I remember a few years back, when I was much younger trying to get drivers working for XOrg and compiz. I couldn't even manage a smooth GLGears. I botched my installation multiple times with no indication of how to fix it.
Fast forward a few years and we have open source drivers that actually work. Install Ubuntu, compiz works. Lovely, now maybe I see what the game situation is like. I dig through the app store and find that game with the Tux luge. 2FPS. So I dig around in settings and find the option to install the "non-free" drivers. Install them and I get my buttery-smooth 60FPS, I will continue to get harassed about that fact that I'm scum who installs closed-source software for the foreseeable future, by the OS. I can live with that.
So how would a 14 year old wanting to play games on Linux see this? Firstly, he'd install a game such as Borderlands and try it out. He hits a wall with dreadful framerate. One of two things, he goes back to a pirated copy of Windows (most likely) or somehow finds out he needs the vendor kernel module:
He pulls down the compiler tools, which could take up to an hour in 3rd world countries (first-hand experience). He then goes through the process of changing the init level to 2, compiling the driver shim and installing it. He then reboots his PC and XOrg crashes. Back to Windows or...
He discovers the Ubuntu automatic installer. Excellent! Just a few clicks and... "non-free?" Does this mean I have to pay for it? Will I need my parents' credit card? Why is there a warning sign? Am I doing something wrong? Could this damage my hardware?
Let's say he figures it all out and wants to play some MP3s while he games...
It's friction the whole way. This is a very severe case of getting your message mixed up with extremism. The situation of people using Linux is always better than the situation of them using something like Windows, even if they do have to use some non-free components to do so.
FWIW, I was once a 14 year old who wanted to play games on Linux and needed to install non-free drivers to do so. Yeah, it confused me when I first encountered the concept, but it didn't deter me in the end.
I suspect that, once they're using Linux, a bit of friction isn't going to stop them. Rather, the friction stops them from successfully starting to use it in the first place.
Linux introduces a healthy level of distrust to closed drivers - which is good. It doesn't mean they can't be used, but being aware about downsides is a good thing.
You have organised this conference. You have an audience of millions of Windows users. It's likely once-in-a-lifetime for the majority of them. You are going to give them a hands-on presentation detailing the value of free software and Linux, you will have their undivided attention for a week.
One problem: the organiser fell through with the chairs. There are unassembled ones ready to go, but the company who made those parts require that their guys assemble the chairs. You have some real smart fellas around that figured out how to assemble the chairs, only it's not perfect and there's a bit sticking into your butt.
So you start off the event with everyone standing their respective venues, no chairs in sight. You start off like this:
"We had a problem with the chairs. If you don't want to sit on the dirty floor you'll need to use one of these chairs one of our guys put together." (Not telling them about the bit sticking into their butt, which you don't)
"We can get the manufacturer to build the chairs for you, however, because we don't know how they did it we don't know if the chairs will break. If it breaks you could snap your spine, turning you into a paraplegic."
"Or you could remain standing, or sit on the floor."
How many people will walk out right there and then? Would you?
Some people, who no have reason to trust you over the manufacturer (keep that in mind), might use the ones your guys made. After a day sitting with a pokey bit in your butt, what would you do?
If you had a fully functional chair how long would you stick around for? Who provided that chair?
What have you just done to your potential audience?
The message is important, maybe one day people will understand but never if this hardline approach is maintained.
An honest appraisal of each option is needed for users, up-front during the installation process. They must not go in search of it:
- Open source drivers: poor performance, very stable, likely to not crash.
- Proprietary drivers: high performance, we don't know if you should trust them, if something goes wrong there is nothing we can do.
> Change always comes bearing gifts. ~Price Pritchett
> An honest appraisal of each option is needed for users, up-front during the installation process. They must not go in search of it
The better solution is there should never be a need to search for it. AMD already knows their Mesa driver is all around a better user experience than Catalyst, and are making steps to depreciate work done on the Catalyst side by using a free kernel driver. Hopefully soon they will depreciate it entirely and dedicate all their Linux developers to making Gallium great.
Because Gallium is not just about playing games anymore. It is the basis for every other free software graphics driver besides Intels. It has the potential to revolutionize not just the Linux ecosystem but all operating systems by providing a well architected way to support dozens of GPUs with one system API and one driver model. It has a state tracker model that lets you run OpenGL, DirectX, OpenMAX, EGL, GLES, etc all on top of one driver implementation.
