For exactly the reason I stated earlier. My Radeon 1800 is 5 years old now so the latest proprietary drivers won't work with the newest kernels.
Well that sucks.
Fortunately, MS keeps a stable graphics API and Windows 7 can use the Vista graphics drivers.
Better experience than me on Windows. I found I couldn't use quite a few Vista laptop graphics drivers from both nvidia and ATi on Windows 7 (even with the inf modifications and bypassing of OS checks), but worked fine on Linux with the latest proprietary drivers provided in Kubuntu.
I'm stuck with these crappy open source drivers or using a old unsupported kernel with possible security exploits.
Or using Windows with old unsupported drivers with possible security exploits.
That's great but; and be completely honest here, how much time did you put into getting your linux distro working with all your hardware?
Installed Kubuntu, then checked the box in the driver manager for the proprietary nvidia drivers. I think Kubuntu took 20 minutes (including downloading updates while installing), proprietary driver about three minutes, including the reboot. That was it... Now, getting Windows 7 working on it... That requires me to download a whole bunch of drivers and install in different ways. Some stuff I have to navigate to an inf file (the card reader), others have an installer (graphics card) etc. I'm pretty certain getting a 'base' system takes me a few hours on Windows.
Did you buy hardware specifically because it had known compatibility with linux?
I guess Linux OEMs like System76 would count as a 'yes'? And stuff from Arbico and PCSpecialist would count as a no?
As for people saying I'm buying hardware for windows; be honest here, pretty much all consumer PC hardware has solid windows compatibility.
Except it doesn't. I've had to deal with imaging numerous systems and every big move performed for a Windows upgrade (ie: XP > Vista > 7) just made a subset of hardware useless. I can't say I had the same experience with Linux (SuSE 9 > SuSE 10 > SusE 11). This was both from respective major OEMs that support those operating systems officially.
So really, how much time did you spend getting your *nix just right so that you don't have issues with graphics/audio/bluetooth for any apps/games?
I guess if I installed from scratch, under two hours, including download time for the ISO, burning, installing Kubuntu, checking a box in the driver manager, installing crossover games, installing steam and then downloading (where about an hour is eaten) and installing left 4 dead.
No configuration files or terminal prompt, just running installers.
As soon as there is a single fully working audio stack for linux that doesn't require fidgetting with configuration like crazy to get it to work, and it's compatible with *all* games, then you're a step closer to being viable.
I can't recall needing to change my audio configuration for games. Changing it many years ago to get it to work with Flash? Yes, I remember that. But, I also had problems with Flash under Windows back then too (couldn't watch videos on Windows without it stuttering like hell).
Simply put, it's a problem of robustness and consistency. When I want to shoot zombies I don't want to have to restart my sound system or HID system and re-enter pin codes and set defaults again, nor do I want to spend weeks configuring and scripting auto-configuration setup for such a thing. So it's a waste of game developers time to try and target linux when they live a crunch-mode life as it is with huge risk of flop resulting in practically no money-back for the effort even when they're focussed on only one OS.
Eh? I just launch "Left 4 Dead" from the Steam window or from the "Windows Games" menu under the crossover games menu?
Until Linux stops all their internal bickering and decides on one native standard for all gaming they will never been seen as better.
Here you go. Supported pretty much by all the major Linux distributions out of the box (with the exception of Gentoo, but Gentoo is pretty much anything out of the box).
. For Linux it's not that easy yet and 3% performance doesn't outweigh the headaches.
As a software developer who has worked with the Linux Standard Base and has worked on game type software, I'm not understanding the problem? Could you please explain to me how I didn't do it easily, thanks.
Remember how your Vista drivers worked in 7, and 7 drivers work in 8? Yea...
Yes. I remember quite clearly it not working.
Not to mention the cludge that is X11
You mean where I've managed to get better performance out of games running under Crossover Games than they did on Windows on the same hardware? If X11 is a cludge, then what does that make Windows?
or the constant state of reinvention Linux sound seems to be in.
Has the Linux kernel really done anything beyond OSS and ALSA?
