What can linux do for me

[cassius]

As a hobbyist developer I am happy with windows 7. My pc is fairly new but I did not like the look of windows 8 so went for win 7.I have been vaguely aware of Linux for years but never looked into it. so I am curious to know how it could benifet me.

[kennar]

Just my opinion...

 

Simply, unless you have a specific need, it likely won't be of any added benefit. That said, over the long hall, a managed Linux is is likely better behaved - no inexplicable slow down after a year or two of usage. Also lower risks of malware is probably still a positive.

 

I have a Linux VM currently running on my system because it was easier to compile (zero hassle) a particular piece of analysis software. The same was the case in the past but these days I maintain several GCC variants as well as the MS compilers.

 

Then again, having a Linux VM or two won't hurt, either, and could be a fun exploration.

[Andy Gilbert]

I also believe (correct me if im wrong) that Steam have just annouced their own console that will run linux and obviosuly be specific for gamers. Leadwerks having greenlight and heading for a linux build i can see a possible change of trend in the gaming industry and leadwerks is trying to get on board early.

 

Andy

[Josh]

In a word: Speed. When you don't have all those Windows background processes going, games run fast.

 

OpenGL rendering in Linux is faster than OpenGL or DirectX rendering in Windows. The Linux community is doing work now to make it even faster, with performance in the neighborhood of 200% Windows performance, on the same hardware.

[cassius]

How about security on Linux. I mean protection from viruses etc?

[Josh]

Viruses are a non-issue. Linux is basically like Windows UAC at max level.

[cassius]

What c++compiler will you use in Linux? I preferred codeblocks for le2, much faster to complile than the vs

[Josh]

Code::Blocks for the IDE, which uses GCC by default. If I knew how to configure it with LLVM that would probably be a better choice, but I haven't tried yet.

[codeape]

Currently LLVM compiled binaries are less optimized than GCC (as I understand it). However LLVM has a lot of improvements over GCC, like better static analysis of code etc.

[Neuro]

Hi, I'm a linux developer, for an IDE I often use Geany, its very similar to Codeblocks, there is also 'cute' QT4, which is a good visual studio style c++ editor that lets you drag and drop ui elements and compile it to multiple platforms.

 

What can linux offer you?

 

The Good

 

POSIX termial, mac also has this, it is the increadibly powerful terminal you can use to search through and administer your system, like concatonating your code and searching through it all at once, there are a variety of powerful terminal programs that can help you do things such as batch image resizing that are simply much faster and friendlier than windows.

 

Speed : Assuming your drivers work well and everything goes smoothly you're game will run smoothly without the problem of programs bugging you in the back ground, you can run linux on legacy hardware or laptops

 

Customizability, you wont have to put up with a computer that feels like its owned by Microsoft, you can setup your own menus, sounds, file managers and everything else.

 

The Bad

 

Sometimes you have to make a sacrifice to run Linux, Gimp is not quite as good as Photoshop, you don't have the same access to proprietary software, blender however is terrific on linux, drivers can be a real issue to, to quote Linus, the father of linux, "Nvidia, **** you!".

 

As a new user you will have a burden of choice when it comes to what distribution you want, as a new user, you should probably just get ubuntu 13.04, xubuntu is good to, the interface is more like windows, I'd recommend xubuntu to a new user, linux mint is particularly good to. I made the somewhat poor descision to use Arch linux because it is favoured by linux-enthusiasts for its marginal speed performances and customizability, but in reality, its a pain in the neck, I have trouble navigating between different hard drives, getting my phone to connect to my pc or running ad-hoc drivers. The OS allready has enough problems with drivers as it is without needing to make the problem worse.

 

If you're going to install Linux onto a laptop, do a search on linux/ubuntu in relation to that laptop.

 

Dont go for any obscure distros, really, go with the newest (non-beta) ubuntu or xubuntu, then you shouldn't have problems. Fedora, Manjaro, Arch, Gentoo, don't even look at them.

