Could Linux replace Windows If..

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I know that's what you meant, but you specifically said "produced on" which doesn't mean that.

I never said "produced on", you did.

Not according to Cedega.

Cedega isn't a magical wand that changes what a game was designed for. Plus, any problems you have are directly related to the fact you aren't working with supported software, which means zero support from the development studio. That is not the same as simply playing it on the OS it was designed for, it's very inconvenient.

And infact it would offer you a lot less in terms of hardware support, speed and customizability compared to both Linux and Windows.

I don't customize my computers except for the GUI, which wouldn't bother me to be without. Yes, they'd be slower, but that wouldn't bother me so much simply because frankly, I think PC's are developing too fast.

 

[Nothinman]

I never said "produced on", you did.

Not true, go reread your post from 12/08/2005 08:37 PM.

Cedega isn't a magical wand that changes what a game was designed for. Plus, any problems you have are directly related to the fact you aren't working with supported software, which means zero support from the development studio. That is not the same as simply playing it on the OS it was designed for, it's very inconvenient.

I never said it was a 100% solution, but then again neither is running a game designed for Win98 on WinXP. And no, you won't get support from the game developers, but you can get support from Cedega for a lot of games. For me I'd rather take my chances with Cedega than run Windows for the Windows rare game that I want to try.

I don't customize my computers except for the GUI, which wouldn't bother me to be without.

In a way you're lucky then, I'm so entrenched in my current work flow that being stuck with only 1 desktop would kill me.

Yes, they'd be slower, but that wouldn't bother me so much simply because frankly, I think PC's are developing too fast.

I wasn't talking about slower hardware, the hardware iself is decent, I was talking about software. The only problems that I can think of with Apple hardware is their use of POS Broadcom wifi and 1 button mice/touchpads.

 

[sourceninja]

I actually find the Cedega interface a better way of managing games then windows itself. When its gone its gone, and its nice and self contained.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: cpacini

it would be very very stupid for anybody to put out a Linux only game.

:thumbsup:

It could be an open source project. I could see that happening.

 

[gsellis]

OK, I have waited long enough for all of you to get it out of your systems. If you really want Linux to take over over Windows, start hoping that Mt. Rainer destroys Redmond. That is about the only scenario that had good odds that I could come up with. Next on the list was a asteroid impact

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: gsellis
OK, I have waited long enough for all of you to get it out of your systems. If you really want Linux to take over over Windows, start hoping that Mt. Rainer destroys Redmond. That is about the only scenario that had good odds that I could come up with. Next on the list was a asteroid impact

I wonder if you will be suprised when that asteroid is shaped and colored exactly like a gigantic penguin.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: gsellis
OK, I have waited long enough for all of you to get it out of your systems. If you really want Linux to take over over Windows, start hoping that Mt. Rainer destroys Redmond. That is about the only scenario that had good odds that I could come up with. Next on the list was a asteroid impact

I wonder if you will be suprised when that asteroid is shaped and colored exactly like a gigantic penguin.

Like penguins can fly... smirk.... Hey, when penguins fly...

 

[Zirconium]

In its current state, Linux can not replace windows on the desktop. However, I have been able to convince a few people to give Linux a shot with a Linux-only game. The game is called Koules, and it is very simple but very addicting. You can find it on the 3.4 Knoppix CD (it seems they removed it on the later versions, and I didn't remember seeing it on the earlier ones).

So far, there are three things I have showed to people that caused them to try Linux. They are Koules, Knoppix, and Auditor (Auditor is a LiveCD with AirCrack and wireless drivers on it).

 

[Philippine Mango]

If linux made installing programs a breeze and supported all windows' programs or at least most, than sure I see it being possible. *is waiting for that day*

 

[Nothinman]

If linux made installing programs a breeze and supported all windows' programs or at least most, than sure I see it being possible. *is waiting for that day*

'apt-get install firefox' is difficult?

And supporting Windows programs won't help at all, if anything it'll hurt since then companies will have less incentive to port applications. From what I hear OS/2 supported Win16 just as well as Win311 and it was an all around better OS and yet it still failed spectacularly.

