Linux-Advocacy Digest #537, Volume #25 Tue, 7 Mar 00 05:13:04 EST
Contents:
Re: Giving up on NT (Mike Timbol)
Re: I can't stand this X anymore! ("Lyle R. Taylor")
Re: I can't stand this X anymore! ("Lyle R. Taylor")
Re: Windows 2000 is pretty reliable ("LShaping@...")
Re: Salary? (Desmond Coughlan)
Re: Microsoft's policy towards their customers ("LShaping@...")
Re: I can't stand this X anymore! (Steve Mading)
Re: Linux Demo Day a letdown (Steve Mading)
Copying linux to a larger drive ? ("Steve Budak")
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mike Timbol)
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Giving up on NT
Date: 7 Mar 2000 07:36:29 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Joseph <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>Mike Timbol wrote:
>>
>> Joseph wrote:
>> > Mike Timbol wrote:
>> > >
>> > > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> > > Joseph <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > >The PC market is going to shrink and or at best emulate/copy console=20=
>> > > >content.
>> > >
>> > > A bold statement, since there's no sign of that happening right now.
>> > > Most games that are available on both platforms either come out
>> > > simultaneously, or come out first on the PC (sometimes taking many
>> > > months to reach the console).
>> >
>> >
>> > Bold? Did someone miss Newsweek's cover story.
>>
>> I read the cover story. There's no mention of PC games emulating or
>> copying console games.
>
>Yeah - they were more negative - basically calling PC gameing the big loser
>and not connecting that obvious conclusion with the existance and legality
>of PSX emulators for PCs.
They're not making such an connection because it's wrong. PC games do not
suffer because of the existence of PSX emulators on PC. If anything, sales
of Playstation consoles would suffer.
>The lack of Console ports to the PC is reasonably explained by the lack of
>PROFIT in the PC market and it's overall SMALLER size. reviews that pan
>the ports due to th elack of effort do not degrade the console experience.
>The fault is the PC market - it is small and sucks so Console ports are
>minimalist efforts. Conversely the PC game devleoper like EDIOS is dropping
>form 20 to 12 titles and shifting development to consoles. More evidence
>the PC is better? - Hardly!
There's another, more realistic explanation for the lack of console ports
to the PC: the PC is technologically superior, which requires higher
resolution graphics and a more sophisticated user interface than their
contemporary consoles. It also has a different demographic, so many console
games do not appeal to PC game players.
And, by the way, reviews *do* degrade the console experience:
"Though it may take some effort on your part to put up with Final
Fantasy VIII's muddled visual quality, it'll be even harder to deal
with how the game plays."
"But to get to the heart of the story, you must wade through countless
random monster encounters and other tedious gameplay sequences that
will try your patience to the very limits. Worse yet, because the PC
version is a straight port of the PlayStation game, you must navigate
the game's complicated menus and controls using just a keyboard or a
gamepad. Yet the game's most embarrassing throwback to its console
roots has to be its save-game system, which reads your hard drive as
though it were a PlayStation memory card. Even so, as with the ported
graphics, you might grudgingly learn to deal with the console-style
controls. Unfortunately, coping with the game's gaudy and far-too-slow
combat sequences will probably take a lot more effort than the game
is worth."
"The pacing of the combat couldn't be any worse..."
"...the moves themselves take way too long to execute..."
"...you'll have to see such sequences so frequently that you'll grow
bored to death of them very soon, yet you must use them over and over
anyway..."
"...Final Fantasy VIII's combat is its least enjoyable element, as well
as a very serious detriment to the entire game."
"...Its interesting story and impressive visual design aren't enough to
recommend it in the face of all its ill-conceived, tedious, and
irritating gameplay conventions, which are essentially impossible to
deal with if you're neither a longtime fan of the series nor an
eternally patient player."
The average PC gamer is older than the average console gamer, and this
fact is apparent in the types of games which appeal to each.
>MS is announcing an X-BOX console because the PC market is too small and
>being washed out. The PC is NOT better becasue it's developers are porting
>to the consoles. It is worse and not worth console developer's time.
Again, you're looking at only one side of the market. Console developers
rarely port to the PC, because their games rarely appeal to the PC market.
PC games such as Planescape, Diablo, Half-Life, Grim Fandango, Homeworld,
Command and Conquer, etc... are best sellers, and make a lot of money on
the PC.
Final Fantasy VIII is a best seller on the console, and I have no doubt that
it makes more than the PC games I listed.
So, then, here are two questions:
1. If the PC and its games are worse than Final Fantasy VIII, wouldn't
FF8 make more money on the PC than, say, Planescape?
