Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron BETA (New Operating System)

Having an interesting time with my first Linux BETA OS. Had my first little glitch with the video drivers trying to resize the resolution. On the very positive side however my sound drivers work much better with this build. In previous builds I had to max out the volume to make it what I consider medium. Other than that I have run into little in the way of hang ups. Plays all my Amazon music and DVD's great for entertainment.

All I can say is WOW this OS is purrrty. In the screen shot above I discovered I can have more than 4 desktops, that one has 5. Open Office has turned out to be much better than expected.

The state of PC gaming

The trend of video games the last few years has been a big push to consoles. PC gaming has been getting pushed to the side for many reasons the past few years for many reasons which make sense unfortunately. Many gamers hate the expensive system components, insecure operating system (windows,) crappy stability, and general buggyness of PCs. Unfortunately I tend to agree with those assessments but do they really outweigh the fun you can have on PC game system? Windows Vista has most certainly not been helping the situation. Direct X 10 is no good without a functional operating system. Then there is the Linux OS's, not much better. Wine is a great attempt at bringing the mainstream games to an alternate OS and it's got some potiental like most Linux to Microsoft items compatibility has been less than stellar. I really wish I could say otherwise. It's a hobby in itself just getting the stuff to run, I'm not giving up on it I find the challenge to be fun but that will prevent it from ever becoming mainstream.

Never the less the flexibility to do what you want with a PC system is clearly superior. The consoles are definitely trying to bring the two closer but when it comes to being part of a group on the internet PCs crush consoles. There is Xfire, Teamspeak, Ventrillo, Team websites, message boards, chat clients, the list goes on for days when it comes to PC's and community. Some of these are accessible with some browsers now built into the consoles but there's still no comparison to a PC when it comes to communicating on a message board.

Dispite that console gaming have some more obvious advantages. Hacking and piracy are a lot less common in the console world, it's there just less common and game makers like that which makes sense why they would want to promote it. It's not that they're less hackable it's just that hackers often like the same kind of flexibility and community (different circles though hacks take the fun out of it for me) that I like. Then there is the fact that windows has not been making improvements and frankly they've been making it difficult to see a future in PC gaming since game publishers will only publish on a windows system. The console game systems tend to be more stable in general, you don't have to worry about drivers crashing or the blue screen of death. Your console will run the game effectively it's practically a given. Most of all, a top notch console will run you about 600 bucks plus the extras. A top notch PC well that'll vary a lot! Opinions vary and they've all got good points. I think it's safe to say that you can figure on 2 grand for a good gamers PC that's a pretty huge discrepancy and it makes sense why parents buy their kids a console while many of the older gamers like myself tend to go PC.

With Parents buying their kids more consoles than old timers are getting PC's it's no wonder the number of console game titles are finally outnumbering the PC game titles. That may be the final blow to PC gaming making it a bastard child of gaming in the near future letting consoles take over.

Disappointed with Microsoft Windows

For a long time I've been one of those fanboys making excuses for windows. It's been over a year since the official release of Windows Vista and a despite that fact I recently felt so disenfranchised with this last release of windows (Vista) I can't continue making excuses for it since the service pack and/or patches haven't fixed the buggyness of Vista and I have now have switched to Linux. It was quite an eye opener, and made me realize just how bad Microsoft really is between their questionable monopolistic business tactics and poor quality product. If they were not a monopoly they'd out of the job with this considering what they wasted making it. If you compare the minimum requirements of the latest Linux vs the latest Windows the differences are gross. The latest Linux is backward compatible to the Pentium 2 generation, how is it possible that Microsoft spends billions on R&D for the new Windows and can't achieve that kind of efficiency and compatibility? I don't like the only possible conclusion I can see. They must be deliberately bloating the hardware requirements for the hardware manufacturers to secure hardware sales. It's the only thing that makes sense or are they really that incompetent? I can't say I'm too surprised, I've listened to a few of Steve Balmers interviews on Vista's poor performance. It really points out the whole attitude at Microsoft of sticking their fingers in their ears and humming. They spend all that R&D on bloating and overproducing the product instead of thinking of the basics and streamlining the kernel for both security and efficiency. I guess they've got their priorities where they want them, protecting the big corporate interests while screwing their consumers and the only thing out of their customers is "thank you sir may I have another." Well not this former customer, not anymore.

Maybe they'll come out of their funk. But I have a suspicion it's going to take the Return of Gates full time or something drastic to make that happen.