John Carmack on Linux 126
Jburkholder writes
"John Carmack
[?]
has
some complimentary things to say about recent Linux developments, including the
lastest Gnome and Matrox open-source drivers. Here's the best quote: -The cool part is that this driver is completely open source. I downloaded
the project code, browsed through it a bit, and changed
two lines of code to
fix the bug. That RULES. -" Comments on the new GLX stuff,
CodeWarrior for Linux, and other stuff. Worth a quick read.
Moderating gone too far! (Score:1)
this is not innocent lebeling anymore, but seriously becoming implicit censorship!
just stick with point "system", and leave it at that. no need to make editorial comment.
If this system continues, Slashdot will become dry , self serving site for OSS, since all critic will be labeled as "flame bait" and all off the cuff witty humor will be labeled as "off topic"
This is not promoting "quality posting" but only "delusion"
WARNING, the health of a community is reflected on how it cares for the dissenting voice.
Re:GNOME == KDE == Win95 (Score:1)
I think KDE was developed to look like OS2/warp,
if I recall correctly.
Win probably nicked quite a lot from OS2.
Re:What is it with elitism?-Not a thing (Score:3)
The original poster's elitism is as follows: Linux was special, different, geeky, and that is why he used it.
But I got into Linux because it was a geek's world.
Now it is becoming mainstream and accepted, and in doing so, it loses it's appeal. He wants it to be geeky, and I implied, technical, arcane, difficult, and hard to use, thus always remaining a tool of geeks.
So is this the future of Linux? Or will it remaine something that only smartguys like us use
Unless he's joking, he wants to separate Linux for use only by 'smartguys' and not by 'idiots'. That is elitism. A racist discriminates based on skin color, while an elitist discriminates based on some measure of status, ability, or talent.
So it's elitism to come from another OS, and try to change it to make it what you've came from.
This is not at all what the original poster is complaining about, except for his little bit about Linux being adopted by NT people; he doesn't want it to become easier to use, to become useable by 'idiots'. It's elitism to not want others to use your OS because their not smart enough, or something like that.
So if I changed over to the Mac and then complained that it didn't do the command line like my previous OS, and the Mac users complained about it, would they be elitist?
I assume your statement, clearly read, is as follows: You switch over to MacOS, and don't like the command line, compared to Linux or another OS. You complaing about the command line, and then the Mac users complained about you.
That's not elitism: Elitism would be the case if Mac users complained about the addition of a command line to their OS, on the basis that such an addition would pollute their user interface and attract *nix geeks and nerds to *their* OS. For one thing, elitism in any situation is wrong, belief that something should only be allowed and used by *our* group and not by *your* group, on whatever basis *our* and *your* is divided. For the Linux poster, it's about intelligence and geekiness; for the hypothetical Mac people, it would be about the holiness of their UI and the mindset of using MacOS *without* a command line.
Linux shouldn't pretend to be anything but itself for to be otherwise would be denying its own identity.
The question is, what identity are you talking about. Are you denying Linux the chance and potential of growth? Nothing stays the same, and people are currently working to improve it. Sure, you may not agree that adding a UI, a desktop environment, a simple installer, etc, are improvements, but with OS you're free to do your own work to improve it.
What is it's identity?
I would say it's open and free. It's about power *with* flexibility, and it's about being able to do what you want to do. If something doesn't perform or work, open up the source, tinker and code so that it does work.
Adding useability and UI and such is just the next step of Linux's evolution in being both powerful and flexible. Some users *don't* care about learning about the OS. Is that a crime? Why should they care about the OS, when all they want to do is use it? It is powerful and it is flexible, so it will attract a lot of people. Are you also of the belief that only those who learn the OS should use it?
It would be a waste if only people who could learn the OS should use Linux, because it is so powerful, flexible, reliable, and stable. It would do the world a great disservice if people couldn't use it as a viable alternative to M$ or Solaris or IRIX because of it's great strengths, and if it were hampered by a constituency who thought it should not be polluted so others would be allowed to use it.
