How far has linux come in the last year??

[old.Quorthon]

lads

Wondering what has happened to Linux in the last year. For most of 1999, I dabbled with Linux on my second hard disk, starting with a free RH 5.2 distro I got free with PC Plus. I upgrade this no end, recompiling kernels etc etc & I became fairly proficient with it, and enjoyed playing around, using Windowmaker as my fave desktop environement. Then unfortunately, I got a Geforce vid card, and Q3/Ut were released, and frankly I lost interest in swapping between the 2 os's.

Now I know since then that a new kernel has been released, along with X 4.0 and new versions of kde/gnome. Would someone give me a summary of where its at atm, in terms of useability. I would like to have one environment, and not have to switch between the two. If linux doesnt yet fit the bill then I'll probably stick with windows for the time being.

How does Q3 run under linux with a geforce?
Are there drivers for my Asus TA?
Has wine progressed to a more stable level, (I used to use this to run Agent in linux as Pan wasnt developed enuff at the time) or has pan developed to "agent" usefulness?
Have the Sblive drivers progressed to a new level?
Whats Opera like, and is it better than Nutscrape (my biggest gripe about linux back then)?
Are there any dvd players about yet?

Basically, I dont have the time to really spend on setting up that I did last time I dabbled in Linux, but given a decent understanding of it, whats it like atm in terms of ease of setup & so on.

TDC, u got any ideas?


Q

 

[Testin da Cable]

heehee you shouldn't be asking my advice on this one, Quorthon. I hate M$ so much I'd rather use a nintendo than nt.

but if you can filter thru my completely biased rantings perhaps you can find something usefull:

setup: right now it's just 'drop in a cdrom and go' be aware tho that you'll probably end up with tons of progs you'll never use and that some of the distributions *cough*redhat*cough* are flawed

X: yesyes the consortium has gotten off it's collective arse and now we have version 4.x! Very cool thingy's built into this one like luuverly dri and suchlike. Put it together with the new versions of kde/gnome/yourfavewindowmanagerhere and it doth rocketh verily

grafixcards: i have a gForce and the nvidia drivers, albeit not opensource [when i got em] worked perfectly. sadly, with 3dfx sunk, we will have lost a friend tho. but nvidia say they like us, matrox likes us [for the moment] and the other seem to want to like us so all is cool atm

sound: I have an SBlive and it works. souped up directsound coolness does not work [duh] however with OSS and suchlike ongoing driver development I have nothing to complain.

games: q2,3 UT decent3 and suchlike '3d' games run fine. GL 0w/V5 j00!!!
there are many more games like the civilization clone and stuff. THE MORE PEEPS RUNNING LINUX WHO BUY GAMES THE BETTER IT WILL GET

browsers: telnetting to a webserver and typing the gets by hand is better than netscape. I thought opera looked ok but I like konkoror [or however you'd spell it] better. that filemanager/browser works well [nearly good I'd say] As to mail/news/ftp/irc clients take your pick there are zillions

playa's: opensource players galore but imho, atm the commercial ones are slightly stronger but that could change any day

Wine: dunno. I do not use it For every single line of w32 code there is a linux equivilent or replacement [hey I never said this was easy ] I use them. Some of them are free, some I have bought.


did I help?


-tdc

 

[old.Quorthon]

Yeah


It pretty much sounds like where I expected it to be. Unfortunately since I got married I dont have the same amount of time on my hands to fiddle around with stuff, so I might just keep me win setup for the minute


Q

 

[Testin da Cable]

yeah. hehe my SO gets rather uppity when I'm in 'tech-mode'

all in good fun tho [i hope ]

 

[old.Quorthon]

is your SO your Significant Other eh?

Was this the same as the shag u brought home on new years eve or are you a naughty boy????

On a different note, I have decided to go Win2k for the time being, as I think its the best blend (for me) between stability and hassle free useability atm

THis may change in the future - I will remain openminded.

Q