In which case you want it on a BD (or probably HDD preferred, built-in or external) right?

I just think that 20GB+ is a bit much to go and download as an update. It would be cheaper for me to get posted it to me on a BD.

I don't do a lot of games, the last one I remember needed this was Riven: Came on 5 DVD's and you needed to change to another each time you went to a different island in the game. You could manually copy the lot to HDD and change some settings, but it wasn't an install option - more like a hack. Way-back-when i remember those old "Quest" games which came on numerous stiffy discs - now those took up most of your HDD (20MB at the time), so you had no option but to play them disc-by-disc, though it was usually designed so you only swapped discs if you're going to another level.

If the new stuff needs a swap halfway in the action: That's because the designer's are IDIOTS! None of those I've played would halt the action to wait for you to swap discs!

A BD would still be slow compared to a HDD (causing breaks during loading parts of the worlds) and it would still unnecessary stress the drive. So you are right, HDD (or better SSD) is preferred, I always make full installs of disks.

All three games I mentioned are open world games, there are no levels, so there must be arbitrary points to change the medium. So the gameplay would be halted in any way and since open world games are in parts unpredictable it could even be in a middle of a gun-/swordfight.

Which is why, personally, I wouldn't play a modern game. Then again, *MY* choice on computer games runs more along the line of Mahjongg, Kshisen, Kpat, Frozen Bubble, etc.

Actually come to think about it - we're still at the same point. I'm not unwilling to install 20GB for a piece of software, I'm just unwilling to download that much. Now if I could go and buy the set of DVDs / BD then install it once off onto my HDD/SSD, that would be fine by me (My PC's got 2x 2TB HDDs at the moment - so space isn't the issue).

What I get P-ed off with is the enormous download after you've paid for the license. With the AutoDesk Building Design Suite that makes a full download of around 40GB (I know I downloaded the 2012 version a year or so ago). Though of course that's a suite comprising much more than only one program, but also some content libraries.

At the time the company's (I worked for) ISP contract had a 50GB cap on a dual 4MB/s ADSL + 10MB/s Wireless for around ZAR 10,000 (US$ 1,100) per month. So at best it cost me another $1,000 over and above the $7,000 license. But it was worse than that: Since the ISPs in SA are less than useless, those speeds were only theoretical (the combination while using all 3 connections at once would never show throughput of more than around 1MBit/s - usually less than 512kBit/s and with dropping connections all the time). So halfway through a download it would time-out, making for wasted bandwidth. And their site disallows stuff like download managers - due to "security" . In the end it cost us something like $3,000 in total for the download - taking more than 2 months to get the whole thing.

Now please tell me how that would be "cheaper" and/or more "efficient" than sending it by registered mail in a box?

For the 2013 version (which was yet another 52GB) we told their resellers here that they HAD to download it themselves and deliver the DVDs to our doorstep - especially since we went with an annual subscription license for 50 seats. After 5 months of continually asking them to bring the damned stuff we finally got it, came on 3 BDs - they must've had similar problems with the downloads, go figure ! [Note: Adesk has this weird chronological mindset of calling a version by next year's number - the 2013 version was available in march 2012]. We copied it to the server, then installed it from there. And after installation that takes up around 100GB, so cost-wise SSDs are out .

And maybe you don't actually do any serious photo manipulation.

Gimp is great for some things, and many of it's features are similar to Photoshop, but there is a lot it can't do. It degrades images terribly when re-sizing. It has limited functionality with Photoshop plugins. I'm not an Adobe fanatic. I absolutely hate Flash.

That being said, Photoshop is just about the most powerful and effective tool for photo editing out there, and I'd pay top dollar to have it on Linux, so I could say goodbye to Windows forever.

Definitely with you on things like 'specialist" usage. Some things Gimp is simply not suited for. PS might be "better" suited in some situations, but more often than not it's simply a case of the user wanting to do it the way they used to instead of learning a new tool which might give similar / even better results - just going about it in a different way.

On the other hand, I've seen people use PS for stuff it simply isn't suited for either (e.g. fills on 2D linework). It doesn't "stop" them from using something they're used to, even though some other program might be a lot better suited to the task. Even after complaining that it's "slow" and uses gargantuan resources - they're still unwilling to use something which is fast, light and specifically designed for their needs. Note these things are usually drawn at 300DPI on an A0 sheet - equivalent to a 140 MP photo (no wonder their "resources" are always too low), the PSD file is seldom smaller than 1GB.

