I still have my disc, unfortunately the installer demands to install dx3. I did it on an old install of 98 a couple of years ago cause I was sick of not being able to play it. I remember sega released a network patch but never got to try that.
According to the first page on openwengo.org it says you can use other sip providers, but in the faq it states:
Can WengoPhone 2.0 be used with any SIP provider?
Not right now. However, it is the item with the highest priority on our todo list, apart from having a 2.0 release. So expect to see this feature implement right after the first NG release.
I'm behind a firewall that I don't administer and haven't bothered requesting anything regarding opening ports for voip. My provider is vbuzzer. Their program works in windows without issue, I can make and receive calls. But I use linux, on the linux side, the only one that works is linphone. The others I have tried are kphone, twinkle, ekiga and even asterisk as I liked some features in some of the other clients (but linphone has got much better). Anyway all the others only allow me to make outgoing calls.
I've submitted bug reports to ekiga (nothing done there so far) and tried to get devs interested with asterisk but no go. So what's linphone doing right that every other voip client on linux doing wrong? I'd really like to know to point it out to the other devs.
No, that's not the one. As I mentioned the article I referenced went through examples exclusively from rush. I wish I kept the article as it was really informative. But thank you for this one as well, Anyone just skimming over it can visually see how they are ruining cds.
So again I ask what does lossless matter when the fidelity has already been seriously compromised? And maybe even more insidious, I read an article about one of the first cd's done in sacd was a rolling stone album, and unlike the cd version, it was mastered properly with the dynamic range intact.
Unfortunately, the original article is dead. A guy analyzed various cd's from rush from 1984 to 2002. Somewhere along the lines in the music biz, it was decided louder is always better. So the overall loudness of a track gets increased to a point where it kills the dynamic range. The article was great at visually demonstrating this but I can't find a mirror.
I guess a different form of abuse would be to register a friend as a business and then you have free calls to him, although depending on the description he might get a lot of wrong calls by others finding his listing on google maps.
Also something I never heard about is google providing free sms.
When I first made the switch from win to lin a few years back, one of the first apps I tried to replace was virtualdub, and came across avidemux. Back then it was pretty buggy and not nearly feature complete, but I'll have to give it another go. Btw, that's interesting way to handle it if you chop at a non key frame, just reencode that block until you encounter another keyframe and just slice from there, I didn't know any program actually did that, I thought if you want to cut a movie file without reencoding, you had to select from the keyframes.
I miss some programs like this, there is also avi splitter to grab something out of an avi (mpeg4 content I think it works best with) without reencoding. Are there any equivlents for linux?
What upgrade tool is it that your referring to in kubuntu? If one has gnome installed, can't just this kde program be installed just to use that for a smoother upgrade. And what does it do differently? Is it not a front end for apt just like synaptic?
Way OT, but just wanted to mention that it bugs me that there isn't a decent c64 emu to play some classics in linux. Ya there's vice and frodo, but man just to get either of those buggers to display the games in full screen is next to impossible. I started to use linux about 5 years ago and the state of c64 emus was as bad then as it is now. Sure we probably will never have the latest games in linux, but I always thought we should have good emus. Some are good, but a few are sub par to their windows equivilents. The next frodo is supposed to use sdl for video but 1.5 has never surfaced. Trying to get a descent video mode with X11 is painful. And why with xmame is there a seperate binary for x11, sdl, and opengl? Why can't they all be one package and select what video mode works best. Ok, I'll stop my emu rant. I just love em and they a few aren't up to snuff on linux.
Well, the fist dx10 only game was already announced, halo 2. How pathetic is it that an xbox 1 port is dx10 only.
ahh, I posted on this before and reposted it, but this topic seems to keep coming up and I'll just link it this time if someone wants to read my thoughts on this
When bittorrent 4.2 was released, there was already mention of this, and I thought ya right the isps will help with torrents, but supposedly isp caching (even copyright material) is allowed under the dmca.
" If a file shows up on the network frequently, the cache stores that file so that its seeded in the network rather than by peers. ISPs appreciate this because their access networks are terribly congested with P2P traffic. Caches are legal and covered explicitly in the DMCA"
Ok I posted this previously(again) but this thread is more on topic with it and would like to see what people think.
