Hey, I do admit I am a Linux fan but I will try to be as objective as possible.
Y0da wrote:
This is what I find very funny. Linux fans knock Windows like it's the worst invention of the century yet at the same time they insist on trying to run Windows applications and games on their "Superior" operating system (hence WINE and Cadesa). Why is that? Surely their vastly superior OS should make it possible for developers to create software that far surpasses that of crummy old Windows?
No, the real reason is because developers do not want to develop for Linux because of its small user base of less than 1% from the last time I read. WINE , Cedega (IMHO sucks) and CrossOver are there to jump start the amount of applications for Linux increasing its user base and therefore may one day convince more people to develop for it.
There are already a few games that have been developed for Linux, including but not limited to Doom 3, Neverwinter Nights, Quake 3, Quake 4 and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.
Y0da wrote:
Windows developers gets paid. Linux developers don't. I'm not talking about Linux developers employed to maintain mainframes or company software. Those guys make more money than the average bank robber. Only because there's so few of them of course. No, it's commercial software that we're talking about and no game developer or publisher will be bothered with Linux because it does not pay. The most useful Linux software is actually created by fans who usually end up getting nothing but a coolness factor and a lot of E-Mails. Software is maintained by the community for the community and is usually free. Great idea, bad marketing strategy.
People who develop for Linux can still be paid just like a Windows developer. They do not have to open source their product at all. The developer and publisher may still get money but not as much because of the size of user base.
Y0da wrote:
And the reason for that is quite simple. Would you rather sell a 100 million copies of your product to stupid Windows users or a hunred thousand to very clever Linux users? I'm willing to bet that the average little game company will go with option A.
True, no objection but they could do both and get even more money.
Y0da wrote:
Graphics card venors manufacter their hardware based on Direct X which is developed as part of Windows for the very same reasons. Linux does have OpenGL but that should have died along with dinosaurs a long time ago. Although these same graphics card manufacturers do add support for OpenGL just in case. Very clever ay? They can actually sell a very clever Linux user a card that is capable of rendering the most beatifull 3d worlds just so they can waste all that power on a desktop with a penguin on it. These Linux okes must know something I don't.
OpenGL 2.1 can do anything that DirectX10 can do through extensions and more if NVIDIA or AMD decide to add a extension of something DirectX10 doesn't have. ET:QW and Quake 3 are know to be faster in Linux than in XP on NVIDIA hardware. OpenGL 3 will come out soon and I can promise you all hardware manufacturers will support it.
Y0da wrote:
Windows' biggest selling point is it ease of use. You don't need to be a script fundi to install a game. You don't need to study a thousand page handbook in order to copy, delete or move files. Almost anything needed to be done in Windows takes a few mouse clicks to acclompish. Linux have made some huge leaps in this area but it's just not the same. People prefer what they are familiar with and it's not Linux. God forbid that Microsoft should ever go under. We'd have a world in chaos.
No, it is actually its familiarity and application count and not its ease of use that is Window's selling point. People are just used to the Windows way of doing things that they think Linux is difficult but if you can give both to a person who has never used a computer before and then ask them it would be a fairer comparison. In Linux it is actually easier to install certain types of applications because you just go to a list a click what you want and it installs it. Some things in Linux may be difficult but that changes very quickly and other things may be easier to do than in Windows.
Y0da wrote:
Sure, Windows is not very secure but then again the average PC user doesn't have all that much to hide anyway. And it's way more profitable to hack Windows systems than Linux systems just because there's so many more of the former to hack. It's not that Linux is so secure it's just that nobody really bothers to try and break that security.
Linux is more secure because of it is updated often and because each distro and each installation can be so different to each other that it is difficult to create a virus that will infect all PC's. Unix on which Linux is based on was created from the beginning for security and Windows not. You could say that Microsoft has usability and is adding security(Vista) and Linux has security and is adding usability. It is also easier to experiment with new security methods because of its openness. For example a security company wanted to see what will happen if they made applications allocate memory randomly and therefore a virus can not easily do a buffer overrun because of the uncertainty of where it will overrun to.
Y0da wrote:
Don't get me wrong, Linux is a very good operating system. It's just not a very popular one and that is not likely to change in the next hundred years. Unless linux fans can convince the big guns to put their weight behind it. And it will be a very cold day in hell before that is likely to happen...
Of course, no insult intended to Linux users.
None taken, I personally dual-boot Linux OpenSUSE 10.3 and Windows Vista Ultimate. Vista for games, Linux for everything else.
By the way, Blizzard actually worked with Linux and Wine developers to sort out the issue of getting banned because these people only have Linux and will not pay their monthly fees if they can not play it. Blizzard likes Wine because it enlarges their consumer base without cost.