This is usually the issue most users have with going to a new / other program on Linux: The fact that a steep learning curve would make them less efficient at the start is a tremendous hurdle - even if proof of much better efficiency thereafter is readily available.

Programmer's Notepad 2
XVI32
VirtualDub
uTorrent v1.x
TortoiseGit

InfraRecorder
DVD Decryptor
ImgBurn
DVD Shrink

MS Bob

> TortoiseGit

TortoiseSVN and TortoiseGit are shell extensions for Microsoft's Windows Explorer so they're never likely to be ported to Linux. You can get similar functionality for Nautilus using RabbitVCS. I still tend to do my initial checkouts in a Terminal, though.
HTH.

Obviously a Tortoise* port to Linux would involve being adapted to a different file manager (Just like how adapting a Win32 GUI program would involve being adapted to Qt/GTK/etc). That's not unreasonable. Most of the work in the Tortoise* programs are implementing the functionality and dialogs, the shell integration is merely one part of it. I imagine it's probably a fairly small part, unless integrating with explorer just happens to be super convoluted - but even if so, all that stuff would mostly just be ripped out or bypassed for Linux anyway.

Sounds nice, but I use Dolphin. Not really a fan of the Nautilus-based file managers.

The issue is that Linux has various file managers, and they may not be using the same settings (let alone addon interfaces). The windows one uses mostly the registry (in specific spots) to perform this. The most complex bit would be the modified folder icon depending on state of local copy.

Most Linux File Managers would have some form of addon for such things, e.g. my favourite Krusader has an open request for implementing extra kio interfaces (such as svn): https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=272108

Most probably Dolphin would have something similar - perhaps already implemented. Sorry, don't know Dolphin that well - but chances are good since it's a much more used FM than Krusader.

Edit: BTW, I've uninstalled my TortiseSVN/GIT since it's screws with external discs. It stays on in the background keeping a lock on all drives - so you can't cleanly unplug a USB disc (basically need to shut down). Since then even on windows I rather just use a SVN client instead of the integrated explorer addon idea. Perhaps in Linux it won't be so bad as the FM is not open all the time like it is in windows, so an addon would only be running while the FM is also running.

I would like to see the ability to run Microsoft Access or at least a good, comparable product. I know about Libre Office and it's "Base" program. I've tried it, but it isn't even comparable to MS Access. In fact I haven't found any Linux program comparable to MS Access. Linux has all the latest, greatest databases, but it is extremely weak as far as user GUI software to work with it.

To my knowledge packages that allow one to run Windows binaries, such as Wine, all see to fail when it comes to Microsoft's flagship GUI database manager/app.

My sentiments as well in many a former post: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...5/#post4862738

Sure there are stuff like myPHP and many other DB managers. But it seems if you want to make a true GUI for your DB, then you either have to go through a web server or program something in some language. There are very few general purpose GUI's and most of them are playthings in comparison to Access. LO Base has some promise, but it's still behind on stuff like foreign key lookup dropdowns on forms - where Access does these near automatically for the user.

I've just tried searching for some GUI-DB tools. Apparently there's quite a few: http://www.databasejournal.com/featu...-GUI-Tools.htm

Though all those are admin tools (i.e. create tables / queries / maintain / backup / etc.). None of them allow user interaction by letting the user build his/her own forms / reports. If I go further to try and find such, all I get are stuff like extensions for generating forms in Java or MonoDevelop, e.g.
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/gui_builder.html
http://monodevelop.com/stetic_gui_designer

Closer is a RAD system, but only for Windows if you have a Pro version of Visual Studio: http://www.developguidance.com/

After some more searching I've come across:

• Glom (looks impressive)
• Kexi (not bad, but seems a lot similar to LO Base)

Anyone used these before? Or can you suggest something which is more comprehensive. It needs to be at least as user friendly & comprehensive as Access. I'm going to test these two - but might need some time to give them a decent chance.

Can you explain how it degrades the image? I've been using The GIMP for years to re-size photos and have never noticed it seriously degrading an image when resizing (there are limits, of course, depending on the original image).

If I will ever be able to play the GTA Vice City and San Andreas on my Linux Box, I would crash and burn the dual booted Windows install.

Regards.