Well, you have a very good point there... However, despite the fact that the Indrema won't support PC connectivity hardware at launch, I doubt that situation will last for long (especially with a an included ethernet jack!) and I'm sure the current fans of MAME are already familiar with the concept of finding arcade ROM images. (In perfectly *cough* legal ways, of course).
In fact, given the state of console emulation under linux, the Indrema could become a console to end all (older) consoles. XMame can be compiled to use OpenGL for rendering and smoothing of emulated graphics (very sexy, for that old fashioned blurry arcade monitor look), and it's now packaged with XMess, an emulator which covers a variety of consoles and personal computers, including the Ninendo and the nostalgically beloved Colecovision (wh00p!). Not to mention the lovely snes9x (near flawless Super Ninendo emulation, also with 3D (well... Glide) support) dgen (Sega Genesis) and many more...
Besides, who wants to store ROM images on unrewriteable media, anyway? Aside from the (staggeringly illiegal) distribution issue, I tend to spend a lot of time sorting out*, adding to, and deleting to my collection anyway...
*(By sorting I mean, of course, separating those roms which I have legal rights to own and use from those I don't. Or something. Despite the fact that the companies that make these roms haven't made money off them in years and seem to want them to be swept away by the cruel, unfeeling hand of bit rot...)
> But buying a product that I don't want will > only encourage them to continue selling
> products that I don't want, often at the
> expense of the products that I do want.
Well, keep in mind that without the UT CD, you can only play the demo... You would be downloading the game for free, and buying a CD of maps, player models, textures, etc. to make the game engine worth playing. (It's actually a very good way to open source video games and still make some money.) If you do want to play UT, the CD is useful, although it would be nice if we were spared the download.
But... If you don't want UT, why are you arguing about it? I was mostly trying to suggest that people refrain from attacking Epic for taking a step towards being a "Linux games company". Although if you don't want UT, (or like Q3 better for some reason, or whatever) then you're probably wasting your time in this particular topic anyway.:-)
Seriously now, it's fun to be angry at people for "repressing" Linux versions of popular software, but honestly, how many game manufacturers bother to port to Linux at all in the first place? (Not counting Loki games, which are ported after the fact by another {albeit very cool} company.)
We need to remember that Linux is still a New Thing(tm) to a lot of management people, and if the first few companies that experiment with providing a Linux version get a lot of angry emails from people demanding a box with a penguin on it (Or any more rallying cries of "You've lost yourself another sale", no offense), it certainly won't help to encourage other people to port to Linux.
It's a good game (a lot prettier than Q3, imho, and a hell of a lot easier to get running on a Voodoo 3) and if you want it, and want to support game companies who release Linux versions of their software, be a good penguin p1mp and just buy it, download the executable, and send a friendly email and/or registration card to the company with your opinions regarding the packaging.
If we're not mean to them, maybe they won't be afraid to put it in the box next time.;-)
Oh, these silly highly respected experts...
on
Gartner Slams Linux
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· Score: 1
As a linux advocate, I do appreciate negative feedback... Illustrating flaws is a very important part of the improvement process.:-) However... Is it possible for an article to criticize linux without using the phrase "kiss of death" or "end of the revolution"? I understand how trendy sensationalism is, but come on... The author points out that despite his opinions, linux is very popular and becoming more so. Not to mention that the problems he cites as making linux unviable are: Ignorance (No one knows how to use it, no one knows how to install it, no one trusts "free software" because it is traditionally overpriced) Poor Development (REAL "Mission Critical" software like NT releases updates on a quarterly basis, and you are encouraged not to use them since they may damage your machine. Besides, fixing bugs isn't profitable.) Poor Support (Real tech support costs a few hundred dollars subscription, along with $245 "per incident", on top of the cost of an overpriced operating system; People in linux newsgroups and IRC channels can smell the Micrsoft residue on your Nick and just want to hurt you) Lack of software (Gnumeric, StarOffice, and mySQL are equivalent or better than their "legitimate" counterparts, and also free, which stinks of communism or something) Apocrypha (My uncle jimbo at HP says Linux is less stable than NT, costs more than NT, has a threatening, violent looking mascot, and causes cancer, blindness, hairy palms and communism in lab rats.) We can still learn something useful from this: If these are the most pressing arguements the Industry Experts can come up with, we must be doing a good job.;-)
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Well, you have a very good point there... However, despite the fact that the Indrema won't support PC connectivity hardware at launch, I doubt that situation will last for long (especially with a an included ethernet jack!) and I'm sure the current fans of MAME are already familiar with the concept of finding arcade ROM images. (In perfectly *cough* legal ways, of course).
