Re:Not practical or profitable to develop for Linu
on
Cedega and Linux Games
·
· Score: 1
Agreed, developers of commercial software must be careful in choosing which libraries they will use as versions might vary from distro to distro. They often pick static linking. But now there's LSB, a standard which ensures binary compatibility, and in the future it will expand with more definitions (Portland, etc.).
Big problem currently is that vendors don't know whether to target GNOME or KDE.
Maybe stuff like Xen 3.0 (on dedicated Intel/AMD processors) will finally enable s to run windows in a sandbox with a minimal performance hit (and with ALT-TAB functionality for switching back to linux). Though it still needs to be figured how to pre-configure and hand over video card(s), sound card, and input hardware to virtualised Windows.
And their tactic pays off. If everyone used openGL today, Microsoft would be much more vulnerable to Linux.
Hmm, maybe European Comission can be persuaded to put it in a next orders list sent to Microsoft...it would be handy to have open sourced directx libraries, or even the standard definition taken from them and handed over to a neutral body. Windows would no longer be a huge lock-in for games. It's time for action!
They were probably pressured by mobile operators to restrict their platform, being death scared of VoIP and IM on 3G networks which have a potential to become massive if everyone with a symbian phone suddenly gets right application (possibly with ability to use encrypted tunneling via custom server and similar stuff).
Teh evil system should be cracked. It's the future, and they can't stop it.
They will surely put an end to this. Their idea WAS to have pirate disks doable at the release time of PS3. Later they will change the hardware and block the hole, once they are convinced that it did it's role against PS3.
Partisans did only a low-scale guerilla war before germans had to retreat to battle against invading Red Army. Later it was easy to push back NDH forces which were highly dependent on Hitler's military support.
War in that area ended in a bloodbath after Bleiburg when Tito's army killed approx. 20 000 (unarmed) people with a blessing from British forces, (most killed were Croats), so they don't have a clean sheet either.
While I regret hard working people who don't get money they deserve, I hate greedy (software, etc.) companies which keep their income not through technical excellence but with patents, closed format lock-ins, monopolistic practices and lawsuits.
Microsoft and SCO are clearly on the top of that list.
It is not stealing, but a copyright violation (which is illegal like stealing). By stealing you take something away from the owner. But with copying, the owner still doesn't loose his copy. He can only claim that he lost something imaginary like the money which he never received.
Reiser 4 with metadata plugins is IMO capable of what Apple is doing in MacOS, in fact even much more. I hope that linux folks will consider to adopt Apples way of classifying file extensions (UTI?), which is much superior to current.* mechanism (coming probably from DOS).
This sounds very interesting because, if I understood correctly, stem cell grows into a whole nerve from the muscle up to the brain. Of course, it probably involves learning again to use muscles, however even this is a great hope for paralyzed people. Finally we have a breakthrough in this area, showing that regrowing the spinal coord might not be only a science fiction.
It is still a long way to go, or at leats it seems. Linux still doesn't have a critical mass to attract enough commercial software vendors and to force hardware companies to make good drivers for linux. However, by nature of such processes, this happens suddenly as during a phase change. If and when linux reaches critical adoptance (whatever it might be), things will start to go up very fast.
Current model is much better than 2.4/2.5 branching. Kernel development is faster and better controled, there is no more long and empty period as during the 2.5 development. Distributions can have up to date features (recent kernel allows them to more easily follow usability projects like udev/HAL, etc.). Developers take much more time to stabilize features for inclusion and this pays back, although they have insane amount to work for keeping it in sync with main tree until anyone stops complainig (suspend2 is a good example of such horror).
Main drawback is that you can never have really rock-stable code like for example 2.4 kernel and out of tree drivers often become out of sync.
Socceroos are having another crucial match on on Thursday (and I hope that my team, Croatia, will win).
Beauty of this game is that a slight change of strategy can completely obsolete this kind fo preparation. Besides, all coaches and team experts watch videos and can very reliably identify weak (and strong) spots of a team without any technological help.
I Expect that there will be central authority for signing applications. However, because it will be open, it should be possible to turn it off (even as a a menu option) and load whatever you want in the phone.
