linux, wine, configuring emulators and ranting

[nonewmsgs]

i remember how easy it was to configure emulators back in windows. ever emulater (except mame) had nifty menus and snes9x's was exception. now i moved to linux and things seem harder. not just new operating systems harder, but searching for drivers harder. and worse even the old programs that i love like snes9x instead of being all pretty and ready to work upon downloading, are now clumsy. sure sure i have snes9xexpress that makes things bareable (gsnes9x wont even start snes9x for me), but it's difficult. i spent days working on my gamepad button problem before i realized that for some reason the front end isnt properly sending that switch. and now they all just give 11fps.

there is still zsnes. it has a menu (yay!). i gave up on it trying to read my analog sticks but i can deal with the digital directional pad that i did manage to start working, but the sound ohhh the sound. the sound is wretched. i turned off my powered speakers and disabled the sound in the emulator and it was still there! it was like a scene from a horror movie.

vba. heh. it has an alright frontend, and well the sound is good and it reads my joystick (thats the first 2 for 2) but it wont full screen. sure sure there is an option for that, BUT it makes it some resolution beyond my moniter's 1280x1024 making my moniter turn blank and give an error. but there are screen multiples that also dont work. i even messed around with their config file and still nothing fixed. additionally there is no reference towards any of the resolutions.

now i dont want to go back to windows, so i wonder if i can installl that directX for wine which is all directxwine.sourceforge.net/ now im not sure even how to compile and run that rather strange extension .dfff (although it looks like C so im hoping that a few commands will fly by and it'll work), but it'll most likely take a couple days. then hopefully the emulators will work like they always have. anyone have any experience with this? and why does it seem like everything is harder in linux?

[SunnyRabbiera]

The SNES emulation is shaky, but I personally have had a moderate experience with it.
Wine is improving, each day it gets better and better with the passage of time.
Really no OS is easy, even windows is a learning curve.

[izanbardprince]

WINE will pretty much always be in beta as long as Microsoft keeps changing the Win32 API.

As for Windows having a learning curve, it doesn't havemuch of one, at least not the kind that an average Linux distribution does, I mean I've set up Ubuntu for others before and given them a crash course in how to use it, but with modern operating systems, dropping to the command line to install video drivers shouldn't even be an issue, people like buying OEM systems because the drivers are there, you plug things in and they work, and while Ubuntu has made Linux a lot less of a pain in the butt to use, it's far from perfection.

I use Ubuntu mainly because there's no way this hardware would run Windows Vista very well, and I kind of like getting my hands dirty, most people don't though.

[nonewmsgs]

see i was rambling on and on and my point didnt come across
it is a learning curve, but i LOVE ubuntu and am willing to do it even though...
- it sucks that hardware companies dont treat linux users properly in general
i am really changing the way i see companies. i have already changed my videocard and webcam as well as bought a new wireless card, because it functions better with my future on the computers (linux).
- it seems like even some of the opensource, free companies who have multiple versions seem to make their windows versions with a better interface and less bugs than the corresponding linux version. im a little bit of a programmer myself so i know that it's completely different BUT STILL!!! the bugs ought to be different not just more and less and i think that more programs should have interfaces. just because im a linux does not mean i want to type 4 lines of switches and options with long paths where one typo means an error.
- i like wine. it handles a lot of the programs that there are no linux equivilants of , so i was thinking of doing the directX thing with it to try the windows port of the emulators.

i hate vista. there are no great improvements. aero doesnt impress me that much and that's about it. security - but for who? i have seen articles describing that they are purposely making dvd playback less clear, and more DRM (digital restrictions management), and their EULA says that m$ can look at your computer and delete anything that they consider "a threat". it's draconian ideals are not what i would ever want from an operating system and i will not buy another office/windows again. i would buy an age of empires or flight simulator, but thats it.

again i love ubuntu. i am linux for life. as i said before i have tried linux every few years and it has really come a long way. originally it was just frustrating. now it is set up wonderfully. the visual add/remove, synaptic, and automatrix have really revolutionalized the package system. now what i would like to see is more guis from installation to using and i would like to be able to double click something i download like a tarball and have it install too. ohhh that would be the sweetest.

hope this clarifies it, mates.