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Original post by Oluseyi

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Original post by RPTD
it's not crap for gaming... the gaming companies just are crap in using it.

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Sadly, no. Linux does not have a well-defined multimedia architecture,

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OpenGL and OpenAL aren't enough for you?

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a function of its open and democratic development process. How many "primary" audio technologies are there for Linux?

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umm..ALSA?

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How does a developer know to rely on the presence of any particular technology, other than testing for an installing it themselves?

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have your RPMs and DEBS depend on it. obviously "the linux community" could benfit from one, single package format to rule them all. Personally, I wish red hat would use debs. with redhat no longer using their own package format, everyone would drop it, probably also in favor of debs.

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At least under Windows you have standards like DirectX and the .NET Framework.

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And yet you can run games without these things entirely. OpenGL isn't a standard? SDL handle input nicely, and lets you do GL easily.

|SNIP|

There aren't technical problems with linux gaming. Just take a look a the the linux games out there already. UT2k3, that cool RPG whose name eludes me at the moment, these games take the technology to extremes, and work just fine on linux.

the problem is market, not tech, where's the cost/benefit ratio?

[edited by - C-Junkie on March 21, 2004 4:20:28 PM]

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Original post by Oluseyi

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...or having some hard time config linux to use your card? i prefer linux. as soon as it works, it works, will go on working, will never stop working.

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The insinuation being that Windows simply "stops working"? Hardly. Failure under Windows of a previously stable configuration is always a consequence of actions taken either explicitly or implicitly by the user. Because of the simplicitly and usability of Windows, more of such actions are taken (and less of the consequences is typically understood). It''s very convenient to blame Windows when the very same results would occur if you used Linux the same way.

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1) how many stories do we know (including me) of windows suddenly no more working, messing up it''s own registry just booting it up without changing something? reason? because windows does init most stuff on boot time and reconfigs it. a little inconsistency can drive windows nuts and destroy it (in the worst case). in linux you won''t have this. whereas with sanity mind i can work with linux without ever having to reinstall it once i can''t do this with windows, and i worked longer with windows than linux

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Original post by C-Junkie
the problem is market, not tech, where''s the cost/benefit ratio?

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Good point. (I could argue with some of your refutations, but it''s tedious.) But here''s the thing: how high, exactly, is the cost of developing for Linux. If I were to believe the portability hype of various development tools/libraries, it should simply be a recompile and some testing - miniscule. Which means that virtually all benefit would outweigh cost (so long as no investment is made in shelf space or delivery). But it appears not to. Can you explain that to me?

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Original post by RPTD
1) how many stories do we know (including me) of windows suddenly no more working, messing up it''s own registry just booting it up without changing something?

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How many of those stories can we substantiate? Or did my use of the term "implicit" confuse you?

Just because you didn''t press a button and suddenly see a BSOD doesn''t mean the corruption/whatever was spontaneous.

Also consider the unmentioned inverse of that comment: how many stories do we not know of people for whom Windows runs like a peach for long periods of time? My XP installation on this laptop has given me no problems whatsoever, except for the instability that occured as a result of a loose HD cable (due to my porting it around without sufficient protection).

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a little inconsistency can drive windows nuts and destroy it (in the worst case). in linux you won''t have this.

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Rubbish. Inconsistency in Linux init scripts can render your system unusable, or even destroy your hardware (set the wrong video params and see what happens to your monitor).

Besides, anecdotal evidence is worthless. Search this forum for an explanation.

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Original post by Oluseyi

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Original post by C-Junkie
the problem is market, not tech, where''s the cost/benefit ratio?

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Good point. (I could argue with some of your refutations, but it''s tedious.) But here''s the thing: how high, exactly, is the cost of developing for Linux. If I were to believe the portability hype of various development tools/libraries, it should simply be a recompile and some testing - miniscule. Which means that virtually all benefit would outweigh cost (so long as no investment is made in shelf space or delivery). But it appears not to. Can you explain that to me?

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Yes. DirectX.

The problem is that the companies don''t use these libraries. The reason they don''t use these libraries is that they don''t see the need to develop on anything but windows, so why not stick to microsoft''s API''s?

sure there are cases wwhere windows works well and where it does the most incredible shit on the chain. and i agree that the reasons are different in each case ranging from user failure to hw failure (like a loose cable) but i''ve had from win 3.11 to win xp all windows versions and found none which lasted for long time (without drawbacks or the three-times-reboot-to-fix-my-latop phenomena). it''s ok if i''m not concidered representative, i''m did lots of cranky coding stuff on my way to master c++ coding so certain probs can be due to this but i refered here more to other users, pro users as n00b users.

it''s right that linux can be killed easily... ha... do some ''dd'' against your /dev/hda1 or whatever and you can kiss your hd goodbye but this is like deleting win.com (in old days) and see people wonder why windows doesn''t boot anymore. linux is damn powerfull but such a power you usually do NOT devote to a n00b. yes, linux is pro stuff where windows is not.
"power is nothing without control"

and the libs and toolkits... many companies don''t know really wotsit all about. there is lots of stuff out there (and truely some major crap) but there are a couple of libs that are declared standard and which you can expect to be in important distros like GTK+, ALSA, graphic libs like (libjpeg), sound libs (like libogg) and so forth. windows just slams you ''his'' view at your head (either eat it or die) whereas in linux you have to invest some initial RTFM to gather the needed infos. after you spend this initial costs you can do it like with windows, dev away.

Linux might not be perfect for all things, but it''s a damn impressive acheivment and people should be glad that Microsoft at least has some competetiors.

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Original post by Oluseyi

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A properly configured Linux system will boot in 5-10 seconds...

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Lies. The POST alone takes longer than that.

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Maybe a typical desktop takes a long time to boot, but a distribution centered around a single program can load only the drivers necessary for that program. Most bootable linux installation CDs that I''ve used booted very quickly. I once made a miniature operating myself and after I selected it in grub it booted INSTANTLY. It didn''t do anything besides draw some colourful text on the screen, though (by writing to that screen port, I think 0x8000 or something).
Nevertheless, I do agree that its overkill to make a whole distribution for a single game. Maybe make a distribution which can run games and has lots of games built into it, with the ability to switch games without rebooting. And maybe a text editor, and a compiler, and a windowing system, and a ... (Oh wait, I think I''m starting to describe every distribution that already exists...)

Zorx (a Puzzle Bobble clone)
Discontinuity (an animation system for POV-Ray)

My experience w.r.t. boot times has been with debian and with slackware.

my debian box boots in under 30 seconds. 10 for post, .1 for the kernel to init and start userspace, and then next 15ish as services are started, and gdm & X load.

With a concurrent init script system, that 15 would get cut in half (several steps involve little or no disk activity for a second or two. ex: dhcp). So, the biggest slow down is effectively the BIOS. This isn''t a tuned system either, its a desktop one.

logging in also involves an additional 10 seconds of load time.

hm...
somehow we would have to ''define'' the boot-up time. if you take POST into concideration it''s a bit unfair cause POST varies heavily among systems.
i would rather use boot time from the point the os takes over (best to measure if using a boot manager like XOSL). but it will be hard for a standard linux to beat BeOS in boot-up time... after my experience from all three it loaded the quickest and had still auto-detection in use (no kernel compilation).