It seems that everyone is overenthusiastic to get users at all costs. This is extremely short sighted at best, and outright deceptive marketting at worst.
Is linux really a viable gaming platform ? How many of the latest games run under linux ? And how many of them run with hardware acceleration ? Are we going to have to wait till tomorrow to get yesterday's games, which will run at the day before yesterdays speeds on tomorrow's hardware ?
Linux is not viable as a platform for gamers now. It lacks accelerated drivers. The only hardware acceleration that works worth a damn is GLIDE. We're not going to have DirectX any time soon. OpenGL drivers are work in progress, but still don't give the kind of performance that a gamer would hope for.
Why push linux as a gaming platform ? It's great for a lot of things, but someone who asseses it based on it's use for gaming is going to become a rabid anti-linux envangelist.
And at this point, linux is a BETTER gaming platform. NT and 95/98 have a fractured gaming API base (directx 3 vs directx 7... don't get started about
At least Windows *has* directx. How many of those directX games are running on linux ? Sure , linux has openGL, but it doesn't help a great deal when there are no OpenGL drivers.
The only viable hardware acceleration option working on linux now is Glide with one of the older 3dfx cards. The TNT and Matrox drivers do not cut it against Windows.
While I use and advocate linux, it is just stupid to push it to a market segment for which it's not really suited. You're going to create a lot of vocal linux haters if you do this.
These people ( gamers, regular home users ) are just sitting there waiting to be burned by linux. No, I don't think it helps to attract users if those users aren't going to like linux, and become vocal anti-linux crusaders after being burnt by linux.
Linux isn't ready for the average home user, and it's not even close to a viable gaming platform. We don't help the linux movement by pushing it as a platform for things that it's not suited for.
Deakin is closer to a technical training school than a University. Which explains why they are more interested in job training than they are in teaching you more general problem solving skills. It's big on correspondence because most of the locals ( few though there are ) would rather relocate to Melbourne than study at Deakin
"Geeks don't see it as 'cool' enough?" That's crap. I would venture to say that most "geeks" who check out BSD will (as myself) believe it to even be "cooler" than Linux.
That's assuming that they try it. However, linux has taken the limelight. I hope that the booming interest in linux will also help the BSDs though.
As Linux's popularity increases, so does the popularity of the BSD's. Many BSD users are FORMER Linux users. A question to you... have you even used BSD?
Yep, Linux makes a nice midpoint in the Windows->BSD migration. Personally, I'm going to give OpenBSD a shot, it looks really cool. I'm hoping that it'll get more of the limelight in future. I've heard it's a dog to install, and there are no OpenBSD books... wish me luck (-;
You could write your apps in such a way that the UI is seperated from the non-UI code, then you'd only need to redo the UI ( there is no way around this AFAIK )
One issue is that the two toolkits use different languages though. This could make it less than easy.
Re:Your alternate "geek-centered" reality
on
CNN Installs Linux
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· Score: 1
So are they set up with KDE ?
Re:In the end, it all comes down to OEM support
on
CNN Installs Linux
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· Score: 1
Plug-N-Play monitors are starting to be supported, but the fact of the matter is, you pretty much need OEM support for video setup to be easy, be it Linux or Windoze.
Multisync monitors already are supported. All of them. You can feed practically any modeline into a monitor provided that you are staying inside your video card and monitors limitations. It's the video cards that ar the problem.
Re:There are real installation issues
on
CNN Installs Linux
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· Score: 1
1) Linux docs are, to be kind, less than wonderful. They make too many assumptions about the background of the reader. I have yet to find a good presentation of disk partitioning strategies, for example.
The LDP docs are written by volunteers. If you want better documentation, buy a book.
2) Distros which use the RPM installation offer only one safe option: Install Everything. Selective package installation leads to things which don't work, boots which stall for many minutes, and a grand variety of other mysteries.
Firstly, the Redhat install has a "workstation" option. Secondly, the "components" you can choose are all self contained. Your hanging at boot is probably caused by the fact that you are trying to run some daemon which expects you to have a permanent connection. ie you chose custom install and picked daemons that you shouldn't be running.
4) X server installation and setup is a very interesting source of problems. My video cards and monitors are capable of 1600x1200,
Very few users use this resolution
5) Sending a newbie to the HOWTOs is a great way to send someone postal.
Buy a book.
Documentation is my biggest issue.
No one is obliged to write you docs for free. Buy a book. There are a ton of linux books available.
