Actually, if you've ever used the latest versions of Winamp on Windows, you'll find it's actually quite a bit like using Amarok. That said, it's definitely the best media manager on Linux.
As a college student, I can safely say that many Nintendo games, both old and new (Super Smash Brothers Melee and SNES Mario Kart, to name a couple) are quite popular in that particular age range.
Personally, I'd say the only legitimate "Nintendo is for kids" argument would be concerning the online play, where your identity is hidden to the extent that you aren't even allowed to exchange text messages with randomly assigned opponents. Great for kids, of course, but for the older crowd, a system like that tends to get a bit tedious.
While I think offering the option to install Linux makes sense, trying to spin it as a far superior alternative to Windows and convince users to switch simply doesn't. While the average Linux desktop (I'll use Ubuntu as an example, since that's what was mentioned in the article.) is certainly usable, it lacks things that many (though, of course, not all) users need, such as MS Office, (As a college student, most people I know would need this functionality.) compatibility with hardware, and various other Windows only drivers and programs.
And then, of course, there's the issue of compatibility with peripherals. Until the Linux kernel offers a stable binary driver API, (Which, as we've all been assured, will never happen.) hardware manufacturers won't be able to include drivers for devices such as scanners and printers in the package, thus discouraging them from ever creating such drivers in the first place.
I had a 5200FX, and the fancy glass interface worked fine, at least on Beta 1. Right, now I'm using Vista RC1 with a 6100 (terrible integrated video, though, admittedly, about as good as the 5200,) and it still works fine.
Also, RC1's added A LOT of the missing drivers. (Beta 1 and 2 were terrible.)
Finally, I don't know where you get the idea that, since Aero Glass requires Pixel Shaders, the programmers "don't know how to do 3d code well." XGL and Compiz on Linux (The closest equivanent to Glass on Linux at this point, I think) also require pixel shaders, and work with even less cards than Vista does! The only OS that gets it right is Mac OS X, which somehow can have a fully composited desktop with fancy UI effects using a generic VESA driver.
I was more or less referring to the appearance of the screenshots, which don't seem particularly different than the screenshots of games of 6th gen systems. (Generally, I've noticed some fancier lighting effects, such as the bloom and specularity effects visible in Red Steel.)
While the system may very well be more powerful that its screenshots would serve to indicate, I would have liked to see a more profound difference between the graphical power of the Wii and that of systems preceeding it.
While this statement could be construed as a troll, I think he makes a valid point: The Wii is only marginally more powerful than a 6th generation system. Now I realize that Nintendo is working off the assumption that "Graphics aren't everything," but that statement is not the same as saying "Graphics are nothing."
Personally, I wish that Nintendo had at least tried to make the graphics noticeably better, instead of simply increasing clock speeds. For example, the XBox 360 is capable of providing full scene antialiasing with virtually no performance hit. Would it really have been so difficult for Nintendo to integrate a similar graphics capability into the Wii?
"ActiveX controls can affect your entire computer (hurrah for integrating the browser with the OS!.)"
Actually, Firefox extensions CAN affect the entire OS, so long as the user has permission to do so, by including executable files and running them.
While Ubuntu is, IMO, the best Linux distribution out there, it still has issues. For example, I noticed that, in that default installation, there is a boot option for "Recovery Console," which simply gives anyone who starts it root access to the computer without a password. While it can be disabled by editing a configuration file, something like that should never have been added in the first place.
Also, after installing Dapper on my computer in one location and then moving to another network, my ability to use DHCP suddenly disappeared! I'm sure I can get it back, by Mac OS X and XP didn't give me any trouble. (Though, to give credit where credit is due, XP died completely, because of a hardware upgrade, which, didn't affect Dapper at all.)
All in all, though, not to be overly negative, I recently set up Dapper on a school development computer and got Apache, PHP, PostgreSQL, and SSH working in a matter of minutes, so, to the developers of Ubuntu, kudos.
