And just how many Apple users know how to write a simple shell script? Or do regular expression matching/text replacement in sed & awk? Or even know how to use vi or emacs?
Say what you want, but the fact remains that Apple's stock is at an all-time high, and that it tripled in value since January 2009, vastly outperforming the stock indices.
By the way, setting up networking in DOS was FAR easier than the nightmare "plug-n-pray" crap that Win95 offered at the time. In DOS it was as simple as adding a single line in your config.sys to load the network driver.
When I made the comment, I was talking about general users, not the likes of you and me that used to do this level of stuff in config.sys and autoexec.bat. But you still had to free up a certain amount of memory below 640K for some programs to run, set up himem.sys & all that good stuff; it DID need a lot of fiddling to sometimes get programs to run AND load in drivers for networking, audio, joysticks, mice, etc. and that was beyond the skills of most people.
Windows 95 was a GUI shell that ran on top of DOS, so DOS programs that you ran either worked fully (with a significant performance hit of Win95 being resident in memory) or didn't work because Win95 used too much memory or it needed real mode or something. There is no reason that sound would not work for a DOS program under Win95 that otherwise fully works, so I'm calling bullshit on your claim.
Yes, I stand corrected. Windows 95 was effectively only a DOS GUI, it was when NT and the later OSes came out that you only had an "emulated" MS-DOS mode that some games, including Duke 3D, didn't have sound.
If the entire population of the planet today enjoyed the wealth & prosperity that we enjoy in the USA, Europe & other rich countries, it would require the resources of 2.3 Earths.
Don't forget also that there were a large number of 8-bit computer platforms, many with tiny user bases - ZX Spectrum, Commodore Vic-20 & C-64, BBC Micro & Electron, Oric 1 & Atmos, Dragon 16 & 32, Texas Intruments TI-99, Camputers Lynx, and possibly a couple more that escape me for the moment.
Did the NES have Manic Miner or Jet Set Willy ported across to it? It was on just about every 8-bit computer platform.
I'd probably hedge my bets on "Elite" being ported to more platforms than any other game, though it was strictly a non-console game due to the number of command keys needed.
I'm scratching my head to think of any titles that appeared on the consoles & computers as well - maybe Bobble Bubble or New Zealand Story?
A lot of the popularity with multi-player Quake was that there was a Windows version quite early on its life and networking was a lot easier to set up in Windows 95 than it was in DOS - and Duke Nukem 3D was always a strictly MS-DOS game, even the Build engine had pretty much hard-coded DOS audio drivers such that even if you got it running in Windows 95, there was usually no audio.
Also bear in mind that there was no concept of player skins in Duke 3D - I seem to remember the best you could do was opt for a different shirt colour (or something similar) to distinguish your Duke Nukem from everyone else.
The other thing Duke 3D didn't have that Quake did was different weapon graphics depending on the weapon you were using - it always looked like you were carrying the rocket launcher; you can even see this in the single player game when you look in mirrors.
With that said, I played Duke 3D far more than I played Quake - and although I could be wrong on this, Duke 3D had a co-operative mode for the single player levels which was quite fun and which Quake lacked (from memory).
Not wishing to sound like a fanboi but in the UK, the ZX Spectrum was about the biggest selling games platform with the Commodore 64 a close second & the BBC Micro in third place.
I recall Spain had a big ZX Spectrum user base also but for the rest of Europe it was mainly the C-64, though I know the Russians and parts of Eastern Europe had their own version of the Spectrum - the Hobeta??? - as well.
I think we in the UK (and Europe) had things slightly different to the USA & Japan.
I do remember a few people having systems like NES & the Sega Master System, but most people (myself included) had the ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64.
I don't think I've ever played a Mario game more than a few minutes - it's not that I didn't enjoy it but games like Mario & Sonic The Hedgehog just were not ported to 8-bit computers in great numbers; my memorable games were Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, the Ultimate games (Jetpac, Jetman, Sabre Wulf, etc.) and, of course, Lords of Midnight.
I went from the Spectrum to the Amiga but I think, by that time, the consoles had started to take hold in the UK - that's why the SNES & Mega Drive were a lot more popular here than the NES ever had been.
He wasn't talking about getting the OS to work, he was talking about running a game on the OS which is completely different.
