p2pnet - rss feed: Cost analysis of Vista DRM
p2pnet.net News:- DRM = Digital Restrictions Management = Consumer Control and the Vista Content Protection specification, “could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history,” believes computer scientist / writer Peter Gutmann.
Below, he breaks his thoughts down. In detail.
A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection
By Peter Gutmann, last updated 22 December 2006
Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called “premium content”, typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all ardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it’s not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista’s content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry.
Executive Summary
The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history.
Introduction
This document looks purely at the cost of the technical portions of Vista’s content protection. The political issues (under the heading of DRM) have been examined in exhaustive detail elsewhere and won’t be commented on further, unless it’s relevant to the cost analysis. However, one important point that must be kept in mind when reading this document is that in order to work, Vista’s content protection must be able to violate the laws of physics, something that’s unlikely to happen no matter how much the content industry wishes it were possible. This conundrum is displayed over and over again in the Windows content-protection specs, with manufacturers being given no hard-and-fast guidelines but instead being instructed that they need to display as much dedication as possible to the party line. The documentation is peppered with sentences like:
It is recommended that a graphics manufacturer go beyond the strict letter of the specification and provide additional content-protection features because this demonstrates their strong intent to protect premium content”
This is an exceedingly strange way to write technical specifications, but is dictated by the fact that what the spec is trying to achieve is fundamentally impossible. Readers should keep this requirement to display appropriate levels of dedication in mind when reading the following analysis [Note A].
Disabling of Functionality
Vista’s content protection mechanism only allows protected content to be sent over interfaces that also have content-protection facilities built in. Currently the most common high-end audio output interface is S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format). Most newer audio cards, for example, feature TOSlink digital optical output for high-quality sound reproduction, and even the latest crop of motherboards with integrated audio provide at least coax (and often optical) digital output. Since S/PDIF doesn’t provide any content protection, Vista requires that it be disabled when playing protected content. In other words if you’ve invested a pile of money into a high-end audio setup fed from a digital output, you won’t be able to use it with protected content. Similarly, component (YPbPr) video will be disabled by Vista’s content protection, so the same applies to a high-end video setup fed from component video.
Indirect Disabling of Functionality
As well as overt disabling of functionality, there’s also covert disabling of functionality. For example PC voice communications rely on automatic echo cancellation (AEC) in order to work. AEC requires feeding back a sample of the audio mix into the echo cancellation subsystem, but with Vista’s content protection this isn’t permitted any more because this might allow access to premium content. What is permitted is a highly-degraded form of feedback that might possibly still sort-of be enough for some sort of minimal echo cancellation purposes.
The requirement to disable audio and video output plays havoc with standard system operations, because the security policy used is a so-called “system high” policy: The overall sensitivity level is that of the most sensitive data present in the system. So the instant any audio derived from premium content appears on your system, signal degradation and disabling of outputs will occur. What makes this particularly entertaining is the fact that the downgrading/disabling is dynamic, so if the premium-content signal is intermittent or varies (for example music that fades out), various outputs and output quality will fade in and out, or turn on and off, in sync. Normally this behaviour would be a trigger for reinstalling device drivers or even a warranty return of the affected hardware, but in this case it’s just a signal that everything is functioning as intended.
Decreased Playback Quality
Alongside the all-or-nothing approach of disabling output, Vista requires that any interface that provides high-quality output degrade the signal quality that passes through it. This is done through a “constrictor” that downgrades the signal to a much lower-quality one, then up-scales it again back to the original spec, but with a significant loss in quality. So if you’re using an expensive new LCD display fed from a high-quality DVI signal on your video card and there’s protected content present, the picture you’re going to see will be, as the spec puts it, “slightly fuzzy”, a bit like a 10-year-old CRT monitor that you picked up for $2 at a yard sale. In fact the spec specifically still allows for old VGA analog outputs, but even that’s only because disallowing them would upset too many existing owners of analog monitors. In the future even analog VGA output will probably have to be disabled. The only thing that seems to be explicitly allowed is the extremely low-quality TV-out, provided that Macrovision is applied to it.
The same deliberate degrading of playback quality applies to audio, with the audio being downgraded to sound (from the spec) “fuzzy with less detail”.
Amusingly, the Vista content protection docs say that it’ll be left to graphics chip manufacturers to differentiate their product based on (deliberately degraded) video quality. This seems a bit like breaking the legs of Olympic athletes and then rating them based on how fast they can hobble on crutches.
Beyond the obvious playback-quality implications of deliberately degraded output, this measure can have serious repercussions in applications where high-quality reproduction of content is vital. For example the field of medical imaging either bans outright or strongly frowns on any form of lossy compression because artifacts introduced by the compression process can cause mis-diagnoses and in extreme cases even become life-threatening. Consider a medical IT worker who’s using a medical imaging PC while listening to audio/video played back by the computer (the CDROM drives installed in workplace PCs inevitably spend most of their working lives playing music or MP3 CDs to drown out workplace noise). If there’s any premium content present in there, the image will be subtly altered by Vista’s content protection, potentially creating exactly the life-threatening situation that the medical industry has worked so hard to avoid. The scary thing is that there’s no easy way around this - Vista will silently modify displayed content under certain (almost impossible-to-predict in advance) situations discernable only to Vista’s built-in content-protection subsystem.
Elimination of Open-source Hardware Support
In order to prevent the creation of hardware emulators of protected output devices, Vista requires a Hardware Functionality Scan (HFS) that can be used to uniquely fingerprint a hardware device to ensure that it’s (probably) genuine. In order to do this, the driver on the host PC performs an operation in the hardware (for example rendering 3D content in a graphics card) that produces a result that’s unique to that device type.
In order for this to work, the spec requires that the operational details of the device be kept confidential. Obviously anyone who knows enough about the workings of a device to operate it and to write a third-party driver for it (for example one for an open-source OS, or in general just any non-Windows OS) will also know enough to fake the HFS process. The only way to protect the HFS process therefore is to not release any technical details on the device beyond a minimum required for web site reviews and comparison with other products.
Elimination of Unified Drivers
The HFS process has another cost involved with it. Most hardware vendors have (thankfully) moved to unified driver models instead of the plethora of individual drivers that abounded some years ago. Since HFS requires unique identification and handling of not just each device type (for example each graphics chip) but each variant of each device type (for example each stepping of each graphics chip) to handle the situation where a problem is found with one variation of a device, it’s no longer possible to create one-size-fits-all drivers for an entire range of devices like the current Catalyst/Detonator/ForceWare drivers. Every little variation of every device type out there must now be individually accommodated in custom code in order for the HFS process to be fully effective.
If a graphics chip is integrated directly into the motherboard and there’s no easy access to the device bus then the need for bus encryption (see “Unnecessary CPU Resource Consumption” below) is removed. Because the encryption requirement is so onerous, it’s quite possible that this means of providing graphics capabilities will suddenly become more popular after the release of Vista. However, this leads to a problem: It’s no longer possible to tell if a graphics chip is situated on a plug-in card or attached to the motherboard, since as far as the system is concerned they’re both just devices sitting on the AGP/PCIe bus. The solution to this problem is to make the two deliberately incompatible, so that HFS can detect a chip on a plug-in card vs. one on the motherboard. Again, this does nothing more than increase costs and driver complexity.