Unfortunately, that isn't the only reason, what with there not being Linux-support for all of my hardware, non-existent support for stereoscopic-3D and so on.
Why do I get to be with all the boring Windows users here? Here, the Windows users have boring reasons to use Windows, centered around Microsoft Office.
I would be inclined to agree, but only because moving right now from a platform where they make a lot of profit to a platform where they are currently making no profit is likely to be suicide. You'd want to actually have a bigger market in the target market before moving.
I myself am a gamer and all my friends who also game aren't techies.
I think your credentials are lacking to just plainly accept your opinion on this matter without any... depth behind it.
There is no way in hell they will be installing Linux on their computers.
Why would you install Linux on your computer? You don't install Windows on your computer, it comes with your computer. Just buy it with a computer like you do with Windows. Why are you making this harder than it is really?
If they focus their product dev to Linux it will sink the company.
Is this the same sort of experienced gamer knowledge that have us predictions that Microsoft would never be able to make a game console that would be profitable etc when they initially announced they would make a game console?
If you think developers are going to spend the resources to learn entirely new set of APIs in a completely unfamiliar environment, then you need to get out of your basement more.
An example - if the graphics driver shits itself in Vista/7 (and presumably 8), the display will disappear for a couple of seconds and the desktop will reappear with a message stating what happened.
This is kind of necessary when Microsoft creates retarded crap like a system that resets the GPU if it doesn't respond within two seconds (because some shader using some fairly trivial branch code to figure out what the card/really/ supports since drivers do lie).
Hibernation and suspend are a mixed bag with Linux as well.
I've had my fair share of hibernation issues on every OS. including OS X.
I've been running the windows 8 consumer preview for a while now. Every application that I used on windows 7 is working just fine.
Can you tell me how to get the remote console functionality in "VMware vSphere 5 Client" working? The best I can do is get it running in compatibility mode, but the remote console functionality still won't work.
On Windows 7, I installed it without any fiddling and it just worked.
Linux isn't a popular gaming platform because it lacks capability or features to support great gaming.
What features are those exactly? I mean, I've seen many game ports and I run many Windows games in Crossover Games and they work identical or even in some cases, perform better than they did on Windows.
It's not a popular gaming platform because game developers can't economically support the myriad of Linux distros in a way the consumer expects to be supported.
Do explain why the Linux Standard Base does not work.
Mainstream consumers want to "get Linux", then "play games" that "just works" not fiddle around recompiling source code or waiting for a package maintainer to get around to creating the package for their particular strain of Linux only to have it stop working 6 months later when the next 0.0.0.1 release comes out of Linux Distro XYZ. Imagine waiting two weeks for a yum update of you favorite MMO game client while everyone on Windows simply clicked an icon the moment the game update was released from the developer, the game updated itself auto-magically and connected and you were playing that evening.
As an experienced Linux user, I vaguely recall issues like this happening when I was using Linux in the 90s?
Windows has been a dream to develop, distribute and support games for compared to Linux.
Oh God, you've clearly never had to deal with visual c++ runtime side-by-side issues in installers. At least on Linux if you have a problem that can't be solved with the LSB, you can just ship your own libc or other crap with your software and be done with it. It's even worse when you have to deal with issues caused by different libraries requiring different side-by-side assemblies and having to try to avoid it by using metadata files that don't always apply based on the system's patch level. Have you really done much game development on Windows?
Windows prior to Win8 may not have been open source but it was open in the way consumers and developers care: you could build and distribute anything you wanted without approval from anyone.
And you can on Linux, have you really done much game development on Linux?
Which combination of APIs am I supposed to use again on Linux?
Which ever OpenGL verison you want, much like your choice of Direct X cerisons. Same with OpenAL.
Which distro am I targetting again?
Why target a distro when you can target Linux Standard Base? All the major distributions (with the exception of Gentoo due to it's highly dynamic nature - But you can still install support for it on Gentoo) support it out of the box.
Unless they are aiming at selling you a locked down console, it won't work.
Speak for yourself, I do cross-distribution binaries just fine.
