What's the point of stating few people run more than two tasks at once? The point is that there are people who would be willing to pay for these depending upon what they need to get done on their computer. There are plenty of people who would benefit from 4-core processors just as much as dual-core processors, and they would create the demand for these chips if they are indeed needed. If there's anything AMD's enthusiast FX procs or ATI and NVidia's enthusiast graphics chips with exorbitant price tags prove, it's that there's a market for pretty much anything that makes your computer run faster and more efficiently.
For myself, I think quad-core would be pretty damned sweet. Folding@Home on one, Seti@Home on another, my current game on the third, and all my other desktop apps on the fourth. Nothing more depressing than a saturated system.
You could say Gentoo makes learning the system you're using easier, but it's really not much different than the learning experiences you can go through with other distributions that fail to configure themselves properly by default. With Gentoo, you do have to do some work to get things working in the first place. X autoconfiguration is still a piecer, there's genkernel though now for those who would rather not have to configure the kernel by hand, and there are plenty of other applications to install that don't come with a sane default configuration (Or any configuration at all, for that matter). Thus you are forced to get into the habit of setting things up. I've learned much of apache, bash, samba, etc. simply by having to figure out how to get the damned thing working after the emerge is complete.
Furthermore, the optimization factor for Gentoo can have a small but noticable impact in certain scenarios, but seriously, most of the "optimization" compared to other distros can be attributed to the fact it doesn't have a billion services running off a fresh install. I find that Fedora and other mainstream distros like it are insufferable due to that problem, and I personally don't have the time nor motivation to find out what services are the culprit and which I should disable, when I can instead opt to have much more control over my system in the first place. Gentoo's not perfect, but it's not without it's numerous benefits when you place it beside various other distributions, either.
Right, and all the people who decided to go fully 64-bit with their Athlon 64's and Athlon FX cards just now are getting started on that because Windows XP 64-bit Edition is on it's way out the door? Maybe I'm just around a crazy crowd (Gentoo) or something, but I know many people, Athlon 64 or no, with some extremely bitchin' computers, running no trace of Windows (I have yet to purge myself, but I game too much, meh). One big reason people who like new top of the line hardware should take a look into Linux is because the release cycles are a lot friendlier than Microsoft's, and hardware released after Windows XP was released tends to need drivers installed off a CD or off the web. With Linux, if you go with a distribution that takes care of these things for you (Such as SuSE, Mandrake, the user-friendly ones. Even Gentoo has the genkernel tool which may be useful in this scenario), installation is quite painless and you have a fully functional desktop at the end of the install process.
It's not like it matters, anyways, as this is flamebait to an extreme from an Anonymous Coward. Seriously, most *Windows* users I know still have PoS old hardware, it's just the way things are, not everyone needs to up their system's power occasionally.
What version of Windows are you using? I know that XP's cmd prompt has had tab-completion for a long time now, if not from the beginning. Missed it a lot from bash and decided to try it one day, actually works pretty well!
Either you're trolling about Slackware or you simply don't know which program you're looking for with regards to partitioning (And I -thought- the Slackware login message specifically mentions what you do to get started). Here's a guide to partitioning when installing Slackware (Ignore that it talks about booting off a diskette, unless you don't burn CDs). In short, you use the very simple and easy to understand fdisk program, and from that point on the setup process is a relatively simple curses-based install. I would not and do not recommend Slackware as a Linux entry point unless help is there to get it installed and updated.
For the SuSE problem, I have no doubt personally that it did happen because I've had the SuSE FTP install freak out on me too before, but it always comes around somehow sometime the next time I decide to give the distro a whirl on a spare partition.
And, finally, for Ubuntu, either you got a bunk CD (It's a very, very good idea to md5sum any ISO you download because it could very well be that you had a problem during the download) or you need to take a look at the kernel boot parameters for the CD if you even got past the very first screen that introduces those options. If you are in Linux, most distributions come with the md5sum program so you can verify these ISOs. If you are in Windows, I highly recommend the program WinMD5, found here. I've ended up with a few coasters myself over not verifying these downloads are what I was supposed to be getting.
And for the record, aside from Ubuntu, none of the distributions you mentioned are aimed at newbies (SuSE is to an extent, but be real, FTP/network installs are -not- for newbies, in my opinion). Please choose some more sensible starting points, such as Fedora (Really slow, I don't like it, personally) or Mandrake, or even playing with a KNOPPIX (Or derivitive) CD to get the hang of the Linux desktop before you make the switch. If you have as much RAM as I have, the copy2ram boot option makes the distro faster than many harddisk based ones.
