Or who actually need to use a computer. Linux doesn't have shit. Even OSX lacks some vital apps. People who need to use computers use XP or OSX. What in the fuck are you actually running on Linux? It's fast because it can't do shit. No photoshop, no pro audio tools, no pro video tools, lacks many codecs, is ugly as sin... I could go on. When I ran Linux for a week it was like taking a trip back in time. Sure my new hardware can run it much faster, but I can't do anything useful with it. Buying a PC and putting anything other than XP or OSX is like buying a car to take the wheels off it. An OS is only as good as the apps available for it. It was no accident that Windows is the most common OS. Also, saying that Linux is safer is quite silly. There is NO WHERE NEAR as many Linux systems as there are XP. You can't compare things like that. It's just like Firefox. People used to say it was very safe, and now it is becoming popular we are seeing more and more vulnerabilities.
I love people that bashes something they dont even know about. You showed that you didnt know what you where talking about by this sentence, because if you really did know what you were talking about, you would know that you can play almost anything on linux with a bit of knownledge and the right tools, Sometimes with better framerate than on windows, even if the game is windows "only". EDIT: Oh, c'mon! Yet another exemple of people talking without knowing! You said by yourself that you used linux for 1 week, dont tell me you know how linux works and that you could do things with that amount of time, please! First, linux can have the best looking gui, if you have tastes and know what you're doing. The linux desktop is so custumizable, you can even turn it into a near-perfect replica of the OSX or XP desktop. Codecs needs to be installed by yourself if you use a free version, for the simple and good reason that those codecs needs to be paid for the distribution licence. You can get most of Windows software running on linux with the right tools, if there's no better alternative already on linux. Telling other people that there's no photoshop alternative, audio and video editors on linux shows that you, again, still dont know what you're talking about. I dont mean that linux is perfect and that you shouldnt need to use windows, i just know what you're talking about BEFORE posting about it, for the love of god. Now, if you had told me that linux was difficult to use, and isnt as user friendly as OSX or XP, then i would agree. as for the security, you cant argue that linux is more secure than windows, but its true that you cant really compare them Because linux isnt made like windows, it doesnt have the same "architecture".
I find this hard to believe. I'm quite curios though. How is it done, emualtion? And does it extend to other application, not just games? However you sentence didn't make it sound to good "almost anything on linux with a bit of knownledge and the right tools"
It normally uses WINE (short for "WINE is not an emulator"), or a varient of it (such as transgaming, or crossover office). Basically an implementation of windows API's under linux - so it isn't emulating, just routing calls to hardware. Theres also VMWare available for linux. So you can run most (not all) windows apps under linux, but there is a hell of a lot of open source replacements available, which whilst they aren't as strong as windows versions are still good enough for most users. For photoshop theres the gimp, audio has audacity, not sure about video as I don't know much about it. Codecs just use VLC - I use it on both mac and linux, and it works fantastically, no codecs needed, just open video. Security, whilst it can't easily be tested, the security model IS stronger. By default in windows a user has a administrator account - on linux, and indeed all unix's, the root user is only used when needed - installing software etc. thats one level of protection - means if someone gains control of your box, in most cases they will need the root password to do damage. On patching against security holes, linux is at least equal to, if not greater than anything else - there are thousands of people looking over the code, so a hole is often patched before it is exploited. Where an exploit does exist, the same thousands of people can write a patch easily and quickly. To take the firefox example, whilst more holes are being found, the turnaround on patches is phenomenally quick - 1 or 2 days and a patch is rolled out through auto-update. Out of interest, what distro did you use for your week trial, and what specifically did you have problems with?
Yeh. With windows you can run almost everything (given that the hardware meets software requirements) without knowledge or tools... Now I'm not bashing, but in order to have linux run a native windows game you need to be a computer genious and/or have access to third party tools unless the game natively supports Linux. But if there are easy to use tools for linux that let you play games I like playing which are Counter Strike Source, Morrowind, Oblivion, Gothic 1 and 2.
Show me how to run doom 3, HL2, fable, fear, and quake 4 with a better framerate than windows, and I will switch to linux the very next day (seriously)
Psssh Battlefield 2 doesn't even run that well on Windows . That game should have seriously spent more time in the oven for some optimization but then again it was published by EA.
It was a Redhat distro I was using. And my only real problem with it was that it felt empty. I could hear mouse clicks echo in it. VLC is good, but there is a few codecs it doesn't support (although I think .mpc is supported in the beta). If you recommend me a good version of Linux to try and show me where I can find the proper tools, I'd love to give it another go. I'm not some XP fan boy, I'm just totally and uterly stuck to it becuase of the programs I must use. Also, how does WINE affect performance?
List of first person shooters working on WINE: Call Of duty Code Red Counter-Strike Delta force Delta Force 2 Gore Half-life Half-life 2 Hitman 2: Silent Assassin Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 Gunman Chronicles Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast Heavy Metal FAKK 2 Kingpin: Life Of Crime Max Payne Quake 2 Quake 3 Arena Sin Soldier Of Fortune Soldier Of Fortune 2 Steam Starsiege Tribes Unreal Unreal Tournament Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory I think I'll stick with windows...
WINE, what hapened with CEDEGA? And about that distro Ubuntu, is based on debian or something else? About the games, well with the announcement of Halo2 going vista only, the share amount of technicians saying the new vista GUI is going to require quite an amount of both graphical and procesing power, and let's not forget that the step between Vista and XP is way higher than between that last one and 98 (remember all the games that didint work on 98?) so you can expect some serious shit at least during the first year. If WINE keep optimising we may see a lot of people moving to linux (that and becos vista may be "teh" expensive....)
WINE is not good for games. Take Cedega, or something else for games, but not WINE. WINE is more for programs. Still a good list for something that runs programs, imo. Oh, then i understand. Redhat is a more proffecsional-expert distro. Not really user friendly, if you want my opinion. Take a look at Mandrake, Suse, Ubuntu and Mepis. Ubuntu is the most userfriendly of them all, but on the other hand Suse and Mandrake are more complete. Whats great with Meppis is that it (illegally) already comes with most of the codecs and programs you'll need. Linux is a pain in the arse, and i wont hide that fact, but once you get a bit of knownledge, you'll enjoy it and understand why it have an edge over windows in some aspects. You wont stop using windows for that though. When i first used linux, i was so angry at windows that i wanted to completly erase it from my computer. I learned that i cannot really do that, if i want to fully exploit my pc though. The best thing is to use both windows and linux. EDIT: And btw,
Ubuntu - johnny and I have been rantaing and raving about it, and it really is good. Red Hat isn't great in terms of get up and go, although RPM's are pretty good. Whilst I haven't tried everything, anything I have thrown at VLC it has handled perfectly (except for some WMV v10 (or maybe 9, can't remember), but I don't expect WMV to work on anything but windows) Alternately to ubuntu is to get the DVD version of knoppix and do a hard disk install of that. Cedega/transgaming/wineX are based off WINE. Ubuntu is based off debian Linux use is growing and growing - Mac had the iPod as the halo effect, Linux has firefox - works in more or less the same way.
well fuck me, looks like someones getting linux tommorow . Any recomendations on what version I should get?
I'd say Ubuntu or SUSE. SUSE comes with things like star office, and documentation, but isn't free. Ubuntu comes with most things, but only completely free software. there is a download version of suse, but go with ubuntu over that