 

[The Linuxator]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I don't have any problem with windows personally, and I don't like linux. If all games were produced on a mac, I'd probably have a mac, but not linux. I don't like linux.

You'd buy a Mac because the game was produced on a Mac? So by that logic, you'll only watch movies like Titanic, Shrek, Toystory, etc on a Linux based device because they were rendered on Linux machines? Just because the game was produced on one platform doesn't mean it won't run on others, hell you can even cross-compile from one arch to another as long as you have the right environment setup.

you mean like star force drivers?

Hard to say, their site is extremely thin on information. But from the look of it their protection relys on the physical characteristics of their media but is readable in a normal drive, so duplication would be easy if you could burn a physically exact copy of the disc.

Are you talking about cloning a disc in RAW mode ?

 

[Nothinman]

Are you talking about cloning a disc in RAW mode ?

I don't really know, it depends on the implementation of their security which they're extremely vague about. But that might be why they're so vague, a good burner like a plextor might be able to duplicate everything well enough in RAW mode to fool their software.

 

[sourceninja]

Starforce can be tricked with a proper burn. But its still copy protection on a windows driver level, which sucks and has its own problems and annoyances. But because of this games that use starforce can't run on win64 or wine/cedega.

 

[Superwormy]

Its not games that makes Windows popular...

 

[Nothinman]

Starforce can be tricked with a proper burn. But its still copy protection on a windows driver level, which sucks and has its own problems and annoyances. But because of this games that use starforce can't run on win64 or wine/cedega.

I don't game much any more so I've never seen a game that uses this. What are a few examples?

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: sourceninja
Starforce can be tricked with a proper burn. But its still copy protection on a windows driver level, which sucks and has its own problems and annoyances. But because of this games that use starforce can't run on win64 or wine/cedega.

That's odd.

Are you using the commercial version of Cedega? They do licensing stuff with those copy protection scemes. I don't know much about the details, but I'd expect that if you isntalled point2play and used that to install the game then it would work.

But I am not certain. It worked for me were using Wine I'd have to install on Windows first.

this is kinda of a weird issue with some games... For instance there is this game called Cold War. They (Mindware Studios) made a Linux client and demo for it.. but for some reason their distributor/publisher DreamCatcher games absolutely refused to have anything at all to do with the Linux client or demo.

The authors sent them a demo for Linux and DreamCatcher even refused to post it to their website and didn't make any comment about it or anything. So Mindware had to post a torrent to their own website..
http://www.mindwarestudios.com/download/coldwar_demo.torrent
(for Linux)

It's actually very bizzare. Dreamcatcher even put starforce protections on their Windows demo!

 

[hooflung]

..if Linux wasn't filled with so many choices for different users.

 

[Nothinman]

..if Linux wasn't filled with so many choices for different users.

Yea, because being able to choose how you want to use your computer is a bad thing...

 

[sourceninja]

Well its bad if you can't make up your mind. I spent a ton of time just reading about things like file systems and gui's, etc. If you can just say ok damn it and install the normal things 90% of the linux desktop people use then go from there if you find something you dont like then its a good thing.

I say you should use distro defaults for at least a month before worring about choice. Hell, im very picky about stuff and I used to be a ricer, but now i'm using Gentoo AMD64, with gnome on a ext3 partition with dir_index enabled. All that choice, all those experiments, and i'm back to a very standard setup. I could almost use ubuntu but the backport project is iffy at best, the dont have .debs for things like ut004 and the like (and gentoo has ebuild for them) and I still like cutting edge software. Plus 64bit gentoo is a little more advanced them most other 64bit linux distros (more stuff that works and more ebuild for 32bit things that dont work in 64bit).

Speaking of which, for you people running 64bit linux and want to use 64bit firefox. Check out nspluginwrapper. It lets you use a lot of 32bit plugins with 64bit firefox. (Works on all my plugins, except for mplayerplug-in, for that I just installed the 64bit version and symlinked mplayer-bin to mplayer (I only have the 32bit version of mplayer installed). Everything worked perfect.)