And none of the freetards will want a locked down console even if it is Linux-based, will they?
Out of the many, many Linux users I know, I only know one that is using Linux for 'freedom' reasons alone and follows the mantra. So, no big loss based on my anecdotal information.
The main reason: X-11 is a HORRIBLE performance hog.
If this is the case, can you explain to me why I get better performance (roughly 20 fps difference) running games under Crossover Games on a Kubuntu system than I do under Windows 7 with the same graphics options?
Does this mean that Windows is an even worse horrible performance hog?
First, there is the HUGE amount of previous games, which still won't work correctly on Linux.
I actually have been rather successful in running games on Linux (sample of games I have ran). Mostly running them all under Crossover Games. Do feel free though to tell us exactly which games are having problems, how they're having problems etc.
That would mean gamers would have to set up a separate Linux installation, maybe by dual booting or getting another PC, just to be able to play both new and old games
Amusing story about this... I have to use Linux to run old Windows games, because Windows 7 won't run them.
There would have to be an IMMENSE advantage to using Linux to play newer games
Like VALVe's claims that they're seeing superior performance on Linux than they do on Windows?
normal people do not really care about benchmark numbers
That's right, because they don't understand them. But they can still see the difference.
Having any ALL rules in sudoers for other than root is gratuitous privilege escalation, and pretty much mimicking the shield sign of Windows, for pretty much the same reasons. Having it by default is trading security for convenience.
I'm not understanding the problem of having an administrator of a system having the ability to administrate the system. A non-admin user doesn't have access to sudo on Ubuntu.
The user runs commands with superuser privileges but inside a user context with certain environment variables not being root's, but the user's.
Except that isn't default, you need to use sudo with -E in order to preserve environment variables.
Do a "find/home -owner 0" on a well used Ubuntu system, and you'll see what's wrong.
On a heavily used Ubuntu system, used for development (on the desktop) and excessive amounts of sudo to test install packages:
$ sudo find/home -user root /home $
(Ran as root as I don't have access to read other home paths)
In addition, the unrestricted use of sudo teaches users to rely on root to do things you don't really need root for. Because sudo "just works", just like chmod -R 777 does. So the users never learn about using ownership and permissions to avoid privilege escalations, because they don't have to.
Sounds insightful, tell me how would you have ran 'find' without doing any sort of privilege escalations, without having to login to each account separately and without making everything world readable?
more likely than not comes from a background where gratuitous privilege escalation is the way to do things (yes, Canonical, I am looking at you)
What? The Ubuntu distributions are one of the few ones that don't run any daemons as root and heavily fortified by apparmor. Other distributions like SuSE rely on using jails / fakeroot to isolate the process, but as it's running as root, it has the potential to escape those jails anyway if the right code is executed.
personally I am the opposite, Actually I would like to see no ads, but that isn't realistic, so I will settle for them not trying to target me to suck money out of my wallet.
I'm happy to have targeted advertising if I don't have to pay for services out of my pocket for everything online, I don't see any better alternatives.
What really offends me about this standard and targeted advertising is that the people that really would benefit form this are the ones that don't understand they are being targeted and exploited, they also won't be bright enough to find another browser or to work out how to manually configure the DNT.
The more I think about this argument, the more I have a problem with the idea that targeted advertising is exploiting. It's delivering relevant content to people that they're interested in, which helps stimulate the economy if they bite. People maybe happier and better off with getting something they discovered that may improve their life (be it through entertainment, some device that makes things just a bit easier or even a new hobby so they can break up the dreary day to day life).
Also, ignoring the above, I just wouldn't be offended and I imagine that's partly because I take this mantra to heart.
OPT IN should be the default
I have yet to really see the negative effects in targeted advertising. I've seen worse from the untargeted advertising that delivers malware. I think people have this innate 'fear' of being 'stalked' from some sort of primal instinct that is driving them along this reaction - From a cold logical point of view, I'm not seeing the problem.
I'm guessing its the tea party racist bit - which is a very accurate reflection of the comments section on a yahoo article.