The main difference between the bundling of applications that goes into the making of any Linux distribution and the bundling of applications and services Microsoft does with Windows (XP especially) is that the bundling Microsoft does is irreversible, you cannot remove Windows Media Player without it seriously hindering the system, you cannot remove Internet Explorer without doing likewise. Windows Messenger often bothers many newcomers to XP who are unaware of how to remove it completely (Granted, a Google search will cure most any problem like that).
I would not mind at all that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Messenger, or any of their other products, so long as they provide the ability to easily and safely remove those and not damage the system's base. They made the OS require all these applications as dependencies, they're more than able to re-work the sytem to accommodate competitors and make it much easier for them to settle in.
Another thing is that we have yet to see a Linux distributor sued for anti-competitive practices that are illegal.
Not everyone who is affected by this scenario can code or has the time to work on this.
Furthermore, surely you realize that discussing the issue here on/. does not exclude you from at any point afterwards or before having tried to remedy this?
This issue affects the success of a very important project that I happen to like and recommend to anyone that asks about these types of programs. However, I'm not quite competent enough in programming yet to pick up a Java tutorial/book and magically be able to hack at it. Some people simply are not able to fix it on their own, and in this case, Sun may themselves hold the key to the "fix" here.
It boils down to your post being little more than bitching about bitching, with ultimately less impact and meaning than those complaining about the topic at hand (Especially the ones that actually are working on the issue), sorry.
The website specifically lists that Adobe Photoshop CS (8.0) does not run in Windows XP x64 Edition when the NX bit is enabled, and it says what the problem is, it installs but does not run. It's not something that "remains to be seen" because the x64 edition has been in use for a while now by those adventurous enough to try it out, and of course Microsoft wants to try to make sure those whiz-bang programs work in the 64-bit edition. My suspicion is that the programs that don't work well with the NX bit enabled have some subtle bugs that are surfacing with this new 64-bit wave (Of course you don't need 64-bit to have the NX bit enabled). Then again, it may be a problem with how the x64 edition handles the Windows on Windows technology with certain programs, but your guess is probably as good as mine.
I'm very very surprised at how many people here are apparently unable to notice that processor-type field in that list.
Someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed today or what? For your first response to badmammajamma, I don't see what point you're trying to make. It's not open source, it's not free, so what? You're nitpicking, and completely ignoring the fact that Opera has been around for quite a while, with the first Windows version being released in '96. A quick Google search reveals this Q42004 presentation that apparently shows them not doing so hot, and I think that maybe the advancement of Mozilla/Firefox has bitten into at least a small portion of their market.
And maybe you should try using Opera sometime, it's a good, lightweight and fast web browser, and the Google ads in the free version take a grand total of 30 PIXELS in my titlebar for Opera. Truth be told, I have just as much screen space for the actual website and not the application in Opera than in Firefox! Internet Explorer still gives me the most though w/o the Google toolbar yet installed and showing.
I've been a fan of Opera since 4.x for it's speed and small size, I have never paid for it, I hardly ever had it installed until I got into web development and decided to make sure my pages look fine in it as well. Hell, I like the beta for Opera 8 enough to consider purchasing it, but when those text ads only take up that tiny amount of space... I dunno, I must have selective sight. comparison of toolbars in FF/Op -- Turns out my Opera and my FF are on par for space taken, and these are the DEFAULT layouts.
Probably a troll anyways who has never used the program him/herself and would rather rag on it all the time as if he/she knew anything about it.
You couldn't have done us a favour and given us one simple example? It's hard to take your concerns seriously when you don't seem to care enough to clarify.
What a crock dude, Red Hat wouldn't even be around without those OSS hippies you mentioned. They (Red Hat) agreed to develop their software under the requirements of the GPL. As for Enterprise users, common sense in the ways of reality dictate that companies/corporations generally don't care how they make more money, they only care about the money. Look at what corporations like Nike and McDonald's have done to shave some bucks off operation costs.
Besides, it's not Red Hat's place to get it's panties in a twist over someone doing what they allowed them to do in the first place. But then again, we've only heard from these lawyers in this letter, AFAIK Red Hat has yet to make an official comment, but I hope they really have not lost their sanity and are just requesting that references to "Red Hat" be removed from the product, which should be pretty easy to cooperate with. Complete and utter bunk like needing permission to create a goddamn hyperlink to their page needs to be taken back, or Red Hat will have lost even more points than they have in my book (Because of completely different issues, mind you, and I personally recommend Fedora to newcomers to Linux if they ask what might be a good idea, even though I use Gentoo).
