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Browsers for Windows XP


Aureole

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Id say its a directx versus opengl GTK thing IMO.

 

Apart from that guess, I think its also about "fonts". I use verdana a lot, and I dont think this comes as default on linux (maybe it does).

 

I don't use any opengl rendering at all, due to my unwillingness to use non-free software and drivers. And since ATI refuses to help with the free drivers, opengl is rather cumbersome and even ugly. :) And I'm fairly sure that Windows doesn't use DX to display simple web pages, but I could very well be wrong.

 

As you suggest, though, there are differences - if I were to venture a guess, I'd say it has something to do with whatever implementation of X (xorg, xfree86) is in use on the *nix computer and whatever windows uses for its window system.

 

And the fonts, as do so many other things, depend on your distribution. In Ubuntu, you have to enable the Universe repositories to get <tt>msttcorefonts</tt>, but it's not impossible or even difficult. In gentoo, it's as simple as running `emerge corefonts`. And while they are technically non-free, I have no qualms about using them, since any modification you make to a font effectively makes it a different font.

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I don't use any opengl rendering at all, due to my unwillingness to use non-free software and drivers.
I thought OpenGL was free open-source software that anyone can use on any operating system?
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As you suggest, though, there are differences - if I were to venture a guess, I'd say it has something to do with whatever implementation of X (xorg, xfree86) is in use on the *nix computer and whatever windows uses for its window system.

 

Thats the terminology I was originally trying to think of.

 

Azu - yes it is opensource software that will run on any operating system. Its the hardware support thats the issue. ATI wont release specs, so ppl have to try and reverse engineer whats going on, in order to get OpenGL working on their hardware.

 

-steve

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Doesn't it also work on nvidia?

 

OpenGL works on any video card that a) has enough hardware power to handle the calculations required by OpenGL, and b) has a driver for your operating system that can take advantage of that hardware power. However, I only have a laptop, and the video card is built into the motherboard, so I'm up a creek without a paddle. :/

 

The moral of the story: Buy nVidia if you plan to use a unix-based operating system - their free drivers are excellent, and their non-free drivers are even better. ATI also releases a non-free driver, but it's nowhere near the quality of the nvidia drivers.

 

And when I say "free", think of free speech and freedom, not free beer.

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Hmm. Well I'm pretty sure that OpenGL is free open-source software that anyone can use on any operating system, and DirectX is closed-source proprietary software that isn't free and can only be ran on a single operating system.

 

So in my opinion the choice is rather obvious.

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Hmm. Well I'm pretty sure that OpenGL is free open-source software that anyone can use on any operating system, and DirectX is closed-source proprietary software that isn't free and can only be ran on a single operating system.

 

So in my opinion the choice is rather obvious.

 

Oh, definitely - I won't argue with a single bit of that. But when you use a non-Windows operating system, (as I do :)) you don't really have the choice to use DirectX, unless you use the DX implementation provided by Wine, which is pretty sketchy. And it goes the other way as well - if you're using an application that only supports DirectX, you have no choice but to use DirectX.

 

Now I'm curious, though, how did we get into a discussion of which rendering system is preferable? :)

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Is there any operating systems that only support DirectX? I wasn't aware of any such.. =S

 

And I got into the discussion by replying to somebody saying why they didn't like OpenGL, I think.. not really sure now lol.

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