Or if your name is ATI/Nvidia. They make tons of money just by selling X1900XTX/ 7900GT dual/quad Crossfire or SLI configurations to rich teenagers. It is interesting that they slowly stepped prices of their best models in recent years, because obviously the consumption doesn't change much with price. Other gamers usually buy mid-range cards for $200-$250 because playing recent FPS's on low-end cards isn't really enjoyable.
I really expect Intel to finally produce something worth of respect and get into the market battle with "gfx duo". (they are probably working on it secretly). Of course at first they will target mid-range laptops and only later try to compete on the desktop when drivers mature enough. Unlike XGI, they have some chances.
Smartphone prices are about to go down and mobile companies don't want to be locked into another Microsoft tax (or Symbian tax). On the other side, they realize that Symbian itself is not the best solution for the future where mobile hardware will become faster and contain more memory (nevertheless some novel ideas from symbian should be reused).
They seem to be doing the right thing. Founding the organization which will be responsible for developing the system they will all use. Cohesion and standardization of the platform should be the most important objective. I certainly hope they will use development model used by Fedora, Ubuntu or other similar linux distributions. Maybe partnership with some of them could bring the experience neede to get the project up faster, so I hope they will go for it. Best model IMO is to have paid developers which cooperate with volunteers on most important OS parts, with the possibility of hiring some of them.
Most critical part will be the userspace framework. It depends on it's design whether this OS will suck or not. For GUI one doesn't need to go with the X-windows model here at first, a much simpler GUI would be sufficient for now with porting some simpler toolkits to it. Maybe they should try with an EGL-based layer above a graphical driver and modesetting system, it will enable OpenGL capabilities in the future. Concern is how this will be compatible with current GNU/linux. I hope they will reuse anything they can from existing projects, but even if not, mobile/desktop applications don't overlap in many ways anyway.
I'm just waiting for the mobile IM, possibly with encryption so operators can't detect anything by packet filtering. Mobile companies' nightmare coming true.
But, current problem is that mobile internet access is VERY expensive. About closest thing you can get for free messaging is Blackberry. Things might change when UMTS networks become mainstream.
Providers will probably blacklist ICQ, AIM, MSN etc. servers, but it doesn't stop geeks from setting their own for private networks.
They developed advanced wireless driver framework, which will in some time be ready to be included in linux kernel. I'm all for it, ASAP. Practicall all linux wireless dev people agreed on it, so it's just a matter of time. Porting drivers shouldn't be as hard, while current wireless driver model is seriously lacking.
BSD code could be very helpful for reverse engineering.
Yes it was, and I thank God for it. Athlon brought fast (~GHz) PC machines to many homes for bargain prices. Especially the Duron chip (variant with 64K of cache) which was best buy for a long period. Unfortunately AMD ramped prices up with Athlon 64 and decided to compete with Intel. Maybe Conroe will force them again into the price war tactics.
It is still cheaper to buy a PhysX card than additional X1900 radeon for Crossfire. If nvidia will as well offer physics only with dual card configuration (SLI), then PhysX has better chances in this battle. Of course, if it will work with only a $50 nvidia/ATI card for physics, things might be different.
Although PhysX is technically still superior to this HavokFX model, they will have to slove performance problems they currently have.
But XPS comes a bit late. MS was supposed to do this 10 years ago if they wanted to have a de facto standard. Instead they were short-sighted and wanted to keep users locked-in with Word, Excel and Powerpoint file formats.
Without Mac support and wihout explicit Adobe support, which is what publishers mostly use, I doubt that they will be able to push away PDF, even if XPS is superior by design. As if Adobe can't make something better than a decade old PDF, if needed.
3D became a big hit back then, because people were mostly overwhelmed by a new, never seen 3D world. IMO, 2D died out prematurely (and took many good gaming concepts into the grave).
Now with advanced shaders, normal maps and real shadows/lightning games start to look pretty again. This time it more because of better simulation techniques (with tradeoffs and near approximations of course), than because of improved art.
2D had fixed point of view, meaning that developers knew exactly what players is seeing at any time, and they needed good 2D artists to improve that experience. In 3D games it is complex. Performance is very much sensitive to how you design a game (content), so you are limited in that sense.
Xegl is a way to do it because AIGLX is just another similar way to do something like XGL - put an accelerated X windowing system in a full screen X window.
