When I'm able to afford a laptop of my own, it's going to have Linux on it.
I've installed Ubuntu on my father's laptop (admittedly, it's a low-end Acer) without any trouble whatsoever, and when I buy my own I'll make sure beforehand all the hardware in it is supported. And see if I can get it with FreeDOS installed, for I will not bother with Windows. Not on a laptop. Laptop isn't a gaming machine.
Besides, "non-trivial" is a vast improvement vs. "won't install at all because it can't see the bloody hard drive and there is no floppy".
This is a very important point for people to finally grasp.
Linux and Open Source in general aren't fighting Microsoft, though they appear to.
This is in part because of Linux zealots and advocates in general, who follow the basic principle of satisfied users and evangelists everywhere - they market the product to everyone and argue with non-believers, and in part because Microsoft et al. do feel threatened by Open Source and therefore they do fight Linux.
It appears now that Microsoft is joining in the Linux game, although I'm not buying it yet by far, but it does seem that Gandhi was right...
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
-- Mahatma Gandhi
games are a market where money makes the decisions, and Linux users are used to have software but not pay for it.
Do you think Linux games would be pirated more than Windows games?
Or, more precisely,do you think a Linux counterpart of a game would be more pirated than the Windows version?
I'm afraid that you're very much mistaken if you think that, and this is why I find this statement of yours misleading.
Yes, Linux users like the fact that their OS is free. But to many (not the most; I don't have such illusions) even more important is the fact that it's open.
Linux users - at least in my experience - aren't cheapskates; if they find a product worth their money, they'll buy it, hardware or software, no matter.
No-one at least bordering on normal won't refuse to buy a game although they'd really want to play it just because they believe in free software.
But whatever... I only know one thing about Linux and games:
Even some of my friends who don't like Linux and don't believe in it ever succeeding in anything but the tiny share it appears to have right now have Linux installed on their machines.
Old games work much better under Linux than under Windows XP. DOS games, Win9x games... you name it. There are many games which won't even run under WinXP, even in compatibility mode, but will run just fine under Wine or Cedega.
I know that not many people play ancient[1] games all that often, but it is a factor which could get people running Linux as their secondary OS - if only they knew about it.
[1] In game terms, anything older than "previous version" is ancient.
Frankly, I don't mind MS thinking that, although I doubt that they really do.
No mobile phone or embedded device can replace the good old keyboard, which enables me to write much faster than by hand. Ten fingers or one pencil - you do the math.
And I don't like the SMS.
Then there are games, which look much better on a 17" monitor than on a 2" display.
And where would you like to program? draw? model? edit music?
Maybe I lack vision, but I don't see all of those switching to mobile phones or whatever.
Not until the VRD at least becomes a reality, i.e. a common accessory. And AFAIK it's not even high-end yet.
Desktop isn't dead yet... it's very much alive and it will remain so for at least ten more years.
Unless Linux can become as easy to install and use PLUS come up with some superior features most users will never switch.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but ease of install is a major non-issue.
First of all, most Linux distros are already easier to install than Windows, and after a recent eXPerience with a laptop with a SATA drive, which Win XP SP1 can't even see, and the laptop, of course, doesn't have a floppy drive - which is, as we all know, the only way one can load external drivers during a Windows install - well, even Gentoo is easier to install than Windows. At least it sees the disk.
Furthermore, common users do not install their OS anyway. It comes pre-installed or they get one of us geeks to do it for them.
Although, it may be so that Microsoft Quality(TM) accustomed users to a regular OS reinstall... can't say, really...
Superior features are also a non-issue; people just want to use the same programs in the same manner, for they do not want to learn new stuff.
This wasn't meant as a critique; it is not their area of interest, and they mostly just want to use the computer, not program it or learn anything beyond the few basic functions they need and which they have already mastered to the level they need.
Think speed-reading vs. normal reading and how many people bother learning that.
Nice try, but no cigar. (Speaking of which, somebody has been smoking in my apartment; probably the guys who are supposed to fix the plumbing. Disgusting.)
I'm running the brightest and newest Gentoo on my old Duron 600.
I left KDE there for those who want it (for some reason, Entrance won't boot into Gnome right now, so Gnome is currently inaccessible), but E17 works just fine and dandy. Even with the animated backgrounds.