-AS
Re:Linux - for the casual user? (Score:1)
Exactly! That's where Linux will more than likely go, tho probably more subtle than "standard" and "geek" dialog box. Personally, i'm on both sides. If a GUI prog won;t do it right, I go to shell to do it, assuming I already know how the UI does it.
Really, more like "Casual" and "3133+"...
Blessed Be! --"LEVIATHAN"
Re:Interesting re: G200 driver vs. Voodoo3. (Score:2)
My opinion: I'm willing to accept closed drivers to extremely hi-end cards, particularily 3D hardware. In this space, the intelectual property is truely all these companies have. Giving away the register specs will reveal way too much detail on how they're doing things.
Although Open processes are often superior to closed, they are not always. 3D accelerated hardware solutions involve hardware, and thus a whole new area of hard costs have to be managed which OSS projects don't tend to deal with well.
But then, I run Word Perfect from time to time too, and I've never been given the chance to look at it's source either.
Re:I think the fix he made was in the Quake source (Score:3)
Actually both of you are correct. John Changed something in both places. He submitted a few patches to fix bugs in the GLX driver (The main one being that our texture manager was broken and using a MRU decision to throw a texture out, not the correct LRU). From what his plan says he also made a change within the quake 3 source to fix an incorrect assumption.
For those non programmer types: MRU and LRU are most recently used and least recently used respectively.
He is a nice addition to the project b/c he brings many years of experience that most if not all of the developer's can't match. Even though our code is doing well and maturing fast, I think a few of these bugs would have gone unfound for prolly at least 2-4 wks more then with him looking at the source.
-Jeff
Re:We can always hope.. (Score:1)
On a G4, rather than an x86...
Running LinuxPPC over MacOSx...
Still, I think his preferences are to use things that just work, and work well...
He leads by example, rather than just preaching.
-AS
whoops (Score:1)
(Really Offtopic!) Moderation issues... (Score:3)
Can anyone explain how some of this moderation is working?
I'm sorry if I'm taking advantage of a highly ranked post to get seen =) Hi moderators!
Anyway, some of my posts on this thread are like 2s and 3s, but attached as responses to -1s; the really odd thing is that the -1s dissapear, but the 3s doesn't, something having to do with highlight in overflow mode or something?
I mean, the 3 is high enough not to get compressed into the title, and is displayed in its entirety... but it's weird that the original post got moderated down to nothing. Is this just a side effect of highlighting good posts conflicting with moderating a comment down below threshold levels?
I wonder how the Slashdot code decides to order the comments in that case... the 3 point post obviously doesn't float up towards the rest of the 3s in the thread, constrained as it is by a parent with a -1 ranking...
Wanna see? Try this link:
My post [slashdot.org]
It doesn't 'quite' work; remove the extra space in the link between '3&mode' and '=thread&pid'
3&mode =thread&pid=549#568
-AS
he´s much too mousse-centered (Score:1)
Re:I like your comments =) -thanks (Score:2)
Here's the question then, where do they come from now? Where are they going to go, that they will disappear?
Has the landscape changed such that Open Source coders have stopped being born?
Do they come off of work, disgruntled and unhappy with their job programming for something really stupid, and in their recreational time code something wonderful like Linux? Or are they more self serving, and do it so they can get some functionality to their non M$ OS? Or something else? Something in between?
Unless someone starts a school who's emphasis is CS and Open Source...
-AS
I like your comments =) (Score:2)
You are right that at the moment, the core of Linux and OSS are it's contributors and developers, but very soon secondary effects due to growing user base will kick in as well:hardware and software support from commercial entities looking to make a profit from the user base. 3dfx and Nvidia releasing source and specs for their 3dcards to be used under linux, Apple releasing server code, and hopefully some client stuff too, for their Quicktime software, SGI releasing source for their JFS, while also supporting Linux on their sparkly new shiny Visual PCs. Yes, for Linux to remain it's own 'product', it cannot rely on the agenda of companies who invest in it, but I don't think that was the intent of the original post either.
