I may get some flak for this from the open source community, but I'm just curious about other's thoughts on this as well as to be able to share my own.

Anyway, I know there are many open source and free software advocates who are completely, 100% against proprietary software and refuse to use it or install it. So I ask this question. Suppose that there is a great new application, a great new piece of software that came out that was amazing. It did everything and more that you want this app to do (It can be any app, with any functionality). The downside? It's proprietary, BUT they released a native Linux / BSD version of the software so you can easily install it on Linux without the use of Crossover, Wine, or anything else. Now also suppose that there is no true open source alternative to this application. No open source app comes close to what this app can do.

Before I ask the big question, let me just go over my thoughts on the matter.

Personally, I would have no problem using this software even though its proprietary under Linux. I believe that even by using and installing proprietary software, you're not really harming the open souce and free software movement, especially when there's no real alternative to the proprietary piece of software. The open source and free software community provides a great alternative to many many proprietary apps and even operating systems. This said, proprietary software is in itself, not inherently "evil" by any means. Some may say that a certain Redmond, Washington-based company is "evil" but can you really speak for all proprietary software companies as a whole because of one bad apple (can you really label any group evil because of ONE person?). In the end I see nothing wrong with proprietary software being installed on a Linux PC, deep down the OS is still open source, and still free. What's wrong with using all the tools available to you to get the best experience and the best productivity out of your computer? I mean in the end of the day, I'll always try to stick with open source software, but if there's a notably better way to do something that requires something proprietary, so be it. My use of the proprietary nvidia video drivers on my desktop is a perfect example. The nv driver isn't bad by any means, but I just have not seen it being able to match the abilities of the official drivers.

So what are your thoughts? Would you be completely against using proprietary software on your Linux desktop, or would you be willing to use proprietary apps as needed? Would you still consider using the proprietary application if it cost money?

Tags: thoughts, opensource, freesoftware, linux

The Linux Operating System has recently been gaining ground even for those who aren't exactly, how should we say it...tech saavy. One of the things that Linux lacks and can prevent people from moving over entirely, including myself are computer games. Yes the consoles have started to put PC gaming seemingly in the background, but there are still many who swear by gaming with the keyboard and mouse. Wine, the popular Linux software that allows you to run Windows apps under Linux, including games has improved tremendously lately, but it still doesn't do a good enough jobs for enough games to truly allow for it to be a 100% go-to option. It's compatibility list is growing but still not where it needs to be to make Linux a truly viable platform. There are some games that are built for Linux and allow a native install like Unreal Tournament 2004 and Quake 3, but the few games that can hardly be counted as the norm.

The Case For:

• Unreal Tournament 2004, Quake 3, and others have shown that popular 3D games can be built to natively run under the Linux OS.
• Linux has become more of a truly viable platform for the PC in both laptops and desktop computers.
• The OpenGL libraries are already in place in most Linux desktop environments so 3D games are entirely possible without having to build everything from scratch.
• There are plenty of proven cases where proprietary software can be natively installed on Linux without divulging the source code, so game makers don't have to worry about their source code being released.
  

The Case Against:

• Linux, while it has gained ground in marketshare, still only makes up a small percentage of the PC Operating System market making it less appealing for game developers to build on while selling enough to make up for the cost of development.
• There is no central graphics interface, like DirectX to allow for a uniform utilization of the graphical power of computers.
• Piracy has hurt the PC gaming industry and to put funds into developing for another platform that already doesn't match the marketshare of Windows may not seem cost-efficient for companies to put money into.
  

What Needs to Be Done:

• The development of a central platform like DirectX, only for Linux should be developed. Creating it will allow for a central library for developers to use to make the development of games easier for the game developers.
• Word needs to get out more on Linux, to show companies that Linux can indeed be a viable platform for game companies to develop software and games for.

Tags: linux, opensource, tech

If I had to give one reason why I don't completely wipe out Windows on my desktop, I would have to say that reason is games. I am a gamer and there are still several PC games I enjoy playing.

These games are made for Windows and can't natively be run under Linux. WINE, which just released version 1.0 of its software to run Windows applications under Linux does a pretty good job at running many PC games, sadly though, it is not a full substitute for running the game on the Windows operating system. I know me personally have had mixed success with running games with WINE. Sometimes I get it working perfectly, other times it takes a little bit of work to configure to get it to even work, and there are other times where I can't get a game to work at all.

