You know, when I first loaded this page, I thought I was at hardocp.com when I saw this story. What's next, how many FPS the new Nvidia can pull on UT2003?
There's a reason why people won't go browsing through certain areas, and that's because those homes are in the fucking ghetto. Most people don't like the ghetto.
Want to make those sites popular again? Move them out of the ghetto. Move 'em up out of da hood and inta da good, B.
To the moderator(s) jerking around this post. It has been around for a while, but why does this score keep going down? Is there a point to constantly downmodding it? Is an agenda being pushed on your part? I'm not pushing one, this was a joke. It was poking fun at the situation, not one particular side. Don't you have anything better to do with your mod points, asshole(s)?
Besides, give a reason why you don't like it. Don't just use the overrated qualifier.
This just in, thousands of anti-abortionists are protesting outside of Bombardier headquarters, claiming that the Embrio was meant to stay in the womb.
Man, this post and another post of mine, as well as other posts about the fish skin bikinis are getting downmodded. I think we've got some angry fat chick in PETA with an angenda really pissed off.
Whoever said that's a bad thing? As long as they have tops for larger cup sizes, I'll be happy. I sure as hell wouldn't want to see a normal chick in one of those.
Stop supporting the murder of thousands of helpless fish! Don't you understand that millions of fish are being senselessly killed and raped of their skin just to support a fashion trend? How would you like it if somebody wore your skin?
I wish that you could feel the suffering that our friends in the ocean are feeling every time their skin is being harvested for pure capitalist profit. It tears my soul apart when I hear someone advocating such violent acts against creatures that have brains twice as complex than our own!
I'm going to go listen to some emo and cry about what you said. I hope you're happy, killing fish and sending people like me into deep, dark, depressive states.
Well, thanks for the link list, and what you had to say was interesting. I'm not going to have a huge post like before, I'll try to spare us from that. I doubt that you want to write up another large one either.
But, I just want to make a couple of points. In all of this desktop talk, it all was related to games. I'm a firm believer in the idea that the desktop has to be perfected and easy enough to use for the average person to migrate. Then, the games will come. Look at the jump from DOS to Windows 95 (3.1 was just kind of there). Not that there's much of a gap between Linux and Windows, but you get what I mean. The number of game titles and PC gamers soared.
Second, I don't mean to come off as a big Windows freak or anything like that. I've been using Linux on the desktop for years now. Yet, I'm not the type that says Linux is best for everything either. I'm also not one of those nuts who tries to make software a political statement, I use what's best for the job at hand.
Third, I do like where KDE, Gnome, and all of the other alternatives are going. Like you said, they need to be more consistent, but they need some refinement if you ask me. Certain tweaks in the responsiveness (on the kernel level as well) and in the look and feel department could be used as well.
Finally, I might not have mentioned this, but package management is something that I feel should be consolidated. Distributions could still have their own if they felt like it, nobody is stopping them. But, having one standardized Linux packaging system would be nice. I think that if the people behind RPMs and DEBs would just get together and hammer things out, things would be much better. I know there are source based package managers out there, though. But, I'm still speaking with the desktop user in mind. Windows has the EXE, that does simplify things quite a bit.
Ok, ok, that's it. I'm putting the brakes on this post. It's getting to big.
I still stick with my statement about baby steps not being enough. Serious strides need to be made in the desktop arena. The ease of use is terrible for most of your common computer users. You'd probably have a hard enough time getting them to run a shell script, especially when you can just click the installer and have it work in Windows. Do you think that a regular person would put up with a game that you had to compile? I would think that they would rather just have things work. There's a whole lot of people that simply don't have the time, patience, or care.
Better hardware support is needed. Lack of first party drivers sucks. I believe that a lot of companies back off once they get a taste of community backlash because their drivers aren't GPL compliant. Hey, it's their choice. They never had to worry about issues like this before. Why should they have to fuss with a small group of people who would be using those Linux drivers if they're going to get so much crap in return? The drivers that come from a community driver project often come well after a piece of hardware's release and doesn't always come close to full support.
