[yankeeDDL]

My preference is for an open-source alternative at Flash: HTML5.

http://www.sdtimes.com/GOOGLEBETSONHTML5/AboutGOOGLEandHTMLandJAVA/33508

If anyone cares, my concerns are xplained pretty well by this guy here: http://trombonechamp...duck-and-cover/

I saw somewhere that Flash is now on ~95% of websites (seems too much: there might have been some disclaimer to that number but I can't find the page). Whatever the number is, it's a high one and it's scary that the fate (or the security) of so many websites is in the hand of one company. Same would happen if/when Silverlight gains traction.

By the way, Flash 10 (~May 2008) already supports GPU acceleration. Even on Linux. http://blogs.adobe.c...f/2008/05/flashusesthe_gpu.html

[swccman]

Nteflix and some of the one more exciting VOD sites (read porn) require silverlight. To me that alone makes silverlight almost worth the burden. I just had my first real WIndoze brain fart after a the honeymoon with VU64, but ah, the luxuries of just those few thigs, WMC, the really great sound drivers and video drivers. Makes life difficult.

[yankeeDDL]

Swccman,

you're right. There's a petition to get Netflix to support other systems, but today if you don't have Windows you have a disadvantage with respect to Netflix. There's no doubt.
And I understand it: as a business, you have to start somewhere and I guess you can target the broadest audience first.

To me though, this is only yet anothe reason to push for cross-platform standards (like HTML5) which can be easily and equally supported on any OS and require only 1-type effort from the vendor(s).

I haven't tried Netflix on Linux yet. If you need Windows only for Netflix (meaning, if you can do everything else on Linux) there is one easy alternative: you can install Windows in a Virtualbox and be done with it.
I did that when I moved to Linux 'cause I was worried that I would have needed several Window features that were not supported by Linux (dualboot is also an option but it's less practical). It took me, literally, 1 week to find all the software I needed to do what I use my PC for, on Linux.

This said, I found it odd that Netflix does not support Linux yet given that their set-top PVR runs Linux (http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS8633598605.html). Anyway, we'll see what time brings us.

[rasmasyean]

Netflix is not about supporting Linux or Windows. It's about supporting Silverlight and not Flash. If Linux gets off their ashes and supports Silverlight...then...er...Silverlight 3.0 will prolly be standard and they will still be behind!
Flash is not on "95% of websites". It's installed on 95% of internet enabled computers.
www.riastats.com/#
The main claim to fame is prolly because of YouTube, which gave it the momentum of its lifetime...not to mention the fact that it got bundled with Internet Explorer somewhere along the way which helped already get them to 95% of installation (or near it).

[swccman]

@yankeeDDL...

Were it not for the comprehensive and really good set of drivers for audio especially, I would probably drop VU64, at this point, the honeymoon is over, once in a while video goes blank, and I really miss tailing or viewing the message log to find out wtf i s going on. Netflix will go where the money is, and coincidentally, WMC brought up a Netflix hook, really nice. My feeling is that as long and M$ can pay, the people they pay will shy aways from open source. The real problem is that M$ has become a standard, and not a great one. Unfortunately the open source companies do not have the money to buy vendors..I shudder every time I see a web page with the .aspx fiile type. I don't think apache is servng up those pages.



Windows is a cool bells and whistles OS, but at the kernwl level, for those of us that learned to SOC7 data dumps back in the day may have other feelings. I am begininning to feel as a home user, the less I know about what is going on, the less I like it.. This new video error really concerns me. I know how to play with the Nvidia control panel, but xorg.conf and the Linux Nvidia driver seem to be more stable, at least it never mysteriously blanked outI never had them go dark for no reason, well, I know the reason is one app stepping on the memory of another app, a sign of less than good process control. At work we had a team of people to maintain desktops, at home, my ex used to tinker of reinstall. I never had to do that with a Linux desktop. There is a certain peace in having control.



The thing that really bothers me, is that I really have no conrol over process or applications, I know windows rtask mamager, but I queston the amount of control I really have, if one app is stepping on another app or service's memory. Still, my internet grocery store only works under IE, and although I do enjoy tilting wndmills, I feel as though eventually, given enough time. Sadly, this is becoming a standard. In my home state, Massachusetts, the state has migrate to the Open Document Format. The thing that bothers me the most is that I know this OS (VU 64) is basically wrong, and a stifler of innovation through money M$ has influenced many standards in their favor. Perhaps what bothers me most is my own complicity to these standards.



By the way, it 's not just Netflix, it's also my favorite porn site...

[rasmasyean]

Huh??? Are you saying that MS pays "vendors" to use their aspx and Windows products? That sounds like what you are saying. How is MS (or any businesss) going to make money by paying ppl to use thier products. FYI, windows products and aspx products that "vendors" use are the most expensive software you can get in their class usually. They don't "get paid" to use MS stuff. They pay A LOT to use it! That's what liscensing means.

[clsgis]

"Those who do not understand unix are doomed to reinvent it, poorly." -- Henry "utzoo" Spencer
"Windows NT will be a better unix than UNIX!" -- Bill Gates, 1989 or so