I'm a mainly Linux user myself & I would love to see more commercial games being released natively on it. But the fact is we're in a "chicken and egg" situation because until Linux gets more popular, games companies won't port to it; likewise gamers won't turn to Linux without there being more games on it.
Personally, I'm fairly happy with the Linux gaming scene - there are a lot of native games, a lot of free games and a lot that work well under WINE. Plus there are some good looking independent games projects doing Linux ports that deserve our support - Oil Rush and Steel Storm are just two that spring to mind.
I need to go back & check through my old games disks but I'm sure one of the "official" Duke expansions (Duke It Out In D.C, Duke Nuclear Winter & Duke Caribbean) had a theme park area in it.
Again, it's a long time since I played it but I remember a ride with a pirate ship that was shooting cannonballs as you climbed round a pirates castle - there was also a boat ride through pirate scenes which was a definite homage to Disney's "Pirates Of The Carribbean ride".
Shadow Warrior was also done by 3D Realms and was technically a better game than Duke 3D because it was released on a later version of Build - I recall it had better DOS VGA modes & had some 3DFX support with a patch that got released a bit later.
I really should dig it out again and give it a play through, it's been a long time! Something tells me it also had more weapons than Duke 3D and also had some dual fire modes on some of them - but don't quote me on that.
Blood was done by Monolith with (I think) some input from 3D Realms & had some additional little features (like being able to play soccer with zombie heads) with many humourous references to movies. It wasn't quite as graphically good as Duke 3D or SW but many people reckon it's the best game of the Build ones because of the combination of lots of humour, neat weapons (including a pin & voodoo doll) & just good design.
There were 3 or 4 other Build engine games, the Redneck Rampage series is probably the best known of those - that also had it's moments but the Build engine was really showing its age by the time they were released.
I know original Unreal didn't have native Linux binaries though I recall there being a mod for original Unreal Tournament that had the Unreal levels converted across to it - never played the mod so don't quote me on that.
Didn't Unreal 2 have Linux binaries? I know it was a particularly unremarkable single player Unreal game but wasn't it on a very similar engine to UT 2003?
I agree about not whining about cross-platform support though. I'm mostly a Linux user & yes, it would be nice to see Linux ports of a lot more games but neither is it a big deal to keep an XP installation to hand to run games on either.
Erm... Unreal Tournament and Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 have native Linux binaries that, in my experience, run as well on Linux with NVIDIA drivers than they do on Windows.
They were also done by Epic, not id - id did the Doom & Quake games.
I don't think that you can make that level of comparison.
The Quakes have traditionally only ever been "reasonable" single-player FPS games but bloody fantastic multi-player games - Duke 3D stood on it's own as a great single-player FPS game but was only okay as multi-player.
I think the award for best "all-rounder" (great single- AND multi-player) FPS games of the time has to go to Shadow Warrior & Blood. Both of them were also on the Build engine but had enough "wacky" weapons (like the "sticky bombs" in Shadow Warrior and the "flaming aerosol" in Blood) to make them both a real hoot for network play.
The demo video is a very pretty proof of concept but Eduke32 brought DN3D natively to Windows, Linux, etc. and the HRP with Polymer replaced the sprite-based graphics with proper 3D whilst preserving a considerable amount of the original game's play and feel. That, in itself, was a fairly major update that turned the game into far more of a "modern" architecture.
The problem with any remake or mod is that very few of those that start off as good ideas actually get to the point of completion - and I predict that even if they make some headway with this project, by the time DN4 comes out next year (if we can finally believe what we are told) then the modding community will no doubt be writing new levels and mods for whatever engine that is on.
I do both play & enjoy modern FPS games as well as the PC classics and welcome any effort to port older games to newer platforms - but a version of Duke 3D with much prettier graphics that still has the original level layouts & objectives seems pointless.
Sorry, finger trouble. This is what I meant to say here:
Installing something simple on Linux often requires downloading 2 GB worth of supporting libraries
Absolute nonsense! It is still possible to download a single CD image in 700MB for some distros. So why would *ANY* application need three times that size in libraries?
some of which may be out of date, or have compatibility problems.
Rubbish. Yes, there used to be issues with "dependency hell" on Red Hat 5 about ten years ago. However, package managers have improved considerably in 10 years, probably as much as OS X has improved in that time - this simply does NOT happen any more on most distributions.