Further problems occur with audio drivers. To the system, HDMI audio looks like S/PDIF, a deliberate design decision to make handling of drivers easier. In order to provide the ability to disable output, it’s necessary to make HDMI codecs deliberately incompatible with S/PDIF codecs, despite the fact that they were specifically designed to appear identical in order to ease driver support and reduce development costs.
Denial-of-Service via Driver Revocation
Once a weakness is found in a particular driver or device, that driver will have its signature revoked by Microsoft, which means that it will cease to function (details on this are a bit vague here, presumably some minimum functionality like generic 640×480 VGA support will still be available in order for the system to boot). This means that a report of a compromise of a particular driver or device will cause all support for that device worldwide to be turned off until a fix can be found. Again, details are sketchy, but if it’s a device problem then presumably the device turns into a paperweight once it’s revoked. If it’s an older device for which the vendor isn’t interested in rewriting their drivers (and in the fast-moving hardware market most devices enter “legacy” status within a year of two of their replacement models becoming available), all devices of that type worldwide become permanently unusable.
The threat of driver revocation is the ultimate nuclear option, the crack of the commissars’ pistols reminding the faithful of their duty [Note B]. The exact details of the hammer that vendors will be hit with is buried in confidential licensing agreements, but I’ve heard mention of multimillion dollar fines and embargoes on further shipment of devices alongside the driver revocation mentioned above.
Decreased System Reliability
Vista’s content protection requires that devices (hardware and software drivers) set so-called “tilt bits” if they detect anything unusual. For example if there are unusual voltage fluctuations, maybe some jitter on bus signals, a slightly funny return code from a function call, a device register that doesn’t contain quite the value that was expected, or anything similar, a tilt bit gets set. Such occurrences aren’t too uncommon in a typical computer (for example starting up or plugging in a bus-powered device may cause a small glitch in power supply voltages, or drivers may not quite manage device state as precisely as they think). Previously this was no problem - the system was designed with a bit of resilience, and things will function as normal. In other words small variances in performance are a normal part of system
functioning. Furthermore, the degree of variance can differ widely across systems, with some handling large changes in system parameters and others only small ones. One very obvious way to observe this is what happens when a bunch of PCs get hit by a momentary power outage. Effects will vary from powering down, to various types of crash, to nothing at all, all triggered by exactly the same external event.
With the introduction of tilt bits, all of this designed-in resilience is gone. Every little (normally unnoticeable) glitch is suddenly surfaced because it could be a sign of a hack attack. The effect that this will have on system reliability should require no further explanation.
Content-protection “features” like tilt bits also have worrying denial-of-service (DoS) implications. It’s probably a good thing that modern malware is created by programmers with the commercial interests of the phishing and spam industries in mind rather than just creating as much havoc as possible. With the number of easily-accessible grenade pins that Vista’s content protection provides, any piece of malware that decides to pull a few of them will cause considerable damage. The homeland security implications of this seem quite serious, since a tiny, easily-hidden piece of malware would be enough to render a machine unusable, while the very nature of Vista’s content protection would make it almost impossible to determine why the denial-of-service is occurring. Furthermore, the malware authors, who are taking advantage of “content-protection” features, would be protected by the DMCA against any attempts to reverse-engineer or disable the content-protection “features” that they’re abusing.
Even without deliberate abuse by malware, the homeland security implications of an external agent being empowered to turn off your IT infrastructure in response to a content leak discovered in some chipset that you coincidentally happen to be using is a serious concern for potential Vista users. Non-US governments are already nervous enough about using a US-supplied operating system without having this remote DoS capability built into the operating system. And like the medical-image-degradation issue, you won’t find out about this until it’s too late, turning Vista PCs into ticking time bombs if the revocation functionality is ever employed.
Increased Hardware Costs
Vista includes various requirements for “robustness” in which the content industry, through “hardware robustness rules”, dictates design requirements to hardware manufacturers. For example, only certain layouts of a board are allowed in order to make it harder for outsiders to access parts of the board. Possibly for the first time ever, computer design is being dictated not by electronic design rules, physical layout requirements, and thermal issues, but by the wishes of the content industry. Apart from the massive headache that this poses to device manufacturers, it also imposes additional increased costs beyond the ones incurred simply by having to lay out board designs in a suboptimal manner. Video card manufacturers typically produce a one-size-fits-all design (often a minimally-altered copy of the chipset vendor’s reference design), and then populate different classes and price levels of cards in different ways. For example a low-end card will have low-cost, minimal or absent TV-out encoders, DVI circuitry, RAMDACs, and various other add-ons used to differentiate budget from premium video cards. You can see this on the cheaper cards by observing the unpopulated bond pads on circuit boards, and gamers and the like will be familiar with cut-a-trace/resolder-a-resistor sidegrades of video cards. Vista’s content-protection requirements eliminate this one-size-fits-all design, banning the use of separate TV-out encoders, DVI circuitry, RAMDACs, and other discretionary add-ons. Everything has to be custom-designed and laid out so that there are no unnecessary accessible signal links on the board. This means that a low-cost card isn’t just a high-cost card with components omitted, and conversely a high-cost card isn’t just a low-cost card with additional discretionary components added, each one has to be a completely custom design created to ensure that no signal on the board is accessible.
This extends beyond simple board design all the way down to chip design. Instead of adding an external DVI chip, it now has to be integrated into the graphics chip, along with any other functionality normally supplied by an external chip. So instead of varying video card cost based on optional components, the chipset vendor now has to integrate everything into a one-size-fits-all premium-featured graphics chip, even if all the user wants is a budget card for their kids’ PC.
Increased Cost due to Requirement to License Unnecessary Third-party IP
Protecting all of this precious premium content requires a lot of additional technology. Unfortunately much of this is owned by third parties and requires additional licensing. For example HDCP for HDMI is owned by Intel, so in order to send a signal over HDMI you have to pay royalties to Intel, even though you could do exactly the same thing for free over DVI. Similarly, since even AES-128 on a modern CPU isn’t fast enough to encrypt high-bandwidth content, companies are required to license the Intel-owned Cascaded Cipher, an AES-128-based transform that’s designed to offer a generally similar level of security but with less processing overhead.
The need to obtain unnecessary technology licenses extends beyond basic hardware IP. In order to demonstrate their commitment to the cause, Microsoft have recommended as part of their “robustness rules” that vendors license third-party code obfuscation tools to provide virus-like stealth capabilities for their device drivers in order to make it difficult to interfere with their operations or reverse-engineer them. Vendors like Cloakware and Arxan have actually added “robustness solutions” web pages to their sites in anticipation of this lucrative market. This must be a nightmare for device vendors, for whom it’s already enough of a task getting fully functional drivers deployed without having to deal with adding stealth-virus-like technology on top of the basic driver functionality.
Unnecessary CPU Resource Consumption
In order to prevent tampering with in-system communications, all communication flows have to be encrypted and/or authenticated. For example content to video cards has to be encrypted with AES-128. This requirement for cryptography extends beyond basic content encryption to encompass not just data flowing over various buses but also command and control data flowing between software components. For example communications between user-mode and kernel-mode components are authenticated with OMAC message authentication-code tags, at considerable cost to both ends of the connection.
In order to prevent active attacks, device drivers are required to poll the underlying hardware ever 30ms to ensure that everything appears kosher. This means that even with nothing else happening in the system, a mass of assorted drivers has to wake up thirty times a second just to ensure that… nothing continues to happen. In addition to this polling, further device-specific polling is also done, for example Vista polls video devices on each video frame displayed in order to check that all of the grenade pins (tilt bits) are still as they should be.
