Civilization should pat itself on the back. No, seriously. Societies of the world, give yourself a big round of applause. We have, people of this dear earth, managed to wipe out all bad people in, from what I can see, the space of a Generation. There are no more murderers, thieves, gluttons, adulterers or even liars on this blue pearl we call home anymore!
No, this is not a Headline from Equilibrium, it is a statement reflecting the here and now. But wait, there are still murders every day, precious items are still pinched, people cry on Zone Reality about their weight and adultery has its own show! But you see, no one is truly to blame for any of these acts. The teenage girl starving herself only does it because Magazines tell her she should be thin. That young boy only took an Uzi to his classmates because of the violence in video games and that ....thing.... on the couch is 238kg because McDonald's is so damn tasty and didn't tell him that shoveling said snacks into his mouth with a dumper truck would make him gain weight. Or in the case of gelatinous women: It's the baby's fault.
We live in a world with no accountability. A civilization where everyone is to blame but the person who committed the act themselves. Sure, we'll toss the Columbine kid in jail, but only because video games have poisoned his mind so. He is just a victim himself. My personal favourite is the 14 year old girl with twins crying about how unfair life was to her and how she had no idea how it all transpired. Seriously? You talk about sex all day with your friends and could probably give Dr Ruth a few pointers but you can't figure that one out?
And where is Reason? What happened to Sanity? Well Reason is crying itself to sleep in a cupboard until the next time Jack Thompson or some other Vulture needs to wheel him out, make him dance all the right moves with a shock collar around his neck and throw him back before collecting the next big pay cheque. Sanity is dodging his summons. We proudly train people to be so adept at twisting the truth, warping the facts and hiding the obvious and then we wonder why everything seems to have gone a bit pear shaped. That, coupled with our fear of taking responsibility, has taken a pair of scissors to out moral fibre. Terry Pratchett once said that a Lie will run halfway around the world before the Truth has even got its shoes on. This is only true because Truth's shoes have been impounded and the State attorney has moved to postpone the hearing.
And yes, I realise that the majority of lawyers are not stealing, lying, pillaging bastards but the uncomfortable fact about stereotypes is that they all have a basis in solid observation. The problem is that while this very vocal minority has us all dancing in circles while the majority of level headed people are too scared to stand up mention that the tune is wrong. Attorneys have made a wonderful business of satisfying our need to feel innocent. No one will stand up and point out that the kid who butchered his classmates might just be a crazy murdering bastard and that video games had nothing to do with it. No one will point out that the guy that sat on his remote last year and needed a crane to get up and remove it from his arse is a glutton who got what he deserved. Because the vocal minority has us all too scared with "It could happen to you". And while any sane person will think to himself "No it won't, I don't want to look like the Blob" they make us believe that all these "afflictions" come from mainstream media and therefor no one is immune and we all sit down and shut up because "Hey, what if it did happen to me? I would rather place the blame somewhere else too!"
So who is to blame for the state we find ourselves in? The media? No, don't believe the ANC. Then maybe it is Games and Movies! Nope, if you can not identify the difference between fantasy and reality, you should be in a room with padded walls. Okay, what about those few people that so vocally spread those lies and make us too afraid to speak up? Nope, they are just milking the benefits, pushing the rock faster down the hill it was already on. We are to blame. Yes we, the sane but silent majority. Too afraid to speak up in case we are seen. Too bored to turn off that stupid show about the girl with the 3 kids and 7 boyfriends. I mean, it's kinda funny and it is better than reading or playing those terrible Computer Games we always hear about.
We live in a world of crimes without perpetrators, tragedy without responsibility. And until we get of our behinds, kick political correctness out of the door and call a spade a spade, and decide to take responsibility for our own action, I fear we will find more "Caution, sticking this knife in you eyes could cause loss of vision" stickers in our lives. Now if you will excuse me, but I have shot down an alien research vessel over Peru and I have to go shoot some Sectoids. Don't worry. Like every sane person on this planet, I know it is just a game.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
May the Greed be With You
I am by no means a Star Wars fan boy. I enjoyed the original trilogy and for the most part the second one as well. I understand that the purists were up in arms about it not to mention the animated series but I can not say that I am really bothered by all of it. So the story lines didn't macth up perfectly, so they lost their feel, I can live with all of this. I mean, fanboys can go on and on, the franchise does in fact belong to George Lucas and if he wants to do a series where Darth Vader runs away from the Emperor to become a transvestite dancer in the Cantina so be it.
But there is one thing I have noticed time and time again with every new release of Star Wars films, games and series. Something that has me snickering and shaking my head. The Force Powers.
Now you all know how the Force was portrayed in the original trilogy. Very mysterious, elusive and subtle. Little mind tricks, movement of small to medium sized objects. It is what made the force almost believable in the minds of so many. Im sure you can remember Mall Rats where Silent Bob attempts to move the video tape using the force. Because it was so subtle it seemed to be right on the edge of reality, within grasp if you just believed.
Then came the games and the new movies. Suddenly seeing droids fly across the room were common place. Massive objects were not just lifted but hurled like oiled bricks around the scenery. In Jedi Academy you could jump a couple of stories, push and pull anything movable and even choke and fling opponents. If you think back, Vader, one of the most powerful Siths merely choked the Admiral who "failed him for the last time".
All of a sudden the Force was not something subtle anymore. Along came The Force Unleashed and here Vader's apprentice could clear landing platforms with a cough. Massive Droid the size of a Condo running towards you? Just pick it up and compress it into the size of a TV before throwing it through another one. I mean Luke Skywalker was supposed to be some Force prodigy and all he could do was move a lightsaber by grimacing at it for 20 minutes.
And the latest? Oh I liked this one. A Jedi catching a lightsaber blade (Yes you read correctly) with her bare hand. Nice.....
So I am a fanboy, you must be thinking. Nope, not at all and the fact that Lucas rapes his Franchise doesn't bother me in the least. I find it amusing though because I think it holds a very shiny mirror to society. We want more in every possible aspect. More action, more drama, more more more more more! The Force is just an example of this greed for excitement we all seek. No longer is that believable, subtle, almost tangible Force good enough for us. No we need to pull Star Destroyers from orbit, electrocute an ocean of Eels and make planets do the Twist.
This phenomenon is prevalent in just about any gaming and movie franchise out there. An escalation of arms to the point where it all starts becoming a bit silly. Yes, the ability to grab the Death Star and shake it till it wets itself out its exhaust vent is impressive but not very believable. But look at that mug on your table and concentrate hard on it and try to believe you can make it move. Almost feels real, doesn't it?
This pursuit of the Spectacular has allowed us to look over the Special and I fear that what made so many of movies and games, not only in the Star Wars universe, creep into our hearts in the first place might be lost for the sake of the next, bigger explosion.
But there is one thing I have noticed time and time again with every new release of Star Wars films, games and series. Something that has me snickering and shaking my head. The Force Powers.
Now you all know how the Force was portrayed in the original trilogy. Very mysterious, elusive and subtle. Little mind tricks, movement of small to medium sized objects. It is what made the force almost believable in the minds of so many. Im sure you can remember Mall Rats where Silent Bob attempts to move the video tape using the force. Because it was so subtle it seemed to be right on the edge of reality, within grasp if you just believed.
Then came the games and the new movies. Suddenly seeing droids fly across the room were common place. Massive objects were not just lifted but hurled like oiled bricks around the scenery. In Jedi Academy you could jump a couple of stories, push and pull anything movable and even choke and fling opponents. If you think back, Vader, one of the most powerful Siths merely choked the Admiral who "failed him for the last time".
All of a sudden the Force was not something subtle anymore. Along came The Force Unleashed and here Vader's apprentice could clear landing platforms with a cough. Massive Droid the size of a Condo running towards you? Just pick it up and compress it into the size of a TV before throwing it through another one. I mean Luke Skywalker was supposed to be some Force prodigy and all he could do was move a lightsaber by grimacing at it for 20 minutes.
And the latest? Oh I liked this one. A Jedi catching a lightsaber blade (Yes you read correctly) with her bare hand. Nice.....
So I am a fanboy, you must be thinking. Nope, not at all and the fact that Lucas rapes his Franchise doesn't bother me in the least. I find it amusing though because I think it holds a very shiny mirror to society. We want more in every possible aspect. More action, more drama, more more more more more! The Force is just an example of this greed for excitement we all seek. No longer is that believable, subtle, almost tangible Force good enough for us. No we need to pull Star Destroyers from orbit, electrocute an ocean of Eels and make planets do the Twist.
This phenomenon is prevalent in just about any gaming and movie franchise out there. An escalation of arms to the point where it all starts becoming a bit silly. Yes, the ability to grab the Death Star and shake it till it wets itself out its exhaust vent is impressive but not very believable. But look at that mug on your table and concentrate hard on it and try to believe you can make it move. Almost feels real, doesn't it?
This pursuit of the Spectacular has allowed us to look over the Special and I fear that what made so many of movies and games, not only in the Star Wars universe, creep into our hearts in the first place might be lost for the sake of the next, bigger explosion.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx Review
Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx has been out for a few months now, the few issues at the release seem to have been sorted out and all is looking pretty well. I thought this would be a good time to have a look at how it stacks up as an Operating System that claims to be "Linux for Human Beings". I have seen some reviews right after it came out but I think an opinion would be more fair if the reviewer has actually lived with it for a while instead of clicking random buttons after the install.
So we are going on three months and I have been thrilled for the most part with Ubuntu 10.04 both on my Desktop, Laptop and my wife's Laptop. So let's take a look at some of the strong and weak points by inspecting the different aspects of this OS.
