I've thought better of Linux

This is going to amuse the cat callers to no end. But reality is reality. Summary: I'm fleeing in terror from Linux. Which means I won't be using CMUCL or SBCL after all. Which might cause me to ditch Common Lisp, because I'm poor. I need to decide whether the lack of UFFI in GNU CLISP and GNU Common Lisp is a dealbreaker or not.

It's been a week and a half, I've put a *lot* of hours of manual labor into trying to get Ubuntu to work, and I still only have half a working system. The major dealbreaker is having to learn how to recompile the kernel to get my Wacom Graphire tablet mouse to work properly. This OS is seriously brain dead, that people have to amass so much expertise to make a device driver change. It says tons about what I can expect for maintenance hassles in the future. Also, my Linux knowledgeable friend says none of the other distros will be any better.

When I decided to switch from Windows to Linux, it was on the premise that this would actually save me labor over using Cygwin or MinGW. I am disturbed to find out how bad Linux actually is. Near as I can tell, Linux is not some consistent OS that has come a long ways since my early forays from 1993 to 1996. Rather, Linux is a gamble. It might work fine for you, or it might royally suck. Here, "sucks" means "more work than beating Cygwin or MinGW into shape." I thought it would be a good trade. I am surprised how bad a trade it turned out to be.

I've also become deeply averse to large stacks of dependent packages. This is common in open source land, and it forces one to get stuck on a particular OS. It's also the reason why Longhorn is shipping so late. Perhaps in time, both open source and Windows will evolve to be equally stacked and equally bad.

I'm also realizing how irrelevant Linux is to shipping games. It isn't "an extra platform where I might pick up a few sales." It is an impossible platform. In terms of consumer friendliness, it is complete junk, and incapable of being otherwise anytime soon. I can't even begin to fathom taking the tech support calls on this monstrosity. It makes the disparate world of Windows 3D drivers look like cake!

Plus Apple is moving to x86, and in time will do all the things that the Linux world won't do. I believe Linux has lost its opportunity to become relevant as a consumer desktop. It will continue to grow as a server OS, with expert administrators always in tow.

So, I'm nukeing my Linux partition and not looking back.  Good riddance.


--
Cheers,                     www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every           Seattle, WA

How I really feel about Ubuntu Linux:
http://www.redlandsfortnightly.org/images/baker00.jpg
.

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