I was asking more about the practical usage of the libraries. Better driver support is nothing but a consequence of DirectX's popularity, we are talking about the actual usage.
I believe it was already established that neither of us has much practical experience with either library set. I've used both, but not extensively. From what I remember, they were both kind of terrible as far as what needs to be done to do something as simple as display a square on the screen.
While "DirectX has better driver support" is not really an advantage of DirectX itself but more of the ecosystem, it's still a reason I imagine many developers would select DirectX over OpenGL. If you consider just DirectX vs OpenGL on their own intrinsic merits in an isolated fashion, I have no idea who would win that fight, but the real world doesn't work in isolation. In the real world you also need to consider things like "better driver support."
That analogy was to simplify things for you. Please pay attention to my analogies next time. I won't otherwise waste my time writing nice analogies if you don't pay attention to them.
I've always lived in the suburbs. A farm doesn't really appeal to me (too far from everything), nor does a fortress full of criminals.
1. The insecurities of Windows are a consequence of more then just having a large user-base.
Windows isn't the only software package that suffers from such insecurities. Look at the mega-patch that Apple just released for Mac OS in the last week, fixing something like 90 vulnerabilities, 30 or so of which were RCE exploits (numbers may not be exact, that's just what I remember reading).
Such issues in Windows tend to get found and exploited a whole lot faster, though. If you're a malicious cracker, and it takes you an hour to find a vulnerability in any given piece of software, you're obviously going to spend that hour where it can have the greatest returns, which is on the software with the largest user-base.
First, we need to agree on a definition of "security". In the end, it boils down to whether or not the OS can keep people from doing things against the user's volition. I think that is a pretty simple, good definition. Going by that definition, I think most experts would agree that linux is in fact more secure then Windows. But proving that by just observation, we see that linux seems to be less susceptible to malicious threats.
For one second, forget about the number of viruses. Heck, of the couple hundred thousand (now millions?) viruses for Windows, only a handful did a significant amount of damage. So it is not necessarily the number that matters, it also has to do with how susceptible the OS is.
You're again trying to put these things in isolation and say "Look, when you factor out everything else, Linux is more secure!" That's not how the world works.
Of course, when you factor in everything else, Linux still counts as more secure because your chances of getting infected are low. I've never denied that. My only objection is to the way you lot are seeming to claim that "if you use Windows, you will get h4x0red and your bank accounts will be stolen."
Sleep and Hibernate both use power to maintain the fast re-start time. For people who use their laptop frequently that's not a problem. For people who use their laptop more sporadically that can be significant.
Hibernate does not draw any more power than "shut down" does, and I believe you can configure "sleep" to automatically become "hibernate" after it's been asleep for a couple of hours.
Given the topic, if you do work for Microsoft, then I would consider that highly relevant. It wouldn't be surprising if you supported the people who sign your paycheck. I don't recall you ever saying one way or the other whether you work for MS or not. If you have, I apologize, but if you haven't I challenge you to man up and tell us one way or the other.
Given that I don't get paid to post on these forums, I still don't see how it's relevant. That said, I haven't exactly made it a secret who I work for.
What's also irrelevant (I suppose) is that I do have some Linux machines sitting around my apartment. They're older machines that wouldn't do too well under Windows.
I'm also lazy, and I don't want to have to install and maintain an Antivirus package when I can use an OS that doesn't need one. Nor do I want to have to install a firewall when my OS comes with a bi-directional firewall using stateful packet inspection already built into the kernel itself. The "firewall" included with Windows is uni-directional (last I heard, anyway - may be wrong with 7) and not terribly hard to bypass using scripts available online.
I don't see how installing and maintaining an antivirus package is difficult. If you have one of the better ones, it installs with a few clicks, and it automatically updates itself.
The Windows Firewall is bi-directional as of Vista.
My main complaint against Hielor is that he has consistantly refused to acknowelge - much less address - my point that Windows (since Vista) has deliberately crippled my hardware with it's "protected path".
I haven't acknowledged or addressed this point because I don't know anything about it. I don't consume that much content, and the content I do consume is apparently immune to this issue because I've never run across it. I don't create content.
Microsoft has clearly decided that big content providers (who haven't subsidized my hardware or Windows purchase whatsoever) have a greater right to determine what I can and can't do on MY computer than I (the PAYING CUSTOMER) do myself. Really. Justify that to me if you can. Is it in any way justifiable to treat me as a wanna be criminal who will "steal" content if only my OS allows it?
I can't justify that, but I don't really know what the protected path does anyway, so I don't really have any idea what you're talking about. Judging by how active torrent sites are, though, it seems quite possible to "steal" content still on Vista or 7.
Is it justifiable to actively attempt to prevent me from creating my own content? Does Microsoft have a right to control and limit my ability to create content it doesn't create, and has no part in creating, and doesn't hold any rights to whatsoever? Does "Big Media" have more rights than me? I think not!
And I agree with you, and nod and smile and say "that's nice" and "uh-huh" because I don't have any personal experience or knowledge of what you're talking about.
Unlike fans of some companies or software products, I've never claimed that Microsoft (or Windows) is infallible. For example, I think the UAC that shipped with Vista was a very bad idea, especially with the locking of the "Program Files" directory. That one issue caused me way too many headaches.
You kinda missed the point. I didn't say, or at least it wasn't my intention, that number of downloads correlates to a specific software being better, but that this case shows that, when given a choice, people seem to choose what they think it is better, or, at least, something new to try out and even stick with. Popularity, specially when it's user base is far from knowledgeable (is that even a word?), doesn't mean a better product.
Let's take a look at this ballot screen which Opera credits for their increased user base:
If someone were to just make their decisions based upon those short descriptions, no *wonder* Opera's downloads are way up. Speed up my internet connection (not just my browsing)? Sign me up! :uhh:
My point exactly (I'm using the word 'point' too much here...). It seems that there are still too many incompatibilities in newer Win OSes, specially with older software (F22-Raptor FTW), but also with hardware drivers.
Unfortunately, yes. I agree.
This is changing though, specially with the XP compatibility mode.
XP Compat mode is great for some software, but not all. For example, I was able to use it to get Star Wars Rebellion running on my Win7 machine, which never would've worked without compatibility mode.
Unfortunately, XP Compatibility Mode programs don't have access to the machine's graphics hardware, so it won't work for many newer games (Orbiter included).
It isn't too hard to type "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install wine", and as Tommy said, if you can set up an AV and firewall properly, getting Wine (and installing most Linux distributions, for that matter) is not harder than what you're already used to, and for most programs, there is no difference between running it natively and running it under Wine.
You vastly overestimate the difficulty of setting up an AV and firewall, which requires no command prompt usage at all.
I'd imagine the average computer user would find a few clicks to install an AV rather simpler than "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install wine"...
