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Games Entertainment

UT2003 LiveCD 313

Posted by michael from the plug-and-play dept.
ztc writes "Gentoo has added a Unreal Tournament 2003 demo to a version of their Linux-based LiveCD. It has up-to-date nvidia graphics drivers, sound drivers, network drivers, etc. on the CD ready-to-play. LiveCDs have always been a great way to sway potential Linux-converts, but this should really impress them! You can download the iso here." A sneaky way to promote Gentoo. I like it.
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UT2003 LiveCD More

UT2003 LiveCD

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  • WOW! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 ) <RealityMaster101@gmail. c o m> on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @12:59PM (#4273958) Homepage Journal

    LiveCDs have always been a great way to sway potential Linux-converts, but this should really impress them!

    Zealot: "And look at this!! You plug in the CD, and it runs Unreal Tournament!!"

    Normal Person: "But... my Windows already does that."

    Zealot: "But you don't understand! It's better because it's Linux!!"

    Normal Person: "But it looks the same to me... ?"

    Zealot: "Well, yeah, but that's the point! It looks the same, but it's on Linux!!"

    Normal Person: "Er.. OK. Show me The Sims next!"

    Zealot: "Give me a few hours to get Quake working..."

    • Re:WOW! (Score:2, Informative)

      by Merlin42 ( 148225 )
      Normal Person: "Er.. OK. Show me The Sims next!"

      Sure!! Right here. [transgaming.com]

    • Re:WOW! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by angst7 ( 62954 )
      Your point is well taken, since I often find myself playing the part of the Zealot. But there is more to it than this. I personally have been trying to get Linux to replace Windows on my PCs at home. Not simply have it there as a secondary boot. The only thing that keeps me in Windows at this point is Games. I'm a gamer, I love games, and I can't play them in Linux. This is exactly the type of thing thats needed to keep momentum moving in the right direction. We've been facing this chicken/egg situation where you cant run linux because there are no games/apps and no one will develop games/apps because no one runs linux for too long. I'm way past ready for this.

      Go Gentoo!

      (Offtopic: I have been able to completely convert my laptop to a Linux only box thanks to Mandrake 8.2/Ximian Gnome. I use it primarily for development, and I dont think I'll ever need to boot windows on this machine again.)

      ---
      Jedimom.com [jedimom.com], ever been in a turkish prison?

    • Re:WOW! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @01:19PM (#4274212)
      Heh that was funny. GJ. :)

      I remember a couple of years ago, my former office mate was really getting into Linux. He got Samba working and was reaaaally happy about that. Today I understand why Samba's cool, but back then his demo didn't impress me.

      Coworker: "Go to my Linux box under Network Neighborhood."

      Me: "Ok"

      Coworker: "See that directory there?"

      Me: "You mean the folder called 'Public'?"

      Coworker: "yeah!!!"

      Me: "okay.. I'm in there."

      Coworker: "YES!! I got Samba working!! Isn't that great?"

      Me: "Umm.. you spent all of yesterday and today on that?"

      Coworker: "Yeah! It was hard!" (if memory serves, he had a bit of trouble getting it to work on our network, we had some strange issues with it before he started messing with Samba. This was a startup company so the computers were basically band-aided together with whatever MS thought we needed...)

      Me: "You realize that a sane person could recreate that trick on Windows by right clicking here, then clicking this checkbox here, then hitting apply, right?" (I was a bit of a smeghead then, still am today.)

      After that day, a new policy was created that banned the use of the F-word above a certain number of decibals.

      Piece of advice to Linux Zealots out there: Don't brag about features of Linux designed to keep up with Windows. To the uninformed, it makes Linux sound like an un-evolved OS.
      • So you can right click and make the directory available thru apple talk or NFS?

    • Re:WOW! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Shamanin ( 561998 )
      I believe the point is: Show me a CD that will boot Windows and showcase a game WITHOUT the need for installing the OS.

      Surely the game distributers would be on the losing end of a lawsuit.

      • Re:WOW! (Score:2, Insightful)

        by drzhivago ( 310144 )
        So now you've turned your $1000 ($1500, $2000, $2500, etc) computer into the equivalent of a $200 console! Hooray!

        Is that a point worth bragging about?