The original poster was complaining about Linux losing it's geekiness and becoming too mainstream for his/her taste.
You raise good points, though. If Linux is not maintained by people, what will happen to it? I'm pretty sure that as long as it's open source and as long as M$ or Apple does not offer a much superior OS and starts to open source their own software, there will always be disgruntled users who want things to 'work'.
I don't really think Linux is about elitist you vs me geeky vs mainstream users. It's about people who want to tinker and play with their OS, who want to do things, but are constrained by the conventional OSes, or people who need things, and can easily add them because Linux is open source. As long as Linux remains strong in these areas, I don't see it fading anytime soon.
One real competitor, actually, may be MacOSX, with it's BSD core; especially if it gets synched with one of the open source BSDs, then there is an alternative OS for people to tinker and play with, especially if Apple makes public or open the APIs to interface with the PPC hardware and UI...
-AS
They've been in their comptuers for a month now... (Score:1)
on the store shelves at CompUSA in Lewisville, TX. The Quake II set's
not shown itself yet. By the way, the Lewisville location seems to be
the only store on the Dallas side of the DFW metro area carrying any
of the games on the shelves at this point.
On a slightly off-topic subject. Civ:CTP has yet to show anywhere
on the store shelves in the brick and mortar stores in the Dallas area. I'm
a little dismayed at this turn of events considering that it's now 4 weeks
since they shipped the stuff to the world.
GNOME == KDE == Win95 (Score:4)
All three have "Start" menus. I can't tell you how many times I've heard WinXX and KDE cursed over that thing, and now all three have it.
I can't tell you how many times KDE and WinXX have been cursed over their file manglers,...and now all three have just about the same thing, interface-wise (though Exploder sucks rocks in comparison to gmc & kfm).
Granted, KDE is much less unabashed about its roots, interface-wise, in Windows, but as far as I'm concerned the three are about equivalent.
And take a look at the default desktop for RH6 if you want to see something "reminiscent" of Windows.
Window Maker & AfterStep are genuinely different in interface from Windows; I'm not even sure you could make them look like Windows without adding at least the GNOME/KDE panel to them.
My random opinion,
Re:Linux - for the casual user? impractical. (Score:1)
Red Hat and GNOME (Score:1)
This is a common thing -- people equate Red Hat with Linux. Since GNOME is the default with RH (KDE is not installed unless you select it), and the RH manual covers GNOME, this is what a new Linux user is going to see.
He might not have even heard of KDE.
Re:What did he expect (Score:1)
Re:Oh come off it! (Score:2)
I guess I'm at fault for misinterpreting. Apologies!
It really is up to the individual what desktop UI/environment is usable and what is not, so the original poster's disagreement does not mean anything to John's view that Gnome in Red Hat 6.0 is... a valid alternative to commercial desktop environments.
I'm sure Gnome users think it's a valid desktop environment as well =)
-AS
mouse-centrism (Score:1)
Windows NT cmd shell does not require quotes. (Score:1)
C:\> cd program files
C:\Program Files>
Re:Interesting re: G200 driver vs. Voodoo3. (Score:2)
I still am =)
So what was the point?
-AS
Oh come off it! (Score:2)
Who are you to judge which GUI/environment is best suited for The Man(tm)?
I mean, you might as well take offense at the fact that he installs Linux every year, feels it is not good enough, and continues using WinNT/NeXTStep whatever. Or that he seriously disses VI and emacs, for CodeWarrior(despite bugs), etc.
If one really wanted to delve deeply, one could think his next development platform might be MacOSX Server/Client; NeXTStep environment, *honest* OpenGL support from the vendor, classic refined UI, CodeWarrior(native!), and G4 with Altivec coming soon.
