Games on Linux

I am considering dual booting Windows Vista and Ubuntu. Just because I'm tired and completely fed up with Vista. Eventually I'd like to dual boot Leopard and Ubuntu and remove Windows altogether, but for now I'm worried about compatibility and will keep it.

A description of one person's experience with Ubuntu said that he used Cedega to install a few of the newer games on Ubuntu. He also said that they ran about 2 times better than they did with Vista. Is this generally true for all games that are played on Ubuntu or is it a hit and miss type thing? Also, would you say that the overall selection of newer games that I'd be able to install on Ubuntu is extremely limited or not? Games such as Guild Wars, Universe at War, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., etc.

Cheers

- Liza

 

Definitely keep Windows for a while. Use Linux whenever you can, but it will be unfamiliar, things won't work the first time, and you'll basically go back to being a n00b until you start figuring out how Linux is different from Windows. Many of the system things you take for granted that you know about Windows (control panel, registry editor, downloading installers, etc.) are not applicable to Linux. Keep an open mind, though... Linux lets me use 5GB of RAM on my desktop machine, whereas Windows won't even install right with the SCSI drives and such.

I wouldn't touch Cedega. I've found that Wine works better with most games. But that's just my experience... try the free solution first, see if it works. What I think you'll generally find is that OpenGL games will work pretty well, and DirectX games will have less success. But they will often run faster, either because fewer features are implemented or because the system itself is more efficient, that's hard to tell and it depends entirely on the game and what features of Windows it uses and expects. Unfortunately, the only thing I can honestly tell you is "try it and see", and we'll be here to answer questions

 

Thanks, Pitabred, I'll do a bit more research on whether or not Ubuntu is actually right for me, but I'm leaning towards at least trying it. I'll have to find out how much space I'll need and such, seeing as I only have a 100gb HDD and about 20 gigs of free space left on it :S

 

You cant install Leopard on a non-Mac machine as there's some legal clause in the EULA saying Lepoard cant be run on any non-mac hardware.

 

Ah, apologies, won't happen again

I'm now reading all I can about Ubuntu (partition sizes needed, etc.) I want to get this thing done tonight.

 

Ubuntu + WINE is fantastic. I installed Steam and played HL2, Team Fortress 2, HL1 and others and they all worked fine.

Needed to download and install a particular font file (text was blank) and had a couple of fullscreen/windowed issues, but by and large it was flawless.

Performance was on a par with WinXP on the same hardware. 1920x1200 gaming was fine.

I didn't really try anything non-Steam and I haven't got WINE installed any longer (I installed it for MS Office compatability but found that Office 2003 isn't yet fully supported).

 

As mentioned, no discussion about running MacOSX on non-Mac hardware is allowed here. Thank you for your cooperation.

 

There are video walkthroughs that are very helpful here. By watching them before you install you can see what its like to do a mock install.

 

Liza....I really like Ubuntu. Right now I need to figure out how to sync my Blackberry with Evolution sans major hassles. You can keep Vista around like me for a 'gaming partition'. Let us know how it goes!

 

Hi there!

You may also like to consider Mint Linux - it's based on Ubuntu but without the added need to configure/reconfigure/tweak the system for it to work just so. You may wish to download the CDs for both Ubuntu and Mint, boot into each one on different occasions to see which one you fancy more.

Both Mint and Ubuntu share the same software packaging system (both, incidentally, are based on Debian - yet another distro), and both have very qualified and eager communities of users willing to lend a helping hand.

My suggestion for Mint is straightforward. It fully installs support for sound/video codecs, all networking and fully tested read/write support for NTFS (XP and Vista filesystem), so if you ever decide to install Mint, you can share a drive between Vista and Linux Mint for anything you wish. For instance, I currently have a smaller partition for video/audio and I share Firefox bookmarks and Thunderbird e-mail between XP and Mint (accessing bookmarks or e-mail from either OS) without having to keep a copy of each for both operating systems - total drag!

Anycase, another option to consider.

Cheerio

 

Whoops, I just realized that you initially asked about gaming on linux but the topic got off course there a bit.

Cedega is definitely good for various games! Here's a link that indicates which games run on Cedega with a comments from people that have tried the various games: http://cedegawiki.sweetleafstudios.com/wiki/Category:Games

Hope this helps.

 

I suggest installing XP and Ubuntu if you are going to do some pure gaming. However, if you are just going to play some basic MMO's (aka WOW), then Ubuntu is good for it now. Cedega is good, Crossover is also good too.

Everyone has their own opinions on each piece of software. My suggestion is to try it out and judge for yourself.

 

Wine wins for WoW. It's also updated more often. I've had more luck with it than Cedega.

 

I would suggest trying Kubuntu, a version of Ubuntu which uses a different GUI (KDE) from Ubuntu (which uses GNOME). In my experience, it's been much more like Windows, and allows for much more customization.

You will definitely want to keep Windows around for anything you can't/don't yet know how to do in Linux. ntfs-3g can be used to read your Windows partition from Linux, and install the driver at http://www.fs-driver.org/ to access your Linux partition in Windows (full read/write).

As for installing Leopard on non-Mac hardware, don't waste your time. I tried it and it was chock full of problems. You should definitely replace Vista with XP as your Windows operating system though.

 

As said before - use WINE first (use Wine-doors to set it up, its just easier ). Cedega's good but yeah, try the free option .

Also if you're not ready to repartition your drive, try out Wubi (They're a bit behind though!)

Wubi will install Ubuntu as if it was on another partition, but actually its in a file in windows. Last time I checked it read the windows partition out of the box.

Happy *buntuing.

##EDIT## - To answer your question, performance is generally the same, support generally isn't. Its interesting to see how dependant one OS is on another and vice versa

 

For a comprehensive summary of Linux distros:

www.distrowatch.com

Good luck.

 

try a vmplayer version of linux. It is free and you can try things without having to do more than click a file.

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/browserapp.html

It is an older version but you can play and it is a nice way to protect your machine from bugs...

Oh and you can fine other images via google out there but the cool thing is you can test differnt images without having to wipe the machine. Get the player as well


http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1068

here are more

 

But good luck running your games in a VM...

 

tee hee

 

Wormux!! Played at my mates house and very enjoyable 2/3/4 player etc. Its based on Worms.....obviously.

 

Certainly have better performance just CTL-Alting out of the vm than running Wine to play windows games...

 

Actually Wine works very well with many Windows games, including Call of Duty 4 and Orange Box (check out fsckin.com for tutorials on how to install those under Wine).

 

can i get a link to the Wine download..anybody?
i would like to try it out..and would i also be able to install without having any other OS installed first?
and is there a part where i can make a bootable cd of Wine like you can with ubuntu?

 

Wine is a compatibility layer...you install it in Linux like you would any other Linux program. Installation thus varies depending on the distro. Then you install Windows programs through Wine.

 

wine is an application, hence you cant make a bootable cd of just one app.

However if you boot into ubuntu through the cd you can temporarily install wine and play around with it.

 

so i wouldnt have to have a second partition for wine then right? what do u mean by temporarily? i thought wine was free?

 

okay ic. my bad