Regarding linux:

a little joke between myself and one of the support guys at my company:

"FreeBSD is for people that love UNIX, Linux is for people that hate Microsoft"

With that said, no matter your flavor of *NIX, it''s limited. Yes, you can play games (a select few) and yes you can develop games (for people who use *NIX which is a very small percentage compared to Windows users) but it''ll never be windows.

Windows is the industry standard, like it or not. People at home, use Windows. People at work, use Windows. People who play games.... use Windows.

Certainly there are those who don''t, but they are, by no means, the majority.

One way or another, you''ll have to use it and like it if you want to develop games.

Now, regarding Windows XP:

There''ll always be people that bash it because it''s new, because it''s different, because it''s microsoft. But quite honestly, it''s stable. Very stable. I speak for more than myself when I say that I beleive it''s the most stable release yet.

Take into consideration what might be causing yours to be unstable.

Did you install XP over an already damaged system or did you do a new install on a clean partition?
Do you have high-quality hardware with high-quality drivers? Or do you have the cheapest you could find? Good drivers will make or break windows. They shouldn''t, but they do. If you go pick up a $5 network card, chances are, it''s driver is horrible and will take your machine down. Or your sound card, or video card... Companies like Compaq, HP, Dell do it all the time. Put the cheapest hardware possible to raise profit margins. This cheap hardware often has poor drivers, if it hasn''t been hacked to work with the custom hardware in the first place.

Also, do you have the Microsoft Certified XP drivers for all your your hardware? If you don''t, you''ll have problems there, too. And you can''t bash XP for that reason because when 2000 came out, it had the same problem. Nothing worked for it and it took quite some time to get the latest, supported drivers. XP on the other hand had supported drivers quickly. At least by the major companies.

So that''s my post. Stop bashing things and the people that use them. I think the most important thing is to know all Operating Systems and like them all for their specific area of excellence.

- Mike

quote:Original post by Witchcraven
Why would anyone use windows when they knew enough to use linux, freebsd, mac, BeOs, etc..? You still get 3d(my linux nvidia setup outruns my windows, the most recent nvidia drivers are very stable with X). I mean I have NEVER had a crash with linux in 4 years. Not one. The worst thing that ever happened was X server locked because of a bug in the old nvidia drivers

BeOS, quite sadly, is dying a slow death. I believe it has been sold and won''t be developed, at least on Intel. Shame - I was looking forward to their new GL support.

And I''ve crashed Linux too... I ran WINE

~~~
Cheers!
Brett Porter
PortaLib3D : A portable 3D game/demo libary for OpenGL
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quote:Original post by brettporter
And I''ve crashed Linux too... I ran WINE

Linux wouldnt boot on one of my old systems, and X would crash and lock up the system on another. Both ran Windows without a single crash or error at all.

Redhat is also the only dist of linux that installs and runs fine on my main (ie this) pc as well. It would be nice if my ISP supported linux.

And for those that are going to say "Your ISP will work under linux, you just dont know how"... Im on a wireless connection, and there are no drivers for my receiver card. I have scoured the net, even trying drivers for remotely similar cards... nothing