For some people their tablet/phone is their digital camera, they don't use another, and it has built-in share/transfer features.
which comes with a CD full of the typical proprietary drivers and software, which wouldn't be available on a tablet.
Which you should never need to use since cameras are USB storage devices if connected directly. Not only that, you can take the storage card out of them.
No. 1, the online experiences are a lot better. PC users, in my admittedly limited experience, are more mature than their counterparts on XBox and PS3.
Depends on the game actually. you're probably referring to the "call of the Duty of honor on the Battlefied of Ops" crowd. those games are heavily marketed to the 15-25 year old homophobic epithet spewing "dudebro gamer" market.
Play games other than "Call of the Medal of Battlefield Honor" and it's better.
Buy a decently powerful CPU, an Asus motherboard and a $150 video card, and you'll have better graphics on your PC than console gamers have presently, for a lot less than $1,200
How much less? That videocard alone is half the price of a PS3 and the rest of the machine would probably make it about double the price of a PS3. I see it this way:
1. My gaming budget is finite.
2. Sure I could use Windows (shudder, I run Fedora) and do PC gaming I do have a minecraft install and STO that I run via WINE), but.
3. I can get the same experience for less money on a PS3...and have more money left over for more games.
4. Sure a PC I spent more money on might give me a somewhat better graphical experience, but in my personal experience is not "that much" better as to justify the price premium. (I've done some testing with a few cross platform titles over the years)
Besides, there are some in the PC gaming community who would consider someone gaming on even your "budget" rig to not be a "real enthusiast". Check out Maximum PC...they recommend a Baseline Rig....and it costs $1.148! (In fact they has to downgrade the rig because prices jumped a bit on the hardware they had in it to keep it at the budget they set for their "Baseline budget rig"
But to say "the PC would be dead for gaming" if not for MMOs is to overlook the success of Steam and GOG.com.
Steam and GOG are recent developments. It was MMO's and RTS's that kept PC gaming alive from the late PSone period to the beginning of the PS3. Look at the magazines of that time...MMO and RTS centric. (besides the usual shooters) Now tthat there's a large shooter audience on the PS3 and 360, it's still RTS, MMO and MOBA keeping PC gaming alive alongside Counter-Strike and Team Fortress. yeah, sure, there's other games but those are niche markets, compared to the big market games.
And like Steam and GOG, PSN Store, Xbox marketplace and Wii shop also have "indie games", older games, sales and discounts.
Now I'm all for buying budget games and whatnot, but playing devil's advocate here...
Considering you say you spent $60 on Steam and the THQ bundle combined....that all those games weren't worth more than a few bucks apiece?
You know why publishers and dev houses think PC gamers are bunch of cheapskates and pirates......THAT. What was the average price set for the bundle 6 bucks? When Saints row the Third is still on the shelves for as a budget title for 19.99?
Yeah, I just don't have much faith in Sony, they've run enough games into the ground not to mention how they tend to treat their community (been on the receiving end of SOE, they haven't seen a cent of me since).
Sony doesn't run Dust514, CCP does. It's only published "on" the PS3, CCP is still the developer and publisher of it.
Not to mention the stunted PC interfaces due to console cross-development (Bethesda, I'm looking at you).
It's not entirely the console's fault, but what the console "might" be using for display. Bethesda designed their UI on their recent games to be as usable as possible even on SD displays which is why it is wha it is.
I once took my PS3 over to a friends house to show him Oblivion and he only had an SD set. Was surprised how legible the UI was. (I've seen issues with UI that didn't work well on SD displays even dating back the PSone which could only be connected to an SD set...Darkstone I'm looking at you.)
But that does mean that the UI is a touch larger than necessary on HD displays and high resolution PC monitors. Personally I wouldn't have minded a scaled UI even on the PS3 version.
As for playability... find that Fallout 3's UI was my favorite, Oblivion and Skyrim...not so much.
You do know that the PSN store, the Xbox marketplace, and the Wiii shop, have cheap games and sales as we That sort of thing wasn't invented by Steam. Where have you been the last 6 years?
The PS3 has a 3.2GHz single core multi-threaded CPU with an Altivec unit and 7 SPU's. The Xbox's CPU is based on the Cell's core, but has 3 of them. (but no multi-threading IIRC, and no SPU's)
Single cores were still fairly common in 2006. And even in 2010 there were budget boxes shipping with low end dual-core CPU's (I even saw a few single cores) and integrated 6150's or Intel X3100's (or whatever that thing is) No match for a PS3 or 360.
