As I'm sure many have noticed, there's been a flurry of articles recently regarding the Linux desktop and the direction it "needs" to go in. A few have been insightful and offered up valuable information regarding the future of desktop computing. Most, however, have been painfully ill-informed or even confrontational. After sitting back and watching the fighting break out in the trenches, I decided to pen something from the opposite side of the fence.
Here
BoreResolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the wrong. Sometime in your life you will have been all of these.
"In fact, the OS barely ships with anything worth using" ..
It is one of the great inequalities of life, is it not?
Good one Boredus, thanks..
Look to thy airspeed, lest the Earth should rise up and smite thee..
Windoze has better commercial support for hardware. ( That is about my only positive comment on it...) Security on windoze is a joke. I spend way too much of my time removing add stuff and protecting the machines from viruses. Windoze ( XP ) has reinvented S-L-O-W. It takes much longer to boot than my ( untuned ) Mandriva 2006 system. By that I mean the point when I can finally use XP, not when the desktop shows up.
There is my 2 cents worth.
Cheers, Cliff
No windoze on my machine, and proud of it...
Can I quote you on that?
Windoze ( XP ) has reinvented S-L-O-W. --Camorri
BobGuy©
Thats my story and I'm sticking to it!
Talking about windoze, a friend on friday got a new game from THQ MX vs ATV Unleashed. The stupid part was that when we loaded the game all went well till you get to the menu to setup your vehicles and all. The keyboard would not work, no input in the menu screens so we couldn't even try the game, after some reading find that a lot of people needed to install winXP SP2 to have keyboard working.
This game was originally released from Microsoft Studios/Rainbow Studios, now hard would it to be to have your keyboard working without having to install SP2.
I have never seen this before with any game, and i've played a lot of games.
I think it is just a ploy from microbitch to make everyone register to install SP2.
2 hours-o-crap just to play a game.
oh, sorry this isn't the wine about Microcrap thread
John
AMD A64 4800x2 939 O/C, Asus A8R32-MVP,320GB Seagate 7200.10, 3GB, Sound Blaster XiFi Extreme Music, G15, Altec Lansing 5.1, Samsung 215TW 21 LCD, LG FlatronEZ 19"
I'm no Microsoft lover, but any article like this one deserves some flame.
Here's my take:
Both Windows and Linux have their place in the marketplace. I enjoy using Linux for server boxes. I am amazed at the speed and responsiveness that I get while providing surprisingly little in hardware resources. Team Speak, (yes, I'm a gamer) MySQL and Apache all run flawlessly together on my Dual Pentium II 300mHz machine with 512MB of RAM. I think of it as the little engine that could.
On the other hand, I have a Pentium 500mHz running Server 2003 (with more RAM) which, at best, is sluggish all the time. IIS requests are typically fine, but remotely connecting to it causes all sorts of slowdown. Again, it meets the need, but could do with more speed regardless of its hardware.
However, I've tried Linux as a desktop solution and I simply can't do it. There are three things that I struggle with the most: documentation (and Linux users' attitudes toward 'noobs',) inconsistency, and games.
First, documentation. I'm sick and tired of reading Linux documentation that was written in 1998 and is so outdated that I find it impossible to know whether what I'm reading is still correct or not. I hate this: "The option you're trying to configure can be found on page 4,000 of the document found at http://www.myobscurewebsite.org. I can't believe you couldn't find that. You're such a n00b. Please RTFM before you post." Oh please. God save us all from this attitude.
Beyond the attitude, I hate documentation that requires knowledge of RFC-4,003,201 or any other technical document. I don't want to have an intimate knowledge of the TCP/IP stack, frame buffers, or the history of the Internet, I just want to configure my network. And this isn't just a one-time setup fee. This documentation 'fee' is charged everytime I install a new server app, new hardware, or get a different desktop widget I want to try. I don't care what anyone says or any argument made for it, Linux documentation is a rough go.
Now consistency. When I 'install' a new application or utility, with Windows, I expect it to behave in a certain way - in a certain 'groove' that I can expect. However, Linux doesn't follow this same methodology. Expect to spend three hours on a new application getting it to behave in a manner that is intuitive to you rather than to the guy who likes a completely different setup. I realize Windows may be less configurable, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If I need to find something, I generally know where to look. I can poke around until I find what I'm looking for. Each Linux application is completely different and behaves as such.
As for games, I don't think there's much more to say about it other than they simply aren't supported. Sure, try WINE or Cedega or whatever, but the reality is that they simply don't work. I'm a gamer. Linux doesn't work for me.