Performance
Around Ubuntu 8.04 people were starting to feel a very noticeable decline in the speed of Ubuntu and it started a call from the community to not go down the Windows road and allow bloat to sink the OS. By the time 9.04 was on the drawing board, Canonical made performance a very high priority, looking at things like boot time and memory footprint. They have focused a lot of effort on this aspect ever since and once again in Luci we can see the fruits of their labour. Lucid not only is fast it seems fast and people often overlook that. You can have an immensely fast system, but of the controls and response feels sluggish it all feels slow. Lucid does excellently on both these fronts and I always have a little smile when I see my desktop while other people are still staring at their load screens. I will publish another post with some concrete performance benchmarks and comparisons to the competition but for now it is safe to say that Lucid is snappy, agile and a pleasure to use as far as performance is concerned.
For: It is fast. It boots in a flash, feels responsive and does not bloat over time like Windows.
Against: Not much. While Win7 pars it in some aspects of performance, it still remains much faster over all.
Look
Ubuntu has received much praise over the past few years but never for its looks. And it is easy to see why. While the tones of orange and brown may have been meant to be warm and soothing, it made most depressed. I would honestly spend all day looking at a text based terminal than staring at the old Ubuntu Default Theme for two minutes. To improve this two new themes have been added. Radiance and Ambiance, the latter being the default upon installation The orange has retreated into a secondary role, merely providing accents to the now dominant purple and black. And what an improvement. While I still feel that is does not look like the modern OS it is, it is a massive leap from the old scheme. It looks more polished and it is finally carving out an identity for itself that breaks away from being "The Ugly Duckling". The windows no longer look like the Menu bar was made by someone else and stuck on at the last moment and the entire look feels more coherent and solid. It is not perfect mind you. I still feel that Windows 7 looks more modern and stylish even though Ubuntu has better ergonomics. Ubuntu has come to the point where it looks more modern than Windows XP and while some may chuckle at this, for an OS that worries more about stability and security than shiny looks, that is a great move. The Linux purist in me does not want it to get too shiny but I have to concede that most common users like shiny things and you can always tone it down if you find it all a bit too "bling". That is the beauty of Linux, right? If you do not like the way it looks, change it.
For: A big improvement over the old colour scheme and a sharper identity. Also infinitely customizable so if you do not like the look, change it.
Against: Still looks a bit outdated out of the box compared to Win7. Needs to feel "fresher"
Functionality
This is perhaps where the most progress has been made and where it stand head and shoulders over its competition. Lucid, like its predecessors is based on the idea of "just works" and it really does. This is thanks to an excellent compliment of included software and excellent integration of all these nice features into the OS itself. Upon installation you are presented with a fully equipped Office Suite in the form of OpenOffice.org, a collection of Image, Internet and Media applications that will satisfy the needs of most common users right out of the box. While The GIMP has been dropped to the outcry of many I feel this was a smart move considering how few users actually made use of it. We now get Pitivi video editor, a feature I felt was sorely lac king in Ubuntu before. Xsane Image Scanner has been replaced by Simple Scan which I feel is a simpler application that common users will understand more easily. Empathy IM client stays with us but is now more smoothly integrated with the Panels, making it feel like part of the OS instead of another application. This makes setting up and using your chat accounts simpler and more efficient, consolidating various IM services like Google talk, MSN Live, Yahoo and AIM into one application. Finally Gwibber brings social networking onto the Desktop, allowing you to link to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and DiggUbuntu. Visio files are a big one I noticed. This is not Ubuntu's fault however.
For: Amazing compliment of standard applications, all well integrated into the Desktop
Against: Most issues are monopoly related but you might have to look around a bit to find a Linux equivalent to the program you need.
Ease of Use
This is the big one. This is what determines if people use an OS or if they return to the store and demand Windows instead. Here, I feel Lucid delivers excellently on some fronts but lacks severely in others. Ubuntu has always made an effort to make things as simple as possible for the user and for the most part have done quite well though some things like the fact that most codecs are not installed by default will confuse and frustrate some users. I understand why this is done but try explaining this to a common user and they will just moan. Still, all features that people use a lot are easily installed from the Ubuntu Software Centre which has been vastly improved. It is now possible to install libraries from the Software Centre itself and the entire application feels more responsive. Also, the grouping of applications and sources has been stunningly executed, making finding that app you need much simpler. Setting up things like connections, bluetooth devices and external hardware is simpler than in any other OS I have come across. Cameras, phones, scanners, printers, all can be so simply installed that even some of my low tech colleagues have managed to do so with ease, something they always call me to do in Windows. There really is that sense of everything "just works" with most devices you can think of. Plug it in and let Ubuntu do the rest. Linux still beats Windows hands down when it comes to out of the box driver support. The exceptions are of course from manufacturers who could not be bothered with Linux drivers and for these you might have to dig around or grab a geek to help you with. One aspect where I still feel some progress can be made is the simplification of common functions. Getting the Computer icon on your desktop is a lot more complicated than it should be. Inconstancy in the behaviour of icons as you drag them to the Desktop should be looked at as well. Setting up shares with Samba requires a good deal of Googling and for something that looks so simple at first it has had many people crying. The rights to the folder need to be edited from the command line at times and the fact that you can only create a share when launching Nautilus as root is still a massive let down in an otherwise simple to use OS. Setting up Remote Desktop Access is also not as simple as seems and will confuse many people who know that it is one simple click in Windows. Overall though I think good strides are being made. I just hope they do not overlook these small things that can throw users off quite quickly.
Of course the most debated issue is the placement of the "Close, Minimize, maximize" buttons, no located on the left side of the Top Panel on each window. I have to admit that the first time I used it I was highly frustrated. Mostly because I could not understand how such a fundamental convention could be changed. I changed my layout but after a while started wondering if I could adjust to it. I put them back on the left hand side and worked on. Quite simply I was astounded that by the end of the day I was reaching for them instinctively on the left. then I started noticing other little benefits. With the Application, Places and System Menu also located in the top left, I realized that my mouse travel was reduced considerably, the cursor hovering on the top left corner almost all the time instead of flying all over the screen as was usually the case. All and all I have come to love the layout and find it to be superior to the old convention. It seems that in some cases it is a good thing to have a second look at the Wheel.
For: Devices just work. Most settings easily reached and well placed.
Against: Needs to polish the simple things a bit more. Some of the most basic tasks still have no graphical way of doing them.
Stability and Security
I was worried when 9.04 came out last year. The Intel video driver made a lot of people angry and a lot of users turn away. I had to stay with 8.10 on my laptop until the issue was resolved in 9.10 but I started worrying about the trend this set. Fortunately stability seems to be back where it should be with 10.04 providing a very reliable base for all your work. I have installed it on various systems ranging from Core 17 Behemoths to Pentium 4 fossils and it has not let me down once. Odd hang-ups do still appear but hardly ever and I have not had any nasty surprises in the form of crashing systems. It is good to see that the bugs that crept in with previous releases have not become a precedent. The biggest gripe I have in this area is something that bothered me in Windows. Make your Error notifications more readable, guys. It will make it simpler for common users to troubleshoot or even report issues. On the security side, I can do nothing much other than smile. It is as secure as always, making Windows look like a prison with marshmallow walls. And of course the fact that you need not bother with or worry about Anti Virus software still makes it a winner in my book.
For: Everything. Stable enough for everyday and business use. Secure as it gets.
Against: Cryptic error messages.
Overall Impression
Fast, Stable, Secure, User Friendly and rich in features, Lucid Lynx is a deserving heir to the Ubuntu Kingdom, making massive strides towards providing a viable alternative to Windows on the Desktop and in most aspects has it beaten already. Awareness is still the greatest hurdle it faces but I can confidently say that most people I have introduced to the Lynx love it to bits and will never look back. I can't wait to see what the next version, Maverick Meerkat, will bring to the table but it is safe to say that if Ubuntu keeps improving as it always has, the future is looking bright.
So we are going on three months and I have been thrilled for the most part with Ubuntu 10.04 both on my Desktop, Laptop and my wife's Laptop. So let's take a look at some of the strong and weak points by inspecting the different aspects of this OS.
Performance
Around Ubuntu 8.04 people were starting to feel a very noticeable decline in the speed of Ubuntu and it started a call from the community to not go down the Windows road and allow bloat to sink the OS. By the time 9.04 was on the drawing board, Canonical made performance a very high priority, looking at things like boot time and memory footprint. They have focused a lot of effort on this aspect ever since and once again in Luci we can see the fruits of their labour. Lucid not only is fast it seems fast and people often overlook that. You can have an immensely fast system, but of the controls and response feels sluggish it all feels slow. Lucid does excellently on both these fronts and I always have a little smile when I see my desktop while other people are still staring at their load screens. I will publish another post with some concrete performance benchmarks and comparisons to the competition but for now it is safe to say that Lucid is snappy, agile and a pleasure to use as far as performance is concerned.
For: It is fast. It boots in a flash, feels responsive and does not bloat over time like Windows.
Against: Not much. While Win7 pars it in some aspects of performance, it still remains much faster over all.