I don't know exactly which distribution I'll use for my grandfather's computer (he got an old piece of trash which will work just fine after I switch the disk and the CD-ROM, which are busted), but it won't be Gentoo for one reason only - he doesn't have Internet.
I might try Slackware... or see how a 300 MHz processor handles Elive.
All in all, Linux on old hardware works just fine and dandy. And E17, with all the frills on, is way faster than Win2k on a comparable machine. I have one in the same room, so I should know.
who are you gonna choose? Some random distribution that may or may not interoperate with your Windows machines, or one that MS has worked with to make sure it works?
If I were you, I'd relax...breathe... and take off the tin foil hat.
Yes, you would.
</attitude>
They say, however, that Bill Gates is an experienced Go player, and it does show in his business strategy; I'll keep my tinfoil hat on firmly.
I won't say I know what exactly is wrong here, except for the obvious part that it doesn't look right. Which is enough for me, at least.
Anyway, I'm not worried about Linux as such: the other distros will still be there. I'm only worried about Red Hat: they are the ones with much to lose. This doesn't touch Gentoo one way or the other, at least as far as I can see.
Vernor Vinge is a computer science professor. One reason his books are popular with geeks is because he actually does borrow very heavily from the real computer science world.
I, for one, was very pleased to see, among other things, the use of Unix time in A Deepness in the Sky.
The friend who'd lent me the book was also amused when I explained it to him... (not every SF lover is a computer geek)
Yeah, that puzzled me, too... I mean, I'm a freebie lover as much as the next guy (NeXT guy? who would be that?), but don't think that just because Linux is free, the games for Linux must be as well.
Then again... imagine id Software making the Linux version of one of their new games free.
How much would that do for the adoption of Linux?
Of course it'll never happen, but I do like the mental image...
Well, when I was in highschool, about sophomore or junior year, my physics teacher gave us detailed instructions on how to make a home-made atomic bomb.
That's right, the whole bloody class.
But since security measures involved required quite a lot of heavy concrete blocks or about as much soft tissue damage from the radioactivity, we gave it a pass.
After a careful consideration, of course. The opportunity to bomb your school is not lightly missed.
Then again, when you have an atomic bomb, you don't exactly have to aim.
I had to install Quake 3 in Windoze for some lamer friend of mine! God, what a fucking mess! I put in the CD and it took about 3 minutes to copy everything, and then I had to reboot the fucking computer! Jesus Christ! What a retarded operating system!
Say what?
Reboot after installing Quake 3?
Say what you will, that is retarded.
This ancient troll still offers something new every time it appears...
P.S. I have never tried Quake 3, but I think I saw it somewhere in portage... so the install would probably look more like "emerge quake3"
Then, some enterprising slashdotter will post "Try the 'X-enabler' extension..." followed by a greatful thanks from the OP....this has always got me to think about extensions, and frankly why I don't use Firefox. I think: "if someone inclined to read slashdot isn't savvy on all the extensions, what hope is there for the average (ie: not nerd) crowd?"
I would guess nobody is savvy on all the extensions... not even on most of them.
Whyever should they?
The extensions do just what their names tell you: they provide extra, or should I say extended functionality.
And the situation "oh, I like this program, but only if it did <insert feature here>..." is just the reason for implementing extensions.
The idea of Firefox, as I'd understood it, is providing the 20+ percentage of functionality which 80%+ users want/need/care about. Whatever extra you need is available through extensions - and the way you find the extension is either saying "hmmmm,I'd love it if Firefox did this, let's see whether I can find some extension which does it" or ranting on Slashdot andwaiting until somebody points it out to you.
Of course, you can program it yourself, too.
To turn the rant around a bit: I tried Opera a while ago. A great while ago, for it was still in version 6 or 7 at the time.
One of the things which turned me away was the "everything included" philosophy; I do admit it's a great browser, but it doesn't offer me the great thing about Firefox: growing with me.
With Firefox, I got the basic browsing functions I was used to since Netscape 3.0 or whichever version it was when I was in primary school. Then I got to add on stuff which I found interesting, practical or necessary. Or amusing.
And when I ceased to find certain things amusing or practical or whatever, I could completely and utterly remove them.
So it's a matter of personal taste and philosophy, really.
Well, if IE7 works under Wine, we have an interesting paradox: it just might be cheaper to upgrade from Win2k to Linux in order to be able to run all the new MS programs which can't run under Win2k.
