What do you use your Linux box/machine for?

hey guys, so this really isn't a Linux bashing thread... hear me out.

I've just actually setup a simple file, multimedia + printer server using Ubuntu (older version 10.10 because of gfx issues) for a studio and I realized how robust the system is and how well it performs in any hardware scale.

I REALLY want to try to use it, but I can't. because...

As a client operating system, I see no reason to use it... Except if you're only consuming with the machine not developing... I do a lot of coding, design and print... which requires me to use Adobe CS software suite; for software coding I use Sublime Text.

If I want to use Linux, the counterparts are usually not available, and if they do exist, let's face it, it's nearly not as good as the commercial ones.

For example, I use Photoshop, Fireworks, Indesign, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver (or Sublime Text) in a regular basis in workflow. Only software that's available for linux from that package is Sublime Text, others; none. I use WebDAV, SFTP, FTP, SMB access all the time, and I see where Linux would come in handy to handle those protocols without any 3rd party tools, but what am I even gonna do with the files I download from the protocols if I can't actually work with them?

I can imagine for pure coding, it would be an excellent environment because usually all Linux distributions are excellent and exceed in performance for compiling code and what not, but for the things I've mentioned earlier, it looks like it's not ready for that yet.

Also, the driver focus isn't there yet for performance parts (in my experience). My laptop's 6770M hybrid graphics runs always hot, and in general, Linux has a shorter battery life span than Windows counterparts.

As for just simple word processing, etc I use Google Drive / Docs, Gmail, etc.

I didn't even really touch up on gaming (Although Steam for Linux is promising), Netflix, etc... but I don't want to go there and potentially argue about it because I think arguing over platforms on basis of being "able to play games" is pathetic to me.

Thanks for your input guys.

BTW, I use Arch on a laptop, Xubuntu in my iMac ha

 

I believe there are a plethora of reasons to use Linux. I was about to abandon my Dell D610 (1 GIG ram) but once I loaded Ubuntu 12.04 (3 D and Dash are excellent IMO) I was hooked. I rarely if every use windows on my ASUS other than for gaming. I can now do full images in less than 10 minutes. When I run into issues the help in this forum and ask ubuntu has been outstanding. I use it for all my everyday mundane tasks. I also notice If I do not run flash videos, temps are actually lower than my previous Vista install. As you mention battery life is about 10% less with 12.04, certainly not a deal breaker for me. I have also found out why many here recommend FF and ad block!

 

Distributions such as SuSE or Red Hat are typically more secure than Windows out of the box, and are excellent candidates for roles as enterprise desktops.

Linux is certainly more granular than Windows, and often works better for specific roles (an excellent example of this would be the use of Scientific Linux by CERN).

 

Correct. You are using software that is tied to a list of specific operating systems. Linux is not on that list. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with Linux, it's just not the right tool for your job.

To answer your question and give you a counterexample, I use it mainly to run a program called ROOT and various other programs associated with it. It is designed for Linux and works on OS X, but making it work with Windows is a royal pain in the neck and even if you manage to do it, the performance is much lower.

The other thing I use Linux for is LaTeX (the standard in mathematical and scientific publishing). Again, it can be made to work in Windows, but it is very awkward.

I have a similar setup (2720QM + 6770M) and this bothered me for quite some time, but there are now a couple of ways to deal with. Personally, I don't need the discreet GPU in Linux so I simply turn it off. Once that is done, the battery life is about the same as in Windows.

 

..So I guess there you have it. People can't use linux because they don't know and don't care about formats or languages. And start to become convinced that a specific program has exclusive access to various functionality. Even people who actually know how to program start to create platform dependent solutions. And other folks start to happily refer to an e-book reader as "a Kindle". Or to reading a newspaper on a mobile browser as "getting the paper on my iPad".

Really just love this stuff. Do these guys, you know, go in the IKEA Portal to get into the house, rather than the door. Then put their NIKE-wear in the closet along with their WINDBREAKER. And then go take a dump on their TOTO, and wipe their behinds with ANGEL SOFT?

Must be inconvenient when they go to the next town, or just the neighbor next door. They're just not going to understand each other, you know. They're just too different from each other. No way to reconcile this stuff. It's impossible.

Incidentally, I hope I'm not encouraging any toilet paper brand wars on the forum by talking about any of this. In that case, my severest apologies.