One last thing that I struggle with: the mouse. My mouse has four buttons, a scroll wheel, and a button under the scroll wheel. To begin with different application's documentation refers to these different buttons as all sorts of things but the bottom line is that just because one application will use the scroll wheel certainly doesn't mean another one will. I've got to start all over configuring again for that application. Ugh. Windows applications that don't support mouse scrolling simply don't get purchased or used. Rare is the Linux application that even is aware that my house has even more than two buttons - let alone 5.
For me, Linux simply isn't meeting my desktop needs. I like my cozy little Windows environment. It's like a warm blanket. I am plenty friendly with Linux and love the speed and configurability, just not for my desktop.
That said:
Flame retardant suit, check.
Rosy colored gogles, check.
Have at me.
If you looking for a flame you need to go elsewhere.
You see, this is what we call FUD and you seem to be very open to it, it's usually caused by reading too many articles written by rob enderle and laura didot.
You complain about documentation, but yet have all these complaints that are covered in documentation and is still relevant today as it was in 1989.
If you read documentation you would find out to configure networking in Linux all you need to do is type netconfig at a command prompt and follow the on screen instructions.
You complain about consistency, if you can't click on a tool bar and chose "tools then settings" then web-TV is for you.
As for games, there are literally thousands of games for Linux, again lack of investigation evidently you have never been to the linuxgames website, yes this includes high quality 3D games as well as 1st person shooters.
You complain about mice, again your refusal to read current or outdated documentation, xFree/xorg supports up to 32 button mice.
If your not willing to read documentation, then there is nothing anyone can do to help you, nor will they be willing to, so please stay with windows.
Why would anyone "have at you"? Linux is about choice - and you made your's.
I play some games that require Windows, but I am not much of a gamer. Linux has plenty of games for me, fps included.
When Vista finally comes out at about the end of the year, I will probably buy a new machine. Since I do a small bit of repair work on the side, I will need to be at least familiar with it - if not downright proficient. But have you seen the power requirements for this new beast? Its gonna need a lot of everything. Most of the resources will go to eye candy.
I run Linux as my primary desktop. It was a huge learning curve for me, but one that I tackled with relish. I started using Linux on an impulse buy at Wal-Mart. I simply had to know about a full-featured OS that cost $24.95 for the boxed set. It was Mandrake 8.1, and I have never looked back or regretted the purchase. Now I use Slackware 10.2, and for the reason you already pointed out - configurability.
I know more about how my computer works inside than I could ever have learned from Windows. I admit, a lot of people could care less how it works, just that it does work. That's how I earn money to pay the bar bill on the weekends - clueless users, and I don't mean that derogatorily. I had to pay someone to fix my air conditioner because I was clueless.
Everyone has an opinion abou t everything. Sift through all this and find the ones relevant to you and your situation. Then be happy. Your choice is made to your specs.
I find Windows so lacking in functionality and the user interface so confining it's not even funny. Windows does not work for me.
Documentation? That's just something I quickly glance through if I can't figure something out in the first 5 minutes. Exactly what Windows documentation is there? The help system? Or do you mean that you have to go around to enthusiast web sites to find fixes for annoying things? Most of the documentation for Linux is quite good. But you say you don't care what anyone else says about it, so there's no point in arguing.
The biggest problem with Linux is, people who keep expecting it to be more like Windows. Got news for you... it NEVER will be, so you will be sorely disappointed. The rest of us enjoy the freedom and choices and would not want to see things dumbed down to that level.
I have more games than I have time for. You are sorely misinformed to say that games do not work. I have never and will never use WINE or anything like it. Maybe some specific titles of yours don't have a Linux port but many do and they run quite well. This is not a "Linux" problem, it's the game vendors.
This isn't all of them, but it's the most comprehensive list of games that run natively under Linux that I know of.
http://www.icculus.org/lgfaq/gamelist.php
Mouse scrolling? Come on... there are far more apps in Windows that don't behave consistently in that respect. Most everything in Linux just interfaces with the X Window system, which handles all of that.
jwillden:
I'm a complete noob to Linux, tried a few distros and finally came across Suse 10 which I like a lot. I know it's not for purists but it works for me.
Maybe I've been lucky but whenever I've sought help for Suse, everybody I've encountered has been really helpful. You will have to be prepared to try a little though, any experienced Linux user who offers help would expect you to at least figure a few things out for yourself.
I guess their attitude is that if you're hand-held through something, you'll never learn. Good attitude, really. But I've I've never yet encountered script kiddies saying 'oh you're such a nOOb'. Maybe you visiting the wrong places mister.
I do understand what you mean about Windows though, it's easy. It's so easy I can't even remember now how to write a batch command in DOS. Is that a good thing? Is it?