Sorry, you clearly don't know Linux that well or, dare I suggest, you've never actually used it. Here's why:
Installing something simple on Linux often requires downloading 2 GB worth of supporting libraries
Absolute nonsense! It is still possible to download a single CD image (, some of which may be out of date, or have compatibility problems.
Rubbish. Yes, there used to be issues with "dependency hell" on Red Hat 5 about ten years ago. However, package managers have improved considerably in 10 years, probably as much as OS X has improved in that time - this simply does NOT happen any more on most distributions.
I would also add that I myself have been a user of Gentoo Linux for many years now. This is a "roll your own" distribution that compiles each new package against the libraries it requires that may or may not be already installed on your system. Yes, very infrequently there are dependency issues due to a bug in a package, but the forum is very active & someone usually comes up with at least a workaround in a very short period of time.
No standard physical interface (android), hardware, or even ABI means that I can't just download a "Built for Linux" binary and run it. Chances are the software will make idiotic demands of me like downloading obscure-library-version.1.2.3.4beta4-pre7.
Same as above - maybe some time ago with older package managers.
And let me make you a challenge here - post up an example of an actual installation where this happened to you, then I'll believe you. Until then, I treat this as a sweeping statement based on FUD you've taken in elsewhere.
Linux is getting better for this, but I still can't download a "Linux" distro, and then pop in *HOT PC GAME OF THE YEAR* and run it.
That's right. It's because there's not a Linux version of the game. Why is that Linux's fault? It's like me saying "I bought an Apple Mac but can't pop in a Halo III game disk and play it."
Until Linux can run Windows games better than Windows can, Linux is never going to make any more inroads against Windows games except where there is already a MacOS version.
This is actually statement that can be written as "Linux won't beat Windows for games until more Windows games are written for Linux". Again, an obvious statement written by somebody who actually doesn't know what to say here.
Android is going flop. So many reasons why, but I'll file most of them under "Do you really expect these idiot phone manufacturers to actually update the OS?"
I'll answer this statement when there are *LESS* Android devices being sold than IOS ones - until then, it's patently a statement from a peturbed but rabid Apple fanboi.
And that's why I'm using Windows or MacOS.
You know something? If you had the guts or backbone to say "I don't use Linux because the learning curve is too high" or "I don't use Linux because I feel Windows and OS X are easier to use", I wouldn't even bother arguing with you because you'd be perfectly entitled to have that opinion.
But why do you feel qualified to talk about "libraries" and "package managers" on Linux when here you say you don't use it? That *SHOWS* you're not arguing from a position of knowledge because you just don't use Linux.
Linux as a Desktop OS will never happen unless all the forks die off and we're left with only one de-facto flavor of desktop linux that will (like Windows and MacOS) come with all the neccessary parts to run ANY linux application.
I hate to say this but it *IS* being run as a desktop OS. Maybe in the USA there are more Apple than Linux users but here in Europe, Linux on the desktop at least equals Mac usage, maybe even beats it. Please don't confuse iPhone, iPod or iPad sales with Mac sales - Macs *STILL* have very small penetration.
Fugly user interfaces and library hell are Linux's major failing points.
I don't claim to have used a Mac much because in 30 years of computing I've never found a good
Agreed, but Microsoft has as little to do with providing the app to flash the DVD-RW drive as Linux does - it's the manufacturer that has chosen to release a Windows-only flashing app.
Although I do keep an XP installation around, I had a similar problem with two Belkin Powerline Ethernet adapters that needed to be flashed to the next firmware revision to work at anything close to their published speed. The box claimed Windows and Linux support (in fact the OS is pretty irrelevant in all honesty) but Belkin only created a Windows app to do the flashing with. I did email them to complain about their "Linux support" claims on the box, but never got a response.
Sorry, I'm most a Linux guy these days but your post is nonsense.
Whatever you or I know or think about Vista and Windows 7, clearly Microsoft had "real challenges" getting both those OSes out and both of them made at least some attempt of getting over some of the "real problems" of inexperienced Windows XP users & XP's architecture, both of which (to some degree) allow applications to run with more permissions than they need but exploit security holes as a result.