2. Would it cost less to port FF8 to the PC properly than it would to
develop Planescape from scratch?
Think about the answers, and you'll see why a lot of the issues you bring
up regarding consoles don't affect the PC market much.
>Diversity isn't synomonus with quality - a lot of untalented people who pick
>the PC as a hobby are not going to compensate for the creativity of a
>established game author working in a production house.
You seem to forget about the many established game authors working in
production houses that produce PC games. When I refer to diversity, I don't
mean just quantity, I'm talking about different *types* of games. There are
more *types* of games on PCs than on consoles.
>> Perhaps the talent in the overlapping genres will be drawn to the console
>> market, since they'll get to spend more money. But, again, the genres
>> that suck on the console are going to continue to do well on the PC. I
>> don't think Sid Meier, for instance, will be concentrating on making
>> Playstation games.
>
>PC games are not going to totally vanish and I'm sure some folk will buy a
>PC just to run Sid Meier's next game. My guess is that he probably will
>make a game that also runs on MS's X-BOX console.
If the X-BOX or some other console can support the types of games that are
unique to the PC, then I'll believe that a console can be an acceptable
substitute with regard to games only. Until then, no amount of FF8-style
games is going to cause the PC to die. The reason is that the existing
types of console games don't address the demand of the majority of PC gamers.
>> > Newsweek throws around some numbers for game production costs with 4
>> > million the estimate for a PSX II title (and games competitive to PSX
>> > II titles) and newweeks quotes game publishers about the increasing costs
>> > for producing games with figures approaching a ten fold increase in costs
>> > from a SEGA GENESIS console. There are some harsh predicitons about
>> > increasing consolidation in the business as costs increase.
>>
>> The Newsweek article says very little about PC games, and it certainly
>> says nothing about the production costs of those games.
>
>http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/st/a16817-2000feb27.htm
>
>Mike Newsweek does say a lot about production costs. Try a re-read. I had
>the advantage of a leisure day to sit with the issue so take a few minutes
>and look it over closely.
As I said, I already read the articles. It talks about production costs of
*CONSOLE* games. *NOT* PC games.
>> It talks about
>> console games only. And what does it say about console games? It says
>> that a lot of the console game makers won't survive because of the
>> extreme costs of developing a console game. Less diversity on consoles.
>
>Mike - the consolidation and increasing costs isn't limited to console
>developers but universially applicabple to ALL game develoeprs. Newsweek
>reported on EDIOS and EA - these are PC and console publishers.
Eidos and EA (Sports) make games in categories where consoles often dominate.
This doesn't affect games unique to the PC. When you see companies like
Blizzard and Black Isle abandoning PC development, then the PC market is
in trouble.
>So if everyone's playing games on PlayStation 2, who stands to lose out?
>First victim: PC games. [...]
Think about this: if I buy Final Fantasy IX, or The World Is Not Enough for
the Playstation, does that mean I won't buy Diablo II for my PC? No, it
doesn't. Until Diablo II or a simliar game appears on a console, Diablo II
sales don't suffer.
>> How does this affect a game like Homeworld, or Planescape: Torment, or
>> Alpha Centauri? Those games don't need James Cameron to direct their
>> introductory sequences. While having a Hollywood director to do the
>> intro sequence of a game is nice, it's also an example of style over
>> substance.
>
>James Cameron as the director is an example of MONEY buying top talent and
>a mature media technology. It's as needed as any hollywood star is needed
>for bringing in customers. Games already recognize the advantage of star
>power and create stars and brands like Laura Croft or Sid Meier. Console
>games, like PC games, get high marks for the game play and there is a lot
>of talent at work - much of it from the PC side. Having the capability to
>pump out moive quality graphics simply raises the bar on the coordination
>of the media.
>
>You list excellent games and they are some of the best the PC has to offer
>but it is not enough to have these kinds of games and maintain a healthy
>market.
It depends on the demographic of the market. There are some areas where
consoles have traditionally been superior. There are some areas where PCs
have traditionally been superior.
>Here are the 3 main articles in Newsweek.
>http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/st/a16818-2000feb27.htm
>http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/st/a16817-2000feb27.htm
>http://newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/st/a16816-2000feb27.htm
Here's an interesting quote:
The 55,000 people who filed into the vast Makuhari Messe pavilion found
only evolutionary improvements on the same racing games, sports contests,
shoot-'em-ups and dungeon quests. Though the console's technical features
were clearly dazzling, many observers agreed with Takashi Saito, a
16-year-old game junkie, who said with a sigh, "I didn't see one game
today that makes me want to run out and buy PS2 the first day."