And how about OpenGL support? It often times doesn't come fast enough for new cards, in part because of the reasons I stated in the previous paragraph. In my personal experience, it only installed correctly a few times when I'd switch distributions. Even when I'd use one that had it work, when I would switch to a new distribution and then decide to switch back, the distribution that had it working before didn't have it working this time. I'm a frequent distribution switcher with plenty of time on my hands, and this has happened to me on multiple occasions. The Linux distribution groups really need to make sure that installation will be a sure bet each time. OpenGL is no fun to get working on your own, even if you're an experienced user.
I'm glad to see that companies like Red Hat are backing off of a desktop Linux push. There are a multitude of issues that need to be worked out first, like the ease of use and hardware support ones.
If you've read through all of that, you're a better man than most people. But, here's why I say that more is needed than just baby steps. You still have a bunch of Linux companies, advocates, and users still wanting to give a big desktop push when it's simply not ready for it. Your true zealots give the same marketing campaign for Linux as they do for snake oil. I'm not saying Linux can't do anything, I'm just saying that it can't do everything. It would be best if those people would shut up and get focused on the desktop. In the meantime, it's time to start making those strides, and fast. Otherwise, with all the attention Linux is getting as of late, people will find it falling short of expectations. It's easy enough to get the initial attention, it's much harder to get people to come back.
There won't be much game support without a substantial portion of people using Linux on the desktop. The community as a whole needs to focus. Things would move much faster that way. There's no sense in taking on Microsoft yet.
The Linux gaming community will remain a very limited niche market without much support until these issues are resolved.
Don't go preachin' the gospel until the religion is written.
I used the word they as if they were a single entity, like I said, because there's so many damn distributions out there that it really doesn't matter which one I'm talking about. It's for the same reason why people say "Linux is big on the server market" or "you can get Linux for free". Despite all of the branches of the Linux community, it's all blanketed under the term Linux. So, when I say they, I am speaking of the Linux community collectively.
Who's to say that I won't? I run Linux. I play games. I just want a decent selection. If Linux (notice that I use the term Linux as if it were a single entity, it makes the writing easier) wants more gamers, then they need to get more people using their OS. If they want more people to use their OS, then they need to make it more user friendly.
The desktop Linux market share is puny. Most people who use Linux on the desktop now aren't gamers. They need to change that fact if they want to make some decent money. A shitload of games won't be sold to a few people. The market creation is key.
I know you had a:), maybe you just think my words are harsher in tone than they were actually meant to be. I've checked out the game sites, but there's nothing much available that isn't cliche or outdated as far as games that weren't ported go. There aren't too many ported games either. Even out of the ported games, many were still cliche or outdated.
I don't think it should be too hard to acknowledge the fact that Linux is very far behind as a platform in the game industry. Taking baby steps forward isn't enough.
Who cares about me? I wouldn't buy a Linux game now, but I am a potential customer. They better care about me. Otherwise, I'm an opportunity they passed up. I bet there's a whole lot more of people like me than people like you out there.
What needs to be worked on, like I said before, is making a market for Linux by establishing a desktop presence and get some key companies supporting Linux. Until then, the handful of Linux gamers will have to settle with what little they have while the rest of the world has some fun.
Right, but my point is that this is such a small victory that it really doesn't mean anything. If their names meant something, sure, a plus for Linux. But, they are no different from the slew of other independent game makers. T
But what's with the war talk? If people in the Linux community would quit worrying so damn much about going to war with Microsoft and instead focused on improving their product, they would be a lot better off. So much time is wasted on hyping what they have when they could be working even harder on perfecting their product. It's futile to start trying to muster up a Linux gaming community when Linux is still inaccessible to most of the general population. Priorities need to be straightened out first.
I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but who exactly are these people? Sure, it's not bad that Linux is getting a little bit of independent attention and a handful of larger companies supporting game development for the OS. But, Time Doctor tries to make it seem like this is something to really get hyped up about. A few unoriginal games from a relatively unknown publisher are in the works. What exactly am I supposed to be excited about? More mediocrity for a platform that doesn't have much of a demand for games or very many good games?
And who are these Epic Interactive people? I only know of one big industry player that goes by Epic, and this isn't the one. As if they have enough clout to make a statement like "if LGP sells so many copies, then we'll give you six titles". Please.