And, incidentally, I work for a telecoms company where 95% of our products run on Red Hat Linux - yet many of my colleagues have been victims of "random downsizing", simply because the need to show profit has nothing to do with what OS you happen to be using.
It would actually be nice to have a definition of what this elusive "desktop" actually is because Linux does pretty much all I need a desktop to do and has done so for years.
I haven't migrated fully to Linux at home because I'm more than happy to stand up & admit that there are certain games & apps on that run better (and easier) on Windows XP than they do in Wine - but none of those "killer" Windows apps I have registered (Forte Agent Usenet client, Tag&Rename audio tagging app, MediaMonkey media player & synching app, a few others) do anything that cannot be done on Linux, they just do it a bit better.
And, unfortunately, the problem isn't Linux not being ready for the desktop, it's users not being ready for the Open Source way. When marketing types see a niche for a piece of software from which profit can be made, a software company usually steps in and writes that software; and if the people who have paid good money for that software don't like it, they can sit back, complain, and (rightfully) expect the software to be changed or fixed.
But with Open Source, if you sit back & wait for something to be done, it's likely nothing will happen. Instead, you need to develop a mentality of caring as much about a piece of free software as you would a paid-for piece of software - that means contacting the software authors and communicating in a decent way why the software misses some of the features you need.
"Webvention" sounds a bit too nice & friendly for these scumbags - can I suggest they are forced to change their names to either "Wankvention" or "Webcunts"?
As I understand it, Sun owned StarOffice which used to be distributed freely (I'm not sure if it was GPL) but then took it back into their fold as a commercial product - at which point OOO forked off under the GPL.
In which case, my interpretation is that Oracle can do what they want with StarOffice but nothing about OOO.
I am willing to accept there are people out there who use MS Office, love it and will always use it.
I am willing to accept there are people out there who will never try OpenOffice.org because it doesn't have VB scripting or advanced features as in, say, Excel that they need to use.
I am willing to accept that some MS Office people have tried OpenOffice.org, didn't like it & stayed with MS Office - but then they never left MS Office in the first place.
MS Office is a Windows product (okay, put the Mac version to one side for a moment) so if you switch from MS Office to OpenOffice.org, it's either because OpenOffice.org has enough functionality for what you need such that it's a waste of money paying Microsoft for an MS Office licence or maybe you've been using a dodgy pirated version of MS Office and are just sick & tired of the security/keygen/virus hassles that brings with it.
But is there *REALLY* anyone out there who has made a conscious decision to use & deploy OpenOffice.org for any period of time, only to then decide to change to MS Office (or *truly* go back to using it)?
Avatar was NOT a brilliant sci-fi movie but a very pleasant piece of eye candy that I was pleased I saw on IMAX - that gimmick factor is the reason it did so well.
What would be interesting would be to take a fairly good movie with a good story like "Up" and work out how many of the people who saw it in 3D would have gone to see it had it been in 2D. I'm guessing there probably wouldn't be too much of a difference.
Add to that the fact that selling 3.2 million TVs with 3D capability does not actually say very much. I don't claim to be a great TV or movie enthusiast but I bought my latest widescreen TV described as "HD Ready" because I thought it might be a useful feature to have - but I've never used HD because standard TV on it is "good enough" for what the missus & I want.
Plus the industry is missing the point anyway. If I go to the cinema, I'm there to see a movie. If it's a 3D movie, I borrow a pair of glasses, wear them to enjoy the movie & then hand them back when I've done. That's it finished.
If I'm at home, I may be on my own watching TV or sat with the rest of the family or with friends. Working out whether or not I have enough 3D glasses for everyone watching makes it far too complicated & that's the reason it won't succeed.
And if you don't accept that argument, you need only look at eating habits in the USA, UK and a few other parts of the world as proof. Most people in those countries *KNOW* that a microwaved prepared or take-away meal is not nutritionally as good as one that's cooked properly from raw ingredients. But, for many people, the microwave meal is "good enough" because it tastes okay to them & stops them feeling hungry. If you don't have a passion about home-cooked food, then you won't bother making home-cooked food because you just see it as far too complicated.
Likewise, until there's a passion for 3D TV, it will also be seen as just too complicated to bother with.
Slashdot Mirror
It's Unix.
