Realm Master Member Posts: 1971 From: USA Registered: 05-15-2005 |
Well, I'm serioulsy thinking about moving to Linux.... but I have a few itzy bitzy questions that can make my deciosion... or break it... (ooh... gameshow-ish line right there) #1. Could, say, Blitz basic run on Linux? #2. Can flash and other programs for windows run on Linux? #3. Can I screw around with Linux and not blow myself to kingdom come (or hell, depending on how good i've been...)? #4. ....Well, I this isn't a question, but more of a statment. I need to live up to my rep as a Geek/gangsta (LOL!! Just kidding, just kidding... Methinks, anyway) and you can't do anything cool in Windows without getting a bluescreen, and macs... well yeah, they don't run a lot of things.... ------------------ |
Mene-Mene Member Posts: 1398 From: Fort Wayne, IN, USA Registered: 10-23-2006 |
Couple of things I know. I'm not a Linux user, but my dad is. (Soon to be a Linux user anyway) Blitz Basic cannot operate on Linux, Blitz Max can. As for Macs, and Linux not running alot of things, there's drivers and stuff which takes care of that for ya. ------------------ |
HanClinto Administrator Posts: 1828 From: Indiana Registered: 10-11-2004 |
One of the best ways to run Windows apps under Linux is to use a program called Wine. That said, it looks like the answers to your questions are: 1) It doesn't look like Blitz runs under Linux. Many other game dev tools do, but it doesn't appear that Blitz is one of them. However, the compiled Blitz games seem to run fine under Wine. 2) On the WineHQ website, there are screenshots of Flash running under Wine. 3) If you're starting out with Linux, be prepared to have to reinstall a few times just getting up and running. You will blow your system away a few times, but you most likely won't blow yourself away. 4) In case you're curious, Mac runs Flash out-of-the-box. If you're looking to try Linux, you seriously might be interested in downloading and burning a distro that has a live cd -- it will let you put in the CD and boot to Linux from the CD-Rom without touching your hard drive -- it takes longer to boot up that way, but if you have a decent amount of RAM (at least 384 mb, preferably 512), then you'll do just fine. --clint |
Calin Member Posts: 358 From: Moldova Registered: 12-04-2006 |
What? a traitor? GET'EM!!!! Seriously though, If you do switch let the rest of us which never left the windows closet, know about your adventures on the Linux lands =]. |
steveth45 Member Posts: 536 From: Eugene, OR, USA Registered: 08-10-2005 |
quote: Wine is great, and getting better every day. Plus, there's Cedega, a commercial extension of Wine (I believe) that runs Windows games natively under Linux, even Oblivion is reported to work. It's about 15$. But its worth it to not have to boot Windoze to play games.
quote: Flash is fully supported in Linux also. It runs "out of the box" on "non-oss" distros like SLED and is a downloadable update for other distros like openSUSE. You can also get the latest Flash (version 9) directly from Adobe. I like the way that OS X is designed, but I notice how their ads only attack PC's running Windows. They don't mention Linux which has about the same level of personal computer usage as Macs (about 3.5% based on webserver stats since browsers typically report their operating system), and much higher usage overall when counting servers and business usage. ------------------ |
CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
quote: Probably not. You could try running it under WINE or Crossover Office, but that may not work. If you have a computer with at least 512MB ram I suggest you emulate Windows (as a last resort) for your BB needs (with Vmware player or QEMU) Flash Player: Yes The Flash Designing program: If it doesn't work under WINE, you'll have to install it under a emulated Windows environment. That depends. You can mess up any system in the world if you try hard enough. If you want to mess around, I'd recommend you emulate another Linux instalation with Xen, Vmware player, or QEMU. To choose a distro, I recommend you download try out the openSUSE, Kubuntu and Ubuntu livecds/dvds. ------------------ My Programming and Hacker/Geek related Blog [This message has been edited by CPUFreak91 (edited February 16, 2007).] |
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HanClinto Administrator Posts: 1828 From: Indiana Registered: 10-11-2004 |
quote: Flash player is supported out of the box, but I think Realm was talking about Adobe Studio, which lets someone author Flash movies and such. I don't think Adobe has a commercially supported Linux-native version of that, do they?
