On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:18:25 -0600, Mueen Nawaz wrote:

> 	Let's be realistic: Linux could be a huge headache, especially 
for one
> who's not very computer-savvy.

My wife's not very computer savvy, and she uses openSUSE 11.0 
exclusively.  She hasn't touched Windows in years.

Her needs are fairly simple - web browsing, IM, writing tools.  She uses 
an older Compaq laptop and has no problems at all (well, the speakers are 
a bit tinny, but you can't blame Linux for that).

So sorry, I don't buy that.

Jim

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On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:19:36 -0600, Mueen Nawaz wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> There are better chances now that it will than ever before.  And if you
>> go for Cedega (or Transgaming, or whatever they're calling themselves
>> now), they've expanded the supported function calls so there's actually
>> a very good chance it *will* work.
> 
> 	I tried Cedega some years ago. It didn't do it for me. Perhaps it 
was a
> bit better, but overall it wouldn't let me play what I wanted. This is
> also compounded by the fact that most games I play are *not* one of the
> top 10-20 games around.
> 	
> 	Also, having a Radeon 8500 LE doesn't help. Especially my version 
of
> the chip, which a number of projects have washed their hands off of. I
> have 3-D working, but not all of it. Currently, Wine knows about the
> issue and aren't too interested in coding to fix it (and they're not
> even sure they can).
> 
> 	Transgaming's attitude in those days was more like "You're card 
is not
> commonly used among our customers - so low priority (i.e. never)."
> 
> 	Same comments for the games.

Not being a heavy gamer myself, it's not that big of a deal for me.  I'm 
happy with games like x-moto and torcs generally, if I want to play 
games, I can run Perfect Dark in an emulator or natively on a N64.

Jim

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On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:01:33 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Wow... The concept of using a free OS on a product specifically
>> designed for vendor lock-in seems astounding to me...
> 
> Nobody can stop free software from running anywhere, not even Apple or
> Dell!! :D

Apple's having a good run at that on the iPhone....

Jim

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>> Sure. So you've got several GB of data, and you can only pick apart a 
>> few dozen bytes of it per day. 
> 
> Except you have reams and reams of documentation telling you what each 
> function does, what arguments it takes, and so on. Way easier than 
> writing a virus.

Yeah, but it doesn't tell you about the million and one undocumented 
features that make Windows actually work properly. (That's what makes 
them... you know... undocumented.)

>> Besides, I was under the distinct impression that it's *illegal* to 
>> reverse-engineer Windows. 
> 
> Probably not. IANAL, but the last lawsuit I looked at in the USA, if you 
> copyright the code, then someone else can reverse engineer it.

And the part in the EULA that says "you must not reverse-engineer this"...?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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nemesis wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Wow... The concept of using a free OS on a product specifically designed
>> for vendor lock-in seems astounding to me...
> 
> Nobody can stop free software from running anywhere, not even Apple or Dell!! :D

Actually they can; whether it's legal or not is another matter...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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nemesis wrote:

> Andrew, both emacs and vi come with quite good interactive tutorials.

Sure. And do you know how to *find* that?

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> User error.  He didn't know how to exit vi with shift-ZZ or :q! or :w!

One might argue "designer error" for making the system so non-obvious to 
operate. :-P

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:49:16 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> 
>>>> Either way, don't you find that huge amounts of hardware stops working
>>>> properly when you start it back up again?
>>> Maybe that happens on Windows, but I don't have that experience on
>>> openSUSE 11.  Therefore, Windows sucks. ;-)
>> I just observe that there's a *vast* list of KB articles about "device X
>> does something weird after hibernation", "device Y does something weird
>> after hibernation", "device Z stops working after hibernation"... Maybe
>> they fixed all the problems by now, but the fact that so many exist in
>> the first place suggests that getting this to work properly is
>> fundamentally "difficult".
>>
>> (Personally, I wouldn't know. I never, ever, use any kind of standby
>> mode. My PC is always on, or off.)
> 
> You kinda missed my point. ;-)

You missed mine. If it's buggy on Windows, why would it not be buggy on 
every OS in Creation?

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Jim Henderson wrote:

>>> Text mode X11 configuration apps have been around for a while, longer
>>> than sax2, in fact.
>> ...which is of no help whatsoever if you can't *find* them.
> 
> http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=x11+text+mode+configuration

...which again requires Internet access.

>> (Actually, at the time I tried out klogic, we *did* have an Internet
>> connection, but I didn't even bother to *attempt* to make it work under
>> Linux. Making the "simple" stuff work was hard enough...)
> 
> Well, then, there's really no excuse for not submitting bugs, is 
> there? ;-)

How do you figure that?

> Tux Racer has been around for dog's ages (the last *update* is 7 years 
> ago, in fact).  "Not much" isn't a good assessment unless you've bought 
> into the FUD.

I guess for a suitable definition of "not much" you could argue it 
doesn't apply. After all, 3 is greater than 4 for sufficiently large 3. :-P

>> Weirdly, almost all of Valve's games run on Linux - or rather, the GAME
>> SERVER runs on Linux. The clients are Windows-only. (In fairness, what
>> does a game server do? It sends and receives UPD datagrams. Can't be
>> *that* hard to port it. Drawing 3D graphics is another matter...)
> 
> Not if you use a crossplatform library like openGL or Mesa.  Plenty of 
> people write games that use those libraries.

Both of those only support graphics. A game also needs sound, complex 
keyboard access, realtime control, etc., all of which varies by platform.

I'm not saying it's impossible to make cross-platform games. But when 
you have a huge codebase invested in DirectX, it would be tantamount to 
a complete rewrite to move to OpenGL. (Plus Valve games make use of lots 
of advanted stuff like DirectX 10. Guess where that's supported...)

>> So you've got several GB of data, and
>> you can only pick apart a few dozen bytes of it per day. Sure, shouldn't
>> take long.
> 
> It's not about the complexity, it's about the concept.  And the tools.

Of course, why would complexity be any obsticle to comprehending something?

> Reverse-engineering is not generally illegal.

Sure. The fact that the EULA says "you may not reverse engineer this" 
doesn't make it illegal at all. No sir.

> In that, you have one team that determines the specs.  You compile a 
> specification for those functions.
> 
> Then you turn the specifications over to a second team that has not 
> looked at the code for the original and have them reimplement it.

Given how painfully difficult it is just working out how to *use* the 
Win32 API, the chances of somebody correctly implementing a clone of it 
seem vanishingly small. (Especially given the vast sea of software that 
intimately depends on undocumented functionallity, glitches and the 
like.) Also, I hear that various M$ products depend on entire APIs which 
are kept "secret".

> That's how we ended up with clone PCs - clean room reverse engineering of 
> IBM's BIOS.

Because the BIOS *totally* has the same complexity level as an entire OS 
with 20 years of backwards compatibility.

> Have a look at WINE's FAQ about Windows patents and whatnot.  You'll 
> learn a lot.

I don't see anything in the FAQ about legallity.

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Invisible wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
> 
>> Andrew, both emacs and vi come with quite good interactive tutorials.
> 
> Sure. And do you know how to *find* that?

Run vimtutor instead of vim.

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