        • Re:WOW! (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Shamanin ( 561998 )
          Yes, if you look at it as you have INCREASED your computers ability by the equivalent of a $200 console. You have to realize that in a general purpose computer the benefits are cumulative.
      • This whole thing has really reminded me of the days when I would stick the Spyhunter 5.25 diskette in my XT and boot the computer to play, I never had to worry about the things that came later, himem, emm386, ad infinitum. There was something that I really enjoyed about that, just sticking a disk in, booting and playing a game. I really think this might be a great way for game companies to weane themselves from M$, press the game onto a small bootable linux cd with some fairly recent nVidia drivers (other cards too) and viola you can play. I wouldn't mind sacrificing uptime to play games if all I had to do was boot a cd. Sometimes it's fun getting the games working under winex, but most of the time I'd rather just plug and play. Gentoo is very cool for doing this, game makers take notice.
  • A good way to sell 3D games is to include screen shots in the demos to give people an idea of what they are going to see....

    Even a link to a site with screen shots would be a plan.
    • This is put out by the Gentoo people, not by Epic. What would you like screenshots of, the CD booting? Go to Epic's site if you want to see UT2003, there were plenty of links to screenshot in the previous article on it.

  • The way it works (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1. Bundle Linux with violent game.
    2. ???
    3. Profit!

    Okay, this is the 10000000th time someone posts that.

  • slashdot just posted a direct link to an iso (Score:4, Funny)

    by j1mmy ( 43634 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @01:01PM (#4273987) Journal
    I feel sorry for ibiblio.org
  • Now coupling a blazingly fast Linux port, they're throwing in UT 2003. What more can one ask for?

    Maybe a coffee maker built into my PC [pimprig.com] to keep me awake for days while playing.
  • Is it just as quick or quicker?
    • I don't know, and I admittedly haven't messed with ut2003 under linux much, but it is MUCH MUCH slower than quake3 or RTCW on my machine (Athlon 900, GeForce 2Ti, 512MB memory). What is UT doing that is so special that it can't match the frame rate of RTCW, which should be the slower of the two due to the AI and such?

      I'm running with default everything. I may get a chance to actually play with it tonight (g/f was over the night I installed, and although a geek, some things take precedence over computers ;)

      • I'm right there with you. My p3 500 is showing it's age when I get into heated battles or areas with alot of visible distance. OTOH my Geforce4 ti4200 should be able to keep up but this damn cpu is holding me back..

        Oh well, I gotta upgrade for doom3 anyway.
      • Dude, UT2003 is doing *way* more stuff than RTCW.

        Their "ragdoll" system is actually performing *both* halves of the IK solution in real-time. Prior to this, games (including Quake 3 and RTCW) had pre-animated poses and only used skeletal animation to interpolate between keyframes. See the dead bodies slumped against the wall or draped over a balustrade? In RTCW, they would be sticking *through* the wall or lying flat on top of the rail. Not very realistic. Now you see the difference?

        UT2003 doesn't even take it as far as it can go - they only do full IK on dead bodies. They're still using traditional animation on the "living" models. Once they start doing that, you'll need some *hefty* CPU power to calculate all the animation. But it will be *so* pretty...

  • UT2k3 - linux impressions (Score:3, Informative)

    by Merlin42 ( 148225 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @01:03PM (#4274015)
    I downloaded and installed UT2k3 demo on both my linux partition (up to date gentoo) and my W2k partition. I am running an admitidly unbalanced celeron333a w/ 192mb ram and a gf4ti4200-64mb.
    Under linux I get very choppy sound and an almost-kinda-sorta-playable slideshow after setting all the options to their min (ok I left the res at 800x600 ... 320x240 was in the list!).
    While w2k gives me a reasonably playable game ... heck its not completly unplayable at 1600x1200.
    • Do you use the closed source nvidia drivers or the shitty nv driver?
      • Yeah I hate when people use the nv driver, and complain about choppy video. The nv driver isn't even good enough to play tuxracer.