Re:In the end, it all comes down to OEM support
on
CNN Installs Linux
·
· Score: 1
RPM may handle dependencies, but that doesn't make things work. Install everything, and the boot goes well. Be selective, and things hang the boot for long periods. I clocked one particular fail-over at over 8 minutes. This is NOT what a newbie needs. In-depth problem solving is an acquired skill. When you're starting, you need something which works, with a minimum of tweaking.
This sounds like a network configuration problem, combined with a setup that requires a network connection running ( maybe you're running sendmaild ). The best way around this is for the machine not to run services out of the box. I believe if you choose the Redhat workstation install, it probably wont run sendmaild in the default setting. If you choose a custom install -- well, try to know what you are doing.
Try explaining calculus without using any mathematical symbols. You're only allowed to use diagrams. Your explanation will be extremely superficial at best. OTOH, you can explain it pretty well without diagrams, even if the explanation is a little less readable.
Re:Your alternate "geek-centered" reality
on
CNN Installs Linux
·
· Score: 1
and have only gotten it to "work" ONE TIME. And that time was pure hell, trying to get X to work correctly, finding decent programs that do things I've grown accustomed to (you know, crazy things like browsing my file system).
Maybe you had unsupported hardware. Seriously, if your hardware is fully supported, you shouldn't have to do anything more than throw the CD in and click "OK" several times. It's not the distributor's fault that your hardware vendor doesn't want you to use linux.
accustomed to (you know, crazy things like browsing my file system).
Try "man ls". If that fails, all the recent distributions come with KDE.
And it's not just the card people who do this. This kind of thing also happens with kids toys. The card manufacturers have every right to print a certain type of card in extremely short supply. If the market goes crazy over the card just because it's rare and the card printer are laughing all the way to the bank because of it, well I say "dumb market" and "smart card printers". You could think of it a a production trick to increase the mean value of each packet of cards.
Thus, the lawsuit says, kids are forced to empty their pockets to get the rare cards, which can be resold for $30 to $100.
Huh ? they aren't forced to do a damn thing. This to me looks like a case where incompetent parents are unwilling and/or unable to regulate their kid's behaviour. If they really spent thousands on these cards, what on earth were their parents doing blindly handing out small fortunes to such irresponsible children ? Geesh, they could buy a gun on the black market with that money.
Surely, if the parents think it looks like gambling, they should regulate their kid's behaviour. It doesn't appear to be unambiguously a "gambling issue" though.
Corel don't need to permit the testers to redistribute the entire distribution as a whole, esp if it includes proprietary Corel software. What they should do is allow their testers to redistribute any GPL software that is included in the distribution.
While they are in clear breach of the license for any GPL software that they have included ( by placing restrictions on what the users can do with it, they are violating the license ) , they have no obligation to make their entire distribution available.
I'd like to make another point: all the slashdot kiddies having their two-miutes-of-hate style rants really make linux look bad. It would be great for linux IMO if the self-appointed mouthpieces who do not participate in linux development ( ie the kiddies ) would just shut up and leave the diplomacy to those who have some.
Re:RMS calls it free you idiot
on
KDevelop review
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· Score: 2
To develop commercial or non-free (proprietary) software YOU MUST pay the $1550 for a license. Per developer.
So how is this less free than the GPL ? Try developing proprietary software with libreadline or libgdbm.
1) It is more expensive to develop commercial applications under Qt than using Microsoft products by a factor of nearly 2 (pricewatch.com);
(1) To get anything close to a devlopment environment on Windows, you need visual studio. Which is about $1000- last I checked. Then you need to plonk down some more $$ for NT.
(2) the fact that Qt costs more does NOT mean that it's more expensive to develop with.
(3) Try developing portable software with Visual studio, then watch your development time ( and hence project costs ) soar. BTW, if you're silly enough to try this, you are probably violating your EULA by developing for other platforms with MS tools ( this is at least true with visual basic, not that it works with other platforms anyway )
(4) Maybe you have to pay for QT, but you can get several helper apps such as Kdevelop, and the KDE libs without paying anything. By the time you throw all of these into the equation, it makes Qt considerably more appealing.
(5) Developer time is not cheap. If Qt saves so much as 2 weeks of development time on a project, it is a money maker. When you consider the amount of work that goes into maintaining software, it is more than conceivable that a high quality, well documented toolkit could save developers two weeks or more. I take it that you are not budgeting any major commercial software ventures, otherwise, I would expect to see considerably more rigorous cost analysis. You say that it's "too expensive", but give no justification for this claim
(6) And again, don't forget that making you pay to develop propreitary apps is LESS restirctive than outright saying that you can't do it.