But that is a guess, and not grounded in any fact =)
-AS
quake and quake II (Score:5)
Re:HOW did you get the voodoo 3 to run q3test!? (Score:3)
An excellent resource for information is the 3dfx.glide.linux news group, available on the news server news.3dfx.com. There are lots of messages from people detailing how to get things running on the various distributions and versions.
Enjoy -- it's pretty sweet!!!
HOW did you get the voodoo 3 to run q3test!? (Score:1)
Peace
Re:Good to see this... (Score:1)
Re:Interesting re: G200 driver vs. Voodoo3. (Score:1)
Not a very helpful AC... (Score:1)
I fail to see what it is you want me/us/others to see in your posts... Reading it slowly... just... takes... longer... to... read...
There =) Read it again, slowly.
-AS
Re:What did he expect (Score:3)
John Carmack's plan is probably read by more people than slashdot (albiet often via quake news sites) so its good propaganda.
Re:DUH (Score:4)
Re:Interesting re: G200 driver vs. Voodoo3. (Score:2)
And we will be getting WARP support eventually, I think they are just waiting to see how well we do with what we have now...
but read what he said (Score:1)
"Overall, its still not as smooth, consistant, or complete as windows or the mac, but is does have its strong points, and things seem to be progressing quite rapidly."
and
"Its still not something you would give to a purely casual computer user, but I won't be surprised if even that changes in a couple years."
I think it's obvious he'd be quite impressed with KDE.
wishful thinking, but i dont see it happening. (Score:1)
3d for linux, or even that is has happend,
supposedly weeks ago. i have yet to see anything
resembling proof of this. alot of rumors are
spread by wishfull thinking.
we still have sgi and for those that can deal
with the limitations, 3dfx.
Why is it stable and flexible? (Score:1)
I think the fix he made was in the Quake source... (Score:2)
It appears that he figured out that his assumption was wrong because he had access to the driver sources and could see that it was his code, not the OpenGL code, that was incorrect. So, not only do Linux users benefit from the Open Source drivers (the textures that were broken before are working now), but all gamers will benefit. He says in his plan that the fix will improve performance on most cards by a couple of percentage points...
Just another reason why Operating Systems and drivers benefit from being Open Source.
Windows bashing... (Score:1)
And that's probably the reason why Gnome, KDE, gmc, kfm, etc. have borrowed these features from Windows. Why abandon a good idea, just because M$ thought of it first?
Re:he´s much too mousse-centered (Score:2)
If it works and gets the job done, then I would imagine it would be preferred over another tool.
To each tool, their most appropriate use, and for Carmack, as fast as he is with the keyboard, he feels most productive and powerful with his mouse I guess, though I'm not sure where you get this idea or notion.
Some things, for example, require a mouse or alternate pointing device: Artistic endeavors, 3 dimensional navigation, graphics arts, architectural or cad design, etc.
Keyboards are good for text, and for some people, even navigating the UI; but not for everyone.
-AS
dont hold your breath (Score:1)
if they did it would probably be for tnt2.
(or tnt3?)
maybe when xfree86-4.0 ships?
Glide vs. g200 glx (Score:4)
He plays on a Redhat 6 machine, dual p3 450, 128 mb ram. He used to play on a Voodoo2 card. It would freeze. And I mean freeze BAD. Sometimes you could telnet in and "killall quake2" to fix things, but sometimes the machine would be locked up so bad YOU COULDN'T EVEN DO THAT! So, we both got pretty sick of this. We go to the Fry's in Tempe and buy a Mystique G200 AGP 8MB. As soon as I put the card in, install the g200-glx rpm, and switch quake2 over to ref_glx.so, we get NO PROBLEMS (other than the mouse not working, but that's quake2's fault
Let me sum it up for you:
voodoo2: weird, unpredictable lockups. retarded scripts.
g200: works perfectly (even after the driver has only been in development a very short time). no retarded scripts. no setuid open and switchto.
Any questions?
Re:Windows, KDE, and GNOME (Score:2)
Re:Wierd Moderation (Score:1)
If the post was moderated *down* to 0, why does it say "Interesting"?
