Quote: Original post by GenuineXP
Note that these points are much more serious for projects that are not open source; shipping binaries (and only binaries) on Linux is difficult. If source is available, most communities build packages.

Of course, that was true at one time. It has not been the case for some years. For binary-only applications, most Linux distros are on a par with Windows, except sometimes it's easier to install on Linux.

Yeah, there are third-party vendors who don't package their software correctly. For all platforms. I can't tell you how many times I've had a third-party software installer on Windows clobber Microsoft DirectX or Adobe Acrobat with an older version without asking. Don't get me started on the Registry Cancer an awful lot of apps cause (Apple, are you listening?).

The games are just not on Linux for purely marketing reasons. A bit because the numbers aren't there (not that there aren't a lot of Linux users, but that there aren't a lot of Linux sales figures since there is not one central Linux Sales authority in "the channel") but mostly because "no Linux users pay for software so we wouldn't make a profit." I would say it's almost a chicken-and-egg situation.

Quote: Just use SDL.

Agreed. Though I don't think SDL is a true DirectX analog. Maybe if paired with OpenGL and other 3rd party SDL libraries though. This is precisely what I use.

Quote: The games are just not on Linux for purely marketing reasons. A bit because the numbers aren't there (not that there aren't a lot of Linux users, but that there aren't a lot of Linux sales figures since there is not one central Linux Sales authority in "the channel") but mostly because "no Linux users pay for software so we wouldn't make a profit." I would say it's almost a chicken-and-egg situation.

Yes, I think this is the reason hardly any developers target the Linux platform. The technical issues could be very easily overcome.

Don't get me wrong from my previous post. I was just echoing some points I've seen brought up in the past that I thought were interesting or worth mentioning. (Except for that comment I've struck through... that was just wrong, I think. [lol] )

...this thread was dead for weeks and all of a sudden I get 8 responses.

Well... I still like Linux way better. For instance my parents clicked on an evil link or something and had to call me to come over and fix their computer. It was loaded full of viruses and spyware and the Control Panel was hijacked and half the tabs were gone and you could no longer change your desktop background. It was real annoying. So annoying that I didn't bother fixing it, I told them to re-install windows.

I know they should have been using anti-virus software and all that but the thing is, on Linux I never use anti-anything. And I look at the most questionable websites in existence. My computer functions as well as it did a year ago.

All the computer illiterate people I know, they all have problems. After a year or so their computer starts getting really slow because of all the garbage they get on their system. I know it's because they're stupid, but if windows doesn't automatically function properly for people that don't know how to use computers then I don't really see the point. I thought that's what windows was for.

Hey what the hell is a registry? I never understood that at all. Does Linux have a registry or just windows? I mean the way I always understood it was you have two types of things on your disk, you have instructions and you have data. So if you make a game there's instructions, I mean lines of assembly instructions for your processor and then theres data, like pictures and text documents and stuff. But on windows if you install a commercial game it always updates the registry. What the hell is that? Can't you just copy the instructions and data to your disk and play it? Whenever I program something I don't have to "update the registry" to make it work.

Flavors of Linux don't use a registry per se, but there are similar utilities. The registry is essentially a globally accessible database where programs can store settings and data using several data types in key-value pairs. For example, many user settings are stored in the registry. The registry also has some built-in (rudimentary) security functionality.

The problem with the registry is bloat and maintenance. Many programs (especially 3rd party programs) do not clean up the mess they create in the registry tree. Even a good number of professionally developed programs from well known vendors leave garbage behind after (un)installation. As the registry grows, it can become slower and swallow disk space.

Many flavors of Linux utilize a much smaller form of Windows' registry. The GNOME desktop includes a library called gconf. Like the Windows' registry, it can be accessed by any program through an API and stores a tree of key-value pairs. Unlike Windows, gconf is primarily utilized by parts of GNOME. Many other programs use configuration files. Many of these files (if providing per-user settings) are found in a user's home directory in *rc files or hidden directories (for example, .dosboxrc or ~/.deluge/*).

I honestly don't know of any other significant differences between the Windows registry and libraries like gconf.

Quote: Original post by icecubeflower
Microsoft seems like bottled water to me. People buy water in bottles even though the free stuff is better. I'm just sort of mystified I guess.

I buy bottled water because in my case, the free stuff is NOT better. When I lived in the country a few years back however, I wouldn't even touch bottled water...

Hey my brother is in Ireland right now, maybe I should tell him not to drink the water. I'm in St. Louis, the water is great.