[Josh]

I would count the terminal as the biggest disadvantage of Linux. If the terminal didn't exist, Linux would be forced to fix so many problems. My outlook is that if the user has to open the terminal to do something, it isn't really a supported feature, so all my recommendations will be based on this idea.

[Thomas]

The Bad

 

Sometimes you have to make a sacrifice to run Linux, Gimp is not quite as good as Photoshop, you don't have the same access to proprietary software, blender however is terrific on linux, drivers can be a real issue to, to quote Linus, the father of linux, "Nvidia, **** you!".

 

As a new user you will have a burden of choice when it comes to what distribution you want, as a new user, you should probably just get ubuntu 13.04, xubuntu is good to, the interface is more like windows, I'd recommend xubuntu to a new user, linux mint is particularly good to. I made the somewhat poor descision to use Arch linux because it is favoured by linux-enthusiasts for its marginal speed performances and customizability, but in reality, its a pain in the neck, I have trouble navigating between different hard drives, getting my phone to connect to my pc or running ad-hoc drivers. The OS allready has enough problems with drivers as it is without needing to make the problem worse.

 

If you're going to install Linux onto a laptop, do a search on linux/ubuntu in relation to that laptop.

 

Dont go for any obscure distros, really, go with the newest (non-beta) ubuntu or xubuntu, then you shouldn't have problems. Fedora, Manjaro, Arch, Gentoo, don't even look at them.

 

Looks to me like you have no idea what you're talking about.

And that you have had problems with Arch is totally understandable to me. It's no distribution for newcomers with absolutely no wisdom about the operating system (in other terms: people like you).

[Josh]

Thomas, it would be helpful if you explained exactly what aspect of his argument you disagree with.

[paramecij]

As a hobbyist game developer linux can't offer you that much, except give you access to an alternative, free software loving "market". As for gamedev software, you have blender and gimp, a few engines (most notably torque3d and soon leadwerks3). If that's all you need and are buying a new pc then that's great, you can save a few bucks (though you probably still need a copy of windows, as you don't want to loose that market).

 

My suggestion would be to keep developing on windows with the tools you are already comfortable with, but get yourself a copy of linux to familiarize yourself with the OS, that way you can target a larger audience when Leadwerks 3.1 ships, and make the switch later down the road when you have a better understanding of what linux can offer and what you want from it, this way you'll be able to choose a distro that better suits your needs. Oh, and don't go asking linux people on what linux to get, you'll get 100 different answers and opinions, just start with ubuntu (it's one of the friendliest to new users and easy to install) via VMWare to get a feel for it first.

 

Viruses are not an issue, because linux community is smaller and made of people who are generally comp savvy power users, software is mainly distributed with source, and linux has a very coherent and robust security policy. That being said, during high school I wrote a lot of malicious software for both linux and windows without much trouble (purely for educational and experimental purposes). Once everyone and their dog starts using and developing for linux, the situation will worsen a bit, but thankfully viruses have generally gone out of style, data mining and user tracking are the trends now. Some of the ads on the web feature super advanced javascripting that track your online behavior and history like a boss, and they don't even need to get into your system.

[Thomas]

Thomas, it would be helpful if you explained exactly what aspect of his argument you disagree with.

 

As you wish.

 

The Good

 

POSIX termial, mac also has this, it is the increadibly powerful terminal you can use to search through and administer your system, like concatonating your code and searching through it all at once, there are a variety of powerful terminal programs that can help you do things such as batch image resizing that are simply much faster and friendlier than windows.

 

What you mean is a 'shell'. And there is not only one. While bash (Bourne Again Shell, an enhancement of the sh, Bourne Shell) is the most common used, there are others like ksh, zsh, csh and tcsh (my favorite). They all differ in capabilities and syntax.

 

The 'terminal programs' you were mentioning, are either shell-builtins or CLI-tools.