Slashdot Mirror
When I'm able to afford a laptop of my own, it's going to have Linux on it.
I've installed Ubuntu on my father's laptop (admittedly, it's a low-end Acer) without any trouble whatsoever, and when I buy my own I'll make sure beforehand all the hardware in it is supported. And see if I can get it with FreeDOS installed, for I will not bother with Windows. Not on a laptop. Laptop isn't a gaming machine.
Besides, "non-trivial" is a vast improvement vs. "won't install at all because it can't see the bloody hard drive and there is no floppy".
I thought they made him a teacher.
This is a very important point for people to finally grasp.
Linux and Open Source in general aren't fighting Microsoft, though they appear to.
This is in part because of Linux zealots and advocates in general, who follow the basic principle of satisfied users and evangelists everywhere - they market the product to everyone and argue with non-believers, and in part because Microsoft et al. do feel threatened by Open Source and therefore they do fight Linux.
It appears now that Microsoft is joining in the Linux game, although I'm not buying it yet by far, but it does seem that Gandhi was right...
Do you think Linux games would be pirated more than Windows games?
Or, more precisely,do you think a Linux counterpart of a game would be more pirated than the Windows version?
I'm afraid that you're very much mistaken if you think that, and this is why I find this statement of yours misleading.
Yes, Linux users like the fact that their OS is free. But to many (not the most; I don't have such illusions) even more important is the fact that it's open.
Linux users - at least in my experience - aren't cheapskates; if they find a product worth their money, they'll buy it, hardware or software, no matter.
No-one at least bordering on normal won't refuse to buy a game although they'd really want to play it just because they believe in free software.
But whatever... I only know one thing about Linux and games:
Even some of my friends who don't like Linux and don't believe in it ever succeeding in anything but the tiny share it appears to have right now have Linux installed on their machines.
Old games work much better under Linux than under Windows XP. DOS games, Win9x games... you name it. There are many games which won't even run under WinXP, even in compatibility mode, but will run just fine under Wine or Cedega.
I know that not many people play ancient[1] games all that often, but it is a factor which could get people running Linux as their secondary OS - if only they knew about it.
[1] In game terms, anything older than "previous version" is ancient.
Dead? Desktop?
Frankly, I don't mind MS thinking that, although I doubt that they really do.
No mobile phone or embedded device can replace the good old keyboard, which enables me to write much faster than by hand. Ten fingers or one pencil - you do the math.
And I don't like the SMS.
Then there are games, which look much better on a 17" monitor than on a 2" display.
And where would you like to program? draw? model? edit music?
Maybe I lack vision, but I don't see all of those switching to mobile phones or whatever.
Not until the VRD at least becomes a reality, i.e. a common accessory. And AFAIK it's not even high-end yet.
Desktop isn't dead yet... it's very much alive and it will remain so for at least ten more years.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but ease of install is a major non-issue.
First of all, most Linux distros are already easier to install than Windows, and after a recent eXPerience with a laptop with a SATA drive, which Win XP SP1 can't even see, and the laptop, of course, doesn't have a floppy drive - which is, as we all know, the only way one can load external drivers during a Windows install - well, even Gentoo is easier to install than Windows. At least it sees the disk.
Furthermore, common users do not install their OS anyway. It comes pre-installed or they get one of us geeks to do it for them.
Although, it may be so that Microsoft Quality(TM) accustomed users to a regular OS reinstall... can't say, really...
Superior features are also a non-issue; people just want to use the same programs in the same manner, for they do not want to learn new stuff.
This wasn't meant as a critique; it is not their area of interest, and they mostly just want to use the computer, not program it or learn anything beyond the few basic functions they need and which they have already mastered to the level they need.
Think speed-reading vs. normal reading and how many people bother learning that.
Nice try, but no cigar. (Speaking of which, somebody has been smoking in my apartment; probably the guys who are supposed to fix the plumbing. Disgusting.)
I'm running the brightest and newest Gentoo on my old Duron 600.
I left KDE there for those who want it (for some reason, Entrance won't boot into Gnome right now, so Gnome is currently inaccessible), but E17 works just fine and dandy. Even with the animated backgrounds.
