We've been looking at Crystal Space, as well as Irrlicht and others such as the Nebula Device. In the end, we ended up buying licenses for Torque from GarageGames, because it has been used to do several games and it has lots of integrated tools built right into the engine. You can move and reshape just about everything inside the running game. Now, it is a bit dated, but there will be a newer version out hopefully soon with all those shaders the kids like. For now, it is definitely good enough for most people. Most people couldn't produce content to match the newest engines anyways...;-)
Really, Crystal Space or the Nebula Device may be better in themselves, but if we were to use them, we'd have to recreate all these tools ourselves. Hint: if you are gonna do a game of any serious magnitude, you will need tools, and lots of them. If Crystal Space wants to start seeing games built, they should include starter kits (as in something simple to start modding instead of starting from scratch) and more importantly tools. Tools for manipulating terrain, creating particle effects, placing objects and so on. Being able to import stuff from Quark or Maya is not enough. DO you as a level designer want to place everything in your game by entering numbers in a text file? I thought not... =)
As for Irrlicht, I really like it a lot. It is cool, it is really, really easy to get something up quickly in, it has good performance and plenty of good examples to get one started. However, it is nowhere finished enough (but I can wait) and it is not a game engine - it is a 3D rendering engine that could very well be used to power an awesome game engine. I think some people over there are working on such beasts, though I don't know the status... if any of them also read this, remember the tools boys!;-)
Heh, now I did find an "Up" button that lets me put it where I want it, great! Would sill like the dropdown that the google bar has, but this is indeed good enough!
SIM really had a good shot at being the best, and what I really liked was that I could run it on Windows and Linux with almost the exact same look and feel. I really liked a lot about it, such as the OSD stuff and so on that works much better than the Licq plugin and is non-existant in lots of others.
Sadly, it has some bugs, especially when talkign to others - GAIM users see HTML and Mac users get garbled messages. The last thing there was the thing that finally forced me back to Miranda for Windows and *still trying them out* on Linux.
The reason I switched back and am talking about SIM in past tense is that it seems to have been almost completely abandoned, at least nothing has happened there for a long time and activity is low at best.
Would really like to see SIM waking up again as they got everything right as far as they went.
Anybody got any clues to what encoding one could set in different IMs to get ICQ on Mac to play nicely? Gaim seems to do ok, but I really don't like to use it - it doesn't do stuff the way I want it to, and I can't customize it. Licq is better, though it has other issues... kopete no way. SIM, please come back with encoding problems solved!;-)
I used to think that the google bar was the killer plugin all categories, first on IE, then the unofficial one for Moz/Firefox. Supersweet.
But now, I've uninstalled it and I miss only one feature - that is not even Google related - the only one I actually used that was special, the "UP" button. I can't for my life imagine why that is not a standard button in any browser, especially with the dropdown it provides. Anyone that fixes that one part as a standalone plugin is my hero forever. Make it so I can put it beside the url bar or something. =)
Anyhow, reason the google bar is unnecessary is Bookmark Keywords (see your Quick Searches folder) together with Find As You Type. Nowadays I only type "ALT+D g search terms ENTER" when I want to search google for "search terms", and I have more shortcuts for images, like "im" and so on. Moreoever, this makes it consistent with my other fast searches, like dictionary, wikipedia, several forums etc. I do admit that Find As You Type is not initially as smooth as clicking the search words in a bar to go to the places in the text, but on the other hand, if you like me usually have your hands mostly on the keyboard, it is faster, especially with the right settings (no '/' to start finding etc). And nowadays, in 1.0PR, it is a small bar with highlight and all that...
Try it out, it really is both smoother and faster than a specialized bar. And I got some viewport space back, too (important on my laptop).:)
I think the point was that Gentoo keeps track of everything you have installed, with dependencies and so on. And tells you when there is newer versions available... the typical Gentoo user never downloads another ISO. Even if new version numbered releases are made, the users out there already has everything in that because of daily upgrades. New versions are just fresher starting points for clean installs.