 

The Bad

 

Sometimes you have to make a sacrifice to run Linux, Gimp is not quite as good as Photoshop, you don't have the same access to proprietary software, blender however is terrific on linux,

 

Photoshop is just more user-friendly. And for the proprietary software-part: For everything we could possibly, there is a open-source project already available. Also, proprietary developers tend to follow their own rules instead of the standards we have set in place (and yes, we hate them for it. Therefore we don't buy or use their ****.)

 

drivers can be a real issue to, to quote Linus, the father of linux, "Nvidia, **** you!".

 

He made that comment as response to NVIDIA's lack of NVIDIA OPTIMUS support in their closed-source driver (which every sane user isn't using anyway.. Unless he *really* needs the performance or he simply doesn't care about giving untrustworthy code full control over his PC).

 

As a new user you will have a burden of choice when it comes to what distribution you want, as a new user, you should probably just get ubuntu 13.04, xubuntu is good to, the interface is more like windows, I'd recommend xubuntu to a new user, linux mint is particularly good to.

 

Canonical is going the same way that Microsoft went.. Downwards.. They're equally stupid and do the same bad decisions.

Unity and Mir are just 2 examples.

 

I made the somewhat poor descision to use Arch linux because it is favoured by linux-enthusiasts for its marginal speed performances and customizability, but in reality, its a pain in the neck

 

Canonical is holding your hand, just like Microsoft does. Don't expect that from every distribution. Especially not one which is aimed at professionals that know what they're doing.

 

The OS already has enough problems with drivers as it is without needing to make the problem worse.

 

It's true that not every kind of exotic hardware is supported, but when I compare the current situation to the situation 10 years ago.. Driver problems are far less common than they used to be and it's getting better every day.

 

Fedora, Manjaro, Arch, Gentoo, don't even look at them.

 

Just because you're unable to work with any distribution but Ubuntu (or a derivative from it) doesn't mean that other people can't do that either.

 

-- Notebook batteries empty.. I'll edit and enhance this post later. --

 

Edit: Took a while to get back to this, and now I lost the line anyway.

Edited October 12, 2013 by Thomas

[shadmar]

I wonder why this is sold out : http://www.jinx.com/p/arrogant_linux_elitist_t_shirt.html?exp=go

[Josh]

Photoshop is just more user-friendly.

User-friendliness is probably the biggest determiner of what software people choose. I know from experience it is much harder to write easy-to-use software than to just write software. The ease-of-use aspect of it is an entire layer of development beyond the core technology. It's probably 2-3 times as much work, and it has to be considered when writing the very core of the software. So dismissing Photoshop as being easier to use, that's like dismissing a brand of tires because they don't explode on contact with asphalt.

 

There's basically two ways to write software. You can approach it from the interior, and think about what makes the source code the most elegant, the most maintainable, and the most pleasant experience for the developer. The other approach is to think about what makes the end user's experience the most consistent, least surprising, and most pleasant. Leadwerks 2 was written with the first approach. Leadwerks 3 is being written with the second one. The second approach is much more work because you are absorbing complexity so the end user doesn't have to deal with various details. For example, the Leadwerks 3 editor auto-detects file changes and automatically converts model and image files into our own formats. In Leadwerks 2, the user was expected to do this themselves with command-line tools. The change in Leadwerks 3 made the developer's life more difficult because I have to deal with the complexity of making sure that works on all systems, but it made the end users' lives much easier. This is generally a good tradeoff, because for every hour I spend making the software more user-friendly, thousands of aggregate hours are saved by the user base.

 

Open-source software tends to be written with the first approach, because the user experience work is very tedious, generally just isn't fun, and there is no financial incentive to buckle down and do that difficult work. If the business model is centered around paid support, then there is actually a financial incentive to make it harder to use.

[paramecij]

@shadmar: lol.

 

@Josh: Amen.

[Rick]

And this is just the start...

[Roland]

I could not agree more Josh. Any need to open the terminal is a just an annoying thing and shows that a package or whatever isn't fully completed for the average user.