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I never said "produced on", you did.

Not true, go reread your post from 12/08/2005 08:37 PM.

Missed that one, we'll just forget about this arguement then since it's fruitless anyway

Cedega isn't a magical wand that changes what a game was designed for. Plus, any problems you have are directly related to the fact you aren't working with supported software, which means zero support from the development studio. That is not the same as simply playing it on the OS it was designed for, it's very inconvenient.

I never said it was a 100% solution, but then again neither is running a game designed for Win98 on WinXP. And no, you won't get support from the game developers, but you can get support from Cedega for a lot of games. For me I'd rather take my chances with Cedega than run Windows for the Windows rare game that I want to try.

For me Linux doesn't give me anything I need so Cedega is actually a bad reason to switch.

I don't customize my computers except for the GUI, which wouldn't bother me to be without.

In a way you're lucky then, I'm so entrenched in my current work flow that being stuck with only 1 desktop would kill me.

I have 4 desktops. Like I said, I do customize my GUI. 4 desktops = good for development

Yes, they'd be slower, but that wouldn't bother me so much simply because frankly, I think PC's are developing too fast.

I wasn't talking about slower hardware, the hardware iself is decent, I was talking about software. The only problems that I can think of with Apple hardware is their use of POS Broadcom wifi and 1 button mice/touchpads.

[/quote]

Well they are up to 2-button mice now and I don't use wifi. I've never wanted more than 2 buttons and I'm not a fan of wireless, so these things aren't problems for me either.

 

[Nothinman]

For me Linux doesn't give me anything I need so Cedega is actually a bad reason to switch.

But it removes one of the reasons not to switch, provided the game works anyway.

I have 4 desktops. Like I said, I do customize my GUI. 4 desktops = good for development

All of the multiple desktop tools for Windows that I tried suck. And explorer has no Window memory so every time you restart you have to reposition everything.

Well they are up to 2-button mice now and I don't use wifi. I've never wanted more than 2 buttons and I'm not a fan of wireless, so these things aren't problems for me either.

Yea a friend of mine just bought a new G5 and it came with a mouse with a little nipple-scroll thing and two buttons on the side. I guess it's an improvement although it's still not as good as my Logitech mouse. And as for wifi, it's indespensible when you're on the road.

 

[ncage]

There is a lot of reasons why i don't primarily run linux:
1) Im a microsoft developer and try to keep up with the lastest technology. You not not run .Net very well on linux. THere is just to much that won't work on linux.

2) Neither Microsoft Money (which i use) or Quicken will work that well on linux.

3) TaxCut doesn't seem to work on linux.

Linux has couple of hurdles on the desktop:
1) Standards. Linux desperatly these. I think if you got all the heavyweights together to collaberate rather than work seperatly much headway would be made. If they could get the KDE, Gnone, and Novell all together to come up with a viable alternative to windows.

2) You have to somehow get software companies to start migrating their software for linux. Its like they aren't going to do it unless they have a lot of sales and users are going to use linux unless most of their software is available for it. So its like they are inderdependent on one another. I don't know a good solution for this.

3) Its got to be easier. Yes i don't find it that difficult but im a techie. I used both debian/slackware/gentoo/freesbd with no problem but it is a lot harder to use/setup than windows. It has got to get easier. Yes they have made improvements but not near the improvements that they need to make.

Linux is great for servers. If you need a mail/DB/HTTP server you have come to the right place but its go a lot of headway to make if it ever wants to make a dent in the desktop.

Another hurdle is microsoft is now making some excellent development tools that can only be used on windows. If you haven't tried .Net you ought to. Its really a great langauge. Yes it does have its share of issues but overall its really a great development plateform. Linux use to be on even ground with microsoft when there was just plain asp but .Net is lot better overall as a platform than jsp/servlets/php/cgi/apache.