        When I bought my GeForce4 card and ran tux racer it was choppy and unplayable, I downloaded the drivers from nVidia, and now I can play UR2003, and the graphics are smooth as silk!
      • Ok sorry I didn't give enough info.
        I am using the brand spanking new 1.0-3123 NVIDIA drivers

        If it helps my complete specs are:
        Celeron333a - ie the one WITH a cache and the 'blazing' 66mhz fsb
        440bx based mobo which 192mb of pc66 sdram - hey its a celeron and it goes nuts if I OC the fsb AT ALL!
        7200rpm 40gig drive for linux
        7200rpm 30gig drive for w2k - fat32 partition for easier interoperability
        SoundBlaster pci128 - aka es1370 based sound card.
        DEC de4x5 based nic
        and to top things of an ISA scsi card (please dont laugh out loud) to connect my scanner.
        • A celeron 333 on a multitasking OS and you expected something like the latest UT to actually work well on your box?
          • Actually I didnt expect it to run until ...to my surprise... I was able to run it on w2k ... I am quite disapointed that linux faired so much worse on my system, I really do hope that either I screwed something up or it is a peculiarity of my system or the beta level software.

            I do get similar SPECViewperf numbers b/w the two partitions. So maybe this is just a bad intereaction w/ my system and the beta level demo.
            • I am quite disapointed that linux faired so much worse on my system, I really do hope that either I screwed something up or it is a peculiarity of my system or the beta level software.

              It's reallly ver simple. The OpenGL UT2003 drivers are pretty much unoptimized at this point. Remember, the main renderer engine for UT is D3D which means that the game will run faster in D3D mode. Using the OpenGL engine under Windows will probably yield the same crappy result. But then again a dual Celeron 333 is really not up to speed and doesn't even come close to the minimum advertised requirements for UT2003 (At least a PIII 700, etc..). Upgrade! ;-)

              -adnans
            • Is EAX turned off? Its buggy in linux and slows down ut2003 on my pentiumIII700 under w2k, even though I have a sound blaster live. What sound card do you have? Try turning the sound off and see what happens.

    • Hmm.

      Does it come with the nvidia drivers? I'm just asking.
      • Go to www.nvidia.com, and click on the download drivers link.

        Click through the selections, download the kernel driver and the GLX driver. RTFM (Even geeks have to do this, because it is not the usual ./configure, make, make install) and you too can have killer graphics on your box!
    • I installed UT2K3 on both of my home systems - Redhat 7.3 on an Athlon 750 with a GeForce 2 MX, and WinXP on a Duron 1GHz with a GeForce 3 Ti500. It runs fine at 1024x768 on WinXP and (a slightly less choppy) 800x600 on Redhat. Obviously these two systems aren't great for a head-to-head comparison, but it does go to show that UT2K3 is capable of running better on Linux than your experience would suggest
    • wow what did you do wrong?
      I have a P-III 850 dual proc system with a crappy old Geforce2 and it screams. While it sucked horribly at work in the P4-1.7 with some ATI card. I'm guessing the ATI card is half the problem with the win side... but It absolutely screamed at 1024x768 on my Linux box (and it only used one of the processors!)
    • You might have forgot to disable arts or esd sound servers, you might have forgotten to disable AGPGART and enable NVGART, you might have forgotten to run hdparm to tweak your harddrives. Maybe your kernel is not set up correctly. Maybe your using a slow distro. Maybe you dont know anything about Linux. Maybe your SDL is not configured correctly. Maybe your using a old kernel? Maybe you forgot to enable your nvidia drivers. Maybe you have alot of stuff running in the background. try ps aux. Maybe the harddrive your using for linux is slower than the windows harddrive.

      Im sure your doing something wrong.

      try these commands

      hdparm -t /dev/hdx (to bench mark)
      hdparm -d1 -c1 -X69 /dev/hdx (I use this to turn on dma, 32bit IO, and udma5.
      do cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status

      make sure AGPGART is disabled and its running NVIDIA for the driver.

      try enabling SBA and FW, the drivers disable them by default.

      Can your board suppport AGP 4x? try turning that on in the drivers also.

      You are probably doing something seriously wrong. Linux is faster than windows, and you should get better FPS in linux.

      good luck and Next time dont post something like that with out trying everything.
      • why I don't use linux reason #2768. Dude, I just want to play the game! Oh, and I want to get chastized for not knowing (and trying) to run: "hdparm -d1 -c1 -X69 /dev/hdx" before having the audacity to post a question somewhere!
    • Under linux I get very choppy sound and an almost-kinda-sorta-playable slideshow after setting all the options to their min

      That's what we like to call Mesa software rendering.

