Great article and certainly decided it for me, this computer is becoming a Linux Gaming machine when I get my new one.
Thanks for the clarification. One small question though, how long does it take for an average person to get something like WINE up and running? And then getting used to using it?
I especially like the flight sim, though Glider forgot to mention it has a very realistic sailplane simulation (tow, etc.) which doesn't even exist in windows (Gliding in FSX is a joke)
Our gliding club over on this side of the pond is considering a simulator for some ground learning, and I'll have to recommend this over X-Plane, as well as saving the cost of Vista.
Happy Flying!
@ratchet - I only really heavily started using Linux last summer, and while the learning curve is a little steep, it is surprisingly familiar once you learn the differences in basic operations. the best thing to do is get a book on bash, it will save a lot of time trying to learn it from help.
I do like Linux (though more the [i]idea[/s] of it than actually using it...) but from reading that article, we're still a long way from Linux being the easy option for gaming. Especially if you have to pay £33 a month for Cedega. Perhaps this will appeal to the user who like Linux but plays the occasional game, but not for the average user/gamer.
i would really like to use linux but up to now have always had problems with my wireless network which has always put me off, i currently have opensuse on a drive (kde rules).
ubuntu seamed like the easiest distro to set up and use imo
Originally Posted by Tomm I do like Linux (though more the [i]idea[/s] of it than actually using it...) but from reading that article, we're still a long way from Linux being the easy option for gaming. Especially if you have to pay £33 a month for Cedega. Perhaps this will appeal to the user who like Linux but plays the occasional game, but not for the average user/gamer.
Originally Posted by r4tch3t One small question though, how long does it take for an average person to get something like WINE up and running? And then getting used to using it?
Wine is mostly included in the distro's package manager, so 5 minutes tops? :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomm Especially if you have to pay £33 a month for Cedega. Perhaps this will appeal to the user who like Linux but plays the occasional game, but not for the average user/gamer.
Well, it is £3 / month, and £33 / year :) For those £3 you get all te required software to run Cedega forever, just not the updates (alltough Transgaming likes yearly subscriptions, they are a commercial company after all :))
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Originally Posted by Hardware150 i would really like to use linux but up to now have always had problems with my wireless network which has always put me off, i currently have opensuse on a drive (kde rules).
Wireless is somewhat flacky at times, but more and more chipsets are getting support. Also, with ndiswrapper, you can often just use XP drivers for unsupported cards. And Fluxbox owns them all ;)
tux racer is another great game which runs on practically anything. I notice your running nvn under emulation, I was under the impresion that there is a native linux installer available for those who have the original game?
Originally Posted by Bluephoenix only thing to be wary of for linux are the Pre-N type cards.
even with ndiswrapper, most 802.11n cards don't work (from my experience anyway)
As mostly with new technologies, or ill implemented standards, the Linux community has to make a great effort to catch up. Texas Instrument chips are known for those (CF readers, Wireless chipsets,...) ill implemented standards. A good example are the cardreader chips, where you have to disable part of the chip to get it working correctly. And figuring those things out, by trial and error, takes a lot of time. If only companies would release correct datasheets...
For my purposes, Linux is still to a large extent a non-option, and this is due to the NTFS problem. All my disks are NTFS format, and I don't want to have to have multiple copies of things to allow me to work on them in both environments.
There are a fair few good games out there, Just take an install of ubuntu or something and look under the games section for 'add applications' and i'm sure you'll find something you like. wine etc is still too much effort for the average gamer in my opinion.
What i'd like to know is whats being done for the future of games on linux. dx10 is comming and OpenGL has been a bit quiet as of late (please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong). This could be bad news for open source gaming.
Gmaes companies should also start to consider Linux as free advertisement. I mean articles like this are bound to drop big name games that are easy to play/install on this platform. i.e. UT2004.
You can even host your / (root, like the C drive in Windows) on a NTFS partition :D
:D thanks Glider!
now all i need to do is work out how the hell to get Ubuntu to recognise my Asus wireless g dongle, and connect to my WPA network so i can actually get the damn box online!
The thing I always found was graphics drivers were a total pain to install specifically ATI's drivers.
Oh yeah, and sound hardly ever worked and umm.. yeah, generally its a total pain to use for some of the more obscure games like PlanetSide.
However I've not tried anything like this for at least 6 months. I still prefer to use Linux as a development/web server platform though rather than as a desktop machine.