And just how many Apple users know how to write a simple shell script? Or do regular expression matching/text replacement in sed & awk? Or even know how to use vi or emacs?
Say what you want, but the fact remains that Apple's stock is at an all-time high, and that it tripled in value since January 2009, vastly outperforming the stock indices.
Ahem.
By the way, setting up networking in DOS was FAR easier than the nightmare "plug-n-pray" crap that Win95 offered at the time. In DOS it was as simple as adding a single line in your config.sys to load the network driver.
When I made the comment, I was talking about general users, not the likes of you and me that used to do this level of stuff in config.sys and autoexec.bat. But you still had to free up a certain amount of memory below 640K for some programs to run, set up himem.sys & all that good stuff; it DID need a lot of fiddling to sometimes get programs to run AND load in drivers for networking, audio, joysticks, mice, etc. and that was beyond the skills of most people.
Windows 95 was a GUI shell that ran on top of DOS, so DOS programs that you ran either worked fully (with a significant performance hit of Win95 being resident in memory) or didn't work because Win95 used too much memory or it needed real mode or something. There is no reason that sound would not work for a DOS program under Win95 that otherwise fully works, so I'm calling bullshit on your claim.
Yes, I stand corrected. Windows 95 was effectively only a DOS GUI, it was when NT and the later OSes came out that you only had an "emulated" MS-DOS mode that some games, including Duke 3D, didn't have sound.
If the entire population of the planet today enjoyed the wealth & prosperity that we enjoy in the USA, Europe & other rich countries, it would require the resources of 2.3 Earths.
Don't forget also that there were a large number of 8-bit computer platforms, many with tiny user bases - ZX Spectrum, Commodore Vic-20 & C-64, BBC Micro & Electron, Oric 1 & Atmos, Dragon 16 & 32, Texas Intruments TI-99, Camputers Lynx, and possibly a couple more that escape me for the moment.
Did the NES have Manic Miner or Jet Set Willy ported across to it? It was on just about every 8-bit computer platform.
I'd probably hedge my bets on "Elite" being ported to more platforms than any other game, though it was strictly a non-console game due to the number of command keys needed.
I'm scratching my head to think of any titles that appeared on the consoles & computers as well - maybe Bobble Bubble or New Zealand Story?
A lot of the popularity with multi-player Quake was that there was a Windows version quite early on its life and networking was a lot easier to set up in Windows 95 than it was in DOS - and Duke Nukem 3D was always a strictly MS-DOS game, even the Build engine had pretty much hard-coded DOS audio drivers such that even if you got it running in Windows 95, there was usually no audio.
Also bear in mind that there was no concept of player skins in Duke 3D - I seem to remember the best you could do was opt for a different shirt colour (or something similar) to distinguish your Duke Nukem from everyone else.
The other thing Duke 3D didn't have that Quake did was different weapon graphics depending on the weapon you were using - it always looked like you were carrying the rocket launcher; you can even see this in the single player game when you look in mirrors.
With that said, I played Duke 3D far more than I played Quake - and although I could be wrong on this, Duke 3D had a co-operative mode for the single player levels which was quite fun and which Quake lacked (from memory).
Not wishing to sound like a fanboi but in the UK, the ZX Spectrum was about the biggest selling games platform with the Commodore 64 a close second & the BBC Micro in third place.
I recall Spain had a big ZX Spectrum user base also but for the rest of Europe it was mainly the C-64, though I know the Russians and parts of Eastern Europe had their own version of the Spectrum - the Hobeta??? - as well.
I think we in the UK (and Europe) had things slightly different to the USA & Japan.
I do remember a few people having systems like NES & the Sega Master System, but most people (myself included) had the ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64.
I don't think I've ever played a Mario game more than a few minutes - it's not that I didn't enjoy it but games like Mario & Sonic The Hedgehog just were not ported to 8-bit computers in great numbers; my memorable games were Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, the Ultimate games (Jetpac, Jetman, Sabre Wulf, etc.) and, of course, Lords of Midnight.
I went from the Spectrum to the Amiga but I think, by that time, the consoles had started to take hold in the UK - that's why the SNES & Mega Drive were a lot more popular here than the NES ever had been.
He wasn't talking about getting the OS to work, he was talking about running a game on the OS which is completely different.