On-board graphics create an additional problem in that blocks of precious content will end up stored in system memory, from where they could be paged to disk. In order to avoid this, Vista tags such pages with a special protection bit indicating that they need to be encrypted before being paged out and decrypted again after being paged in. Vista doesn’t provide any other pagefile encryption, and will quite happily page banking PINs, credit card details, private, personal data, and other sensitive information, in plaintext. The content-protection requirements make it fairly clear that in Microsoft’s eyes a frame of premium content is worth more than (say) a user’s medical records or their banking PIN.
In addition to the CPU costs, the desire to render data inaccessible at any level means that video decompression can’t be done in the CPU any more, since there isn’t sufficient CPU power available to both decompress the video and encrypt the resulting uncompressed data stream to the video card. As a result, much of the decompression has to be integrated into the graphics chip. At a minimum this includes IDCT, MPEG motion compensation, and the Windows Media VC-1 codec. As a corollary to the “Increased Hardware Costs” problem above, this means that you can’t ship a low-end graphics chip without video codec support any more.
The inability to perform decoding in software also means that any premium-content compression scheme not supported by the graphics hardware can’t be implemented. If things like the Ogg video codec ever eventuate and get used for premium content, they had better be done using something like Windows Media VC-1 or they’ll be a non-starter under Vista or Vista-approved hardware. This is particularly troubling for the high-quality digital cinema (D-Cinema) specification, which uses Motion JPEG2000 (MJ2K) because standard MPEG and equivalents don’t provide sufficient image quality. Since JPEG2000 uses wavelet-based compression rather than MPEG’s DCT-based compression, and wavelet-based compression isn’t on the hardware codec list, it’s not possible to play back D-Cinema premium content. Because *all* D-Cinema content will (presumably) be premium content, the result is no playback at all until the hardware support appears in PCs at some indeterminate point in the future. Compare this to the situation with MPEG video, where early software codecs like the XingMPEG en/decoder practically created the market for PC video. Today, thanks to Vista’s content protection, the opening up of new markets in this manner would be impossible.
The high-end graphics and audio market are dominated entirely by gamers, who will do anything to gain the tiniest bit of extra performance, like buying Bigfoot Networks’ $250 “Killer NIC” ethernet card in the hope that it’ll help reduce their network latency by a few milliseconds. These are people buying $500-$1000 graphics and sound cards for which one single sale brings the device vendors more than the few cents they get from the video/audio portion of an entire roomful of integrated-graphics-and-sound PCs. I wonder how this market segment will react to knowing that their top-of-the-line hardware is being hamstrung by all of the content-protection “features” that Vista hogties it with?
Unnecessary Device Resource Consumption
As part of the bus-protection scheme, devices are required to implement AES-128 encryption in order to receive content from Vista. This has to be done via a hardware decryption engine on the graphics chip, which would typically be implemented by throwing away a rendering pipeline or two to make room for the AES engine.
Establishing the AES key with the device hardware requires further cryptographic overhead, in this case a 2048-bit Diffie-Hellman key exchange. In programmable devices this can be done (with considerable effort) in the device (for example in programmable shader hardware), or more simply by throwing out a few more rendering pipelines and implementing a public-key-cryptography engine in the freed-up space.
Needless to say, the need to develop, test, and integrate encryption engines into audio/video devices will only add to their cost, as covered in “Increased Hardware Costs” above, and the fact that their losing precious performance in order to accommodate Vista’s content protection will make gamers less than happy.
Final Thoughts
“No amount of coordination will be successful unless it’s designed with the needs of the customer in mind. Microsoft believes that a good user experience is a requirement for adoption” — Microsoft.
At the end of all this, the question remains: Why is Microsoft going to this much trouble? Ask most people what they picture when you use the term “premium media player” and they’ll respond with “A PVR” or “A DVD player” and not “A Windows PC”. So why go to this much effort to try and turn the PC into something that it’s not?
In July 2006, Cory Doctorow published an analysis of the anti-competitive nature of Apple’s iTunes copy-restriction system (”Apple’s Copy Protection Isn’t Just Bad For Consumers, It’s Bad For Business”, Cory Doctorow, Information Week, 31 July 2006). The only reason I can imagine why Microsoft would put its programmers, device vendors, third-party developers, and ultimately its customers, through this much pain is because once this copy protection is entrenched, Microsoft will completely own the distribution channel. In the same way that Apple has managed to acquire a monopolistic lock-in on their music distribution channel (an example being the Motorola ROKR fiasco, which was so crippled by Apple-imposed restrictions that it was dead the moment it appeared), so Microsoft will totally control the premium-content distribution channel. Not only will they be able to lock out any competitors, but because they will then represent the only available distribution channel they’ll be able to dictate terms back to the content providers whose needs they are nominally serving in the same way that Apple has already dictated terms back to the music industry: Play by Apple’s rules, or we won’t carry your content. The result will be a technologically enforced monopoly that makes their current de-facto Windows monopoly seem like a velvet glove in comparison.
Overall, Vista’s content-protection functionality seems like an astonishingly short-sighted piece of engineering, concentrating entirely on content protection with no consideration given to the enormous repercussions of the measures employed. It’s something like the PC equivalent of the (hastily dropped) proposal mooted in Europe to put RFID tags into high-value banknotes as an anti-counterfeiting measure, completely ignoring the fact that the major users of this technology would end up being criminals who would use it to remotely identify the most lucrative robbery targets.
The worst thing about all of this is that there’s no escape. Hardware manufacturers will have to drink the kool-aid (and the reference to mass suicide here is deliberate [Note C]) in order to work with Vista: “There is no requirement to sign the [content-protection] license; but without a certificate, no premium content will be passed to the driver”. Of course as a device manufacturer you can choose to opt out, if you don’t mind your device only ever being able to display low-quality, fuzzy, blurry video and audio when premium content is present, while your competitors don’t have this (artificially-created) problem.
As a user, there is simply no escape. Whether you use Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 95, Linux, FreeBSD, OS X, Solaris (on x86), or almost any other OS, Windows content protection will make your hardware more expensive, less reliable, more difficult to program for, more difficult to support, more vulnerable to hostile code, and with more compatibility problems.
Here’s an offer to Microsoft: If we, the consumers, promise to never, ever, ever buy a single HD-DVD or Blu-Ray disc containing any precious premium content [Note D], will you in exchange withhold this poison from the computer industry? Please?
Acknowledgements
This document was put together with input from various sources, including a number that requested that I keep their contributions anonymous (in some cases I’ve simplified or rewritten some details to ensure that the original, potentially traceable wording of non-public requirements docs isn’t used). Because it wasn’t always possible to go back to the sources and verify exact details, it’s possible that there may be some inaccuracies present, which I’m sure I’ll hear about fairly quickly. No doubt Microsoft (who won’t want a view of Vista as being broken by design to take root) will also provide their spin on the details.
In addition to the material present here, I’d be interested in getting further input both from people at Microsoft involved in implementing the content protection measures and from device vendors who are required to implement the hardware and driver software measures. I know from the Microsoft sources that contributed that many of them care deeply about providing the best possible audio/video user experience for Vista users and are quite distressed about having to spend time implementing large amounts of anti-functionality when it’s already hard enough to get things running smoothly without the intentional crippling. I’m always open to further input, and will keep all contributions confidential unless you give me permission to repeat something.