      You may want to actually install the NVidia accelerated drivers before you go to publish your results. ;)

  • Were is my pointy-horned cap? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @01:03PM (#4274016) Homepage
    The submitter wrote:
    LiveCDs have always been a great way to sway potential Linux-converts, but this should really impress them!

    Well, I don't know exactly what the LiveCD does, but I will say that if you're trying to impress them with the game, then I'm not sure that the Linux demo is going to be that impressive to Windows people. If I were a Windows-only user, I'd ask them what the big deal was, since I could play it on my Windows machine already. And I'd point out that, despite the fact that NVIDIA cards are pretty widespread, the demo on Windows supports a wider range of cards, including the lowly 3dfx Voodoo3. And that it doesn't require rebooting the machine.


    If this were a Linux-only game that supported a wide range of hardware configurations and showed off graphical splendor that wasn't generally available on Windows, then that'd be impressive to lots of people. As much as my geeky side can be impressed by the idea of putting together a CD like this, I just don't see Windows people giving a hoot.


    FWIW, I'm not a Windows user. I only use Linux at work and at home. Heck, I even wrote an article [linuxgames.com] on the Linux demo and how it came to be. But most Windows users are still puzzled about why a Linux port even exists. They're certainly not going to want you rebooting their machine just so you can boot up Linux and play it from a CD.

    • Reasons for the CD... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Twister002 ( 537605 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @01:25PM (#4274273) Homepage
      What's one of the big reasons people always give for not switching to Linux? What's one of the big reasons that many of us STILL have Windows boxes or dual-boot?

      The games.

      Now we've got two or three big games being released for the Linux platforms. (UT 2003, NWN(when it's done?), Quake 3(I know released heap long time ago, but it's still a big game) Proof that Linux can run major market games. May help sway some people.

      The future

      What *I* would like to see is games released in this Live CD fashion. So that you don't have to worry about getting the latet drivers. It almost turns any computer into a gaming console. You just put in the CD, reboot, and play. Don't have to worry about clearing out hard drive space or buying a new hard drive so you have enough space. You don't have to worry about having the drivers that work with the game. It's all bundled up in the UT OS I don't know how it was for some people, but it was a PAIN trying to get Quake and Quake2 installed and running under Linux for me.

      Heck you and some friends could burn off these CD's and head to your local internet cafe or Best Buy and play some UT over the net...hehehehe

      • I agree. Of course, I said essentially the same thing here:

        http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=38977&c id=4169301

      • The problem with booting from a dedicated linux gaming cd is that you wont be running anything in the background such as a download or another ap you want to keep open.

        What linux needs is easy installability, easy maintainability and a good looking desktop. It's got everything else.

    • Re:Were is my pointy-horned cap? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Soko ( 17987 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @01:26PM (#4274287) Homepage
      I agree that Windows users won't actively seek out this - especially if they're happy with thier current OS.

      However, this can be the coup-de-grace for the people who are merely curious about Linux, even more so to those who are considering a switch. Observe:

      WindowsUser: Y'know, I'd like to try that Linux thing but I don't want to hose my Windows machine.

      LinuxAdvocate: No problem. Here's a Gentoo Linux 1.4 CD. You boot from it and it creates a temporary but fully working Linux system. You have an NVIDIA card, so you're good to go.

      WindowsUser: It won't hose my system?

      LinuxAdvocate: Not at all. It won't even look at your disk unless you tell it to.

      WindowsUser: Hmmmmmm - OK, lemme plug it in and re-boot.

      (Many minutes of playing with Linux)

      WindowsUser: Seems stable and fast. It's alot like Windows, too. Not bad. What about games?

      LinuxAdvocate: *ShitEatingGrin* Have I got a treat for you....

      It's a marketing tool. UT2003 is just a way to draw the bees to the honey. Besides, it'd be cool to carry around your UT2003 environment wherever you go...

      Soko
    • Coming from the viewpoint of a windows user, I think this kind of thing is great. So perhaps the militant hardcore windows group wont go for it, but what about guys like me who are on the teetering edge of switching to Linux. Its sweet things like this that make the difference. And plus, when you argue with a person on why Linux is better, and they say something like "well its so damn hard to set programs up in Linus, like games", you have something to retort with.
    • I'm not a Windows user. I only use Linux at work and at home. Heck, I even wrote an article on the Linux demo and how it came to be.