So for gaming purposes, they'd outperform most general purpose household PC's of 2006, easy. Yes, some gamer rigs could top them, but they'd cost a LOT more money.
Even today there are still lots of people with older PC's. Do you think "everyone" has a hex-core Dream machine rig with TWO SLI'd GTX 690's?
They....well I mean we... but I only play casually, can shoot back you know.
Hey! What you could do is hire some mercenaries, then bribe the other side to intentionally lose, so you you can have the Dusters shoot their surface to orbit weapon at your enemy corp's ships.
You can also bankroll upgrades for your own merc teams with your own ISK.
True, but FFXI didn't have much competition (on the PS2 only EQOA) did it. It also helped that it's a Japanese game designed for crazy Japanese conformist "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down and there is only ONE way to play a class with this specific equipment at these specific levels" min-maxers.
Sure that is not the most common usecase, but I would rather not be crippled because you want teh shiny and all your friends to run linux.
How is having the shiny and having more people like me running Linux, "crippling you."? Did I say I want tools like screen removed? No. What I want is more non-sysadmin friendly tools. Do you want to go back to the days of absolutely having to edit your/etc/printcap file manually rather than having a nice GUI tool (several nice GUI tools) for managing printers?
You might not be speaking about game servers, but I have seen them that require a display because they run the whole game to run. That is insane. That is the sort of braindead thinking your ideas bring with them.
While I do understand your point about some things needing headless support, there is such a thing as X11 Forwarding. Also "my ideas" aren't about braindead thinking. I'm talking "more" options for non-sysadmin/non-neckbeard users, not taking away options from those users.
Screen is great because I can use it remotely and detach and reattach at will.
Yes, I know screen can do that, but how many times in this age of constant reliable always on connections do you use it.?
Some times big boys run programs that take a long time and may not play well with tools like nohup.
And there's that elitism I was referring to in that "big boys" comment. Sure if you're a sysadmin wanting to monitor a compile you started at 4:50 at home, yeah the ability to "dtach" might be handy,....but most people aren't sysadmins or hackers...not even Linux users.
Lots of image editors and image manipulation software have command line interfaces for automated changes to images.
Yes, I know, Imagemagick and the like for batch processing...but there's still GUI image editors that use X and don't do batch processing because they're not for that.
Even games. Hosting a minecraft server should not require a display.
I'm not talking about "game servers" but actual games.
There is very little that is done better graphically if you ever want to be able to automate it or extend it in the future.
but the project itself will always be focused around the ease of use for people who are building such things, and not the end users.
But Users are why software exists. Don't end users who are NOT programmers or sysadmins deserve high quality "Free" software. The FSF doesn't say that their software is just for sysadmins and programmers they say it's for "everyone" (though sadly, they really only seem to care to write software for Unix graybears)
Things other than configuring or troubleshooting their computer...like actually "using" it for the tasks they want to do.
"Linux the Hard Way" is a reaction to the problem that it's no longer clear to new wrench-oriented curious folk just how to Learn how Linux works. Google buries them with Ubuntu-docs, 'power user tips', and dev talk.
The problem is, that some Linux users hold up things like "Linux the Hard Way" as the way Linux should be for everyone. That if you're not a programmer or sysadmin you shouldn't be using it. And those people have "loud voices" on the internet. Linux already has a reputation for being harder to use than it actually is...if non-programmer non-sysadmin me can learn how to use it...and yes even learn how to compile.....then anyone can.
As a side note, my first Linux was Linux for the Playstation 2. Heard about the Linux kit here on Slashdot, though it would be an interesting way to add additional functionality to my PS2 and learn about the "Linxu thing" Slashdotters were going on about. At the time...I was browsing Slashdot on a WebTV....didn't have a Windows machine at that time.
So I pre-ordered the kit, bought some Linux books, joined the PS2 Linux forums and learned to use it. Linux on the PS2 wasn't some modern "Easy Button" distro like modern Ubuntu or even YDL on the PS3....it was Red Hat 6 based...on MIPS, so I had to compile "everything" not included. My first compile was "gaim", second was Abiword.....my god were some compiles long.
Now I use Fedora on X86, its even easier. If I could learn to use Linux, anyone can.
