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| Thread ID: 46143 | 2004-06-15 00:43:00 | Discussion: What Do Newbies (And you) Need to Make the Switch to Linux?? | Chilling_Silence (9) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 244579 | 2004-06-16 03:11:00 | I think those playing FPS games under linux might want the latest drivers. I know that Americas Army has a Linux version but I can't remember about the others (UT/Doom/Quake???) Someone who knows will be able to tell us. |
nzStan (440) | ||
| 244580 | 2004-06-16 03:12:00 | I think it will be an excellent day when companies bundle linux drivers with hardware,imo they should be doing so already. Perhaps there are just to many versions of linux doing the rounds? |
metla (154) | ||
| 244581 | 2004-06-16 03:20:00 | Now here's something I don't know. Are there different drivers for different distro? To date I've never had to install or upgrade a new linux device driver. |
nzStan (440) | ||
| 244582 | 2004-06-16 03:26:00 | The simple fact of the matter is that most Linux distro's bundle the vast majority of Drivers you'll need. Linux is getting pretty good support for Games... Stellar / # ls /usr/portage/games-fps/ aaquake2 quake2-icculus tenebrae aaut quake3 transfusion-bin americas-army quake3-alliance tribes2 anaglyph-stereo-quake quake3-alternatefire ttyquake avp-cvs quake3-brainworks unreal blackshades-cvs quake3-cpma unreal-tournament cube quake3-defrag unreal-tournament-bonuspacks doomlegacy quake3-demo unreal-tournament-goty duke3d quake3-nsco unreal-tournament-infiltration enemy-territory quake3-osp unreal-tournament-strikeforce freedoom quake3-ra3 ut2003 imaze quake3-ruinhunters ut2003-bonuspack-cm industri quake3-threewave ut2003-bonuspack-de legends quake3-truecombat ut2003-bonuspack-epic lsdldoom quake3-urbanterror ut2003-demo nprquake-sdl quakeforge ut2004 postal2mpdemo red-blue-quake2 ut2004-demo prboom rott vendetta-test quake1 rtcw wmquake quake2-data soldieroffortune wolfgl Those are just the ones you can install/emerge automatically with Gentoo! Legends is a pretty cool open-source game. Now, also, for the average Joe who doesnt want to play the latest 3D games, they're not going to worry about performance boost of 'nvidia' over 'nv' or 'vesa' drivers are they?! Cameras: Most can be used through gphoto2 or similar apps, either that or Xandros is particularly good at picking them up just like Windows does, as a USB Thumbdrive! External HDD? Mine worked prefect first-time in Linux, partitioning it was a snap! A customer came in with his WinXP PC and asked me to set up his External HDD because windows couldnt do it... Now Im not wanting to turn this into a Tally here, but that's one up for Linux. TV Devices? Ive got a Philips Saa7134-based TV Tuner Card from DSE. Works perfect out of the box with no extra drivers (modprobe saa7134 if your kernel doesnt automatically do it). Fedora Core 2 should do it automatically though without you having to modprobe the drivers. USB TV Cards? Im getting a PixelView Play TV Pro USB, and Ive seen good reports all over the net about just plugging it in and it working. Modem drivers: Bloody winmodems... Xandros picked up my laptops WinModem fine and it worked, up and running in 30 seconds! Win2K / WinXP didnt however, nor does my current Gentoo WebCams: My Inbuilt webcam doesnt work (Its built in to the frame of the laptop) in Linux, nor does the cheap DC350 Chicony Webcam I tried. Such is life, but that's another one up for WinXP/ LAN on my Laptop: Perfect in Linux, all of Gentoo, Xandros, Ark, Knoppix, but windows wanted drivers Sound on my Laptop: Linux was fine, all of the above. WinXP wanted drivers WinXP wanted drivers for my Video Card (SiS 650-M), Linux didnt, but uses the 'vesa' drivers over SiS I think you can see they're pretty equal, its just that Windows users are used to having things spoon-fed on Autoloading CD's. My CD Burner / DVD-Rom combo drive works fine for playing DVD's and Burning in Linux, but I needed special software to watch DVD's in Windows, and to burn Audio CD's too! I asked my Father to install Ark Linux on my laptop and get it going for me (This was before I put Gentoo on it) and he happily did so. Booted it and sound, video, lan all worked perfectly after a 20 minute installation. This coming from somebody who's not done an OS installation since Win95 (And that was only once) and was put off installing OS's because of it. He installed Ark fine :-) So again, we can see that in certain instances both have their pro's and cons'. Now back to the topic: What would Linux need for you to consider using it? |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 244583 | 2004-06-16 03:28:00 | Different drivers for different Kernels. Drivers are compiled against a kernel version and then only work with that kernel (Hence