Look
Ubuntu has received much praise over the past few years but never for its looks. And it is easy to see why. While the tones of orange and brown may have been meant to be warm and soothing, it made most depressed. I would honestly spend all day looking at a text based terminal than staring at the old Ubuntu Default Theme for two minutes. To improve this two new themes have been added. Radiance and Ambiance, the latter being the default upon installation The orange has retreated into a secondary role, merely providing accents to the now dominant purple and black. And what an improvement. While I still feel that is does not look like the modern OS it is, it is a massive leap from the old scheme. It looks more polished and it is finally carving out an identity for itself that breaks away from being "The Ugly Duckling". The windows no longer look like the Menu bar was made by someone else and stuck on at the last moment and the entire look feels more coherent and solid. It is not perfect mind you. I still feel that Windows 7 looks more modern and stylish even though Ubuntu has better ergonomics. Ubuntu has come to the point where it looks more modern than Windows XP and while some may chuckle at this, for an OS that worries more about stability and security than shiny looks, that is a great move. The Linux purist in me does not want it to get too shiny but I have to concede that most common users like shiny things and you can always tone it down if you find it all a bit too "bling". That is the beauty of Linux, right? If you do not like the way it looks, change it.
For: A big improvement over the old colour scheme and a sharper identity. Also infinitely customizable so if you do not like the look, change it.
Against: Still looks a bit outdated out of the box compared to Win7. Needs to feel "fresher"
Functionality
This is perhaps where the most progress has been made and where it stand head and shoulders over its competition. Lucid, like its predecessors is based on the idea of "just works" and it really does. This is thanks to an excellent compliment of included software and excellent integration of all these nice features into the OS itself. Upon installation you are presented with a fully equipped Office Suite in the form of OpenOffice.org, a collection of Image, Internet and Media applications that will satisfy the needs of most common users right out of the box. While The GIMP has been dropped to the outcry of many I feel this was a smart move considering how few users actually made use of it. We now get Pitivi video editor, a feature I felt was sorely lac king in Ubuntu before. Xsane Image Scanner has been replaced by Simple Scan which I feel is a simpler application that common users will understand more easily. Empathy IM client stays with us but is now more smoothly integrated with the Panels, making it feel like part of the OS instead of another application. This makes setting up and using your chat accounts simpler and more efficient, consolidating various IM services like Google talk, MSN Live, Yahoo and AIM into one application. Finally Gwibber brings social networking onto the Desktop, allowing you to link to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and DiggUbuntu. Visio files are a big one I noticed. This is not Ubuntu's fault however.
For: Amazing compliment of standard applications, all well integrated into the Desktop
Against: Most issues are monopoly related but you might have to look around a bit to find a Linux equivalent to the program you need.
Ease of Use
This is the big one. This is what determines if people use an OS or if they return to the store and demand Windows instead. Here, I feel Lucid delivers excellently on some fronts but lacks severely in others. Ubuntu has always made an effort to make things as simple as possible for the user and for the most part have done quite well though some things like the fact that most codecs are not installed by default will confuse and frustrate some users. I understand why this is done but try explaining this to a common user and they will just moan. Still, all features that people use a lot are easily installed from the Ubuntu Software Centre which has been vastly improved. It is now possible to install libraries from the Software Centre itself and the entire application feels more responsive. Also, the grouping of applications and sources has been stunningly executed, making finding that app you need much simpler. Setting up things like connections, bluetooth devices and external hardware is simpler than in any other OS I have come across. Cameras, phones, scanners, printers, all can be so simply installed that even some of my low tech colleagues have managed to do so with ease, something they always call me to do in Windows. There really is that sense of everything "just works" with most devices you can think of. Plug it in and let Ubuntu do the rest. Linux still beats Windows hands down when it comes to out of the box driver support. The exceptions are of course from manufacturers who could not be bothered with Linux drivers and for these you might have to dig around or grab a geek to help you with. One aspect where I still feel some progress can be made is the simplification of common functions. Getting the Computer icon on your desktop is a lot more complicated than it should be. Inconstancy in the behaviour of icons as you drag them to the Desktop should be looked at as well. Setting up shares with Samba requires a good deal of Googling and for something that looks so simple at first it has had many people crying. The rights to the folder need to be edited from the command line at times and the fact that you can only create a share when launching Nautilus as root is still a massive let down in an otherwise simple to use OS. Setting up Remote Desktop Access is also not as simple as seems and will confuse many people who know that it is one simple click in Windows. Overall though I think good strides are being made. I just hope they do not overlook these small things that can throw users off quite quickly.
Of course the most debated issue is the placement of the "Close, Minimize, maximize" buttons, no located on the left side of the Top Panel on each window. I have to admit that the first time I used it I was highly frustrated. Mostly because I could not understand how such a fundamental convention could be changed. I changed my layout but after a while started wondering if I could adjust to it. I put them back on the left hand side and worked on. Quite simply I was astounded that by the end of the day I was reaching for them instinctively on the left. then I started noticing other little benefits. With the Application, Places and System Menu also located in the top left, I realized that my mouse travel was reduced considerably, the cursor hovering on the top left corner almost all the time instead of flying all over the screen as was usually the case. All and all I have come to love the layout and find it to be superior to the old convention. It seems that in some cases it is a good thing to have a second look at the Wheel.
For: Devices just work. Most settings easily reached and well placed.
Against: Needs to polish the simple things a bit more. Some of the most basic tasks still have no graphical way of doing them.
Stability and Security
I was worried when 9.04 came out last year. The Intel video driver made a lot of people angry and a lot of users turn away. I had to stay with 8.10 on my laptop until the issue was resolved in 9.10 but I started worrying about the trend this set. Fortunately stability seems to be back where it should be with 10.04 providing a very reliable base for all your work. I have installed it on various systems ranging from Core 17 Behemoths to Pentium 4 fossils and it has not let me down once. Odd hang-ups do still appear but hardly ever and I have not had any nasty surprises in the form of crashing systems. It is good to see that the bugs that crept in with previous releases have not become a precedent. The biggest gripe I have in this area is something that bothered me in Windows. Make your Error notifications more readable, guys. It will make it simpler for common users to troubleshoot or even report issues. On the security side, I can do nothing much other than smile. It is as secure as always, making Windows look like a prison with marshmallow walls. And of course the fact that you need not bother with or worry about Anti Virus software still makes it a winner in my book.
For: Everything. Stable enough for everyday and business use. Secure as it gets.
Against: Cryptic error messages.
Overall Impression
Fast, Stable, Secure, User Friendly and rich in features, Lucid Lynx is a deserving heir to the Ubuntu Kingdom, making massive strides towards providing a viable alternative to Windows on the Desktop and in most aspects has it beaten already. Awareness is still the greatest hurdle it faces but I can confidently say that most people I have introduced to the Lynx love it to bits and will never look back. I can't wait to see what the next version, Maverick Meerkat, will bring to the table but it is safe to say that if Ubuntu keeps improving as it always has, the future is looking bright.
What were you thinking, dude?!
I am a Jaded Gamer.
I play about 20 games a year, which I know by some standards is quite low, but there is a reason for this. With all the games I have played in my life I have come to expect certain things from a new title. I have discovered over the years what types of games I enjoy and it takes something really special to make me look at something out of my standard genres.
Every month I see hundreds of new titles flooding the racks and half of them I will not even look at. Others get dismissed with a simple look at the back of the box. Why, you ask? Well let's look at what I expect from a game first. The single most important requirement is genre independent, seemingly obvious yet so illusive in the gaming world these days. I want to have fun. Simple as that. And flowing from that requirement, I do not want things in the game to stop me from having fun.
I think the single biggest reason I put a game down is some irritation, usually due to a rookie mistake on behalf of the Developers. Why is is that in an industry that is older than I am, we still have these well known, well documented mistakes made in game design? I mean with the millions of game reviews out there, the millions of tries these companies have had at doing it right, you would think that at each Game Developer's offices they have a big "DO NOT" list pinned against the wall for all employees to see. Yet still games come out every day where the scale of the obvious errors are only matched by the price tag.
Now what exactly am I talking about here? I am referring to design errors that spoil the core of the game. Some are genre specific, some are not and all they do is spoil what could have been a wonderful game because some studio didn't bother to learn from the heap of failed titles out there. So let's look at some of these more closely. In this article, specifically the genre related problems.
FPS - Clumsy Controls
I believe most people have played First Person Shooter games. You move your character with the keyboard and you move your mouse to shift your aim, press a button and hope that whatever/whoever was under the cursor at the time goes away. Simple, right? You can change the weapons, even replace them with spells or hurled sheep but the basic controls and style of play is what defines this genre. And seeing how Mouse Technology has matured considerably over that years, one would think that the concept of accurate mouse movement is something that not even the most half-witted coder could understand.
Not so, apparently. How many games have I picked up and put down 5 minutes later (mostly toying with the Mouse sensitivity settings all the time) because trying to get your character to turn around and shoot feels like the controlling the gun is done by turning a shopping trolley with a bad wheel and a hippo sitting on the front. How hard can it be to have the cursor move when you move the mouse, the speed of movement directly proportional to that of the mouse, allowing for the relationship to be adjusted by the Sensitivity slider and having the cursor stop when the mouse does? Can't be that complicated, right? Why then do I find so many games where the movement of the cursor seems to be controlled by BMW's Active Steering? Slow movements of the mouse do absolutely nothing and as the mouse movement speed increases linearly, the cursor speed does so exponentially. The result is that quick correctional jerks don't work and spinning around is usually over shot.