It would be a lot easier for them to port if all games were opengl. I remember way back when John Carmack had his open letter to microsoft on the merits of opengl. Unfortunately, it seems d3d (even though crap back then) has won out in the end. Not that it's better than opengl, it could be now, but that's beside the point. Microsoft saw how big gaming was getting and wanted to tie developers and as a result it's users to one platform.
I think a turning point was the release of half life. Even though being a quake 1 engine game (don't start the q1/q2 halflife thing) it's default support was d3d. If valve stayed native opengl when that game exploded, we might have seen co's like ati get their act in gear a lot earlier with better opengl support. And potentially might have become a more attractive option for future developers.
Glad carmack still codes for win,nix, os X just cause he thinks 'it's a good thing.' Too bad developers like him are far and few between.
Consumers can kill something off like a plague when they are aware of the hardware/software tie in, like the death of the original divx hardware players, but when consumers (even tech savvy ones) don't think about it, or don't care what goes on behind the scenes, things like this happen.
I can't really see it changing drastically now. You hear about the odd port from a company which is great but the only way a lot of games to be natively available on linux is for linux to all of a sudden gain huge market share (hopefully one day, but still a long ways off).
If/when that time comes, developers would have to look at their development strategy, it will be a hassle to support d3d and opengl. So if they did see a market for both windows and linux they'd most likely consider opengl from the get go.
So, it would be nice to at least have more developers using opengl now, so the option is there for a port, but again I can't see that happening. People would have to do something radical and boycott a game and state the reason is because it uses d3d which is enforcing the tie-in of games to only one platform.
And just look at the moves microsoft can pull when they have this clout. Halo 2 being directx 10 only. Please... An xbox 1 port requiring the latest d3d. A strong arm tactic for vista if I ever saw one.
So I'm going to add this, can we actually blame developers for the state of affairs of linux gaming? Should we hold them accountable? See the majority of people do not care about anything except (in this case) what's best for their company. I mentioned Carmack because someone should be recognized when they do something knowing it's not necessarily the profitable move, it's just that they think it's right.
I see most people complaining about some limitations of opengl. This may be true, but did opengl's current situation come about much further back? Citing my example of half life (not that it was necessarily the linchpin of all this). Why did they port a opengl engine to dx back then? I certainly don't remember reading articles claiming superiority of dx at that time.
Ok I posted this previously but this thread is more on topic with it and would like to see what people think.
It would be a lot easier for them to port if all games were opengl. I remember way back when John Carmack had his open letter to microsoft on the merits of opengl. Unfortunately, it seems d3d (even though crap back then) has won out in the end. Not that it's better than opengl, it could be now, but that's beside the point. Microsoft saw how big gaming was getting and wanted to tie developers and as a result it's users to one platform.
I think a turning point was the release of half life. Even though being a quake 1 engine game (don't start the q1/q2 halflife thing) it's default support was d3d. If valve stayed native opengl when that game exploded, we might have seen co's like ati get their act in gear a lot earlier with better opengl support. And potentially might have become a more attractive option for future developers.
Glad carmack still codes for win,nix, os X just cause he thinks 'it's a good thing.' Too bad developers like him are far and few between.
Consumers can kill something off like a plague when they are aware of the hardware/software tie in, like the death of the original divx hardware players, but when consumers (even tech savvy ones) don't think about it, or don't care what goes on behind the scenes, things like this happen.
I can't really see it changing drastically now. You hear about the odd port from a company which is great but the only way a lot of games to be natively available on linux is for linux to all of a sudden gain huge market share (hopefully one day, but still a long ways off).
If/when that time comes, developers would have to look at their development strategy, it will be a hassle to support d3d and opengl. So if they did see a market for both windows and linux they'd most likely consider opengl from the get go.
So, it would be nice to at least have more developers using opengl now, so the option is there for a port, but again I can't see that happening. People would have to do something radical and boycott a game and state the reason is because it uses d3d which is enforcing the tie-in of games to only one platform.
And just look at the moves microsoft can pull when they have this clout. Halo 2 being directx 10 only. Please... An xbox 1 port requiring the latest d3d. A strong arm tactic for vista if I ever saw one.