"Also Trademark law tries to protect companies from riding the coat tails of another company. CentOS's only reason to exist is to make a whitewashed, logo neutered version, of Red Hat."
What do you have against CentOS doing what many people would not be willing to do on their own (Providing not just the sources, but a working system)? The sources are freely available in both ways anyone at Slashdot cares about. As long as CentOS honors the TM and such, there's no problem, and that's exactly what CentOS has already done on the website at least. I don't use the distro so I can't really comment on it being cleansed yet (That would probably be a miracle to have it done so quickly).
You do know that if you wanted to you can compile RHEL on your own, right? You only pay for the support! RHEL is not losing any money on this, and for the record I think they're perfectly okay with their request, what I don't think is OK is how CentOS is getting slammed by people who apparently don't know anything about the situation.
I highly doubt it would be violating trademark to put "DO NOT REQUEST SUPPORT FROM RED HAT, REFER TO [webpage/forums/newsgroup/etc]." in documentation or even during the install process. Not only is it clear that they're trying to separate themselves from Red Hat but they're trying to clear up any possible confusion. Methinks many take this whole thing about removing references too far. I mean, last time I checked, it was okay to do these things. Websites regularly state things like "We are in no way affiliated with [company]" esp. with, for example, GAIM. They clearly state on their website "Gaim is NOT endorsed by or affiliated with AOL" is that trademark infringement?
I would assume he uses Dropline GNOME either to make sure that it runs on the latest changes he's made to Slackware, or just for the sense of completeness. I know that I myself don't like -not- being able to choose which desktop environment I feel like. I just got KDE 3.3.2 finished up here on my AMD64 Gentoo, but I switch back and forth to whichever suits my tastes for the time being.
As for all the stuff about why PAM is against Slackware's ideals, I'll have to check that out, because I don't see what the big deal is, not that I know a whole lot about -what- PAM does exactly. One thing's for sure, Dropline GNOME has always beat the hell out of the GNOME that shipped with Slack, against Slack's ideals or not.
Those demos are nice but they're not nearly as good looking as Doom 3. I would say either Quake 2 or even Quake 3, but from the scenes that I saw on that website, I think saying it looks like Doom 3 is a bit over the top.
I want AOL to start distributing their software/etc. in those AOL tins that they used to use, least 'round here. Very handy for keeping certain things in.:)
Here's the tin if you don't know what it looks like. But I don't use it for a survival kit, or at least that's not what I would call it's primary function. Come to think of it, nuking some of those AOL CDs could prove fun on those rainy days.
Does it really matter if people wipe the HD after buying the laptop or not? As long as the thing sells then bravo, if people are buying it because they want to actually USE the Linux distro provided, then bravo even more. Even if I bought a comp from, say, Alienware, or Dell, someone like that, I would probably format and reinstall with my own copy of XP Pro, and have Linux running side-by-side.
Basically what I'm getting at is I don't see why it's anything to ask, what does it matter how many people wipe the HD and install a pirated XP? You could do that with any computer assembled in any price range.
I'm going to check out America's Army later on here (I'm in AMD64 Gentoo right now) and I hope that the graphics are as impressive as you state. Last time I checked it used a modified version of the Unreal engine, and while visually impressive, it was nowhere near as beautiful as Half-Life 2 nor Counter-Strike: Source can be (And usually are, I find myself admiring the graphics many times, only to get shot up, lol).
Besides, in FPS games, graphics don't always make the biggest difference. Gameplay is what keeps people coming back, and I still love to play around with Doom 2.
I don't see how you can act like Google has some monopoly-like status on the search engine market through unfair business practices that would be illegal under the various anti-trust laws the USA has. Microsoft was convicted of this, Google has never once been accused of it, AFAIK. Feel free to enlighten me, and what is this "google brain drain" you speak of? Hiring smart people? Since when is that to be frowned upon for that fact alone? It leads to a better service in most scenarios, and has here.