And Nvidia should get in on that, but those who hold the reins over there (business suits) are incompetent twat assholes who don't want to play ball with free software and damn all of us for it, and cripple the industry and any momentum they have because nonsense like "SteamOS only works on Nvidia cards".
OpenGL 4.2 will land soon™. A lot of stuff up through 4.5 after that is already done. Once they catch up on OpenGL, hopefully they can fix the performance.
I completely agree with you on this. "Linux culture" has an attitude problem that WILL prevent it from overtaking Windows if things don't change. Unfortunately, calling out this particular problem (especially among a Linux-ey community) tends to attract the worst of that attitude problem attacking those who see the problem.
> Open source drivers: poor performance, very stable, likely to not crash.
Actually, in my experience the open-source drivers for all my NVIDIA GPUs has been abysmally unstable. I couldn't even boot or install Ubuntu with the graphical interface, because nouveau kept freezing.
You could blame my uncommon but perfectly valid SLI GTX 580 setup for confusing the open source drivers, but the end result remains: the open-source drivers are inferior in every way except perhaps for the "open source" part (which is kind of meaningless if they don't work).
The fear, I feel, is in making Linux follow Windows's user experience, rather than doing its own thing. Meaning, any call for "make it more user-friendly" is heard like "give me windows". It might make sense to rally behind Ubuntu as a user-friendly distro and push that, only mentioning Linux the way "MacOS X is built on Darwin".
Another big problem is packaging for third-party software. Personally I would love to see a system where software isn't distributed as final binaries, but pre-built object files, together with a few very light shim source-files that then get built and linked on my machine, and rebuilt and relinked when the libs they depend on get updated.
>. He discovers the Ubuntu automatic installer. Excellent! Just a few clicks and... "non-free?" Does this mean I have to pay for it? Will I need my parents' credit card? Why is there a warning sign? Am I doing something wrong? Could this damage my hardware?
This is how we learn. It's how I learned anyway. A bit of friction is good, IMHO.
Obviously if you just want to install and play, it's less than ideal.
This is, IMHO, the best part about getting your kids into PC gaming vs giving them a console. I got very interested in scripting from seeing what scripts could do in Quake 3. Console gaming doesn't offer the same opportunities for learning / tinkering. This is not to say that games themselves can't offer a level of exploration / tinkering, but you're still confined to a locked-down, DRM'd, anti-cheat, closed-source appliance designed to just play the games, not create / modify them.
> So how would a 14 year old wanting to play games on Linux see this? Firstly, he'd install a game such as Borderlands and try it out. He hits a wall with dreadful framerate.
That's precisely why the Steam Machines are supposed to exist. To provide hardware which is supported and properly configured by default.
Note that on Windows it's pretty bad as well, performance wise, if you do not install your GPU drivers from a scratch Windows install. Having to do extra steps is nowhere the exception of Linux.
> Note that on Windows it's pretty bad as well, performance wise, if you do not install your GPU drivers from a scratch Windows install. Having to do extra steps is nowhere the exception of Linux.
Really not true. For a start if you get an out of the box PC it will come with graphics drivers pre-installed (maybe not the best, but good enough to run a 2-year-old game smoothly)
If you build it yourself windows update will almost certainly have graphics drivers for your card
Even if you do have to manually install drivers, it's about a million times easier than on linux
> Even if you do have to manually install drivers, it's about a million times easier than on linux
For nvidia cards you do not need to install anything on your own on most distributions, and it comes with the latest drivers, so I can't see how it can be "million times easier than on Linux". AMD is another story, granted, but that does not mean it's the rule.
While the theory sounds good, the Steambox never evolved to a list of supported configs. Valve stated that Nvidia, AMD, and Intel would all be supported and Valve displayed great hesitancy in providing any specifics. Rich's earlier post on the state of Graphics Drivers remains mostly valid.
In addition, the release of a few Linux games such as Civ5 & Borderlands, have provided sales figures to those companies on whether the investment was worthwhile.
Many companies considered Linux primarily because SteamBox was an interesting market. While some companies were taking a wait-and-see audience, the slow play of SteamBox only makes more people take a wait-and-see attitude.
The OpenGL mess of "4.4 is good enough", while both AMD & Intel failed to deliver good drivers, is further muddled by OpenGL Next. Basically, accepting the OpenGL API needs a re-write and will become more Mantle/Metal/DX12 like. So will Intel & AMD deliver good-enough 4.4 drivers, or do we all wait for OpenGL-Next. Don't forget that AMD just did a 7% layoff, limited resources.