If you want to encrypt things, my PGP key is linked from my home page.
Footnotes
Note A: I’ll make a prediction at this point that, given that it’s trying to do the impossible, the Vista content protection will take less than a day to bypass if the bypass mechanism is something like a driver bug or a simple security hole that applies only to one piece of code (and can therefore be quickly patched), and less than a week to comprehensively bypass in a driver/hardware-independent manner. This doesn’t mean it’ll be broken the day or week that it appears, but simply that once a sufficiently skilled attacker is motivated to bypass the protection, it’ll take them less than a day or a week to do so.
Note B: I see some impressive class-action suits to follow if this revocation mechanism is ever applied. Perhaps Microsoft or the content providers will buy everyone who owns a device that inadvertently leaks content and is then disabled by the revocation process replacement hardware for their system. Some contributors have commented that they can’t see the revocation system ever being used because the consumer backlash would be too enormous, but then the legal backlash from not going ahead could be equally extreme. For anyone who’s read “Guns of August”, the situation seems a bit like pre-WWI Europe with people sitting on step 1 of enormously complex battle plans that can’t be backed out of once triggered, no matter how obvious it is that going ahead with them is a bad idea. Driver revocation is a lose/lose situation for Microsoft, they’re in for some serious pain whether they do or they don’t. Their lawyers must have been asleep when they let themselves get painted into this particular corner.
Note C: The “kool-aid” reference may be slightly unfamiliar to non-US readers, it’s a reference to the 1978 Jonestown mass-suicide in which Jim Jones’ followers drank Flavor Aid laced with poison in order to demonstrate their dedication to the cause. In popular usage the term “kool-aid” is substituted for Flavor Aid because it has more brand recognition.
Note D: If I do ever want to play back premium content, I’ll wait a few years and then buy a $50 Chinese-made set-top player to do it, not a $1000 Windows PC. It’s somewhat bizarre that I have to go to Communist China in order to find vendors who actually understand the consumer’s needs.
[Gutmann is a computer scientist-cum-photographer based in Auckland, New Zealand. He’s particularly interested in security architecture, security usability (or more precisely the lack thereof), and hardware security, and has written widely in those fields. He’s discovered assorted flaws in publicly released cryptosystems and protocols. He is the developer of the cryptlib open source software security library and contributed to PGP version 2. He’s also known for his analysis of data deletion on electronic memory media, magnetic and otherwise, and devised the Gutmann method for erasing data from a hard drive more or less securely. For more from the Wikipedia, click here. Also check out Gutmann’s old home page ;]
(Cheers, Peter)
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December 22nd, 2006 at 9:50 pm
…is that the homeputer has evolved from a device where information is created and shared, to a channel for “content consumption”. When it fails to handle the increasing flow of “content”, they ask you to buy a new one.
And if you think about programming it, you must be certainly a professional - welcome to the “Developer Zone” with those ugly WDKs and MSDNs, class hierarchies and certification exams. No more place for things like BASICA.EXE which could turn winter evenings into programming adventures.
December 23rd, 2006 at 1:12 am
Could someone please define “premium content” for me? Because as far as I know, in all my years of computing since Windows 3.1, I’ve never ever had any use for this so called “premium content”. Personally I think the vast majority of PC users out there don’t either. I mean, granted the stuff Apple has been doing with their iPod and music service seems to have become pretty popular over the past several years, but this is about the only thing I can think of that sort of matters to anyone.
Hmm, perhaps “premium content” stands for anything that is afflicted with DRM then? Well if that be the case, then we really shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Because as far as I know, most folks avoid the stuff, which is easily done and has been for a very long time now.
Basically all this article amounts to is a rant of theoretics based entirely on something that, on paper anyways, looks a little bit scary. I’d rather wait until Vista has been out for a few months before making any judgments if you don’t mind. Until then I’m going to stick with my pirated copy of XP (which I’ve had since XP first came out in 2001) for as long as I can, thank you very much. Once support is pulled from that, which it inevitably will be some day (how else is M$ going to force everyone to upgrade?), then perhaps I’ll consider finally moving to either Vista or Linux. Which ever direction the world has taken I guess, though neither of those would be my first pick if I had any say in the matter. But the reason why I say that is a whole ‘nother ball of wax, so TTFN.
December 23rd, 2006 at 1:17 am
Professional or otherwise, I’ll always enjoy programming.
I’ve said it before, I won’t buy Vista because it will curtail the enjoyment of the MY machine. Note to Microsoft: IT IS MY COMPUTER. No amount of security is going to usurp my ability to use my machine in the manner that I will use to enjoy it. I don’t have WGA or WGA notifications on MY machines or any machine that I service.
December 23rd, 2006 at 1:17 am
Professional or otherwise, I’ll always enjoy programming.
I’ve said it before, I won’t buy Vista because it will curtail the enjoyment of the MY machine. Note to Microsoft: IT IS MY COMPUTER. No amount of security is going to usurp my ability to use my machine in the manner that I will use to enjoy it. I don’t have WGA or WGA notifications on MY machines or any machine that I service.
December 23rd, 2006 at 1:47 am
What is MS planning to do if (or when) Ati and Nvidia refuse to play ball and support all these restrictions. Since this stuff is only needed for allegedly premium content, what real need do their high-end 3d adaptors have for it? Noone buys a 1950XTX/8800GTX just to watch movies on after all. Noone buys an X-Fi to listen to mp3’s either.
Unless MS offers to cover all these added development costs, i can see the hardware industry telling MS to re-insert it all back into whichever orifice it came from.
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:02 am
if you truely believe that maybe MS should add an 11th Law to their list* to avoid confusion
Law #11: If you allow your computer to run Microsoft Vista it is not your Computer anymore.
–
Alter_Fritz
* www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/community/columns/security/essays/10imlaws.mspx
December 23rd, 2006 at 3:56 am
The information I got from sources at (names-withheld) vendors indicated that this was going to go into their entire product line. Because MS owns most of the market, no vendor can afford to opt out. Refusing to play ball isn’t an option.
- Peter (author of the article).
December 23rd, 2006 at 5:20 am
***************Because MS owns most of the market, no vendor can afford to opt out. Refusing to play ball isn’t an option.
- Peter (author of the article).***************
That sucks ass. I’ll just use Linux when using XP is not an option anymore.
Also, who cares about this premium content shit? There’s anough stuff already released to entertain you ’till you die, many times over. Tons of DVDs I haven’t watched, and they can all be ripped, lots of CDs out there, the best music has already been made, current music sucks anyway. CDs can be ripped too. Not now, but eventually the cartels’ business model will collapse.
The more restrictions they all put on people, to secure their wallets are fat, the more people become fed up with the model. I feel like getting a couple of rentals right now so that I can rip ‘em, not because I need to, not because I want to, but because I can, I am in charge, and I will always make sure I am in charge, no mother fucking corporate assholes are ever going to dictate what to do at home, with my computer. No fucking way.
This is going to backfire on them, Blueray and HD-DVD movies have a nice copy protection mechanism, pretty strong, and if a device becomes compromised, they will just block it; do you think people who bought a brand X model Y high def optical disk player are going to be happy when their devices can no longer play any new releases, or if it becomes a brick after a non disclosed firmware upgrade. These people are going to be pissed. Because I simply don’t want to be on that boat, I won’t buy a high def optical disc player, therefore I won’t rent or buy high def movies. I will get free stuff from my local library though.
