pouët.net

Two things:
1. The Linux ATI drivers are not free software. They are proprietary and closed. Bad example.
2. The ATI drivers for Windows are apparently better, but still crappy enough to force you to buy inferior hardware (nvidia for example) with at least decent drivers.

funkyou78:

Let the people choose their own personal poison. People are not impressed by the politics behind free software. People are only impressed by results. Write a kickass demo on Linux. Preaching will get you nowhere.

(A GNU/Linux user)

moT: I fully agree :-) Read my last post :-)

moT, since this is pouet and it is about demos, I think we are talking from the perspective of a demo makers/viewers. I personally don't care whose fault it is (ATI/proprietary software/linux people), I only care about making/watching demos and on Linux such thing is not really possible - the "making" bit is more possible probably, but the ATI driver bugs is an extra issue that you don't really have to deal with under windows.

I also don't understand why nvidia hardware is inferior. The 5 series maybe..
At least nvidia cards don't crash under too much stress (and heat) like the 4-5 9xxx radeon I used to have a while ago.. (I gave up hope eventually). I don't know about the X series, I hope they have improved.

Navis:

Nvidia's 5xxx series is what I was referring to. After that they are running rather close on hardware quality. Only the drivers are traditionally worse on ATI's side.

As for you view on demo makers/viewers choice of operating system, I undestand and respect your opinion, but Iit just so happens that I don't use that operating system you write demos for, the reasons for this being irrelevant to this discussion. It's sad, but everyone makes his/her own choices. That's what freedom is all about, anyway :-)

I used BeOS for around six months and adored it until it died - mainly because hardware interaction was no bullshit, as start/stop as hitting play on a tape deck.
Yes, it died good.. but these people are making something great...

and also another thing, the OS is not restricting the use of 'free software' does it ? Under windows I use wings3d and openoffice (for example), but also VC++ because I think it is a very good product to use for generic programming and demos.

I don't understand when they say 'Use linux support free software'. Why can't you use windows and free software at the same time if you want to ?

I personally use windows because I get paid to write programs that run under windows. If it was the other way around, I would have no option I suppose. Even sceners need money to pay the bills and rent, so..

Navis:

You are free to run any operating system you like, any office suite that works for you. You can program any language you prefer in any IDE that you feel most comfortable in. Even if that is EDIT.COM and Quick Basic (ok, I'm egaggerating a bit ;-) ). AND you don't have to apologise/explain to anyone why you do so.

I am merely saying that some of your "users" (myself included) have a small difficulty watching your demos, since they are impossible to run on their (my) systems. You can safely ignore that of course, if you wish, I just feel I need to remind you. Oh, and we seem to be increasing by the time, for some strange reason. You might keep that in mind too just in case :-)

Not when you use Direct3D.

We (Ananasmurska) try to produce Linux-ports from our demos, but I use personaly use windows cause I wanna do some productive on that and I dont wanna just play lot with my OS.

Dont get me wrong, that is good for someone, but not for me.

AAAAHhhhhhhhh MEeeeeeeeeEEEEee GaaaaaaHHHhh!

linux is sooo 1994

Linux + Binary compatibility = No no
Linux + Really fast graphics APIs = No no

Windows + Binary compatibility = Yes yes
Windows + Really fast graphics APIs = Yes yes

That's it... nuff said.

That XGL sure looks useful. Yeah. Personally, I find even the traditional multidesktop thingies in these real OSes messy and more of a chore to use than tools that help workflow. Of course this has nothing do with any nixnax distros, the virtual, 3d and multivitamin desktops have been applied or at least demo'd on the [i]Wintendo gaming console[/] too.

Make your demos portable. Aren't the libraries there already? And if those are somehow limiting, well good. They will get there in due course and in the meantime, you can take on the limitations, just like demomakers before you did. Design and style don't require the latest features video card manufacturers' PR people force-feed us with. Or are you saying the driver situation is so bad on Linux that even older, practically standard features fail?

real coders dont use an os at all, it gets switched off when the demo starts (at least on c64,playstation and other non-sucking platforms!)
Another Problem is the Distribution, lets assume you wrote a super-duper demo in linux, how does you show it to other people (when 99% dont have linux).
Either you convert the people to linux (too much social engineering) or you make a bootdisk (too much bloody work)

You can't possibly test every distribution of every operating system out there. Use can use standard libraries, avoid vendor lock-in and, if possible, release the source. At least this leaves the choice of porting your work to other platforms by third parties. If you can't release the source, you could use static linking. Demos don't benefit from dynamic library linking anyway.