So I'm going to add this, can we actually blame developers for the state of affairs of linux gaming? Should we hold them accountable? See the majority of people do not care about anything except (in this case) what's best for their company. I mentioned Carmack because someone should be recognized when they do something knowing it's not necessarily the profitable move, it's just that they think it's right.
I grew up watching tf and loved it. But going back and watching the original series, you see a lot more cheese than you remembered. Still a fun ride but not the same. But the animated movie I watched a few times over the years and I think it really stands the test of time. Ya it was an obvious ploy to kill a bunch of em for new toys, but they did it with such style. The animation is obviously better than the series, the story more serious, and c'mon, Orson Welles as unicron! (I've read it's the last thing he did but imdb has things credited later but probably older material resurfaced from some projects, not to mention best voice ever next to james earl jones). Even Leonard Nemoy was great as galvitron.
Discussing voices, who is going to be the voice of megatron? I sure hope Frank Welker will reprise the role.
Ok, I'm getting off topic and I've posted this before, but I guess a tad late and no one noticed. I'm reposting as the issue of games always comes up and I want to see what people think of this. The discussion was originally WoW on linux via wine...
It would be a lot easier for them to port if all games were opengl. I remember way back when John Carmack had his open letter to microsoft on the merits of opengl. Unfortunately, it seems d3d (even though crap back then) has won out in the end. Not that it's better than opengl, it could be now, but that's beside the point. Microsoft saw how big gaming was getting and wanted to tie developers and as a result it's users to one platform.
I think a turning point was the release of half life. Even though being a quake 1 engine game (don't start the q1/q2 halflive thing) it's default support was d3d. If valve stayed native opengl when that game exploded, we might have seen co's like ati get their act in gear a lot earlier with better opengl support. And potentially might have become a more attractive option for future developers.
Glad carmack still codes for win,nix, os X just cause he thinks 'it's a good thing.' Too bad developers like him are far and few between.
Consumers can kill something off like a plague when they are aware of the hardware/software tie in, like the death of the original divx hardware players, but when consumers (even tech savvy ones) don't think about it, or don't care what goes on behind the scenes, things like this happen.
I can't really see it changing drastically now. You hear about the odd port from a company which is great but the only way a lot of games to be natively available on linux is for linux to all of a sudden gain huge market share (hopefully one day, but still a long ways off).
If/when that time comes, developers would have to look at their development strategy, it will be a hassle to support d3d and opengl. So if they did see a market for both windows and linux they'd most likely consider opengl from the get go.
So, it would be nice to at least have more developers using opengl now, so the option is there for a port, but again I can't see that happening. People would have to do something radical and boycott a game and state the reason is because it uses d3d which is enforcing the tie-in of games to only one platform.
And just look at the moves microsoft can pull when they have this clout. Halo 2 being directx 10 only. Please... An xbox 1 port requiring the latest d3d. A strong arm tactic for vista if I ever saw one.
So I'm going to add this, can we actually blame developers for the state of affairs of linux gaming? Should we hold them accountable? See the majority of people do not care about anything except (in this case) what's best for their company. I mentioned Carmack because someone should be recognized when they do something knowing it's not necessarily the profitable move, it's just that they think it's right.
Here's something I posted the other day on digg regarding the same subject:
It would be a lot easier for them to port if all games were opengl. I remember way back when John Carmack had his open letter to microsoft on the merits of opengl. Unfortunately, it seems d3d (even though crap back then) has won out in the end. Not that it's better than opengl, it could be now, but that's beside the point. Microsoft saw how big gaming was getting and wanted to tie developers and as a result it's users to one platform.
I think a turning point was the release of half life. Even though being a quake 1 engine game (don't start the q1/q2 halflive thing) it's default support was d3d. If valve stayed native opengl when that game exploded, we might have seen co's like ati get their act in gear a lot earlier with better opengl support. And potentially might have become a more attractive option for future developers.
Glad carmack still codes for win,nix, os X just cause he thinks 'it's a good thing.' Too bad developers like him are far and few between.
Consumers can kill something off like a plague when they are aware of the hardware/software tie in, like the death of the original divx hardware players, but when consumers (even tech savvy ones) don't think about it, or don't care what goes on behind the scenes, things like this happen.