Precompiled or from source doesn't really matter in that case.
It does seem however then, that this Synaptic thing is doing much the same as portage does - if it handles dependencies as excellent then I'd be as happy using that.
The biggest deal for me with Gentoo is the repository of programs - it is incredible, and it is really, really, really up to date. Building from source is ok, tinkering with settings is fun and so on, but if another distro had an equal set of programs - and oh, such an enourmously helpful and non-elitist community - I'd try it out.
Speaking of the community: A lot of other distros followers really has a lot to learn from the mentality of the Gentoo users - even though it is a bit of a power distro, there are almost no elitist and just helpful people that actually tries to solve your problems. It is excellent!
Actually, it's not like Gentoo users *deal* with tarballs, however that is one of the ways (the most common I guess) that source is delivered for portage to deal with. Very practical, since almost *every* project at least releases a tarball. Makes for really good availability, really soon after releases.
Tarballs are an excellent choice for Gentoo - then again, you may not like that it compiles everything locally, then maybe it is not such a good choice for you. At least we have the choice. =)
any good game will get bought by a large percentage of that market due to the lack of titles
Don't bet on it... the Linux people might be just a bit too used to not paying for their software at all as it seems. When games appear for Linux, the Linux crowd is not buying. That is why Loki isn't around anymore. Look at a place like GarageGames, which actively supports and produces games for Linux: they have an engine (Torque) that runs almost exactly as good on Linux as on Windows (same fps etc on same machine) but performs poorer on Mac (due to lack of ppl writing optimized code). Still, according to their FAQ (entry #9), their sales are to 65% from Mac people, and 7% from Linux people.
Your argument does ring true for the Mac crowd - those are people prepared to pay for stuff for their computer (after all, they pay alot just to have the machine). Linux people really, really hate to open their wallets.
Ok, so that is just one example, but that is the general feel you get when you hang around Linux people - lot of wishes, as long as it doesn't cost money.
Gentoo downloads the complete packages and builds them. Yes, the packages are separate and dependencies are tracked, but that is not at all the same thing as above. Gentoo does to some extent use a clever system of small patches that is applied to older source and then builds, but generally, you will see complete downloads.
Binary patching is not really a good match for Gentoo at all, due to the nature of the distriution.
In general, Gentoo, at least for the home user (like me), is a distribution that more or less needs broadband of some sort. Even the sync ("what's new") can take minutes via rsync on broadband. Not to mention the actual packages... Not that it isn't possible on dial-up, but then I'd go with something else that isn't as bandwidth intensive. Mind you. I'm fine with bandwidth intensive, because I have the cable for it.
Now Debian, which I don't use, probably has an excellent match here, because of the prebuilding of their packages.
Linux users - redefining "works perfectly" since 1991.
I'd show your parent post to my mother as an example of how easy alternative OS:es are to use... if I had a thing for seeing family members heads explode.
(Running Gentoo exclusively since a long time back, just not being a stupid zealot about it).
The only reason I've heard other than "everyone else is doing it" is that it supports webcams in a "just works" way. I'm not interested in seeing who I talk to, so I could care less. But for some, this is apparently important enough to choose IM from.
And yes, I'm sure there are tons of ways getting the cam working on your favourite platform, with your favourite protocol and your favourite client - the point is that MSN just works as soon as you plug it in, it is already up and running (apparently) and it has all those other shiny things too, like cute smileys and round corners.
Personally, I still use ICQ - most people at least use that too, so far noone I want to talk to has been lost this way.;-) I use SIM as client though. And oh, I do have a jabber account. Apparently noone wants to run jabber though... but if they start to, then I'm already there.;-)
* Can't run game because it complains about CD/DVD emulation software. * Turning off, disabling autostart, etc etc etc does not make one bit of difference. Tried lots of things. * Other similar programs does not affect game. * Uninstalling CloneCD makes it work.