Which will of course mean Linux becomes useless for those of us not inclined to stick to the shiny buttons and poke at the screen.
Why does that have to be the case, even in the most "Linux for the Masses" distros, they still have development tools and you can still live in emacs in a terminal, or god forbid on the console if you want.
But we still don't have good documentation or "Easy Button" tools for some tasks.
I would rather have less users, than cripple what we have now.
Who says it would be crippled. For example, just because GUI tools exist doesn't mean neckbearded suspender wearing Unix-y graybeards have to use them. Just like the fact that GNU screen exists, doesn't mean I can't use an easier to use tabbed terminal.
It means remembering that every program should run fine without X(even VLC has text output video),
I don't agree with that, some things are better done graphically. Besides, I can't imagine things like Minecraft, or even something like a paint program not using X.
Why, why should it be hard? Should we keep on going on about "sweat equity" and "RTFM" until no one but sysadmins and programmers uses it?
Learning Linux itself (kernels, command line, compiling from source, customize it to your liking) will never and shouldn't be easy
I'm going to be BadCarAnalogyPerson for a moment:
To use a car I don't need to know about thermodynamics or how gas-air mixtures behave under pressue...I just need to know how to drive it. To use a TV, I don't need to know the ins and outs of NTSC/ATSC specifications or about how CRT guns are magnetically aimed, or how LCD crystals twist when a current is applied, I just need to turn it on.
Why should Linux be different. As a "User" (which is not a dirty word) I don't need to know about how kernel messages work or what they even are, I don't even need to know how to write C. I don't even have to know about compiling from source. If I want to customize my Linux install, why can't I use a GUI do do most of, or even ALL of the work?
I don't think something as open and complex as Linux will ever be easy. The masses should expect that web browsing, word processing, email and the occassional light game of solitaire should be easy.
The FSF doesn't just talk about hackers and programmers, even though that's the only people they seem to write software for. Don't the masses deserve a high quality "Free" operating system that can do the things they want to do?
the needs of the "masses" are simply not the same as the needs of sysadmins and programmers.
That is true, but there are more people who are NOT sysadmins and programmers than are. The FSF doesn't say it's goal is to create "Free" software for just sysadmins or programmers. Though it seems they focus most of their efforts of software only sysadmins and programmers use...and that's a serious fault in my opinion. Everyone deserves good "Free" software, from the person coding C in emacs to the person who wants something like "Print Shop" on Linux.
If you're not careful you get projects like Gnome and Windows 8 that hide everything useful in the name of the "Easy Button".
Personally I blame Win8, Gnome3, and Unity on programmers who "think" they know what the masses want, because the masses buy lots of phones/tablets, but don't actually talk to the masses to see what they want on a desktop.
Making the assumption that "geeks" will find graphical interfaces as easy to use as command driven interfaces is just as elitist as the assumption that "the masses" are ignorant because they cannot handle command driven interfaces. There is not a single "right way" to do things.
While I agree, for the most part, the problem is there aren't "Easy Button" methods to do certain things that there should be "Easy Buttons" for. And many things aren't explained or documented clearly.
As for whether geeks might find GUI's useful. I've been using Linux since 2002, while I find some things easier in a terminal, there are others that I prefer to use a GUI for.
Linux shouldn't be hard, geek elitism has to go.
on
Learn Linux the Hard Way
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· Score: 4, Insightful
There's an old Jack Tramiel quote about computer pricing (referring to Apple II prices): "
We need to build computers for the masses, not the classes."
I believe that Linux can be for the masses as well:
Linux for the masses, not just those who have taken programming classes.
Things like this "Linux the Hard Way" is the last thing we need. We need better tutorials, better documentation in general, something "better" than crappy gnu info (there's nothing I hate more than a man page that directs me to use gnu info, how I hate that thing) Making Linux more non-nerd friendly makes it better for everyone. It even saves nerds time. I'm not just talking Ubuntu here, after all there was a time when Red Hat was considered the Linux Distro for the Masses. Personally in my Linux usage, I prefer to take the "Easy Button" way whenever possible, I have a "set it and forget it" philosophy and I like "reasonable defaults". Sure, some things are faster in a terminal, but even there I take the easy way by using mrxvt, and not the incomprehensible geek=favorite...gnu screen.