      It's interesting how virtually all Linux users feel the need to defend themselves against their peers by either condemning Windows or distancing themselves from it (as was the case in this post) by putting a qualifying statement at the start or end of a message when that message might potentially be misconstrued as advocating some aspect of Microsoft Windows.

      Slashdot needs to add checkboxes for posters to simply this process. "Check one or more of the following."

      "Include random Windows bash."
      "Make a funny random joke putting down Bill Gates."
      "Include random glorification message about Linux."
      "Include a statement so readers know beyond the shadow of any doubt I use Linux *most of the time.*"
      "Make up a funny acronym for MCSE."

      • Imagine you wanted to talk about a minor issue regarding abortion in a political context, say whether abortion service providers should have to meet HIPPA requirements or not. You would probably need to preface your remarks in some way to able to effectively communicate that point because abortion is simply so controversial.

        Among the technical crowd the Gnu/Linux paradigm vs. the Windows+extend office paradigm for computing is deeply controversial. If one wants to discuss any minor issue they need to preface their remarks to alert their audience that they are trying to address a minor issue and not the deep issues which strain the community.

        You see the same behavior from almost any minority group which alienated from some societal trend on any issue. While I have no personal experience on this issue I bet if you went to slashsoccor any positive comment about football or basketball would need a similar disclaimer.

    • And that it doesn't require rebooting the machine.

      You're saying you need to reboot with linux, but you dont need to reboot with windows??
  • what if a person has oddball hardware, or notfully supported hardware, for example I have a sb audigy, that sounds like crap under linux. if they try this live cd only to find UT2003 runs or sounds like crap compared to win32 they are going to think linux=crapy performance, and not try it again
    • Hrm, oddball = any ATI Radeon 9000, 9000 Pro or 9700 Pro. How's that for oddball. I have a 9000 Pro and I'm screwed :(

      XFree86 does support [xfree86.org] your Radeon 7500 and 8500, anything more recent you're on your own ! ATI doesn't offer [ati.com] any better drivers, just "support" by the way of links (www.linux.org ... yeah riight, like that's gonna solve my problem).

      • Sucks when you make an uninformed purchase huh? I had an old Creative gamepad that probably only sold 1000 units. Zero support for it, then and now.

        It's always fun to get the latest whizbang hardware...until you find out the manufacturer doesn't give a rat's ass about linux. Thank god for Nvidia, even if they *are* closed-source drivers.
  • I saw this early this morning and I began the download. It's at 66% now. If the hordes of /. break my d/l (the ftp is NO RESUME), I'm gunna be fit to be tied.
  • What we really need here though, is for the game to come out on *nix before windows. Although having a fully ready CD (video drivers and all) sounds pretty sweet - I'll be downloading it - chances are that it won't convert many windows users unless one or more of the 3 occur

    • It comes out first in *nix
    • It's more stable in *nix (yes, crash those winblows machines!)
    • It runs better on *nix (per the actual hardware) or requires less hardware power


    Oh, and yes I will be downloading the demo - phorm
    • Sadly I don't think this will happen anytime soon.
      The people are trying to make money off their software sales, and to do that, you have to sell to the largest market. Right now, that largest market is windows.

      Yes, it would be great to see a game come out *nix first. But, if it was my company, I'd release it to windows first, since that is where the largest market share is.
    • Didn't Q3Atest come out for linux before windoze?
    • I forgot to add to the q3a comment...UT (the first one) does run better under linux (Loki fixed a bunch of broken code as they ported it), and of course is more stable too.
    • The only way this happens is a game which requires network transparency. Right now the window's world is using thick clients but a very thin client game meant to be run over a lan...

    • well, the second one is true (at least on my machine) and the third is arguably true - it seems that the OpenGL version runs a bit faster, I'm not sure about "better".

      However, both differences are fairly marginal, so I doubt they'll get people changing their OS just for that.

  • Gentoo Newbie (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fire-eyes ( 522894 )
    I just started using gentoo last thursday. This after 5 years of slackware, and only slackware.

    It's a fantastic distro for those of you with a pretty strong system, I highly reccommend it.
  • Nice to see another Linux port for PowerPC systems. While Mac OS X fills all my needs, it's still fun to tinker in Linux.