In Rich's source article, he questions the future of SteamOS and the partners involved in some of the ports are also questioning. Some people have started using past tense. I have no idea what Valve is planning, but my guess is that it's a long term play with limited resources. I'm guessing some of the interest inside Valve has waned.
Remember SteamOS was born before Win8 was announced and Valve was scared where MS was going. Steam on Windows seems pretty safe, the pressure is off.
> Remember SteamOS was born before Win8 was announced and Valve was scared where MS was going. Steam on Windows seems pretty safe, the pressure is off.
It may be off, but Microsoft may become more of a games distributor in the future through their own app store, so it may eat up some of Valve's revenue because MS app store is included by default while Steam is not.
"So how would a 14 year old wanting to play games"
In the real world my son pulls out his school issued ipad and starts playing games. Sometimes his friend comes over and he complains he can't connect to "my" wifi until I whitelist his MAC, whatever, and then they play minecraft on their ipads. Quite often they play games on the xbox connected to the living room TV because its a big enough screen to be shared. He has access to a desktop and hasn't really used it since gaining access to an ipad.
As for myself I go thru phases of dwarf fortress and heavily modded minecraft on my desktop and I just kicked a severe "pixel dungeon" habit on my phone.
My SiL still plays that farming game on facebook, or some modern clone or whatever.
The only thing worse than letting the "gamers" take over linux would be letting the "desktop" people take over linux, whoops looks like we did. Well, there's always freebsd for me.
Oddly enough, I've recently moved fully to Ubuntu, and I have buttery-smooth 60fps Borderlands 2 game play right out of the box.
I wonder what our hardware differences are? I have an Radeon R9 270X, if you have a different brand (Nvidia or Intel) are the open source ATI drivers really that much better?
Why other vendors don't seem to get that you can get your entire OS for free, all you need is great hardware and some love for developers, and you can enter the hardware market and build a new platform, just for you and your customers. It doesn't have to be "only the majors can play" here - all it takes is a smart core of people, executives who really truly do "get it", and a compelling reason to get yourself a community going, with real customers whom you can communicate with.
Android, iOS? Yeah, okay. Kids, you don't have to play the Framework-user dance. You can go find your own little plot of land, and have all the right ingredients, to start your own garden. Just.. have the balls to do the hard work. Its what kept the OpenPandora alive so far, in spite of it all, and the game is not over yet .. Pyra is on the horizon.
Your case here would be stronger if the OpenPandora website didn't open up with a video showing how their device enables you to play all the best video games off the major consoles from 20 years ago. That's not building your own garden, that's shoplifting from the grocery store.
Not all of it is emulation, but for those of us with a decent collection of legitimate ROM's, its a very valid and thriving scene. Even old architectures, being emulated again and thriving, are getting new apps in the app store. So, there's that to consider as well ..
so you don't know how to rip physical CDs from your PS1 for example ? That's not that hard... All my ISOs come from there, and you can pretty much rip rom contents from every console out there, with the right tool and hardware.
No, I mean... emulation isn't building a garden. Emulation isn't building anything. Emulation is... the kindest way of putting it is that it's preservation. You're preserving what someone else already built. Maybe you're restoring it, cleaning it up, adding value to it, but you're still relying on the thing you're building upon.
My point is, it's really hard for the OpenPandora to be an alternative to the proprietary consoles so long as its sales pitch is that it can run software written for all the older proprietary consoles. You can't be an alternative to something you're wholly dependent on.
There is a hell of a lot more to the OpenPandora than emulation. It may be correct that they're not marketing it properly, but then again its also true that the users know whats up:
* Nintendo DS emulator
* PSP emulator
* Playstation emulator
* Nintendo 64 emulator
* Amiga 500/1200 emulator
* Super Nintendo emulator
* Sega Genesis emulator
* MS DOS emulator
* Arcade emulator
* Game Boy Advanced emulator
Yeah, I'd say the users know what's up. I also suspect that it's being marketed appropriately.
Emulators are fantastic! I don't know why you have a problem with them .. I have a mass collection of cartridges for these systems from my youth, which I have a right to access freely and legally, and I'm certainly not going to disallow my kids from the opportunity of learning what those old machines were like, since they've got the Pandora for precisely this purpose.
I would say what you are trying to say is that the Pandora is not a 'consumption' device, or 'consumer'-ish enough, and I would argue that your definition of consumer and mine are widely invariate. Consumers of the Pandora Emulator ecosystem are as valid as any other - or would you rather all these carts and systems end up in the land-fill? Here's another lesson, then: computers don't get old. Their users do.