The real reason for this is that developers won't make games for Linux. It's not just a matter of making a different installer, its about programming for a different set of graphics libraries, and programming the game to run natively under a completely different system. And despite my wishes that more developers would choose to release Linux versions of their games, I can't say I don't understand their reasoning. Game companies are in the market to make money, like any business. To make more money, it only makes sense for them to make their games for the greater user base, which in this case, is Windows. Like it or not, Windows is still the operating system with the most market share, and it only makes sense for developers to target Windows for their games. Windows may be slowly declining in market share percentage, but its still at the top, and the logical platform for PC games.

Mac OS X has recently grown noticeably in computers sold and some game companies, like EA have taken notice and are starting to develop more for the OS X platform. This goes to show that if a platform becomes more noticeable in the spotlight, it could very well start being developed for.

The argument could always be placed "well game companies should make a version of the game for Linux, so us users aren't left out in the cold". And I think of that argument too, and wish that some developers would take the plunge and start developing for Linux. Some companies have. Unreal Tournament 2003 came with a Linux installer and ran natively, Penny Arcade's game also came with a Linux version. I would love to see big-name games come to Linux, I think that Linux is a great platform and would definitely pay for a game that would run natively on Linux. But again, until more market jumps on the Linux bandwagon, its not realistically profitable for game companies to use Linux as a platform.

There are a lot of pretty good games that do run natively on Linux, but not many of them are the big name titles that you see everyone talking about. To make an example, I've been playing Crysis, the first person shooter from EA and Crytek. This game is a good game with amazing graphics and some pretty good gameplay. It currently can only run on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Its support under WINE is shoddy, and even if you could get it working under WINE, the graphical aspects of it that make it what it is would be lost because WINE can't run it natively.

I'm honestly not trying to bash Wine, I love it and it does a great job with the majority of applications and games, but for those games it doesn't run or just half-runs, there really is no alternative to Windows at the moment. We can only hope Wine improves and/or developers take more notice to Linux. If I can get most of my games to run under Linux, I would be love to be able to wipe Windows off my desktop and just go with a pure Linux system.

What do you think?

Tags: opinion, opensource, tech, linux

I was recently reading this artcle [lockergnome.org] and this article really annoyed me as I am a rather large supporter or open source, free software, and of course Linux. Linux is still of course behind Windows and OS X, but over the past couple years, it has truly become a viable operating system for the desktop and even the laptop.

My main complaint about this is that it's filled with all these half-truths.

It first starts off complaining about application compatibility with Linux. The truth of the matter is that many applications have a very good open-source alternative. And if you ABSOLUTELY need to run a Windows-only piece of software, wine does a decent job of running most pieces of software. Yes, there are some truths in compatibility problems, but the author of this article over-exaggerates the problems to the point where he makes it sound like EVERY piece of software can't be run under wine. I would've really chewed him a new hole if he complained about Microsoft Office not working on wine with OpenOffice gaining stock value in my eyes.

The second thing he complains about is the command line. Yes, Linux is still heavily based on the command line, but at the same time, more and more tasks can be easily done without even opening a terminal. GUIs and point and click functionality has been increasing in Linux distros to make configuration tasks simpler for the novice user to understand and use, and for the more advanced user, the terminal actions aren't removed, just hidden underneath the surface.

He talks about hardware support and lack of official vendor Linux drivers. Hello? Linux has such a great community that many produce great drivers for multitudes of old and new hardware that may very well end up being better than anything the companies could produce themselves. I myself have had very few hardware problems on any of my computers running Linux, most of the time, all hardware was found and installed just fine under Linux.

DRM. One word that pisses off many upon many a tech user. Yes, sometimes Linux has problems reading DRM'ed content, but so do Windows and even OS X. Problems with DRM are the root of an inherent flaw associated with DRM, and one of several reasons why I hate DRM. Saying Linux doesn't work with DRM is like saying Windows Vista doesn't work with my Pentium 2 processor, its absurd because DRM may not work period, with ANY operating system.

He complains about the saying "Ubuntu just works". I can partially agree with him on this one as Ubuntu may or may not work out of the box. But I will say that he again overexaggerated his point. With the exception of my latest desktop, EVERY computer I've tried to install Ubuntu on has worked right out of the box, with the only thing needing to be done is to install the official nVidia drivers which just took a couple mouse clicks. In fact, Ubuntu recognized all my hardware, whereas Windows XP and Vista needed at least a half-dozen drivers to be installed separately. I was even able to get Ubuntu running on my old Dell Inspiron 4000, wireless and all. My latest desktop does show that sometimes there are hiccups, but at the same time, all problems I had with it were solved with Ubuntu 8.04.