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Agreed, developers of commercial software must be careful in choosing which libraries they will use as versions might vary from distro to distro. They often pick static linking. But now there's LSB, a standard which ensures binary compatibility, and in the future it will expand with more definitions (Portland, etc.).
Big problem currently is that vendors don't know whether to target GNOME or KDE.
Maybe stuff like Xen 3.0 (on dedicated Intel/AMD processors) will finally enable s to run windows in a sandbox with a minimal performance hit (and with ALT-TAB functionality for switching back to linux). Though it still needs to be figured how to pre-configure and hand over video card(s), sound card, and input hardware to virtualised Windows.
And their tactic pays off. If everyone used openGL today, Microsoft would be much more vulnerable to Linux.
Hmm, maybe European Comission can be persuaded to put it in a next orders list sent to Microsoft...it would be handy to have open sourced directx libraries, or even the standard definition taken from them and handed over to a neutral body. Windows would no longer be a huge lock-in for games. It's time for action!
They were probably pressured by mobile operators to restrict their platform, being death scared of VoIP and IM on 3G networks which have a potential to become massive if everyone with a symbian phone suddenly gets right application (possibly with ability to use encrypted tunneling via custom server and similar stuff).
Teh evil system should be cracked. It's the future, and they can't stop it.
They will surely put an end to this. Their idea WAS to have pirate disks doable at the release time of PS3. Later they will change the hardware and block the hole, once they are convinced that it did it's role against PS3.
Partisans did only a low-scale guerilla war before germans had to retreat to battle against invading Red Army. Later it was easy to push back NDH forces which were highly dependent on Hitler's military support.
War in that area ended in a bloodbath after Bleiburg when Tito's army killed approx. 20 000 (unarmed) people with a blessing from British forces, (most killed were Croats), so they don't have a clean sheet either.
Does Hezbollah even know what kind of economic damage they can cause if they fire few napalm rockets on the factory?
While I regret hard working people who don't get money they deserve, I hate greedy (software, etc.) companies which keep their income not through technical excellence but with patents, closed format lock-ins, monopolistic practices and lawsuits.
Microsoft and SCO are clearly on the top of that list.
It is not stealing, but a copyright violation (which is illegal like stealing). By stealing you take something away from the owner. But with copying, the owner still doesn't loose his copy. He can only claim that he lost something imaginary like the money which he never received.
Reiser 4 with metadata plugins is IMO capable of what Apple is doing in MacOS, in fact even much more. .* mechanism (coming probably from DOS).
I hope that linux folks will consider to adopt Apples way of classifying file extensions (UTI?), which is much superior to current
This sounds very interesting because, if I understood correctly, stem cell grows into a whole nerve from the muscle up to the brain. Of course, it probably involves learning again to use muscles, however even this is a great hope for paralyzed people.
Finally we have a breakthrough in this area, showing that regrowing the spinal coord might not be only a science fiction.
It is still a long way to go, or at leats it seems. Linux still doesn't have a critical mass to attract enough commercial software vendors and to force hardware companies to make good drivers for linux.
However, by nature of such processes, this happens suddenly as during a phase change. If and when linux reaches critical adoptance (whatever it might be), things will start to go up very fast.
Current model is much better than 2.4/2.5 branching. Kernel development is faster and better controled, there is no more long and empty period as during the 2.5 development. Distributions can have up to date features (recent kernel allows them to more easily follow usability projects like udev/HAL, etc.). Developers take much more time to stabilize features for inclusion and this pays back, although they have insane amount to work for keeping it in sync with main tree until anyone stops complainig (suspend2 is a good example of such horror).
Main drawback is that you can never have really rock-stable code like for example 2.4 kernel and out of tree drivers often become out of sync.
Socceroos are having another crucial match on on Thursday (and I hope that my team, Croatia, will win).
Beauty of this game is that a slight change of strategy can completely obsolete this kind fo preparation. Besides, all coaches and team experts watch videos and can very reliably identify weak (and strong) spots of a team without any technological help.
I Expect that there will be central authority for signing applications. However, because it will be open, it should be possible to turn it off (even as a a menu option) and load whatever you want in the phone.