For this purpose, be forever prepared to emulate/virtualize all the things!
Its not all emulation. In fact, its a lot more like .. any Linux game that can be ported, will be ported. So there are a lot of Linux games you might be surprised in this list - among other applications too, of course. (You can't run a DAW on your Playstation..)
I bought one of these in 2009 or 2010. I've yet to see my $450 open pandora and I periodically get emails asking for more money because of "financial issues."
I'm no businessman, but that whole thing seemed like a prime example of mis-management.
If they've really made it past all those rough spots like that weird manufacturer in Texas, then hats off to them.
It's entirely possibly my name and number in line were lost in the void and mistakes like that happen. If they're really still going, at least $450 went to the development of open source and open hardware, and I don't consider that a complete loss.
Anything is better than knowing I contributed to vaporware.
EDIT: Looks like ED is still going. Good luck to him.
ED is still going. For the record, I am the opposite case: I actually got my two Pandora's from the very first batch, the week they were available. Some of us were very, very lucky .. and they're still on and being used, in my house, for all sorts of great things.
I did get burned with the iCP2, though, alas .. it appears though that I'll get credit towards the Pyra release when it happens. I can hardly wait - the Pyra is going to be an amazing bit of gear .. and by the way the momentum behind the Pandora in the meantime: Wow! Pyra is going to land in a vibrant scene ..
Personal anecdote. Out of the blue, my wife suggested that we play some Age of Empires III. I don't have a Windows computer anymore so I decided to give it a go in Linux Mint.
I used Crossover Linux (already had a license for MS Office) and it "just worked". Everything from sound to full screen high quality graphics was perfect. No input lag or anything else.
I understand that this is a game that's nearly a decade old but I am deeply impressed by the quality here considering it wasn't even built for that platform. It makes me wonder, how easily could developers support Linux if they just decided to? It seems like it might not be the burden or overhead that it once was.
Especially now that C++ gets more platform-hiding features. System calls is the enemy of portability. DirectX is still a pain in the ass, though the attractivity of making OS X ports makes OpenGL more familiar to developers.
If there is a working DirectX state tracker, combined with a reimplementation of the Windows API like Wine, you have fully native Windows binary games. All the slowness in Wine today comes from reinterpreting DirectX into OpenGL.
A more recent example, I played recently Wolf Among Us straight from the Telltales install files from their official website and it ran flawlessly on WINE too. I was quite impressed.
"My take is the devs doing these ports just aren't doing their best to optimize these releases for Linux and/or OpenGL."
Pretty much. Platforms with 1% of a user base don't get priority over one with 90%. Especially when a significant number of those 1% users also have access to the 90% platform.
Linux is only remotely worth it if you're a small indie and want to get into humble bundle. Aside from that there is no financial incentive to support Linux. Lots of devs jumped on the linux train due to the promise of SteamOS but those efforts appear to have been largely wasted.
Oh they're totally wasted. And the longer it takes the OS to come out, assuming it ever does and I'm doubtful it will, the more effort is wasted. There are games coming out today that had Linux support added just because of the hope of SteamOS. That effort is totally wasted. And it's wasted even if SteamOS comes out and is wildly successful in a couple of years.
SteamOS was officially announced Sept 2013. But it was well known in the dev community that Valve was working on Linux things for at least a year longer. I know games that placed Linux bets back in 2012. Those bets were lost.
Well, when you make bets based on conjecture, you lose bets. It's a practice more commonly known as speculating. I don't see how that particular scenario is the fault of anyone besides the people who bet on being able to capitalize on an unannounced platform.
Sure. Of course. Devs knew a risk, rolled the dice, and lost. No one is saying that's unfair. No one is even complaining. That doesn't change the fact that spending time on Linux has thus far proven to be wasted effort and, in most if not all cases, a net loss.
Some games have, and remember that purchases of legacy games are negligible to publishers. I think 90% of sales are in the first two weeks or some similar extreme statistic.
So I am like the school yard reject here. I own most of the games on the port report list, I run a 7870 on radeonSI, and I have a pretty good experience overall. Framerates are of course not there, but I buy the hardware hoping that AMD will get there eventually. Only way to do so if someone generating market pressure for it to happen.
The thing is, Valve is fucking up SteamOS royally. If they hadn't messed up, they would have had strict requirements on games entering the system, and spent real money paying developers to port in advance of the OS launch, and they would have actually been ready to launch it when they said they would. You know, around now.
