Now
I am no
guru, but I know a couple things about
Linux and I also know a thing or two about
games. I am a devout Linux (
Jeffmagnus: just pretend I said
GNU/Linux, OK?) user, and have been for a few years. I use Linux for just about everything I do, from software development to word processing, etc... But I still have to have
Windows installed. Please don't get me wrong, this is not an anti-
Microsoft rant, I don't
hate MS, per se, I just don't
care about Windows. The
reason I have to keep Windows around: I like to play a
video game here and there. Games just aren't made for Linux.
I don't know quite why, exactly. I have theories; I know a little bit about programming, and the first thing I think of in this regard is 3D support. I am not a kernel expert, but I understand that OpenGL must go through many more software layers to talk to the video card in Linux than in Windows. This leads me to my next thought, in that maybe there needs to be some kind of DirectX-ish standard in Linux, not only for faster video when doing 3D accelleration, but for stuff like DirectInput, which is (I believe) a standard API that a programmer can use which is driver-independent. From my humble understanding, if you want to use a device other than keyboard and mouse to play a game in Linux, the support for that specific device needs to be coded into the game.
This brings up a question in my mind: Does the open source community have the ability to create standard API's fast enough to make Linux a player in the Game Market? Or will lack of standards be Linux's downfall like the Microsoft people say?