Andy McDandy Vent Page

For those new to my blog, I do this twice a month, for the 1st and 15th of each month.

As a reminder, all percentages are taken from StatCounter.com who gather the stats from websites around the globe.  How many are Windows only related is anyone guess.

Uruguay is remaining in the double digits and even went up 1/2% but the big number for January 1st is 46.57% which goes to Cook Islands.

This month two areas were not included in the StatCounter report but a value of 9.52% was reported, but which place was it for? The two missing was Pitcairn Islands and Saint Barthelemy.

So who are the new top ten countries for Linux usage? (Up Down)

1. Cook Islands (46.57)
2. Turks and Caicos Islands (16.04)
3. Uruguay (11.19)
4. Reunion (9.84)
5. Malta (7.24)
6. Antigua and Barbuda (6.83)
7. Saint Lucia (6.53)
8. Venezuela (4.97)
9. San Marino (4.62)
10. Micronesia (4.27)

Now as with my previous posts, how does the new worldwide usage numbers look and how does that relate to possible income being lost because of developers not willing to develop for Linux PC?

The world usage based on ALL the numbers retrieved for every country listed on StatCounter is 1.44%.  When calculated towards the possible number of gamers based on each continent population taken from GeoHive, we get just over $117 million in sales each month based on games that have a $15/month subscription fee.  When calculated based on a $60 game, the possible earnings is just over $470 million.

If you are wondering how I get those numbers, simply refer to my August 15 usage post.  There you will find a complete break down on how the calculation is done.

In my previous review of Antergos, I mentioned how it was running on my Toshiba laptop and inside of VirtualBox.  Given how satisfied I was with it running on my laptop, I decided to redo my main computer with it which ended up being a big mistake.

Starting up with the CD went well but like in VirtualBox, there were problems during the actual installation.  Pages with text input boxes had no text and check boxes were not visible.

After completing the installtion, I tried to turn on auto login using the gui user settings but for some reason the new setting would not save.  Yes I was asked for password to make the edit but the system just would not save it down.

Another problem and in my opinion a big problem is with regard to the terminal.  When I loaded the terminal I received nothing but a blank screen.  No prompt was present at all.  This happened in XFCE, KDE and Gnome desktop environments.  This problem I also realised was happening on my laptop as well.  With the terminal not working for a distribution of Linux like Antergos which is based on Arch, pretty much makes the operating unusable.  If any type of Linux needs a working terminal, it is Arch and Arch based distributions.

I hope Antergos will fix these problems in their next release because I really do want to give Antergos better test than just a few hours.

This is my personal review of a Linux distro called Antergos. It is Arch Linux with a nice twist.

First a little bit about my Linux experience so you can get an idea of my skill level. I started getting in to the Linux world probably around 6 years ago when a friend introduced me to it. For awhile I would switch between just having Windows to dual booting. At the time though, getting ATI drivers to work properly on my two monitor setup was impossible. Eventually one distro did advance enough where I could finally use it as my main operating system. That distro was of course Ubuntu just before Unity was released.

Since then I have dumped Windows completely and tend to redo my system with different Debian based distributions, like Kubuntu, Linux Mint KDE/Mate and so on with currently Xubuntu as my OS of choice. I have never delved deeply into Linux though, putting me closer to the beginner side of the skill level than the expert side so with that said let me begin my review.

A week or so ago I came across a YouTube video on Antergos and when I saw how easy the installer was I knew I had to try it. I attempted to give Arch a try some months back but I was completely lost near the beginning of the installation and never tried again.

I first installed Antergos inside of VirtualBox. Installation went great, I was very impressed with the choice of desktop environment to install. I have said to my friend many times that I wish the makers of distributions would have a option screen during installation for choosing desktop environment and software. To me, having default software installed is a pain for those who do not use those items.

Once installation was completed using the KDE desktop, I installed package hardinfo which is System Profiler and Benchmark utility and I was shocked by the amazing CPU Blowfish benchmark score of 3.76.

Last month I installed a total of 8 distributions based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. The best score was Kubuntu at 12.64 so seeing such a great number with Antergos I knew I had to do more testing.