It was moderated to -1 and then back up to zero by someone who thought it was Interesting.
dylan_-
--
Re:Question about the G200 driver ... (Score:1)
turn off gpm, restart X and it should work.
Re:What did he expect (Score:5)
I don't think that this was a statement of discovery, Carmack seems to always be very open and honest in his communications (see the self-depricating (sp?) passage about a mis-assumption he made for 3 years). The way I read this is he is more expressing his delight at having *experienced* the magic of open source.
The *really* neat thing about this is that all the 3D-gamers who follow Carmack like some messiah will read this and maybe understand a little about what the whole linux/open-source concept it about.
Cheers, John -- we lub ya!
Re:Glide vs. g200 glx (Score:2)
Glide is closed-source. Though Carmack notes that it is fast, this person found it to be buggy. And in many arenas (though not all), correctness is much more important than speed.
g200 glx has open hardware specs, and they imply in this post that they're using an OSS driver. As far as they can tell, it has no bugs.
Thus, by some metrics, OSS *has* produced the best driver.
Ferix
Re:Red Hat and GNOME (Score:1)
Re:Question about the G200 driver ... (Score:1)
Another slightly off topic question, why would someone choose a card that can render at > 100 frames per second if their monitor runs 60 or 70 Hz?
---
That's the Question You're Not Supposed To Ask! Ignore the man behind the curtain!
I've never understood it myself
I'm looking forward to trying out the G200 GLX module on my G200 - But not at work, we're they're making me remove Linux because "It's a security risk". Gaaaargh.
Re:Oh come off it! (Score:1)
I think the original poster disagrees that GNOME is a valid alternative to commercial desktop environments in its current state.
Re:Interesting re: G200 driver vs. Voodoo3. (Score:3)
I cannot believe that people are actually defending proprietary drivers here, wouldn't carmack be pimping glide if thought it was that great? well, he isn't... opensource is the way..
FUD? Dunno about that... (Score:2)
Of course this also brings into the argument open and proprietary standards and APIs, patents, IP, etc.
Or if Matrox had released source with the G200, initially, DualBus stuff may have been copied or leaked into other hardware, to compete directly against the G400.
Hardware cycles are really not that far off from a two and a half years; we get incremental increases in between(riva -> riva ZX, then TNT, TNT2, G200, G400, V->V2, VB->V3, etc).
-AS
Re:Interesting re: G200 driver vs. Voodoo3. (Score:1)
I really hope that the G400 can be used (when it's released) with the G200 drivers. That would be the final push for dumping my old V2 card. Low level drivers should be open sourced. Pronto!
---
I'm afraid the G200 and G400 rendering engines are sufficetnly different that they'll need seperate 3D driver code. 2D should be the same, or so I've read elsewhere.
Matrox G200 OpenGL on Linux (Score:2)
Re:HOW did you get the voodoo 3 to run q3test!? (Score:1)
silly question... are you running the x server with -bpp 16?
i think there is a howto. visit this index [unc.edu] and look around; there is one for 3dfx hardware and one for quake, among others.
Re:Windows bashing... (Score:1)
I agree with most points you mentioned, but IMHO Gnome (and KDE) "Start-menus" are a bit better in some respects than their Windows cousin.
Most people I know curse the mess Windows Start menu quickly becomes without proper and tiresome "administration". Atleast in Debian and Redhat installed packages add themselves neatly to (usually) correct subfolder category.
That's what I call smart..
If only commercial sw vendors would agree to this.. :)
Tommi
Agreed :) (Score:2)
G200 (Score:5)
http://www.on.openprojects.net/glx [openprojects.net]
Re:Matrox G200 OpenGL on Linux (Score:1)
Re:Linux - for the casual user? (Score:1)
A good case in point would be Micros~1 long file names with spaces. Convienent for the user maybe, but a bitch to parse. At what point, and after how many special cases, do you give up and decide that you have reached a new token?