I'm a mainly Linux user myself & I would love to see more commercial games being released natively on it. But the fact is we're in a "chicken and egg" situation because until Linux gets more popular, games companies won't port to it; likewise gamers won't turn to Linux without there being more games on it.
Personally, I'm fairly happy with the Linux gaming scene - there are a lot of native games, a lot of free games and a lot that work well under WINE. Plus there are some good looking independent games projects doing Linux ports that deserve our support - Oil Rush and Steel Storm are just two that spring to mind.
I need to go back & check through my old games disks but I'm sure one of the "official" Duke expansions (Duke It Out In D.C, Duke Nuclear Winter & Duke Caribbean) had a theme park area in it.
Again, it's a long time since I played it but I remember a ride with a pirate ship that was shooting cannonballs as you climbed round a pirates castle - there was also a boat ride through pirate scenes which was a definite homage to Disney's "Pirates Of The Carribbean ride".
Shadow Warrior was also done by 3D Realms and was technically a better game than Duke 3D because it was released on a later version of Build - I recall it had better DOS VGA modes & had some 3DFX support with a patch that got released a bit later.
I really should dig it out again and give it a play through, it's been a long time! Something tells me it also had more weapons than Duke 3D and also had some dual fire modes on some of them - but don't quote me on that.
Blood was done by Monolith with (I think) some input from 3D Realms & had some additional little features (like being able to play soccer with zombie heads) with many humourous references to movies. It wasn't quite as graphically good as Duke 3D or SW but many people reckon it's the best game of the Build ones because of the combination of lots of humour, neat weapons (including a pin & voodoo doll) & just good design.
There were 3 or 4 other Build engine games, the Redneck Rampage series is probably the best known of those - that also had it's moments but the Build engine was really showing its age by the time they were released.
I know original Unreal didn't have native Linux binaries though I recall there being a mod for original Unreal Tournament that had the Unreal levels converted across to it - never played the mod so don't quote me on that.
Didn't Unreal 2 have Linux binaries? I know it was a particularly unremarkable single player Unreal game but wasn't it on a very similar engine to UT 2003?
I agree about not whining about cross-platform support though. I'm mostly a Linux user & yes, it would be nice to see Linux ports of a lot more games but neither is it a big deal to keep an XP installation to hand to run games on either.
Erm... Unreal Tournament and Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 have native Linux binaries that, in my experience, run as well on Linux with NVIDIA drivers than they do on Windows.
They were also done by Epic, not id - id did the Doom & Quake games.
I don't think that you can make that level of comparison.
The Quakes have traditionally only ever been "reasonable" single-player FPS games but bloody fantastic multi-player games - Duke 3D stood on it's own as a great single-player FPS game but was only okay as multi-player.
I think the award for best "all-rounder" (great single- AND multi-player) FPS games of the time has to go to Shadow Warrior & Blood. Both of them were also on the Build engine but had enough "wacky" weapons (like the "sticky bombs" in Shadow Warrior and the "flaming aerosol" in Blood) to make them both a real hoot for network play.
I agree.
The demo video is a very pretty proof of concept but Eduke32 brought DN3D natively to Windows, Linux, etc. and the HRP with Polymer replaced the sprite-based graphics with proper 3D whilst preserving a considerable amount of the original game's play and feel. That, in itself, was a fairly major update that turned the game into far more of a "modern" architecture.
The problem with any remake or mod is that very few of those that start off as good ideas actually get to the point of completion - and I predict that even if they make some headway with this project, by the time DN4 comes out next year (if we can finally believe what we are told) then the modding community will no doubt be writing new levels and mods for whatever engine that is on.
I do both play & enjoy modern FPS games as well as the PC classics and welcome any effort to port older games to newer platforms - but a version of Duke 3D with much prettier graphics that still has the original level layouts & objectives seems pointless.
But I wish them every success anyway.
Sorry, finger trouble. This is what I meant to say here:
Installing something simple on Linux often requires downloading 2 GB worth of supporting libraries
Absolute nonsense! It is still possible to download a single CD image in 700MB for some distros. So why would *ANY* application need three times that size in libraries?
some of which may be out of date, or have compatibility problems.
