Dragon1-1

There should be switches in editor for this, along with an engine pre-warmed by the ground crew. This was the actual practice in WWII, at least for fighters that were kept ready to scramble.

Now those are figures that are actual data that does support your point. You can now clearly see the slop was widely off base (and for some reason, it sold the Chinese variant quite short), even if the conclusion was the same. Well, dev time is in limited supply, for DCS it's in very limited supply. So the question becomes, when does making a Linux port starts being worth the trouble. For DCS, it probably won't happen anytime soon. While the idea of low overhead OS to squeeze more juice out of the hardware sounds appealing, the required software just isn't there. In particular, while Pimax announced VR support on Linux (I wonder if Chinese government's push for UOS has anything to do with that), most joystick software only runs on Windows.

False. You don't know what they're based on, just what the AI tells you. It might be using old data. It might be using wrong data. It might be using a random number that just happens to look like it belongs there. And the worst part is, you don't know, and you can't know. Not even its creators know, because AI is a black box. By pretending it's a search engine or an information source, you're saying something that's untrue. There are humans who compile those statistics, or you could have used something like Distrowatch. Does it give a complete picture? No. Is it more reliable than a random bundle of numbers made up by a bot? Hell yes. Whatever the reality is, what you posted has been dreamt up by AI, and is demonstrably false. You missed my point. I'm giving you flak because you used AI, not because I disagree with your conclusion. There's a difference between "lies" and "estimates". Anything produced by AI is firmly on the former side. The real data might well show the same trend, and had you posted a genuine estimate fact-checked by humans, there'd be no problem. But you didn't. You posted a machine-assisted lie. If it's accurate, it's by accident, and you don't even know if it is. Because you did nothing to check. It fits your preconception, but that doesn't make it evidence. My point right now is, don't us AI in a discussion with humans. Stop posting slop. Then we can get back on topic. He's posting results from a survey you yourself mentioned to be a valid source. Those results might not give the full picture, but it's well known where they come from, what are their limitations, and so on. You, OTOH, posted AI slop, which is literally worse than nothing.

I already did. Your list is off about Deepin/UOS by something like two million users. That's reason enough to believe all the other figures can be thrown in the thrash. This isn't a ballpark estimate, it's a bald-faced lie. You post autogenerated misinformation and expect others to spend time doing research to prove you wrong? Sorry, that's not how it works. Using AI to lie doesn't change the fact that you're lying. You knowingly posted something as a factual estimate, despite being fully aware it's pulled out of the bot's backside. Just FYI, I'm pushing back on this not because of whether this made-up "data" proves my point or not. I'm pushing back because you're peddling made up crap and expecting people to believe because it's AI. Anyone could type in some random numbers and present them as evidence, but for some reason, most people wouldn't do that. What makes you believe it's OK just because you enlisted AI to type them in for you? Well, it's not OK and you should be ashamed of yourself. It will never, ever be OK, so do everyone a favor and don't do it again.

If you got it from reliable websites, I'd have no reason to contest it. AI doesn't "pull up" data, it makes it up. In fact, if you compare the two columns, you'll plainly see a lot of BS. This is not proper use of AI, by doing this you're generating trash and normalizing something that is known to cause real harm.

Real data only, please. I don't know where the AI pulled those numbers from, but I treat anything it concocts as suspect. Just an example, Deepin's own data estimates its userbase as 3 million, well in excess of what the AI claims. Asking AI is usually a waste of time. That said, your post led me to an interesting tidbit, that is Deepin/UOS. Turns out, there already are OEM Linux machines... in China. They apparently have been trying to move away from Windows and Western-developed software to their own bespoke (and government-approved!) Linux distro. It's quite possible that China will end up taking a very different trajectory from the West on this. What it means for us, I don't know, but I do know it will complicate comparisons, since a big Linux surge driven by government-mandated Chinese installs won't necessarily translate into Western markets. OTOH, it might lead software companies to support Linux better, at least the ones allowed to do business with China. Interestingly, it turns out a lot of US-hostile states, including North Korea, have their own bespoke Linux distros for government use.

Impressive, but the question is whether they can sustain momentum past the first week. Apparently, the recent release made a splash. Also, FYI, it's a commercial (albeit cheap) Linux with paid features that's specifically designed to imitate Windows and in general be easy to use. Similar stories won't be happening with other distros simply because they, for most part, aren't specifically designed with that in mind.

We need a whole system of animated hand gestures, both for AI and players. IRL, pilots communicate that way when the radio is busted or if they want to stay radio silent. Salute animation in the Hornet is cool, but there should be more of that. Also, the MiG-29 should have an option of doing a Polish-style salute.