 

I welcome the work of Canonical making a more consistent interface to the OS. Sure helps the average user to overcome the step to Linux. And for the elite and cream of the Linux users there are always the possibility to choose any of the more naked distros to satisfy their interests

[Dozz]

Hmm, I downloaded LE 3 trial (when it first came out) but only recently have time to try it, but I did not find the editor that user friendly. It does not flow for me in a similar way that v2 editor did not, which I abandoned early and did everything by code. Moving around in the viewport feels clunky but should feel fluid. I like Leadwerks and want the same big features as most, but it's not as polished on navigation and some simple easier features as it could/should be.

[cassius]

The addition of Boolean functions as soon as possible will make all the difference. As to the le2 wditor I found it a pleasure to use.

[Neuro]

Something fantastic that linux has is krita, i use this program for digital painting, and let me tell you, this program is absolutely amazing. http://krita.org , digital painting is its first priority, but it should work well for other things such as textures to, much better than gimp when appropriately

 

 

Ok, Thomas wants to beat me down for my incorrect terminology and mistakes because I'm not an "uber-elite-linux-user" or whatever, the fact of the matter is that I know plenty of linux legends, including one who works on the kernal for cannonical who sits opposite me at my office, who agrees, Arch (for example) is just too much of a headache, such as crashes when you update the package manager or something.

 

Maybe you have an excellent memory and can remember the location of 200 different .conf configuration files to edit every time you have a problem and you feel you've built character through learning that, however there are many seasoned developed developers who don't use arch/gentoo/debian etc for anything but specialist purposes.

 

A couple here people believe the terminal is a failure, I disagree, at least if you're at the level of wanting to develop games on linux, you should be able to uncompress your tarballs and compile your own software, that's often just a necessity if you want the newest versions (although arch has been terrific on this front). The software center would be a lot better if it always had the newest versions of blender and gimp for example on download.

 

As for the drivers, Josh said what is wrong in a parallel thread http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/topic/7698-c-dependancies-in-leadwerks/, in regard to Intel integrated graphics.

 

There is an attitude amongst some linux users who are unable to hear criticism for their beloved OS, even from fellow linux users, if somebody gets angry about something then that person is flamed.

 

Ubuntu may be making some decisions you dislike, but its the only answer for noobs to linux and infact, every body else who doesn't want to prance about like some sort of glorified software engineer, because they can do something is 2 minutes, that would take a new user 2 hours to figure out on the same OS to that, that would probably be done automatically on another larger OS like win or macOS. we have to be thankfull to ubuntu.

 

 

So, back to the topic and the context of the topic being a person who wants to try out linux, get Xubuntu it has a more familiar interface to windows users that regular Ubuntu but works all the same, you can type in "[insert problem] ubuntu" and you will see plenty of topics, problems and sollutions to that OS, if you use something a little less popular then you just don't have the support, I really like Linux Mint, pretty much everything that applies to ubuntu applies to mint as it is a ubuntu derivative.

[Josh]

Hmm, I downloaded LE 3 trial (when it first came out) but only recently have time to try it, but I did not find the editor that user friendly. It does not flow for me in a similar way that v2 editor did not, which I abandoned early and did everything by code. Moving around in the viewport feels clunky but should feel fluid. I like Leadwerks and want the same big features as most, but it's not as polished on navigation and some simple easier features as it could/should be.

Can you explain how moving around in the editor feels clunky? I don't understand what that means.

[Dozz]

Im not an expert in coding, but I coded arcball, centering to a pick object, warping to a pick point (-x units), quick zooming, quick plan (just moving cam above pick object whilst a key is down for a preview) and set a speedfactor for WASD moving using the mouse wheel, plus a few other little things that made navigating in 3D space very quick. I think these would improve my experience a lot. It bugs me to move with WASD without passing through small/close objects, yet take an age to navigate the whole map. Shift & control help in a minor way.

Maybe I'm not informed or up to date?

Snapping to vertices and aligning to faces would be a bonus.

Thanks for listening