I can't really see it changing drastically now. You hear about the odd port from a company which is great but the only way a lot of games to be natively available on linux is for linux to all of a sudden gain huge market share (hopefully one day, but still a long ways off).
If/when that time comes, developers would have to look at their development strategy, it will be a hassle to support d3d and opengl. So if they did see a market for both windows and linux they'd most likely consider opengl from the get go.
So, it would be nice to at least have more developers using opengl now, so the option is there for a port, but again I can't see that happening. People would have to do something radical and boycott a game and state the reason is because it uses d3d which is enforcing the tie-in of games to only one platform.
And just look at the moves microsoft can pull when they have this clout. Halo 2 being directx 10 only. Please... An xbox 1 port requiring the latest d3d. A strong arm tactic for vista if I ever saw one.
I've been using linux for more than a few years now, but one thing I've always wanted is file extensions by default in programs. Too many times I forget to add them manually, it's just I wish the apps did.
Yes I know linux uses mime types but both can be beneficial. Here's a basic example, I have a dir as many do of various documents, and suppose I typed something in a plain text document a few years back and I just remember a keyword that will probably find it for me. When I do a search in gnome/kde using their respective search tools, it will search all text documents, OO, doc, pdfs etc. If I already know the information is in a text file, it would be nice to be able to put *.txt to speed up the search. Sure this works if I made sure before hand I named the file.txt, but it erks me to always have to remember to add an extension.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh my freakin god!!!
A fan of rockey jockey!!!
This game is amazing, truly unique game play.
I still have my disc, unfortunately the installer demands to install dx3. I did it on an old install of 98 a couple of years ago cause I was sick of not being able to play it. I remember sega released a network patch but never got to try that.
I'd love some workaround to play this in wine.
I find this subject very interesting. What other areas fall into this? Learning an instrument? Learning to type?
http://www.khaaan.com/
I found that site years ago (late 90's i think). It cracks me up that it still there.
He added, "I've been pulling for Microsoft..."
I never thought I'd see a sentence start from Carmack with that.
According to the first page on openwengo.org it says you can use other sip providers, but in the faq it states:
Can WengoPhone 2.0 be used with any SIP provider?
Not right now. However, it is the item with the highest priority on our todo list, apart from having a 2.0 release. So expect to see this feature implement right after the first NG release.
I'm behind a firewall that I don't administer and haven't bothered requesting anything regarding opening ports for voip. My provider is vbuzzer. Their program works in windows without issue, I can make and receive calls. But I use linux, on the linux side, the only one that works is linphone. The others I have tried are kphone, twinkle, ekiga and even asterisk as I liked some features in some of the other clients (but linphone has got much better). Anyway all the others only allow me to make outgoing calls.
I've submitted bug reports to ekiga (nothing done there so far) and tried to get devs interested with asterisk but no go. So what's linphone doing right that every other voip client on linux doing wrong? I'd really like to know to point it out to the other devs.
No, that's not the one. As I mentioned the article I referenced went through examples exclusively from rush. I wish I kept the article as it was really informative. But thank you for this one as well, Anyone just skimming over it can visually see how they are ruining cds.
So again I ask what does lossless matter when the fidelity has already been seriously compromised? And maybe even more insidious, I read an article about one of the first cd's done in sacd was a rolling stone album, and unlike the cd version, it was mastered properly with the dynamic range intact.
I remember the article awhile back from here on slashdot.m l?tid=141&tid=188
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/08/01/1533235.sht
Unfortunately, the original article is dead. A guy analyzed various cd's from rush from 1984 to 2002. Somewhere along the lines in the music biz, it was decided louder is always better. So the overall loudness of a track gets increased to a point where it kills the dynamic range. The article was great at visually demonstrating this but I can't find a mirror.
This is really a non-issue.
e r=32461&query=send+to+phone&topic=&type=
n dex.html
I guess a different form of abuse would be to register a friend as a business and then you have free calls to him, although depending on the description he might get a lot of wrong calls by others finding his listing on google maps.