Essentially, the big problem with Linux is also the exact thing that draws people to it: there's no big corporation pushing it. So it doesn't run ads, it doesn't get lobbied for by salesmen, OEMs can't get deals for it. In fact, the fact it's got as far as 6% of the overall market share can be considered remarkable. Also, there's another thing that Linux lovers will claim is a nice feature, that is the command line. I absolutely hate dealing with the command line. It's great if you want to write scripts, it sucks when you just want to do an obscure task on occasion and you have to look up all the commands. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent of the device manager in Linux, for instance, or per-app permissions management (at least, that's the impression I've gotten from the forums). Windows is all GUI, and it has the advantage of showing you what options are there in first place, rather than having to coax it out of the system. Even if the existence of Regedit or GPO editor isn't obvious, once you're there, they show you all the options. Windows sucks in many ways, but there are some things that Windows users take for granted which Linux simply doesn't have. As long as the answer to the question of "can you use Linux without command line" remains "no, not really", which always seems to be the conclusion after some prodding (and initial assurances that boil down to "yes, but only if you're interested in trivial use cases"), I suspect it'll have trouble shaking off its user-unfriendly reputation. At best, you can get a patchwork of GUI apps that give you the ability to execute some of the command line commands. If Linux is to win over people who grew up with Windows, this has to change.

I'm just saying you shouldn't get your hopes up based on the 6% figure, and pointing out significant barriers to it increasing much further. It's funny how Linux acolytes get defensive when it's pointed out why their dream FOSS-dominated future, which had been just around the corner since the 90s, might fail to materialize. Of course, if you look at it another way, counting all consumer devices, Linux is winning by a huge margin - the most popular distro is actually Android, which blows every other OS out of the water by sheer number of devices sold. The only problem, it's about as far from FOSS as you can be while still using the code. Almost as ironic as Unix of yore spawning MacOSX and the associated Apple's walled garden. Funny how you don't like my "tone", where all I said was simply an in-depth refutation of every point that you made. Yeah, I can be snarky and sarcastic sometimes (make that most of the time). You'll generally find that constructive arguments, or proposing real solutions to the obstacles I point out, will shift the sarcasm to meritum ratio towards the latter (though I reserve the right to mock those who turn off their brains the moment a dialog window pops up). I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing, I genuinely want to know whether you can come up with a realistic way to overcome the stated issues.

SA-5 FCR is always in CW mode, even when searching, so the signal doesn't change when the missile leaves the rail. You should treat any lock indication by an SA-5 as a probable launch, unless you have someone with tally on the site. The SAMs that do provide a launch warning are those that use command guidance, so their datalinks can be detected.

I'm all for the Hellcat basic training campaign. For other warbirds, there's YouTube tutorials. Maybe a Spitty or Mossie training somewhere down the line, but as far as the US goes, the Hellcat sounds perfect.

Err... there's already plenty of hardware being sold without an OS, you know that? Literally anything that isn't a complete, ready to go OEM machine will require you to install the OS of your choice. Leaving the OS out of a complete build makes about as much sense as leaving the storage out. Yes, a more discerning customer might want to chose their own HDD/SSD configuration (or transplant one from a previous computer, it's gotten surprisingly painless with Windows 10). If that's your use case, go right ahead. Most people, including many gamers, don't need this sort of thing. There's nothing illegal about offering OEMs preferential package deals on Windows. People choose to have an OS preinstalled, and if you do want Windows, it's much cheaper than buying it separately (though it's not like cheap OEM keys are hard to come by). It's just that they can't choose an option to have Linux already there. They're free to install it later, but they have to actively decide to do so, and figure out a way to actually do that. In fact, notice that despite MS getting into trouble for bundling IE, it remained until late Windows 10 builds (funnily enough, I actually used it instead of early Edge a few times). They'll turn the monitor off then back on, and swear up and down it's the computer. People do this even today. Sounds like you didn't really support any actual lusers. Lucky you. You won't believe the elementary things that nevertheless seem to baffle the normies. Most people today have grown up with smartphones, concepts like local versus cloud storage ("why are pictures from my phone not on my work laptop?"), folders (ever seen one of their desktops?), manual saving, programs that actually close when you click the big X, are scary and foreign to them. The brighter ones can be taught. The dimmer ones will say "I'm not technical" and that's the end of it. It's not a "monopoly" if various Linuxes have less than 60% of the market to themselves. In truth, WindowsServer seems to have something like 44% of server market, and the remaining 8% are still stuck on various UNIXes. Servers are also irrelevant to this discussion because of the reasons I already mentioned. People don't exactly walk into an IBM store and buy an S1012 all set up and ready to go. People who do set up servers are supposed to know what they're doing.

