if they have them), the sick should die in the streets, and the only thing that matters are corporate profits and the size of the portfolios of the richest in the nation.
They're accountable now to their customers and shareholders, even with regulators. Remove the regulators and you'd get the exact same behavior. Worse, probably, because there's no one ever looking over their shoulder.
Indeed. We'll just have to wait for people to die from adulterated drugs and pay when a loved one dies to determine if it's the fault of the drug.
No.
Bull. In a Libertarian society, number 3 would never be able to appear.
Indeed. Corporate law and governance is always better than government by the citizens.
But you know as well as I do that we aren't giving each of them $60K annually. In fact, they explicitly included Medicare to inflate the number.
I'm trying to find a corroborating analysis but there's lots of noise from the "we hate Obama" camps. In fact, whenever I try to search on welfare to get any numbers I get Fox News, Heritage, and Cato, all well known neoconservative think tanks and media organizations that hate Obama more than anything else. Further searching does nothing to support your numbers, but does pull in madhouses like Free Republic.
But the truth is that you're angry that the lower 50% of this country is in need of assistance because wages are so bad and jobs are so scarce for them. Not because things are so bad for them, but because this takes money away from the super rich whose taxes, quite frankly, should be higher. The true solution rather than just forcing people into abject poverty would be to give them jobs, but the people at the helm of the companies I noted above are busy ensuring that there are as few good paying jobs out there as possible.
Idiot neoconservative persecution complex. Of course, that's why you linked me to a neoconservative website that's all-in on Mitt Romney (or whoever is the Republican candidate) and anti-Obama (for not being Republican.)
Of course, what would you rather spend it on? Bombs and guns? Or would you just ensure that it's given back to the richest in this country so they can sit on it while sending more jobs out of the country while continuing to whine about taxes?
Welfare? Can you explain to me how welfare is costing $1 Trillion a year? Or are you mistaken, and thinking of Social Security?
Hold on, you're echoing the Idiot Republican talking points.
They didn't want his data. They wanted everything else so they could hang him with lies and insinuation.
If Ubuntu works then virtually anything else will. All that matters at the lowest level is the kernel.
The hard part is getting video to not suck as most of the GPUs have userspace blobs that only work with Android's libc. There's a means of making them work with X.org and glibc (libhybris) but I doubt many people will work on packaging them together.
Does this special version of Ubuntu have non-crap touch input?
I've loaded 12.04 and 12.10 on my Iconia W500 and it's never worked right. From the launcher breaking and never appearing again once the screen is touched to the Onscreen keyboard not actually supporting multitouch, as much as people claim that Unity is for tablets it doesn't work very well.
As locked down as tablets and game consoles. There was an additional exemption sought outside smartphones and tablets that was also rejected. So unless it's a smartphone, there's no exemption to bypass the security.
This is why the DMCA needs to go.
Only after starting Internet Explorer then... wait, I already have a web browser? Why would I want to download another one?
This is pretty much how IE6 became the behemoth that it is. IE has an unbreakable advantage over every other browser: it's owned by the vendor whose OS is a monopoly in its market. That's why.
Good thing he didn't say Google but Samsung and others.
Yup. This is what I had a mind to do, but the stupid GPU driver situation on ARM makes life more than a little painful.
My guess is to push the adoption of formerly-Metro. Microsoft gets a platform out there that only supports that API (and only their store) and you force developers to start using it. Then when Windows 8 is released and x86 tablets come out they can simply release builds for it and go. There's no end-run to be had by simply using Win32.
Microsoft is really, really aching to get their own lock-in centric walled garden going, and Windows RT is the only way they can do it without getting strung up by every regulatory agency on both sides of the Atlantic.
Not really. Netflix still uses silverlight and I imagine they're crapping themselves at the thought of Microsoft dropping it. And they've made no moves to any other platform, certainly none that support Linux.
Ah yes, in 10 years. That's a long time these days.
You don't know what you're talking about. Microsoft charges BUSINESSES and only businesses to sign their binaries so they may boot on x86 Secure Boot enabled platforms. You as an individual will need to generate and install your own key, or hope that your distro is blessed by Microsoft.
Bullshit. They work very hard to undermine every jailbreak and exploit that comes out and would attack that sort of project just as aggressively as any other if the DMCA exemption were dropped.
Apple is not working with anyone to put a different OS on any of their products. They don't want you to, particularly not on iOS devices.
They are, and unsurprisingly both Apple and Microsoft are trying to shift away from them.
It's never seriously thrived as an alternative to Windows except in the server space, where all the vendors actively support it.
Yes it is. They refuse to release docs or drivers (or when they do, they're for Android only) and as a result hardware doesn't work.
It might, but companies are constantly pushing for even stronger platform controls.