Then there is the "realistic" movement that some developers want to force on us. The most annoying of these is a delay on the start and stop of a movements. Your cursor is over the target, you stop moving the mouse but the cursor flies by like a car with no brakes, forcing you to try and correct by pulling back various times until you rest on the target. People tell me that it just takes getting used to and that it is more realistic. Really? Do me a favour. Pick up a slightly weighted object like a stapler or cup. Now hold it to the side and look at a target in front of you like the doorknob or that picture of Xena. No try to point the object at the target as quickly as possible. Did you overshoot the target? No, of course you didn't because your brain and your muscles work together to slow the momentum of the object in time. You can do this because there is a sense of weight. Force feedback if you will. You can not get this from a mouse so there is no sense of how to counter the imaginary weight of the gun you are aiming with. Gun momentum does not work in games. Stop doing it!
TPS - That Camera
The play style of Third Person games are usually what necessitates this camera angle. You still control one person but the environment gets involved in your play style a bit more making it important to see your character's relative position to these things. Sometimes it is for tactical shooting that makes strong use of cover, sometimes for acrobatics making it important to see the environment so you don't, say, fall off a 30 story ledge. So we have firmly established that the reason for this play style is the need to SEE things. Why then do we get stuck with a camera focused more on the cracks in the wall or the heroine's curves? I mean I realised that being able to put Lara in a corner so you can have a better look at her is a big selling point but seeing where you are about to jump is just as important so you can make sure that your target destination is, well, THERE!
I sometimes thing that developers do not actually play their own games to see where the camera is focused. It is simple guys. When your character is stationary the camera should move pretty freely. When you move it favours being behind you so you can see where you are going and when you are hanging from a ledge, it should pull back a little bit and give you a wider field of view to you can see where you should be going. Leaps of faith belong in movies, not games.
RTS - Complexity and Micro Management
A wonderful genre that has recently gone down the drain with developers trying a little to hard. Maybe they have too much time on their hands, maybe they are too ambitious but why is that I now need to read 3 manuals, 4 online tutorials and spend the better part of a year trying to get to grips with all the options in these games? Strategy is as much reliant on instinct as it is on intellect. It is fast paced, requires reactions that approach subconscious thought level and 3 extra clicks can cost you a game.
Yet when I look at some games I find that each unit has a Redwood for a Tech Tree with tons of different upgrade options to drown in while you try to get to grips with the game itself. This is supposedly to allow you to customize units to your play style and give more depth with the countering of you opponents upgrade path with your own. Well on the first argument, play style is actually much simpler that people think and the second is just laughable as there is not always a clear way to see what upgrade paths your opponent has chosen so 50 tweaking possibilities on your foot solders is really just a pain in the backside. One or two options per unit type, no more please.
Then there is the Micro Management. Correct me of I am wrong but in an RTS you are a Battlefield Commander, not a Babysitter. Constantly adjusting unit attacks and tactics takes away from other things you should be doing like managing your Resources or churning out more of the useless gits. If I have to tell a unit to stand closer, further, change his fire rate, take a flanking position or duck enemy fire I might as well try and play 200 FPS games all at the same time. I do not want to check their formation and stance every 3 seconds. I want three stances. Aggressive for full on attacks, defensive for protecting bases so they don't run after enemies luring them away and Passive for when I am trying to sneak past an enemy without drawing attention to myself. That is it. I do not care about star and delta formations. I do not want to tell units when to try and flank and when to dig in. I manage an army, not a soldier's personal life choices. Stop tying to turn every soldier into a Sims character.
RPG - Work
You know I have always wondered why your Character has to work 10 times harder than you do. People spend years in front of screens having their character collect 100 golden nuggets in the mines before hunting 50 kobolds for some guy in the villages. Why am I sitting and doing the type of job I would turn my nose up to in real life? Are Developers so lazy and unimaginative that all the can have us do to grow is to do variations of the same boring quests over and over? I didn't buy the game because I thought my life isn't arduous enough! I want to escape from reality for a little while and do fun and challenging things, not emulate my day job. You are supposed to get better with practise not menial tasks. I want to become a better fighter by fighting things with meaning. Give us long term quests with stories and meaning that drive them, not just the 12XP at the end of it all. I think this is why I prefer single player RPG games. I grow with the story and in pursuit of the next chapter I do things, relevant to that storyline that improves my character. If I start up a game and get asked to run to the other side of the map to get 10 rat tails, I unleash the Uninstall Wizard on it.
So what flaws in games drive you nuts? I'd love to hear some opinions on what simple things can ruin a game for you.
Dave
I play about 20 games a year, which I know by some standards is quite low, but there is a reason for this. With all the games I have played in my life I have come to expect certain things from a new title. I have discovered over the years what types of games I enjoy and it takes something really special to make me look at something out of my standard genres.
Every month I see hundreds of new titles flooding the racks and half of them I will not even look at. Others get dismissed with a simple look at the back of the box. Why, you ask? Well let's look at what I expect from a game first. The single most important requirement is genre independent, seemingly obvious yet so illusive in the gaming world these days. I want to have fun. Simple as that. And flowing from that requirement, I do not want things in the game to stop me from having fun.
I think the single biggest reason I put a game down is some irritation, usually due to a rookie mistake on behalf of the Developers. Why is is that in an industry that is older than I am, we still have these well known, well documented mistakes made in game design? I mean with the millions of game reviews out there, the millions of tries these companies have had at doing it right, you would think that at each Game Developer's offices they have a big "DO NOT" list pinned against the wall for all employees to see. Yet still games come out every day where the scale of the obvious errors are only matched by the price tag.
Now what exactly am I talking about here? I am referring to design errors that spoil the core of the game. Some are genre specific, some are not and all they do is spoil what could have been a wonderful game because some studio didn't bother to learn from the heap of failed titles out there. So let's look at some of these more closely. In this article, specifically the genre related problems.
FPS - Clumsy Controls
I believe most people have played First Person Shooter games. You move your character with the keyboard and you move your mouse to shift your aim, press a button and hope that whatever/whoever was under the cursor at the time goes away. Simple, right? You can change the weapons, even replace them with spells or hurled sheep but the basic controls and style of play is what defines this genre. And seeing how Mouse Technology has matured considerably over that years, one would think that the concept of accurate mouse movement is something that not even the most half-witted coder could understand.
Not so, apparently. How many games have I picked up and put down 5 minutes later (mostly toying with the Mouse sensitivity settings all the time) because trying to get your character to turn around and shoot feels like the controlling the gun is done by turning a shopping trolley with a bad wheel and a hippo sitting on the front. How hard can it be to have the cursor move when you move the mouse, the speed of movement directly proportional to that of the mouse, allowing for the relationship to be adjusted by the Sensitivity slider and having the cursor stop when the mouse does? Can't be that complicated, right? Why then do I find so many games where the movement of the cursor seems to be controlled by BMW's Active Steering? Slow movements of the mouse do absolutely nothing and as the mouse movement speed increases linearly, the cursor speed does so exponentially. The result is that quick correctional jerks don't work and spinning around is usually over shot.
Then there is the "realistic" movement that some developers want to force on us. The most annoying of these is a delay on the start and stop of a movements. Your cursor is over the target, you stop moving the mouse but the cursor flies by like a car with no brakes, forcing you to try and correct by pulling back various times until you rest on the target. People tell me that it just takes getting used to and that it is more realistic. Really? Do me a favour. Pick up a slightly weighted object like a stapler or cup. Now hold it to the side and look at a target in front of you like the doorknob or that picture of Xena. No try to point the object at the target as quickly as possible. Did you overshoot the target? No, of course you didn't because your brain and your muscles work together to slow the momentum of the object in time. You can do this because there is a sense of weight. Force feedback if you will. You can not get this from a mouse so there is no sense of how to counter the imaginary weight of the gun you are aiming with. Gun momentum does not work in games. Stop doing it!
TPS - That Camera
The play style of Third Person games are usually what necessitates this camera angle. You still control one person but the environment gets involved in your play style a bit more making it important to see your character's relative position to these things. Sometimes it is for tactical shooting that makes strong use of cover, sometimes for acrobatics making it important to see the environment so you don't, say, fall off a 30 story ledge. So we have firmly established that the reason for this play style is the need to SEE things. Why then do we get stuck with a camera focused more on the cracks in the wall or the heroine's curves? I mean I realised that being able to put Lara in a corner so you can have a better look at her is a big selling point but seeing where you are about to jump is just as important so you can make sure that your target destination is, well, THERE!
I sometimes thing that developers do not actually play their own games to see where the camera is focused. It is simple guys. When your character is stationary the camera should move pretty freely. When you move it favours being behind you so you can see where you are going and when you are hanging from a ledge, it should pull back a little bit and give you a wider field of view to you can see where you should be going. Leaps of faith belong in movies, not games.
RTS - Complexity and Micro Management
A wonderful genre that has recently gone down the drain with developers trying a little to hard. Maybe they have too much time on their hands, maybe they are too ambitious but why is that I now need to read 3 manuals, 4 online tutorials and spend the better part of a year trying to get to grips with all the options in these games? Strategy is as much reliant on instinct as it is on intellect. It is fast paced, requires reactions that approach subconscious thought level and 3 extra clicks can cost you a game.
Yet when I look at some games I find that each unit has a Redwood for a Tech Tree with tons of different upgrade options to drown in while you try to get to grips with the game itself. This is supposedly to allow you to customize units to your play style and give more depth with the countering of you opponents upgrade path with your own. Well on the first argument, play style is actually much simpler that people think and the second is just laughable as there is not always a clear way to see what upgrade paths your opponent has chosen so 50 tweaking possibilities on your foot solders is really just a pain in the backside. One or two options per unit type, no more please.