    So, that brings the Linux for PowerPC distros to the following, and I bet I'll forget one:

    -SUSE
    -Debian
    -RT Linux
    -Mandrake
    -Linux PPC
    -Yellow Dog Linux
    -Gentoo Linux
    -MkLinux
    -HA Linux

    I wonder if the UT2003 code is targeted to x86 or whether it cares. I would presume it does care a lot. A "Windtunnel" G4 has all the necessary specs, otherwise.

  • Question (Score:2, Informative)

    by Winterblink ( 575267 )
    What the hell is LiveCD? :)

  • FTP mirrors (Score:5, Informative)

    by mortis_aeturnus ( 606421 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @01:16PM (#4274182)
    Gatech [gatech.edu] Sunsite.dk [sunsite.dk] Norweigen Mirror [linux.no] Another Norweigen Mirror [gentoo.no]

    • Re:FTP mirrors (Score:3, Informative)

      by ananke ( 8417 )
      Just because it's a slow day at work... I mirrored it too [vt.edu]
      • You're a brave soul. CNS is going to come after you when you peg their campus-side part of the T-3.

        I salute you. I also am thinking about grabbing my laptop and heading over to torgerson to get it locally....

        ~Will

  • Nothing new... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Eric_Cartman_South_P ( 594330 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @01:19PM (#4274214)
    ...that convicted warez guy in the article below has had this for months already.

  • This LiveCD is based off the soon-to-be-released Gentoo Linux 1.4. It's still in testing, so don't expect the cd to be perfect. There are other games released on cds like this though, such as Armagetron, bzflag, and soon to appear, pyDDR. Hopefully gentoo will make some kind of application to automate the building of these things things with other games.

    Oh, and with very small modifications you can make a cluster out of these cds. Neato, eh?
    • Really, there's an Armagetron cd? Nice. I know there's a Frozen Bubble Mandrake-based ISO that's bootable.

      Now what I really want is a nice bootable Xmame disc. I've got the whole mame rom collection and it'd be cool to shuck a dvd to a friends' house, throw it in the pc, and boot into a graphical frontend and start gaming.
  • When they say 'ready to play', do they mean it plays off the disc like a platform gaming system, or that you can install it off the CD and then play the game?

    The reason I ask is that if the former is true, then it makes Linux more attractive to me as a gaming machine, particularly if it can handle initiating those drivers while it's running. One thing that annoys the hell out of me is that games in Windows think they need to be installed first. I can understand wanting to have a save-game folder, but I find it ridiculous what all needs to be copied over to the computer.

    • Re:Question... (Score:2, Informative)

      by psypete ( 416256 )
      it plays off of the cd right after booting it, autodetecting hardware and setting up XFree86. No need to install anything, just play.

      so people ask, "Oh, what's the big deal if i can play it in windows?" well with this disk you can play it anywhere in a matter of minutes. it's there to show what Gentoo is like and how it can be used. and like most of what Gentoo does, it's optimized for the newest and best hardware, so there are many people left out in the cold. they'll be supported later as new versions come out, but that's not why it was made. it was made to show linux's potential.
  • Now you can go to any computer you want, pop the CD in, hit reset, and (assuming there's no BIOS PW) play UT on any x86 box. This could be a very fun way to piss of the people in the university computer lab, who will think you hacked NT to lower user restrictions or something.

  • Boot time (Score:5, Funny)

    by asobala ( 563713 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @01:34PM (#4274346) Homepage
    Zealot > Look at this! It's a demo of Unreal Tournament under Linux. You just put in the CD and it runs.

    Poor dude > What's all that writing?

    Zealot > That's it booting. You don't need to worry about that.

    Poor dude > Why's it taking so long?

    Zealot > That's the amazing thing! Gentoo compiles the kernel, the libraries, the compiler, the compiler again, X, AND unreal tournament before running it! So it runs really fast!

    Poor dude > So how long does it take to get working?

    Zealot > About 3 days from pressing the power on button. But it's fast!

  • ATI Cards (Score:3, Informative)

    by solarce ( 450240 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @01:41PM (#4274413) Homepage
    I have not seen this mentioned yet, but I think it should be noted that it is not Gentoo's fault that the UT2003 LiveCD does not run on ATI cards. Epic made the call to only support the newer nVidia cards in the demo and it has nothing to do with Gentoo or the fact that XFree86 has less than ample support for the newer Radeon card line.