All those small form factor PCs now shipping Windows that were meant to be Steamboxes are a testament to Valve screwing the pooch. And it is entirely their fault for not being ready, like they could just say "hey, were making a controller and porting our games to SDL2, everyone else you're on your own" and then drop the ball on the controller and still not have Portal 2 out of beta on Linux. Great leading by example there. That, and SteamOS proper is just a cobbled together mutant of Debian, rather than a proper OS - seriously, why the fuck is Gnome on it? That is pre alpha software for a console OS release, where all that should be on the image is a kernel, some drivers, a display server (preferrably Wayland), the Steam runtime, Steam itself, and fuck all else because its for consoles and console users are only going to run Steam on it, especially when it has a browser and all the other dodads like voice chat and music playing they have integrated.
So yeah, the article is mostly right - Valve used it as a ruse to get Microsoft to cooperate on promises about future releases easing off the Windows store. They probably got what they wanted, and SteamOS will become Episode 3 or HL 3 vaporware for years.
Should we really be hoping for Linux gaming? If anything, we should hope for non-windows gaming, if that is what we are after (saving on licenses etc). It feels like a lot of what's holding Linux gaming back is inherent to Linux (fragmentation for example), as well as layered security.
I'm no expert, and maybe it's been tried, but wouldn't it be easier to compete with windows using a platform with less security (faster driver model)? That is, a boot-to-gaming console OS for x86? It would run som form of modified Linux kernel or other free OS, but it wouldn't be "desktop Linux" with X11, kde/gnome etc. I still don't believe in seeing AAA titles all launch for Linux, at least not while hardware vendors struggle to keep drivers working on windows (and barely succeed).
Steam on Linux is only sanctioned to work on Ubuntu. There is no fragmentation in Steam on Linux. Any other OS that is distributing Steam is doing so at their own risk.
> It would run som form of modified Linux kernel or other free OS, but it wouldn't be "desktop Linux" with X11, kde/gnome etc.
Well, one, you need some kind of display server. Android, Windows, and even the consoles have one. Wayland is replacing X11 because its a slow bloated piece of shit, but even then if you wanted a "gaming OS" you would end up using Linux kernel + drivers + Wayland + EGL instead.
And that is fine, its a full software stack with nothing else tacked on.
And I honestly have no idea why Valve includes Gnome on the release images of SteamOS. Nothing stops you from having X just run Steam directly, with no other programs or desktops or anything. You can already do that yourself.
SteamOS is essentially just a layer on top of Debian. It has Steam installed and some drivers, but underneath it's just Linux. OP is talking about about something that is more dedicated to games. It could be a modified Linux or something from scratch, but it wouldn't just be a layer on top of something else.
Anecdotally: I have a 7-8 year old CPU (Q6600) with a 4 year old GPU (GTX 460 SE). I'm running Tropico 5, Civ 5, CS:GO, XCom, TF2 - all great. The only game I've had even slight problems with is Borderlands 2 and I'd probably have needed to turn down the settings in Windows anyway.
The problem here isn't SteamOS, it's AMD and their crappy drivers. If you're on Nvidia, everything is good. This isn't exactly a new phenomenon either, I've bought only Nvidia for the last 8 years specifically because this is a known issue on Linux.
I think witcher2 is a good example of how good gaming can be on linux, I had very good frame rates and the game looks amazing. I was playing this with an nvidia card using nvidia drivers. But as the article points out, we are at the mercy of the developers supporting OpenGl which there is apparently not a large motivation to do so.
Exactly, when the port is good quality then people get a good experience.
I can tell the same about Blizzard games on OSX or Civilization V on Linux. I also still remember about America's Army a decade ago was also a great port which afaik as done by Ryan "icculus" Gordon. Usually these people have a lot of experience porting Windows games to Linux/OSX.
The Witcher 2 port is a proprietary WIne like wrapper around DirectX that reinterprets it into OpenGL. The Linux performance of Witcher 2 is abyssal, usually half or worse the framerate on Windows.
Even if you account for Valve Time, Steam OS seems completely dead, after Valve got what they wanted from MS. And I have a hard time believing a for-profit company would invest in development of an open product just because "open and libre is better for people than closed". Companies don't exist to make the lives of people good.
quote from article:
"Let's be honest, SteamOS is done. Steam got exactly what they wanted from Microsoft and dropped it like a hot potato (so sorry, you'll never get to use that cool controller).