I don't suppose that this will cut it with the /. moderators glee club, but I tried.
We need more Carmacks in this world. (Score:1)
As I see it, Id doesn't fear things like opening up older games or, in general, being open with their development because they are very secure about their skills. They know that their games will be technically superior, so they don't have to resort to sneaky tricks. They are good enough to play fair, and still come out on top. I wish more software companies had this sort of mentality.
just some thoughts,
--Lenny
Re:Windows, KDE, and GNOME (Score:1)
Re:Linux - for the casual user? (Score:2)
And this is a good thing.
I imagine it working something like this: When root creates a new user account, root is prompted: "Standard" or "Geek".
If root clicks on Standard, then the user gets a standard desktop, very simple, almost entirely applications, nothing like the hex editor, no mounting options, just a very simple system. The odd thing for the user would be a "Terminal" option, which the user would use about as frequently as "Command.exe" is used on Win9x. (This would be allowed so that a geek using a normal account could fix things up or what not.)
OR the root could click on "Geek", which is the environment that you are accustomed to. {:)}=
This is the best of both worlds, and a worthy goal.
not really. (Score:3)
But the point you are making about Open Source drivers is still valid...
Re:Red Hat and GNOME (Score:1)
so kde does not satisfy the knee-jerk factor. glad not to have you then.
Re:great, now Id will go out of business too.. (Score:1)
He didn't say they were crappy editors. He said that he never bothered to take the time to learn them. I don't think anyone who uses emacs and vi ever said they were easy to use, but once you learned the commands they are great.
Secondly, Id will never go out of business as long as they keep producing great games like quake, and if anything expanding into the linux market may increase their sales and make them more poised to stay in business longer.
Re:Linux - for the casual user? (Score:1)
Given that UNIX systems have supported long (as in greater than 14 characters) file names, with spaces, as far back as 1982, what are they a "good case" of? (They supported file names with spaces at least as far back as 1975-1976; I'm using 1982 as the first time they supported long file names, as that's when, as I remember, the BSD file system first arrived - I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that it was the first UNIX file system to support file names longer than 14 characters.)
Until OS/2 came out, "Micros~1 long file names with spaces" presumably meant Xenix file names with spaces, but, as far as I know, Xenix had the old V7 UNIX file system, with 14-character names.
You require that a token that contains spaces be included within quotes, as UNIX shells have done for ages, and as the Microsoft Windows NT shell (and, I think, the Windows OT shell) does. (At least in UNIX you can use double or single quotes; I often forget that single quotes don't work in the Windows NT shell.)
In a GUI, the quotes may not be necessary, but that applies to UNIX or MacOS, say, just as it applies to Windows.
Re:After the bug fix... (Score:1)
Windows, KDE, and GNOME (Score:1)
In most aspects KDE is more like Windows than GNOME, but GNOME has picked up a couple of Win95 traits, which really look odd and out of place.
1) The little arrows that both Windows and GNOME add to shortcut icons (GNOME puts them on the opposite side)
2) The window resize arrows that appear when the mouse pointer passes over a window; KDE uses the Motif style, but GNOME looks like they came straight from Windows.
AC #967
Re:DUH (Score:1)
Look at performance holistically. Performance consists of many factors including the ability to modify SW if required. Dont take a very one sided view of performance.
Since you are all gamers, I am sure you understand that this is a strategy game. You have to not only win against the evil forces by blasting their brains, you also have to play an intelligent game by NOT playing into the hands of people who can take advantage later. These are rules which are not displayed with F1. I hope you win this game. Best of luck
Carmack (Score:5)
All in all, another good development. Remember when he came out, saying how he disliked Direct3D and loved OpenGL? The man has influence. Nvidia, take a hint, you did on OpenGL....
Re:Red Hat and GNOME (Score:1)
Being different for the sake of being different, especially at the expense of usability and consistency, is stupid.
"Look at me, I'm alternative." Woo.