 

Except that enterprise desktops universally require MS Office. When you have to work with Word and Excel files coming from your clients and/or your business partners, LibreOffice just isn't acceptable, unless if you don't mind losing business contracts because your customers got upset that your company repeatedly messes up their formatting and templates

There are good TeX distributions for Windows. Or did you mean that the LaTeX way of doing things doesn't really fit in with Windows' GUI-oriented, one program handles the entire workflow from authoring to publishing model when you said it was very awkward?

 

And with any non-Windows OS, you also have to worry about central management (which is why many IT shops dislike BYOD - I still prefer deploying BlackBerry devices to employees for that reason, although I reserve the right to change my mind after SCCM 2012). This doesn't change the fact that there can be uses for non-Windows operating systems in the enterprise. Nor does it change the fact that for some enterprises, SuSE Enterprise or Red Hat Enterprise is the OS of choice. It really all depends on the needs of the environment.

And I say this as a Windows user

 

There are some instances where it is easier to use windows than to try and find an alternative way to try it in linux. Even though I no longer use windows on my own machines, I do have access to windows on family member computers, so I'm not completely removed from windows. However, since the only windows program I would use windows for is DVDFab, I have found a linux alternative so rarely use windows now at all.

It really is a personal choice, but when all is said and done, the best OS would be virtually invisible, only the programs would be visible. Think of it, use a browser, office program, listen to tunes, watch a movie etc, and not know if you are using windows, apple, linux, bsd.....

 

Security and cost to own immediately comes to mind. But those are obvious.

I use a Debian virtual machine (I'm all-Windows 7 for my computers) to program, since my class is taught using a Linux OS (professor uses Ubuntu), gEdit (I like it better than Notepad/Notepad++, though gEdit has a Windows port), and gcc is straight-forward on Linux (if I try compiling with a Windows gcc port or other system, such as Dev-C++ which I used to use, funky errors might pop up, lowering my assignment grade). As for other programs, I use GIMP to do slightly-more-advance editing, even though I own Photoshop Elements 8, because GIMP just :makes sense" to me, whereas Photoshop confuses me. To each their own. You can also have a greater freedom to tinker with the more complex parts of an OS with Linux, since if you screw things up, it's easier to restore to a clean state imo. Just separate /home from the rest of the system, wipe and reinstall. Don't need to worry about licensing fees or any oddities that come from commercial software (try installing Windows on a Rasberry Pi, or try calling Apple for support after telling them you installed OSX on a non-Apple machine).

But really, saying "Why use Linux" simply because you don't like it is like me saying "Why aren't you driving a Nissan??" because I think my car is better than anyone elses'.

 

As a developer, Linux is by far my favorite environment. Linux is an extremely rich development environment for scripting to native languages and everything in between. A major difference between a developer who enjoys Linux and most developers who enjoy Windows or Mac is that the Linux developer is usually not tied to a specific toolset. Most developers that I meet are Windows developers and couldn't live without Visual Studio. These developers often learn the tools more so than they learn the fundamentals of computer science(obviously there are exceptions but this is my experience).

I find Windows or Mac very frustrating to use as either a workstation or an everyday desktop. Linux gives me the control that I want that you can not get in any closed OS. I also find that Linux/GNU more enjoyable because the systems are not a blackbox and are almost always implemented in an easy to understand and sensible way.

I use various IDEs such as Eclipse and Qt Creator but I most often just use vim/gvim. Though gEdit and Kate work just fine as well.

I regularly use GIMP instead of Photoshop and it always meets my needs.

For RAW photo management I used to use Lightroom in Windows but moved to Bibble Pro in Linux and I now use Darktable. Darktable has only a few rough edges but has some great editing capabilities.

I use the typical desktop applications like Chrome, Firefox, and VLC.

The only reason I dual boot Windows is because of gaming. Luckily, I don't even have to do that anymore. I run Windows in a virtual machine and passthrough my graphics card. Amazingly, I can get 98-100% of the performance of booting into Windows natively. I find running Windows in a virtual machine to be much more convenient.

