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I think you just have a natural propensity for being smug. I chuckled when I read that, and I want you to know that I appreciated it. but if you want a UNIX o

by Annatar 10y ago

I think you just have a natural propensity for being smug. I chuckled when I read that, and I want you to know that I appreciated it. but if you want a UNIX on your desk, for all its flaws, Linux is pretty hard to beat. I have Mac OS X for UNIX on the desktop. Works like a charm, and never gets in the way of what I'm trying to do.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
That's fine for you. Mac has traditionally been a very good option. However, I hear Apple's been making it difficult in the lastest updates. For me, anyways, it's academic, as I can't afford apple hardware.
- Annatar 10y ago
  Yep, I understand that not everybody can afford it. To me, it's was a pure, dirty capitalist investment thing: that system paid for itself hundreds of times over with all the time and effort I've saved not having to mess with it. Best money I've ever spent, what with all the time I've saved, and all the jobs I obtained with it. Have you looked at alternatives to GNU/Linux, like PC-BSD or FreeBSD? Did you find those inadequate / too much overhead?
  - qwertyuiop924 10y ago
    I already explained: As much as I love Linux for some reasons, and would love to move away from it for many others (broaden my horizons, escape systemd), I play video games. Right now, games barely get a Linux release. If I'm on BSD or Solaris, you can forget it. And while LX-branded zones are good, I think BSD is a better system for my needs, and in any case I doubt they're good enough to get the games talking to my GPU properly. And I'd love to avoid putting another layer between the games and the hardware if I have to. I remember using Wine.
    - Annatar 10y ago
      And I'd love to avoid putting another layer between the games and the hardware if I have to. I remember using Wine. I agree, that makes perfect sense. and in any case I doubt they're good enough to get the games talking to my GPU properly. Now that's a whole different story: NVIDIA provides Solaris-native packages for their drivers, and they JustWork(SM). Way back in the day, NVIDIA engineers were stunned that they didn't have to produce a completely recompiled driver for every Solaris release: thanks to device driver interfaces/driver development kit[1], one could develop the driver on an ancient version of Solaris and have it work flawlessly on the latest-and-greatest one. When I wrote that I'm using Mac OS X, that was the truth, but it wasn't the entire truth: I am typing this on my intel-based workstation I put together myself, with Solaris 10 running on it. And it has an NVIDIA GTX 980 accelerator, the top of the line model one could buy at the end of 2014. Downloaded the driver from NVIDIA's site, installed it with pkgadd(1M), and it JustWorks(SM)[2]: > pkginfo -l NVDAgraphics NVDAgraphicsr PKGINST: NVDAgraphics NAME: NVIDIA Graphics System Software CATEGORY: system,graphics ARCH: i386 VERSION: 343.22,REV=2014.09.11.17.06 BASEDIR: /usr VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation DESC: X and OpenGL Drivers for NVIDIA Quadro graphics INSTDATE: Dec 04 2014 22:37 HOTLINE: Please contact your local service provider STATUS: completely installed FILES: 188 installed pathnames 30 shared pathnames 2 linked files 42 directories 7 executables 405482 blocks used (approx) PKGINST: NVDAgraphicsr NAME: NVIDIA Graphics System Device Driver CATEGORY: system,graphics ARCH: i386 VERSION: 343.22,REV=2014.09.11.17.06 BASEDIR: / VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation DESC: Kernel Drivers for NVIDIA Quadro graphics INSTDATE: Dec 04 2014 22:37 HOTLINE: Please contact your local service provider STATUS: completely installed FILES: 6 installed pathnames 3 shared pathnames 3 directories 52151 blocks used (approx) However, all of that is not to say you could play games on Solaris. If they were really optimized for Solaris, then they would fly, as Solaris is really, really, really fast, especially on intel. But since they aren't, and that's not realistic right now (and might never be realistic), I completely understand where you're coming from. As for Mac, OS X has plenty of major and indie titles in the Apple app store. But, it's for people who are actually willing to pay for that. [1] http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4854/ http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4854/ [2] http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/105347 http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/105347

by Annatar 10y ago

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

That's fine for you. Mac has traditionally been a very good option. However, I hear Apple's been making it difficult in the lastest updates. For me, anyways, it's academic, as I can't afford apple hardware.

Annatar 10y ago
Yep, I understand that not everybody can afford it. To me, it's was a pure, dirty capitalist investment thing: that system paid for itself hundreds of times over with all the time and effort I've saved not having to mess with it. Best money I've ever spent, what with all the time I've saved, and all the jobs I obtained with it. Have you looked at alternatives to GNU/Linux, like PC-BSD or FreeBSD? Did you find those inadequate / too much overhead?
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  I already explained: As much as I love Linux for some reasons, and would love to move away from it for many others (broaden my horizons, escape systemd), I play video games. Right now, games barely get a Linux release. If I'm on BSD or Solaris, you can forget it. And while LX-branded zones are good, I think BSD is a better system for my needs, and in any case I doubt they're good enough to get the games talking to my GPU properly. And I'd love to avoid putting another layer between the games and the hardware if I have to. I remember using Wine.
  - Annatar 10y ago
    And I'd love to avoid putting another layer between the games and the hardware if I have to. I remember using Wine. I agree, that makes perfect sense. and in any case I doubt they're good enough to get the games talking to my GPU properly. Now that's a whole different story: NVIDIA provides Solaris-native packages for their drivers, and they JustWork(SM). Way back in the day, NVIDIA engineers were stunned that they didn't have to produce a completely recompiled driver for every Solaris release: thanks to device driver interfaces/driver development kit[1], one could develop the driver on an ancient version of Solaris and have it work flawlessly on the latest-and-greatest one. When I wrote that I'm using Mac OS X, that was the truth, but it wasn't the entire truth: I am typing this on my intel-based workstation I put together myself, with Solaris 10 running on it. And it has an NVIDIA GTX 980 accelerator, the top of the line model one could buy at the end of 2014. Downloaded the driver from NVIDIA's site, installed it with pkgadd(1M), and it JustWorks(SM)[2]: > pkginfo -l NVDAgraphics NVDAgraphicsr PKGINST: NVDAgraphics NAME: NVIDIA Graphics System Software CATEGORY: system,graphics ARCH: i386 VERSION: 343.22,REV=2014.09.11.17.06 BASEDIR: /usr VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation DESC: X and OpenGL Drivers for NVIDIA Quadro graphics INSTDATE: Dec 04 2014 22:37 HOTLINE: Please contact your local service provider STATUS: completely installed FILES: 188 installed pathnames 30 shared pathnames 2 linked files 42 directories 7 executables 405482 blocks used (approx) PKGINST: NVDAgraphicsr NAME: NVIDIA Graphics System Device Driver CATEGORY: system,graphics ARCH: i386 VERSION: 343.22,REV=2014.09.11.17.06 BASEDIR: / VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation DESC: Kernel Drivers for NVIDIA Quadro graphics INSTDATE: Dec 04 2014 22:37 HOTLINE: Please contact your local service provider STATUS: completely installed FILES: 6 installed pathnames 3 shared pathnames 3 directories 52151 blocks used (approx) However, all of that is not to say you could play games on Solaris. If they were really optimized for Solaris, then they would fly, as Solaris is really, really, really fast, especially on intel. But since they aren't, and that's not realistic right now (and might never be realistic), I completely understand where you're coming from. As for Mac, OS X has plenty of major and indie titles in the Apple app store. But, it's for people who are actually willing to pay for that. [1] http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4854/ http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19253-01/816-4854/ [2] http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/105347 http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/105347