Author Topic: Worth it to use linux?  (Read 66343 times)

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Offline free_electron

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #75 on: August 25, 2012, 04:28:36 pm »
I did not drag in the developer, I dragged in the development model, which affects you as a user whether you want to realise it or not.
why would i care how about how the software manufacturer has to to his development or what model to follow ? I give him money , he gives me something that works. If its decent software i can go whack him up if there is problems.

[/quote] If you used significant 3D acceleration,[/quote] it doesnt't get more serious than Quadro cards.. Zero issues. As those drivers are designed as it should be.

Audio ? Computers are for computing. Radio and ipods are for audio.

Sata or usb 3  ? Both of em. Zero bsods. Why ? Cause i don't use wingpangpong boards or cheapcrapionachip like VIA chipsets. My computers are built on intel Dg55wg mobos. Zero problems.


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And again you entirely miss the point. If the developers did their job you would not need to do any of that.

But, as an end user i feel the effects of that. I agree it is the developers fault , but it is also their fault it makes linux a friggin nightmare !

If the whole open sauce community could come together, agree on 1 package manager , 1 unalterable API, and make sure not to break existing stuff whenever the next version of wonky wanker or loopey looney will be released things would be a lot easier. But, no. The linix world invariably sinks away in endless emacs vs vi and gnome vs lde wars... Enough with all the gui eye candy.
Linux by design is broken. Deliberately. They want to force everyone to release source and try to block 'binaries only' programs. Well guess what, that may be an idealistic philosophy, but do you really think hardware makers like nvidia are going to disclose all their tricks ? Or tool makers like altera show how the optimizer in the synthesizer works ? That is the part that gives them advantage over the competition. That source is a very tightly guarded secret. You don't stand a chance of ever getting your hands on that. In a commercial world there need to be secrets. As we live in a commercial world.... Linux and commercial software don't mix very well. And who is the end victim ? The user who has to install and maintain the linux box because he happens to need a particular piece of software.
This is a problem inheritant to the linux world that does not exist on other platforms. Windows , osx , os2, as400 and even big-iron operating systems. None affected by this 'linux only' problem.

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Online Monkeh

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #76 on: August 25, 2012, 04:40:29 pm »
Quote
If you used significant 3D acceleration,
it doesnt't get more serious than Quadro cards.. Zero issues. As those drivers are designed as it should be.

They're the same chips and the same drivers as normal GeForce cards. You're just not pushing them with typical software.

Quote
Sata or usb 3  ? Both of em. Zero bsods. Why ? Cause i don't use wingpangpong boards or cheapcrapionachip like VIA chipsets. My computers are built on intel Dg55wg mobos. Zero problems.

Good boards. Shame about the lack of flexibility. Other boards have various issues, and please don't sit there and blame the buyer, because it's a software problem caused in great part by Windows and the closed-source development model.

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Linux by design is broken. Deliberately. They want to force everyone to release source and try to block 'binaries only' programs.

Who's they? I certainly don't want to do these things. But you've only got one brush, so everyone gets tarred with it.

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This is a problem inheritant to the linux world that does not exist on other platforms. Windows , osx , os2, as400 and even big-iron operating systems. None affected by this 'linux only' problem.

Because none of them use the same development model. Here's a fantastic concept for you: Not everyone and everything has to come from the same mould. Most of your beloved software actually uses open-source libraries in great quantity. They just package them in. If you want a Linux system where everyone uses static linking and shipped libraries like Windows, go make one. You have the power. Until then, stop whining.

And actually, it does exist on other platforms. You just willfully ignore them.

Quote
If the whole open sauce community could come together, agree on 1 package manager , 1 unalterable API, and make sure not to break existing stuff whenever the next version of wonky wanker or loopey looney will be released things would be a lot easier. But, no. The linix world invariably sinks away in endless emacs vs vi and gnome vs lde wars... Enough with all the gui eye candy.

Why do I even bother. You'll clearly never get it.
 

Offline Lukas

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #77 on: August 25, 2012, 04:46:07 pm »
I don't really see your point. I'm using Arch Linux and have no issues with proprietary software:
Skype: It's in the repos
EAGLE: Some guy created a Package
ADS Demo: The installer happily installed it into ~, after fiddling with some libraries and the license manger stuff, it worked quite well. If I had used one of their certified enterprise Distros, such as RHEL, it would have been easier.

