Finally a productive day… Because every one else but me slept through most of the afternoon ^_^
I finished adding a summary mode to my script, later I want to put in user agent exclusions among other things; so it can be tuned to more automated traffic hehe.
I also managed to install Ubuntu 8.04 on SAL1600 today, I’m very happy to say that the boot time is a heck of a lot better then 6.06 was when I inertially tested the distribution. The installer is more complex then PC-BSDs but still quite simple, last time I needed to use an ‘alternate’ install CD with a hacked debian installer in order to get GRUB in Ubuntu’s / rather then screwing with GAG. This time, I only had to scratch my head enough to choose the ‘advanced’ button before commiting to the format & install — and select the location to install GRUB to hehe 😉
Got done in about a half hour, counting setting up a few packages (nVidia drivers, g++, JDK, zsh, etc) and I can finish the rest later. I’m not very partial to Ubuntu although I do greatly like the human theme for Gnome they use. While both FreeBSD 6.x and Linux 2.6.x are fully able to support my desktops hardware: FreeBSD works perfectly out of the box other then sound, which is just a driver away. Most Linux distro on the other hand, need me to screw with things. Debian Sarge for example tried to convice me I had no hard drive controller or network interface, for which NetBSD agreed and Slackware concurred about the NIC ^_^.
I want to test CrossOver Games to see if I could get Rvs or SWAT4:TSS working in it… There is a trial for PC-BSD but the Linux version is supposed to work better and is officially supported. I’ve heard that WINE has improved greatly on FreeBSD (and PC-BSD 1.5.x includes patches to aid it afaik). Even with the gripes of WINE working much better on Linux then FreeBSD, I only tested it on FreeBSD two years ago and threw it out as useless for even light duty gaming.
I’d really prefer to be running Slackware or Gentoo if I had to run a GNU/Linux distro off my desktop… But I don’t have time to muck about just for testing this thing, hence the Ubuntu installation lol. I expect it will fail horribly and I’m not expecting much more then being able to get RvS installed but I’ll give it a go. And to be frank, with how poorly done Rvs and SWAT4 are from a software perspective… I’m really supprised people can run then on Vista, hell we have to side-step problems the games have with modern graphics cards (and SWAT4:TSS ain’t that fucking old!)
To be honest, I think I would have to create my own “Linux From Scratch” system to ever truly be happy with a Linux distro, that or just install OpenBSD instead and be perfectly happy hehe xD. But, in terms of having to run a specific OS, I’d be much more happy with GNU/Linux then I am with Windows XP. The only reason I’ve never removed WinXP from my desktop is I need one game box, you could say… If I wasn’t in [SAS] then I would be totally and 100% free of Windows for the rest of my days. But I love my team to damn much to leave, even if it means having to keep one working copy of Windows around.
The thing that really pisses me off, I can run FreeBSD and Linux on my desktop and it is rock solid for all I need it to do (y). Running Windows XP on the same machine, I only *wish* I could say the same hahaha. Between the nVidia drivers, Direct X 9, and Creative Labs + Raven Shield not playing nicely together it loves to get blue screens of death under XP.
At least when a machine has problems with running BSD or Linux, you generally get what you paid for but when Windows has problems, it blows because you got charged by every bastard along the way and his dog too!