I never did care for the 2D Mega Man (Rockman) games, Excercises in Forced Difficulty especially in jumps. And don't forget the "choose the right order for the levels or you can't meet the real boss" thing a couple of the games had. Total Guide Dant It's on those.
The MML's are like a third person action-shooter-rpg thing thats a playable anime. Much more fun, but the hardcore fanbase disliked them, even if at their core they're better games than any 2D Mega Man.
He's not a troll, PC piracy rates are insanely high much higher than console rates, especially in Eastern Europe, second-world and third world countries.
I guess you missed the part that PC gaming will be outselling the entire console industry by the first quarter of next year.
Define outselling...if you mean "making more money" that's almost entirely due to MMO subscriptions, not single player game sales.
240p refers to the vertical resolution. aka 320x240 progressive.
Easiest way to see it in action is to play a PSone game that does 240p (Like PSone Diablo) on a PS2....using component cables connected to an HDTV. Some HDTV's like mine have trouble syncing to a 240p signal over component (I would have to toggle inputs till it syncs) Play the same game over S-Video and it's fine.
Yeah, I've got two old reliable WRT54G's, comparitly sucky V8's no less. One of theem stopped working "right" about a year after purchase, replaced it with the other one which has never had problems. I eventually flashed the first one with DD-WRT which apparently fixed it and it now serves as a "bridge" I love those things.
I'd replace them with N gear, but when Cisco bought Linksys, they futzed up everything...the prices went up, the form factors changed, and even the model naming/numbering is different. They have multiple "consumer" routers, none of which were as cheap as the old ones. Back in the old days, you knew what to buy, In the B's it was the BEFW11S4, in the G's it was the WRT54. Needed a bridge? WET11, WET54. You didn't need to install software, or have any kind of "cloud" administration (which I only just heard of in this thread) you could just open your web browser to 192.168.1.1 and set the things up.
20 hours is what I call "a good short" 40 hours is more the average.....some games can easily hit hundreds, but they tend to be RPG's. Time is finite, so for adult gamers with jobs...shorter is better if they want to play more than one game.
Slashdot Mirror
Among other things, they have a digital camera
For some people their tablet/phone is their digital camera, they don't use another, and it has built-in share/transfer features.
which comes with a CD full of the typical proprietary drivers and software, which wouldn't be available on a tablet.
Which you should never need to use since cameras are USB storage devices if connected directly. Not only that, you can take the storage card out of them.
No. 1, the online experiences are a lot better. PC users, in my admittedly limited experience, are more mature than their counterparts on XBox and PS3.
Depends on the game actually. you're probably referring to the "call of the Duty of honor on the Battlefied of Ops" crowd. those games are heavily marketed to the 15-25 year old homophobic epithet spewing "dudebro gamer" market.
Play games other than "Call of the Medal of Battlefield Honor" and it's better.
Buy a decently powerful CPU, an Asus motherboard and a $150 video card, and you'll have better graphics on your PC than console gamers have presently, for a lot less than $1,200
How much less? That videocard alone is half the price of a PS3 and the rest of the machine would probably make it about double the price of a PS3. I see it this way:
1. My gaming budget is finite.
2. Sure I could use Windows (shudder, I run Fedora) and do PC gaming I do have a minecraft install and STO that I run via WINE), but.
3. I can get the same experience for less money on a PS3...and have more money left over for more games.
4. Sure a PC I spent more money on might give me a somewhat better graphical experience, but in my personal experience is not "that much" better as to justify the price premium. (I've done some testing with a few cross platform titles over the years)
Besides, there are some in the PC gaming community who would consider someone gaming on even your "budget" rig to not be a "real enthusiast". Check out Maximum PC...they recommend a Baseline Rig....and it costs $1.148! (In fact they has to downgrade the rig because prices jumped a bit on the hardware they had in it to keep it at the budget they set for their "Baseline budget rig"
But to say "the PC would be dead for gaming" if not for MMOs is to overlook the success of Steam and GOG.com.
Steam and GOG are recent developments. It was MMO's and RTS's that kept PC gaming alive from the late PSone period to the beginning of the PS3. Look at the magazines of that time...MMO and RTS centric. (besides the usual shooters) Now tthat there's a large shooter audience on the PS3 and 360, it's still RTS, MMO and MOBA keeping PC gaming alive alongside Counter-Strike and Team Fortress.
yeah, sure, there's other games but those are niche markets, compared to the big market games.