When using proprietary software on Linux, you're best using RHEL, CentOS,... and not a volatile Distro such as Arch or Ubuntu which changes daily to monthly.
 

Online Monkeh

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #78 on: August 25, 2012, 04:51:38 pm »
I don't really see your point. I'm using Arch Linux and have no issues with proprietary software:
Skype: It's in the repos
EAGLE: Some guy created a Package
ADS Demo: The installer happily installed it into ~, after fiddling with some libraries and the license manger stuff, it worked quite well. If I had used one of their certified enterprise Distros, such as RHEL, it would have been easier.

When using proprietary software on Linux, you're best using RHEL, CentOS,... and not a volatile Distro such as Arch or Ubuntu which changes daily to monthly.

His point, as far as I can tell, is that he might have to open his mind, learn something new, and do something other than the sole task he sees in life.
 

Offline poptones

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #79 on: August 25, 2012, 05:09:09 pm »
As we live in a commercial world.... Linux and commercial software don't mix very well.

Bill Gates would disagree with you. They have taken many steps to play better in the open source community because they (finally) saw the writing on the wall.

Open source is not just linux. And I would be willing to bet more people are using open source software in Windows than not. Whether it's open office, vlc or whatever, open source is all over the place. AviSynth, one of the codebases I worked on a decade ago is probably on ten percent of the desktops out there - if you used a Windows DVDripper in the previous decade, odds are pretty good it installed this because so many of them used avisynth to do the preprocessing. That's open source software. A lot of the code evovled its way to other packages like vlc and mplayer. That's more gpl code, and it works damn well with proprietary software.

Linux by design is broken. Deliberately.

This is idiocy. No one is "forcing" anyone to do anything - if you want to release everything in binary blobs, go right ahead - just don't link your binaries with GPL code. This is no different than any other "broken" licensing agreement between any other copyright holders. If you want to get into a discussion of copyright being broken, that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

There is an inherent design philosophy to gpl code - because it is always "out there" it is never really completed. Code is always as fresh as you want it to be. This actually makes it MORE competitive than closed source software. You can see this in how rapidly (for example) the unity desktop has evolved - a year ago it was almost unusable, being little more than an evolved experiment. Today it is, in many ways, one of the most productive desktops out there. That's one year - and how many years did MS spend coming up with Windows 8? They've been working on that code since before Windows 7 was released. If you have a desktop you like and don't want the latest features, guess what? no one is forcing you to update it or change it.

This sort of rapid cycling is one of the major strengths of open source software, to the point many of the major players are finding ways to adopt it. Intuit, for example, calls it "design for delight" - their philosophy is to get the specs from a client, give them  a quick basic version of the product, then use their feedback to evolve the product. This eliminates many of the dead ends wherein time is spent debugging and evolving a "feature" that turns out to be a misguided path. Yes, it means some of the stuff in the beginning is going to be unevolved or "broken" - but it also allows the product to evolve holistically, based on immediate feedback from the users. If you dislike this notion, by all means use windows.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2012, 05:20:37 pm by poptones »
 

Offline firewalker

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #80 on: August 25, 2012, 05:25:08 pm »
Every serious software company can develop any proprietary software for GNU/Linux without problems. Matlab, Vmware, LabView, Nvidia, Corel  AfterShot Pro, Penumbra, Nero, EAGLE for example.

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Offline free_electron

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #81 on: August 25, 2012, 09:23:26 pm »
I stand by my statement that linux is deliberately broken. Go look up the famous video interview of torvalds where he stuck up the middle finger to nvidia. One of his personal rampages is explicitly against binary only drivers. At one point he broke backward compatibility in the kernel in an attempt to armwrestle nvidia into releasing source.

That is just counterproductive for anyone out there that needs a working system. Update and you are stuck with 640x480 in 256 colors... Whoopdedoo..

Stunts like that don't fly in my book.

At lukas : 'some guy created a distro' if it dosnt come from the manufacturer i dont want it on my system. Who knows what has been done to it. And if there is a problem the makers from eagle will not support you.

Ads demo: after fiddling with libs and licence managerr.  I rest my case. Why is this even acceptable ? I expect to put in the disk , or download, click install and it should run.
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Online Monkeh

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #82 on: August 25, 2012, 09:30:14 pm »
That is just counterproductive for anyone out there that needs a working system. Update and you are stuck with 640x480 in 256 colors... Whoopdedoo..

