Jox

October 17, 2009 at 8:07am

I (successfully) installed Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex on a seperate partition of my main machine.  Install wasn't too hard (though ensuring I"d selected the correct HDD to install to was tricky), and everything ran smoothly.  I was browsing the web in no time and playing around with some of the programs that came with the distro.  I would still be using it today were it not for 3 things:

1)  No sound.  My Soundblaster Xtreme Gamer card had no Linux drivers (at the time, at least).

2)  Gaming in Linux is dodgy.  WINE works with many games, but many more simply do not function.

3)  Shortly after installation, a popup window  asked if I'd like to run an auto-update to patch my system.  I figured "updates are good" and clicked ok.  All the downloads were completed and I restarted (as instructed) and the system would not boot.  Auto-update bricked my install.

I was a DOS user back in the day, and a windows user today.  I'd LIKE to be a Linux user, but the number of hoops I have to jump through to play games on it, plus sketchy driver support plus the general difficulty involved in learning a new OS means I'll stick with windows for now.

-Jox

Edwincnelson

October 16, 2009 at 1:06pm

I do a lot of things with my rig, and I would do them all with linux if I could, but until linux can run games without WINE or a similar workaround I can't switch. Any OS has its flaws, and as long as my computers are all windows at least I only have to identify and troubleshoot one OS's flaws. However, with some boxes running Linux and some running Windows I have two unique sets of machines to maintain, with very little gained for the inconvenience.

People that game upgrade their rigs yearly and spend hundreds of millions of dollars doing it. Give them a few reasons to switch to linux (lower OS demand on system resources is a good start) and I think you would have something.  

mattman059

October 16, 2009 at 11:00am

just a thought...run both lol...im running win7 pro on my main gaming machine and Mandriva Linux on my programming, development box

gendoikari1

October 16, 2009 at 10:58am

I put Linux on my parents' laptop, and they liked it better than XP. They liked the fact that it was free (even though my father is vehemently against the free software movement for reasons unknown), and that it runs faster than XP on the paltry 1.6 GHz Pentium DC and 512 MB RAM. I liked the community support aspect (Ubuntu Forums>some random Indian dude), and, contrary to the CW article, they were not dicks. And besides, who really cares what Richard Stallman thinks?

foamcup

October 16, 2009 at 10:12am

The 'Linux shortcomings' meme has been around for over a decade and it always points to the same 'shortcomings.'  You'd think that would hint at something.

 

Yeah, it hints that there are problems that need to be fixed if Linux desktop is to be viewed as an alternative to Windows or OS X.  It's obviously not though, so why do people keep pushing it as if it is?  I've spent enough time with desktop distributions to know that they are not worth my time or consideration, or anyone's for that matter, unless you get off on compiling drivers from source.  Even the commercial ventures know this, that's why they only push the servers.  I love my Linux server box, but I'll never touch a desktop distro again.

Modred189

October 16, 2009 at 9:21am

There is ONE thing that keeps me from using Linux on any of my non-gaming machines: The command line.

The day that I can install a wireless driver without accessing the cli is the day I switch.

It's almost 2010 after all, it's about time to move to a truly GUI. 

Jipstyle

October 16, 2009 at 9:11am

There are two things that I dislike about that article.

First, we read it roughly every twelve months.  The 'Linux shortcomings' meme has been around for over a decade and it always points to the same 'shortcomings.'  You'd think that would hint at something.

 Second, it demonstrates an astounding ignorance of the linux community.  This is made more obvious by the fact that the author missed (again) the hint mentioned above.

 Linux is not a for-profit project.  Things like marketing are completely irrelevant to the linux community.  It is relevant to those who are attempting to monetize the project, however, and this type of article should be aimed specifically at those companies.  Tarring 'linux' with the same brush makes as much sense as criticizing the entire Microsoft development staff for the outrage that is the Office 2007 ribbon UI.

Linux is not interested in making a single product.  Criticizing 'linux' because there are multiple projects working on similar tools ignores the point of an open-source project.  Yes, it would be more efficient if all of the volunteer developers working on GUIs chose KDE or Gnome rather than splitting their time between them.  However, the point of these projects is not to release a product to market in a timely fashion in order to capitalize on their work.  The point of these projects is for developers to work on a project that they enjoy and to product the product that they want.

 In the professional world, we (developers) are told what to create and how.  In our volunteer time, we'd rather make those decisions ourselves.  That is one of the main reasons we enjoy open-source projects.  Criticising us for our choices is childish and ignores (again) the purpose of open-source:  if you don't like something, go home and improve it or write your own code.

 Linux isn't shooting itself in the foot anymore than I did when I was 8 and decided to paint my model airplanes the 'wrong' colour.  My project, my hobby, my choices.  If you don't it, feel free to create your own.  

 If there isn't a paycheque with your signature on the bottom, feel free to keep derogatory opinions to yourself.  Change requests will be dealt with in an 'as interested' basis.  Thank you.