Pretty much from top to bottom, I prefer using Linux/GNU to Windows. I can't imagine ever using Windows full time again. I think it depends on your personality. Some people hate C/C++ and love Java, others hate Java but love C/C++. I'm one of the people who like C/C++. It doesn't try to hide its underlying implementation from the user for the sake of holding your hand. If I know what I'm doing then I don't want to be inhibited by the tool I'm using to get a job done.

 

What are you using for virtualization?

 

Me? Well, because I'm mainly a Windows guy and I'm comfortable using it. Tried dual-booting with Ubuntu back in the Vista days, but I wasn't compelled enough to switch. VM is good enough.

 

I was actually asking dalingrin. It probably would have helped if I quoted the post.

 

True, true

 

Most everything. The only BSD boxes I use are my home workstation and my NAS (both FreeBSD). Everything else in my house runs Linux. I don't see any reason to use a worse alternative for the things that I do. Media streaming (my audio and video front-ends run XBMC on Linux), my personal laptop (coding, e-mail, browsing), my router, my print server -- Linux is the best solution for all of those, hence I use it.

 

I've done VGA passthrough with both KVM and XEN but I find XEN to be far more mature.

 

What notebook are you using? I've been looking for a high end gaming notebook that supports GPU passthrough without much success.

 

Surfing and writing my reviews because of the 1050 vertical resolution and excellent keyboard.

 

I think the MSI GX60 could be a candidate for XEN VGA passthrough as it has an AMD APU / chipset / discrete video card

Another possibility is the Dell Precision with the Intel QM67 Chipset.

 

U.S. Fermi Lab also. I'm using it right now, actually on all my machines (I do have Windows for work programs)

 

I'm actually using Windows 8 as my primary OS at the moment, with a Windows 7 box in VMware for work. It's been a while since I've run Linux natively as my primary OS, and I'm looking to get back to using it for some things. (Actually, if I knew that ConnectWise worked well with Wine, I'd probably use Linux for work, just because)

 

I use Linux (centos, ubuntu, linux mint, debian, arch) and Mac OSX.
linux is cheap and free. thats why I use it. I don't need much - mysql, good text editor, git client and I'm good.
I also work in DevOps so my job is building servers day in day out. It is nice to test things out real quick and linux is an ideal platform.

OSX has niceties like better apps - bbedit/textwrangler/ sequel pro. far superior GIT clients,etc.
As well as Adobe Suite & Final Cut. I always prefer OSX due to the elegance, consistency and quality commercial apps.

However, I feel comfortable and at home with Linux. I can build it quickly to my needs as fast as I can clone a good mac build.

I have a shell script that I run post install that gives me sublime 2, smartgit, Gedit, the shell and UI color coded the way I want it. It generates my .SSH keys, configures myself to access my GIT repos and I'm done.

Since you use Sublime 2, thats how I like my work-flow to be like, dark solarize/guberish color coded.

I can clone a server GIT repo (whatever project I am working on) and interchangeably work among
2 desktops (iMac 27" & custom PC running Mint) to 2 laptops (Thinkpad and a Macbook Pro) and there is no loss in synchronization.

Do some javascript/python in Ubuntu on my desktop. Commit, Push to my private GIT server. Turn to my macbook, Fetch and pull my code, sync and work on the database and everything is synchronized with versioning. It is beautiful.

I set up my own personal cloud and that is the only way to work for me without any loss or downtime.
My iMac was bad so I worked off a mate's imac off a booted Thunderbolt SSD drive for 2 weeks. In between, my PC had bad ram so I was running a USB stick boot off another spare computer and I never loss track.

OSX and Linux works beautifully together. Set up SSH keys, rsync, and a cron job and you can have both work in harmony.

Like I said, I prefer OSX but I can live with linux if that was my only choice. I'd give up on Lightroom and stuff but I can live. My wife and kids all use Linux. My kids will never see Microsoft ever.

 

Ubuntu on Nexus 7, the only Linux machine I have. (not counting various Linux VMs I run)

I mainly use it as a testing machine, and it's nice to have a very portable device that can do some serious work if required.

 

I use both, depending on the purpose. In fact, I also use Macs sometimes.

While there are times I use LibreOffice, I prefer to use MS Office for documents I know are going to be used by another party. As mentioned, formatting often does not translate well and there are unfortunately some features that are available in one or the other and not both.

When I was PC gaming, I tended to use Windows, except for specific circumstances where a game ran better in Linux through WINE.