Because that's never happened with Windows before! ::)
 

Offline HardBoot

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #83 on: August 25, 2012, 09:51:16 pm »
For the past 4 years it's been this for me: Windows for games, Linux for work... and some games.

Linux is easy to use and secure, never had updates break things on stable distros.

There's tons of software for Linux, EDA, CAD, Office, science, math... the only thing I play with on linux which doesn't run native is ltspice... the guys at LT even admit "ya we use in Wine and are too lazy to make linux port because it works well"
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #84 on: August 26, 2012, 01:45:52 am »

Because that's never happened with Windows before! ::)
Not deliberatly and on purpose !

Look , my point is simple. I have linux boxes. And i find i need to mess more with them , and am more restricted on what version i have to install because of application compatibility problems.
That is frustrating and time consuming. Companies like Cadence , Mentor and Magma tell you explicitly what distro, what kernel build , what patches and what packages. Install anything else and the hands are off.. And that is multimillion dollar software.
That is a situation that should not be and needs not be. The people that build linux need to structurize and nail things down and maintain backward compatibility.
Linux as it is is way too fragmented and forked. And that poses problems for the users as they are put before a dilemma. I need xyz for this but abc for that...  The choice and upkeep of the os becomes a problem, especially on distros that have new releases every 6 months.

Developers get weary of that... As they need to keep twiddling with things that don't belong to their core business, so they eventually tell you : this distro , this kernel. Done. We don't have time to keep mucking about with things that are out of our control. And as the end user you can do the legwork. I do NOT like that.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2012, 01:57:22 am by free_electron »
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Offline poptones

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #85 on: August 26, 2012, 01:49:03 am »
Update and you are stuck with 640x480 in 256 colors... Whoopdedoo..

Not saying this never happened, but it did not happen deliberately.

And I remember how much fun it was to get ATi's drivers installed when I used Windows. Yes, Windows has no video problems at all. Wonder what happens when all those people with ten year old graphic cards go to run 8? Once linux has support for a product, it's there forever - which is not the case in Windows.

I'm using an Nvidia card right now. It has full 3D effects, hardware acceleration of video and so forth, and it's using completely free drivers. You  seem to think this is 2005.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2012, 01:57:20 am by poptones »
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #86 on: August 26, 2012, 02:15:04 am »
Not saying this never happened, but it did not happen deliberately.

You  seem to think this is 2005.
Nope, 2012... July actually

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/06/17/1415250/torvalds-slams-nvidias-linux-support
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Online Monkeh

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #87 on: August 26, 2012, 02:16:48 am »
That is a situation that should not be and needs not be. The people that build linux need to structurize and nail things down and maintain backward compatibility.

No, they do not. That is what distros are for. Go find or make one which meets your requirements. Linux is not even an OS. It is merely a kernel. The rest is up to others, so pick one or get some more brushes!

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I do NOT like that.

Then by all means, feel free to not use Linux and not spend your clearly valuable time in threads like this focusing on the specific disadvantages you see with no mention whatsoever of any of the advantages.

I'm using an Nvidia card right now. It has full 3D effects, hardware acceleration of video and so forth, and it's using completely free drivers. You  seem to think this is 2005.

Really? Because nouveau's not really there yet. We don't have hardware decoding, 3D is limited, NVC0's just about working, and NVE0's barely even getting a framebuffer. Thankfully, the closed driver works pretty well.

Not saying this never happened, but it did not happen deliberately.

You  seem to think this is 2005.
Nope, 2012... July actually

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/06/17/1415250/torvalds-slams-nvidias-linux-support

I'm sorry, but were you actually going to post some evidence that kernel APIs were changed purely to break the nvidia driver?
 

Offline poptones

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #88 on: August 26, 2012, 02:17:29 am »
Again: where does it say he deliberately broke nvidia support?

Linux has had very good open source nvidia support for 3 years now. He may have a headache dealing with them, but I have heard nothing about the kernel team deliberately breaking such support simply to "get back" with nvidia.
 

Offline poptones

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #89 on: August 26, 2012, 02:26:35 am »
We don't have hardware decoding, 3D is limited, NVC0's just about working, and NVE0's barely even getting a framebuffer. Thankfully, the closed driver works pretty well.

I'm not using the closed driver - I won't. It actually screws up my machine pretty badly.