Originally Posted by Rich_13 There are a fair few good games out there, Just take an install of ubuntu or something and look under the games section for 'add applications' and i'm sure you'll find something you like. wine etc is still too much effort for the average gamer in my opinion.
The same gamer that spends hours and hours on tweaking the last drop of performance out of its graphics card? Well, if wine is too much effort to use for those gamers, then they have an attitude problem. I checked, 2 commands are needed to install Wine in Ubuntu... How much effort does DX take in Windows? 15 clicks?
Originally Posted by Rich_13 What i'd like to know is whats being done for the future of games on linux. dx10 is comming and OpenGL has been a bit quiet as of late (please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong). This could be bad news for open source gaming.
OpenGL isn't dead, far from it. And in many ways OpenGL is superiour to DX (at least v9, not sure about 10). What DX10 brings for Linux? Well, Cedega is DX9 compatible, so it will just be a matter of time before it will catch up and become DX10 compatible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BioSniper The thing I always found was graphics drivers were a total pain to install specifically ATI's drivers.
Yeah, ATI support was pretty flacky 6 months ago, but now they are on par (or better at times) then nVidias. But TBH, nothing beats Intels support (IGP and the likes).
Quote:
Originally Posted by BioSniper Oh yeah, and sound hardly ever worked and umm..
OSS was shamefull at times ;) I admit that. But ALSA now has support for 95% of the hardware...
Quote:
Originally Posted by BioSniper I still prefer to use Linux as a development/web server platform though rather than as a desktop machine.
Linux just owns the server market... But I for one cannot work efficiently on an XP station anymore. Linux has spoiled me with too much freedom ;)
Having installed Sauerbraten this morning, I can't say I was too impressed. Aside from the fact that Ubuntu required an obscure library to be installed (libsdlmixer1.2?) before I could run the game, the sound was very crackly even when I did get it going.
Not only that, there was no widescreen support (though the -w and -h options on the console could probably provide this, it wouldn't take much to put it in the menus, would it?), the graphical effects didn't look up to the standard of the screenshots -- again I could probably spend a day or two editing the shell script that runs the game, but I really couldn't be bothered.. Why?
NO mouse sensitivity options. I could barely turn. What sort of 'frag-fest' FPS doesn't have controls (in the menus or _anywhere_) to adjust the mouse sensitivity?!
A much, much better example of FPS gaming goodness on Linux is 'World of Padman' [WoP]. It's an incredibly fun Q3A-based game, that requires no pre-requisite copy of Q3A and runs on Linux, Mac and Windows pretty seamlessly.
Installation was a sinch, much easier than Sauerbraten, widescreen support and everything you'd come to expect from a release-version FPS game.
I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for FPS kicks whilst living in Linuxland, and for when you're stuck with Windows or OSX too :D
I'm dual-booting with ubuntu at the moment, and theres only really one thing stopping me completely converting: the linux ATI drivers, they really are dire :P (some slowdown is due to wine/cedega, but i get a good 33% fps reduction)
Looks like i need to save up for an nvidia card to switch over to linux
(ironically, i swapped from nvidia to ati years ago due to the horrible nvidia windows drivers )
The only thing's that's missing now is better Ati linux driver support and cedega just free instead of payment per month. If that happens microsoft can go crying like emo kids for lost market share
Quote:
Originally Posted by cyrilthefish Looks like i need to save up for an nvidia card to switch over to linux
(ironically, i swapped from nvidia to ati years ago due to the horrible nvidia windows drivers )
Someone please cut through the BS and just tell me how I can have a desktop with an icon that I click and run a game like UT2k4 or HL2 without any command line.
I know that setting up linux will take time and configuration, especially on a distro like Gentoo, but I've seen a lot of informative articles that never really tell me HOW to do it.
Does each game require me to write some sort of script or something so that Wine or Cedega is run first?
I probably should know how this kind of thing works as I cut my teeth on DOS 5 and Win 3.1, but I've been spoiled by everything since win 98.
The only thing stopping me from switching to linux completely has always been games.
Bah! Once this laptop isn't my only computer (and it isn't essential for finishing my thesis) I'll have a play with linux.
id like to plug hardocp.com's "30 days with Ubuntu" article.. very very good review of linux OS as a whole...(even prompted me to go dual boot it!) that said, after reading it I don't think I'd consider Linux a good choice for gaming at the moment.. with hardware support its just not there IMHO and WINE and other extra layers of hardware communication can cause problems 'n whatnot
I've 'played' with a few linux distributions in the past and gaming wasn't a priority but I played my fair share of Wolfenstein Enemy Territory on it. I never knew there was a free flight simulator for linux - a great write up.