Then there is the Micro Management. Correct me of I am wrong but in an RTS you are a Battlefield Commander, not a Babysitter. Constantly adjusting unit attacks and tactics takes away from other things you should be doing like managing your Resources or churning out more of the useless gits. If I have to tell a unit to stand closer, further, change his fire rate, take a flanking position or duck enemy fire I might as well try and play 200 FPS games all at the same time. I do not want to check their formation and stance every 3 seconds. I want three stances. Aggressive for full on attacks, defensive for protecting bases so they don't run after enemies luring them away and Passive for when I am trying to sneak past an enemy without drawing attention to myself. That is it. I do not care about star and delta formations. I do not want to tell units when to try and flank and when to dig in. I manage an army, not a soldier's personal life choices. Stop tying to turn every soldier into a Sims character.
RPG - Work
You know I have always wondered why your Character has to work 10 times harder than you do. People spend years in front of screens having their character collect 100 golden nuggets in the mines before hunting 50 kobolds for some guy in the villages. Why am I sitting and doing the type of job I would turn my nose up to in real life? Are Developers so lazy and unimaginative that all the can have us do to grow is to do variations of the same boring quests over and over? I didn't buy the game because I thought my life isn't arduous enough! I want to escape from reality for a little while and do fun and challenging things, not emulate my day job. You are supposed to get better with practise not menial tasks. I want to become a better fighter by fighting things with meaning. Give us long term quests with stories and meaning that drive them, not just the 12XP at the end of it all. I think this is why I prefer single player RPG games. I grow with the story and in pursuit of the next chapter I do things, relevant to that storyline that improves my character. If I start up a game and get asked to run to the other side of the map to get 10 rat tails, I unleash the Uninstall Wizard on it.
So what flaws in games drive you nuts? I'd love to hear some opinions on what simple things can ruin a game for you.
Dave
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Geek Dream
No, I'm not talking about Xena or Seven of Nine.
I'm talking about the reason for "The Fight" that has geeks engaged every single day. I'm talking about cause behind "That Argument" that floods blogs, forums and to my amusement, YouTube comments. I'm talking about the goal behind the vast verbal assaults with their toll on innocent keyboards. I am of course talking about reason for the Operating System discussions.
Now armies all consist of various assets, regiments, ranks and strategies. And we can draw surprising similarities between conventional and OS armies. The forums posters, brave front line infantry that take the battle head on in semi-live discussion. The Bloggers, dropping their articles from up high for a greater area of effect while dodging the AA fire in the form of Comments. The employees and coders themselves, the Officers planning strategy, refining their Weapon, the Operating System in question. And like with all wars you will find the privateers, the looters, known to many as The Fanboys. Those that try and use the greater war as an excuse to misbehave and try and wreak their own little havoc, bringing us such memorable gems of stage three brainworm invasion as "MaC rUlZ" or "LiNux is teh suxxor" and the much loved "M$ is Evil".
But the war rages on and as the new version of each OS gets released by their Generals and the arms escalation seems to reach M.A.D. proportions. I think the most apparent similarity of all comes to light. Aggression breeds aggression. Now in turn Aggression breeds a whole lot of other things as well, being the ravenous little bunny it is but it is this circular term that sees the OS war in the state it is today. Take a step back from the skirmish, if only to slap me for dragging the metaphor 3 miles past its bus stop, and you can think clearly enough to see the Ultimate prize we are all fighting for.
And at this point, once you have laughed at the fanboys, shrugged off the astroturfers and ignored the marketers do you realise that the battle of the OS war is the same battle that we fight in the real world. Forget the governments, forget the corporations, forget the Despots and Tyrants and Supremacists. We don't want world domination. We all just want our place under the sun. We all just want to be respected. We all just want freedom of choice.
And that is what it boils down to once you get to the heart of the OS war as conducted on the Internet, not the Boardrooms. We want the Users to win. We want a User to be able to use whatever he likes. We want the Users to be informed about the advantages and disadvantages of each OS. And above it all we want it that no choice excludes the User from the world. I, like many other of my fellow geeks dream of a world where a User can walk into a store to buy a PC or Laptop and the salesperson asks "What Operating System would you prefer?". Where the choice made there will not hamper the User in any way but offer him a way to do things as he likes to do them.
So please, I implore you. As non-geeks, as normal users, take part in this discussion. Let the soldiers know what you want and if you are unhappy with your side, do not feel hesitant to approach another and see what they have to offer. You do not need to be a geek to count in the OS war. Reporting bugs, giving opinions and ideas about what you would like in your OS, sharing your experiences with others, all these things help much more than you think. This war, after all, is fought for you.
Dave
I'm talking about the reason for "The Fight" that has geeks engaged every single day. I'm talking about cause behind "That Argument" that floods blogs, forums and to my amusement, YouTube comments. I'm talking about the goal behind the vast verbal assaults with their toll on innocent keyboards. I am of course talking about reason for the Operating System discussions.
Now armies all consist of various assets, regiments, ranks and strategies. And we can draw surprising similarities between conventional and OS armies. The forums posters, brave front line infantry that take the battle head on in semi-live discussion. The Bloggers, dropping their articles from up high for a greater area of effect while dodging the AA fire in the form of Comments. The employees and coders themselves, the Officers planning strategy, refining their Weapon, the Operating System in question. And like with all wars you will find the privateers, the looters, known to many as The Fanboys. Those that try and use the greater war as an excuse to misbehave and try and wreak their own little havoc, bringing us such memorable gems of stage three brainworm invasion as "MaC rUlZ" or "LiNux is teh suxxor" and the much loved "M$ is Evil".
But the war rages on and as the new version of each OS gets released by their Generals and the arms escalation seems to reach M.A.D. proportions. I think the most apparent similarity of all comes to light. Aggression breeds aggression. Now in turn Aggression breeds a whole lot of other things as well, being the ravenous little bunny it is but it is this circular term that sees the OS war in the state it is today. Take a step back from the skirmish, if only to slap me for dragging the metaphor 3 miles past its bus stop, and you can think clearly enough to see the Ultimate prize we are all fighting for.
And at this point, once you have laughed at the fanboys, shrugged off the astroturfers and ignored the marketers do you realise that the battle of the OS war is the same battle that we fight in the real world. Forget the governments, forget the corporations, forget the Despots and Tyrants and Supremacists. We don't want world domination. We all just want our place under the sun. We all just want to be respected. We all just want freedom of choice.
And that is what it boils down to once you get to the heart of the OS war as conducted on the Internet, not the Boardrooms. We want the Users to win. We want a User to be able to use whatever he likes. We want the Users to be informed about the advantages and disadvantages of each OS. And above it all we want it that no choice excludes the User from the world. I, like many other of my fellow geeks dream of a world where a User can walk into a store to buy a PC or Laptop and the salesperson asks "What Operating System would you prefer?". Where the choice made there will not hamper the User in any way but offer him a way to do things as he likes to do them.
So please, I implore you. As non-geeks, as normal users, take part in this discussion. Let the soldiers know what you want and if you are unhappy with your side, do not feel hesitant to approach another and see what they have to offer. You do not need to be a geek to count in the OS war. Reporting bugs, giving opinions and ideas about what you would like in your OS, sharing your experiences with others, all these things help much more than you think. This war, after all, is fought for you.
Dave
Monday, April 12, 2010
Need for Wake Up Call
I came across a very confusing statement a few months back and I have now seen it repeated over and over again. Need For Speed is apparently abandoning its Tuned Golf GTI's and going back to its roots with NFS Shift.
Wait, what?
I have been looking back into my life trying to find the time I apparently spent in a coma. I have questioned my parents, considered kidnapping and interrogating my teachers and beating the truth out of my friends with a marble ash tray but for the life of me I can not understand how I have missed “Need For Speed Zero: Gran Turismo”. NFS has never been about Racetracks and who gives a damn about the in-car view? You can't see jack from that camera anyway.
You see, the only one I remember as the first NFS game was indeed Need For Speed. So apparently I have been medically incapacitated for a few years or I have happened upon a glitch in the Matrix. However, being the logical person I am I came to a better conclusion. What we have here is pure, unadulterated, 100% grain fed, home grown bull. It is marketing speak. It is an obvious lie to the people that love this franchise in an attempt to make them forget the sad episodes that came after NFS Underground.
The only problem is, when you make such a statement you usually have to make sure it is somewhat accurate. You see, with Underground, NFS broke away from what it did best, tried to save some dough on IP usage from exotic car makers and cash in on that horrid Vin Diesel movie that had about as much to do with proper cars as the broken sleep button on my keyboard has anything to do with my insomnia.
Back to its roots? I believe a more accurate statement would have been “NFS is going back to Gran Turismo's roots.” Am I the only person that looks at this title shaking my head and dying a little inside? They first made the mistake of giving us Suped-up Corollas and now they are going even further from what made the game special?
So what made NFS special? Trying to pin it on one aspect is just impossible and putting it into words is even harder but for me it was an emotion. A feeling of awe, reward and lust. I know many people are going to differ from me for this but here is what made NFS creep into my heart over and over again.
Recipe for Proper NFS (Serves 1 or more)
Take 20 of the most exotic cars you can imagine, add in 10 or so stunning landscapes, mix in with some great realism vs fun balance and serve on a mind blowing Sound Track with a sprinkle of multiplayer to wipe that smile off your buddy's mug.
That is what NFS was to me. Firstly the cars were never something you would see parked at the local McDonalds on Sunday mornings. The lowest level of wheels was the likes of Z3's and Lotus Elise's. It was filled with cars you would probably never get to drive, not your dad's Civic. I don't know if Toyota charges less for the rights to use its cars in a game than Ferrari but why suddenly flood the roster with cars that you could easily have in real life and would probably turn down, given the choice, only adding in some nice machinery at the top of the list?