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What's the point of stating few people run more than two tasks at once? The point is that there are people who would be willing to pay for these depending upon what they need to get done on their computer. There are plenty of people who would benefit from 4-core processors just as much as dual-core processors, and they would create the demand for these chips if they are indeed needed. If there's anything AMD's enthusiast FX procs or ATI and NVidia's enthusiast graphics chips with exorbitant price tags prove, it's that there's a market for pretty much anything that makes your computer run faster and more efficiently.
For myself, I think quad-core would be pretty damned sweet. Folding@Home on one, Seti@Home on another, my current game on the third, and all my other desktop apps on the fourth. Nothing more depressing than a saturated system.
You could say Gentoo makes learning the system you're using easier, but it's really not much different than the learning experiences you can go through with other distributions that fail to configure themselves properly by default. With Gentoo, you do have to do some work to get things working in the first place. X autoconfiguration is still a piecer, there's genkernel though now for those who would rather not have to configure the kernel by hand, and there are plenty of other applications to install that don't come with a sane default configuration (Or any configuration at all, for that matter). Thus you are forced to get into the habit of setting things up. I've learned much of apache, bash, samba, etc. simply by having to figure out how to get the damned thing working after the emerge is complete.
Furthermore, the optimization factor for Gentoo can have a small but noticable impact in certain scenarios, but seriously, most of the "optimization" compared to other distros can be attributed to the fact it doesn't have a billion services running off a fresh install. I find that Fedora and other mainstream distros like it are insufferable due to that problem, and I personally don't have the time nor motivation to find out what services are the culprit and which I should disable, when I can instead opt to have much more control over my system in the first place. Gentoo's not perfect, but it's not without it's numerous benefits when you place it beside various other distributions, either.
And yes, I did mean to say chips, not cards. My proof-reading skills need polishing I can see.
Right, and all the people who decided to go fully 64-bit with their Athlon 64's and Athlon FX cards just now are getting started on that because Windows XP 64-bit Edition is on it's way out the door? Maybe I'm just around a crazy crowd (Gentoo) or something, but I know many people, Athlon 64 or no, with some extremely bitchin' computers, running no trace of Windows (I have yet to purge myself, but I game too much, meh). One big reason people who like new top of the line hardware should take a look into Linux is because the release cycles are a lot friendlier than Microsoft's, and hardware released after Windows XP was released tends to need drivers installed off a CD or off the web. With Linux, if you go with a distribution that takes care of these things for you (Such as SuSE, Mandrake, the user-friendly ones. Even Gentoo has the genkernel tool which may be useful in this scenario), installation is quite painless and you have a fully functional desktop at the end of the install process.
It's not like it matters, anyways, as this is flamebait to an extreme from an Anonymous Coward. Seriously, most *Windows* users I know still have PoS old hardware, it's just the way things are, not everyone needs to up their system's power occasionally.
What version of Windows are you using? I know that XP's cmd prompt has had tab-completion for a long time now, if not from the beginning. Missed it a lot from bash and decided to try it one day, actually works pretty well!
Either you're trolling about Slackware or you simply don't know which program you're looking for with regards to partitioning (And I -thought- the Slackware login message specifically mentions what you do to get started). Here's a guide to partitioning when installing Slackware (Ignore that it talks about booting off a diskette, unless you don't burn CDs). In short, you use the very simple and easy to understand fdisk program, and from that point on the setup process is a relatively simple curses-based install. I would not and do not recommend Slackware as a Linux entry point unless help is there to get it installed and updated.
For the SuSE problem, I have no doubt personally that it did happen because I've had the SuSE FTP install freak out on me too before, but it always comes around somehow sometime the next time I decide to give the distro a whirl on a spare partition.
And, finally, for Ubuntu, either you got a bunk CD (It's a very, very good idea to md5sum any ISO you download because it could very well be that you had a problem during the download) or you need to take a look at the kernel boot parameters for the CD if you even got past the very first screen that introduces those options. If you are in Linux, most distributions come with the md5sum program so you can verify these ISOs. If you are in Windows, I highly recommend the program WinMD5, found here. I've ended up with a few coasters myself over not verifying these downloads are what I was supposed to be getting.
And for the record, aside from Ubuntu, none of the distributions you mentioned are aimed at newbies (SuSE is to an extent, but be real, FTP/network installs are -not- for newbies, in my opinion). Please choose some more sensible starting points, such as Fedora (Really slow, I don't like it, personally) or Mandrake, or even playing with a KNOPPIX (Or derivitive) CD to get the hang of the Linux desktop before you make the switch. If you have as much RAM as I have, the copy2ram boot option makes the distro faster than many harddisk based ones.