I'll be more interested in Linux gaming when more industry players show support and Linux becomes more of a viable desktop option for most people (note: I'm not endorsing Windows, in fact, I use Linux for my desktop). Think about it, this wouldn't be newsworthy anywhere if we were talking Windows.
I second this. We piss away money rather than give it back to the people. I think that it should be up to the people to decide how to spend money, not the government. Sure, support the basics required to run a country, but let people decide how their money is best spent.
Anyways, why are you asking me for proof when you're not showing any off yourself? I'd really like to know what your proof is. You act as if people should automatically take what you say as fact. If I'm wrong, prove it, don't just say it.
Well, these are taxes that we are talking about here. The only difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to taxes is that the Democrats are a bit more public about liking to tax people. They use those funds to support "public services". Yet, both parties use taxes to fund many secret projects that cost Americans countless amounts of money, but most of those you don't hear about on the news. Anyways, that's besides the point. The fact that a bill like this came from the two party system is a shock enough to me.
Sure, the Act probably was just created to make it look like the folks on Capitol Hill were staying busy. Hell, I've watched SPAN at random and I saw an extremely long debate about how Roberto Clemente should be honored when they should be working. But, doesn't it just piss you off how, even if this was a broad-based ban (and I don't mean broad = woman), that they would still fight over it? Good God, they just won't leave anything alone. It wouldn't fucking kill them to keep taxes away from the internet, period!
This just goes to show you that Congress has a raging boner to tax you, and it's not one that is going to go down anytime soon.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, when I first loaded this page, I thought I was at hardocp.com when I saw this story. What's next, how many FPS the new Nvidia can pull on UT2003?
Stick to newsworthy items, please.
Now when you tell people that you have spim on your computer, they'll think that you have a speech impediment and look at too much porn.
There's a reason why people won't go browsing through certain areas, and that's because those homes are in the fucking ghetto. Most people don't like the ghetto.
Want to make those sites popular again? Move them out of the ghetto. Move 'em up out of da hood and inta da good, B.
To the moderator(s) jerking around this post. It has been around for a while, but why does this score keep going down? Is there a point to constantly downmodding it? Is an agenda being pushed on your part? I'm not pushing one, this was a joke. It was poking fun at the situation, not one particular side. Don't you have anything better to do with your mod points, asshole(s)?
Besides, give a reason why you don't like it. Don't just use the overrated qualifier.
How will our Gates, Allens, and Ellisons of the world cool their water and various other beverages now?
This just in, thousands of anti-abortionists are protesting outside of Bombardier headquarters, claiming that the Embrio was meant to stay in the womb.
Man, this post and another post of mine, as well as other posts about the fish skin bikinis are getting downmodded. I think we've got some angry fat chick in PETA with an angenda really pissed off.
Go have your PMS somewhere else, tubby!
Whoever said that's a bad thing? As long as they have tops for larger cup sizes, I'll be happy. I sure as hell wouldn't want to see a normal chick in one of those.
Stop supporting the murder of thousands of helpless fish! Don't you understand that millions of fish are being senselessly killed and raped of their skin just to support a fashion trend? How would you like it if somebody wore your skin?
I wish that you could feel the suffering that our friends in the ocean are feeling every time their skin is being harvested for pure capitalist profit. It tears my soul apart when I hear someone advocating such violent acts against creatures that have brains twice as complex than our own!
I'm going to go listen to some emo and cry about what you said. I hope you're happy, killing fish and sending people like me into deep, dark, depressive states.
Go to Hell,
Your Friendly PETA Activist
Well, thanks for the link list, and what you had to say was interesting. I'm not going to have a huge post like before, I'll try to spare us from that. I doubt that you want to write up another large one either.
But, I just want to make a couple of points. In all of this desktop talk, it all was related to games. I'm a firm believer in the idea that the desktop has to be perfected and easy enough to use for the average person to migrate. Then, the games will come. Look at the jump from DOS to Windows 95 (3.1 was just kind of there). Not that there's much of a gap between Linux and Windows, but you get what I mean. The number of game titles and PC gamers soared.