Glider: I'm actually thinking of trying it now having gone back and re-read the article. Considering my Slackware box is now offline I may dual boot (if I can find a spare SATA HDD hanging around).
What distro would you recommend for use as a gaming/desktop distro?
I'm guessing Ubuntu but I would rather have you opinion on it ;)
::edit:: cleaned up some erroneous spacings and spellings.
Comments 1 to 25 of 78
Thanks for the clarification. One small question though, how long does it take for an average person to get something like WINE up and running? And then getting used to using it?
I especially like the flight sim, though Glider forgot to mention it has a very realistic sailplane simulation (tow, etc.) which doesn't even exist in windows (Gliding in FSX is a joke)
Our gliding club over on this side of the pond is considering a simulator for some ground learning, and I'll have to recommend this over X-Plane, as well as saving the cost of Vista.
Happy Flying!
@ratchet - I only really heavily started using Linux last summer, and while the learning curve is a little steep, it is surprisingly familiar once you learn the differences in basic operations. the best thing to do is get a book on bash, it will save a lot of time trying to learn it from help.
ubuntu seamed like the easiest distro to set up and use imo
*flight gears graphics have come on a long way since I last looked at it :)
http://tuxracer.sourceforge.net/index.html
even with ndiswrapper, most 802.11n cards don't work (from my experience anyway)
You can even host your / (root, like the C drive in Windows) on a NTFS partition :D
What i'd like to know is whats being done for the future of games on linux. dx10 is comming and OpenGL has been a bit quiet as of late (please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong). This could be bad news for open source gaming.
Gmaes companies should also start to consider Linux as free advertisement. I mean articles like this are bound to drop big name games that are easy to play/install on this platform. i.e. UT2004.
:D thanks Glider!
now all i need to do is work out how the hell to get Ubuntu to recognise my Asus wireless g dongle, and connect to my WPA network so i can actually get the damn box online!
Oh yeah, and sound hardly ever worked and umm.. yeah, generally its a total pain to use for some of the more obscure games like PlanetSide.
However I've not tried anything like this for at least 6 months. I still prefer to use Linux as a development/web server platform though rather than as a desktop machine.
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/wine
Not only that, there was no widescreen support (though the -w and -h options on the console could probably provide this, it wouldn't take much to put it in the menus, would it?), the graphical effects didn't look up to the standard of the screenshots -- again I could probably spend a day or two editing the shell script that runs the game, but I really couldn't be bothered.. Why?
NO mouse sensitivity options. I could barely turn. What sort of 'frag-fest' FPS doesn't have controls (in the menus or _anywhere_) to adjust the mouse sensitivity?!
A much, much better example of FPS gaming goodness on Linux is 'World of Padman' [WoP]. It's an incredibly fun Q3A-based game, that requires no pre-requisite copy of Q3A and runs on Linux, Mac and Windows pretty seamlessly.
Installation was a sinch, much easier than Sauerbraten, widescreen support and everything you'd come to expect from a release-version FPS game.
I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for FPS kicks whilst living in Linuxland, and for when you're stuck with Windows or OSX too :D
Its opened my eyes a bit to linux again and I'm gonna install ubuntu when I get home probably.
One thing, how does installing on a raid controller work?
Will I need to do something similar to what is needed in XP (the press F6 thing?)
Hell, I may even format my machine and try it out... :D
Looks like i need to save up for an nvidia card to switch over to linux
(ironically, i swapped from nvidia to ati years ago due to the horrible nvidia windows drivers )
I know that setting up linux will take time and configuration, especially on a distro like Gentoo, but I've seen a lot of informative articles that never really tell me HOW to do it.
Does each game require me to write some sort of script or something so that Wine or Cedega is run first?
I probably should know how this kind of thing works as I cut my teeth on DOS 5 and Win 3.1, but I've been spoiled by everything since win 98.
The only thing stopping me from switching to linux completely has always been games.
Bah! Once this laptop isn't my only computer (and it isn't essential for finishing my thesis) I'll have a play with linux.
What distro would you recommend for use as a gaming/desktop distro?
I'm guessing Ubuntu but I would rather have you opinion on it ;)
::edit:: cleaned up some erroneous spacings and spellings.