    • Re:ATI Cards (Score:4, Informative)

      by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @02:29PM (#4274925) Homepage
      Epic made the call to only support the newer nVidia cards in the demo

      This is false. To cut down on traffic over the AGP bus, Epic used texture compression. Specifically, they used S3TC/DXTC, which is supported by every major, modern 3D video driver on Windows (i.e. their target audience). This extension is currently supported by only two drivers on Linux: the ones from NVIDIA [nvidia.com] and the ones from Xi Graphics [xig.com]. The XiG drivers support the Radeon cards, but are pay-to-use drivers. However a time-limited demo is available for free. (The server must be restarted every 25-30 minutes or so, in the demo, as I understand it. Buy the real thing, and you get unlimited use, naturally.)

      Epic has also said they're working with ATI and PowerVR (makers of the Kyro cards) to improve the binary-only drivers that each of those companies provides for their cards under Linux. If and when these drivers are released, they will be free-as-in-beer.

      Again: it is the failing of the drivers under Linux to support a required extension, not Epic. Without that extension, performance would be terrible, so it isn't an option of just turning it off.

  • It's been slashdotted, here it is (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lucky Kevin ( 305138 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @02:05PM (#4274700) Homepage
    Since you can no longer get it from the site, in line with other helpful people in other discussions, I have copied the entire CD, gzipped it, uuencoded it and pasted it below. Enjoy!
    begin 664 LiveCD
    M'XL(`+[Z^SP``^R=?W`3U[7'CVR!;?P#FY`0'#`"X OQX9F6M)/^"IAU9DFUA
    M6W(E&0BA=63]P`);<B697_G10!/2 1RD!2DB:,!DZDTDFG78R+9E)_N@\INTT
    MF78F3<F4Z:3_9!A F.@U]Z8-,_VB'&=Z[YU[)6NVNHE1RH"\]'R?<W=71GN^>
    MO7 OO/5?:%0!!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1! $`1!$`1!
    M$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1 !$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!
    M$`1!$`1!$`1!$`1!$`:GRV*1#3 #B\8YO,Q7''XV8AD(9TT@\,;>O,V[K[3;U
    MF&WYUW/[:[YN! #!>;R[IE_V'_T-M+;0:^);6V_,OK\!_UL%JL;8:[L3B3H@9
    M ;VN2FZY6Y=[_*8*)FT"I6O$%PVJQ6"UVN4^V=]DM-HOEJF:#10 5H+`S@"?A,
    MHZZNP/BHZ0%37U>O+1;NZPIWA7M#7?8>J]5BE 4.66%=WM,=FZ0F#*3CD"9C8
    M?UY?D"V[30''J-OD")C\XUZO QSN8VY7/F[/TK;W5<2(^C85KO`FB4D3_[QXQ
    M!7U^3]!G"HR YG9X!C],1]/B\GWDOW_H<%1($01`$L<!49?-_&`$/>&$<MH %)
    M]\\/48BP<@A"D&'E",0A`7.P#R;8DBVWOUS^W][I_E2_R OS_ B,C_CZS,OWP7
    M_K..B>%L`SZ?T*S)_XMHI;^;]5>J5O1"-]O :`V:V?*LT+IS1PN3_MS;[)&XU
    M"]E\$T1%_&^N_R<(@B`(XM ^&T6&/:2`5-SEF4R:YSR3;-W;9-UIL_*/.)3.[
    MX^ED+&V2S ;+=)#F*?=PK;2GZRF:3Y#=)>TQ2T"3M,YD[IY/I3$<L.9>(F*2 D
    MJ7,FD>E,AU.A3'BJ<TMH>BHT/1V24E%,F,Q=VBT2[EB*Q- -AV<R4F:1)4R29
    MGLO$I].=H;E,<C*9S'2&(UB8XS,[35+8Q )?#3)GY5D>:(`B"(/YU,/#OV&'^
    M7PO#?,GE"XP'/2.!Q>#B ZYY1QZ";K9GXFM_M&G($:V$K6ZL"QWC0U^_S!6M@
    ME*\/>,8 "<I<3%L-7Y]>MEEH8GU]S^9R!6MC"U_V.K7Y/T+V5O<+6J\'EK H)!
    MON0.5,$07QKP5X&'+WF"5;"9+VUVU(";+XUM<Z-[,(*3 K1NAWQ%P&V$M7_:/
    MC3)/^!6&Q4QU(.CS^_L7@X^O!WSC?J> [%OQLK4;Q:H"OBU=OXDD@"((@"((@
    M"((@B,\9_LG_:BQJ<6 D8#/G\G^$"0R[_!_R.E"&7_S.V0E4^_V>,0E4^_V=\
    M5:QC_ L\8%VLB_V=L@:I\_L\8@&K,_QF#4(WY/V,(JC'_9WB@&O-_QF: HQOR?
    MX8;J?/[/<()1Y/^,M6`4^3_#"XOS&3[#!XMS^3_##S 4%KP:@AO)_@B`(@B`(
    M@B`(XHN&@=]CA[,`#;!=+(E[NO@=7 <VP5VR+0!+2,`<9B,,TI!M@5FR/PPRS
    MV\G>D:Z%AP`_U6?O 'X-18+EW4JQ/,HLT1)OA"<#/[-D:[B?)MB?97Z8)]HGM
    M,;: W668I0Q>$&^"1PJU6L#3#XX7;4%48TLOAFV)[BNU[+_LWSO8?9 4MQ2!C9
    M*GX;@-E&C>PM?)FI-3(3OAR#E)$)XLOL?4;8(Y9W 0:@)OB&69YG$:$YO,^P'
    M/EN2POWP(TFQO\D&.""VI]F6.;8 EC,?\*-M6IV/[F-BNL+V))YT@"((@"((@
    M"(+XMX-__K\-BP 9<VHY?\5?F_XR];)LF_P?,B@V%^3_C(?Q:?R[_9R39^GS^
    MS WB"I>F:_)^QCVU7Y?^,1Q1;>?[/>%RQ;3[_9WR3;=?-_P&S;Z/ (_P$S;J/(
    M_QD9MLSS?\8<6^;Y/V,/6^;Y/^,;;%F5_S/VLT 1?D],S#K#M!?D_XU&6Z.O9
    M/L:V4_Y/$`1!$`1!$`1!W!2^7 ?(W=@)C-8;_^A_P^Q<9#HYMN]OPL0/M'!\O
    M$N];I-YC<*#5 T)3="1;=U;R0UU]UNE<9#@JC@SGKC[-%K)0.PP((8*GX(6% S
    Damn Slashdot filters have cut this short. I'll post the other 7,343 parts later!
  • A cd that you can pop into your computer, which will boot Linux without actually installing it onto your hard disk.

