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"there won't be any impediment to write/port GOOD games to Linux?"

There's no DirectX on Linux and since most commercial Windows games use DirectX that's something of a big hurdle.

DirectX is simply an API. Linux does not provide the API, but WINE does. Most DirectX games (6-9 anyway) can be run on Linux today without a whole lot of hassle.

If you write for DirectX, however, chances are: you aren't looking to make the game portable in any sense of the word, and you aren't familiar with or competent with the alternatives (for which there is native Linux support).

Today, though, many game developers write for specific engines. The game itself is developed on an intermediate platform that uses DirectX (or whatever) as the back-end. The engine developer could write a separate back-end that is not DirectX based and can run natively in other environments. Epic Games, creators of Unreal Tournament, do this, for example.

Actually, Wine do have an implementation of DirectX, acting as a wrapper around OpenGL. It's not complete, but it works in part. Good enough that many popular FPS can run on Linux with Wine.

And besides that many games are written to _not_ only use DirectX but also other abstraction layers, incl. cross platform abstraction layers.

So it's not really a big hurdle after all.

I have installed Ubuntu myself a few times, and it really is SO annoying to have to go through lots of extra steps to even get MP3 playback..

Here's an idea: put a metapackage in multiverse that pulls in everything needed to get mp3/wmv/whatever playback. The needed packages are already provided (except for w32codecs and libdvdcss)
Let's call them ubuntu-restricted-multimedia and kubuntu-restricted-multimedia.

Simple, right? So simple I am surprised that MOTU's haven't already done it.

* Here's an idea: put a metapackage in multiverse that pulls in everything needed to get mp3/wmv/whatever playback. The needed packages are already provided (except for w32codecs and libdvdcss)
Let's call them ubuntu-restricted-multimedia and kubuntu-restricted-multimedia. *

libxine-extracodecs contains everything you need for anything playback (except for libdvdcss and w32codecs), a search for 'codecs' in adept or synaptic will reveal this.

libxine-extracodecs contains everything you need for anything playback (except for libdvdcss and w32codecs), a search for 'codecs' in adept or synaptic will reveal this.

I was thinking of https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

According to this guide, there's more work to be do done that simply installing libxine-extracodecs.
Besides, how I am I supposed to "guess" the right package name? There's room for improvement here, I think.

//Besides, how I am I supposed to "guess" the right package name? There's room for improvement here, I think.//

(1) Put a DVD in the DVD drive. The default player will start up and it wiil tell you the name of any uninstalled package(s) you wiil need to install to play it.

or ...

(2) Start your package manager. Hit the search button. Type in "dvd". Read the descriptions of what is then listed.

It really isn't that hard.

BTW ... dvd decoders and mp3 codecs aren't part of Windows standard install, either.

The first thing that me and 80% of home users do when I install Ubuntu is enable universe/multiverse repositories. So let's not ignore reality and put a first time wizard or something that let's you choose if you want to include "unsupported" software in your selections, including "real" multimedia support.

Of course give all warnings that playing mp3 is a HIGHLY ILLEGAL activity that will surely cause you to BURN IN HELL.

:-)

Since playing mp3 files are perfectly legal there is no need for warnings.

For that matter one can grab a dvd. Still perfectly legal.

Of course this may not apply to USA but too bad for them.

Automatix?

So what? It is an INDICATION. And besides, we all KNOW (before and after the poll took place) that these apps/drivers is what most NEW users WANT from Linux. My editorial is not based on the results of the poll, it is using it as indicative data. The idea I present on the editorial existed in my mind for YEARS now, because I recognized the need for it.

Indication? Do you know statistics? Maybe not ... indicative data - okay ... but where is the base for this indication? If you don't present this information, it's obsolete hype.

>The idea I present on the editorial existed in my mind for YEARS now, because I recognized the need for it. Most of these votes are nothing more than hype, to push people toward a certain direction, to make an indication.
Open Source should be realistic, it should not do the same mistake like commercial software. Think of vaporware.

And remember Open Source isn't just about "I want", "give me something", Open Source is about "to give something", "to participate". The latter is almost forgotten and if you can't give something the "Opensource way", donate some money.
With "you" I do think in a common way.

The poll did not ask whether for example Ubuntu should include non-free in the install, it merely asked which non-free software is important to the users.