Does anyone remember that feeling when you had finally unlocked the Porche GT1 or the Diablo SV? The closest I ever came again to having to change my pants was getting a Bugatti Veyron for a mission only to find out that it was slower than the Nissan 200SX I tuned and could be outrun in a straight line by a Police SUV. I mean come on! As far as let downs go that ranks just below finding out your Girlfriend is related to you and just above Softcore Porn! Porsche Unleashed gave you a sense of pride as you bought your first 911 and that boggle in your mind when you found out what a Holden was in Hot Pursuit 2 was enough to start you giggling in fits. You can hardly ever over steer in NFS games but that thing was so tail happy you couldn't help but burst out laughing as you missed another Redwood tree by 2 inches.
Then there are the tracks. Ye gods, the Tracks! They had a design quality that made them stick in your mind for years after you finish the game. I know every fan remembers plowing through the Black Forest at 300kph in High Stakes. I am certain they remember trying to dodge that damn haystack when you took a left through town in Normandy. Or how about the majestic mountains of Pyrenees? Yes? And surely you can't forget that stunning Mediterranean setting with your tail-happy Holden trying it's best to make sure you can't catch the shortcut over the ocean. NFS tracks haunted you. They were a riddle of racing lines and routes begging to be perfected in your choice of wheels. I left anyone behind with my '73 Turbo on Zone Industrielle. My room mate could get everything out of a GT1 on Autobahn. The Z8 danced round the Volcano and how could you not scream with pleasure as your Diablo SV flew through a barn? Cote d'Azure was easy to learn, almost impossible to master. All this with the best Driving Sound Track you can imagine.
Now we get to plow through a city and some farmland that always looks the same in every possible direction, sometimes with magical barriers making us go left or right or we can trod past traffic looking form some other idiot with fetish for mirror writing to dice. And while slamming purposefully into whatever most resembles a Vosloorus Taxi has some satisfaction to it I get the feeling they should have called all the later titles “NFS: Brakpan visits Joburg CBD” I have peak hour traffic and idiots in Civics to deal with in real life. If I wanted this experience I could just put a stopwatch on my Garmin. If I wanted to run to safe houses I would play Grand Theft Auto.
Ironically of all the titles, Porsche made me fall in love the fastest. The pedigree, the pride, the haunting tracks, the difference between upgrading and tarting, the unique feel of every single model and the dream of having a collection of your favourite Stuttgart models. The first got my hands on the Demo with the Carrera on Normandy and I spent months playing that one Track, perfecting it, shaving tenths off my time. It sucked you in. Testament to the staying power of these games is that I have, to this day, 4 of those titles installed on my machine and I still play them.
The only game that has lasted longer with me is X-Com: Enemy Unknown but that is another topic.
Wait, what?
I have been looking back into my life trying to find the time I apparently spent in a coma. I have questioned my parents, considered kidnapping and interrogating my teachers and beating the truth out of my friends with a marble ash tray but for the life of me I can not understand how I have missed “Need For Speed Zero: Gran Turismo”. NFS has never been about Racetracks and who gives a damn about the in-car view? You can't see jack from that camera anyway.
You see, the only one I remember as the first NFS game was indeed Need For Speed. So apparently I have been medically incapacitated for a few years or I have happened upon a glitch in the Matrix. However, being the logical person I am I came to a better conclusion. What we have here is pure, unadulterated, 100% grain fed, home grown bull. It is marketing speak. It is an obvious lie to the people that love this franchise in an attempt to make them forget the sad episodes that came after NFS Underground.
The only problem is, when you make such a statement you usually have to make sure it is somewhat accurate. You see, with Underground, NFS broke away from what it did best, tried to save some dough on IP usage from exotic car makers and cash in on that horrid Vin Diesel movie that had about as much to do with proper cars as the broken sleep button on my keyboard has anything to do with my insomnia.
Back to its roots? I believe a more accurate statement would have been “NFS is going back to Gran Turismo's roots.” Am I the only person that looks at this title shaking my head and dying a little inside? They first made the mistake of giving us Suped-up Corollas and now they are going even further from what made the game special?
So what made NFS special? Trying to pin it on one aspect is just impossible and putting it into words is even harder but for me it was an emotion. A feeling of awe, reward and lust. I know many people are going to differ from me for this but here is what made NFS creep into my heart over and over again.
Recipe for Proper NFS (Serves 1 or more)
Take 20 of the most exotic cars you can imagine, add in 10 or so stunning landscapes, mix in with some great realism vs fun balance and serve on a mind blowing Sound Track with a sprinkle of multiplayer to wipe that smile off your buddy's mug.
That is what NFS was to me. Firstly the cars were never something you would see parked at the local McDonalds on Sunday mornings. The lowest level of wheels was the likes of Z3's and Lotus Elise's. It was filled with cars you would probably never get to drive, not your dad's Civic. I don't know if Toyota charges less for the rights to use its cars in a game than Ferrari but why suddenly flood the roster with cars that you could easily have in real life and would probably turn down, given the choice, only adding in some nice machinery at the top of the list?
Does anyone remember that feeling when you had finally unlocked the Porche GT1 or the Diablo SV? The closest I ever came again to having to change my pants was getting a Bugatti Veyron for a mission only to find out that it was slower than the Nissan 200SX I tuned and could be outrun in a straight line by a Police SUV. I mean come on! As far as let downs go that ranks just below finding out your Girlfriend is related to you and just above Softcore Porn! Porsche Unleashed gave you a sense of pride as you bought your first 911 and that boggle in your mind when you found out what a Holden was in Hot Pursuit 2 was enough to start you giggling in fits. You can hardly ever over steer in NFS games but that thing was so tail happy you couldn't help but burst out laughing as you missed another Redwood tree by 2 inches.
Then there are the tracks. Ye gods, the Tracks! They had a design quality that made them stick in your mind for years after you finish the game. I know every fan remembers plowing through the Black Forest at 300kph in High Stakes. I am certain they remember trying to dodge that damn haystack when you took a left through town in Normandy. Or how about the majestic mountains of Pyrenees? Yes? And surely you can't forget that stunning Mediterranean setting with your tail-happy Holden trying it's best to make sure you can't catch the shortcut over the ocean. NFS tracks haunted you. They were a riddle of racing lines and routes begging to be perfected in your choice of wheels. I left anyone behind with my '73 Turbo on Zone Industrielle. My room mate could get everything out of a GT1 on Autobahn. The Z8 danced round the Volcano and how could you not scream with pleasure as your Diablo SV flew through a barn? Cote d'Azure was easy to learn, almost impossible to master. All this with the best Driving Sound Track you can imagine.
Now we get to plow through a city and some farmland that always looks the same in every possible direction, sometimes with magical barriers making us go left or right or we can trod past traffic looking form some other idiot with fetish for mirror writing to dice. And while slamming purposefully into whatever most resembles a Vosloorus Taxi has some satisfaction to it I get the feeling they should have called all the later titles “NFS: Brakpan visits Joburg CBD” I have peak hour traffic and idiots in Civics to deal with in real life. If I wanted this experience I could just put a stopwatch on my Garmin. If I wanted to run to safe houses I would play Grand Theft Auto.
Ironically of all the titles, Porsche made me fall in love the fastest. The pedigree, the pride, the haunting tracks, the difference between upgrading and tarting, the unique feel of every single model and the dream of having a collection of your favourite Stuttgart models. The first got my hands on the Demo with the Carrera on Normandy and I spent months playing that one Track, perfecting it, shaving tenths off my time. It sucked you in. Testament to the staying power of these games is that I have, to this day, 4 of those titles installed on my machine and I still play them.
The only game that has lasted longer with me is X-Com: Enemy Unknown but that is another topic.
The Advantages of Linux
Well following my previous article, I thought it would be a good idea to give some more concrete information about the ins and out of switching to FOSS. The big questions always comes up when Operating Systems are concerned since the FOSS Applications like Firefox can very easily be installed. The idea of this article is to highlight some important considerations as well as the Advantages of using a Linux based OS like Ubuntu.
In articles following this one I will go on to look at specific options, their merits and weaknesses but for now, let's talk a bit about what Linux is, what makes it good and what it can do for you.
What is Linux?
Now most of us use Windows. It was something we used as kids (right after DOS died out) and through the years we have been going from on version to the next, from Win95 through to XP, hopefully skipping the disaster of Vista and finally we are now faced with a slightly patched version of Vista, cleverly marketed as Windows 7. (For those who were fooled by the marketing, 7 is Vista with a few tweaks to it. They dropped the name due to the negative connotations and edited just enough of the visual design to make it look new) So Windows is all we know. While some of us have heard the word Linux being muttered around the coffee machine by some geeks, we do not really know what it is and what it has to offer.
Now Linux, conceived by Linus Torvalds started out as a toy for geeks, something to sharpen skills on, something to test and try new things and to explore all that technology has to offer. Now the result of this is a system that has evolved substantially over the years since its inception. Linux has evolved from a few strings of code that couldn't do much to a system that now leads the way in many areas of technology. And the way that it is written make it amazingly scalable. You can use Linux on everything from Cellphones to Mp3 Players, to Desktop Computers, to Servers and even to Supercomputers! Linux generally gets teamed up with the GNU tools, and we refer to the complete kernel as GNU/Linux but in most circles, for simplicity you will just hear people say "Linux".