My 2 cents of course.

Hey, at least some opinions, this is what i expected to get with my posting... :-)

Navis: The point of using using free software in windows or porting free
software to windows is something where i fully agree with the person who
wrote this...

raina: Yeah, the libraries are already there... There is SDL for an example.
which is multiplatform, and there are many more good libraries for nearly
every purpose... And the driver situation on linux is not so bad as long you
do not use the newest bad-ass features like shader 3.0, which work only
on nVidia boards atm... But for the rest, there exists already a very solid
groundwork and OpenGL for example works on likely every 3d card outthere...

yago: There are plenty of good tools to make a custom boot-cd with your
production in a small amount of time, this process is already nearly automated
today... This means that you can write your stuff on linux, create a custom
boot-cd for it in almost no time and everyone can see it...


And something about my intention and the rest of this topic:
From my point of view and experiences, there is a point in every computer
users life where he/she feels bad about non-free environments and their
limitations, so they look out for alternatives... These alternatives exist and
they are really good but completely different too, which makes it harder to
switch or get used with them. But that reminds me only of the times when i
started to use computers, and where i had to learn... And for me its simply
this learning experience which kicks me, and to learn more about these
alternatives and how they work... If i know them better, i can choose my
favourite better too and i get used to contribute to these alternatives, which
is an essential thing on free software... There you do not have to complain
about flaws, just contribute and share your ideas and it will be done :-) What
is missing are not the features, they are already there, its about users who
use this features and demand or contribute more of them...

moT: I think you should have written what i tried to write here, you just have
the better arguments :-)

Its just a matter of personal taste and decision what we use and what not,
but if we have not used an alternative and learned about it in the extent we
are used to the environment we use the most of our time, then we can not
have a real opinion about the alternatives too...

And well, its good to see some *nix ports here from time to time, you are my
heros... :-)

You just had to be german.....

No. Although I sympathize with that person's motives, he is wrong. The freedom of running whatever software you want, proprietary or free, is absolute and unquestionable. We cannot have exceptions to this.

Hosting a virus on his site is not a particularly smart idea either. Even if it is only to prove a point.

In facts, sir, we don't give a fuck. If we did, demos on retro machines or consoles would be dead already, because very few users would be able to watch them on their (my) systems.
Luckily enough, people know the magics of dual boot machines and/or emulators (where appliable).

I use windows for demo-development mainly because it increases my productiviti because of:
- msvc (best code completion i've ever seen)
- photoshop (go to hell, gimp)
- 3dsmax (just old habbit, really)
- direct3d (less error-prone driver-model, less testing with various drivers needed)
- stable multi-screen support (i can actually use two displays at different resolutions at the same time, keeping code at one and visuals on another. this does not work at all on my ubuntu-install)
- stable ati-drivers (atleast as long as i use d3d, and i do. gl-stuff usually works quite fine also these days)
- i'm not a hippie

What I hate about Linux is the amount of arrogant reality-impaired users it has.

This sounds like a fucking American declaration of independence. Get me decent games, get me a decent IDE for development (emacs is nice but just doesn't cut it), get me decent documentation, driver support and user base, and then we'll talk. I don't want to spend time writing code and demos for a small minority of users, not to mention spending time on poking around my operating system and recompiling things so that they work. And as far as limitations go, where's the usable image manipulation, 3d modelling or desktop publishing software for *nix? (don't get me started on Gimp)

If anyone wants to port my stuff, that's fine of course. I'm not anti-linux any means, and I dislike many things in Windows, but there's not much alternative right now.

so if i understood that correctly:
"we want you windows guys to do ports to our operating system but honestly we don't give a fuck about porting our stuff to windows(which is a lot easier than vice versa)"

funkyou78 : the person who wrote that :
http://www.fefe.de/nowindows/
seems like a moron. He views the world in black/white only, where microsoft and sun is the evil and the 'free source community' the saints... rather typical I would say.

At the end of the day, it is part of the human nature to group together against a great evil, ever was ever will..

My impression is that there exists a certain community of people having a great time compiling their kernels and enjoying the feeling of power of mastering slaskware just a little too well. Actually, it feels rather orthogonal to the demoscene.

I think linux is a great thing in terms of freedom (not as in free beer, etc...), but it is too damn easy to be pulled into the great unproductive black hole of linux-tweaking and juggling.

Ah, I guess I should not be expressing myself, but zealotry always stirs me up. Crusaders! Misionaries! Leave me in peace!