Showing Posts For DantesRequiem.4671:
So I am not sure how much technical knowledge you have…but I am going to guess not a whole lot (? correct me if I am wrong…I don’t mean to assume). But I am going to operate on this assumption and add a bit more detail to some of the points you bring up (if that is alright with you)…from a technical stand point.
“Question: Have you tried Windows 8 for more than few hours? "
Yes, I have. In fact myself and 2 others no my development team spent a week exploring Windows 8, it’s dual booting capabilities and nuances for the purposes of client support. I work for a small EMR/PM company that supports OpenEMR for medical professionals. At the end of our experiments we discovered that dual booting WAS possible but a LOT less convenient than before, so much so that the company decided to bag it and stick to Win7 laptops for employees with dual boot into Linux (we don’t care what distro you prefer). The loss of productivity was just not justified for what amounted to no gain.
“I think it’s a great OS that takes less resource than Win7”
I am not sure where you get this. Everything I have heard and tested has shown Win8 to basically be Win7 with a new interface. Memory speeds, CPU performance, Graphics performance…etc. Even the base install size on disk is rougly equivalent to Win7.
“PS: All of the UEFI fiasco is because of the MBR exploits. People blame Microsoft for making insecure software while the exploit is not within the OS itself. There’s your answer to the claim. "
UEFI-Secure Boot is an excellent hardware-level development for additonal machine security. It would make all machines and all operating systems more secure. Unfortunately, Microsoft perverted the technology and tried to get OEM’s to produce machines with UEFI-Secure Boot modules that accepted only “signed-keys”…the premise (to a non-super-user) sounds great! To a tech person, reading deeper into this, discovered that “signed-keys” were to be controlled, distributed, and vetted by Microsoft and Microsoft only. OEM’s (for the first time) revolted and said “NO WAY”. But, still, Microsoft was still able to leverage it’s market share and get away with making it harder, but not impossible, for other operating systems (mainly targeted at Linux) to be installed.
“Infact Microsoft writes the most secure code, it just have dozen more people trying to exploit it. "
Hmm. I would like to hear your sources for this. In my experience, many of the Microsoft vulnerabilities are somehow related to/stem from the underlying Operating System Architecture. Namely, Unix (Linux) vs. Dos (Microsoft). This dates back to the original deal between Microsoft and Intel (way before the Wintel breakup). Basically, Bill Gates (as a PC manufacturer) wanted to sign a contract with Intel. To make the deal sweeter Bill Gates promised them an “operating system.” He had none. So he went out and found a small hobbyist coder who had written an Operating System “Q-Dos” which stood for “Quick and Dirty Operating System”. This system was basically a hobbyist tool which overarching design was to “get it done”. This mentality was great back then and for his hobbyist uses…but it left lot to be desired in security and other aspects. The infamous first “Windows” was Q-Dos merely with it’s command prompt renamed “MS-Dos”.
So it is true that Microsoft has a lot of exploiters to deal with, and a lot of it is due to market share…but Microsoft, if it had been on Unix would be a lot better off. From here we could go into much greater details into difference like Unix micro-kernels and such, but for this I would leave to you to read about if you have interest.
“Also most manufacturers allow you to disable secure boot although some doesn’t and that is why people cry.”
This is what I was talking about OEM’s taking action. However, by disabling secure boot you render Win8 unusable. For a software company (like my tiny firm), we constantly need to be testing for QA on as many OS’s as we can. Basically, this feature garuntees that any machine we buy to potentially QA for Win8 is useless for anything else we would consider “productive”.
And furthermore, for the regular consumer, this basically means that if you buy Win8 you are stuck with Win8. No easy bootable Linux Media for installation. And let’s face it, most users don’t have the know-how to use Bios level features. Linux has been rapidly gaining market share (relatively) and most of this is from the Linux bootable media being so easy to install for non-technical users.
I think you have a point there.
However, I do not think I am “jumping the gun” as it were. Here are some differences between then and now.
This is the first time Windows has tried to lock you into Windows at the hardware level with UEFI-boot.
This is the first time “triple A” game developers have announced plans to move forwared with Linux native platforms (Valve and Blizzard).
On the compatibility note (between Linux and games), Wine has come a long way between even Vista and now. Furthermore, we have seen hardware manufacturers expand Linux support which has even further increased performance on Linux gaming (see Nvidia’s change in position regarding driver support for Linux).
I mean…you could ignore all of these, or argue that they aren’t as drastic/game changeing as I make them seem…but I would caution against ignoring them completely.
Bottom line is, Microsoft has recently generated a lot of ire in the PC market…OEM’s are unhappy, game developers are unhappy, users are even unhappy…and unhappiness nurtures action.
+1 …it has all been said but…ME TOO!!!!
Yeah I saw the other thread as it were.
There is a lot of things culminating right now which is causing Linux to emerge as a major competitor for the game industry. Not the least of which is Microsoft’s catastrophe of Windows 8. Microsoft’s choices with Windows 8 have made OEM’s, software developers, and users alike, to varying degrees, raise up and look for alternatives.
As far as games that began in Linux crossing over to Windows, I can only guess that the dev’s saw an opportunity for money making. I would also point out that in the last 3 months we are seeing a very large shift in games towards Linux (large is a rather relative term here…since only a very small percentage of game dev’s have done/announced anything…but that is huge given the resounding silence that was the reality of game development for Linux just a year ago).
And you may have a point regarding Cloud gaming…but I think the performance gains that you see by eliminating a rate-limiter such as an internet connection are going to mean on hard disk games are going to predominate for the foreseeable future.
Regardles…if I can get reasonable performance from Wine and Play On Linux for the time being, I am going to kiss my Window’s good bye. Dual-booting is a pain when I do software development on one side but not the other.
+1 for Linux.
Windows 8 has been a godsend for me. I have wanted to move completely Linux for so long…the only thing holding me on Windows was gaming. But the software industry has been so angry with Windows 8 that there has even been an announcement by Blizzard that they have been developing a Linux native game.
Anyway, in case you didn’t know, you can grab a workable GW2 install on Linux using Wine and “Play On Linux.” I am installing right now so I can’t speak as to how well it works, but a lot of people have been posting about it.
This is ridiculous. While I am not a farming type of player, Dynamic Events almost made me want to run around and farm the events. I thought that was the point of Dynamic Events? Immersive game play where players are rewarded for participation. This reduced rewards is a load of crap. They are ruining Dungeons by reducing returns as well. Dungeons are already difficult, but then to reduce the rewards reaped by running them is just stupid.