Better to call them "the conservatives" when posting on international forums. Calling them "liberals" is misleading. A definite case of false advertising.
I don't see any way to force volunteers to maintain documentation; all you can hope for is to get writers who care to maintain their docs and have some incentive to do so.
Point taken. But unmaintained HOWTOs should be promptly moved into the unmaintained section. Sometimes, no documentation is better than bad documentation ( which makes it harder for the newbie to find the right info ). If the LDP would show a greater enthusiasm to can out of date howtos ( ie move them into the unmaintained section ) it would be a good thing.
BTW, IMHO, the best part of the LDP is still the manuals ( ie users guide et al ) even if they are a little out of date.
Neo-Darwinists say, "If you don't believe in evolution what's your alternative?" If I say, "Creation," I'm mocked mercilessly.
Perhaps this is because the theory of creation is not backed up by enough scientific evidence to hold water. The imperfections that you point to in Darwain's theory pale in comparison to the flaws in the theory that creationists propose ( moreover, the limitations of Darwins observations and accuracy are not astounding when you compare him with other scientists of the same era, whose theories were also imperfect )
It's not good enough for you guys to find flaws in the theory of evolution - because that theory being wrong doesn't make you right.
For example, the fact that Newton's laws left a lot ( ie reletavistic phenomena ) unexplained would not mean that another scientist proposing that heavier objects fall faster is correct. Your theory of creation needs to stand on it's own merits, not in slight demerits of an alternative theory
The only reason evolution survives as a thory is that there are no better naturalistic explanations.
No, it's because scientists cannot find empirical, verifiable evidence that better supports an alternative theory. Scientists are empiricists, and results that are not repeatedly verifiable are not good enough to be accepted as "science".
Many of the early scientists--Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Carl Linnaeus--were Christians.
Many of the earlier ones weren't. And several scientists were considered heretical for their beliefs by the Christian institutions of their time ( including Copernicus ) The Christian states were firm believers *against* questioning the "official" beliefs , in stark conrast to the (Athenian) Greeks ( who were by and large atheistic relativists ).
The idea of laws in nature came from one source: the biblical teaching that God is both Creator and Law-Giver.
Plato conceptualised similar things around 400 BC. Aristotle went on and fixed a lot of the things that Plato screwed up. For example, Aristotle moved from the idea that the universe is based on an "ideal" form to the idea that one can model the physical universe based on ones observations ( ie Aristotle was more an empiricist, while Plato was something of a theorist. ) Other Athenians conceptualised things such as the "law of particles" ( ie existence of atoms ) even earlier.
For example, when Galileo wanted to find out whether a 10-pound weight falls to the ground more quickly than a one-pound weight, he did not argue about the concept of weight, as was typical among the philosophers of his day. Instead, he dropped cannonballs off the Leaning Tower of Pisa and watched what happened.
And boy, did that piss off the church of his day. Galileo was summoned before the inquisition and sentenced to life imprisonment ( after a lot of recanting and begging )
They could always try to license it from TT at a special price. TT would possibly get a lot of extra commercial sales from this, which would keep them happy. They could also release two different editions with different QT licenses.
And we've seen how taking it to microsoft doesn't do any better. I would have no problem with copyright if it always took the form of a WRITTEN contract. At the time of payment, the salesperson presents you with a contract, which you must sign, NOT click.
This would be impractical. However, I agree that it should be possible to obtain a refund if you don't accept the terms of the license.
The fact that java is interpreted is as much a feature as it is a bug - it makes for faster development, because you don't need to recompile every time you make a silly error.
Java has its uses, but writing games, ray tracers, and speed-critical apps are not among those uses. Some applications that are not at all speed critical, where java is very useful include network clients.
As for Perl ? It's here to stay. I've just written a GUI FTP client for perl that's less than 1000 lines long. It took me about two days to get a working prototype. Let's see you do that in C++.
Perl has some extremely useful features that make several tasks almost trivial ( for example, you can actually manipulate strings without going crazy. ) How many lines of code does it take to implement perl -npe 's/]*>//g' in C++ ?
Slashdot Mirror
Is linux really a viable gaming platform ? How many of the latest games run under linux ? And how many of them run with hardware acceleration ? Are we going to have to wait till tomorrow to get yesterday's games, which will run at the day before yesterdays speeds on tomorrow's hardware ?