Also, one very important point, Linux doesn't cost a thing, not a penny. And so far, I can do about 90% of the things I relied on Windows for within Linux.
I'm playing UT2004, single player and online within Suse 10 and I note there are lots of other games available to play within Linux.
Eventually, Games developers will cotton on to the fact there are lots of Linux users out there and hopefully will start providing games for them. I will admit the Games aspect is the biggest turn-off for me though.
Like I said, complete Linux newb am I, still lost, but loving it. I really am so chuffed with Open Office actually, brings a smile to my face every time I use it and print a documentSimple things for simple minds
As a completely certified ‘n00b’ @ Linux (less than a month)
Documentation:
Not all that hard to find the good and/or current stuff, just takes a little digging…
Mostly all I’ve had to do is follow links posted to threads here at BBF and a few other forums.
… and Google works well.
Attitude:
I really haven’t seen that… my direct experience is here on BBF and it was all good, of course I realize that in part that’s because the peeps here know me and you would naturally expect them to cut me a little slack… and they did even when I screwed up big time.
But that good attitude and good help is also present on all of other forums (several) where I’ve been lurking to read up on SuSE 10.0 as my learning process goes forth.
The learning curve:
Yep! It is a pain in the butt, but no more so than windows when I first started to learn how to use it, Win95 in my case.
And as for the help, that’s much easier to find… maybe because Linux folks seem to be a bit more dedicated to the idea and maybe because of my previous experience in Windows.
Cost:
As a retired peep I have to watch my budget lots closer these days!
I’m lucky that one of my sons works at a university, so my windows stuff is not costing me full retail, but the M$ stuff that is currently on my PC would cost about $7-800 retail.
The Linux CD’s and DVD’s that I just received in the mail from an online retailer cost less than $28 in total and any one of those Linux versions (4) will do pretty much the same things that the M$ stuff will, including the office suite. All four would have been free if they had been downloaded instead of coming in the mail.
Point is, if my son changes jobs any new M$ software will be out of range for my budget.
Someone mentioned the need for bigger and badder hardware to run the new version of Windows that’s due out soon… leaves me and my budget out!
Will I drop Windows???
No, I like WindowsXP OK... but it and the programs that we use in Windows just cost too much money, so within the next few months, as I learn to use the software, Linux will be on any PC under my control leaving just one with Windows installed, along with Linux as a dual-boot of course.
I guess I need to clarify a bit. For me, it's not that I don't like Linux. I truly do. I think the industry needs it. We would be sorely hurt without alternatives on an x86 platform. I realize there are others (BSD, etc.) but GNU/Linux really is the 'best' alternative. I love that my TIVO runs Linux. I've spent many hours with my Tivo installing a bigger hard drive, hacking the OS to support a USB network device, and generally messing with it. It drives my wife nuts. My XBox also runs Linux on a regular basis. If for no other reason than to impress my friends. I wish my fridge, water softener, and toilet came with processors so I could modify them to run Linux as well! Just imagine a toilet that I could flush from work! Now that's nirvana. (no, I'm not going to put a 386 next to my toilet and connect some servos and such. . . yet)
My previous post didn't discuss the fact that I do love Linux - just not on my desktop.
But come now - games? Yes, that is an impressive list. I remember Descent II. I wore out a number of Logitech Wingman Extremes and broke more hat buttons that I can count playing that game. I remember buying a lifetime registration for Kali to translate IPX to TCP/IP so I could play Descent on the Internet. But I stopped playing it in 1997. That was 9 years ago. 3D Pong? Wow, is that a new release? A lot of games on this list are in the same realm. While I appreciate those games for being ground breaking, I'm not really into the 'retro' gaming scene. I play in the present. Granted, there are a few new games scattered throughout that list, but it's not exactly a list of what's what in the video game industry.
Here are a few of the titles I play now:
World of Warcraft
Eve Online
Grand Theft Auto: (Vice City, San Andreas, etc)
Knights of the Old Republic
Freelancer (yes, it's a Microsoft game - gasp - but seriously fun)
Dungeons and Dragons Online (beta)
Are any of these titles available on Linux?
Whatever the reason (mostly $$), new games simply aren't available for Linux. If I were to wait for a Linux port of the games I play, I'd be waiting too long. My friends would all have moved on to newer games and I'd be left playing 3D Pong.
Yes, I've made my choice for the present, but it's not permanent. I have truly tried to become a convert. I dig the power in Linux but I have yet to see the reality that you all seem to see. There are plenty of things I don't like about my Windows desktop, but still, Linux simply isn't there for me.
