What Game Are You Playing?

Okay, I have been sitting on this article for a while, but I needed some time to recover from the huge, gaping maw of freetarded insanity contained in this article. Whew! Well, better now than never!

He starts off with the standard luser masturbatory moaning: "Ohh, OHHH, Linux, you're so ..... PORTABLE!!! MMM!!! Your license is so, OOOOHHHHPPPEN!!"

Finally, he gets to the meat of his freetarded idea.

Here's the idea: All PC Games should first be built to work with the GNU/Linux Universal Operating System.

My eyes must be deceiving me. Let's see this idea again.

All PC Games should first be built to work with the GNU/Linux Universal Operating System.

WTF?! This is considered an idea?! It sounds like nothing more than the wish-fulfillment fantasies of a demented freetard (probably because it is)! What kind of two-bit justifications does this luser have for such an insane suggestion?

The game would simply have an installer that would install GNU/Linux on the host platform and to enable the gamer (sic) to be played on the host. An example of this ... is ... called wubi (Windows-based Ubuntu Installer). The wubi enables users to install GNU/Linux as a program into the Windows OS.

Now, far be it for little ol' freedom-challenged me to question a plan such as this one Great Lunix Evangelist, sir, but it seems like there are some problems you have not considered. For instance, this WUBI only provides a way to install Linux onto a preexisting Windows partition. The user still has to run Linux stand-alone and face all the driver difficulties that result.

Since GNU/Linux is Universal, this could open up the game to just about any platform because the user would simply use the game installer to install GNU/Linux along with the game to their system.

With power of Linux, you can run Crysis on your cellphone!

Running games in this fashion would put an end to the need for PC game makers having to port their games to different host Operating Systems because all games would be built to work in the GNU/Linux Universal Operating System.

Yes, let's solve all of our porting problems by targetting the operating system with a 0.91% marketshare!! Great idea!!

Using this type of system would revolutionize the PC gaming industry, and broaden the market for the game because it could run on many different types platforms. Increasing the availability of the games would equate to increased sales of the games.

Just how big are those other platforms anyway? To reach ~95% of the desktop market, you only have to port your game to two platforms: Windows XP/Vista and OSX. Chasing after Linux will just cause you to wind up like Loki. There are certainly ways to improve PC gaming, but targeting Linux is not one of them.

It's sort of like the example of RAMBUS RAM vs. SDRAM. Since SDRAM was a more open standard than RAMBUS, more hardware mfgrs were able to make SDRAM and so it became cheaper and more widely used to the point that it snuffed out RAMBUS alltogether.

Yet Linux has been freely available for nearly 18 years, and it is still has a shitty marketshare. Something tells me that your metaphor has some problems.

Another example would be Henry Ford's mentality of making cars more affordable and selling many more cars than when they were only available to the rich.

This is relevant to Linux, how?

This method of making games would also help to protect gaming systems from becoming obsolete, which would be beneficial for both the gamer and the game maker.

Because you never have problems running old applications in Linux!

It is articles like this one that remind me why I do this.

Errors? What errors?

We all know that a Linux is a 'hacker's operating system', which means it is only friendly to fat, pimply men hopped up on Twinkies and Mountain Dew and who last showered when their Mom forced them to three weeks ago.

Here is a good example of the differences between a normal person and a freetard.

When normal people have computer problems, they generally take their computer into Best Buy and let the Geek Squad figure out what the problem is.

Lusers, on the other hand, mostly end up having to personally fix their systems when they break, since they are compelled both by their need to maintain their reputation in front of the rest of the basement-dwelling lusers of the world and by the fact that nobody else gives a fuck about Linux.

Even if others did care about supporting Linux, which distro(s) should they care about? Even if Best Buy supported the top 5 distros on distrowatch, there would be a mass cry of preteen voices and lusers by the dozens would write thousands of furious, barely legible blog posts whining that their insignificant Ubuntu mod was not supported.

Of course, not everything is peaches and ice cream on this 'hacker's operating system.'

One of my readers has kindly provided us with an example of what a luser has to go through to fix his system. Let's take a glimpse of this sad, pathetic world for some cheap laughs, shall we?

