I would strongly suggest to have all ADOBE's software made available to LINUX OS..
ADOBE programs are very professional and will fullfil every desire within layout, web-editing, photo-editing etc.

Happy seasons greetings to you all

captain skywave

How about MS Internet Explorer? Hmm, MS Visual Studio? All the software MS made to shut other great companies like Netscape, Borland (well almost), ... Just to strike back with the same weapon ;->>>

I think the main issue with linux and COMMON users... is the lack of support for games...

and in my case, design software, althought GIMP is going very well headed
Maybe some vectorial Design software like Illustrator or CorelDraw!.I think it would be a good bussiness that some of the big design software houses (adobe, corel, macromedia...) release software for linux, a complete suite... they should think about it

The rest it's ok, enough developer's software, office software, home-small bussiness support... linux is very well headed for an all purpose OS.

Good point! I do think a quality vector application would work wonders. I am very pleased and excited how far and well the Community is developing and I now use linux on all of my machines where I once dual booted. Stable and secure, and thank the gods for Firefox!

Games is a problem too, especially as so many are using the (I must confess) 'advanced' DirectX9 to full advatage. The concept of installing my favorite Farcry, HL2 and Battlefield on Linux are not looking good. Perhaps the code weavers can press on with this, but for the desktop user, a vector application like Illustrator would be great.

The major and most successful linux applications stick to the functionality and standards of their win32 counterparts, and I think this works well seeing as how far Linux has come. A linux 'clone' of Illustrator would have designers cutting their overheads overnight!

Corel Draw is the biggest issue for me.
I use it extensively - and it doesn't run well on wine.

For a moment in a desperate attempt to get rid of windows altogether (which I run from vmware)
i thought of buying a Mac.
But Corel pulled out of Mac after Corel Draw 11 - which "apparently" runs badly on that OS.

Games is another sad frustrating experience.
"Cedega doesn't help the gaming situation for Linux" says the programmer responsible for porting Doom 3.
- but then again who is helping?
Very few people and companies - very few.

But one thing I don't understand smudge|lala
you say DirectX is very advanced

I really got the impression that the cross-platform openGL was more advanced.
But DirectX wins since its easier to program in.
I have played with openGL at http://nehe.gamedev.net
but never delt with directX coding - so can't really give an opinion.

a lot of stunning games you see these days uses cross-platform engines.
unaware to some Half-Life 2 uses the Havok
which has been always cross-platform including Linux and then all of a sudden hush-hush Linux is not mentioned anymore.

"Valve announces Linux port of Half-Life ... " and then suddenly hush-hush again.

Tribes, Tribes 2 (ported to Linux but impossible to find) all uses the
Torque engine.
I can't vouch wether the new Tribe Vengeance uses that.
But Torque is absolutely cross-platform and Linux compatible - sadly no more ports for Tribes.

Not to mention the extremely Linux compatible Quake engines.
How many PC games uses that? But aren't ported?

It took one man to port Unreal to Linux .. it's not something absolutely difficult or impossible.

But the powers that be - call the shots.
Basically they prohibit any games from being ported to Linux or Mac OS.
Otherwise the adoption of these OS's will accelerate.

Again and again - if IBM, Novell, HP are that pro-Linux
if they want to ensure the adoption of desktop Linux
Please begin to sponsor the Linux-porting people.
Please encourage the game industry to be Linux compatible.
That should be one of their main strategies forget everything else.

I would really like to see GUI for DVD Author and Slide Show Movie Maker ported. Both are freeware. GFD is a dvd authoring tool for creating menus and such for dvds. SSMM is for taking jpgs and applying transitions, ken burns, and other effects and then rendering to an avi. Both can be found here:
www.videohelp.com/tools

Ah Garibaldi3489 take a look at Qdvd Author. It is a GUI front end to DVD Autho. It is available as an rpm.

winVICE the C64 Emulator it is great for filling in time while waiting for something and does not have the tendancey to make you throw the keyboard at the screen when it gets tough

I apologise in the delay in responding. Actually I agree with your statement. I understand OpenGL to be more advanced and an Industry Standard as far as graphics are concerned. I was quoting a chap who works for EA games as all the biggest companies are utilizing the gaming aspects of DirectX. I am still awaiting a detailed 'industry' response.

To be honest, what I would like to see the most on linux is for a group of hard-core hackers to develop a high end games engine. All the best/most popular games have a platform engine. Unreal, Battlefield, GTA, Farcry etc etc. Then mod groups come to light with some exceptional mods. Basically a brand new game built on the original engine. The amount of patches and map-packs available is evidence of this. This would be a breakthru. Building games for linux first that could then optionally be compiled and sold for Windows. I have been in a clan playing a mod-base game for 6 years. I think the gaming and guru hacker world thrive in these environments. If I was worth a light as a programmer I would start this project right now, then utilise OpenGL to the very max!