Do you want games, there are tons of games out there, many of their copy protections can be bypassed, just don’t get any Starforce games (that was really good to know, thanks Jon!). You want older console games, there are thousands of those. I still play pac man once in a while, the ROM of course, either on Windows or Linux, or Mortal Kombat, or Elevator Action, 1942. Etc… The point is there’s so much stuff out there that who cares about what the cartels’ future plans for content control are. It’s not that I encourage people to break the law, just to be a rebel, it’s that these guys are thugs, and I don’t do business with thugs.
Plus the number of creative stuff, mostly software, some movies and some music, that are being released under more friendly, and non greedy licenses, is incresing very fast. Open source software, creative commons etc…
OK, enough rant.
December 23rd, 2006 at 6:25 am
I guess it’s just a case of spreading the news about this stuff to as many people as possible. Especially to the shareholders of the hardware makers. I’m sure they’d be justifiably outraged at MS imposing all these cost burdens on them for it’s own benefit.
And i’m sure the enthusiast market will start screaming long and loud about the extra load that drivers, devices, and cpu’s will have to carry as well. Especially while they’re trying to build their ‘games for windows’ brand aimed at enthusiasts because MS believes enthusiasts drive other people’s hardware and software choices.
In fact i think i’ll visit a couple of enthusiast forums i know of and pass the link to this article along. See if i can’t stir up some debate or something.
December 23rd, 2006 at 6:59 am
I know Linux used to be kinda crappy for someone coming from the world of Windows, but that was then, and this is now. And now, let me tell you, Fedora 6 and Ubuntu are working REALLY REALLY NICE. It is now trivial to download and install popular packages, and common open-source media players like VLC, mplayer, and Xine support way more formats than Windows Media Player. You can even run internet explorer and most win32 apps in Linux smoothly (I can use IE to watch youtube vids smoothly).
The only thing that Windows has going for it anymore is gaming, and that is taken care of with a dual-boot setup, especially since you don’t need to many updates to a WinXP install if you’re only using it for gaming. As well, there are just as many console emulators for Linux as there are for Win. I emulate snes/nes/neogeo/turbogfx/coleco/c64/atari/arcade games all the time on my FC6 system. There is also a growing category of open-source games that run in OpenGL, snazzy graphics and everything. I suspect one day Linux could surpass Win in this category as well.
In the end, an OS designed FOR THE USER instead of the corporate media monopoly is going to win, it doesn’t matter how big MS is. The open-source movement is growing, and in the end it’s going to be more efficient overall for everyone to have a free, well supported, publicly maintained high-quality OS platform. Eventually there will be more programmers putting more hours into open-source projects than Microsoft can keep up with.
If anyone needs some help getting Fedora 6 setup, there’s a good tips and tricks page at http://www.gagme.com/greg/linux/fc6-tips.php that has the basic on installed media players and so forth….
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:51 pm
I’m with you Tony. Great article Peter, btw. It’s encouraging to know people like you are out there with enough expertise to be able to do this kind of analysis - Jen
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:51 pm
I’m with you Tony. Great article Peter, btw. It’s encouraging to know people like you are out there with enough expertise to be able to do this kind of analysis - Jen
December 23rd, 2006 at 4:39 pm
s/ Vista//
This is an evoluntionary step in Microsoft owning you computing experience, not a giant leap. Next will be Windows Live!, where you can’t use your computer unless it is connected to microsoft.com.
December 23rd, 2006 at 4:53 pm
“That sucks ass. I’ll just use Linux when using XP is not an option anymore.”
That used to be my opinion too. Unfortunately it’s far easier said than done. The problem is that Linux can be a huge pain in the ass to get up and running smoothly, so much so that I don’t think the average user, whom probably makes up the vast majority of PC users our there, will want to bother despite all the great things that are touted about Linux. I know I’ve certainly lost a lot of sleep over the problems I’ve encountered with trying Linux out, and pulled out copious amounts of hair in frustration to match.
Me? Well I’m a more advanced user than your average joe, though I wouldn’t call myself hardcore or anything. In fact I’d say I’m pretty close to being an average joe too. I do build my own PC’s, do all my own software installs, my own troubleshooting, and so on. Despite for how long I’ve used some form of Windows or another, there are still vast parts of it that are a complete mystery to me. As much as I would love to switch to Linux and never use a Microsoft product again (and trust me, I would if it wasn’t such a huge PITA), it just isn’t going to happen. At least not any time soon anyways, with the way things are right now.
Take Ububtu for instance. Easy enough to install, and it even feels similar to Windows. But then you find you need a bunch of drivers, and as we all know, finding up to date bug free drivers is difficult even under the best of circumstances under Windows, where support is supposedly better. With Linux it’s an utter nightmare.
A nightmare as well is getting everything installed and running just the way you like, without all the extra junk you don’t want. On top of that you have all these gobbledygook config files that you will inevitably be forced to tweak before things will work correctly, if they ever do at all. Despite often having a nice GUI included in most distros, everything still requires command lines, the majority of which only the truest hard core geek could ever understand. Simply put, the switch from Windows to Linux is not something you can do over night. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself how long it took you to learn all the ins and outs of Windows and all the apps you use with it.
Ok, so if your will is strong enough to get past all of that, then you now have to track down alternative programs to replace the ones you were used to using in Windows. While it is certainly possible to do so with some effort, you also end up having to learn how they all work as some will most certainly be fairly alien to the average joe. Expect to do a lot of troubleshooting here as well. Maybe I’m just an unlucky fellow, but I’ve never ever found any bit of technology that just simply worked out of the box the way it’s supposed to without having to troubleshoot it first lol. Good luck if you have a lot of applications to replace too. The information overload, provided you can actually find decent information to begin with (I usually end up going in circles), can be enough to make your head explode.
Even if you are still willing to go through everything I’ve mentioned up until this point, one other obstacle remains. Not every Windows app has a counterpart under Linux (thank goodness for Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office, and the like). In some cases there will be but one, and this means you have no choice but to use it. At least in Windows you have a great many applications to choose from, with costs ranging from a small fortune to completely free.
So basically you can choose to have freedom, or have freedom to choose, but you can’t have both. This is certainly an area where the ideals of free open source software (a movement that I love, don’t get me wrong) tends to hamper matters rather than help them. Sometimes the love to program just isn’t incentive enough to create applications, and keep them up to date. Out of everything this may be the biggest problem I have with Linux, in that it is only as strong as the weakest link. That would be the human aspect of it all. I’ve lost count of how many times a really fantastic app or plug-in has gone down the tubes simply because the author lost interest.
Of all applications, the most notable to me is all those DirectX games, all of which absolutely requires Windows. There is just no getting around that short of giving up on PC gaming altogether. I own a lot of games myself, many of which I haven’t even played yet (hard to resist the bargain bin lol).
It’s sad, but that is the way it is. There just isn’t any escape from Windows. No, I’m afraid that Linux will never ever take the place of Windows. Maybe several years from now, if we’re lucky, but definitely not today. So then, what to do now?