I suppose it could be different versions of CloneCD though. Can't look it up right now either, because this was on my brothers computer.
Yep, it is Clone CD that is usually the problem. I don't know about Doom III, but this same issue exists with several other games nowadays (and it is always Clone CD). All it does is hurt legitimate users. It is not like a crack will somehow miss removing this part if it is suppposed to be run this way. Stupid.
Re:Obligatory non-ugly URL for this article
on
Point, Click, Root.
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· Score: 5, Funny
Hum. I can't see myself switching to another, virtual OS to complete a task, unless it is something I can't do in the other one.
A better test is really to install a dualboot, and in the beginning, make sure you boot somewhat fairly into both sides. After a while, you'll notice yourself booting more into one of them anyways, and/or needing to boot over for some tasks. That should tell you what you are better off with. The whole point is that you will have to give both a somewhat fair and serious chance.
This test made me stick completely with Linux, I bet others will forever stay with Windows - no matter, as long as you find the one that is best for you.
It *is* kinda sad and stupid to see such a title on a book today, where BSODs are virtually non-existant other than when having hardware failures. Which, I might add, no OS I've tried know how to report in a comprehensive manner.;-)
BSODs was then, and it is gone now. Linux advocates needs something else to quip about, if nothing else because todays Windows users does not recognize it, does not know what you are talking about and will therefore ignore all the rest of your points as sorted under "wrong" if you try it as an argument. It's not as if there isn't plenty of other, real and good arguments to use instead.
Well, on Windows, there is probably no better player than Media Player Classic, which already can run Real stuff via Real Alternative. Also, mplayer is available for windows, though I've not tried playing Real with it outside Linux.
As for Real themselves, I kinda like what they are doing now, but old grudges die hard. I am torn between wanting to support people doing the right thing and feeling they haven't been punished nowhere near enough for past things yet.
I looked at the site but am not sure if it would be ok to submit concerts as paying for the music. I've been to several concerts, paying for tickets for no other reason than that I've heard the music via the net one way or the other. I fell that is an excellent way to support the artists *and* get a great experience.
Personally, I much rather put my money into concerts than CDs - a CD is something the band has recorded once and then can be copied ad finitum - this is what people talk about when they discuss copyright violation versus stealing. However, a live performance is something that the artist are doing right there, right now - and I feel very comfortable paying for that. CDs are way overpriced, and it doesn't seem I'm paying the band that way.
A big case in point is the Metallica concert I went to this summer - I really, really disapprove of their stand when it comes to record sales, up to the point where I'd don't wanna pay out of spite - but I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is and pay for a performance by the artists themselves. After all, every performance is one time only as such, and this is where I feel artists should make their money. And hopefully, that money does not to 95% end up with the record labels.
More importantly, you tend to excuse and work around your own quirks and bugs. If you know the application will crash if you do certain things, you tend to avoid that - often using clunky workarounds instead.
This may sound very strange to some; why not fix the problem instead of working around it all the time? But the reality is that this behaviour is really, really common. I've seen it so many times when someone is sitting down to test something and the developer is standing over the shoulder saying "no, not like that, you have to go *there* first and then click *that* button" when it was abvious from the GUI layout that that other button should be clicked and just work.
And yes, guilty as charged myself - it is something of a subconscious thing, mostly. Having someone without emotional attachments to the application in question is imperative - as is not allowing people who do have attachments to be present when testings are conducted. It will almost inevetably end in a big excuse- and workaround fest where the developers take over the show.
This is of course for stuff that neds to be tested and evaluated manually. Automated tests such as unit tests and the like is another story altogether (and great, great tools when used seriously). Anything you do more than twice should be automated, and test suites are great not so much for ensuring quality (though they do that too) as they are for *maintaining* quality.