I need flash. So yesterday, after installing FC6, one of the first things i did was install flash. And mplayer, ntfs and stuff from the livna repo.
But i do not think Fedora should include these. Without a strong focus on free software, there wouldn't have been a Fedora or an Ubuntu now.

If users really wanted non-free, why is it that Ubuntu is the big name in Linux, and not for example Linspire? And why isn't there a (very) popular distro that includes non-free software, based on Ubuntu (or Fedora)?

Assuming the votes represented a completely random sample of the 1 million people, then 8 thousand votes is overkill to get an accurate picture. You'll learn that in your first statistics class.

That said, how certain are they that the received a random sample?

Yeah, but 80-90% of the Linux users only use the top-5 distros. These are the distros that must make the difference.

Instead of hype, we should sensitize users for alternative ways in Open Source. The should know about their choice. In all those articles everyone want's the ultimative distro? What's this? A copycat of Windows or MacOS X, but nothing real different.

Yes, we do want ALL the features of OSX and Windows, plus that extra "real different" thing you mention. IF you only give users the "real different" without the "copycat" part, you fail. And you fail because people don't want to lose functionality.

Oliver, normal people don't give a rat's ass about open source, community, and giving. In case you haven't noticed yet, people are egocentric, and only care about themselves and their loved ones. This may sound harsh, but it's the truth.

In other words, you won't be able to make people use open source software just because it's open source. The argument doesn't work, because people simply don't care. Don't the existence and popularity of the Ubuntuguide, EasyUbuntu, and Automatix prove this to you?

Open source advocates need to learn to accept that they cannot force everyone into thinking like them. Choice is about more than just the open source way. Non-free is a choice too, you know, and by religiously forcing people to settle for less-than-optimal solutions (.ogg maybe as good as or better than .mp3, but since few hardware players support and most of people's music in in .mp3 anyway, it is not the best solution for normal folk), you are actually removing their choice.

What I care about, is that people have the best computing solution that works best for them. I am a Linux user, and I'd love to see more people use it. However, I simply know that because of things like what Eugenia is talking about in this editorial, it is not the optimal solution for most of my friends, hence I refuse to advocate it to them.

Think about that. What is more important, open source, or wanting the best and easiest computing experience for your friends?

Open source advocates need to learn to accept that they cannot force everyone into thinking like them. Choice is about more than just the open source way. Non-free is a choice too, you know, and by religiously forcing people to settle for less-than-optimal solutions

All valid, but why would it then be ok to force open source advocates to include non-free in their distributions, when there are already other distributions offering the free plus non-free way?

Choice can be applied at multiple levels. One can choose between hardware manufacturers, type of computer (desktop, laptop, ...), operating system, operating system vendor (when applicable as with Linux), different layers of the software stack and so on.

Some choices might limit the option for other choices and might as a consequence not lead to an overall satisfiable combination for a given requirement.

For example if the primary choice is to buy a Dell, your operating system options get OS X removed.

If the primary choice is to play MP3, free-only distributions are removed from the operating system vendor choice, the operating system Linux stays available through vendors going with a mixed approach.

Now it would be nice for the first example to have OS X available on all OEM platforms and MP3 enabled in all software stacks, but that will always be up to the respective vendor.

As long as there are other options at the respective level, the primary choice can still be satisfied.
If there are no more options left, there might be a need for a compromise somewhere

"Think about that. What is more important, open source, or wanting the best and easiest computing experience for your friends?"

That is very true, and it is my way of thinking as well.
However there are situations when Linux is better than Windows. For instance there must be at least one distro that is better than Windows 98.
And if it is true that most people don't care about OSS values, it is also true that they care about free as in free beer.

"What is more important, open source, or wanting the best and easiest computing experience for your friends?"


Open source. If open source is not important to someone else, that person is free to continue using Windows, OSX, or whatever else he or she wants.

I want open standards, and open source is an important part of making that happen. I want *real* choice. That choice being that I can use whatever browser, word processor, music player, etc., that I want to use, and everyone else can happily use whatever they want to use.

If that makes me a zealot, fine. I can live with that title.

"These are the distros that must make the difference. "

Must? Really? Doesn't that depend on what their goals and idea(l)s are?