The main difference between the bundling of applications that goes into the making of any Linux distribution and the bundling of applications and services Microsoft does with Windows (XP especially) is that the bundling Microsoft does is irreversible, you cannot remove Windows Media Player without it seriously hindering the system, you cannot remove Internet Explorer without doing likewise. Windows Messenger often bothers many newcomers to XP who are unaware of how to remove it completely (Granted, a Google search will cure most any problem like that).
I would not mind at all that Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Messenger, or any of their other products, so long as they provide the ability to easily and safely remove those and not damage the system's base. They made the OS require all these applications as dependencies, they're more than able to re-work the sytem to accommodate competitors and make it much easier for them to settle in.
Another thing is that we have yet to see a Linux distributor sued for anti-competitive practices that are illegal.
Not everyone who is affected by this scenario can code or has the time to work on this.
Furthermore, surely you realize that discussing the issue here on /. does not exclude you from at any point afterwards or before having tried to remedy this?
This issue affects the success of a very important project that I happen to like and recommend to anyone that asks about these types of programs. However, I'm not quite competent enough in programming yet to pick up a Java tutorial/book and magically be able to hack at it. Some people simply are not able to fix it on their own, and in this case, Sun may themselves hold the key to the "fix" here.
It boils down to your post being little more than bitching about bitching, with ultimately less impact and meaning than those complaining about the topic at hand (Especially the ones that actually are working on the issue), sorry.
Or you could just hit F12 for the quick settings menu. :)
"You know the Nazis had pieces of flare that they made the Jews wear"
Couldn't help myself. :)
Note to self -- Make sure you don't check post anonymously next time. That was me, sir.
Perhaps you are correct, but there is the old saying of "Necessity is the mother of invention." I hear making fonts is pretty hard, though. :)
The website specifically lists that Adobe Photoshop CS (8.0) does not run in Windows XP x64 Edition when the NX bit is enabled, and it says what the problem is, it installs but does not run. It's not something that "remains to be seen" because the x64 edition has been in use for a while now by those adventurous enough to try it out, and of course Microsoft wants to try to make sure those whiz-bang programs work in the 64-bit edition. My suspicion is that the programs that don't work well with the NX bit enabled have some subtle bugs that are surfacing with this new 64-bit wave (Of course you don't need 64-bit to have the NX bit enabled). Then again, it may be a problem with how the x64 edition handles the Windows on Windows technology with certain programs, but your guess is probably as good as mine.
I'm very very surprised at how many people here are apparently unable to notice that processor-type field in that list.
Right, troll it is. Just remember how many posts you've made on this topic as opposed to my single post, on my day off even.
Someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed today or what? For your first response to badmammajamma, I don't see what point you're trying to make. It's not open source, it's not free, so what? You're nitpicking, and completely ignoring the fact that Opera has been around for quite a while, with the first Windows version being released in '96. A quick Google search reveals this Q42004 presentation that apparently shows them not doing so hot, and I think that maybe the advancement of Mozilla/Firefox has bitten into at least a small portion of their market.
And maybe you should try using Opera sometime, it's a good, lightweight and fast web browser, and the Google ads in the free version take a grand total of 30 PIXELS in my titlebar for Opera. Truth be told, I have just as much screen space for the actual website and not the application in Opera than in Firefox! Internet Explorer still gives me the most though w/o the Google toolbar yet installed and showing.
I've been a fan of Opera since 4.x for it's speed and small size, I have never paid for it, I hardly ever had it installed until I got into web development and decided to make sure my pages look fine in it as well. Hell, I like the beta for Opera 8 enough to consider purchasing it, but when those text ads only take up that tiny amount of space... I dunno, I must have selective sight. comparison of toolbars in FF/Op -- Turns out my Opera and my FF are on par for space taken, and these are the DEFAULT layouts.
Probably a troll anyways who has never used the program him/herself and would rather rag on it all the time as if he/she knew anything about it.
You couldn't have done us a favour and given us one simple example? It's hard to take your concerns seriously when you don't seem to care enough to clarify.
What a crock dude, Red Hat wouldn't even be around without those OSS hippies you mentioned. They (Red Hat) agreed to develop their software under the requirements of the GPL. As for Enterprise users, common sense in the ways of reality dictate that companies/corporations generally don't care how they make more money, they only care about the money. Look at what corporations like Nike and McDonald's have done to shave some bucks off operation costs.