Linux is not viable as a platform for gamers now. It lacks accelerated drivers. The only hardware acceleration that works worth a damn is GLIDE. We're not going to have DirectX any time soon. OpenGL drivers are work in progress, but still don't give the kind of performance that a gamer would hope for.
Why push linux as a gaming platform ? It's great for a lot of things, but someone who asseses it based on it's use for gaming is going to become a rabid anti-linux envangelist.
At least Windows *has* directx. How many of those directX games are running on linux ? Sure , linux has openGL, but it doesn't help a great deal when there are no OpenGL drivers.
The only viable hardware acceleration option working on linux now is Glide with one of the older 3dfx cards. The TNT and Matrox drivers do not cut it against Windows.
While I use and advocate linux, it is just stupid to push it to a market segment for which it's not really suited. You're going to create a lot of vocal linux haters if you do this.
Linux isn't ready for the average home user, and it's not even close to a viable gaming platform. We don't help the linux movement by pushing it as a platform for things that it's not suited for.
That's assuming that they try it. However, linux has taken the limelight. I hope that the booming interest in linux will also help the BSDs though.
As Linux's popularity increases, so does the popularity of the BSD's. Many BSD users are FORMER Linux users. A question to you... have you even used BSD?
Yep, Linux makes a nice midpoint in the Windows->BSD migration. Personally, I'm going to give OpenBSD a shot, it looks really cool. I'm hoping that it'll get more of the limelight in future. I've heard it's a dog to install, and there are no OpenBSD books ... wish me luck (-;
Now really how hard is that?
Well, it's easy enough, but it's wrong. This will possibly install a bunch of packages that you
- don't have installed, and
- would rather not have installed (ie daemons).
If you're going to trash ZDNet, at least do it right.To make sure you only update packages and don't install anything new, you need rpm -F
One issue is that the two toolkits use different languages though. This could make it less than easy.
Multisync monitors already are supported. All of them. You can feed practically any modeline into a monitor provided that you are staying inside your video card and monitors limitations. It's the video cards that ar the problem.
The LDP docs are written by volunteers. If you want better documentation, buy a book.
2) Distros which use the RPM installation offer only one safe option: Install Everything. Selective package installation leads to things which don't work, boots which stall for many minutes, and a grand variety of other mysteries.
Firstly, the Redhat install has a "workstation" option. Secondly, the "components" you can choose are all self contained. Your hanging at boot is probably caused by the fact that you are trying to run some daemon which expects you to have a permanent connection. ie you chose custom install and picked daemons that you shouldn't be running.
4) X server installation and setup is a very interesting source of problems. My video cards and monitors are capable of 1600x1200,
Very few users use this resolution
5) Sending a newbie to the HOWTOs is a great way to send someone postal.
Buy a book.
Documentation is my biggest issue.
No one is obliged to write you docs for free. Buy a book. There are a ton of linux books available.
This sounds like a network configuration problem, combined with a setup that requires a network connection running ( maybe you're running sendmaild ). The best way around this is for the machine not to run services out of the box. I believe if you choose the Redhat workstation install, it probably wont run sendmaild in the default setting. If you choose a custom install -- well, try to know what you are doing.
Maybe you had unsupported hardware. Seriously, if your hardware is fully supported, you shouldn't have to do anything more than throw the CD in and click "OK" several times. It's not the distributor's fault that your hardware vendor doesn't want you to use linux.
accustomed to (you know, crazy things like browsing my file system).
Try "man ls". If that fails, all the recent distributions come with KDE.
Huh ? they aren't forced to do a damn thing. This to me looks like a case where incompetent parents are unwilling and/or unable to regulate their kid's behaviour. If they really spent thousands on these cards, what on earth were their parents doing blindly handing out small fortunes to such irresponsible children ? Geesh, they could buy a gun on the black market with that money.
Surely, if the parents think it looks like gambling, they should regulate their kid's behaviour. It doesn't appear to be unambiguously a "gambling issue" though.
While they are in clear breach of the license for any GPL software that they have included ( by placing restrictions on what the users can do with it, they are violating the license ) , they have no obligation to make their entire distribution available.
I'd like to make another point: all the slashdot kiddies having their two-miutes-of-hate style rants really make linux look bad. It would be great for linux IMO if the self-appointed mouthpieces who do not participate in linux development ( ie the kiddies ) would just shut up and leave the diplomacy to those who have some.
So how is this less free than the GPL ? Try developing proprietary software with libreadline or libgdbm.