why most drivers are bundled with the kernel, or install specificall y for your Distro). The same bttv driver you use for your TV Tuner Card in kernel-2.4.24 in Fedora is the same as kernel-2.4.26 in Knoppix 3.4 :-) |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 244584 | 2004-06-16 03:29:00 | > oh my giddy giddy aunt . ROTFLMAO :^O OK Metla, you won that one hands down . :D > And sure, its definately not for anybody . Why would the likes of Susan want to stray from her $700 odd investment in Windows software just to run it on Linux? Exactly . The software still does what I need it to do and will for quite a while yet so I don't want to "stray from it" just for the sake of doing so . > Well . . If she doesnt have a virus problem, or stability issues . . . Nope . No virus problems nor stablity issues at all . The only problems I have are when I start fiddling . . . . and you can't blame that one on Windows . ;-) |
Susan B (19) | ||
| 244585 | 2004-06-16 09:20:00 | SKT174 says: <<Say a person bought a scanner, digital cam and a web cam and there's no Linux drivers on the CD. He/She needs to go online to search all those drivers in order to make them run in Linux.>> Chill says: <<The simple fact of the matter is that most Linux distro's bundle the vast majority of Drivers you'll need.>> I agree with SKT, but have to disagree with Chill insofar as my limited experience with Xandros (also Mandrake 9.0) and my particular hardware go. But even then, you can search all you like and still not find any drivers for the hardware Ive already mentioned, webcam, scanner,soundcard, printer. We havent even started to discuss yet the necessity for also having to learn the Unix like command line in order to anything that the GUI cant do, like installing a simple program when it doesnt come as a complete package, as it would of course in Windows. I know the Gurus keep glossing over this to make it seem easy, well I suppose it is when you know how, but the point is you dont have to compile things and other esoteric operations in Windows or even DOS. You just click the .exe as Metla said. I will be a heretic and say the DOS command line is easier than the Unix command line. When every retail device comes with a CD that has Linux software and drivers on it as well as Windows, when all programs can be installed with a single click with no extra bits to be installed first of all, when the arcane command line does not have to be used for everyday routine stuff,THEN and only THEN will 'Linux' be considered the equal of Windows, IMHO that is :). |
Terry Porritt (14) | ||
| 244586 | 2004-06-16 09:22:00 | > The only problems I have are when I start > fiddling.... and you can't blame that one on Windows. > ;-) That's ok Susan, Bill and a few hardware manufacturers he gets on real well with, will soon have that little problem of itchy fingers sussed for you. You'll not be able to touch a thing without getting a new subscription for the flavour you want or paying a triffling royalty for the IP in that software or hardware. You wont have to bother with customisation again ;\ Cheers Murray P |
Murray P (44) | ||
| 244587 | 2004-06-16 10:08:00 | >Linux is a collection of programs Not so - Linux is the kernel. The collection of programs you refer to are put together as various distributions. |
JohnD (509) | ||
| 244588 | 2004-06-16 10:24:00 | >When every retail device comes with a CD that has Linux software and drivers on it as well as Windows, >when all programs can be installed with a single click with no extra bits to be installed first of all, >when the arcane command line does not have to be used for everyday routine stuff, >THEN and only THEN will 'Linux' be considered the equal of Windows Well if that's your opinion, you should be lobbying manufacturers of hardware, software developers, and software publishers, because they are the ones who are not doing this. The fact that Microsoft holds approximately 90% of the desktop market means that it is in the favour of companies to only produce drivers for Windows, to only publish software that works with Windows. The Microsoft market holds the most potential for extracting money. Perhaps the only reason why software also comes out for Apple computers is that it is also a market that money can be made from. And Microsoft is not concerned about Apple because it is a completely different hardware platform. Linux, therefore, is the underdog - it will take some convincing of the industry on the whole to push out Linux-compatible drivers. Similarly, it would take some convincing of Linux users to pay for commercial software when they could have free alternatives - some people reckon that if OSS had the upper hand, the commercial software industry would be ruined. |
agent (30) | ||
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