This is just a more polite way of saying RTFM. Thank you for proving my point. I do read documentation - that's how I found these forums - some of which were very helpful.Originally Posted by boredus
You are fixed on your game titles, but in essence that really has little to do with Linux being ready for the desktop. Linux is ready for these game vendors to start making them available for the Linux platform, because it's a viable desktop choice. They might be surprised at the number of Linux users that might be interested in buying their games.
Myself, I use my computer for serious work and have a whole separate operating system setup for the (proprietary) Nvidia drivers and my games. Gaming is just half an hour or an hour at most of amusement for me late at night, and only if I have time. I only boot there for that purpose, because I don't place trust in proprietary drivers.
I would not base my choice of operating system on how many games are available. Quite the opposite, I would be inclined to purchase games (and hardware) from companies that do make the effort rather than keep a Windows installation around.
About games.
I think the main reason I first built a PC was for gaming.
My main build has always centered around being a gaming machine.
I don't play PC Games every day but usually when I do it will almost always be at least a three hour session.
The majority of the games listed for Linux I've played years ago or had no interest in, I want to play the latest games now. I've spent a lot of money on RAM & a good video card just for that purpose.
Right now I'm playing CoD2 (single player & online); CoD1 (single player & online); Far Cry; Half Life 2; Roller Coaster Tycoon 3; Painkiller; Serious Sam 2 and Black and White 2, to name just a few.
None of which I can play on Linux without an emulator.
For older games I have an install of Win98 on a swappable hard drive.
So yes, in agreement about the games.
I tried seriously using a Linux Distro mainly to see if I could and also to get some understanding. I figure within the next year or two Linux will probably become a real alternative to MS (or Apple Mac for that matter). So I thought I best start.
atm I'm using Suse 10 for office work, internet browsing and playback of media, DVD's and music and playing UT2004 (single player and online). Also played with Gimp a little. Which I figure is a good start
Okay. Guess it's my turn.
Games. I don't play a lot of games so I guess I really can't speak to that issue as much as the other people here.
I can say that a desktop environment is so much more than just games. I have yet to not be surprised by my seemingly unlimited choices for everything I want or need to do in Linux. For free. What a beautiful word.
RTFM. I have experienced it, for windows as well as Linux all over the internet. Not here. I am expected to do my homework as I should. But, when my limited time and understanding leave me at a loss the people in this forum take my hand and guide me through it. Even to the point of once guiding me step by step, in real time, through my xorgconfig.
Things I really appreciate about Linux. I don't have to spend all of my time RTFM to find out how to remove this virus or that piece of spyware. I don't have to spend time agreeing to EULAs'. I know that some of my older computers will run nice and fast under Linux while they wouldn't stand a chance of running windows to any degree of satisfaction. I know that the developers of the various versions of Linux don't regard my property as their own.
I don't know everything I would like to about Linux but I know enough about it and the competition to know what I'll be running from here on out.
Give it three-five years, and they will
P. S. Speaking of games.. .I have not yet found a better game SERVER than Linux running a Linux ported driver for COD, COD2, BF`942, UT (any flavor), and on and on the list goes.... We ran COD here for over a year, with neglibile effect.
I think it's more referenced in this fashion. A bulldozer cannot be used in a childs sandbox.
Windows - Sandbox with little to harm the basic user, and nothing to allow the seasoned user real functionality.
Linux - Big HONKING Dozer, but you have to know how, beyond the leveler's and the throttle, to get the best results.
Peace
Games certainly are low hanging fruit in this argument. Linux simply isn't there. Not through fault of the OS or architecture, but that the $ just isn't there. We are talking about a large user base that is used to getting software without cost. I suggested Cedega to a hard core Linux friend and he wrote it off because of its subscription costs. Reality check: money makes the world go round.
I have a dual boot install at home - Server 2003 and Slack 10.2. But I don't use Windows for gaming. I multitask. During the lulls in gaming or for a break from hacking, I do something else. Having to reboot rather than use the infamous Alt-Tab trick simply isn't an option.
The real conclusion that I've been coming to for quite a while is this: it isn't a religious issue, rather, personal preference. I know my first post made it seem religious - where absolute truths attempt to rule. I'm coming to the conclusion that it's not. It's simple personal preference.
The reality is they both have strengths and weaknesses. Arguments could be made all day for either operating system / suite of applications. I guess I just prefer Windows for the environment I find myself in.
I do like the direction that certain architectures are heading. Java was a great start and Microsoft's .Net has taken another step toward it: some sort of platform that is truly architecture independent. I'd love to write code once and know that it's going to run in a variety of locations. We're still not there, but there are promising signs on the horizon.
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