Well, like I posted before we should probably just wait and see what really happens. Once Vista is readily available to all and enough folks are using it, then that is when we should be forming a real opinion of it. Freaking out because of assumptions, assumptions that are mostly theory based on what’s on paper, doesn’t make any sense at all. Reality is what we should be more interested in. Besides, all of this only applies to so called “premium content”. I don’t think a whole lot of PC users out there care about premium content one way or another. Certainly not the kind of person that visits a place like p2pnet lol. I certainly don’t. Since Windows XP has always been more than capable of doing everything we need, “premium content” or no, we should probably just stick with what we already have and what we already know. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
December 23rd, 2006 at 5:04 pm
“I know Linux used to be kinda crappy for someone coming from the world of Windows, but that was then, and this is now.”
What was then, still is now I’m afraid. If people are smart, they will stick with Windows XP. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Personally I’m not against Linux, but simply switching over to it is just not as easy a task as people seem to think it is. I know, because I’ve tried several times already. If it takes the average joe, whom likely makes up the vast majority of PC users out there, several years to really know the ins and outs of their OS, what makes people think that switching to Linux is something that can simply be done over night? Even if Vista ends up being the evil everyone is fearing that it will be (I prefer to wait and see), most folks will probably still use it, especially once support for XP officially ceases. The truth of what I’m saying will become self evident over the coming months, you’ll see.
December 23rd, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Premium content are things like blu-ray and HD DVD. Note that this kinda issue is not restricted to just Vista. All blu-ray and HD DVD standalone players for TV’s MUST have the ability to degrade the signals if you aren’t using a HDMI w/ HDCP connection. All thats required is that the movie publishers set the ICT bit on the movie. They’ve waited to do this because they dont want to kill off the HD industry before its even started. But when they do, people with TV’s that are component or DVI will suddenly have degraded outputs.
And it could even be things like DVD movies at some point since they are copyright protected. I watch DVD movies on my computer all the time.
Also, its things like music CDs. Remember Sony and the rootkit they installed to try and stop people from doing fair use things to the music? (like putting the music on an ipod).
So if you decided to listen to a music CD that was protected your entire system could be degraded while you listen.
Oh and what about streaming videos? You can bet that any streaming video content provider will want to protect thier video. What if youtube was able to set all thier videos to appear as “premium” content?
So, you dont think most users ever listen to music cds, or watch movies, or youtube videos on thier computers?
December 23rd, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Windows vs Linux arguments aside, I don’t see what this article has to do with Vista at all. The story should be labelled “Cost analysis of DRM”.
Every sentance in this article can be started with “If you choose to play protected content, …”. For those of us who never plan on buying/hacking/stealing/using protected content, then nothing in Vista degrades your quality, or gets in your way. Well, I’ll rephrase. It won’t get in your way any more than windows ordinarily would
I actually commend M$ for giving users choice in this matter. They can either be like linux, and not support it at all. Or put in the work required to support it if the consumer wants to drink the coolaid. Vista isn’t forcing your hand. They’re not requiring you to buy a new TV to play regular DVD content. If the consumers don’t want it, then don’t buy it! I promise you, if it flops (which it won’t, unfortunately), it won’t be in the next version of Windows.
I think I’m done ranting now. I guess all I’m trying to say is that I hate the rules that content providers force on the content, and I pity the big business (M$, apple, etc) who get blamed for the requirements that they’re forced to put into their products. Reminds me of the FCC.
December 24th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
Perhaps you need to try again, maybe with a newer distro. I found Ubuntu setup to be MUCH EASIER than setting up XP.
Switching was easy as hell, I am so happy to be away from the nightmare that is Microsoft. The apps that come with Ubuntu kick the crap out of XP stuff. It took me ONE DAY to get full configured, and I’m no computer genius.
Open Source is going to bury MS crap. Only the last flat-earth types will be using Vista.
December 24th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Vista is simply an operating system based totally around DRM.
Vista IS DRM
Vista will tell you what you’re going to do today, and it will likely
cost extra.
December 24th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Hate to say it but the only thing that is going to change all of this is something that is unlikely to happen. A very serious boycott. Unlikely to happen because you are all too easily bought off by the latest GeeWhiz game and when those begin to pile up and can’t be played on your current system, you’ll allow yourself to be assimilated.
December 24th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
“Totally based around DRM”? It has some DRM features, but all of those (perhaps except activation, which doesn’t bother you if you’re legal) are opt-in. If you try playing DRM content (which wouldn’t play somewhere else), that’s your choice.
Claiming Vista “IS” DRM has no more or less true than claiming XP IS DRM.
Although you’re right about the costing extra part. Consumers, in the end, wind up paying for the DRM features of the OS, even if you choose not to use it.
I’m actually not opposed to the IDEA of DRM. It’s just in its early stages, where content providers are saying “Look what we can do! Lets do it”. Over time, as the technology becomes more mainstream, hopefully less restrictions will likely find its way into the content. Well, I hope
December 24th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
I agree.
Microsoft is commiting suicide. Itis that way with everything. THe more you try to control things, the more it costs and the more it costs, the more you create opportunity for other competitors to get a foothold.
Open source will get a big boost from this.
December 24th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
I also agree that costs of operating a computer system is a driving force behind changes. Not only for you or me but for large scale corporations. You already see smaller third world countries and states laying claim to preparing to do a change over to OSS. Massachusetts is one that comes to mind right away. Bill and the BoyZ have been trying some sneaky stuff like cutting off funding at state level for the department trying to initiate the move.
At another level, salesmen will miraculously show up on the doorsteps of the department in charge trying to consume valuable time needed to set up the change as a preventer of sorts. It’s gotten so bad in this tactic that many corporations and businesses aren’t telling M$ until the move is almost over to prevent these sort of tactics.
Say what you will, when I see the price tag telling me that it is a couple of hundred bucks more to have the necessary extras to make use of the full capacities of the OS, it gets me considering just how bad I need the OS to begin with.
Sony is discovering this with their newest gaming console. The words were put out that cost would not be a driving factor as far as Sony was concerned as they thought they had the cats’ meow in gaming consoles. Funny thing was the first batches of consoles will be loss leaders to attempt to get the console established at consumer level. If cost were not a factor they would care less about the sales price. They aren’t giving those game consoles away cheaper out of the goodness of their hearts.
December 24th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Original poster here. I really do want to agree with you guys, that Linux will indeed kick the crap out of Microsoft and their products, and some day dominate the world. It certainly might… eventually… maybe. For what it’s worth, I really am a big fan of open source projects. In fact I think the last Miscrosoft application I used was well over a year ago. The only thing I’m using of theirs is Windows XP. It’s very hard to switch away from it though, and I’m no dunce when it comes to PC’s. Linux is just too big of a PITA however.
In fact, I just gave Ubuntu 6.10 a renewed effort yesterday. I installed it on one of my older machines, a P4 1.6 (overclocked to 2.4 stable), ASUS P4S533 motherboard, 1GB memory, MSI Ti4600 video card with Dell 24″ LCD widescreen monitor, LiteOn DVDRW drive, D-Link gigabit card, and a USB 2.0 card. Pretty basic stuff. The first thing I did was set up the network configuration and Firefox, so that I could at least browse for help. The second thing I tried to set up was the video driver from Nvidia, so I can run at my monitors native resolution of 1920×1200. I’m stuck at 800×600 if I don’t (1024×768 goes off the screen).