I like what you are doing. We Linux geeks need a dose of honesty and reality in order to improve. Public humiliation is sometimes effective, but we Linux geeks are good at disregarding the opinions of the ignorant masses.

My favorite Linux issue: the secret hidden error messages that many Linux apps produce (or not).

When some Linux app suddenly disappears from the screen, I normally just utter "fucking Linux" and start it up again. But sometimes I have the temerity to actually go looking for the problem in the numerous error log files. This is usually a waste of time, because one of the following is true:

1. There is no message, at least not in any of the places I know where to look, or findable within the time I am willing to spend.
   
2. Something that may be relevant can be found, but the message is incomprehensible (probably a leftover debug trace from a programmer).
   
3. There are hundreds of messages in the log file (with no time stamps) and I give up trying to find anything relevant to my problem.
   

A window manager like Gnome should pop up a message box anytime some app writes to stderr or gets a segment fault. This is apparently too much of a bother for the Gnome geeks to implement. After all, they already know where to look when things go wrong, or they always run their apps from a terminal window so they can see stderr outputs and other debug traces.

Here is the (hidden) .xsession-errors file from my current session. I can see why it is hidden and why the Gnome geeks do not want this shit popping up in my face: it is too embarrassing.

/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
Setting IM through im-switch for locale=en_US.
Start IM through /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/all_ALL linked to /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/default.
Window manager warning: Failed to read saved session file /home/mico/.config/metacity/sessions/10cd57d1a46f90bd05123554431253037400000057900018.ms: Failed to open file '/home/mico/.config/metacity/sessions/10cd57d1a46f90bd05123554431253037400000057900018.ms': No such file or directory
Failure: Module initalization failed

** (nm-applet:5933): WARNING **: No connections defined
seahorse nautilus module initialized
Initializing nautilus-share extension
Initializing diff-ext

(gnome-panel:5926): Gdk-WARNING **: /build/buildd/gtk+2.0-2.14.4/gdk/x11/gdkdrawable-x11.c:878 drawable is not a pixmap or window

** (nautilus:5927): WARNING **: Unable to add monitor: Not supported
javaldx: Could not find a Java Runtime Environment!

(soffice:6243): Gtk-WARNING **: GtkSpinButton: setting an adjustment with non-zero page size is deprecated
Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: 'net usershare' returned error 255: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error No such file or directory
Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing.

If you did not understand a word of that, consider yourself a sane, well-adjusted individual. Otherwise, there is still hope. You can break the addiction to freetardism, and a good place to start would be reading through my archives and the archives of Linux Hater.

Crash & Burn

Lusers always try to make up for Linux's other shortcomings by saying 'well, at least Linux doesn't bluescreen every thirty minutes', since their last experience with Windows was in the 95 days. They are right about one thing: Linux never bluescreens; it simply locks up.

Well, Windows has come a long way since XP was introduced, and the only lock-ups I personally have experienced have been game-related. Ubuntu also has a habit of crashing on me while I am trying to play some games, especially using Wine.

Now, I know some of you lusers are going to quibble over technicalities. "Oh, well Linux, the kernel, did not really crash, X11, the application, crashed. To fix it, you merely have to press CTRL-ALT-F1 to get to a gheto-ass console; enter your user name & password; type 'sudo su - '; type kill -s 9 `ps -A | grep gdm | awk {'print $4'}` ; type /usr/X11R6/bin/gdm; type 'exit'; type 'exit' again; press CTRL-ALT-F7, and then login normally."*

These lusers are completely missing the fucking point. Leaving aside the fact that it is probably faster to just reboot, it betrays a lack of understanding of the common user. To most people, if the keyboard and mouse are not responding, then the computer has crashed. Period. To hide behind technicalities is simply deceitful, and only Micro$0ft lies, right? Riiighhttt.

*Note: I know some lusers are going to pop in and critique my commands, 'no, you put the quotation marks around the brackets, not vice-versa, or no its /usr/bin/gdm -someoptionthatshouldbethedefaultbuttheauthorisaluser'. To those people, I say, get a life!