Everyone flames microsoft for security but the .Net platoform has remained relatively secure. It has only had a few security problems since its release. I can remember only one major one with asp.net and ii6 has remained relatively secure as long as you follow microsofts security best practices. So much can't be said for the desktop though of course.

 

[Nothinman]

1) Im a microsoft developer and try to keep up with the lastest technology. You not not run .Net very well on linux. THere is just to much that won't work on linux.

The mono people would probably disagree, although I don't know how much they lag behind.

2) Neither Microsoft Money (which i use) or Quicken will work that well on linux.

Quicken is supported by CrossOver Office now.

1) Standards. Linux desperatly these. I think if you got all the heavyweights together to collaberate rather than work seperatly much headway would be made. If they could get the KDE, Gnone, and Novell all together to come up with a viable alternative to windows.

Linux is more standardized than Windows is these days. For instance, every Gnome and KDE app follow the same UI guidelines and use the same common dialogs. But MS doesn't even do that with their own apps. WMP, VS.Net, Office, etc all have different UIs and ignore the common dialogs that MS provides.

2) You have to somehow get software companies to start migrating their software for linux. Its like they aren't going to do it unless they have a lot of sales and users are going to use linux unless most of their software is available for it. So its like they are inderdependent on one another. I don't know a good solution for this.

Sadly Mono/.Net will probably push most of this as long as Mono can keep up with MS and not be sued by them. But frankly I can't think of anything available on Windows that I would want to use on Linux.

3) Its got to be easier. Yes i don't find it that difficult but im a techie. I used both debian/slackware/gentoo/freesbd with no problem but it is a lot harder to use/setup than windows. It has got to get easier. Yes they have made improvements but not near the improvements that they need to make.

No, there just needs to be more education. Windows is just as difficult in 99% of the cases, the thing is that most people already know Windows or know someone around them who can fix things for them.

 

[nweaver]

If linux comes preinstalled, it eliminates the "It's hard to install" argument. not to mention, my mom has a hard time, unless she has a recovery CD, so harder/easier during install isn't that relevant, because install/setup should be done by a pro (as is the case of OEM stuff).

How often do you reinstall windows? My brother has an HP that sucks, and in the 3 years he has had it, he has reimaged it, bought an XP Home license so he can install without the recovery disks, and wiped his drive 6-7 times because windows is too hard to clean up for him, a novice. Know how often my novice users need linux reinstalled (I installed/configured for them in the first place). So far, never. All they do is talk about how I took their old computer and made it much much faster (went from pirated XP from another family member to gentoo/XFCE4) and more stable. "I never see that blue screen thing anymore" is what my total computer noob of a sister in law says.

BTW, her blue screen problems? Crappy drivers for her sound card. Easily fixed by changing to a better driver (in linux).

 

[sourceninja]

Originally posted by: ncage
There is a lot of reasons why i don't primarily run linux:
1) Im a microsoft developer and try to keep up with the lastest technology. You not not run .Net very well on linux. THere is just to much that won't work on linux.

Well thats a given, hey 90% of my work is on unix, I better use windows. People act like there is no reason not to switch to linux. It would be stupid to use linux to develop windows apps. I mean, how are you going to test it? How are you going to share code with vs.net etc. This is really the only good reason I've seen on this forum for not using linux besides people with crappy unsuported hardware.

2) Neither Microsoft Money (which i use) or Quicken will work that well on linux.

3) TaxCut doesn't seem to work on linux.

Obviously to change platforms you can't use the same software. There are linux replacements that do the same thing or near the same thing. This is like saying I wont switch from MacOSx to windows because windows cant' run safari.
Linux has couple of hurdles on the desktop:

1) Standards. Linux desperatly these. I think if you got all the heavyweights together to collaberate rather than work seperatly much headway would be made. If they could get the KDE, Gnone, and Novell all together to come up with a viable alternative to windows.