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We've been looking at Crystal Space, as well as Irrlicht and others such as the Nebula Device. In the end, we ended up buying licenses for Torque from GarageGames, because it has been used to do several games and it has lots of integrated tools built right into the engine. You can move and reshape just about everything inside the running game. Now, it is a bit dated, but there will be a newer version out hopefully soon with all those shaders the kids like. For now, it is definitely good enough for most people. Most people couldn't produce content to match the newest engines anyways... ;-)
;-)
Really, Crystal Space or the Nebula Device may be better in themselves, but if we were to use them, we'd have to recreate all these tools ourselves. Hint: if you are gonna do a game of any serious magnitude, you will need tools, and lots of them. If Crystal Space wants to start seeing games built, they should include starter kits (as in something simple to start modding instead of starting from scratch) and more importantly tools. Tools for manipulating terrain, creating particle effects, placing objects and so on. Being able to import stuff from Quark or Maya is not enough. DO you as a level designer want to place everything in your game by entering numbers in a text file? I thought not... =)
As for Irrlicht, I really like it a lot. It is cool, it is really, really easy to get something up quickly in, it has good performance and plenty of good examples to get one started. However, it is nowhere finished enough (but I can wait) and it is not a game engine - it is a 3D rendering engine that could very well be used to power an awesome game engine. I think some people over there are working on such beasts, though I don't know the status... if any of them also read this, remember the tools boys!
Heh, now I did find an "Up" button that lets me put it where I want it, great! Would sill like the dropdown that the google bar has, but this is indeed good enough!
http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/goup
SIM really had a good shot at being the best, and what I really liked was that I could run it on Windows and Linux with almost the exact same look and feel. I really liked a lot about it, such as the OSD stuff and so on that works much better than the Licq plugin and is non-existant in lots of others.
;-)
Sadly, it has some bugs, especially when talkign to others - GAIM users see HTML and Mac users get garbled messages. The last thing there was the thing that finally forced me back to Miranda for Windows and *still trying them out* on Linux.
The reason I switched back and am talking about SIM in past tense is that it seems to have been almost completely abandoned, at least nothing has happened there for a long time and activity is low at best.
Would really like to see SIM waking up again as they got everything right as far as they went.
Anybody got any clues to what encoding one could set in different IMs to get ICQ on Mac to play nicely? Gaim seems to do ok, but I really don't like to use it - it doesn't do stuff the way I want it to, and I can't customize it. Licq is better, though it has other issues... kopete no way. SIM, please come back with encoding problems solved!
How would that be different from using a software firewall?
I used to think that the google bar was the killer plugin all categories, first on IE, then the unofficial one for Moz/Firefox. Supersweet.
:)
But now, I've uninstalled it and I miss only one feature - that is not even Google related - the only one I actually used that was special, the "UP" button. I can't for my life imagine why that is not a standard button in any browser, especially with the dropdown it provides. Anyone that fixes that one part as a standalone plugin is my hero forever. Make it so I can put it beside the url bar or something. =)
Anyhow, reason the google bar is unnecessary is Bookmark Keywords (see your Quick Searches folder) together with Find As You Type. Nowadays I only type "ALT+D g search terms ENTER" when I want to search google for "search terms", and I have more shortcuts for images, like "im" and so on. Moreoever, this makes it consistent with my other fast searches, like dictionary, wikipedia, several forums etc. I do admit that Find As You Type is not initially as smooth as clicking the search words in a bar to go to the places in the text, but on the other hand, if you like me usually have your hands mostly on the keyboard, it is faster, especially with the right settings (no '/' to start finding etc). And nowadays, in 1.0PR, it is a small bar with highlight and all that...
Try it out, it really is both smoother and faster than a specialized bar. And I got some viewport space back, too (important on my laptop).
I think the point was that Gentoo keeps track of everything you have installed, with dependencies and so on. And tells you when there is newer versions available... the typical Gentoo user never downloads another ISO. Even if new version numbered releases are made, the users out there already has everything in that because of daily upgrades. New versions are just fresher starting points for clean installs.
Precompiled or from source doesn't really matter in that case.