Re:Windows NT cmd shell does not require quotes. (Score:1)
C:\Program Files>
This is nothing more than a hack to the "cd" command. Many commands do indeed require quoting the filename. Linux could hack its cd command in the same way, as it takes only one argument, but it would create some inconsistency were it to be expected in all commands.
Re:Red Hat and GNOME (Score:1)
It is too reminiscent of the interface some of us used to use and had been scorned so many times by. Gnome feels and looks much less like that other os than does kde. I for one am not at all comfortable using it because of this simple fact.
Re:Interesting re: G200 driver vs. Voodoo3. (Score:3)
Because it's the only platform right now that offers good IDEs, compilers, OpenGL support, memory protection, good multi-tasking, good SMP, and decent driver support.
He is very hopeful for MacOSX, because of it's NeXTStep heritage(despite a single mouse button), and with it's future support for OpenGL and all the standard OS features such as protected memory, pre-emptive multi-tasking, hardware GL acceleration, etc.
Linux is a future candidate, as soon as the UI and desktop environs get polished a little and hardware manufacturers support it.
He himself cares little for the *politics*, just for the results. He likes Open Source; he can work without it.
-AS
Re:G200 vs Voodoo I (Score:1)
Re:They've been in their comptuers for a month now (Score:1)
Good to see this... (Score:2)
--PimpBot (forgot my login)
Re:Windows bashing... (Score:1)
Question about the G200 driver ... (Score:1)
My only gripes were that I could not change the brightness/gamma (changing the option had no effect), and I couldn't use the mouse for input (this is probably a quake thing, but it may have something to do with GL contexts -- I am not sure).
If anyone knows how to fix either of these things, I would to hear how.
Another slightly off topic question, why would someone choose a card that can render at > 100 frames per second if their monitor runs 60 or 70 Hz?
Re:They've been in their comptuers for a month now (Score:2)
I dunno... (Score:2)
I do recall Torvalds saying in several interviews that Linux users should not get into a debate over open-source vs. closed-source.
V3 in Linux (Score:1)
Nobody in their right mind is going to play Q3A in 32bit color anyway even with a TNT2, it's looks fine in 16bit, and the frame rates kick butt.
Do not underestimate how relieving it is to not have to reboot into Windows just to play a game. Since they (Daryll Straus?) released the X server with V3 support I have not had to reboot since.
I'm unsure about the exact performance difference between Q3A in Linux and Windows, but I don't really need to. Visually I cannot tell any difference between the two.
All in all, there is no better video solution for a Linux user and moderate gamer than a V3 3000.. Maybe when Nvidia will get on the bandwagon and support Linux that will change - but I wasn't willing to wait forever.
G200 3d (Score:5)
We can only hope that other Harware manufacturers will follow suit
Matrox are you listening? How about those Warp Engine Specs for the G200 ?
Re:Windows NT cmd shell does not require quotes. (Score:1)
This would involve a hack to a *sh not linux or a unix. It could even be done with a script for commands such as cd, but for other commands, what does something like rm program files mean? (think of the fun & games this could cause in established scripts and makefiles)
Who types file names anyway?
andrew@frey /~ > cd Pro[tab] /~ > cd Program\ Files /Program Files >
andrew@frey
andrew@frey
DUH (Score:2)
Lets see you try to optimize glide sometime... oh wait, you cant.
Re:Question about the G200 driver ... (Score:2)
Interesting re: G200 driver vs. Voodoo3. (Score:5)
As a comparison of what's possible right now, I've got a Voodoo3 in a Celeron 300A@450, and am able to get 35 to 50fps in Q3Test at 1024x768 with all the quality options set to their maximum! (...under Linux, of course.)
Check out the www.linux3d.org [linux3d.org] site for more details on the Glide driver which makes this possible. It's not Open, but it's free and it's here now.
Disclaimer: I don't work for 3DFX, I'm just in awe of one of their cards.