1) It is more expensive to develop commercial applications under Qt than using Microsoft products by a factor of nearly 2 (pricewatch.com);
(1) To get anything close to a devlopment environment on Windows, you need visual studio. Which is about $1000- last I checked. Then you need to plonk down some more $$ for NT.
(2) the fact that Qt costs more does NOT mean that it's more expensive to develop with.
(3) Try developing portable software with Visual studio, then watch your development time ( and hence project costs ) soar. BTW, if you're silly enough to try this, you are probably violating your EULA by developing for other platforms with MS tools ( this is at least true with visual basic, not that it works with other platforms anyway )
(4) Maybe you have to pay for QT, but you can get several helper apps such as Kdevelop, and the KDE libs without paying anything. By the time you throw all of these into the equation, it makes Qt considerably more appealing.
(5) Developer time is not cheap. If Qt saves so much as 2 weeks of development time on a project, it is a money maker. When you consider the amount of work that goes into maintaining software, it is more than conceivable that a high quality, well documented toolkit could save developers two weeks or more. I take it that you are not budgeting any major commercial software ventures, otherwise, I would expect to see considerably more rigorous cost analysis. You say that it's "too expensive", but give no justification for this claim
(6) And again, don't forget that making you pay to develop propreitary apps is LESS restirctive than outright saying that you can't do it.
Point taken. But unmaintained HOWTOs should be promptly moved into the unmaintained section. Sometimes, no documentation is better than bad documentation ( which makes it harder for the newbie to find the right info ). If the LDP would show a greater enthusiasm to can out of date howtos ( ie move them into the unmaintained section ) it would be a good thing.
BTW, IMHO, the best part of the LDP is still the manuals ( ie users guide et al ) even if they are a little out of date.
Perhaps this is because the theory of creation is not backed up by enough scientific evidence to hold water. The imperfections that you point to in Darwain's theory pale in comparison to the flaws in the theory that creationists propose ( moreover, the limitations of Darwins observations and accuracy are not astounding when you compare him with other scientists of the same era, whose theories were also imperfect )
It's not good enough for you guys to find flaws in the theory of evolution - because that theory being wrong doesn't make you right.
For example, the fact that Newton's laws left a lot ( ie reletavistic phenomena ) unexplained would not mean that another scientist proposing that heavier objects fall faster is correct. Your theory of creation needs to stand on it's own merits, not in slight demerits of an alternative theory
No, it's because scientists cannot find empirical, verifiable evidence that better supports an alternative theory. Scientists are empiricists, and results that are not repeatedly verifiable are not good enough to be accepted as "science".
Many of the early scientists--Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Carl Linnaeus--were Christians.
Many of the earlier ones weren't. And several scientists were considered heretical for their beliefs by the Christian institutions of their time ( including Copernicus ) The Christian states were firm believers *against* questioning the "official" beliefs , in stark conrast to the (Athenian) Greeks ( who were by and large atheistic relativists ).
The idea of laws in nature came from one source: the biblical teaching that God is both Creator and Law-Giver.
Plato conceptualised similar things around 400 BC. Aristotle went on and fixed a lot of the things that Plato screwed up. For example, Aristotle moved from the idea that the universe is based on an "ideal" form to the idea that one can model the physical universe based on ones observations ( ie Aristotle was more an empiricist, while Plato was something of a theorist. ) Other Athenians conceptualised things such as the "law of particles" ( ie existence of atoms ) even earlier.
For example, when Galileo wanted to find out whether a 10-pound weight falls to the ground more quickly than a one-pound weight, he did not argue about the concept of weight, as was typical among the philosophers of his day. Instead, he dropped cannonballs off the Leaning Tower of Pisa and watched what happened.
And boy, did that piss off the church of his day. Galileo was summoned before the inquisition and sentenced to life imprisonment ( after a lot of recanting and begging )
This would be impractical. However, I agree that it should be possible to obtain a refund if you don't accept the terms of the license.
Java has its uses, but writing games, ray tracers, and speed-critical apps are not among those uses. Some applications that are not at all speed critical, where java is very useful include network clients.
As for Perl ? It's here to stay. I've just written a GUI FTP client for perl that's less than 1000 lines long. It took me about two days to get a working prototype. Let's see you do that in C++.
Perl has some extremely useful features that make several tasks almost trivial ( for example, you can actually manipulate strings without going crazy. ) How many lines of code does it take to implement perl -npe 's/]*>//g' in C++ ?