I installed Steam and Wine. Steam would not load at all but after much searching on the net, it turns out I had to add a special command to the launch command for Steam so it would launch. This is different than when I installed the XFCE but I will get to that in a bit.

Installing Blizzard Battle.net desktop app went well but would not load after installation. Spent hours trying to find the answer with no luck.

Although I had trouble getting Steam to work and not being able to get Battle.net app to work, I was still impressed with the benchmark score and thus just had to try it on my laptop.

Formatted my Windows 7 laptop with Antergos but this time I chose the XFCE desktop rather than KDE. Reason is simple, in hope to get more speed on a laptop running Intel graphics.

Just like with the KDE install inside of VirtualBox, everything went great, however there appears to be problems that I just can not seem to find answers to.

Like with the KDE, I installed hardinfo to see benchmark score which was just under 4.0 but after updates and installing Steam then Wine, the number jumped to just over 4.0. Still a great score for a laptop if you ask me.

I then installed Steam, Wine and of course Battle.net app. Steam worked right away, no need to edit the launch command to make it work. Battle.net unfortunately still would not load after install. Again I searched and searched. I installed the Wine-gecko and Wine-mono but still no luck. Come 1am and I somehow came to the conclusion on installing package lib32-ldap. I don’t remember how I came about that given how damn tired I was but that was the package the Battle.net app needed to launch.

Once the Battle.net app was working I immediately started the download and installation of World of Warcraft to see what its performance is like compared to Windows 7. I was sadden to see the FPS for video setting “Fair” was 5-7. I lowered the screen size resolution and lowered setting to “Low”, the lowest setting possible in WoW and this increased the frame rate to 30-35 inside my level 3 garrison.

More updates were installed and again the benchmark score rose, this time to 5.76 which raises the question, will this score continue to get worst the more updates that get installed? I will continue to use Antergos on my i3 laptop for the time being before I decide if I should reinstall Windows 7 and deal with its constant “Upgrade to 10” nagging messages.

One other problem I did have with the XFCE Laptop installation is the clock. Whether I chose America/Toronto or the proper GMT time zone, the clock would be off by 3 or more hours. I did choose the correct location during the install process but the only way I could get the clock to display the correct time was to set time zone at just GMT. No values at all and there was no way of changing the actual clock manually.

A feature I also miss from the Ubuntu based distributions is the “Additional Drivers” GUI for choosing between non-proprietary and proprietary video drivers. Currently I have no clue what driver is being used on the laptop. On my main computer, I have found the proprietary drivers work better. This also raises a question regarding whether or not I should change my main system OS from Xubuntu to Antergos. If there is no additional drivers section in system settings, and obviously can not use the newly created Ubuntu Video Graphics Driver PPA, will keeping my system on the latest Nvidia driver be easy or a royal pain in the ass.

Well that is my review so far. My overall reaction to Antergos is indeed positive now that I know how to get Battle.net to work but I do have one suggestion I would like to see added. During the installation, have a bigger list of applications to choose from. Maybe have categories with the top 5 applications which includes dividing Steam and Play On Linux as separate choices.

If you have any Antergos suggestions that can be useful, feel free to tweet me @AndyMcDandyCDN or email andrew at amckinnon dot com.

For those new to my blog, I do this twice a month, for the 1st and 15th of each month.

As a reminder, all percentages are taken from StatCounter.com who gather the stats from websites around the globe.  How many are Windows only related is anyone guess.

Uruguay fell around 2% from December 1st but still remains in the double digits with 10.68%.

So who are the new top ten countries for Linux usage? (Up Down)

1. Seychelles (65.01)
2. Gibraltar (19.16)
3. Micronesia (16.87)
4. Uruguay (10.68)
5. Malta (6.09)
6. Reunion (5.81)
7. Wallis and Futuna (5.31)
8. Timor-Leste (4.63)
9. Eritea (4.41)
10. Antigua and Barbuda (4.10)

Now as with my previous posts, how does the new worldwide usage numbers look and how does that relate to possible income being lost because of developers not willing to develop for Linux PC?

The world usage based on ALL the numbers retrieved for every country listed on StatCounter is 1.66%.  When calculated towards the possible number of gamers based on each continent population taken from GeoHive, we get just over $105 million in sales each month based on games that have a $15/month subscription fee.  When calculated based on a $60 game, the possible earnings is just over $421 million.