    (Some people were wondering)

  • Not to begrudge Gentoo (an excellent distribution IMHO) anything I figure I'd mention a full featured (takes up the whole CD) live CD distribution which offers a good generalized suite of applications: office, technical, programming, game, educational... called KNOPPIX [knopper.net]. It works really well as a demo and is even quite usable as a portable linux for regular use.

  • PC "Consoles"? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vireo ( 190514 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @02:32PM (#4274947)
    What I find interesting is the possibility to offer games that come with their own OS. Instead of distributing a game which comes for Windows, Linux, or MacOS, why not put an optimized OS on the CD or DVD so that anyone can boot it and play the game. The game could fetch configs and saved games, if available, on a user-specified location on disk, or better, online. It would work much as a console; of course, having to boot on the CD is a drawback, but console users don't seem to mind.

    • Re:PC "Consoles"? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lowe0 ( 136140 )
      I like this idea, but no one really wants to go back to the days of coding for a particular piece of hardware. HAL's and API's have made things easier, and I don't think anyone who hasn't already gone over to the console side of the business really wants to shove their arms back into that particular cow's ass.

      Besides, you'd have to deal with driver updates (since some drivers provide better performance, you'd better believe I want to use those) as well as providing support for hardware released after the game (Quake III had damn well better be able to run on my GF4!)

      It's a cool idea, but not very workable anymore. Back in the day where it was VESA/Soundblaster, this was workable (didn't games used to come like this?) Nowadays, I don't see how it could work except for a very specific config.

      I'll give this the benefit of a doubt though, and despite being a Windows user, I'll download the ISO and compare performance.
  • I've seen 220 megabyte Mlnl CDs out there.

    Anyone else notice this little detail? :-)

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