Or if your name is ATI/Nvidia. They make tons of money just by selling X1900XTX/ 7900GT dual/quad Crossfire or SLI configurations to rich teenagers. It is interesting that they slowly stepped prices of their best models in recent years, because obviously the consumption doesn't change much with price. Other gamers usually buy mid-range cards for $200-$250 because playing recent FPS's on low-end cards isn't really enjoyable.
I really expect Intel to finally produce something worth of respect and get into the market battle with "gfx duo". (they are probably working on it secretly). Of course at first they will target mid-range laptops and only later try to compete on the desktop when drivers mature enough. Unlike XGI, they have some chances.
Smartphone prices are about to go down and mobile companies don't want to be locked into another Microsoft tax (or Symbian tax). On the other side, they realize that Symbian itself is not the best solution for the future where mobile hardware will become faster and contain more memory (nevertheless some novel ideas from symbian should be reused).
They seem to be doing the right thing. Founding the organization which will be responsible for developing the system they will all use. Cohesion and standardization of the platform should be the most important objective. I certainly hope they will use development model used by Fedora, Ubuntu or other similar linux distributions. Maybe partnership with some of them could bring the experience neede to get the project up faster, so I hope they will go for it. Best model IMO is to have paid developers which cooperate with volunteers on most important OS parts, with the possibility of hiring some of them.
Most critical part will be the userspace framework. It depends on it's design whether this OS will suck or not. For GUI one doesn't need to go with the X-windows model here at first, a much simpler GUI would be sufficient for now with porting some simpler toolkits to it. Maybe they should try with an EGL-based layer above a graphical driver and modesetting system, it will enable OpenGL capabilities in the future. Concern is how this will be compatible with current GNU/linux. I hope they will reuse anything they can from existing projects, but even if not, mobile/desktop applications don't overlap in many ways anyway.
I'm just waiting for the mobile IM, possibly with encryption so operators can't detect anything by packet filtering.
Mobile companies' nightmare coming true.
But, current problem is that mobile internet access is VERY expensive. About closest thing you can get for free messaging is Blackberry.
Things might change when UMTS networks become mainstream.
Providers will probably blacklist ICQ, AIM, MSN etc. servers, but it doesn't stop geeks from setting their own for private networks.
They developed advanced wireless driver framework, which will in some time be ready to be included in linux kernel.
I'm all for it, ASAP. Practicall all linux wireless dev people agreed on it, so it's just a matter of time.
Porting drivers shouldn't be as hard, while current wireless driver model is seriously lacking.
BSD code could be very helpful for reverse engineering.
Yes it was, and I thank God for it.
Athlon brought fast (~GHz) PC machines to many homes for bargain prices. Especially the Duron chip (variant with 64K of cache) which was best buy for a long period.
Unfortunately AMD ramped prices up with Athlon 64 and decided to compete with Intel. Maybe Conroe will force them again into the price war tactics.
It is still cheaper to buy a PhysX card than additional X1900 radeon for Crossfire.
If nvidia will as well offer physics only with dual card configuration (SLI), then PhysX has better chances in this battle.
Of course, if it will work with only a $50 nvidia/ATI card for physics, things might be different.
Although PhysX is technically still superior to this HavokFX model, they will have to slove performance problems they currently have.
But XPS comes a bit late. MS was supposed to do this 10 years ago if they wanted to have a de facto standard.
Instead they were short-sighted and wanted to keep users locked-in with Word, Excel and Powerpoint file formats.
Without Mac support and wihout explicit Adobe support, which is what publishers mostly use, I doubt that they will be able to push away PDF, even if XPS is superior by design. As if Adobe can't make something better than a decade old PDF, if needed.
This is just another Microsoft sponsored FUD warfare material.
3D became a big hit back then, because people were mostly overwhelmed by a new, never seen 3D world. IMO, 2D died out prematurely (and took many good gaming concepts into the grave).
Now with advanced shaders, normal maps and real shadows/lightning games start to look pretty again. This time it more because of better simulation techniques (with tradeoffs and near approximations of course), than because of improved art.
2D had fixed point of view, meaning that developers knew exactly what players is seeing at any time, and they needed good 2D artists to improve that experience. In 3D games it is complex. Performance is very much sensitive to how you design a game (content), so you are limited in that sense.
Xegl is a way to do it because AIGLX is just another similar way to do something like XGL - put an accelerated X windowing system in a full screen X window.