Also something I never heard about is google providing free sms.
http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answ
And they provide a firefox plugin so you can highlight text and send that.
http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/sendtophone/i
When I first made the switch from win to lin a few years back, one of the first apps I tried to replace was virtualdub, and came across avidemux. Back then it was pretty buggy and not nearly feature complete, but I'll have to give it another go. Btw, that's interesting way to handle it if you chop at a non key frame, just reencode that block until you encounter another keyframe and just slice from there, I didn't know any program actually did that, I thought if you want to cut a movie file without reencoding, you had to select from the keyframes.
I miss some programs like this, there is also avi splitter to grab something out of an avi (mpeg4 content I think it works best with) without reencoding. Are there any equivlents for linux?
What upgrade tool is it that your referring to in kubuntu? If one has gnome installed, can't just this kde program be installed just to use that for a smoother upgrade. And what does it do differently? Is it not a front end for apt just like synaptic?
I wonder how well xrdp works?
http://xrdp.sourceforge.net/
And will things like xgl further along the demise of cards even they might be deemed 'obsolete'?
Way OT, but just wanted to mention that it bugs me that there isn't a decent c64 emu to play some classics in linux. Ya there's vice and frodo, but man just to get either of those buggers to display the games in full screen is next to impossible. I started to use linux about 5 years ago and the state of c64 emus was as bad then as it is now. Sure we probably will never have the latest games in linux, but I always thought we should have good emus. Some are good, but a few are sub par to their windows equivilents. The next frodo is supposed to use sdl for video but 1.5 has never surfaced. Trying to get a descent video mode with X11 is painful. And why with xmame is there a seperate binary for x11, sdl, and opengl? Why can't they all be one package and select what video mode works best. Ok, I'll stop my emu rant. I just love em and they a few aren't up to snuff on linux.
If that's true, how come I've never seen some knockoff tissue say 'the softest kleenex'
Well, the fist dx10 only game was already announced, halo 2. How pathetic is it that an xbox 1 port is dx10 only.
8 28522
ahh, I posted on this before and reposted it, but this topic seems to keep coming up and I'll just link it this time if someone wants to read my thoughts on this
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=192814&cid=15
When bittorrent 4.2 was released, there was already mention of this, and I thought ya right the isps will help with torrents, but supposedly isp caching (even copyright material) is allowed under the dmca.
u sc_sec_17_00000512----000-.html
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1231
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/
" If a file shows up on the network frequently, the cache stores that file so that its seeded in the network rather than by peers. ISPs appreciate this because their access networks are terribly congested with P2P traffic. Caches are legal and covered explicitly in the DMCA"
I'd say they can be dead wrong! Look! They have Topher Grace from that 70's show as Eddie Brock/Venom!
Ok I posted this previously(again) but this thread is more on topic with it and would like to see what people think.
It would be a lot easier for them to port if all games were opengl. I remember way back when John Carmack had his open letter to microsoft on the merits of opengl. Unfortunately, it seems d3d (even though crap back then) has won out in the end. Not that it's better than opengl, it could be now, but that's beside the point. Microsoft saw how big gaming was getting and wanted to tie developers and as a result it's users to one platform.
I think a turning point was the release of half life. Even though being a quake 1 engine game (don't start the q1/q2 halflife thing) it's default support was d3d. If valve stayed native opengl when that game exploded, we might have seen co's like ati get their act in gear a lot earlier with better opengl support. And potentially might have become a more attractive option for future developers.
Glad carmack still codes for win,nix, os X just cause he thinks 'it's a good thing.' Too bad developers like him are far and few between.
Consumers can kill something off like a plague when they are aware of the hardware/software tie in, like the death of the original divx hardware players, but when consumers (even tech savvy ones) don't think about it, or don't care what goes on behind the scenes, things like this happen.
I can't really see it changing drastically now. You hear about the odd port from a company which is great but the only way a lot of games to be natively available on linux is for linux to all of a sudden gain huge market share (hopefully one day, but still a long ways off).
If/when that time comes, developers would have to look at their development strategy, it will be a hassle to support d3d and opengl. So if they did see a market for both windows and linux they'd most likely consider opengl from the get go.