If you are wondering how I get those numbers, simply refer to my August 15 usage post.  There you will find a complete break down on how the calculation is done.

Hello everyone, I am always on the hunt for fast Debian based Linux distributions to make gaming faster.  Recently I came across System Profiler and Benchmark (hardinfo in Package Manager) and decided to see what score comes up for various Linux distros in Virtualbox.

The score I am using in this blog is CPU Blowfish and each virtual machine has the same settings, 4 cores usage and the maximum 128mb graphics memory.  All distros are based on 14.04LTS Ubuntu.

Lower the better.

1. 12.64 Kubuntu
2. 12.78 Linux Lite
3. 12.79 Xubuntu
4. 13.14 Linux Mint Cinnamon
5. 14.17 Linux Mint XFCE
6. 14.32 Linux Mint KDE
7. 14.83 Ubuntu
8. 25.69 Linux Mint Mate

Two of the distros, Kubuntu and Xubuntu, would not provide a screen resolution higher than 640×480 whereas the rest are all 800×640 resolution.

If you have a Linux distro that you would like me to also install in Virtualbox to see what number comes up for it, tweet me @AndyMcDandyCDN

For those new to my blog, I do this twice a month, for the 1st and 15th of each month.

As a reminder, all percentages are taken from StatCounter.com who gather the stats from websites around the globe.  How many are Windows only related is anyone guess.

For the first time since I have started doing these by-monthly recordings, Tokelau has not only shown up with a percentage but took the #1 spot at 92.41% usage share.  Uruguay continues to remain in the top ten and rose back up to the 12% mark.

So who are the new top ten countries for Linux usage? (Up Down)

1. Tokelau (92.41)
2. Seychelles (63.41)
3. Uruguay (12.07)
4. Saint Pierre and Miquelon (7.27)
5. Reunion (6.81)
6. Malta (5.29)
7. Christmas Island (5.19)
8. Timor-Leste (4.64)
9. Venezuela (4.33)
10. Saint Lucia (3.88)

Now as with my previous posts, how does the new worldwide usage numbers look and how does that relate to possible income being lost because of developers not willing to develop for Linux PC?

The world usage based on ALL the numbers retrieved for every country listed on StatCounter is 1.66%.  When calculated towards the possible number of gamers based on each continent population taken from GeoHive, we get just over $109 million in sales each month based on games that have a $15/month subscription fee.  When calculated based on a $60 game, the possible earnings is just over $436 million.

If you are wondering how I get those numbers, simply refer to my August 15 usage post.  There you will find a complete break down on how the calculation is done.

For those new to my blog, I do this twice a month, for the 1st and 15th of each month.

As a reminder, all percentages are taken from StatCounter.com who gather the stats from websites around the globe.  How many are Windows only related is anyone guess.

Since November 1st numbers, the total usage percentage only dropped 0.04% however there are two countries with extremely high percentages even though since August 15 when I started keeping a recording of these numbers, the two countries never went higher than 5%, in fact both had mostly 0% readings.  Uruguay continues to remain in the top ten even though it dropped under the double digit for the first time over the past six reports.

So who are the new top ten countries for Linux usage? (Up Down)

1. Kiribati (75.21)
2. Seychelles (74.17)
3. Gibraltar (11.89)
4. Uruguay (9.61)
5. Reunion (7.73)
6. Burkina Faso (7.18)
7. Malta (5.58)
8. Ethiopia (4.53)
9. Venezuela (4.52)
10. Cuba (4.44)

Now as with my previous posts, how does the new worldwide usage numbers look and how does that relate to possible income being lost because of developers not willing to develop for Linux PC?

The world usage based on ALL the numbers retrieved for every country listed on StatCounter is 1.87%.  When calculated towards the possible number of gamers based on each continent population taken from GeoHive, we get just over $142 million in sales each month based on games that have a $15/month subscription fee.  When calculated based on a $60 game, the possible earnings is just over $571 million.

If you are wondering how I get those numbers, simply refer to my August 15 usage post.  There you will find a complete break down on how the calculation is done.