What I am using is (in part) vdpau, and vdpau does support hardware decoding, etc. Perhaps it lacks some features, but it does not lack hardware acceleration of video, or of (at least some) 3dfx. Maybe not the best for gaming, but it works quite well as a desktop.
 

Online Monkeh

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #90 on: August 26, 2012, 02:32:52 am »
I'm not using the closed driver - I won't. It actually screws up my machine pretty badly.

What I am using is (in part) vdpau, and vdpau does support hardware decoding, etc. Perhaps it lacks some features, but it does not lack hardware acceleration of video, or of (at least some) 3dfx. Maybe not the best for gaming, but it works quite well as a desktop.

VDPAU support still requires the driver to support hardware decoding. Reverse engineering of nVidia hardware decoding is not complete, and is still mostly offloaded to software. There is no support for current generation cards at all.

VDPAU has nothing to do with 3D acceleration whatsoever. It is a video decoding API.
 

Offline poptones

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #91 on: August 26, 2012, 02:38:41 am »
Ok... well, I guess that's why I also have an ATi card ;)
 

Online Monkeh

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #92 on: August 26, 2012, 02:39:43 am »
Ok... well, I guess that's why I also have an ATi card ;)

Ah, yes, ATI cards which simply do not have VDPAU.
 

Offline poptones

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #93 on: August 26, 2012, 02:50:34 am »
Maybe not, but it does have 3d and video.
 

Online Monkeh

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #94 on: August 26, 2012, 02:54:19 am »
Maybe not, but it does have 3d and video.

Actually, again, hardware decoding is pretty much entirely unimplemented in the open drivers.
 

Offline T4P

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #95 on: August 26, 2012, 03:04:28 am »
Here's another thing Linux got up it's arse :
Windows has DX11 which when introduced included DirectCompute!
And UVD
« Last Edit: August 26, 2012, 03:21:30 am by T4P »
 

Offline poptones

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #96 on: August 26, 2012, 03:21:37 am »
I don't think anyone would suggest linux for gaming. Doesn't mean it's broken.
 

Offline HardBoot

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #97 on: August 26, 2012, 03:28:34 am »
Maybe not, but it does have 3d and video.
Actually, again, hardware decoding is pretty much entirely unimplemented in the open drivers.
Basic hardware decode works for me with open and closed drivers, will be basically universal with gpgpu decoders.
Here's another thing Linux got up it's arse :
Windows has DX11 which when introduced included DirectCompute!
And UVD
Yay, DirectCompute, noone uses that, the little GPGPU is OpenCL which is multiplatform and some CUDA.
 

Offline joseph.anand

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #98 on: August 26, 2012, 04:37:53 am »
Companies like Cadence , Mentor and Magma tell you explicitly what distro, what kernel build , what patches and what packages.
Problem with their design. They should restrict requirements to the Linux standard base (LSB).  Take the case of Matlab which works fine on almost all distros and kernel builds. The most you have to do to fix issues is use alternate JDKs.
Same issues exist with Windows XP/Windows Vista/Windows 7. Infact there was very little 64bit support from these companies initially. When the user base starts growing they slowly start adding more human resources for the new platform. Even service packs and updates have broken stuff on Windows. People just tend to ignore it even when they have paid for the OS. But Linux, you do not pay for it and yet  you expect it to perform better than Windows when companies are not willing to play nice by employing developers of the same caliber as those working on Windows products.

And that is multimillion dollar software.
Just because a software is a multimillion dollar software does not mean it has been properly designed. Most companies are not willing to spend a lot of resources for supporting Linux platforms. In fact most teams working on commercial software for Linux are very small compared to those working for Windows.

The people that build linux need to structurize and nail things down and maintain backward compatibility.
That is why the Linux standard base (LSB) exists. A binary blob should depend only on the LSB. Any other dependency is due to poorly designed software.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2012, 06:22:20 am by joseph.anand »
 

Offline T4P

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Re: Worth it to use linux?
« Reply #99 on: August 26, 2012, 04:41:15 am »
Yay, DirectCompute, noone uses that, the little GPGPU is OpenCL which is multiplatform and some CUDA.
DirectCompute is used more often together with OpenCL. CUDA? Not much.
Even my photoshop CS5 refuses to work with CUDA for some reason on my GT540
As well as DirectCompute being faster and AMD throwing in support for OCL which is a good thing
But in any case DirectCompute is available if it's truly DX11 supported which Intel still doesn't have
 


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