quote: Perhaps -- but the Mac/PC commercials weren't ever meant to be about the hardware so much as it's about the software. Also, Mac does a fair bit to support the Linux community -- not only is their (POSIX compliant?) Darwin subsystem open-source, but they even have their own officially supported x-sever that lets you compile and run Linux apps natively. |
goop2 Member Posts: 1059 From: Registered: 06-30-2004 |
even if you cant use Adobe Flash MX, (I don't know if you can) there are still alternatives. I don't know the quality of the alternatives, but I do know they exist, because I downloaded one once. ------------------ |
bwoogie Member Posts: 380 From: kansas usa Registered: 03-12-2005 |
there is a flash knock off?! ------------------ |
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goop2 Member Posts: 1059 From: Registered: 06-30-2004 |
Yup, plentys Heres what I got from a quick Google search: Hmm.. Coulda sworn there were more of em.. Oh well. That one seems popular anyway. ------------------ |
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steveth45 Member Posts: 536 From: Eugene, OR, USA Registered: 08-10-2005 |
quote: Well, I disagree. Apple makes all their money on hardware. That's why the EULA on OS X says that you can only run the operating system on Apple brand hardware. OS X and updates are fairly inexpensive because they mostly desire that people purchase their hardware. Also, in the latest ads, they talk about how Mac's come with a camera built-in. It's the same thing with the IPod and ITunes. The only device that you can load ITunes songs onto is the IPod, that's so people who start downloading songs from ITunes only have one choice, the overpriced IPod. Sure, you can get a portable player with all the features and then some for half the price, but you won't be able to put your ITunes collection on it. Apple is worse than Microsoft when it comes to vendor lock-in. Apple doesn't do anything to support Linux. They have a FreeBSD subsystem and an X11 subsystem that allows Unix-based software to be ported to OS X. If they wanted to support Linux, they would open up the Mac API's so Mac software could be compiled for Linux. The X11 subsystem is just there to lure Unix users to OS X, which only runs on Apple hardware (so they make money). Apple gets a lot of the Anti-Microsoft crowd, as does Linux which makes Linux their biggest competitor (in a sense). I bet if Linux didn't exist, Apple would have most of that market share and I bet they know it. Now, I have plenty of respect for OS X, but not for Apple. They have more stringent DRM than Microsoft. Steve Jobs claimed that the music publishers were forcing them to use DRM on the songs they released. Well, the truth is that many publishers don't require the DRM on the songs, but Apple does it anyways since the DRM that they use forces the IPod lock-in. Apple tries to display themselves as the "cool guy", but we know that guy in the ads is an actor, and the people who make the decisions at Apple are the same profit-oriented, anti-open source suits that make decisions at Microsoft. Apple has not embraced open source. On the contrary, they have taken GPL'ed code to improve their OS and done the bare minimum (or slightly less) to stay legal. Sure, you can download Darwin, which is the FreeBSD subsystem they are required to publish their changes to, but it is hardly an OS X substitute--it's a command line only OS! If Apple supported open source, then they would make Carbon and Cocoa open API's, but we both know that will never happen. Here's a quote from opendarwin.org: "OpenDarwin was originally created with the goal of providing a development environment for building and developing Mac OS X sources as well as developing a standalone Darwin OS derivative.... The original notions of developing the Mac OS X and Darwin sources has not panned out. Availability of sources, interaction with Apple representatives, difficulty building and tracking sources, and a lack of interest from the community have all contributed to this. ... It is time for OpenDarwin to go dark. " In other words, Apple has been less supportive of the open source community than they promised, or people hoped. The Safari browser is based on KHTML, an open source project, and the KHTML page tells a similar story of how Apple takes a long time to submit the (legally required) code changes they've made back to the KHMTL project. When they do receive the patches, they are often uncommented, or linked to bug tracker entries that the open source developer's have no access to. In short, they do the bare minimum, which is basically of no help to the open source community, while they reap the benefit of time-tested open source code bases to build their operating system. Apple is more of a leech on open source, than a boon. That said, OS X is a beautiful operating system--this is true in part because of the parasitic nature of Apple on the open source community. ------------------ |
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HanClinto Administrator Posts: 1828 From: Indiana Registered: 10-11-2004 |
I largely agree with you Steve, and I think you raised some great points. However, it might help to keep things in a little perspective -- I suppose I can't really say that Apple is "good", but I think I still can reasonably defend that Apple is "better" (not that it's a slam dunk case in either direction -- for or against Apple/Microsoft).
quote: And Windows OEMs make their profit margins through crapware. This Macbook that I just bought is one fine piece of machinery, and I don't feel like I've been cheated with sub-standard harware the way I do when I have to try and find compatible RAM for Dell machines.
quote: Microsoft has their own version of this. The reasonably priced licenses of Vista are forbidden to be run on a virtual machine like Parallels, Qemu or VMWare -- you have to buy Ultimate if you want to run it in a virtual machine on your Mac or Linux box. Slashdot covered this a few times.
quote: Yup. It's called synchronization with the hardware for a better user experience. When you can't even make the power button for the machine turn the computer off, then as Joel points out, you wind up with 9 different ways to shut off the computer, none of which involve the actual power button on the PC. There are tradeoffs either way, and I like how Mac has been designed for a more cohesive user experience rather than grandfathering in absurd things like 8-character file names and paths that are limited to 255 characters (this caused me about 2 or 3 days of headaches trying to fix a missionary's computer in Ghana before I figured out that certain things about Windows XP break if paths get to be over 240 characters long, but it doesn't *all* break or give you any error messages about it -- silly things like CD burning suddenly don't work anymore). </rant>
quote: Vendor lock-in perhaps, but you'll have a *much* harder time saying that Apple is worse than Microsoft in its handling of DRM. I just want to reiterate that Apple isn't *good* in everything that it does, but I find the problems with Apple to be quite refreshing in comparison to Microsoft.