Second, I don't mean to come off as a big Windows freak or anything like that. I've been using Linux on the desktop for years now. Yet, I'm not the type that says Linux is best for everything either. I'm also not one of those nuts who tries to make software a political statement, I use what's best for the job at hand.
Third, I do like where KDE, Gnome, and all of the other alternatives are going. Like you said, they need to be more consistent, but they need some refinement if you ask me. Certain tweaks in the responsiveness (on the kernel level as well) and in the look and feel department could be used as well.
Finally, I might not have mentioned this, but package management is something that I feel should be consolidated. Distributions could still have their own if they felt like it, nobody is stopping them. But, having one standardized Linux packaging system would be nice. I think that if the people behind RPMs and DEBs would just get together and hammer things out, things would be much better. I know there are source based package managers out there, though. But, I'm still speaking with the desktop user in mind. Windows has the EXE, that does simplify things quite a bit.
Ok, ok, that's it. I'm putting the brakes on this post. It's getting to big.
I still stick with my statement about baby steps not being enough. Serious strides need to be made in the desktop arena. The ease of use is terrible for most of your common computer users. You'd probably have a hard enough time getting them to run a shell script, especially when you can just click the installer and have it work in Windows. Do you think that a regular person would put up with a game that you had to compile? I would think that they would rather just have things work. There's a whole lot of people that simply don't have the time, patience, or care.
Better hardware support is needed. Lack of first party drivers sucks. I believe that a lot of companies back off once they get a taste of community backlash because their drivers aren't GPL compliant. Hey, it's their choice. They never had to worry about issues like this before. Why should they have to fuss with a small group of people who would be using those Linux drivers if they're going to get so much crap in return? The drivers that come from a community driver project often come well after a piece of hardware's release and doesn't always come close to full support.
And how about OpenGL support? It often times doesn't come fast enough for new cards, in part because of the reasons I stated in the previous paragraph. In my personal experience, it only installed correctly a few times when I'd switch distributions. Even when I'd use one that had it work, when I would switch to a new distribution and then decide to switch back, the distribution that had it working before didn't have it working this time. I'm a frequent distribution switcher with plenty of time on my hands, and this has happened to me on multiple occasions. The Linux distribution groups really need to make sure that installation will be a sure bet each time. OpenGL is no fun to get working on your own, even if you're an experienced user.
I'm glad to see that companies like Red Hat are backing off of a desktop Linux push. There are a multitude of issues that need to be worked out first, like the ease of use and hardware support ones.
If you've read through all of that, you're a better man than most people. But, here's why I say that more is needed than just baby steps. You still have a bunch of Linux companies, advocates, and users still wanting to give a big desktop push when it's simply not ready for it. Your true zealots give the same marketing campaign for Linux as they do for snake oil. I'm not saying Linux can't do anything, I'm just saying that it can't do everything. It would be best if those people would shut up and get focused on the desktop. In the meantime, it's time to start making those strides, and fast. Otherwise, with all the attention Linux is getting as of late, people will find it falling short of expectations. It's easy enough to get the initial attention, it's much harder to get people to come back.
There won't be much game support without a substantial portion of people using Linux on the desktop. The community as a whole needs to focus. Things would move much faster that way. There's no sense in taking on Microsoft yet.
The Linux gaming community will remain a very limited niche market without much support until these issues are resolved.
Don't go preachin' the gospel until the religion is written.
I used the word they as if they were a single entity, like I said, because there's so many damn distributions out there that it really doesn't matter which one I'm talking about. It's for the same reason why people say "Linux is big on the server market" or "you can get Linux for free". Despite all of the branches of the Linux community, it's all blanketed under the term Linux. So, when I say they, I am speaking of the Linux community collectively.
Who's to say that I won't? I run Linux. I play games. I just want a decent selection. If Linux (notice that I use the term Linux as if it were a single entity, it makes the writing easier) wants more gamers, then they need to get more people using their OS. If they want more people to use their OS, then they need to make it more user friendly.
The desktop Linux market share is puny. Most people who use Linux on the desktop now aren't gamers. They need to change that fact if they want to make some decent money. A shitload of games won't be sold to a few people. The market creation is key.