I don't know exactly which distribution I'll use for my grandfather's computer (he got an old piece of trash which will work just fine after I switch the disk and the CD-ROM, which are busted), but it won't be Gentoo for one reason only - he doesn't have Internet.
I might try Slackware... or see how a 300 MHz processor handles Elive.
All in all, Linux on old hardware works just fine and dandy. And E17, with all the frills on, is way faster than Win2k on a comparable machine. I have one in the same room, so I should know.
... does it run Linux?
Seriously... when are the Linux drivers expected?
This is not about the money. It's about domination.
Knowing Microsoft... I'd go with a random distro.
Yes, you would.
</attitude>
They say, however, that Bill Gates is an experienced Go player, and it does show in his business strategy; I'll keep my tinfoil hat on firmly.
I won't say I know what exactly is wrong here, except for the obvious part that it doesn't look right. Which is enough for me, at least.
Anyway, I'm not worried about Linux as such: the other distros will still be there. I'm only worried about Red Hat: they are the ones with much to lose. This doesn't touch Gentoo one way or the other, at least as far as I can see.
I, for one, was very pleased to see, among other things, the use of Unix time in A Deepness in the Sky.
The friend who'd lent me the book was also amused when I explained it to him... (not every SF lover is a computer geek)
But for most games, there's still Cedega. And it works quite well in my experience.
Installing games takes about two clicks more than in Windows.
Are you trying to register WeeWee?
Yeah, that puzzled me, too... I mean, I'm a freebie lover as much as the next guy (NeXT guy? who would be that?), but don't think that just because Linux is free, the games for Linux must be as well.
Then again... imagine id Software making the Linux version of one of their new games free.
How much would that do for the adoption of Linux?
Of course it'll never happen, but I do like the mental image...
Well, when I was in highschool, about sophomore or junior year, my physics teacher gave us detailed instructions on how to make a home-made atomic bomb.
That's right, the whole bloody class.
But since security measures involved required quite a lot of heavy concrete blocks or about as much soft tissue damage from the radioactivity, we gave it a pass.
After a careful consideration, of course. The opportunity to bomb your school is not lightly missed.
Then again, when you have an atomic bomb, you don't exactly have to aim.
Then I guess, "emerge quake3" is "gimme Linux support", then you install the game. AFAIK id Software is very very friendly towards Linux...
Doesn't sound too bad.
Say what?
Reboot after installing Quake 3?
Say what you will, that is retarded.
This ancient troll still offers something new every time it appears...
P.S. I have never tried Quake 3, but I think I saw it somewhere in portage... so the install would probably look more like "emerge quake3"
This doesn't sound like something Benjamin Lee Whorf would say...
*scratches head*
... and probably written by clods.
... until the automatic update installs it for me.
With all the fake^Wmistaken announcements, it's the only way I'll be sure it's out.
And, of course, I'll be reasonably certain most of my extensions will work with 2.0.
I mean:
and:
I would guess nobody is savvy on all the extensions... not even on most of them.
Whyever should they?
The extensions do just what their names tell you: they provide extra, or should I say extended functionality.
And the situation "oh, I like this program, but only if it did <insert feature here>..." is just the reason for implementing extensions.
The idea of Firefox, as I'd understood it, is providing the 20+ percentage of functionality which 80%+ users want/need/care about. Whatever extra you need is available through extensions - and the way you find the extension is either saying "hmmmm,I'd love it if Firefox did this, let's see whether I can find some extension which does it" or ranting on Slashdot andwaiting until somebody points it out to you.
Of course, you can program it yourself, too.
To turn the rant around a bit: I tried Opera a while ago. A great while ago, for it was still in version 6 or 7 at the time.
One of the things which turned me away was the "everything included" philosophy; I do admit it's a great browser, but it doesn't offer me the great thing about Firefox: growing with me.
With Firefox, I got the basic browsing functions I was used to since Netscape 3.0 or whichever version it was when I was in primary school. Then I got to add on stuff which I found interesting, practical or necessary. Or amusing.
And when I ceased to find certain things amusing or practical or whatever, I could completely and utterly remove them.
So it's a matter of personal taste and philosophy, really.
Well, if IE7 works under Wine, we have an interesting paradox: it just might be cheaper to upgrade from Win2k to Linux in order to be able to run all the new MS programs which can't run under Win2k.
Something seems so very wrong here...
You sound like one of these...