News Nvidia driver update doubles Linux gaming framerates

Yes Linux has problems, and Windows has problems. Stability wise, both are good, Linux is a lot more efficient. I've been using Ubuntu (and Xubuntu) since mid-2010 and never had problems.

The only hiccups I've encountered is regarding certain new hardware support, but all of them were solved with the 12.04 LTS release. On the positive side, I've delayed hardware upgrades because Ubuntu runs much faster than Windows. Managing settings and software installation is much easier, ironically (and no, I don't use the terminal for that).
I've recently set up a dualboot Windows 7/Ubuntu 12.04 LTS for a cousin and took me a lot more time to uninstall all the factory crap and install proper programs/utilities/Antivirus on the Windows side. Ubuntu installation was faster and I just had to install chrome and a few other goodies on the Ubuntu Software Center (you can flag what you want to install and it'll install everything in a row).
My parents are also running Xubuntu on their 4-year old laptops and love it because they are much more responsive and stable, and it's not that different from XP.

If you are dependent on Microsoft Office or Adobe programs, then it's harder to make the switch. I've been using Gimp and Openoffice (now LibreOffice, which is much better) for years.

Therefore, for me, it's not that difficult to imagine the switch. I personally prefer Indie games, because nowadays I'm a causal gamer, but I completely understand the cravings for AAA games on Linux.

 

I've got 99 problems but stability isn't one of them...

 

I agree - since when was Linux's problem stability. One of it's main positives is stability - hence why it is very popular in the server and supercomputing world (virtually all the computers on the top500 list run Linux, for example). It's biggest problem is really driver support which, clearly, is being improved. Non of my Linux machines have ever crashed, some (such as my NAS box) having up-times of several months, only rebooting after power failures.

 

Not once did I say I wanted open source drivers from AMD or Nvidia, in fact all I asked for was more stable drivers from AMD. I'd appreciate it if you didn't try and put words in my mouth and read what I actually said. On the topic of open source drivers I don't care if they are or not, it is always helpful but closed source drivers are fine with me if they work well. Open source third party drivers are certainly more stable and less buggy than AMD's own drivers but they lack the 3D performance so I have to use them.

As for your point about the size of the market I think Gareth made it clear, 15.8 million to 31.6 million computers is not small no matter what you say and Android is growing at an alarming rate.

 

Ubuntu runs slower on every system I've put it on compared to windows 7. Other distros are more efficient, but definitely not Ubuntu.

Windows having a bunch of bloatware isn't windows fault, that's the particular manufacturer. A fresh install from a retail disc has no bloatware.

I've had plenty of problems with linux distros over the years. No matter how far it advances I always feel like I have to baby sit the OS. When driver installs don't break the OS I might consider switching. Apparently this a problem only I have....

I can't switch because the DAW's available in Linux are terrible.

 

Indeed, but to the end user, that's the out-of-box Windows experience. I know very few people that buy a system without OS and put a vanilla Windows install there.

I never had that kind of problem with Ubuntu, unless I start installing obscure PPAs. On Fedora or Arch? Most definitely.

I must admit the only thing I'm careful about with hardware, is to make sure I buy HP scanners and/or printers, because HP supports Linux, so printers and scanners work out-of-box.
However, I know that's not Linux fault, that's the hardware manufacturers and vendors, as they don't care about properly supporting Linux. Intel and HP are probably the only ones that are fully committed to Linux.
The solution? The community has to do all the work themselves (let's not forget Linux is free, Windows is not).

 

I hate to break it to you, but driver installs do have a nasty habit of breaking your OS of choice from time to time...

As far as baby sitting the OS goes, when I constantly have to run malware scans, defragment, clean out the registry, yadda yadda yadda every week just to make sure my computer is running smoothly... well I think that counts as baby sitting, don't you? Don't get me wrong, I love Windows. It makes me dick tons of money from all my customers bringing in virus-hosed systems left and right each and every day. I try to tell em, but what can I say? When you either run as an admin to not be annoyed, or get conditioned to clicking continue, allow, allow on every box that comes up there's going to be issues.