Yeah, but 80-90% of the Linux users only use the top-5 distros. These are the distros that must make the difference

But if those distros that provide those things are not in the top-5, doesn't this tell us that the addidional value is not helping them makretwise?

FWIW, what the article ignores is that in general, proprietary software vendors (and other 'intellectual property' right holders) put a lot of value into their brands, and want to control the distribution channel, i.e. who they are associated with.

They don't want every random h4x0r linux distro to redistribute their w4r3z freely, possibly adding their customizations. There is no money in that.

FWIW, what the article ignores is that in general, proprietary software vendors (and other 'intellectual property' right holders) put a lot of value into their brands,

What yardstick are you using to measure that? Microsoft? Oh dear.

and want to control the distribution channel, i.e. who they are associated with.

If I buy something, I control that thing. End of story.

They don't want every random h4x0r linux distro to redistribute their w4r3z freely, possibly adding their customizations. There is no money in that.

Funny, I could swear I paid for that copy of Mandrake Linux. Oh, and that other one. Oh, and that copy of Gentoo.

Selling proprietary software has certain business models.

For example, Adobe's Flash player FAQ pretty clearly states

"Can I make the Flash and Shockwave players available directly from my website?

No, the Flash Player and Shockwave Player free distribution agreement does not allow you to distribute the players from your website. You must direct visitors to the players, readers, and viewers area of our downloads page . To easily link to our website, we provide Adobe web player buttons that you can display on your site."

Is it that surprising that proprietary software vendors don't want any random guy to redistribute their software gratis and at his leisure? That they want to control the brand, the distribution channel, and the revenue chain? And that they would defend their revenue streams if they had to?

I think the distro's that provide these sorts of things are more technically oriented. Arch for example, there's a package called "codecs." I still can't believe they do it, but it's really convenient!

But no newb is going to survive Arch without a guru living in the same room. That's ok though, Arch is very open about not being newb friendly.

Anyway, I think Eugenia is making a bigger deal of this than it is. Ubuntu can't do what she asks because it goes against all that it stands for. Fedora can't because it stands against RedHat's policy.
And frankly, many of these non-free applications aren't very good:
1.) Nvidia drivers: Linux doesn't need new users complaining about the instability these cause. Although they aren't too bad.
2.) ATI drivers: Total crap.
3.) Acroread: The only thing this is good for is filling in the few pdf's that let you do that, Government forms. Otherwise, Evince is just awesome these days.
4.) Java: The implementation which made the world think Java was a slow language until Gnu proved that wrong. It's an _ok_ implementation now. It's still kludgy in some circumstances.
5.) Multimedia Codecs: Completely illegal to distribute. I wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole if I were running a server.
6.) Intel compiler: If you can't install it from Intel's instructions you have no business using it. Seriously.
7.) Opera: Provides an RPM for a couple of those popular distributions. Installing it is very much like it is in Windows.
8.) Skype: Maybe this one would be good to get packaged.
9.) Macromedia Flash: More and more sites are switching to flash 8 these days, I'm beginning to find that flash 7 gets me little more than google video (you can download the good videos anyway) and web advertisements. Oy I despise flash.
10.) Pixel32: Um, that's not only not free as in freedom, it costs money. Should distributions take credit cards numbers now? (I'm not being sarcastic, it's not a horrible option).

>Ubuntu can't do what she asks

Mark Shuttleworth has a different opinion.

The reason things like DVD and MP3 support cannot be included is that it is illegal to distribute them in the US without a license. Soo, if Sabayon is including those packages, eventually it will come back to bite them.

//The reason things like DVD and MP3 support cannot be included is that it is illegal to distribute them in the US without a license.//

There has never been a case of any imaginary "license holder" of a method of playing DVDs successfully suing any other independent method of doing that.

You legal conclusion above is extremely dubious.

Where exactly is this imaginary "right to license" the particular method of decoding CSS as used by either libdvdcss or that used by DeCSS? No company has ever asserted such a right.

This happened to me with Kubuntu 6.06TS: the opensource driver didn't work with my NVidia board, how do I open a webbrowser to download the proprietary NVidia driver?

