Luckilly we don't live in an age where you need to develop for specific hardware (aside from working around driver bugs). Just pick your API, and use it. OpenGL is supported and accelerated on Linux, Windows, and Mac, so you don't lose anything there. OpenAL is supported on Linux, Windows, and Mac, and is accelerated on at least Windows, so you don't lose much there either. There's plenty of cross-platform wrapper libs for input, networking, and audio input, so you don't lose anything there either.

There's no problem developing on/for Linux, as long as you don't use closed, proprietary APIs.

Kitty Cat, START READING THE POSTS!
An application developed using cross-platform APIs is not Linux-only, is it?
Stop your random rants.

As I pointed out, the more people that use it, the more other people will as well. It's not just you, if you can convince other people to (oh, but wait.. saying any OS is awesome other than Windows is just zealousness*). * Not directed at you, just seems to be a general attitude amo ng die-hard Windows users.

And there is a benefit for you, as it will encourage fair competition, which will encourage better OSs, which will encourage better hardware to take advante of the improved OSs, etc.. all the while, having prices fall as it will actually be a deciding factor for some people. Unless you don't think better, cheaper OSs, with better, cheaper hardware, isn't something of a gain for you.
</quote>
Those are not causal relations.
And even if it were, it would be some kind of weird inverse tragedy of the commons scenario - I would still reap a slightly decreased benefit while experiencing none of the inconveniences of switching now.

Reread what I said above. Linux is used extensively in academia and it most definately is supported. Now, if you want to modify no support to less support, we can talk. But then, buying compatible hardware in the first place isn't that hard.

Yes, but it's hardly an objective reason, is it?

'save'? From what?

Fair enough. I just hope you actually did some fair comparison and backed it up?

Evert, I'm aware of the fact that it's used in academia.
But that doesn't make it better nor much more popular.
And why would people bother buying compatible hardware?
They already have Windows and Linux has many other issues.

I wasn't yelling.
I was emphasizing.
I agree with your point about progression, though.
That's why I said I hate Microsoft's monopoly.

Yeah, actually, I did - I tested quite a number of files for interoperability issues, studied other MSO->OO cases worldwide and wrote a 'proper' document with pros and cons, with sources mentioned where practical experience and testing was not at play. In my opinion I gave it a fair chance, and besides - I take work seriously and try hard to be as neutral as possible/not to let my own preferences come into play.

Don't worry, I didn't give it a "no" just to piss on OSS' feet. OO has some good points to it, but in this case, the cons outweighed the pros. I'm not saying that OO can't replace MSO, but it's definitely not a suitable replacement everywhere.

I dunno, I think it's pretty stupid myself. I was just playing devil's advocate. I would, however, equate it to using platform-specific APIs with cross-platform hardware.

Similar to OSX?

There's absolutely nothing about Linux that makes it a better choice than Windows for most users in the first place.
And trying to make Windows users switch to Linux is absolutely ridiculous.
This conversation futile.
Have a nice day.

I'm guessing it'll be at least 5-10 years before linux is a viable competitor (in the desktop market).

edit: If $140 is a month's salary, you shouldn't be using computers. =P

Marcello

Let's step away from the Linux/Windows problem and concentrate a little on psychology. First of all, people dislike change. If something is already in place and it works, we aare unlikely to change it, unless something exists to outweigh this dislike.

So, in order to make somebody switch systems, whether it will be a Linux->Windows, Windows->Mac, or whichever possible combination, you have to offer positive incentive for me to switch. It is not even sufficient if there are no drawbacks. Even if I could do everything on Linux just as well as I can on Windows, I will ask about something that Linux does better for me - not just as good, better. There has to be some advantage that effectively makes it plausible to switch, and many can be named, for example:

- better shell, established toolchains
- better customizability, more options to choose from almost in any regard
- increased security
- running servers is just easier, and there is more too choose from
- it's free

However, none of those apply to me. I'm already using a linux shell and many development tools like gcc, sed, make and so forth. I found that the main reason for me using Linux's customizability was to make it more like Windows. I don't need increased security - the one time I stumbled on a virus on Windows, I was able to take care of it myself, without using any antivirus software. I don't run any servers, except for an Apache/MySQL/Mercury/Filezilla setup that I use for developing web pages/applications - and that is a localhost sandbox. Linux being free also doesn't concern me much: I can afford one copy of Windows per several years, and now I don't even have to. As an IT student I get them for free through the MS Academic Alliance thing.

See, I have yet to find a definitive reason to make the jump. I would be able to bear with the drawbacks, if I had found something to make up for them. I have yet to find that unique advantage.

I also don't believe that I should make the switch because of the "cause" that is behind it. Even if we (meaning the people) could get Linux to have a significant market share, this would be quickly recognized by companies. This would quickly end up in a situation where game and application developing companies would make deals with Linux-based OS dealers (say, Redhat or whomever), ensuring that their programs work properly only on paid-for versions of Linux. Or, they'll find some other way to make them pay. An OS with 30% market share is just to juicy a target to leave it alone.

Still, even if that threat wasn't present, I don't believe that fighting for Linux is worth a crusade to make it more popular. I'm certainly more concerned about my own comfort of using the computer than about some OS having dominance over the other.

I'm all for developing cross-platform applications. In my opinion, a better solution is to write everything in a way that makes the discussion irrelevant. There are many portable APIs for everything, these are just examples: OpenGL for graphics, FMOD or OpenAL for sound, SDL for generic gaming stuff, Qt or wxWindows for GUI. Actually, most of the free libraries I known of are portable at least to Linux and Windows, and many of them are written in a way that makes porting them to different systems sufficiently straight-forward.

I always try to make my apps run on every plausible platform, and I believe this is the only plausible solution for sealing the Windows/Linux divide. We should try to convince companies to develop portable applications, so that everyone can get what they want on the system they like, not convince users to switch systems.