The only way that number works is if it's in Fahrenheit. Nitrogen evaporates at -196°C or -321°F, so an LN2 cooled seeker can only ever be at that temperature, no matter what the manual says. If we assume a cool 39°F day on the test range in Russia, the seeker will indeed be cooled to -360°F below ambient. Either that, or it's a misprint. In contest of nitrogen cooled anything, it's a nonsensical number.

Plus, your target doesn't get RWR nails, which is nice. The MiG-29 IRST is basically the R-60 seeker head with a few tweaks, so range isn't that impressive, but it's still useful.

That might be because OS sales aren't actually that much of a revenue source for MS. It's the subscriptions and datamining. That's why they offered such generous upgrade options - you can run Windows 11 on a key originally issued for Vista. All they need to do is keep people within their ecosystem. It's also worth noting that OS and Office people are probably separated by a few layers of management, and thus their sales are measured in isolation. So, if Office starts being viable on other OSes, its sales will rise, and that's what their management is concerned about. If the Windows team sees their sales drop through no fault of their own, they'll get their ears boxed (and probably come up with another inane "revenue booster" to compensate), not the actual culprits. This is pretty typical for large, highly siloed companies. If they have someone to support them, great. Most of the time, they either don't (relying on things "just working"), or they call the store where they got the hardware, which has little incentive to help them switch OSes. Not to mention the family geek is not necessarily skilled enough to do a full OS replacement, most "tech support" consists of checking obvious things like actually reading the error message that pops up on screen. Choosing the right distro and successfully installing it is not something just anyone would be comfortable doing, especially to someone else's computer.

And that's why sysadmins are the ones switching to it, but that doesn't mean anyone else is going to. We're talking gaming, and that typically occurs on consumer devices. For all we care, all the rest of the world could go to Linux, but as long as people have Windows in their homes (and offices, see below), that's what PC gaming is going to be happening on. The reality is, average joes comprise most of the world. That's why they're average. You don't seem to grasp that the commercial world (which game development is part of) does, indeed, revolve around them. Linux will remain a niche OS until it starts shipping with OEM hardware. Does MS Office have a Linux variant? And no, the browser-based Office365 is absolutely inadequate, mostly on account as being very slow. Yes, there are FOSS alternatives like LibreOffice, but guess what, corporates typically have a support contract, certificates, all that jazz specifically for MS Office. They also use, and are integrated with, OneDrive, Outlook and Access, which have cloud features FOSS equivalents don't. You think a corporation would let go of all that and retrain everyone in Linux-based software? Training people costs money, tech support costs money, and migrating costs money. For an average office drone, MS is here to stay, no matter how crappy it becomes, because it offers all-inclusive deals for corporate users.

Like Trondheim, which registered 30 degree heat last summer? Santa's village in Lapland supposedly got pretty balmy, too. Sure, there are places north of those, but the local mayor might notice the streetlights dimming every time the two 5090s spin up... IMO, efficiency, both in GPUs and in software, is the way to go. DCS has a long way to go in that area, and Vulkan will help with that. Who knows, it might turn out you don't even need a 5090 to run a human eye resolution VR headset at a reasonable FPS.

Does it come preinstalled on any mass market PC or laptop? That's literally the only thing about MS-DOS that made it as popular as it was. My point wasn't that MS-DOS was any good, it was that it came packaged with IBM PC, and that is exactly the basis on which Windows continues to dominate the market. Defaults are powerful. Google got in trouble for too aggressively pushing theirs on Android. People generally use what comes with the device. The notable exception is Chrome (presumably because people want their Google Account stuff to sync with their phones), but even then, 10% of desktop users use Edge. The process of installing an OS is considerably more complicated than double clicking the installer and agreeing to everything it asks you. Yes, Microsoft doesn't do well at playing catch-up. Be it Windows Phone, Zune or even WMR, when they're not the default, they rarely amount to much. However, they're the biggest kid on the block when it comes to OEMs and office applications. They don't need techy users, they've got corporate offices, they've got casual gamers, they've got every damn non-mac on the computer store shelf. Linux can't even begin to compete with those areas, and it has nothing to do with how bad Windows is, simply because it's the default. Same as it was with DOS. Again, not gonna happen, because Apple sells hardware. People went "Windows sucks right now, I'll buy a Mac", they didn't go "Windows sucks, so I'm going to go and learn how to install a different OS". Show me a mainstream laptop that comes with any flavor of Linux, and I'll believe it'll gain market share beyond the tech savvy market. I'm pretty sure MS is aware of that and will spend money to keep OEMs on their OS. SteamOS is not even officially supported on PC right now, even Valve only seems to be interested in handhelds right now.

