[extropy-chat] SECOND LIFE not working

[BillK]

On 12/9/06, Robert Bradbury wrote:
>
> Conclusion:
> 1) SL as distributed can only work under Linux for people who are either (a)
> lucky or (b) really know what they are doing and want to spend the time to
> make it work.
> 2) Linden Labs has little or no interest in active support for Linux users.
> [1].
>
> If you look at the documentation [2] you will see that it requires a Cable
> or DSL internet connection is only supposed to run on high end nVidia
> GeForce or ATI Radeon graphics cards.  So that excludes dialup users and
> users with any older hardware or "common" systems (from HP, DELL, IBM, etc.
> which do not have "fancy" 3D graphics capabilities).  This gives rise to
> people's comments that Second Life is an adventure only for "Uber Geeks from
> Mars" [3].
>

Yup. When I saw the system requirements and the lack of Linux support,
I didn't even bother trying the Linux alpha version. Even if you
eventually managed to get into SL, it could crash at any time.

SL and Linden labs are a business. In common with many computer
businesses they don't spend their money on Linux development and
support because
a) There aren't enough Linux users to pay back their costs. Linux
gamers are even rarer.
b) Linux users are notorious cheapskates. They don't like paying for
*any* software.  ;)
c) Windows users are trained to pay through the nose for everything,
so obviously businesses go for the low-hanging fruit.


BillK