Now what you have to understand is that Linux itself is not an OS. It is merely the Kernel. It manages your hardware and drivers. It can not show you a background, show you a program, or even give you some place to type. It is just the foundation. On top of this we can start building and with a foundation as flexible, scalable and powerful as Linux, the possibilities are endless. A full, operational OS based on Linux is called a Distribution or "Distro" for short. This is essentially the GNU/Linux kernel with all the things built on top that enable you to use it like an OS. This includes the programs that show you the nice icons, the backgrounds, the programs, the screen savers etc. And there are thousands of these Distros. You see, in the Free Software World, Choice is King. While the kernel remains essentially the same, the amount of options you have on top can seem almost daunting. But there are so many for a reason. No two people will completely agree on everything. Some prefer their OS to look and work a certain way, other have different ideas and this is what makes Linux Distros great. There really is something for everybody and you are free to move between the choices as you see fit. No lock-ins, no contracts, no licenses. Whether you are a Software Guru or just someone who wants Email and Internet access, there is a Distro perfect for you.
This choice is the first major benefit of Linux and it does not stop at the OS selection. There are literally thousands of programs, all free, that you can choose from. Document editors, Spreadsheet creators, Audio and Video editors, Games, Educational Software, Web Browsers, Music Players, Chat Clients. You name it and there is a Linux program that can do it. All at no charge.
Now while you get your head around that, let's look at some of the other advantages of running a Linux based OS.
You do not need Antivirus.
Simple as that. Viruses are Windows Programs that do bad things to your system or your data. They can make systems crash, they can steal your info and they can annoy the hell out of you. Linux is Immune to all Windows Viruses! That includes Adware, Malware, Spyware, Trojans, Worms, you name it. Even if you physically copy a virus onto a Linux machine all it can do is sit there. It can not harm the system. Now why is this, you ask? Well as I detailed in my previous article, the way that Microsoft and Linux approach viruses differs vastly. Viruses exploit weaknesses in the security of an OS. Now there are many reasons why that weakness is there but the shortened version is as follows. DOS and Windows were originally written for the Desktop PC. They were meant for stand-alone systems and it was only later by the end of Win98 and the advent of WinNT that networking was brought into Windows. Now this is like designing a very fast car and only later adding on some panels and metal plates to protect it from other cars on the road. Linux is based on the same design strategy as UNIX which was built specifically for Networks where security is paramount. Viruses exploit the lack of security between applications in Windows and trying to patch those holes while still keeping the OS functional and not interfering with the programs is like trying to build a McDonalds on the Highway without interrupting traffic. This is why some security updates for Windows actually break programs! Windows was build as a working OS, then they added the security where they could without breaking everything.
Now Linux OS'es are designed differently. They start with the security, add in the networking and lastly the programs. And through it all they make sure all those programs abide by the laws that Security laid down. With the law laid down, applications get designed right the first time and are forced to play by the rules. This is what makes it so hard for a virus to exist in Linux. There have of course been bugs in Security as there are with any system but Linux does not handle security by throwing it on to the user's lap and saying "You buy antivirus if you want to be safe". With Linux the exploit gets tracked down and fixed in the OS itself, not by some third party vendor who wants to make a buck.
You do get Anti Virus programs for Linux but they do not exist to protect Linux itself. They exist so people can use Linux to scan and clean Windows files. My users all come to me with their flash disks so I can clean them and I can do this with no worry that my machine might get infected.
You do not need to Defrag your hard drive.
What Windows (Or the Windows File System, NTFS, to be more accurate) does is to write data to the first available space on your hard drive. If there is not enough space to write the entire file in the first open area, it writes part of the data there and then moves on to the next available space to write the next part and so on. Now as you delete and add data to your hard drive this creates more small openings where parts of data will be written in and before you know it, your files are fragmented into little bits of data all over your drive and your PC becomes VERY slow. Also when a file grows (Like when you type more data into a Word Doc, the extra data now has to be placed somewhere else and linked back to the original file. Linux (with the Ext4 File System, though Linux can use many different File Systems) does this differently. Instead of just putting down data in the first free space it plans ahead, much like packing a car's trunk for a long holiday. It looks at the file, decides if it is the type of file that might grow (Like a document where more might be typed later) or if it will stay the same size (like a movie which always stays that same length and size) and then looks at ALL the options about where it can be placed. If the first open space is not big enough it keeps looking till it finds a more suitable space so the entire file can be put down in one place. In addition to this, if the file is likely to grow, it will reserve some space next to it for the file to grow into. Smart, eh?
Linux speaks Windows
Linux designers have taken great care to ensure they can be interoperable with Windows. Microsoft has not made this easy, trying to get a stranglehold on standards and everything else. But in most cases where clear standards are set, Linux can play along with Windows. Linux can read and write to Windows Hard Drives, they can read data on Flash disks from Windows and can write data back which can be understood by Windows. Linux can Network with Windows, share files, browse Microsoft hosted sites and much more. OpenOffice.org coders have gone to great lengths to make sure they can open and work with Office 2007 files and if you install Linux next to Windows on your PC, you can choose which one you want to use from day to day because Linux sees Windows and adds it into its Selection List. Windows on the other hand doesn't care what other OS you have. It just writes over the Selection List and proclaims itself the only OS on the machine. Windows also does not see EXT4 Hard Drives and they do not plan to do so anytime soon.
Linux is Lightweight and Fast
The rule of thumb is that more features mean more weight, right? Well yes, that is indeed true but how much weight exactly? This is something that came to mind with users very strongly when Vista was released. Here we were presented with a new OS that needed tons more power to run and at the end of the day did not really do anything substantial that Windows XP could not. Sure it was shinier and prettier but why does Vista and Win7 need so much from the hardware when in general terms they do exactly the same things that XP did? Well the answer is bloat. Bloat that came from sloppy coding of the new features. There are many ways to do thing in this world and there are many ways to code things and while all might get the job done, certain ways do it more efficiently. Linux takes efficiency very, VERY seriously. Where other companies will just keep adding weight with new features, in the FOSS world there is a constant drive for refinement, weight reduction and efficiency. Microsoft is a Business and they care about profit. FOSS is a community and they care about perfection. To give you an example, in the last 4 versions of the Ubuntu Operating System the features have grown dramatically, yet the time it takes to boot has decreased over the same period and the speed of Ubuntu has actually increased! This is because every effort is made to refine and make things run better. The results speak for themselves.
Windows 7 Minimum Specs
1GHz CPU
1GB RAM
16GB Hard Drive Space
Ubuntu Minimum Specs
700MHz CPU
384MB RAM
8GB Hard Drive Space
Now that is a MASSIVE difference! Both these Operating Systems do the same thing, and then you have to keep in mind that Windows 7 must have Antivirus on at all times which brings down its speed even more. Yet when a new version of Windows comes out we are expected to fork over money for it as well as more money for the new hardware it needs to run. Linux on the other hand allows you to get more out of your hardware and can even give some life and use back to hardware that Windows considers to be obsolete. This makes it ideal for someone who needs more from their machine but can not really afford better hardware.
Now with our computers doing so many billions of things every second, we can not, by feel, gauge real speed anymore. Not in a computational sense anyway. What we can feel is Apparent Speed, Responsiveness and Sluggishness. There is nothing more painful that just opening a folder and having to wait 5 seconds before you see its contents. Or typing something and seeing the computer lag behind you in displaying the characters. Or how about starting up and seeing the desktop, only having to wait another 2 minutes while the background programs load before you can do anything? This is where Linux is a real winner. Things happen snappier, open faster, boot quicker and when you see the desktop, feel free to start working as everything is already loaded. Need to stand up and make coffee while your PC boots up? Ubuntu boots in about 30 seconds on most computers and on some with fast SSD hard drives people have made it boot in 7 seconds or less.
Linux is Stable
Linux runs some of the biggest servers in the world and has millions of people looking over its code. Vast data centres like the ones at Google use Linux, the most powerful Supercomputers in the world like the Cray Jaguar and IBM's Roadrunner all run on Linux. Stability is not an option in these industries, it is an entry requirement and the same Linux Kernel that gives them the stability they need runs inside the Distros that you and I can have for free. That is what makes the free software model so great. Improvements that get made for Supercomputers filtered down to Desktop Users and vice versa. You do not need to reboot Linux when things start getting slow, when something is no longer in use, it is neatly cleaned out of the RAM and resources are freed up. You do not need to restart Linux when new programs are installed and you do not need to be the computer Administrator in order to run programs. This means that should you have someone else that uses the computer, you can restrict their access effectively and stop them from making system changes without impeding their ability to work.
These are some of the most important differences that Linux has from Windows and as you can see it has a lot to offer all types of users, from technical people to normal home users. There is a Linux Distro out there for you. In my next article I will look at how you know if Linux is right for you and look at some of the more user friendly options and their pros and cons. I hope this article has blown away some of the mystery that many Windows users associate with Linux.
David
In articles following this one I will go on to look at specific options, their merits and weaknesses but for now, let's talk a bit about what Linux is, what makes it good and what it can do for you.
What is Linux?
Now most of us use Windows. It was something we used as kids (right after DOS died out) and through the years we have been going from on version to the next, from Win95 through to XP, hopefully skipping the disaster of Vista and finally we are now faced with a slightly patched version of Vista, cleverly marketed as Windows 7. (For those who were fooled by the marketing, 7 is Vista with a few tweaks to it. They dropped the name due to the negative connotations and edited just enough of the visual design to make it look new) So Windows is all we know. While some of us have heard the word Linux being muttered around the coffee machine by some geeks, we do not really know what it is and what it has to offer.