Rubbish. Yes, there used to be issues with "dependency hell" on Red Hat 5 about ten years ago. However, package managers have improved considerably in 10 years, probably as much as OS X has improved in that time - this simply does NOT happen any more on most distributions.
Sorry, you clearly don't know Linux that well or, dare I suggest, you've never actually used it. Here's why:
Installing something simple on Linux often requires downloading 2 GB worth of supporting libraries
Absolute nonsense! It is still possible to download a single CD image (, some of which may be out of date, or have compatibility problems.
Rubbish. Yes, there used to be issues with "dependency hell" on Red Hat 5 about ten years ago. However, package managers have improved considerably in 10 years, probably as much as OS X has improved in that time - this simply does NOT happen any more on most distributions.
I would also add that I myself have been a user of Gentoo Linux for many years now. This is a "roll your own" distribution that compiles each new package against the libraries it requires that may or may not be already installed on your system. Yes, very infrequently there are dependency issues due to a bug in a package, but the forum is very active & someone usually comes up with at least a workaround in a very short period of time.
No standard physical interface (android), hardware, or even ABI means that I can't just download a "Built for Linux" binary and run it. Chances are the software will make idiotic demands of me like downloading obscure-library-version.1.2.3.4beta4-pre7.
Same as above - maybe some time ago with older package managers.
And let me make you a challenge here - post up an example of an actual installation where this happened to you, then I'll believe you. Until then, I treat this as a sweeping statement based on FUD you've taken in elsewhere.
Linux is getting better for this, but I still can't download a "Linux" distro, and then pop in *HOT PC GAME OF THE YEAR* and run it.
That's right. It's because there's not a Linux version of the game. Why is that Linux's fault? It's like me saying "I bought an Apple Mac but can't pop in a Halo III game disk and play it."
Until Linux can run Windows games better than Windows can, Linux is never going to make any more inroads against Windows games except where there is already a MacOS version.
This is actually statement that can be written as "Linux won't beat Windows for games until more Windows games are written for Linux". Again, an obvious statement written by somebody who actually doesn't know what to say here.
Android is going flop. So many reasons why, but I'll file most of them under "Do you really expect these idiot phone manufacturers to actually update the OS?"
I'll answer this statement when there are *LESS* Android devices being sold than IOS ones - until then, it's patently a statement from a peturbed but rabid Apple fanboi.
And that's why I'm using Windows or MacOS.
You know something? If you had the guts or backbone to say "I don't use Linux because the learning curve is too high" or "I don't use Linux because I feel Windows and OS X are easier to use", I wouldn't even bother arguing with you because you'd be perfectly entitled to have that opinion.
But why do you feel qualified to talk about "libraries" and "package managers" on Linux when here you say you don't use it? That *SHOWS* you're not arguing from a position of knowledge because you just don't use Linux.
Linux as a Desktop OS will never happen unless all the forks die off and we're left with only one de-facto flavor of desktop linux that will (like Windows and MacOS) come with all the neccessary parts to run ANY linux application.
I hate to say this but it *IS* being run as a desktop OS. Maybe in the USA there are more Apple than Linux users but here in Europe, Linux on the desktop at least equals Mac usage, maybe even beats it. Please don't confuse iPhone, iPod or iPad sales with Mac sales - Macs *STILL* have very small penetration.
Fugly user interfaces and library hell are Linux's major failing points.
I don't claim to have used a Mac much because in 30 years of computing I've never found a good
Agreed, but Microsoft has as little to do with providing the app to flash the DVD-RW drive as Linux does - it's the manufacturer that has chosen to release a Windows-only flashing app.
Although I do keep an XP installation around, I had a similar problem with two Belkin Powerline Ethernet adapters that needed to be flashed to the next firmware revision to work at anything close to their published speed. The box claimed Windows and Linux support (in fact the OS is pretty irrelevant in all honesty) but Belkin only created a Windows app to do the flashing with. I did email them to complain about their "Linux support" claims on the box, but never got a response.
Sorry, I'm most a Linux guy these days but your post is nonsense.
Whatever you or I know or think about Vista and Windows 7, clearly Microsoft had "real challenges" getting both those OSes out and both of them made at least some attempt of getting over some of the "real problems" of inexperienced Windows XP users & XP's architecture, both of which (to some degree) allow applications to run with more permissions than they need but exploit security holes as a result.