Getting my video up and running the way I want is where I get stuck pretty much every time, and it frustrates the hell out of me. The problem is that even if you find good noob level instructions, they still always assume you have a basic understanding of Linux. Nobody switching from Windows is going to have a basic understanding of Linux folks! Even with no brainer step by step instructions, installation of my video drivers always fails, and that includes other PC’s of mine I’ve tried it on in the past. I think I’ve only managed to get the drivers installed once, a long long time ago when I first tried to use Linux (Fedora I think), and even then I failed because I needed to edit my xconf file, which immediately killed the OS and left me utterly lost and confused. It’s why I now choose to play with Linux on an older system actually. Don’t want to mess up anything important. Just read the Ubuntu forums and you’ll see I’m not the only noob that is thankful for such precautions lol. Anyways, compare trying to get your video driver installed and working correctly in Linux to how it’s done in Windows, then ask yourself why one is so damn hard and the other so easy. Security is a small part of why, I know, but honestly it shouldn’t be this hard to to something so simple.
The fact of the matter is that no matter how pretty a GUI you slap on it, Linux is still a command line OS at heart, much like DOS is. I didn’t care much for DOS either, but at least it was relatively useable. As such Linux simply isn’t friendly to noobs like me in the slightest. If I could only understand the many command lines given in all the tutorials I’ve read on getting things up and running, that would likely help immensely. Someone wanting to use a new GUI based OS should not have to jump through so many hoops though. Whatever happened to the whole concept of being intuitive?
Like I’ve said in previous posts, I really would like to switch to Linux, honest. It just isn’t going to happen any time soon though, and if someone like me can have this level of difficulty, imagine what the average Windows user has to go through. They make up the majority, and based on my experience I’m willing to bet that most will either stick with XP until they can’t anymore (because of forced obsolescence), or switch to Vista. I’m sure many will give Linux a try, and good for them. But in the end they will stick with whichever is easiest to use, and that doesn’t even cover all the other issues one has to face if they choose to move to Linux (goodbye games, learning replacement apps, finding drivers, etc).
As long as things remain as they are, which they will because the Linux crowd refuses to accept the fact that they should have to change anything in order to be more like Windows (foolish pride), there will never be a mass exodus of Windows user over to Linux. Not ever. But it is fun to dream, and you Linux folks do so like to dream.
December 24th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
Since I started this particular subsection, I wanted to really reply on this particular post above. I would imagine you are farther along than I with linux.
When I first heard of TCP, Longhorn, Pallidium, etc. I thought I had better try linux just to see what it was about. My very first run was a live cd of knoppix. After that I tried various flavors just to look at the pretty colors and graphics. Along with a really tough trying to figure it out and with a “what the heck do they call this or that program” to do whatever it was I was after at the moment.
It was a nightmare for me at first. Every step was not helped by the older hands of linux. All of them want to point you off at some computereze text and if you can’t figure it out from that, well go back to windows. A very snobbish attitude and one that doesn’t help at all. Most will throw up their hands and say screw it and go back to what they know.
I finally discovered the RPMs, APTs, and other “make it easys” to get the programs. I never have figured out how to compile. As the above poster mentions, the text for help all assumes you got gobs of linux experience and just need to final points. So there is a glass ceiling there and one that isn’t easy to break through. Fanboys don’t help at all. I’m very familiar with the Ubuntu forums. Were it not for that particular forum, I don’t think I would ever have gotten to where I could do a few things in linux.
My point here is this. Finances drive what is used and why. The linux crowd isn’t helping their cause with all the snobbishness. I love the security of linux but can’t stand the complications involved with it. Dos I know, used it for many a year and still do. So command line I can deal with after a sense. Yet the biggest turn off has been the linux crowds attitude as a whole. It’s one of the largest turn-offs to making the change is seeking help and running into that wall.
Still money is money and whether I adopt it or not, it is coming as a main driver as to why to jump ship from the ever increasing costs of running windows. This is not to mention the hidden costs of maintenance needed for windows both in time invested and in programs needed to clean up the mess. Almost everything worth a hoot is charged a pretty penny for in windows programs while in linux its for the most part free. Those are the kind of things that will drive the changeover. Again, costs as the driving factor.
December 25th, 2006 at 2:04 am
Thanks for the well written reply. I know I’m not completely stupid, so it’s gratifying to see someone else post whom is in the same boat, and whom clearly isn’t biased.
My reason to keep at it is due to the fact that I know without a doubt that XP won’t last forever. Just look at 95, 98, Me, etc. One would be truly naive to believe that Microsoft and the vast majority of third parties will support XP past one year from Vista’s official release. After all, the sooner Microsoft can obsolete XP, the sooner everyone will be forced to buy Vista and thus fall under “their” control (the dreaded “them” of the world lol). I definitely don’t want to be caught with my pants down when the time comes to move on because I don’t have any other choice in the matter.
The wife said that perhaps I should buy one of those ‘For Dummies’ books, and while they can occasionally be useful, I’ve found that this is not quite always the case. For example, I tried to learn C++ not too long ago. I was sick of being told to ‘do it yourself’ if I wanted a certain plug-in ported to the newest version of foobar2000, a plug-in that many others would have been extremely happy to get their hands on as well besides myself. My hope was that perhaps I could help everyone out, something I like to do and why I enjoy forums. Hmm, perhaps I am a really big dummy after all, because the book didn’t help me to gain even the most basic of grounding on the subject. Same problem; an assumption on the authors part that you have some clue as to what is being outlined for you. Man I wish I had started learning how to program at a much earlier age. If only I knew then how valuable it would be later in life lol. But I digress.
Like I said before, my plan is to stick with XP for as long as I can before facing the decision of which path to take, Vista or Linux. I’ve been a PC gamer for a long time and have tons of games, at least ten of which I haven’t even touched yet (Oblivion, Splinter Cell Double Agent, Civ IV, Brothers In Arms, etc). It’s a bad habit of mine when I know my time is limited, but they’re hard to resist, especially when something I’ve been wanting to play for a while can be found in the bargain bin. This is one of my reason for liking the PC over the console actually. PC games tend to drop in price far faster than console titles do. Except where Microsoft is the publisher of course; then they stay relatively expensive forever lol.
My love of gaming means that even if I choose Linux, I’m still going to be shackled to some form of Windows at least. I have three computers to maintain, and it’s a huge pain that I don’t enjoy as much as I used to when I was younger. Somehow the hobby became work at some point along the way. This means that dual booting isn’t really an option I want to consider, and so I might as well just stick with Windows from the beginning and forgo Linux altogether. That would certainly be the easiest path to take, and as a bonus I wouldn’t have to learn how to make Linux work for me the way I want it to. I know I’m not the only person out there that feel this way sadly.
Despite how frustrating Linux tends to be to folks just starting out with it, and how hard it is to find truly good unbiased support, I would still like to eventually know it inside and out like I do XP. Despite everything I’ve said up to this point, I can honestly say that Vista isn’t something I want to support if given a choice, but down the road it may be inevitable. Sigh, it sucks to feel so screwed no matter what I do. In fact I think I’m starting to hate the PC altogether lol. If only our lives weren’t so intrinsically linked to technology, life would be so much easier, a funny paradox because technology is what is supposed to be making our lives easier. Without a doubt, technology has become the ball and chain of our generation. To even consider living without it in this day and age is unthinkable though. Man, talk about depressing.
A quick comment regarding applications. In days gone by I actually used to rely on quite a lot of pirated software, but these days a good portion of it is now free open source stuff. There are heck of a lot of really great, and more importantly free, applications for Windows these days. Just as many as, if not more than, Linux. Taking a count right now, only 5 of the 38 applications installed on my PC are pirated, and 2 of those pirated apps I don’t really need actually. Over the past year I’ve been trying to work towards having to reply on zero, and it’s been going pretty well. My point is that one does not have to switch to Linux in order to reap the benefits of the open source movement.