<...>
Hell, they're probably begging them to let them advertise their Geek Squad services to "optimize" the experience and install that $5 program for $100. But no, the Microsoft Experience is inviolate, the holiest of holies, eternally immutable. No matter how much hatred it gets, it Must. Not. Be. Changed .
And then Alienware ships a Windows 8 PC that boots to Steam instead of Metro."
Distribution outside the Windows Store. There were rumours that the only way to distribute software would be through the Windows Store and Steam wouldn't be allowed at all.
That was not so much a problem in Windows 8 as it was Windows 8 being a foreshadowing of things to come. That still has not changed, unless Valve has done back room negotiations with MS to guarantee their continued functioning despite whatever circus Microsoft puts future versions of Windows though.
Valve wants to commoditize the OS market, so that the barrier to getting games working is lower. At the moment, all there is is windows and linux. Windows is bad for valve, as they lose control, and linux is bad as it has a higher technical barrier of entry.
Valve needs a third way which "just works" - windows can't provide this, as it's closed source, but a stable linux distribution, with a low technical entry barrier might.
> but a stable linux distribution, with a low technical entry barrier might.
Also known as pretty much any consumer Linux distro preinstalled on a computer.
I have clients who have had Ubuntu running flawlessly for over five years. Whenever a new LTS comes around it gives a popup notification and shows up in the software options to upgrade, and they do so whenever they get around to it. They have five years of security updates coming in automatically anyway, no reason to worry about that.
If you do not want to get into the guts, you do not have to, unless you start out there by trying to install an OS by hand. And even in that use case, assuming you properly research your hardware support, Linux is a much more friendly experience to install and get running than buying a Windows CD and trying to install it, and then get the system into a usable state.
The answer is not complicated - preinstalls. Machines running Linux, probably Ubuntu, in stores, in front of your grandmother. If she buys it (and even Unity is much easier to understand than The Windows 8 Start Menu) then she should expect it to work out of the box fine forever, updating itself in the background, with the default programs providing 99% of her needs. And that is what happens now assuming you buy from a Linux boutique like System76, Zareason, Thinkpenguin, or the redistributors of Dells / HP notebooks or Llenovo stuff in Germany and other countries that mandate an OS choice option.
Yeah, Windows OEMs have been allowed to do pretty much whatever the hell they've wanted with the OS since before the dawn of time. Heck, does anyone remember the Packard Bell Navigator? This is old hat.
Anecdotal flipside: Saw Max Payne on Steam and thought I'd relive some of my childhood. Bought it, downloaded it and found it was ni-on impossible to install on windows 7.
Linux + wine and it worked flawlessly and first time.
The major breakthrough should be coming with OpenGL-next. Until that time the situation will be quirky. I wonder how long it will take to draft it though.
They must have learned from the previous experience by this time. Plus there are more players this time who actively want to make it right. It's surprising that it didn't happen before, but I guess there simply wasn't enough initiative.
> driver situation
Completely anecdotal:
I remember a few years back, when I was much younger trying to get drivers working for XOrg and compiz. I couldn't even manage a smooth GLGears. I botched my installation multiple times with no indication of how to fix it.
Fast forward a few years and we have open source drivers that actually work. Install Ubuntu, compiz works. Lovely, now maybe I see what the game situation is like. I dig through the app store and find that game with the Tux luge. 2FPS. So I dig around in settings and find the option to install the "non-free" drivers. Install them and I get my buttery-smooth 60FPS, I will continue to get harassed about that fact that I'm scum who installs closed-source software for the foreseeable future, by the OS. I can live with that.
So how would a 14 year old wanting to play games on Linux see this? Firstly, he'd install a game such as Borderlands and try it out. He hits a wall with dreadful framerate. One of two things, he goes back to a pirated copy of Windows (most likely) or somehow finds out he needs the vendor kernel module:
He pulls down the compiler tools, which could take up to an hour in 3rd world countries (first-hand experience). He then goes through the process of changing the init level to 2, compiling the driver shim and installing it. He then reboots his PC and XOrg crashes. Back to Windows or...
He discovers the Ubuntu automatic installer. Excellent! Just a few clicks and... "non-free?" Does this mean I have to pay for it? Will I need my parents' credit card? Why is there a warning sign? Am I doing something wrong? Could this damage my hardware?
Let's say he figures it all out and wants to play some MP3s while he games...
It's friction the whole way. This is a very severe case of getting your message mixed up with extremism. The situation of people using Linux is always better than the situation of them using something like Windows, even if they do have to use some non-free components to do so.
You can't change the world overnight, baby steps.
/rant