I thought this would be a good place to post this. Check out this article over at Tom's Hardware

http://www.tomshardware.com/business...230/index.html

That article is now over a week old, was listed on Linux Today and already had a lot of comments there about it (some by me). It's old news, and contains a lot of half-truths (as my comments suggests).

ohh, sorry. I never saw it here and didn't know about it being posted on Linux Today.

Not here (until this thread), but on Linux Today...

Most everyone here knows more about Linux gaming than the guy who wrote the article...

Let's not get to punchy. He was pretty spot on about the gaming. He didn't cover all the alternatives and he took too much from ATI's guy (which exampled excuses other developers could use now), but he pretty much gave the big things that harm linux game development and made it readable to the average joe.

I am not concerned with what others have posted in response to that article on other sites. I think it was appropriate to post it here so people here could read it and respond.

The points he makes are precisely what every computer techy knows when they investigate and begin to use Linux. So many distros, so many different ways of getting it done by the distros, so many problems getting the drivers to install under linux, a tremendous amount of technical knowledge is required to get a box to run the driver properly, are only a few of the reasons that hold gaming back under linux.

It used to be that with every game I ran under linux, and I run alot of them, I had to worry about the drivers, etc. One change to the kernel or one change to some other configuration and boom, no more worky for some games. It takes alot of work to keep a linux gaming machine up and running. The end result is that even if a game is released under linux more than likely the support will be non-existent (or miniscule) from the developer due to how complex the distro's are under linux.

I read posts all the time about how x program works under gentoo but not under suse but only partially under debian, not under red hat, etc. Lots of issue remain and only time will tell.

Most of those complaints are a thing of the past. I personally have experienced only one problem with Linux gaming in the last six months, and that was getting SimCity for Linux running. Someone out there suggested using:
LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 /usr/local/bin/sc3u
and Whala!!! Working game.

I experiencd WORSE troubles with Windoze than that. A driver install would break one game in favor of another, etc...

As for installing drivers, nVidia drivers only require the knowledge to switch to a runlevel 3 and launch their installer script. DONE. I had more trouble installing drivers in Windoze (the driver install program versus allowing Windoze to do it, AGP miniport drivers, conflicts with other drivers, etc.). ATI drivers are not quite as good, but anyone who has had an oppurtunity is told to go with nVidia over ATI due to driver support.

In short you can't really say that Linux is at a disadvantage Windoze is just as bad. As for being a techie,... most Windoze people can't even install a mouse. Ask them to install a driver and they are lost. New drivers are needed all the time in order to support the latest directX out there. They can't do it, have to call a friend... etc. These people should have a Playstation 2 and a web browsing TV appliance... not a computer.