It does seem however then, that this Synaptic thing is doing much the same as portage does - if it handles dependencies as excellent then I'd be as happy using that.
The biggest deal for me with Gentoo is the repository of programs - it is incredible, and it is really, really, really up to date. Building from source is ok, tinkering with settings is fun and so on, but if another distro had an equal set of programs - and oh, such an enourmously helpful and non-elitist community - I'd try it out.
Speaking of the community: A lot of other distros followers really has a lot to learn from the mentality of the Gentoo users - even though it is a bit of a power distro, there are almost no elitist and just helpful people that actually tries to solve your problems. It is excellent!
Actually, it's not like Gentoo users *deal* with tarballs, however that is one of the ways (the most common I guess) that source is delivered for portage to deal with. Very practical, since almost *every* project at least releases a tarball. Makes for really good availability, really soon after releases.
Tarballs are an excellent choice for Gentoo - then again, you may not like that it compiles everything locally, then maybe it is not such a good choice for you. At least we have the choice. =)
Sure, we could have sued
Over not getting pizza delivered in the afternoon?! You sure are an American, alright.
any good game will get bought by a large percentage of that market due to the lack of titles
Don't bet on it... the Linux people might be just a bit too used to not paying for their software at all as it seems. When games appear for Linux, the Linux crowd is not buying. That is why Loki isn't around anymore. Look at a place like GarageGames, which actively supports and produces games for Linux: they have an engine (Torque) that runs almost exactly as good on Linux as on Windows (same fps etc on same machine) but performs poorer on Mac (due to lack of ppl writing optimized code). Still, according to their FAQ (entry #9), their sales are to 65% from Mac people, and 7% from Linux people.
Your argument does ring true for the Mac crowd - those are people prepared to pay for stuff for their computer (after all, they pay alot just to have the machine). Linux people really, really hate to open their wallets.
Ok, so that is just one example, but that is the general feel you get when you hang around Linux people - lot of wishes, as long as it doesn't cost money.
Gentoo downloads the complete packages and builds them. Yes, the packages are separate and dependencies are tracked, but that is not at all the same thing as above. Gentoo does to some extent use a clever system of small patches that is applied to older source and then builds, but generally, you will see complete downloads.
Binary patching is not really a good match for Gentoo at all, due to the nature of the distriution.
In general, Gentoo, at least for the home user (like me), is a distribution that more or less needs broadband of some sort. Even the sync ("what's new") can take minutes via rsync on broadband. Not to mention the actual packages... Not that it isn't possible on dial-up, but then I'd go with something else that isn't as bandwidth intensive. Mind you. I'm fine with bandwidth intensive, because I have the cable for it.
Now Debian, which I don't use, probably has an excellent match here, because of the prebuilding of their packages.
There are no ads in the inbox... just when you look at actual mails.
Linux users - redefining "works perfectly" since 1991.
I'd show your parent post to my mother as an example of how easy alternative OS:es are to use... if I had a thing for seeing family members heads explode.
(Running Gentoo exclusively since a long time back, just not being a stupid zealot about it).
The only reason I've heard other than "everyone else is doing it" is that it supports webcams in a "just works" way. I'm not interested in seeing who I talk to, so I could care less. But for some, this is apparently important enough to choose IM from.
;-) I use SIM as client though. And oh, I do have a jabber account. Apparently noone wants to run jabber though... but if they start to, then I'm already there. ;-)
And yes, I'm sure there are tons of ways getting the cam working on your favourite platform, with your favourite protocol and your favourite client - the point is that MSN just works as soon as you plug it in, it is already up and running (apparently) and it has all those other shiny things too, like cute smileys and round corners.
Personally, I still use ICQ - most people at least use that too, so far noone I want to talk to has been lost this way.
You can't recreate the Illiad from 2048 bits for God's sake.
;-)
Well, you could, using the "infinite monkeys" algorithm.
Possible, but not likely as the symptom is:
* Can't run game because it complains about CD/DVD emulation software.