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Actually, if you've ever used the latest versions of Winamp on Windows, you'll find it's actually quite a bit like using Amarok. That said, it's definitely the best media manager on Linux.
As a college student, I can safely say that many Nintendo games, both old and new (Super Smash Brothers Melee and SNES Mario Kart, to name a couple) are quite popular in that particular age range.
Personally, I'd say the only legitimate "Nintendo is for kids" argument would be concerning the online play, where your identity is hidden to the extent that you aren't even allowed to exchange text messages with randomly assigned opponents. Great for kids, of course, but for the older crowd, a system like that tends to get a bit tedious.
While I think offering the option to install Linux makes sense, trying to spin it as a far superior alternative to Windows and convince users to switch simply doesn't. While the average Linux desktop (I'll use Ubuntu as an example, since that's what was mentioned in the article.) is certainly usable, it lacks things that many (though, of course, not all) users need, such as MS Office, (As a college student, most people I know would need this functionality.) compatibility with hardware, and various other Windows only drivers and programs.
And then, of course, there's the issue of compatibility with peripherals. Until the Linux kernel offers a stable binary driver API, (Which, as we've all been assured, will never happen.) hardware manufacturers won't be able to include drivers for devices such as scanners and printers in the package, thus discouraging them from ever creating such drivers in the first place.
I had a 5200FX, and the fancy glass interface worked fine, at least on Beta 1. Right, now I'm using Vista RC1 with a 6100 (terrible integrated video, though, admittedly, about as good as the 5200,) and it still works fine. Also, RC1's added A LOT of the missing drivers. (Beta 1 and 2 were terrible.) Finally, I don't know where you get the idea that, since Aero Glass requires Pixel Shaders, the programmers "don't know how to do 3d code well." XGL and Compiz on Linux (The closest equivanent to Glass on Linux at this point, I think) also require pixel shaders, and work with even less cards than Vista does! The only OS that gets it right is Mac OS X, which somehow can have a fully composited desktop with fancy UI effects using a generic VESA driver.
I was more or less referring to the appearance of the screenshots, which don't seem particularly different than the screenshots of games of 6th gen systems. (Generally, I've noticed some fancier lighting effects, such as the bloom and specularity effects visible in Red Steel.)
While the system may very well be more powerful that its screenshots would serve to indicate, I would have liked to see a more profound difference between the graphical power of the Wii and that of systems preceeding it.
While this statement could be construed as a troll, I think he makes a valid point: The Wii is only marginally more powerful than a 6th generation system. Now I realize that Nintendo is working off the assumption that "Graphics aren't everything," but that statement is not the same as saying "Graphics are nothing." Personally, I wish that Nintendo had at least tried to make the graphics noticeably better, instead of simply increasing clock speeds. For example, the XBox 360 is capable of providing full scene antialiasing with virtually no performance hit. Would it really have been so difficult for Nintendo to integrate a similar graphics capability into the Wii?
"ActiveX controls can affect your entire computer (hurrah for integrating the browser with the OS!.)" Actually, Firefox extensions CAN affect the entire OS, so long as the user has permission to do so, by including executable files and running them.
While Ubuntu is, IMO, the best Linux distribution out there, it still has issues. For example, I noticed that, in that default installation, there is a boot option for "Recovery Console," which simply gives anyone who starts it root access to the computer without a password. While it can be disabled by editing a configuration file, something like that should never have been added in the first place.
Also, after installing Dapper on my computer in one location and then moving to another network, my ability to use DHCP suddenly disappeared! I'm sure I can get it back, by Mac OS X and XP didn't give me any trouble. (Though, to give credit where credit is due, XP died completely, because of a hardware upgrade, which, didn't affect Dapper at all.)
All in all, though, not to be overly negative, I recently set up Dapper on a school development computer and got Apache, PHP, PostgreSQL, and SSH working in a matter of minutes, so, to the developers of Ubuntu, kudos.