I read Yahoo articles on yahoo.co.uk most of the time, I see nothing about tea party. Are you just applying this to a small section of Yahoo and not Yahoo as a whole?
Slashdot Mirror
Well that sucks.
Better experience than me on Windows. I found I couldn't use quite a few Vista laptop graphics drivers from both nvidia and ATi on Windows 7 (even with the inf modifications and bypassing of OS checks), but worked fine on Linux with the latest proprietary drivers provided in Kubuntu.
Or using Windows with old unsupported drivers with possible security exploits.
Installed Kubuntu, then checked the box in the driver manager for the proprietary nvidia drivers. I think Kubuntu took 20 minutes (including downloading updates while installing), proprietary driver about three minutes, including the reboot. That was it... Now, getting Windows 7 working on it... That requires me to download a whole bunch of drivers and install in different ways. Some stuff I have to navigate to an inf file (the card reader), others have an installer (graphics card) etc. I'm pretty certain getting a 'base' system takes me a few hours on Windows.
I guess Linux OEMs like System76 would count as a 'yes'? And stuff from Arbico and PCSpecialist would count as a no?
Except it doesn't. I've had to deal with imaging numerous systems and every big move performed for a Windows upgrade (ie: XP > Vista > 7) just made a subset of hardware useless. I can't say I had the same experience with Linux (SuSE 9 > SuSE 10 > SusE 11). This was both from respective major OEMs that support those operating systems officially.
I guess if I installed from scratch, under two hours, including download time for the ISO, burning, installing Kubuntu, checking a box in the driver manager, installing crossover games, installing steam and then downloading (where about an hour is eaten) and installing left 4 dead.
No configuration files or terminal prompt, just running installers.
I can't recall needing to change my audio configuration for games. Changing it many years ago to get it to work with Flash? Yes, I remember that. But, I also had problems with Flash under Windows back then too (couldn't watch videos on Windows without it stuttering like hell).
Eh? I just launch "Left 4 Dead" from the Steam window or from the "Windows Games" menu under the crossover games menu?
Here you go. Supported pretty much by all the major Linux distributions out of the box (with the exception of Gentoo, but Gentoo is pretty much anything out of the box).
As a software developer who has worked with the Linux Standard Base and has worked on game type software, I'm not understanding the problem? Could you please explain to me how I didn't do it easily, thanks.
Cool story, bro. But, I don't believe you. 3d stereoscopic support won't magically be available from the nvidia drivers just because of a stable ABI.
Yes. I remember quite clearly it not working.
You mean where I've managed to get better performance out of games running under Crossover Games than they did on Windows on the same hardware? If X11 is a cludge, then what does that make Windows?
Has the Linux kernel really done anything beyond OSS and ALSA?
Why aren't you using the proprietary ones on Linux? I don't understand. It's not like it's more complicated than checking a checkbox in Ubuntu etc.
Why do I get to be with all the boring Windows users here? Here, the Windows users have boring reasons to use Windows, centered around Microsoft Office.
I would be inclined to agree, but only because moving right now from a platform where they make a lot of profit to a platform where they are currently making no profit is likely to be suicide. You'd want to actually have a bigger market in the target market before moving.
I think your credentials are lacking to just plainly accept your opinion on this matter without any... depth behind it.
Why would you install Linux on your computer? You don't install Windows on your computer, it comes with your computer. Just buy it with a computer like you do with Windows. Why are you making this harder than it is really?
Is this the same sort of experienced gamer knowledge that have us predictions that Microsoft would never be able to make a game console that would be profitable etc when they initially announced they would make a game console?
Works fine for me.
Works fine for me.
Works fine for me.
I don't recall ever needing to edit a conf file to play a game.
k?
k.
I've already countered this on Slashdot previously. Please respond with counters to my previous counters, thanks AC.
You've clearly never done console development.
Says the person using computers that look very bland? Mmm.
This is kind of necessary when Microsoft creates retarded crap like a system that resets the GPU if it doesn't respond within two seconds (because some shader using some fairly trivial branch code to figure out what the card /really/ supports since drivers do lie).
I've had my fair share of hibernation issues on every OS. including OS X.