Making the switch to Linux is not something that one can expect to do in an hour, but it does not take months to set up either. In maybe a couple of days, I think even a new user could learn his way around. I would reccommend it to anyone, but at the same time, pushing it on someone is not the best way to spread Linux. If you do want to help someone switch to Linux, make sure you help them as best you can, but also let them do things on their own, that's how people learn, from hands on learning and experimenting.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to bash Microsoft or any other operating system for that matter, I just think that articles that spread these half-truths aren't helping anyone or anything.

Tags: opensource, linux, ubuntu

So many people can get caught up in the operating system war that they may forget that multiple operating systems can coexist side by side. Many times people are so pro-Windows, or so pro-Linux, or even pro-Mac that they believe that their operating system has to be the end-all winner in the computer world.

Ubuntu just 2 weeks ago released their first version of 2008, Ubuntu 8.04 keyed Hardy Heron. I now have it installed as the primary and only operating system on my file server and have it set up for dual booting on my desktop along with Windows Vista. So far I have nothing but kind words to say about it as it has run very smoothly for me. In fact, it's the first version of Ubuntu that installed properly and just worked on my new Desktop hardware that I got back in December for Christmas.

My server since switching over to Linux from Windows has only ever really used Ubuntu starting out with 6.06 and then 7.10 and now 8.04. For me, it is stable, efficient, fast, and properly integrates with my entire home network pretty much flawlessly. It is the only operating system to date that I've worked with that can reach 30 days of uptime without a restart and still work without hiccups. I've even got it up to 100 days before and it probably would've lasted longer had my hard drive not died and my need to get into the box. And now that whatever issue my desktop was having with Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10, has been fixed in 8.04 so it now "just works" on my desktop too. In fact, as I've said earlier, if it wasn't for games, I'd be booted into Linux a lot more than I am now.

This gets me to my point, Ubuntu, whether you like it or not has catapaulted Linux into somewhat of a mainstream operating system. Yes, it will probably never get ahead of Windows, and with how Mac OS X is growing, it will probably stay behind Apple as well, but does it really matter what percentage of the market share Linux gets?

Open source advocates and the Linux fanboys would say that it does, they tend to want Linux to win completely. They want to see Microsoft pretty much rot in hell. They end up so caught up in things that they fail to see that both Windows and Linux can coexist. And what would these fanboys say to those who want to play the latest and greatest computer games? Yes there is Cedega and Wine, both of which can do pretty decent jobs at running a lot of Windows games, but not all. And to get some of them to work can require a significant amount of tweaking and careful configuration that some users may not have time to do, or simply may not be saavy enough to do.

While I would love to see Linux gain market share, I realize at the same time, that at this point in the game, Linux can be very tricky for many to use. Yes, Ubuntu makes the setup and installation quite simple that a lot of people could have success in doing it, but what about trickier issues that may arise? For the most part, I have had a good deal of success with driver support out of the box for my hardware, but what about those that may have some hardware that doesn't have proper driver support? The "easy" to set up, just got a lot trickier, even on Ubuntu. Sure, the Linux gurus and even those with only moderate experience would probably be able to solve those issues, but what about the "even you mother could use it" crowd? And this is where Linux still has its pitfalls, on the surface, Ubuntu is very easy and very smooth, and a lot of people may never have to get into the nitty gritty of the operating system. Even most configuration will work fine using the GUIs that now exist. But not everything goes that smoothly which is what can make Linux tricky.

Ubuntu and Linux in general need to be able to improve upon its base and allow for those trickier situations to be handled in a more "ease-of-use" manner so that more of the general users can figure it out. Linux has a good group of followers and many I've found when going to message boards and forums for support to be very friendly and helpful to help me solve the problem, but not everyone wants to have to go there because a lot of solutions can require some heavy terminal useage that may scare the non-geek crowd.

In the end, as much as I hate to say it, Linux is not for everyone, at least not yet. It is becoming a better alternative to Windows than it was say 5 years ago, but it is still not completely ready for mainstream useage yet. Us Linux fans can only hope that it steadily improves, where maybe one day, it will truly become a viable alternative to the ever-prominent Windows operating system.

Tags: thoughts, linux, opensource, windows, ubuntu