SteamOS

Mist

Mist

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It's not like a boot disk. It's having a pristine platform to run your games from and having all your Windows installed shitware where it belongs, in Windows, king of all shitware.

Given how many guildmates PC's I've had to clean/fix just so they wouldn't crash in raids over the years, it doesn't surprise me that most people have absolutely no idea how to keep Windows clean.

Personally, I mount a VHD and boot to it when I have to print something, because I won't install printer drivers on my primary windows install. My primary windows install has an extremely low service profile.
 
Elerion

Elerion

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I haven't had a single OS/shitware related crash issue since Windows 7 came out. Every crash issue since has been due to the specific software that was crashing, or due to faulty hardware. I'm not particularly careful with what I install either.

Might be useful for the people that manage to screw up their computer on the regular, but to quote Sean: This isn't a forum for bads.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Mist_sl said:
Personally, I mount a VHD and boot to it when I have to print something, because I won't install printer drivers on my primary windows install. My primary windows install has an extremely low service profile.
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How many resources does a printer driver take? And I'm talking about just the driver, not HP's LETS INSTALL EVERYTHING driver "suite".
 
Mist

Mist

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Deathwing_sl said:
How many resources does a printer driver take? And I'm talking about just the driver, not HP's LETS INSTALL EVERYTHING driver "suite".
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Some of them can actually eat quite a few CPU cycles. But it's not just the easily quantifiable metrics you can see from task manager that you need to worry about with stuff like drivers and other crapware. It's harder to measure things, like DPC latencies and all sorts of weird conflicts you can you only see in Event Viewer.

I remember HP having a whole line of drivers that would remove admin rights for applications running on administrator accounts when not explicitly forced. FOR NO REASON AT ALL. And it would generate constant spam in the event logs. Some shitty printers won't even operate without the LETS INSTALL EVERYTHING suite.

Long and short of it is Windows has been a pile of shit for a long fucking time. The whole driver model it uses is terrible, along with layer after layer of API bullshit like having to have 70 different versions of .net Framework installed on the same machine. But I plan on having to keep it installed for the foreseeable future because I <3 Excel and LibreCalc is fucking crap. If someone made a general purpose spreadsheet app that was actually as good as Excel I could probably dump Windows entirely.
 
C

chilansl

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Deathwing_sl said:
How many resources does a printer driver take? And I'm talking about just the driver, not HP's LETS INSTALL EVERYTHING driver "suite".
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On Windows, that's kind of an interesting question. It doesn't come up a lot (these days) on regular desktops, but on Citrix/Terminal Server installs it can be a major problem: the more print drivers you have, the less stable the system tends to be.
And it's not so much "RAM/CPU/Disk space", but rather the different types of functions and system calls printer manufacturers make and hook into the system.
 
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ThunderCougarFalconBird_sl

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From what I've been reading, most if not all of the changes to Linux in SteamOS such as the graphics processing performance increases, the improvements on system input latency, and core audio performance will all be pushed back upstream which means you can also just run the Steam app in the latest version of Ubuntu and likely receive similar performance.

I see SteamOS as the OS to put on your livingroom Steambox not your desktop computer.

Regarding Windows, yes its been improved a lot since 7, but it still crumbles over time. My Windows 7 install now a couple years old is full of bugs, odd behavior, and other shit which has just stopped working (such as desktop widgets). And I run a clean PC. No matter, its the nature of Windows. It simply needs a fresh reinstall every now and then.

Personally I think the efforts Valve are putting into Linux is awesome. Gaming is one of the last barriers keeping many people on Windows. Of course professional software such as Office and Adobe products are another. We are seeing these barriers fall one step at a time and I believe eventually perhaps not MS Office, but Adobe and others will also port to Linux.

Mist, where can one find $25 copies of Windows 8?
 
Mist

Mist

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I got 2 Win 8 Pro licenses for $15 each the day it came out through slickdeals, and I've seen similar ones for $25 pop up.

Ubuntu gets worse with every release. I think I'd go with Fedora if I was making a general purpose desktop.
 
Ao-

Ao-

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Mist_sl said:
I got 2 Win 8 Pro licenses for $15 each the day it came out through slickdeals, and I've seen similar ones for $25 pop up.

Ubuntu gets worse with every release. I think I'd go with Fedora if I was making a general purpose desktop.
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Gentoo for life!
 
hodj

hodj

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What Does It Meaaaaan: Half-Life 3 Trademarked | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

As if there were any doubt, it looks like Half-Life 3 is officially some kind of a thing. Enough so, at least, that Valve feels the need to make sure everyone knows who it belongs to. And hey, who wouldn't want Gordon Freeman leading the charge on liberating the living room from the nefarious Combine force that is proprietary, closed console-dom? Also, I did have the fortune of speaking to a Valve source recently who dropped some pretty big hints about Source 2, Left 4 Dead 3, and Half-Life 3. So that's worth noting as well. But even then, nothing's even close to confirmed. Here's what we definitely do know.


Valve has filed a trademark (via NeoGAF) for Half-Life 3 with Europe's Office For Harmonization In The Internal Market. It covers "computer game software, electronic game software, downloadable computer game software via a global computer network and wireless devices, and videogame software." It was filed on September 29th and is currently under examination.

Oddly, Valve has yet to file for the same trademark in the US. I've emailed asking for confirmation and comment. We'll see what comes of it.

It is important to note that trademarks can mean many things. In many cases, it's just developers or publishers protecting their IPs or reserving them for potential future use. This trademark, on its own, doesn't necessarily mean anything - at least, not in the short term.

But we can hope, right? Because frankly, at this point, hope is pretty much all we have. That, and our memories.
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S

Sean_sl

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If we hadn't been Trademark Trolled by game companies so many times in the past by projects and titles that have never seen the light of day I'd be more optimistic about this.
 
hodj

hodj

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Yeah they didn't trademark it in the US yet so who knows.

Still, any light in a tunnel.
 
Aaron

Aaron

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Out of curiosity, why exactly is "Ubuntu getting worse with every release?" And seeing as Ubuntu seems to be the default Linux distro that most games seem to favour (Eve-Online, Paradox games, and it looks like Steam is pro-Ubuntu), from a gaming perspective is it really worth going with something else rather than putting up with Ubuntu?
 
hodj

hodj

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Cautious Hooray: Half-Life 3 Being Actively Developed? | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

There is a thing called Jira that Valve uses for project management. Everything they do is tracked on it, and last night it accidentally went public and OHMYGOD THERE'S A HALF-LIFE 3 TEAM ON IT! No Ricochet 2 team, however.

It's the second indication in as many days that suggests Valve has decided to focus on Gordon's journey, following the discovery of a trademark registration. The list has a core of ten developers (called "Half-Life 3 Core, that has Minerva modder Adam Foster, Counter-Strike's Jesse Cliffe and others, as well as a further 46 in the "Half-Life 3? group. I borrowed some fingers and toes in the RPS Forbidden Chatroom of Mystery and came up with 56 developers. All those eyes and minds and fingers and elbows probably modelling crowbars as you read this.
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C

chilansl

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Kreugen_sl said:
Uh, lol at people who think SteamOS replaces windows. That defeats the entire point.
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I'm not following your logic. The only reason I use windows at all is for video games. If SteamOS will play my Steam titles, I won't use Windows at all.
 
Tuco

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I don't see anyone suggesting it replaces Windows. I do see a lot of people hoping that relevant features of SteamOS are brought into the nix community and enable Ubuntu/Fedora/Centos etc to further replace windows.
 
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