Until the consoles get better in the same areas where PCs dominate, they won't
affect that area of the PC market very much. And that area includes the games
I listed. What's happening now is that the new consoles are simply becoming
better consoles, and the games available are simply better-looking console
games. Until the *types* of games on the PC start becoming available on the
console, the PC market isn't going to die.
- Mike
------------------------------
From: "Lyle R. Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: I can't stand this X anymore!
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2000 01:02:36 -0800
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> The only inadequacy with X is that the font system doesn't support
> anti-aliasing, ie "font smoothing".
>
> There's also a somewhat deeper
> problem with font handling in that writing code that prints and displays
> the same font is not easy ( because X will not tell the developer where
> the outline files are, and there is no font management system behind X )
> This is what makes adding fonts to applications like Linux office suites
> somewhat tricky.
I would not say that lack of font smoothing is the only inadequacy of X. It's
weakest link appears to me to be the whole font system. It would be nice if the
font handling aspects of X were redesigned so that applications could get all the
font info they need without having to have a separate set of fonts for printing as
you mention. The problem probably is that it is still stuck on font bitmaps, even
when using a scalable font, and if I recall correctly, it doesn't pass any more
information along to the application than these bitmaps, which is the root of the
whole printing problem.
Now, I don't know a lot about how X handles fonts, just some of the basics, but I
feel I know enough to say that the whole X font handling scheme should be
redesigned from the ground up. It is no longer capable of handling the needs of
current applications.
Other than that, I can't think of anything I like better about Windows than X. You
just can't beat the network transparency of it. :-)
Lyle Taylor
------------------------------
From: "Lyle R. Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: I can't stand this X anymore!
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2000 01:02:56 -0800
Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> The only inadequacy with X is that the font system doesn't support
> anti-aliasing, ie "font smoothing".
>
> There's also a somewhat deeper
> problem with font handling in that writing code that prints and displays
> the same font is not easy ( because X will not tell the developer where
> the outline files are, and there is no font management system behind X )
> This is what makes adding fonts to applications like Linux office suites
> somewhat tricky.
I would not say that lack of font smoothing is the only inadequacy of X. It's
weakest link appears to me to be the whole font system. It would be nice if the
font handling aspects of X were redesigned so that applications could get all the
font info they need without having to have a separate set of fonts for printing as
you mention. The problem probably is that it is still stuck on font bitmaps, even
when using a scalable font, and if I recall correctly, it doesn't pass any more
information along to the application than these bitmaps, which is the root of the
whole printing problem.
Now, I don't know a lot about how X handles fonts, just some of the basics, but I
feel I know enough to say that the whole X font handling scheme should be
redesigned from the ground up. It is no longer capable of handling the needs of
current applications.
Other than that, I can't think of anything I like better about Windows than X. You
just can't beat the network transparency of it. :-)
Lyle Taylor
------------------------------
From: "LShaping@..." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000 is pretty reliable
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2000 02:46:18 -0600
off topic
George Marengo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>http://x37.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=518851113<snip_here>&CONTEXT=951639847.186056751&hitnum=1
I like the news archives a lot too. I think that you can snip the
part right after the "AN=[number]" to make the reference shorter.
C ya,
LShaping
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Desmond Coughlan)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Salary?
Date: 7 Mar 2000 08:40:12 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Mon, 6 Mar 2000 21:31:57 +0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > I think it's a myth that wages are higher in the United States, at least
> > when the high cost of living is taken into account.
> What high cost of living?
I believe there was an article on this very subject, in 'Time'; aside
from Windows 98 (which they used to artificially 'bump up' the price
of living in Europe), things are cheaper in Europe.
> Food's cheap. Petrol's cheap. PHone calls are cheap?
> You don't have a HIGH cost of living.
The last time I was in the United States, I struggled to find a hotel in
Boston for less than $100 per night ... OK, so that's probably for tourists,
but it doesn't speak to a 'low' cost of living.
Aside from that, it appears that the cost of real estate in California is
prohibitive ...
> > I presently earn a tad under 500,000 FFr a year, which I think translates
> > into about 73,000 US$ per year. That doesn't seem much, but I live in
> > a relatively large flat, and only pay 4,000 FFr a month (580 US$).
>
> > So the wages are lower in Europe, but the cost of living is lower, too.
> Really. Try living in the UK for a while.
I did; for thirty years ...
--
Desmond Coughlan Network Engineer Forum des Images Paris France
***************************************************************************
The views expressed in these articles are my own, and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the Forum des Images.