Type: 'lynx'

This happened to me in Mandriva 2007 after changing from stock kernel to mm-desktop kernel... and XFdrake detected that my NVIDIA module was no longer loaded and automatically generated a new xorg.conf on the fly. I was expecting to get bumped to a terminal, but instead was booted into the desktop. I think this may have been part of first time boot script after installing an additional kernel, but boy it was slick.

That's a good thing, but in my opinion those type of tool shouldn't be part of a distribution but part of KDE or Gnome: it's their role to provide easy-to-use components for the user to manage the drivers.

Out of curiosity, which driver Mandriva used after rewriting the xorg.conf file, the vesa driver?
If this is the case, there should be somekind of visual indication of what's happening because for me vesa was doing 60Hz refresh which is very unpleasant to use..
Has the same thing happened to you?

>>Somehow Windows and Apple users find out how to >>install realplayer or drivers without being >>actively encouraged or guided by their OS >>developers.

Yes because when I double click on a file that has an extension that my WinXP machine can't play my OS doesn't actively guide me into downloading the software by saying something like "To open this file, Windows needs to know what program created it. Windows can go online to look it up automatically, or you can manually select from a list of programs on your computer."

Yes, Ubuntu is listening. But in the case of, "Make it easy to get hardware acceleration!" the answer is, "We already did. How did you miss it?"

Do you install the "nvidia" driver by default on nvidia hardware? Because if I remember correctly up to dapper I got "nv" by default.

Edited 2006-10-25 10:01

sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
sudo nvidia-glx-config enable

and of you go, no manual xorg.conf editing necesary.

//sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
sudo nvidia-glx-config enable

and of you go, no manual xorg.conf editing necesary.//

It is even easier on some distributions:

http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/SetupNVidia

No magic command-line incantations at all!

sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
sudo nvidia-glx-config enable

and of you go, no manual xorg.conf editing necesary.

Maybe, but it's using the command line, which is just not good enough. With that attitude, why have we got Synaptic or gnome-app-install? Apt-get is clearly good enough.


There should be a GUI app called "Display Settings" or something like that. It should list the available video drivers compatible with your hardware, and allow you to choose between them (most cards will only have one choice of course, but ATI and Nvidia owners would get two). It should offer to restart X for you, and roll back to the previous driver if things don't work.

It should allow you to check that 3D acceleration is working, if available on your card. Nvidia and ATI could put hooks in there to their own settings programmes, like they do in Windows.

Oh, and it should also make configuring multiple displays easier than falling off a log. Do you want to clone or extend your desktop? If you're extending it, what's the orientation of the monitors with respect to one another? Going further, it should also pop up a dialogue when HAL reports that a new display has been plugged in, asking you what you want to do.

But I can dream...

Doing anything at all with X on Ubuntu other than changing the resolution requires you to delve into either xorg.conf or the command line. For God's sake, even Windows 98 allowed you to configure dual displays easily. I'm amazed nothing has been done about it on Linux.

//There should be a GUI app called "Display Settings" or something like that. It should list the available video drivers compatible with your hardware, and allow you to choose between them (most cards will only have one choice of course, but ATI and Nvidia owners would get two). It should offer to restart X for you, and roll back to the previous driver if things don't work.

It should allow you to check that 3D acceleration is working, if available on your card. Nvidia and ATI could put hooks in there to their own settings programmes, like they do in Windows.

Oh, and it should also make configuring multiple displays easier than falling off a log. Do you want to clone or extend your desktop? If you're extending it, what's the orientation of the monitors with respect to one another? Going further, it should also pop up a dialogue when HAL reports that a new display has been plugged in, asking you what you want to do.

But I can dream... //

You mean like this?

http://www.cyskat.de/dee/progxorg.htm

Yes. Probably should be included in Ubuntu by default.

Of course it is included by default in some easier distros ...

http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/PCCHardware
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/PCCMonitor

Hey, even kubuntu ...
http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/scaled/...

Edited 2006-10-25 13:12

On a side note, I think a DirectX type API for Linux might entice Game publishers and Devs to support Linux, and with games come more users! Game On!

Would you pay for a Linux game?

Why do people think Linux user are so reluctant to pay for games or other software? I am a Linux user, I use Windows from time to time to play games, and yes, I do pay for them. Amazing, huh? I really must be a white fly ...

rehdon

You know, it would seem to me that linux gamers would be likely to buy more games than the windows gamer, because we don't have to worry about paying for anything else and therefore have the available cash.