And like Steam and GOG, PSN Store, Xbox marketplace and Wii shop also have "indie games", older games, sales and discounts.
Now I'm all for buying budget games and whatnot, but playing devil's advocate here...
Considering you say you spent $60 on Steam and the THQ bundle combined....that all those games weren't worth more than a few bucks apiece?
You know why publishers and dev houses think PC gamers are bunch of cheapskates and pirates......THAT. What was the average price set for the bundle 6 bucks? When Saints row the Third is still on the shelves for as a budget title for 19.99?
Yeah, I just don't have much faith in Sony, they've run enough games into the ground not to mention how they tend to treat their community (been on the receiving end of SOE, they haven't seen a cent of me since).
Sony doesn't run Dust514, CCP does. It's only published "on" the PS3, CCP is still the developer and publisher of it.
Then again it seems they want to crack open the casual market with Dust (sucking up to Sony, that can't end well)
Dust514 isn't a "casual" shooter like "Call of the Honor of the Medal of the Battlefield of Duty Calls", it is VERY complex.
The things going to need a godlike tutorial in order to explain even the basics.
Not to mention the stunted PC interfaces due to console cross-development (Bethesda, I'm looking at you).
It's not entirely the console's fault, but what the console "might" be using for display. Bethesda designed their UI on their recent games to be as usable as possible even on SD displays which is why it is wha it is.
I once took my PS3 over to a friends house to show him Oblivion and he only had an SD set. Was surprised how legible the UI was. (I've seen issues with UI that didn't work well on SD displays even dating back the PSone which could only be connected to an SD set...Darkstone I'm looking at you.)
But that does mean that the UI is a touch larger than necessary on HD displays and high resolution PC monitors. Personally I wouldn't have minded a scaled UI even on the PS3 version.
As for playability... find that Fallout 3's UI was my favorite, Oblivion and Skyrim...not so much.
You do know that the PSN store, the Xbox marketplace, and the Wiii shop, have cheap games and sales as we That sort of thing wasn't invented by Steam. Where have you been the last 6 years?
Depends on what kind of PC.
The PS3 has a 3.2GHz single core multi-threaded CPU with an Altivec unit and 7 SPU's. The Xbox's CPU is based on the Cell's core, but has 3 of them. (but no multi-threading IIRC, and no SPU's)
Single cores were still fairly common in 2006. And even in 2010 there were budget boxes shipping with low end dual-core CPU's (I even saw a few single cores) and integrated 6150's or Intel X3100's (or whatever that thing is) No match for a PS3 or 360.
So for gaming purposes, they'd outperform most general purpose household PC's of 2006, easy. Yes, some gamer rigs could top them, but they'd cost a LOT more money.
Even today there are still lots of people with older PC's. Do you think "everyone" has a hex-core Dream machine rig with TWO SLI'd GTX 690's?
They had the CPU power too, Folding@home proved that, in the PS3's case anyway.
They....well I mean we... but I only play casually, can shoot back you know.
Hey! What you could do is hire some mercenaries, then bribe the other side to intentionally lose, so you you can have the Dusters shoot their surface to orbit weapon at your enemy corp's ships.
You can also bankroll upgrades for your own merc teams with your own ISK.
True, but FFXI didn't have much competition (on the PS2 only EQOA) did it. It also helped that it's a Japanese game designed for crazy Japanese conformist "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down and there is only ONE way to play a class with this specific equipment at these specific levels" min-maxers.
Sure that is not the most common usecase, but I would rather not be crippled because you want teh shiny and all your friends to run linux.
How is having the shiny and having more people like me running Linux, "crippling you."? Did I say I want tools like screen removed? No. What I want is more non-sysadmin friendly tools. Do you want to go back to the days of absolutely having to edit your /etc/printcap file manually rather than having a nice GUI tool (several nice GUI tools) for managing printers?
You might not be speaking about game servers, but I have seen them that require a display because they run the whole game to run. That is insane. That is the sort of braindead thinking your ideas bring with them.
While I do understand your point about some things needing headless support, there is such a thing as X11 Forwarding. Also "my ideas" aren't about braindead thinking. I'm talking "more" options for non-sysadmin/non-neckbeard users, not taking away options from those users.
Screen is great because I can use it remotely and detach and reattach at will.
Yes, I know screen can do that, but how many times in this age of constant reliable always on connections do you use it.?
Some times big boys run programs that take a long time and may not play well with tools like nohup.