Re:G200 3d (Score:1)
What is the address for the G200-glx developers list?
Thanks.
Re:After the bug fix... (Score:3)
The GLX driver is developed under a XFree86 compatible license as well... (This is because it needs to be compatible with the license that is appropriate for Precision Insight's direct rendering architecture)
But he have submitted some changes even so.
Re:Glide vs. g200 glx (Score:2)
Spaces in file names. (Score:1)
Embedded spaces are hostile to casual CLI interaction, and are present in inverse proportion to the quality of the CLI. Consider the following data points:
In the Mac, with no (native) CLI, spaces are used in file names with abandon.
In Windows 95+ interface, with a retarded CLI (command/cmd), embedded spaces in file names have been encouraged (like the obnoxious 'Program Files' and common usage for Word documents) but are not nearly as common (in my experience, YMMV).
It is interesting to note that the presence of the embedded spaces 'feature' in Windows seems to be a part of a blind effort on MS's part to "be like a Mac" (even when it doesn't make sense).
Finally, in the Unix/Linux world, with several quality CLI's, embedded spaces is vanishingly rare.
Personally, whenever co-workers send or reference files in our NT network that contain embedded spaces, I ask them (as politely as I can manage), to change the spaces to underscores. It takes no more time to write the name that way, and eliminates one more source of bugs in scripts (we use MKS Korn Shell for NT extensively, it is light years ahead of the native CLI - making the problem with spaces more acute), typed commands, etc.
Embedded spaces in filenames are just a bad idea, people should get out of the habit of using them, no matter if the OS allows it or not.
not quite. (Score:1)
C:\> DIR Program Files
--doesn't work.
C:\> DIR "Program Files"
--works.
C:\> COPY "Program Files\stuff" stuff
--quotes are required.
What is it with elitism? (Score:4)
Elitism is not something one should cherish; us vs them, we're better, nyaa-nyaa!
Linux will/can fork, so if you *really* insist on something arcane or bleeding edge, go for it!
Catering to the casual users also means catering to John Carmack, because he doesn't want to deal with minor useability issues, and learning things the hard way. He wants to program his games, and not learn how to use his OS any more than he needs to; are you willing to exclude Carmach from your elite group because he prefers more 'user friendliness' just so he can get his job done?
There are a good bunch of people who need their OS to just work, and has nothing to do with being an idiot; if they can get their stuff done in Linux because Linux 'just works', then power to Linux and to those users.
If Linux were to remain within the cadre of elite power users, then it wouldn't be very *useful* would it?
-AS
Testing the feasibility of Open Source (Score:1)
I am a professional programmer. My speciality is not operating systems, but I'm sure that I'd have the technical ability to do some useful work towards an open source operating system if I really wanted to. However, I don't want to. It simply doesn't interest me that much, I'd much rather be working on other kinds of things. I don't mind learning a bit about Linux, and I'd probably use it a lot more if someone else was administering the system. However, to me the OS is just a tool that I use that allows me to do the things that I'm interested in - I don't want to have to spend time working on stuff that could be spent more productively.
It also seems that it's rather against the spirit of the GPL to expect people to give stuff back if they use it - sure, if you use and make it better, then by all means!, but surely part of the original aim of Linux and the GNU project was to have a set of freely avaliable tools that people could *use*...
I see this as being a fundamental test of the whole open source philosiphy - will there continue to be enough people out there with a sufficient interest in operating system development to keep Linux going?
G200 vs Voodoo I (Score:1)
Re:We can always hope.. (Score:1)
HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO PLAY QUAKE WITH A SINGLE MOUSE BUTTON?!?!?!?!?!
GET A PC
Nvidia... (Score:4)
I mean requests from thousands of users is much different than a request from The Man(tm) who helps to sell your cards with his games, right?
-AS
Carmack and GPL (Score:5)
Re:G200 3d (Score:1)
What did he expect (Score:1)
Re:DUH (Score:1)
After the bug fix... (Score:3)