So, it would be nice to at least have more developers using opengl now, so the option is there for a port, but again I can't see that happening. People would have to do something radical and boycott a game and state the reason is because it uses d3d which is enforcing the tie-in of games to only one platform.
And just look at the moves microsoft can pull when they have this clout. Halo 2 being directx 10 only. Please... An xbox 1 port requiring the latest d3d. A strong arm tactic for vista if I ever saw one.
So I'm going to add this, can we actually blame developers for the state of affairs of linux gaming? Should we hold them accountable? See the majority of people do not care about anything except (in this case) what's best for their company. I mentioned Carmack because someone should be recognized when they do something knowing it's not necessarily the profitable move, it's just that they think it's right.
I see most people complaining about some limitations of opengl. This may be true, but did opengl's current situation come about much further back? Citing my example of half life (not that it was necessarily the linchpin of all this). Why did they port a opengl engine to dx back then? I certainly don't remember reading articles claiming superiority of dx at that time.
Ok I posted this previously but this thread is more on topic with it and would like to see what people think.
It would be a lot easier for them to port if all games were opengl. I remember way back when John Carmack had his open letter to microsoft on the merits of opengl. Unfortunately, it seems d3d (even though crap back then) has won out in the end. Not that it's better than opengl, it could be now, but that's beside the point. Microsoft saw how big gaming was getting and wanted to tie developers and as a result it's users to one platform.
I think a turning point was the release of half life. Even though being a quake 1 engine game (don't start the q1/q2 halflife thing) it's default support was d3d. If valve stayed native opengl when that game exploded, we might have seen co's like ati get their act in gear a lot earlier with better opengl support. And potentially might have become a more attractive option for future developers.
Glad carmack still codes for win,nix, os X just cause he thinks 'it's a good thing.' Too bad developers like him are far and few between.
Consumers can kill something off like a plague when they are aware of the hardware/software tie in, like the death of the original divx hardware players, but when consumers (even tech savvy ones) don't think about it, or don't care what goes on behind the scenes, things like this happen.
I can't really see it changing drastically now. You hear about the odd port from a company which is great but the only way a lot of games to be natively available on linux is for linux to all of a sudden gain huge market share (hopefully one day, but still a long ways off).
If/when that time comes, developers would have to look at their development strategy, it will be a hassle to support d3d and opengl. So if they did see a market for both windows and linux they'd most likely consider opengl from the get go.
So, it would be nice to at least have more developers using opengl now, so the option is there for a port, but again I can't see that happening. People would have to do something radical and boycott a game and state the reason is because it uses d3d which is enforcing the tie-in of games to only one platform.
And just look at the moves microsoft can pull when they have this clout. Halo 2 being directx 10 only. Please... An xbox 1 port requiring the latest d3d. A strong arm tactic for vista if I ever saw one.
So I'm going to add this, can we actually blame developers for the state of affairs of linux gaming? Should we hold them accountable? See the majority of people do not care about anything except (in this case) what's best for their company. I mentioned Carmack because someone should be recognized when they do something knowing it's not necessarily the profitable move, it's just that they think it's right.
I grew up watching tf and loved it. But going back and watching the original series, you see a lot more cheese than you remembered. Still a fun ride but not the same. But the animated movie I watched a few times over the years and I think it really stands the test of time. Ya it was an obvious ploy to kill a bunch of em for new toys, but they did it with such style. The animation is obviously better than the series, the story more serious, and c'mon, Orson Welles as unicron! (I've read it's the last thing he did but imdb has things credited later but probably older material resurfaced from some projects, not to mention best voice ever next to james earl jones). Even Leonard Nemoy was great as galvitron.
Discussing voices, who is going to be the voice of megatron? I sure hope Frank Welker will reprise the role.
Ok, I'm getting off topic and I've posted this before, but I guess a tad late and no one noticed. I'm reposting as the issue of games always comes up and I want to see what people think of this. The discussion was originally WoW on linux via wine...
It would be a lot easier for them to port if all games were opengl. I remember way back when John Carmack had his open letter to microsoft on the merits of opengl. Unfortunately, it seems d3d (even though crap back then) has won out in the end. Not that it's better than opengl, it could be now, but that's beside the point. Microsoft saw how big gaming was getting and wanted to tie developers and as a result it's users to one platform.