***************************************************************************
[EMAIL PROTECTED] + 33 (0)1 44.76.62.29
------------------------------
From: "LShaping@..." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Microsoft's policy towards their customers
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2000 03:01:32 -0600
Per Inge Oestmoen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>><snip>
>With a de facto monopoly on software, the PC users are at high risk of
>finding that the good old typewriter servers them better than a dumb
>terminal which is a pipeline from your wallet to Microsoft. The
>typewriter does not expire, you can use it without license from anyone,
>and you can use it any time for free.
>
>This is a half-joke,
http://x37.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=536704222
LShaping
>but you see the situation: For many years we have
>been able to enjoy the full, unlimited and independent use of our PC
>workstations. Now, as certain monopolists feel that they have the might
>to make people pay in order to write at their own private desktops, they
>also believe that they have the right to prepare steps in that
>direction. Should we allow them to do so?
>No, we should not.
>Per Inge Oestmoen
------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.development.apps
Subject: Re: I can't stand this X anymore!
Date: 7 Mar 2000 09:01:56 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Michael Gu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Besides, the font on X windows are so bad, it wastes display resource. Why,
: because it need more pixels to achieve the same result.
That might be true for proportional fonts, but not for fixed-width fonts.
When I want to look at a lot of program code on the screen, I'll take
'lucidatypewriter-12' and '7x12' and so on any day over the Windows'
"courier new" and "System" and so on.
: And I don't think any widgets or window manager can do anything to help that!
True. I've heard rumors about how xfstt is supposed to support Truetype
fonts in X, but I haven't gotten it to work due to crappy documentation.
(The docs assume everything will work and don't cover the non-intuative
error messages I'm getting.)
: So, I believe X need to include a basic set of font as part of its standard,
It does. It's just a lot more geared toward the programmer's needs than
the end-user's needs, by having a whole lot of fixed-width fonts and
very few proportional ones.
: if my speculation of the way it works is correct, otherwise, you will always
: see broken bottons, truncated texts, and ... frustrating users.
Well, IMO, it is a broken programming style to hardcode the locations of
things like buttons by pixel. A lot of gui-building tools do it that
way because it's the simplest way to make a gui-builder, but that doesn't
mean it's a good idea. Even if you don't care for portability between
OS'es, It's still good to make a flowing layout so you can change your
mind on the font used without having to re-arrange everything. However,
it takes a different mentality and it is frustrating at first (especially
if you are using a broken layout manager like in the early Java engines).
--
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven L. Mading at BioMagResBank (BMRB). UW-Madison
Programmer/Analyst/(acting SysAdmin) mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
B1108C, Biochem Addition / 433 Babcock Dr / Madison, WI 53706-1544
------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux Demo Day a letdown
Date: 7 Mar 2000 09:13:40 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: On Sat, 04 Mar 2000 02:13:29 GMT, "Gooba" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:> We are all well aware that netscape's current incarnation pretty much
:>bites. KDE and Gnome are both front-ends to make things easier, which is not
:>necessarily a bad thing. Those who want to do their stuff at the CLI are
:>welcome to do so. Equally so those who like a GUI. Gnome crashes, but it's
:>pretty cool when it doesn't.
: But it does, and quite frequently at that. Why is it that the Linux users
: put up with second rate software?
Same reason everyone in the Windows world does. There isn't anything
out there that doesn't crash except for some niche-market stuff that
runs nuclear powerplants, medical facilities, and that sort of thing.
(And that stuff is too expensive to use anywhere where it is not
absolutely required to avoid dangerous accidents.)
As long as we are all in the "under $1 million" range for buying software,
we will have software with bugs. The trick is to find systems where the
bugs are in areas that don't cause too much trouble for you. In Linux,
you tend to have a working OS, and working drivers (although with an
admitted delay in getting them out), working compilers, working servers,
working remotability, but buggy high-level GUI apps. Windows tends to be
just the opposite. There is much more emphasis put on debugging the high
level apps the user sees, while the underlying stuff is more flimsy.
Which one you prefer depends on what kind of work you do.
I prefer Linux because: 1 - I am a programmer, so I spend most of my time
in the parts that Linux is better at. and 2 - I firmly believe that the
Linux problems are fixable in the future, while the Windows ones are not.
(low-level bugs are harder to fix later, after much investment has been
made in the software that runs on top of it.)
--
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven L. Mading at BioMagResBank (BMRB). UW-Madison
Programmer/Analyst/(acting SysAdmin) mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
B1108C, Biochem Addition / 433 Babcock Dr / Madison, WI 53706-1544
------------------------------
From: "Steve Budak" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Copying linux to a larger drive ?
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 20:35:36 +1100
Howdy, since this tends to be one of the most active Linux groups I thought
I'd ask here.
What's the best way to copy Linux from one hard drive (4GB) to another (8GB)
?
Thanks.
------------------------------
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