The 3090 and its successors do, in fact, have NVLink connectors and game-optimized drivers. I've got one in my PC and can literally see the SLI connector through the glass. While those cards sit on the edge of what is considered "consumer grade", they're definitely optimized for gaming. It's also worth noting that xx90 series GPUs are overrepresented in DCS VR userbase due to copious VRAM reserve. There's also a significant number of people in this group crazy enough (and with enough money) to buy and run two of those GPUs (indeed, the 3090 isn't all that expensive these days). So implementing NVLink support would not be a completely crazy idea, even if the appeal would be limited. Especially since for a dual 3090 you'd probably need a PSU rated for something like 2kW, and that's not even getting into trying to cool that kind of rig (and the room it's in!). As for MultiGPU, I never used it, but it's an interesting idea. However, keep in mind that if you're doing it through the PCI interface, having the second GPU plugged in might throttle your bandwidth, especially on Intel CPUs. I'm not sure just how much of an issue it'd be given how fast the latest PCI generation is, but it's something to consider.

None of that changes the fact that Linux is not going to be a mainstream consumer OS in the near future. Why's that? Microsoft has a tight grip on OEMs. That means everyone who doesn't buy a Mac will, by default, use Windows, unless some sort of Linux lobby comes around to pull OEMs off it. In that case, you probably encountered a much bemoaned, but somehow indispensable species called the Non-Technical End User, or luser for short. Among their exploits are things such as power cycling the monitor when asked to reboot, immediately closing popups with vital information, or accidently deleting important documents. When undisturbed, they're generally capable of accomplishing simple tasks in Office, using the web browser or playing modern games. I'd like to know how you envision this species making a move to Linux at scale. Like I said in the other thread, MS had been doing that since MS DOS. Linux might be gaining in the server market because servers are, generally, not bought off the shelf and set up with whatever OS came in the box. They're also set up by people whose IT skills extend beyond installing Chrome. Consumer hardware is, for most part, used with whatever OS had been shipped with it. Now, much of the community here runs custom gaming boxes festooned with exotic peripherals and optimized up the wazoo, but that's not exactly the norm.

I think that we should first wait for Vulkan and VR optimizations that will come with it. If the 5090 isn't enough to run DCS maxed out in VR (for the record, I find my ReverbG2 works fine with a 3090), the answer isn't to throw even more processing power at the problem, but to optimize DCS, because there's other VR software that has no problems at that resolution. Vulkan should allow that to be done, the legacy DX11 code is likely at the root of our performance issues. Technically true, but its successor interface, NVLink, is still available. My 3090 comes with it. They killed this tech on all but top end hardware, probably because people were buying two cheaper cards and linking them to get performance of a higher end one. Obviously not a concern with the very top end of the range, or with the Quattro line. This seems to be more of a thing for crypto mining than for gaming, though.

3. You are required by your job to run, on your personal hardware, a Windows-only app (be it MS Office, OneDrive, or some proprietary app reliant on legacy features). 4. You aren't competent enough to replace the OS that came with your PC/laptop when you bought it. Most users don't make informed decisions on what OS to choose. They just go with the first thing they learned, the thing that came with the hardware, or the thing they're required to use by their employer. All three are pretty much guaranteed to be Windows for the foreseeable future. The average person walks into a store (literally or virtually), picks a computer from off the shelf, buys it, plugs it in and expects it to work. Maybe you can get off the shelf hardware with Linux preinstalled and preconfigured, but I haven't seen any in my local computer store. Windows was not made mainstream by whatever virtues you think it had. It was made mainstream by being a GUI, and then successor, for MS DOS. The only reason a crappy CP/M clone became the default OS for home computing in first place is that IBM PC came with it preinstalled. The average end user is lazy creature that will eat whatever they're fed, and MS knows that. Corporations aren't going to switch the common office drones to Linux, either, because that'd cost money to retrain them (I haven't seen a Linux distro that'd be indistinguishable from Windows on the surface). So unless the big OEM companies drop Windows and refuse to support it, the rest of the world isn't going to.

Assuming the F-47 itself doesn't end up on the cutting room floor, that is. The F-35 might very well end up the mainstay for years to come, expanded and updated with new tech as it comes. Its development program was over time and over budget, but it's shaping up to be the 5th generation workhorse in vein of the F-16.

It wouldn't do a whole lot of damage, though. It can kill softskins or nearby infantry, but those expanding rod warheads are useless against any sort of armor. It's a small warhead for killing aircraft, not an ATGM. An IR seeker will track anything that has enough contrast, and you can certainly use IRST for tracking a target, for instance in order to strafe it, but an AA missile isn't going to be very effective in most cases.