I think a turning point was the release of half life. Even though being a quake 1 engine game (don't start the q1/q2 halflive thing) it's default support was d3d. If valve stayed native opengl when that game exploded, we might have seen co's like ati get their act in gear a lot earlier with better opengl support. And potentially might have become a more attractive option for future developers.
Glad carmack still codes for win,nix, os X just cause he thinks 'it's a good thing.' Too bad developers like him are far and few between.
Consumers can kill something off like a plague when they are aware of the hardware/software tie in, like the death of the original divx hardware players, but when consumers (even tech savvy ones) don't think about it, or don't care what goes on behind the scenes, things like this happen.
I can't really see it changing drastically now. You hear about the odd port from a company which is great but the only way a lot of games to be natively available on linux is for linux to all of a sudden gain huge market share (hopefully one day, but still a long ways off).
If/when that time comes, developers would have to look at their development strategy, it will be a hassle to support d3d and opengl. So if they did see a market for both windows and linux they'd most likely consider opengl from the get go.
So, it would be nice to at least have more developers using opengl now, so the option is there for a port, but again I can't see that happening. People would have to do something radical and boycott a game and state the reason is because it uses d3d which is enforcing the tie-in of games to only one platform.
And just look at the moves microsoft can pull when they have this clout. Halo 2 being directx 10 only. Please... An xbox 1 port requiring the latest d3d. A strong arm tactic for vista if I ever saw one.
So I'm going to add this, can we actually blame developers for the state of affairs of linux gaming? Should we hold them accountable? See the majority of people do not care about anything except (in this case) what's best for their company. I mentioned Carmack because someone should be recognized when they do something knowing it's not necessarily the profitable move, it's just that they think it's right.
Here's something I posted the other day on digg regarding the same subject:
It would be a lot easier for them to port if all games were opengl. I remember way back when John Carmack had his open letter to microsoft on the merits of opengl. Unfortunately, it seems d3d (even though crap back then) has won out in the end. Not that it's better than opengl, it could be now, but that's beside the point. Microsoft saw how big gaming was getting and wanted to tie developers and as a result it's users to one platform.
I think a turning point was the release of half life. Even though being a quake 1 engine game (don't start the q1/q2 halflive thing) it's default support was d3d. If valve stayed native opengl when that game exploded, we might have seen co's like ati get their act in gear a lot earlier with better opengl support. And potentially might have become a more attractive option for future developers.
Glad carmack still codes for win,nix, os X just cause he thinks 'it's a good thing.' Too bad developers like him are far and few between.
Consumers can kill something off like a plague when they are aware of the hardware/software tie in, like the death of the original divx hardware players, but when consumers (even tech savvy ones) don't think about it, or don't care what goes on behind the scenes, things like this happen.
I can't really see it changing drastically now. You hear about the odd port from a company which is great but the only way a lot of games to be natively available on linux is for linux to all of a sudden gain huge market share (hopefully one day, but still a long ways off).
If/when that time comes, developers would have to look at their development strategy, it will be a hassle to support d3d and opengl. So if they did see a market for both windows and linux they'd most likely consider opengl from the get go.
So, it would be nice to at least have more developers using opengl now, so the option is there for a port, but again I can't see that happening. People would have to do something radical and boycott a game and state the reason is because it uses d3d which is enforcing the tie-in of games to only one platform.
And just look at the moves microsoft can pull when they have this clout. Halo 2 being directx 10 only. Please... An xbox 1 port requiring the latest d3d. A strong arm tactic for vista if I ever saw one.
I've been using linux for more than a few years now, but one thing I've always wanted is file extensions by default in programs. Too many times I forget to add them manually, it's just I wish the apps did.
.txt, but it erks me to always have to remember to add an extension.
Yes I know linux uses mime types but both can be beneficial. Here's a basic example, I have a dir as many do of various documents, and suppose I typed something in a plain text document a few years back and I just remember a keyword that will probably find it for me. When I do a search in gnome/kde using their respective search tools, it will search all text documents, OO, doc, pdfs etc. If I already know the information is in a text file, it would be nice to be able to put *.txt to speed up the search. Sure this works if I made sure before hand I named the file