I will post a response about OpenGL/DirectX as soon as I receive a reply.

the problem with software programming for Linux and specially game programming overall
is the enormous learning-curve.

it is just too daunting.
when the chaps at http://www.vendetta-online.com started their project
it took them 3 years to reach a decent game
they hardly could afford their rents anymore - and still got some stick
from open-source advocates calling their "proprietory" software company - evil.

Loki Games was the most promising venture for Linux gaming.
Now I hear it was through mis-management that the company collapsed.
Whether that is true or not - had we an IBM or Novell or even Red Hat -
as a safeguarding sponsoring parent company - such calamity wouldn't have happened.

Again and again - the day Loki Games died
all hopes for porting games for Linux died with it. You don't see anything ported anymore,
apart from id software games (Doom 3 recently but it stops there).

To encourage a central base of Linux gaming enthusiast
wanting to learn how to go about writing a game.
We should have a software like http://nehe.gamedev.net
focused only for the Linux platform.

Hey maybe there is one or two already - but I haven't researched yet.

There you would learn about SDL, OpenGL, Glut and
utterly basic C++ .. I mean the whole site done painstakingly Basic
far from a HOW-TO Man Page

There you would be shown also how to re-use engines
like Unreal and Torque to make a game (relatively faster) for Linux.

And there people would contribute lots and lots of code.
The code for Legends
would be (with granted permission) made public or open source.
Which would also allow people tweaked it for greater Linux stability.
(the new mods crashes easier on Linux than Windows)

I mean I suppose as I am suggesting this.
I should do it.
It would be hypocritical of me to come up with an idea
but hoping someone else to take the huge challenge.

I have to come up with some better plan.
If I put anything up I definitely don't want to see it fail.
That would definitely send the wrong message.

I have to think more about this - and am I open to ideas.

Important related links:
http://liberatedgames.com/
http://www.happypenguin.org/
http://www.linuxgames.com/

Im guessing this has been on your mind fopr some time! Very informative. I can see your frustrations with the whole episode and I don't think you are alone.

The biggest applications are usually written by teams and I think the real challenge here is to bring a group of dedicated minds together to work on a big project. All the resources are there. Just a heck of a lot of work. I'm sure you're far more up on this that I am.

I have been with the xbox 'movement' since version 1 and I think the team at XBMC are a great example of this team effort. Their dashboard xbmc is excellent.

I think it is more important to focus on a games engine that other games can be developed on rather than coding a game. With a 3D engine style environment such as Quake and Unreal any number of 1st person games could be created. I remember the guys doing Metal Gear Solid were trying to make an engine that would be good for everything (driving, 1st person, flying) but I think Unreal have it sussed so far.

A mammouth task and without the billion dollar budget of EA games. A hard core LUG would be a good place to bash ideas around perhaps?

It requires thought and effort but hey we take from Linux we give back to Linux.
unless you are thief like game companies that releases
server versions for Linux but not clients

If you have Yahoo Messenger add me: hg2715
you can download it from http://messenger.yahoo.com
or you can use it with gaim, kopete, etc.

I had 3 projects
the first requires too much Linux expertise
so I will leave that for the future.
Basically making an OS babyishly easy to use for old people.
ie Granny Linux (yes you can laugh :P )

the second was a site with just tips
condensed
the best tips ripped from all wikis and forums
into one database.
you type a question - you get an answer
what stopped me doing it - i know asp not php
and to have a linux site running on IIS is short of sacriledge

the third is this
I haven't thought about this in-depth so its still hazy
but always a domain and web-space is a good thing to start
do you know some html or php?
and where are you at the moment? UK or Canada?

all my ramblings here will be lost - but if we have a website
we can brainstorm and focus our plans better
and see if some feasible strategy comes out of it.

there is no harm in trying
and i want competitors - like we try our very best
but some group of smarter people goes even further
leaving us miles behind

great - i am not here for personal pride
the objective is focused: more gaming for Linux.

I'd like Winhex, Windows Explorer

I was wondering if there was any program for linux that is like dvd shrink so that i can still burn dvds. and something I can get so that I can use yahoo IM and childrens video games. I just bought got linux SUSE 9.2 professional

You can use Gaim or Kopete to use Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AOL it handles multiple protocols.
I am sure at least Gaim comes with Suse.

For DVD burning check out if K3B handles DVD burning.
I think it does.
Inspect what programs you have under the menu Multimedia.
Further to that do a search on Yast for "DVD" and "dvdrecord"
(and see if any of the 1000's of free application one includes DVD burning)

My guess is that there is a DVD burning application there already.

Browse and inspect all applications you have on your menu
It's fun! Well sort of! :P

For games it all depends on the ages of your children.
Suse would have included a few games there already.

Again go to your YAST Update - and do a search on games.

There are about 1000's of free games for Linux.
Only the commercial famous ones are often hard to find.