Besides, it's not Red Hat's place to get it's panties in a twist over someone doing what they allowed them to do in the first place. But then again, we've only heard from these lawyers in this letter, AFAIK Red Hat has yet to make an official comment, but I hope they really have not lost their sanity and are just requesting that references to "Red Hat" be removed from the product, which should be pretty easy to cooperate with. Complete and utter bunk like needing permission to create a goddamn hyperlink to their page needs to be taken back, or Red Hat will have lost even more points than they have in my book (Because of completely different issues, mind you, and I personally recommend Fedora to newcomers to Linux if they ask what might be a good idea, even though I use Gentoo).
What do you have against CentOS doing what many people would not be willing to do on their own (Providing not just the sources, but a working system)? The sources are freely available in both ways anyone at Slashdot cares about. As long as CentOS honors the TM and such, there's no problem, and that's exactly what CentOS has already done on the website at least. I don't use the distro so I can't really comment on it being cleansed yet (That would probably be a miracle to have it done so quickly).
You do know that if you wanted to you can compile RHEL on your own, right? You only pay for the support! RHEL is not losing any money on this, and for the record I think they're perfectly okay with their request, what I don't think is OK is how CentOS is getting slammed by people who apparently don't know anything about the situation.
I highly doubt it would be violating trademark to put "DO NOT REQUEST SUPPORT FROM RED HAT, REFER TO [webpage/forums/newsgroup/etc]." in documentation or even during the install process. Not only is it clear that they're trying to separate themselves from Red Hat but they're trying to clear up any possible confusion. Methinks many take this whole thing about removing references too far. I mean, last time I checked, it was okay to do these things. Websites regularly state things like "We are in no way affiliated with [company]" esp. with, for example, GAIM. They clearly state on their website "Gaim is NOT endorsed by or affiliated with AOL" is that trademark infringement?
Are you just playing Devil's Advocate or?
I would assume he uses Dropline GNOME either to make sure that it runs on the latest changes he's made to Slackware, or just for the sense of completeness. I know that I myself don't like -not- being able to choose which desktop environment I feel like. I just got KDE 3.3.2 finished up here on my AMD64 Gentoo, but I switch back and forth to whichever suits my tastes for the time being.
As for all the stuff about why PAM is against Slackware's ideals, I'll have to check that out, because I don't see what the big deal is, not that I know a whole lot about -what- PAM does exactly. One thing's for sure, Dropline GNOME has always beat the hell out of the GNOME that shipped with Slack, against Slack's ideals or not.
Those demos are nice but they're not nearly as good looking as Doom 3. I would say either Quake 2 or even Quake 3, but from the scenes that I saw on that website, I think saying it looks like Doom 3 is a bit over the top.
I want AOL to start distributing their software/etc. in those AOL tins that they used to use, least 'round here. Very handy for keeping certain things in. :)
Here's the tin if you don't know what it looks like. But I don't use it for a survival kit, or at least that's not what I would call it's primary function. Come to think of it, nuking some of those AOL CDs could prove fun on those rainy days.
Does it really matter if people wipe the HD after buying the laptop or not? As long as the thing sells then bravo, if people are buying it because they want to actually USE the Linux distro provided, then bravo even more. Even if I bought a comp from, say, Alienware, or Dell, someone like that, I would probably format and reinstall with my own copy of XP Pro, and have Linux running side-by-side.
Basically what I'm getting at is I don't see why it's anything to ask, what does it matter how many people wipe the HD and install a pirated XP? You could do that with any computer assembled in any price range.
I'm going to check out America's Army later on here (I'm in AMD64 Gentoo right now) and I hope that the graphics are as impressive as you state. Last time I checked it used a modified version of the Unreal engine, and while visually impressive, it was nowhere near as beautiful as Half-Life 2 nor Counter-Strike: Source can be (And usually are, I find myself admiring the graphics many times, only to get shot up, lol).
Besides, in FPS games, graphics don't always make the biggest difference. Gameplay is what keeps people coming back, and I still love to play around with Doom 2.
I don't see how you can act like Google has some monopoly-like status on the search engine market through unfair business practices that would be illegal under the various anti-trust laws the USA has. Microsoft was convicted of this, Google has never once been accused of it, AFAIK. Feel free to enlighten me, and what is this "google brain drain" you speak of? Hiring smart people? Since when is that to be frowned upon for that fact alone? It leads to a better service in most scenarios, and has here.