I think that people are reluctant to pay for porly written or porly supported software. Unfortunately this is often the case for software that have been ported to Linux from other platforms.

E.g. look at Nero CD burning software. It may be very good on windows but compared to its free competitors on Linux it looks like a rather blunt instrument. On top of that it is written using very a old GUI toolkit, that makes it stand out as old and outdated. Of course people don't pay for these kind of things.

One other thing, if you look at the websites of many software venders that tries to provide Linux ports, the Linux version is often described as some kind of experiment, with nom promises of future support, or future availability. Still the Linux version often carries the same price as versions for more common platforms. No wonder they are hard to sell.

On the other hand, it doesn't seam to be any problem to sell well written software such as Oracle, DB2, VMWare, Maya, Mathematica, Math Lab, Websphere... All of these are quite expensive, but still sold. Not to mention that the Linux distros frequently used in business such as Red Hat are far from cheap. So clearly at least business are willing to spend money on Linux products.

If we are talking about the consumer market, the situation is different. My guess is that most consumers (unlike you) doesn't have that much money to spend. This means that they will go for a platform where they easily can buy one or two games, and pirate the rest from their friends.

Edited 2006-10-25 14:46

Not to mention that the Linux distros frequently used in business such as Red Hat are far from cheap. So clearly at least business are willing to spend money on Linux products.

More is spend on licenses and support contracts?

Well, I currently pay for my Windows games, I pay for my Console games, so Why should Linux Games be any different? I would gladly shell out money for quality games on Linux.

I would gladly shell out money for quality games on Linux.

Fine. Now, would you gladly pay for any quality, closed source software on Linux?
Some people consider this an anathema.

P.S. And this may be exactly what is holding desktop Linux back.

Edited 2006-10-25 10:23

Is it really that far fetched that anyone who runs Linux or wants to run Linux (I fit in the later catagory) would pay for software, be it open or closed source. Granted, I would not want to pay for Hardware Drivers as I think it is the responsibility of the Hardware Manufacturers to supply the necessary drivers for their products, I am sure some people would if it means more reliability/functionality for their systems under Linux. Also, why is closed source software considered an anathema for Linux. Just because the OS is open source does not mean that all software must be open source. Besides intalled user base, I think the views that some community members have towards proprietary software keep comercial developers from embracing Linux and that is a shame. Linux has so much untapped potential. I only recommended a unified application installer (ie InstallShield) and a DirectX equivilent APIs for 1) ease of use and uniform software installation across all distros (RPM, APT, etc does not cut it as user friendly); and 2) to entice Publishers and Developers to write code for Linux be it open or closed source, free (as in beer) or purchasable.

Fine. Now, would you gladly pay for any quality, closed source software on Linux?
Some people consider this an anathema.

It is not an anathema; it is an oxymoron.

At the very least I should be able to try software before I buy it, because I have learned that the gap between what the software does and what the vendor claims it does is often of cosmic proportions.

Also, "you can never trust code that you did not write yourself". Open-source software that someone else has written comes a close second, closed-source software a poor third. Rarely, however, is it possible to return a software product that stinks or comes fully loaded with ten pounds of spyware. And it never seems to be a case of the software being BETTER than the marketing.

But, I would and do pay for quality open source software.

I do.
(Quake3 & 4, Doom3, RtCW, UT2K3/2K4, etc)

Bought a copy of Quake 4 off the shelf two weeks ago, never installed on windows period, about halfway through, plays extra nice on my amd64/gentoo/SLI/n590/7900gt, having a tough time protecting Lt. Strauss though. Have a pretty big list of titles here, all of loki, bought rise of the triad and descent off ebay just the other night to play under linux on my gp2x too, heck I buy almost every commercial game released for linux, assumed everybody did.

On a side note, I think a DirectX type API for Linux might entice Game publishers and Devs to support Linux, and with games come more users!

It isn't the lack of APIs that prevents game publishers to start supporting linux: there is OpenGL, OpenAL and NMM frameworks. The actual reason is a choice between investing efforts into widely supported platform vs platform that has a small % of target audience (who have Windows to play games anyway).