quote: I was just saying that simply by being more compatible with Linux from the ground up, from a developer's perspective, it makes it *much* easier for open-source developers to port Mac apps to Linux, and Linux apps to Mac. Synergy is beneficial for both parties, and that's how I say that Mac is beneficial/supports Linux. Not that they actively support them, but merely by making what is essentially a commercial-grade BSD OS done right, they are opening up the rest of the world to the possibilities of bringing Linux apps onto the desktop more rapidly. That's all. It's a minor benefit, granted -- but it's a far shot better than anything Microsoft has done. Try getting Microsoft to even acknowledge the presence of another OS in the bootloader -- it's a royal pain in the *butt*. Mac tries to play nice, and I think that's pretty cool.
quote: That would be active support -- yes. Perhaps I used the wrong words before by saying that Mac *supports* Linux -- allow me to rephrase. Mac doesn't take measures to actively shoulder out Linux the way Microsoft does. Mac is more compatible with Linux *by design*, and it is easier for Linux developers to work in a Mac world than it is for them to work in a Windows world.
quote: Okay, regarding the "more stringent DRM than Microsoft", please see above. I think you're blowing that out of proportion. As far as the publishers forcing them to use DRM -- I'm not entirely sure, but part of it might be that Apple was one of the first of its kind to offer such a big name behind online digital music sales, and by putting DRM measures in place, that helped them get it off the ground. Yes, many of those counter-measures are no longer necessary, but they seem to be more grandfathered-in rather than anything as freshly developed as Vista's DRM.
quote: You raised some very good points here, and I think it's very good to keep these things in mind. Everything I would want to say regarding all of this is that yes, you are right, Apple isn't actively supporting open-source. It's passive support by design -- yes, I can see how they are somewhat "leeching" off of open-source, but they're not doing so in a way that's harmful. It's more like Apple is riding on the OSS community's coat-tails in many ways, but calling it "leeching" makes it sound like they're trying to suck the blood out of Linux. As Apple's X11 gains support and GCC officially adopts Mac's Objective-C and we get more POSIX-compatible software written and cross-platformed, it's only going to help Linux's popularity. People will have a much easier time switching from Mac to Linux than they would from Windows to Linux. I might even go so far as to say that helping people to switch from Microsoft to Mac is a step in the right direction, even if it's not a perfect step (for all of the reasons you've listed, and I'm sure there are more).
quote: Hehe, only in part. Thanks for the good discussion! --clint |
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steveth45 Member Posts: 536 From: Eugene, OR, USA Registered: 08-10-2005 |
quote: OK, that was somewhat rhetorical hyperbole, but it was true in the case of online downloads and the older Microsoft PlaysForSure standard which was supported across multiple download sites and hundreds of different devices-universally. Microsoft did however take notice when Apple gained a near monopoly on portable music players, and put out the comparable Zune. One great monopoly deserves another. In regards to Vista's DRM requirements with commercial HD content, they would not have been able to license the technology without it. When Apple gets around to finally supporting Hi-Def players in OS 10.5, you'll see they are as complicit as Microsoft is with those who would violate our fair use rights. Apple is part of the Blu-ray Disc Association: "Blu-ray Disc players must follow AACS guidelines pertaining to outputs over non-encrypted interfaces." This (limited) output over non-encrypted devices, is the source of most of the Vista-DRM trouble, and you will see it OS X, I guarantee it. ------------------ |
Lazarus Member Posts: 1668 From: USA Registered: 06-06-2006 |
quote: To answer #3 - it's quite possible that you could screw up your computer playing with Linux. I know I have - many times. |
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Realm Master Member Posts: 1971 From: USA Registered: 05-15-2005 |
Well... thas given me a lot to think about... thanks everyone... one or two more questions: I have an external Memory storage device that I installed on windows, do you think that will run on Linux? For, like, Java and C++, do I have to get differnet stuff for them that will only run on LInux? (Say, GFX library for C++ has to be special made for Linux, or can i used like Ogre? ------------------ |
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CPUFreak91 Member Posts: 2337 From: Registered: 02-01-2005 |
quote: I can safely say, that any external storage device (as long as it's not an ipod, iriver or something) that you can afford will work in Linux. If you use an iPod, iRiver or mp3 player, you will find good (if not complete) support for it through certain programs. You'd have to compile a list but I can answer your last two questions: Orgre and cross platform Java libraries (ones that don't rely on Windows APIs [such as DirectX]) will run well on Linux. ------------------ |
firemaker103 Member Posts: 643 From: Registered: 07-13-2005 |
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/install.exe/Prototype http://www.getautomatix.com/ Very helpful links. ------------------ |
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