AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| reply to rte
Re: If you can't beat them; join them
Games and alternate Linux apps are kinda the current desktop killer for the 'nix alternatives. True, yes, there (usually) is a Linux alternative app for every app you're used to running in Windows, but the time spent on Googling/researching/finding these hidden gems is enourmous. Usually if the manufacturer didn't make a Linux alternative themselves for a certain kind of program, I just didn't even bother looking around. (spending hours on Google isn't my idea of fun)
Let alone system plug-n-play ability - wireless is a great example. Every hard-core Linux fan will say that "wireless is supported" in Unix...but I so far haven't gotten it to work. Hours of fiddling with various packages, settings, and system tweaks, and I have yet to get my wireless card to detect squat. So, yes, it might be supported, but if it requires me to dedicate a day of research just to get the stupid thing to work...most people (and I) don't even bother. $70-170 is well worth it to me (and most others) to spend on an operating system that hardware manufacturers BUILT the damn things to run on.
Games are another field where, much like the Mac, a lot simply JUST DON'T WORK. Yes, you could run an emulator, (which alone eats up a great portion of system resources) or crack the files and later run into errors, (which, after hours of Google-searching, you find have yet to be solved) but it just isn't worth it.
Now, if Linux (or any other OS) could overcome those two hurdles, I'd be the first on board to happily switch over.
PS. Please don't respond with the "games that only run on Windows aren't even worth playing" statement. I love my games that run, even if it's only in Windows. Sure, it might've been shallow for the game programmers to not design 'ports, but it was their decision to make. |