In fact, given the state of console emulation under linux, the Indrema could become a console to end all (older) consoles. XMame can be compiled to use OpenGL for rendering and smoothing of emulated graphics (very sexy, for that old fashioned blurry arcade monitor look), and it's now packaged with XMess, an emulator which covers a variety of consoles and personal computers, including the Ninendo and the nostalgically beloved Colecovision (wh00p!). Not to mention the lovely snes9x (near flawless Super Ninendo emulation, also with 3D (well... Glide) support) dgen (Sega Genesis) and many more...
Besides, who wants to store ROM images on unrewriteable media, anyway? Aside from the (staggeringly illiegal) distribution issue, I tend to spend a lot of time sorting out*, adding to, and deleting to my collection anyway...
*(By sorting I mean, of course, separating those roms which I have legal rights to own and use from those I don't. Or something. Despite the fact that the companies that make these roms haven't made money off them in years and seem to want them to be swept away by the cruel, unfeeling hand of bit rot...)
So... How long until the mysterious alien mechanical entity ONEER comes to threaten our planet? ;-)
> only encourage them to continue selling
> products that I don't want, often at the
> expense of the products that I do want.
Well, keep in mind that without the UT CD, you can only play the demo... You would be downloading the game for free, and buying a CD of maps, player models, textures, etc. to make the game engine worth playing. (It's actually a very good way to open source video games and still make some money.) If you do want to play UT, the CD is useful, although it would be nice if we were spared the download.
But... If you don't want UT, why are you arguing about it? I was mostly trying to suggest that people refrain from attacking Epic for taking a step towards being a "Linux games company". Although if you don't want UT, (or like Q3 better for some reason, or whatever) then you're probably wasting your time in this particular topic anyway.
We need to remember that Linux is still a New Thing(tm) to a lot of management people, and if the first few companies that experiment with providing a Linux version get a lot of angry emails from people demanding a box with a penguin on it (Or any more rallying cries of "You've lost yourself another sale", no offense), it certainly won't help to encourage other people to port to Linux.
It's a good game (a lot prettier than Q3, imho, and a hell of a lot easier to get running on a Voodoo 3) and if you want it, and want to support game companies who release Linux versions of their software, be a good penguin p1mp and just buy it, download the executable, and send a friendly email and/or registration card to the company with your opinions regarding the packaging.
If we're not mean to them, maybe they won't be afraid to put it in the box next time. ;-)
As a linux advocate, I do appreciate negative feedback... Illustrating flaws is a very important part of the improvement process. :-) However... Is it possible for an article to criticize linux without using the phrase "kiss of death" or "end of the revolution"? I understand how trendy sensationalism is, but come on... The author points out that despite his opinions, linux is very popular and becoming more so. Not to mention that the problems he cites as making linux unviable are: Ignorance (No one knows how to use it, no one knows how to install it, no one trusts "free software" because it is traditionally overpriced) Poor Development (REAL "Mission Critical" software like NT releases updates on a quarterly basis, and you are encouraged not to use them since they may damage your machine. Besides, fixing bugs isn't profitable.) Poor Support (Real tech support costs a few hundred dollars subscription, along with $245 "per incident", on top of the cost of an overpriced operating system; People in linux newsgroups and IRC channels can smell the Micrsoft residue on your Nick and just want to hurt you) Lack of software (Gnumeric, StarOffice, and mySQL are equivalent or better than their "legitimate" counterparts, and also free, which stinks of communism or something) Apocrypha (My uncle jimbo at HP says Linux is less stable than NT, costs more than NT, has a threatening, violent looking mascot, and causes cancer, blindness, hairy palms and communism in lab rats.) We can still learn something useful from this: If these are the most pressing arguements the Industry Experts can come up with, we must be doing a good job. ;-)