Now Linux, conceived by Linus Torvalds started out as a toy for geeks, something to sharpen skills on, something to test and try new things and to explore all that technology has to offer. Now the result of this is a system that has evolved substantially over the years since its inception. Linux has evolved from a few strings of code that couldn't do much to a system that now leads the way in many areas of technology. And the way that it is written make it amazingly scalable. You can use Linux on everything from Cellphones to Mp3 Players, to Desktop Computers, to Servers and even to Supercomputers! Linux generally gets teamed up with the GNU tools, and we refer to the complete kernel as GNU/Linux but in most circles, for simplicity you will just hear people say "Linux".
Now what you have to understand is that Linux itself is not an OS. It is merely the Kernel. It manages your hardware and drivers. It can not show you a background, show you a program, or even give you some place to type. It is just the foundation. On top of this we can start building and with a foundation as flexible, scalable and powerful as Linux, the possibilities are endless. A full, operational OS based on Linux is called a Distribution or "Distro" for short. This is essentially the GNU/Linux kernel with all the things built on top that enable you to use it like an OS. This includes the programs that show you the nice icons, the backgrounds, the programs, the screen savers etc. And there are thousands of these Distros. You see, in the Free Software World, Choice is King. While the kernel remains essentially the same, the amount of options you have on top can seem almost daunting. But there are so many for a reason. No two people will completely agree on everything. Some prefer their OS to look and work a certain way, other have different ideas and this is what makes Linux Distros great. There really is something for everybody and you are free to move between the choices as you see fit. No lock-ins, no contracts, no licenses. Whether you are a Software Guru or just someone who wants Email and Internet access, there is a Distro perfect for you.
This choice is the first major benefit of Linux and it does not stop at the OS selection. There are literally thousands of programs, all free, that you can choose from. Document editors, Spreadsheet creators, Audio and Video editors, Games, Educational Software, Web Browsers, Music Players, Chat Clients. You name it and there is a Linux program that can do it. All at no charge.
Now while you get your head around that, let's look at some of the other advantages of running a Linux based OS.
You do not need Antivirus.
Simple as that. Viruses are Windows Programs that do bad things to your system or your data. They can make systems crash, they can steal your info and they can annoy the hell out of you. Linux is Immune to all Windows Viruses! That includes Adware, Malware, Spyware, Trojans, Worms, you name it. Even if you physically copy a virus onto a Linux machine all it can do is sit there. It can not harm the system. Now why is this, you ask? Well as I detailed in my previous article, the way that Microsoft and Linux approach viruses differs vastly. Viruses exploit weaknesses in the security of an OS. Now there are many reasons why that weakness is there but the shortened version is as follows. DOS and Windows were originally written for the Desktop PC. They were meant for stand-alone systems and it was only later by the end of Win98 and the advent of WinNT that networking was brought into Windows. Now this is like designing a very fast car and only later adding on some panels and metal plates to protect it from other cars on the road. Linux is based on the same design strategy as UNIX which was built specifically for Networks where security is paramount. Viruses exploit the lack of security between applications in Windows and trying to patch those holes while still keeping the OS functional and not interfering with the programs is like trying to build a McDonalds on the Highway without interrupting traffic. This is why some security updates for Windows actually break programs! Windows was build as a working OS, then they added the security where they could without breaking everything.
Now Linux OS'es are designed differently. They start with the security, add in the networking and lastly the programs. And through it all they make sure all those programs abide by the laws that Security laid down. With the law laid down, applications get designed right the first time and are forced to play by the rules. This is what makes it so hard for a virus to exist in Linux. There have of course been bugs in Security as there are with any system but Linux does not handle security by throwing it on to the user's lap and saying "You buy antivirus if you want to be safe". With Linux the exploit gets tracked down and fixed in the OS itself, not by some third party vendor who wants to make a buck.
You do get Anti Virus programs for Linux but they do not exist to protect Linux itself. They exist so people can use Linux to scan and clean Windows files. My users all come to me with their flash disks so I can clean them and I can do this with no worry that my machine might get infected.
You do not need to Defrag your hard drive.
What Windows (Or the Windows File System, NTFS, to be more accurate) does is to write data to the first available space on your hard drive. If there is not enough space to write the entire file in the first open area, it writes part of the data there and then moves on to the next available space to write the next part and so on. Now as you delete and add data to your hard drive this creates more small openings where parts of data will be written in and before you know it, your files are fragmented into little bits of data all over your drive and your PC becomes VERY slow. Also when a file grows (Like when you type more data into a Word Doc, the extra data now has to be placed somewhere else and linked back to the original file. Linux (with the Ext4 File System, though Linux can use many different File Systems) does this differently. Instead of just putting down data in the first free space it plans ahead, much like packing a car's trunk for a long holiday. It looks at the file, decides if it is the type of file that might grow (Like a document where more might be typed later) or if it will stay the same size (like a movie which always stays that same length and size) and then looks at ALL the options about where it can be placed. If the first open space is not big enough it keeps looking till it finds a more suitable space so the entire file can be put down in one place. In addition to this, if the file is likely to grow, it will reserve some space next to it for the file to grow into. Smart, eh?
Linux speaks Windows
Linux designers have taken great care to ensure they can be interoperable with Windows. Microsoft has not made this easy, trying to get a stranglehold on standards and everything else. But in most cases where clear standards are set, Linux can play along with Windows. Linux can read and write to Windows Hard Drives, they can read data on Flash disks from Windows and can write data back which can be understood by Windows. Linux can Network with Windows, share files, browse Microsoft hosted sites and much more. OpenOffice.org coders have gone to great lengths to make sure they can open and work with Office 2007 files and if you install Linux next to Windows on your PC, you can choose which one you want to use from day to day because Linux sees Windows and adds it into its Selection List. Windows on the other hand doesn't care what other OS you have. It just writes over the Selection List and proclaims itself the only OS on the machine. Windows also does not see EXT4 Hard Drives and they do not plan to do so anytime soon.
Linux is Lightweight and Fast
The rule of thumb is that more features mean more weight, right? Well yes, that is indeed true but how much weight exactly? This is something that came to mind with users very strongly when Vista was released. Here we were presented with a new OS that needed tons more power to run and at the end of the day did not really do anything substantial that Windows XP could not. Sure it was shinier and prettier but why does Vista and Win7 need so much from the hardware when in general terms they do exactly the same things that XP did? Well the answer is bloat. Bloat that came from sloppy coding of the new features. There are many ways to do thing in this world and there are many ways to code things and while all might get the job done, certain ways do it more efficiently. Linux takes efficiency very, VERY seriously. Where other companies will just keep adding weight with new features, in the FOSS world there is a constant drive for refinement, weight reduction and efficiency. Microsoft is a Business and they care about profit. FOSS is a community and they care about perfection. To give you an example, in the last 4 versions of the Ubuntu Operating System the features have grown dramatically, yet the time it takes to boot has decreased over the same period and the speed of Ubuntu has actually increased! This is because every effort is made to refine and make things run better. The results speak for themselves.
Windows 7 Minimum Specs
1GHz CPU
1GB RAM
16GB Hard Drive Space
Ubuntu Minimum Specs
700MHz CPU
384MB RAM
8GB Hard Drive Space
Now that is a MASSIVE difference! Both these Operating Systems do the same thing, and then you have to keep in mind that Windows 7 must have Antivirus on at all times which brings down its speed even more. Yet when a new version of Windows comes out we are expected to fork over money for it as well as more money for the new hardware it needs to run. Linux on the other hand allows you to get more out of your hardware and can even give some life and use back to hardware that Windows considers to be obsolete. This makes it ideal for someone who needs more from their machine but can not really afford better hardware.
Now with our computers doing so many billions of things every second, we can not, by feel, gauge real speed anymore. Not in a computational sense anyway. What we can feel is Apparent Speed, Responsiveness and Sluggishness. There is nothing more painful that just opening a folder and having to wait 5 seconds before you see its contents. Or typing something and seeing the computer lag behind you in displaying the characters. Or how about starting up and seeing the desktop, only having to wait another 2 minutes while the background programs load before you can do anything? This is where Linux is a real winner. Things happen snappier, open faster, boot quicker and when you see the desktop, feel free to start working as everything is already loaded. Need to stand up and make coffee while your PC boots up? Ubuntu boots in about 30 seconds on most computers and on some with fast SSD hard drives people have made it boot in 7 seconds or less.
Linux is Stable
Linux runs some of the biggest servers in the world and has millions of people looking over its code. Vast data centres like the ones at Google use Linux, the most powerful Supercomputers in the world like the Cray Jaguar and IBM's Roadrunner all run on Linux. Stability is not an option in these industries, it is an entry requirement and the same Linux Kernel that gives them the stability they need runs inside the Distros that you and I can have for free. That is what makes the free software model so great. Improvements that get made for Supercomputers filtered down to Desktop Users and vice versa. You do not need to reboot Linux when things start getting slow, when something is no longer in use, it is neatly cleaned out of the RAM and resources are freed up. You do not need to restart Linux when new programs are installed and you do not need to be the computer Administrator in order to run programs. This means that should you have someone else that uses the computer, you can restrict their access effectively and stop them from making system changes without impeding their ability to work.
These are some of the most important differences that Linux has from Windows and as you can see it has a lot to offer all types of users, from technical people to normal home users. There is a Linux Distro out there for you. In my next article I will look at how you know if Linux is right for you and look at some of the more user friendly options and their pros and cons. I hope this article has blown away some of the mystery that many Windows users associate with Linux.
David
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