There are standards. There is a gnome standard, and a KDE standard, a redhat standard, a suse standard, a gentoo standard, a debian standard, etc. Linux is not a OS. It is a kernel. Each OS does it a different way. Just like each windowing system does it a different way. This is a good thing. A very very good thing. But inside their own systems, they are very standard. Gnome has crazy HIG standards for gnome apps. I use gentoo/gnome, everything is very very consistant. More so then windows. I do not want gnome and kde to compromise. I like gnome to do its own thing, and kde to do its own thing. I do not want redhat and gentoo to compromise how to build an OS. Redhat is better for some sitiuations, and gentoo for others. How could use create damn small linux, or knoppix, or even IPCop if linux was all th same. Its value is in that it is a kernel and you can build whatever OS you want on top of it.

2) You have to somehow get software companies to start migrating their software for linux. Its like they aren't going to do it unless they have a lot of sales and users are going to use linux unless most of their software is available for it. So its like they are inderdependent on one another. I don't know a good solution for this.

The tools are there for cross platform, and the amount of software you can get for linux comercially is growing. However the simple fact that there is good free software for most of what you want to do is keeping development down. With the exception of games.

3) Its got to be easier. Yes i don't find it that difficult but im a techie. I used both debian/slackware/gentoo/freesbd with no problem but it is a lot harder to use/setup than windows. It has got to get easier. Yes they have made improvements but not near the improvements that they need to make.

Do non techies setup windows?

Not to mention freebsd is not linux. Gentoo is not ment for 'normal' users, and slackware does it the hard way on purpose. Debian isn't that hard to setup, but again, its not really for normal users. How about ubuntu, suse, redhat, or the million other debian based distros out there. Some are super easy to setup, most are easy to use. Yes there is a pariadim (spelling?) shift. Your skills in windows are not going to translate into skills in windows. Just like a person who has only used windows can't tell you haw to configure a mac.

Linux is great for servers. If you need a mail/DB/HTTP server you have come to the right place but its go a lot of headway to make if it ever wants to make a dent in the desktop.

I think it is fine on the desktop. I have yet to find a thing I want to do that I can't do. However I have found things in windows that I can't do, or require rediculous work arounds. The only thing linux distros need to make a dent on the desktop is to be put on retail computers like dell.

Another hurdle is microsoft is now making some excellent development tools that can only be used on windows. If you haven't tried .Net you ought to. Its really a great langauge. Yes it does have its share of issues but overall its really a great development plateform. Linux use to be on even ground with microsoft when there was just plain asp but .Net is lot better overall as a platform than jsp/servlets/php/cgi/apache.

Everyone flames microsoft for security but the .Net platoform has remained relatively secure. It has only had a few security problems since its release. I can remember only one major one with asp.net and ii6 has remained relatively secure as long as you follow microsofts security best practices. So much can't be said for the desktop though of course.

Which language in .NET? C#, VB, C++? Yes they all compile down to the same bytecode, but which one are you talking about? Have you tried Mono with Monodeveloper? If you did I think you will find your .NET skills have value on linux. Have you tried using Kdevelop, Anjuta, etc? I know there are quite a few really good IDE's for linux.

Novell is using mono and .net to write a lot of their tools so that they are portable amoung windows, mac, and linux servers and desktops. I think efforts like this are more important then normal people using linux. Personally I dont care what OS you use, I just want to see more cross platform development. The idea of closed standards (directX, word, or anything else that keeps you tied to one platform) is old and no longer needed. The only reason companys fight it so much is because they dont want to pay people with skills in things beyond the microsoft lock in. Look at companys like epic. They wrote a game engine that works on linux, windows, mac, etc with no issues. Same with ID, and bioware. But valve choose to go with a vendor lock in. Was there a really good technical reason why only directX would work? No the issue was most likley time constraits because they did not know how to program with any tools other then directX, and they were to blind to see that a small market is still a market. If you hire developers who know how to use cross platform tools (opengl, sdl, openal, etc) you could write a game that runs on mac, linux, bsd, windows, etc for almost no more effort then just windows. This is what i'm after, this is what I hope to gain by converting a few people to linux. I dont want to see a world where I can't email you because you use windows and windows email has some closed propriety, patented standard that wont let it talk to the OSS world.