Can you tell me how to get the remote console functionality in "VMware vSphere 5 Client" working? The best I can do is get it running in compatibility mode, but the remote console functionality still won't work.
On Windows 7, I installed it without any fiddling and it just worked.
What features are those exactly? I mean, I've seen many game ports and I run many Windows games in Crossover Games and they work identical or even in some cases, perform better than they did on Windows.
Do explain why the Linux Standard Base does not work.
As an experienced Linux user, I vaguely recall issues like this happening when I was using Linux in the 90s?
Oh God, you've clearly never had to deal with visual c++ runtime side-by-side issues in installers. At least on Linux if you have a problem that can't be solved with the LSB, you can just ship your own libc or other crap with your software and be done with it. It's even worse when you have to deal with issues caused by different libraries requiring different side-by-side assemblies and having to try to avoid it by using metadata files that don't always apply based on the system's patch level. Have you really done much game development on Windows?
And you can on Linux, have you really done much game development on Linux?
Which ever OpenGL verison you want, much like your choice of Direct X cerisons. Same with OpenAL.
Why target a distro when you can target Linux Standard Base? All the major distributions (with the exception of Gentoo due to it's highly dynamic nature - But you can still install support for it on Gentoo) support it out of the box.
Speak for yourself, I do cross-distribution binaries just fine.
Out of the many, many Linux users I know, I only know one that is using Linux for 'freedom' reasons alone and follows the mantra. So, no big loss based on my anecdotal information.
If this is the case, can you explain to me why I get better performance (roughly 20 fps difference) running games under Crossover Games on a Kubuntu system than I do under Windows 7 with the same graphics options?
Does this mean that Windows is an even worse horrible performance hog?
I actually have been rather successful in running games on Linux (sample of games I have ran). Mostly running them all under Crossover Games. Do feel free though to tell us exactly which games are having problems, how they're having problems etc.
Amusing story about this... I have to use Linux to run old Windows games, because Windows 7 won't run them.
Like VALVe's claims that they're seeing superior performance on Linux than they do on Windows?
That's right, because they don't understand them. But they can still see the difference.
Only if the user is in the admin group.
I'm not understanding the problem of having an administrator of a system having the ability to administrate the system. A non-admin user doesn't have access to sudo on Ubuntu.
Except that isn't default, you need to use sudo with -E in order to preserve environment variables.
On a heavily used Ubuntu system, used for development (on the desktop) and excessive amounts of sudo to test install packages:
(Ran as root as I don't have access to read other home paths)
Sounds insightful, tell me how would you have ran 'find' without doing any sort of privilege escalations, without having to login to each account separately and without making everything world readable?
What? The Ubuntu distributions are one of the few ones that don't run any daemons as root and heavily fortified by apparmor. Other distributions like SuSE rely on using jails / fakeroot to isolate the process, but as it's running as root, it has the potential to escape those jails anyway if the right code is executed.
Feel free to pay this guy for his time to do this, like engineers in engineering are.
Except I don't. Feel free to show me which website I'm running that has ads that I make a profit from. And don't worry, there are many sites I run.
I'm happy to have targeted advertising if I don't have to pay for services out of my pocket for everything online, I don't see any better alternatives.
The more I think about this argument, the more I have a problem with the idea that targeted advertising is exploiting. It's delivering relevant content to people that they're interested in, which helps stimulate the economy if they bite. People maybe happier and better off with getting something they discovered that may improve their life (be it through entertainment, some device that makes things just a bit easier or even a new hobby so they can break up the dreary day to day life).
Also, ignoring the above, I just wouldn't be offended and I imagine that's partly because I take this mantra to heart.
I have yet to really see the negative effects in targeted advertising. I've seen worse from the untargeted advertising that delivers malware. I think people have this innate 'fear' of being 'stalked' from some sort of primal instinct that is driving them along this reaction - From a cold logical point of view, I'm not seeing the problem.
I read Yahoo articles on yahoo.co.uk most of the time, I see nothing about tea party. Are you just applying this to a small section of Yahoo and not Yahoo as a whole?