And there's that elitism I was referring to in that "big boys" comment. Sure if you're a sysadmin wanting to monitor a compile you started at 4:50 at home, yeah the ability to "dtach" might be handy,....but most people aren't sysadmins or hackers...not even Linux users.
Lots of image editors and image manipulation software have command line interfaces for automated changes to images.
Yes, I know, Imagemagick and the like for batch processing...but there's still GUI image editors that use X and don't do batch processing because they're not for that.
Even games. Hosting a minecraft server should not require a display.
I'm not talking about "game servers" but actual games.
There is very little that is done better graphically if you ever want to be able to automate it or extend it in the future.
Not everything benefits from automation.
but the project itself will always be focused around the ease of use for people who are building such things, and not the end users.
But Users are why software exists. Don't end users who are NOT programmers or sysadmins deserve high quality "Free" software. The FSF doesn't say that their software is just for sysadmins and programmers they say it's for "everyone" (though sadly, they really only seem to care to write software for Unix graybears)
"Saves nerds time" to do what, specifically?
Things other than configuring or troubleshooting their computer...like actually "using" it for the tasks they want to do.
"Linux the Hard Way" is a reaction to the problem that it's no longer clear to new wrench-oriented curious folk just how to Learn how Linux works. Google buries them with Ubuntu-docs, 'power user tips', and dev talk.
The problem is, that some Linux users hold up things like "Linux the Hard Way" as the way Linux should be for everyone. That if you're not a programmer or sysadmin you shouldn't be using it. And those people have "loud voices" on the internet. Linux already has a reputation for being harder to use than it actually is...if non-programmer non-sysadmin me can learn how to use it...and yes even learn how to compile.....then anyone can.
As a side note, my first Linux was Linux for the Playstation 2. Heard about the Linux kit here on Slashdot, though it would be an interesting way to add additional functionality to my PS2 and learn about the "Linxu thing" Slashdotters were going on about. At the time...I was browsing Slashdot on a WebTV....didn't have a Windows machine at that time.
So I pre-ordered the kit, bought some Linux books, joined the PS2 Linux forums and learned to use it. Linux on the PS2 wasn't some modern "Easy Button" distro like modern Ubuntu or even YDL on the PS3....it was Red Hat 6 based...on MIPS, so I had to compile "everything" not included. My first compile was "gaim", second was Abiword.....my god were some compiles long.
Now I use Fedora on X86, its even easier. If I could learn to use Linux, anyone can.
Which will of course mean Linux becomes useless for those of us not inclined to stick to the shiny buttons and poke at the screen.
Why does that have to be the case, even in the most "Linux for the Masses" distros, they still have development tools and you can still live in emacs in a terminal, or god forbid on the console if you want.
But we still don't have good documentation or "Easy Button" tools for some tasks.
I would rather have less users, than cripple what we have now.
Who says it would be crippled. For example, just because GUI tools exist doesn't mean neckbearded suspender wearing Unix-y graybeards have to use them. Just like the fact that GNU screen exists, doesn't mean I can't use an easier to use tabbed terminal.
It means remembering that every program should run fine without X(even VLC has text output video),
I don't agree with that, some things are better done graphically. Besides, I can't imagine things like Minecraft, or even something like a paint program not using X.
but Learning Linux should be hard
Why, why should it be hard? Should we keep on going on about "sweat equity" and "RTFM" until no one but sysadmins and programmers uses it?
Learning Linux itself (kernels, command line, compiling from source, customize it to your liking) will never and shouldn't be easy
I'm going to be BadCarAnalogyPerson for a moment:
To use a car I don't need to know about thermodynamics or how gas-air mixtures behave under pressue...I just need to know how to drive it. To use a TV, I don't need to know the ins and outs of NTSC/ATSC specifications or about how CRT guns are magnetically aimed, or how LCD crystals twist when a current is applied, I just need to turn it on.
Why should Linux be different. As a "User" (which is not a dirty word) I don't need to know about how kernel messages work or what they even are, I don't even need to know how to write C. I don't even have to know about compiling from source. If I want to customize my Linux install, why can't I use a GUI do do most of, or even ALL of the work?
I don't think something as open and complex as Linux will ever be easy. The masses should expect that web browsing, word processing, email and the occassional light game of solitaire should be easy.