I'm not saying Linux is better, but it is much more secure and stable. For example my backup "server" has been running the same Ubuntu 10.10 install (upgraded from the original 10.04) since the day it was released. It has survived power outages, terabytes of virus-laced data backups, CPU overheats from neglecting to clean it out, motherboard replacements (2) to entirely different chipset/cpu combos, 3 video cards have died in this machine, as well as 2 power supplies (on it's 3rd). It stays on 24/7/365. Right now I'm running a backup from a customers SATA drive to my 1 TB drive, I have 3 computers pulling data back onto their freshly-loaded Windows installs, I have PXE booted 2 others into a diagnostics environment, and another computer is pulling a Windows 7 installation through PXE boot. Right now I have 14 tabs open in firefox, Im listening to music and have my email client open as well. This is all happening on a Pentium D from 2005 with 2 GB RAM. Every once in a while it will bog down, but when it does I just close out the memory hog that is firefox, reopen it and keep going. I've tried doing all this on windows with a newer CPU and twice as much RAM, you can't. It can't keep up. It especially sucked having to reload my backup machine every few weeks because it contracted a virus from the backups that were being fed to it. For my work purposes, Linux is absolutely better. For games, I have Windows.

 

The first thing I do when I buy a new PC or laptop (if not assembly my self) is wipe the hard drive and put a fresh install of windows on it. I wish manufacturers would stop loading the machines with shovelware as it would save me the time.

 

Lets not forget that linux's reputation for stability is down to the kernel. The software that runs on top of the kernel is a different story. I've had to enact plenty of xkills on linux boxes, most recently was regular, random failings of software centre in Linux mint 13 and Dropbox refusing to install on LUbtuntu. I've definitely had way more program crashes and just plain weird and annoying stuff happen whilst using a linux distro.

Ubuntu/Mint is definitely slower than windows 7 and windows 8 is faster than that. I haven't seen a windows manager in linux that looks as well as windows vista/7/8 and can have the same performance. If you want performance you end up using something like lxde or xfce which looks like windows 95. Both of them have weird quirks that come up. Gnome2 in Ubuntu came the closest in terms of visual appeal and performance but that has disappeared.

I haven't defragged a computer since I've stopped using XP. Driver support will always be a disaster on linux. The article just shows how much performance would probably never be realised on Nvidia GPUs had Gabe not given linux a shot for Steam.

These days I prefer to virtualise linux and run it on windows, it generally gets rid of all the driver problems.

 

Going a bit OT: I'm curious how you do that legally (unless you buy a new license). I say this because OEM windows disks are not compatible with the license shipped in laptops (even if both are, for example "Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit). In my experience, you can install with the laptop key, but Windows will refuse to activate.

Those distros are probably missing some packages. Xubuntu and Ubuntu, AFAIK don't have problems with Dropbox (and the latter is officially supported). Mint Software Center doesn't have the same level of support or bugfixing as Ubuntu Software Center (I'm not saying this one is absolutely perfect)

That's debatable and dependent on your hardware, because I only notice that difference on my eeePC. For a good Gnome2-like experience use Gnome-fallback on Ubuntu 12.04LTS: I don't notice that much of a difference (I upgraded from 10.04LTS to 12.04LTS).
Xubuntu, IMO, looks a lot better than XP, and you have a lot of themes to choose from. The problem with mint is that the community is too small to make exceptional cinnamon releases in terms of performance.
Taking into account that Ubuntu and Ubuntu-like distros are free of charge and highly customizable, I think they already do a hell of a job.
I hope that Steam can bring more people to Linux so that more bug reports are submitted and more consumer feedback is given, because one of the things that's most needed in this development paradigm.

Yeah, but as I said, I don't think it's Linux fault, manufacturers and vendors never considered this platform seriously, hopefully until now. The same can be said from tech sites/magazines. Most of them never mentioned Linux or Free Software.