In other percentage news, “Unknown” appears to be increasing with a value over 3%.  I wonder if SteamOS is falling in to the Unknown category or is it being recorded under the Linux category.

For those new to my blog, I do this twice a month, for the 1st and 15th of each month.

As a reminder, all percentages are taken from StatCounter.com who gather the stats from websites around the globe.  How many are Windows only related is anyone guess.

We had quite a few ups and downs in the percentages between October 15th and November 1st.  The United States and Canada both went up with Canada jumping .31% going from 1.27% to 1.58%.

So who are the new top ten countries for Linux usage? (Up Down)

1. South Africa (100)
2. Serbia (49.78)
3. Saint Barthelemy (48.32)
4. Uruguay (10.24)
5. Reunion (7.30)
6. Malta (4.99)
7. Ethiopia (4.97)
8. Gibraltar (4.65)
9. Venezuela (4.62)
10. Luxembourg (4.24)

Now as with my previous posts, how does the new worldwide usage numbers look and how does that relate to possible income being lost because of developers not willing to develop for Linux PC?

The world usage based on ALL the numbers retrieved for every country listed on StatCounter is 1.91%.  When calculated towards the possible number of gamers based on each continent population taken from GeoHive, we get just over $161 million in sales each month based on games that have a $15/month subscription fee.  When calculated based on a $60 game, the possible earnings is just over $644 million.

If you are wondering how I get those numbers, simply refer to my August 15 usage post.  There you will find a complete break down on how the calculation is done.

For those new to my blog, I do this twice a month, for the 1st and 15th of each month.

As a reminder, all percentages are taken from StatCounter.com who gather the stats from websites around the globe.  How many are Windows only related is anyone guess.

We had quite a few ups and downs in the percentages between September 15th and October 1st.  The biggest decrease is Kiribati who went from 4.63% to 0%.  The biggest increase goes to Palau whom was at 0% for the past 3 reports but now is reported at 91.43%

So who are the new top ten countries for Linux usage? (Up Down)

1. Belize (26.21)
2. Gibraltar (25.18)
3. Uruguay (12.31)
4. Anguilla (9.06)
5. Reunion (8.53)
6. Congo (6.06)
7. North Korea (5.76)
8. Malta (5.35)
9. Micronesia (5.30)
10. Venezuela (5.05)

Now as with my previous posts, how does the new worldwide usage numbers look and how does that relate to possible income being lost because of developers not willing to develop for Linux PC?

The world usage based on ALL the numbers retrieved for every country listed on StatCounter is 1.39%.  When calculated towards the possible number of gamers based on each continent population taken from GeoHive, we get just over $134 million in sales each month based on games that have a $15/month subscription fee.  When calculated based on a $60 game, the possible earnings is just over $536 million.

If you are wondering how I get those numbers, simply refer to my August 15 usage post.  There you will find a complete break down on how the calculation is done.

For those new to my blog, I do this twice a month, for the 1st and 15th of each month.

As a reminder, all percentages are taken from StatCounter.com who gather the stats from websites around the globe.  How many are Windows only related is anyone guess.

We had quite a few ups and downs in the percentages between September 15th and October 1st.  The biggest decrease is Kiribati who went from 4.63% to 0%.  The biggest increase goes to Palau whom was at 0% for the past 3 reports but now is reported at 91.43%

So who are the new top ten countries for Linux usage? (Up Down)

1. Palau (91.43)
2. Uruguay (12.78)
3. Gilbraltar (12.51)
4. Timor-Leste (7.22)
5. American Samoa (7.02)
6. Venezuela (5.53)
7. Malta (5.37)
8. Antigua and Barbuda (3.92)
9. Djibouti (3.84)
10. Reunion (3.61)

Now as with my previous posts, how does the new worldwide usage numbers look and how does that relate to possible income being lost because of developers not willing to develop for Linux PC?

The world usage based on ALL the numbers retrieved for every country listed on StatCounter is 1.63%.  When calculated towards the possible number of gamers based on each continent population taken from GeoHive, we get just over $110 million in sales each month based on games that have a $15/month subscription fee.  When calculated based on a $60 game, the possible earnings is just over $443 million.

If you are wondering how I get those numbers, simply refer to my August 15 usage post.  There you will find a complete break down on how the calculation is done.