December 25th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Ahh, the problem with Linux. I have briefly tried using it as well…with Knoppix but just running the bootable CD and then the DVD. The thing about the computer industry is whenever a restriction comes about, a group of hardcore computer programming philanthropists start designing a work around.
In this case, Microsoft brags that Linex is quirky and geeky…so use Vista. Vista shags up a bunch of people and the aforementioned programmers proceed to fix up the Linux interface and get it going. The more restrictive Microsoft goes the more Linux will erode at their base.
December 27th, 2006 at 12:46 am
Most of the provisions and issues discussed in the article have been put in place to “protect” premium content. The effects of quite a few of them would appear to have a decidedly negative affect on performance, stability, and usability even when no “premium content” is involved. Worse yet, some of these media content protections degrade overall system performance at all times even when no media playback of any kind is going on. Don’t even get me started on TPM modules. naive
December 27th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
FWIW, I’ve been in and out of Linux for the last 8 years. For servers, it is truly wonderful. But as a desktop, it’s been a trail of tears.
The three major issues I think Linux will need to address in order to even compete in the non-techy desktop market are video drivers, multimedia, and “windows” hardware support.
The video support has gotten better over the years, but it still comes down to being very sensitive to the combination of motherboard, graphic card, and monitor. Some configurations work clean out of the box and some really suck. My current system has integrated nVidia graphics and depending on the distribution and it seems the specific monitor I’m using, I can get flicker free high resolution. Sometimes the nVidia provided drivers work, sometimes not. I recognize that partly this isn’t Linux’s fault (some companies do not provide or maintain Linux drivers and don’t open source enough of the specs to develop drivers) but it still dampens universal acceptance.
Multimedia is another pain. Most people seem to want, at most, 2 media players: audio and video. Again it’s hard to get a media player that supports most popular video formats well out of the box. Usually you have to find some mixed bag of codecs and depending of the media player and distribution you’re using, install them in one of several places. Even then I’ve still had problems. I’ve mostly tried mplayer, kaffeine, and vlc.
The hardware support problem is much tougher. For legacy hardware, it’s hard of not impossible to create drivers. For most new hardware, drivers for Linux lag Windows by at least 4 months, often much more. I personally have had problems getting USB devices to work with Linux. You almost need to follow some Linux highly supported HW list if you want it to work out of the box.
For distros, I’ve found Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Mepis to be the closest to install and go.
Aside from those three pains, I think many Windows users wouldn’t be bothered by switching to a Debian or Red Hat based Linux. Most of the apps that most people care about (web browser, office suite, instant messaging, email) work really well. I think it’ll be a while before gamers switch over, but that’s only a slice of the population and as the author states can be handled by dual boot.
IMHO
December 28th, 2006 at 7:48 am
Where ever there is a negative article about a Microsoft product, you can bet there will be Linux zealots there too, proclaiming how Linux is going to take over the world and crush Windows soon, always soon. Well, perhaps that will happen some day, maybe in the business world, and very likely with governments of third world countries. After all, they both have the means to hire trained tech support to keep everything running smoothly, and Linux actually is a good choice if you’re running a server.
The average home user in need of a good desktop OS though, folks whom make up the other half of all OS sales I’m sure, simply do not have this luxury. Hence why Windows is the success it’s been for over a decade now, even if the reason behind it’s simplicity is the same reason why it is so insecure. People desire that which is simple to understand, easy to use, and above all doesn’t take a lot of time or effort. For example, a driver installation that takes less than a minute in Windows should not take an entire day (or week if you’re really stuck like I currently am in Ubuntu) to get up and running properly in Linux. Yet that is exactly the way things are right now, and have been for some time. And while the average computer user may try Linux, which I think is great, in the end they’ll all wind up using Vista eventually. Sad, but inevitable.
What I find really funny, and should have noticed sooner, is how Linux actually pertains to the context article. Should you be one of those few whom are actually interested in using “premium content”, well at least you’ll be able to with Vista despite the drawbacks involved. Switch to Linux and you’re pretty much screwed entirely. If and when the DRM that all “premium content” uses is broken, then, and only then, will Linux be a viable option for playback of such content. I pray that it will happen quickly, especially when it comes to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray since this would mean an end to the format war. Considering how good copyright protections/restrictions are getting, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Still think Linux is the answer now?
As some have pointed out, the problems having to do with Vista only matter if one has an interest in actually using “premium content”. P2P has never been more popular than it is today, and this is what leads me to believe as I do; that “premium content” only matters to a small minority, and thus isn’t nearly as big of a deal as the author of this article is making out.
“I think it’ll be a while before gamers switch over, but that’s only a slice of the population and as the author states can be handled by dual boot.”
The problem with a dual boot situation is that you’ve now just doubled your troubleshooting and maintenance work load for each PC you own. I don’t know about you, but one single PC running only Windows XP is enough work as it is. It is only the truly nerdy that don’t mind this type of torture so much. For some of them it’s actually fun lol.
December 28th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Does Vista DRM matter as much now? Check it out:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=119871
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oZGYb92isE
http://rapidshare.com/files/8318838/BackupHDDVD.zip.html
And I still don’t like Linux.
January 19th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
A couple of points about the previous author’s comments.
1. For premium content, read HD content. You suggest that few people are interested in this content. Is this like the few people who were interested in DVD content when it was first released? It will not be too long before HD (Premium) content will be the only content available. If you want to step outside the sealed box consumer electronics world - your only choice will be Vista and that’s no choice at all. The open world of the PC stops right there.
2. The main driver for linux on the desktop is business. What people use at work, they use at home - simple as that. It has nothing to do with gaming (which will soon be dead on the pc anyway - who wants to upgrade their video card for $1000 when you can by a PS3 for a lot less than that?)
It will not be this year, or next year but the linux/open source desktop will arrive eventually. Once businesses do the math, and that takes time, it will happen.
January 19th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
To the previous author:
“I pity the big business (M$, apple, etc) who get blamed for the requirements that they’re forced to put into their products.”
Do you really believe Microsoft could not say no to the content providers. These providers are desperate for the PC to be a delivery mechanism for their content. Microsoft only have to put their foot down and say “fine we won’t have premium content in Windows” and hey presto…this would all go away.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:38 am
Now that Macs also can run MS, I can’t imagine getting a system that doesn’t do both and it’s much easier to operate. I wouldn’t touch an email or the internet with MS software. I don’t need 1,000 programs when the few out there work reliably. That alone is worth it’s weight in gold (my time).
People blast ITunes for DRM, but until a year ago, all you had to do was burn it on a CD and the DRM was gone. Not MS or RIAA’s idea, that’s for sure. The major labels wanted price increases, stronger protections and ITunes dropped some labels. They focused more on independents - which worked for me even better. People are boycotting RIAA-associated music.
I have no desire to understand a computer more than doing what I want to do. That’s not understanding how it works, seeing the inside, or even understanding what half the words mean. I still crash it, hit wrong buttons and it’s still ticking, 2 years later … no data lost and from what I can tell, it’ll be supported for years to come without weekly updates, patches, viruses, and most of my time trying to figure the thing out!
I know my comments won’t sit well with PC fans but I think there’s a lot of p