Developers who want to accelerate game development benefit enormously from tools known as game engines. This type of software application helps games to be coded efficiently and easily without compromising on its quality. Game engines employ state-of-the-art technology to ensure that developers can concentrate on generating new scenery, models, and sounds, or to put an alternative spin on existing game material.

Game engines offer huge benefits to game developers. The main functionality they provide is the library of core functions used in a computer game. This often includes a realtime rendering engine for 2D or 3D graphics, physics engine with collision detection, a character animation system, scene graph, sound, artificial intelligence, threading, networking, input, streaming localization support, debugging tools, integration with languages, and the provision of performance monitoring and optimization tools.

For many individuals, computer gaming is nowadays an essential part of everyday life. This should not be seen as a negative. Whilst violent computer games have sometimes been identified as contributory factors in criminal activity, and undeniably they can be very addictive, it is important to recognise the real benefits that games offer besides simply providing a means of great entertainment.

A proverb that often springs to mind during the day is that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Breaking up the monotony of the daily grind (also known as work) cannot be underestimated. Computer games are a great form of entertainment, less passive that watching the TV, just as challenging as completing the Times crossword, but much more fun.

If Linux is going to make significant strides in increasing market desktop share, it needs to be able to compete with Windows in all areas. The average computer user typically just wants a single operating system to use for their work, to surf the net, to keep in contact with family and friends, and to have some fun. Having to reboot between operating systems is frankly too inconvenient for many users, as well as being perceived as too difficult. Whilst you can run many Windows software from Linux (e.g. by using virtualisation software, or Wine), again this simply appears to add to the complexity of using the PC. Furthermore, whilst Wine does allow some of the hottest Windows games to run under Linux, it is inevitable there will always be some incompatibility issues.

Surveys suggest that up to 90% of home computer users do not back up their data. That is a pretty frightening statistic bearing in mind how valuable and precious users' files are. Computer users who do not backup their files are at risk of losing all of their personal and irreplaceable documents. The hard drive in a PC can malfunction at any time, sometimes without any warning at all. Alternatively, the computer's hard disk can be damaged by an accident, a fire, flood, power cut, or infected by a virus.

There is no denying the huge selection of open source games available for Linux. Playing through all of these games would entertain many gamers for years. Nevertheless, there is still a massive market for commercial games. If Linux is ever going to usurp the desktop market, it needs a regular source of native high quality games that rival commercial games available on Windows.

Why spend your hard earned money on proprietary software when open source software provides a similar (or better) amount of functionality? That's a very good question.

The amount of software that is available for Linux is truly mind-boggling with tens of thousands of applications available to download, including an impressive arsenal of open source games. However, it is fair to say that the amount of commercial games released for Linux continues to be in short supply in comparison with the number of titles released under Windows.

Many computer users have an insatiable appetite to deepen their understanding of computer operating systems and computer software. Linux users are no different in that respect. At the same time as developing a huge range of open source software, the Linux community fortunately has also written a vast range of documentation in the form of books, guides, tutorials, HOWTOs, man pages, and other help to aid the learning process.

We have written a range of guides highlighting excellent free books for popular programming languages. Check out the following guides: C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, HTML, Python, Ruby, Perl, Haskell, PHP, Lisp, R, Prolog, Scala, Scheme, and SQL.