The FSF doesn't just talk about hackers and programmers, even though that's the only people they seem to write software for. Don't the masses deserve a high quality "Free" operating system that can do the things they want to do?
the needs of the "masses" are simply not the same as the needs of sysadmins and programmers.
That is true, but there are more people who are NOT sysadmins and programmers than are. The FSF doesn't say it's goal is to create "Free" software for just sysadmins or programmers. Though it seems they focus most of their efforts of software only sysadmins and programmers use...and that's a serious fault in my opinion. Everyone deserves good "Free" software, from the person coding C in emacs to the person who wants something like "Print Shop" on Linux.
If you're not careful you get projects like Gnome and Windows 8 that hide everything useful in the name of the "Easy Button".
Personally I blame Win8, Gnome3, and Unity on programmers who "think" they know what the masses want, because the masses buy lots of phones/tablets, but don't actually talk to the masses to see what they want on a desktop.
Making the assumption that "geeks" will find graphical interfaces as easy to use as command driven interfaces is just as elitist as the assumption that "the masses" are ignorant because they cannot handle command driven interfaces. There is not a single "right way" to do things.
While I agree, for the most part, the problem is there aren't "Easy Button" methods to do certain things that there should be "Easy Buttons" for. And many things aren't explained or documented clearly.
As for whether geeks might find GUI's useful. I've been using Linux since 2002, while I find some things easier in a terminal, there are others that I prefer to use a GUI for.
There's an old Jack Tramiel quote about computer pricing (referring to Apple II prices):
"
We need to build computers for the masses, not the classes."
I believe that Linux can be for the masses as well:
Linux for the masses, not just those who have taken programming classes.
Things like this "Linux the Hard Way" is the last thing we need. We need better tutorials, better documentation in general, something "better" than crappy gnu info (there's nothing I hate more than a man page that directs me to use gnu info, how I hate that thing) Making Linux more non-nerd friendly makes it better for everyone. It even saves nerds time. I'm not just talking Ubuntu here, after all there was a time when Red Hat was considered the Linux Distro for the Masses. Personally in my Linux usage, I prefer to take the "Easy Button" way whenever possible, I have a "set it and forget it" philosophy and I like "reasonable defaults". Sure, some things are faster in a terminal, but even there I take the easy way by using mrxvt, and not the incomprehensible geek=favorite...gnu screen.
I never did care for the 2D Mega Man (Rockman) games, Excercises in Forced Difficulty especially in jumps. And don't forget the "choose the right order for the levels or you can't meet the real boss" thing a couple of the games had. Total Guide Dant It's on those.
The MML's are like a third person action-shooter-rpg thing thats a playable anime. Much more fun, but the hardcore fanbase disliked them, even if at their core they're better games than any 2D Mega Man.
He's not a troll, PC piracy rates are insanely high much higher than console rates, especially in Eastern Europe, second-world and third world countries.
I guess you missed the part that PC gaming will be outselling the entire console industry by the first quarter of next year.
Define outselling...if you mean "making more money" that's almost entirely due to MMO subscriptions, not single player game sales.
240p refers to the vertical resolution. aka 320x240 progressive.
Easiest way to see it in action is to play a PSone game that does 240p (Like PSone Diablo) on a PS2....using component cables connected to an HDTV. Some HDTV's like mine have trouble syncing to a 240p signal over component (I would have to toggle inputs till it syncs) Play the same game over S-Video and it's fine.
Yeah, I've got two old reliable WRT54G's, comparitly sucky V8's no less. One of theem stopped working "right" about a year after purchase, replaced it with the other one which has never had problems. I eventually flashed the first one with DD-WRT which apparently fixed it and it now serves as a "bridge" I love those things.
I'd replace them with N gear, but when Cisco bought Linksys, they futzed up everything...the prices went up, the form factors changed, and even the model naming/numbering is different. They have multiple "consumer" routers, none of which were as cheap as the old ones. Back in the old days, you knew what to buy, In the B's it was the BEFW11S4, in the G's it was the WRT54. Needed a bridge? WET11, WET54. You didn't need to install software, or have any kind of "cloud" administration (which I only just heard of in this thread) you could just open your web browser to 192.168.1.1 and set the things up.
20 hours is what I call "a good short" 40 hours is more the average.....some games can easily hit hundreds, but they tend to be RPG's. Time is finite, so for adult gamers with jobs...shorter is better if they want to play more than one game.