I know you had a :), maybe you just think my words are harsher in tone than they were actually meant to be. I've checked out the game sites, but there's nothing much available that isn't cliche or outdated as far as games that weren't ported go. There aren't too many ported games either. Even out of the ported games, many were still cliche or outdated.
I don't think it should be too hard to acknowledge the fact that Linux is very far behind as a platform in the game industry. Taking baby steps forward isn't enough.
Who cares about me? I wouldn't buy a Linux game now, but I am a potential customer. They better care about me. Otherwise, I'm an opportunity they passed up. I bet there's a whole lot more of people like me than people like you out there.
What needs to be worked on, like I said before, is making a market for Linux by establishing a desktop presence and get some key companies supporting Linux. Until then, the handful of Linux gamers will have to settle with what little they have while the rest of the world has some fun.
No shit! I made that statement to show just how far behind Linux is in the game industry.
Right, but my point is that this is such a small victory that it really doesn't mean anything. If their names meant something, sure, a plus for Linux. But, they are no different from the slew of other independent game makers. T
But what's with the war talk? If people in the Linux community would quit worrying so damn much about going to war with Microsoft and instead focused on improving their product, they would be a lot better off. So much time is wasted on hyping what they have when they could be working even harder on perfecting their product. It's futile to start trying to muster up a Linux gaming community when Linux is still inaccessible to most of the general population. Priorities need to be straightened out first.
I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but who exactly are these people? Sure, it's not bad that Linux is getting a little bit of independent attention and a handful of larger companies supporting game development for the OS. But, Time Doctor tries to make it seem like this is something to really get hyped up about. A few unoriginal games from a relatively unknown publisher are in the works. What exactly am I supposed to be excited about? More mediocrity for a platform that doesn't have much of a demand for games or very many good games?
And who are these Epic Interactive people? I only know of one big industry player that goes by Epic, and this isn't the one. As if they have enough clout to make a statement like "if LGP sells so many copies, then we'll give you six titles". Please.
I'll be more interested in Linux gaming when more industry players show support and Linux becomes more of a viable desktop option for most people (note: I'm not endorsing Windows, in fact, I use Linux for my desktop). Think about it, this wouldn't be newsworthy anywhere if we were talking Windows.
Just to note, that last paragraph wasn't towards you, Anonymous Coward, it was towards nomadic.
I second this. We piss away money rather than give it back to the people. I think that it should be up to the people to decide how to spend money, not the government. Sure, support the basics required to run a country, but let people decide how their money is best spent.
Anyways, why are you asking me for proof when you're not showing any off yourself? I'd really like to know what your proof is. You act as if people should automatically take what you say as fact. If I'm wrong, prove it, don't just say it.
Well, these are taxes that we are talking about here. The only difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to taxes is that the Democrats are a bit more public about liking to tax people. They use those funds to support "public services". Yet, both parties use taxes to fund many secret projects that cost Americans countless amounts of money, but most of those you don't hear about on the news. Anyways, that's besides the point. The fact that a bill like this came from the two party system is a shock enough to me.
Sure, the Act probably was just created to make it look like the folks on Capitol Hill were staying busy. Hell, I've watched SPAN at random and I saw an extremely long debate about how Roberto Clemente should be honored when they should be working. But, doesn't it just piss you off how, even if this was a broad-based ban (and I don't mean broad = woman), that they would still fight over it? Good God, they just won't leave anything alone. It wouldn't fucking kill them to keep taxes away from the internet, period!
This just goes to show you that Congress has a raging boner to tax you, and it's not one that is going to go down anytime soon.
So, all this time when Tony was talking to Danny, Danny wasn't really clairvoyant. He was just using his finger phone.
Well, The Shining just doesn't seem as good anymore. Stanley Kubrick was just a product pushing whore I guess.
With Apaches controlling this much of the internet and damn near all of the U.S. casinos, what the hell are they still bitching about?
Who cares if you don't have the land anymore, you're filthy fucking rich!
Wow, your words have power! Listen to Ken, he's the boss.
I haven't seen a cluster of Macs this big and powerful since the last annual pimp convetion!
Now, where did all the tricks go?