* Turning off, disabling autostart, etc etc etc does not make one bit of difference. Tried lots of things.
* Other similar programs does not affect game.
* Uninstalling CloneCD makes it work.
I suppose it could be different versions of CloneCD though. Can't look it up right now either, because this was on my brothers computer.
Yep, it is Clone CD that is usually the problem. I don't know about Doom III, but this same issue exists with several other games nowadays (and it is always Clone CD). All it does is hurt legitimate users. It is not like a crack will somehow miss removing this part if it is suppposed to be run this way. Stupid.
crap, where are my mod points!
;-)
You have to log in to see/use them.
Hum. I can't see myself switching to another, virtual OS to complete a task, unless it is something I can't do in the other one.
A better test is really to install a dualboot, and in the beginning, make sure you boot somewhat fairly into both sides. After a while, you'll notice yourself booting more into one of them anyways, and/or needing to boot over for some tasks. That should tell you what you are better off with. The whole point is that you will have to give both a somewhat fair and serious chance.
This test made me stick completely with Linux, I bet others will forever stay with Windows - no matter, as long as you find the one that is best for you.
It *is* kinda sad and stupid to see such a title on a book today, where BSODs are virtually non-existant other than when having hardware failures. Which, I might add, no OS I've tried know how to report in a comprehensive manner. ;-)
BSODs was then, and it is gone now. Linux advocates needs something else to quip about, if nothing else because todays Windows users does not recognize it, does not know what you are talking about and will therefore ignore all the rest of your points as sorted under "wrong" if you try it as an argument. It's not as if there isn't plenty of other, real and good arguments to use instead.
Well, on Windows, there is probably no better player than Media Player Classic, which already can run Real stuff via Real Alternative. Also, mplayer is available for windows, though I've not tried playing Real with it outside Linux.
As for Real themselves, I kinda like what they are doing now, but old grudges die hard. I am torn between wanting to support people doing the right thing and feeling they haven't been punished nowhere near enough for past things yet.
I looked at the site but am not sure if it would be ok to submit concerts as paying for the music. I've been to several concerts, paying for tickets for no other reason than that I've heard the music via the net one way or the other. I fell that is an excellent way to support the artists *and* get a great experience.
Personally, I much rather put my money into concerts than CDs - a CD is something the band has recorded once and then can be copied ad finitum - this is what people talk about when they discuss copyright violation versus stealing. However, a live performance is something that the artist are doing right there, right now - and I feel very comfortable paying for that. CDs are way overpriced, and it doesn't seem I'm paying the band that way.
A big case in point is the Metallica concert I went to this summer - I really, really disapprove of their stand when it comes to record sales, up to the point where I'd don't wanna pay out of spite - but I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is and pay for a performance by the artists themselves. After all, every performance is one time only as such, and this is where I feel artists should make their money. And hopefully, that money does not to 95% end up with the record labels.
Don't worry, Trusted Computing will take care of that problem.
More importantly, you tend to excuse and work around your own quirks and bugs. If you know the application will crash if you do certain things, you tend to avoid that - often using clunky workarounds instead.
This may sound very strange to some; why not fix the problem instead of working around it all the time? But the reality is that this behaviour is really, really common. I've seen it so many times when someone is sitting down to test something and the developer is standing over the shoulder saying "no, not like that, you have to go *there* first and then click *that* button" when it was abvious from the GUI layout that that other button should be clicked and just work.
And yes, guilty as charged myself - it is something of a subconscious thing, mostly. Having someone without emotional attachments to the application in question is imperative - as is not allowing people who do have attachments to be present when testings are conducted. It will almost inevetably end in a big excuse- and workaround fest where the developers take over the show.
This is of course for stuff that neds to be tested and evaluated manually. Automated tests such as unit tests and the like is another story altogether (and great, great tools when used seriously). Anything you do more than twice should be automated, and test suites are great not so much for ensuring quality (though they do that too) as they are for *maintaining* quality.