And, incidentally, I work for a telecoms company where 95% of our products run on Red Hat Linux - yet many of my colleagues have been victims of "random downsizing", simply because the need to show profit has nothing to do with what OS you happen to be using.
Me too.
It would actually be nice to have a definition of what this elusive "desktop" actually is because Linux does pretty much all I need a desktop to do and has done so for years.
I haven't migrated fully to Linux at home because I'm more than happy to stand up & admit that there are certain games & apps on that run better (and easier) on Windows XP than they do in Wine - but none of those "killer" Windows apps I have registered (Forte Agent Usenet client, Tag&Rename audio tagging app, MediaMonkey media player & synching app, a few others) do anything that cannot be done on Linux, they just do it a bit better.
And, unfortunately, the problem isn't Linux not being ready for the desktop, it's users not being ready for the Open Source way. When marketing types see a niche for a piece of software from which profit can be made, a software company usually steps in and writes that software; and if the people who have paid good money for that software don't like it, they can sit back, complain, and (rightfully) expect the software to be changed or fixed.
But with Open Source, if you sit back & wait for something to be done, it's likely nothing will happen. Instead, you need to develop a mentality of caring as much about a piece of free software as you would a paid-for piece of software - that means contacting the software authors and communicating in a decent way why the software misses some of the features you need.
"Webvention" sounds a bit too nice & friendly for these scumbags - can I suggest they are forced to change their names to either "Wankvention" or "Webcunts"?
They can't kill OOO as they don't own it.
As I understand it, Sun owned StarOffice which used to be distributed freely (I'm not sure if it was GPL) but then took it back into their fold as a commercial product - at which point OOO forked off under the GPL.
In which case, my interpretation is that Oracle can do what they want with StarOffice but nothing about OOO.
I am willing to accept there are people out there who use MS Office, love it and will always use it.
I am willing to accept there are people out there who will never try OpenOffice.org because it doesn't have VB scripting or advanced features as in, say, Excel that they need to use.
I am willing to accept that some MS Office people have tried OpenOffice.org, didn't like it & stayed with MS Office - but then they never left MS Office in the first place.
MS Office is a Windows product (okay, put the Mac version to one side for a moment) so if you switch from MS Office to OpenOffice.org, it's either because OpenOffice.org has enough functionality for what you need such that it's a waste of money paying Microsoft for an MS Office licence or maybe you've been using a dodgy pirated version of MS Office and are just sick & tired of the security/keygen/virus hassles that brings with it.
But is there *REALLY* anyone out there who has made a conscious decision to use & deploy OpenOffice.org for any period of time, only to then decide to change to MS Office (or *truly* go back to using it)?
Avatar was NOT a brilliant sci-fi movie but a very pleasant piece of eye candy that I was pleased I saw on IMAX - that gimmick factor is the reason it did so well.
What would be interesting would be to take a fairly good movie with a good story like "Up" and work out how many of the people who saw it in 3D would have gone to see it had it been in 2D. I'm guessing there probably wouldn't be too much of a difference.
Add to that the fact that selling 3.2 million TVs with 3D capability does not actually say very much. I don't claim to be a great TV or movie enthusiast but I bought my latest widescreen TV described as "HD Ready" because I thought it might be a useful feature to have - but I've never used HD because standard TV on it is "good enough" for what the missus & I want.
Plus the industry is missing the point anyway. If I go to the cinema, I'm there to see a movie. If it's a 3D movie, I borrow a pair of glasses, wear them to enjoy the movie & then hand them back when I've done. That's it finished.
If I'm at home, I may be on my own watching TV or sat with the rest of the family or with friends. Working out whether or not I have enough 3D glasses for everyone watching makes it far too complicated & that's the reason it won't succeed.
And if you don't accept that argument, you need only look at eating habits in the USA, UK and a few other parts of the world as proof. Most people in those countries *KNOW* that a microwaved prepared or take-away meal is not nutritionally as good as one that's cooked properly from raw ingredients. But, for many people, the microwave meal is "good enough" because it tastes okay to them & stops them feeling hungry. If you don't have a passion about home-cooked food, then you won't bother making home-cooked food because you just see it as far too complicated.
Likewise, until there's a passion for 3D TV, it will also be seen as just too complicated to bother with.