For most general use, I stick to Linux, because overall, it tends to run more efficiently and I have a lot more control over what is and is not running. While removing or disabling certain services from either can break the system, Linux allows for more control, especially with easy access to source code.

Just like a gaming console, the console is often less important than the games created for it. Telling people they are poor coders, because they don't do everything in vi is ridiculous. Every single person has specialties and methods to get their work completed. Are you one of those people who gets upset, because someone who is a quantum theorist doesn't know how to use sed? Good luck doing his or her job.

There are far too many people who vehemently support a specific system, device or otherwise, without any real methodology to back it.

Macs are for newbies. Windows is for people who don't know how to use Linux. Linux is for nerds. They are all useful. They are all computers. O/S elitism doesn't often work so well in a business situation.

 

I use a lot of lower-wattage hardware so the modularity of Linux helps me scale the OS to the gear I'm running. I'm chained to Windows for many work tasks but I use Linux for everything else. Actually it works great on my nettop home-theater PC.

 

ubuntu server for samba/vpn/dlna/remote nzb on a old ThinkPad Runs GREAT well and bt/santoku/debian on the other system. Still tied to windows on my main laptop but we'll get to the day I kill it off. Already have coworkers fulltime nix or ubuntu guys.

 

I've been a long time Windows user and absolutely love Win8. Having said that I have been dual booting Win8 with Ubuntu 12.04 and Mint 13 across two different Lenovo x61's. I really like the Ubuntu desktop but I have noticed it is slow when I use 2gb ram, lots of dim screens while it thinks if I have too much open at any time.
So my current setups are X61 (2.0ghz, 4gb) Win8 and Ubuntu 12.04 & X61s (1.6ghz, 2gb) Win8 & Mint 13.
I enjoy both very much and I could easily switch full time if I could figure out how to sync my phone and iPad to Linux and have access to my extensive iTunes content.

 

I use Linux mostly for servers and such as well as for my netbook (I use Arch on there). After setting up Arch Linux with KDE I love it. Everything I do on Windows I can do on there anyways (more or less; games are the obvious exception, but lately I've been playing a lot of indie games (most of which work on Linux; the only problem with Arch Linux is it's not Debian based, meaning I have to instal games the hard way (most of those games are given as .deb or .rpm files, which Arch doesn't support)).
Although it can be challenging getting things on Linux to work it's great for servers. Also, I find the challenge to be fun; if I didn't I likely wouldn't be using Arch Linux.

I started out with Ubuntu but after Unity started looking for a new distro (as many people did); eventually I decided I'd try out Arch. At the time I was intimidated of it and didn't want to spend hours trying to get a desktop environment working. But recently (about a week ago) I decided I'd give it a shot and actually set everything up and now it's my favorite distro. I like not having to deal with trying to remove things that are installed by default which I don't want (such as Empathy or whatever that IM thingy was called).

After college (not even there yet; in grade 12 currently) I plan to go into some sort of computer networking or something similar (basically where I'd be setting up servers and such), and Linux is used very much for those fields (from what I've heard). Either way, I like not having to pay for stuff. Even on Windows I find the free alternative to everything.

 

I use Ubuntu for everything, except updating my satnav or my mobile phone software.

web browsing.
ripping CDs and DVDs
music recording
all my business files and accounts
photo editing
video editing

 

What VM do you use to get those high performance?

 

Almost definitely Xen

 

My primary job is keeping lots of big postgresql database servers happy (about 100 right now, projected to grow to around 200 in a year), as well as lots of web / app servers. They all run Ubuntu or Debian or some other flavor of linux. A handful of mysql servers as well, for content management like wordpress sites.

In order to interact with these machines it's far easier if I'm running linux as well on my laptops.

As well my media server runs Ubuntu 12.04 over a 4x3TB RAID-5 array.

I game on a Desktop core i5-2400 with an AMD 7870 GPU running Windows 7. While steam / indie games are catching up, they're still far behind windows 7 for gaming. That machine is also the one used to do things like upgrade smart phones or other windows only tasks.

I have several friends that I provide technical support for. The rules are simple. If you run Windows I'm likely to throw my hands up in despair because all I know on Windows is "reinstall the OS and your games and see if that works." OTOH, if you got a linux problem my expertise is much better and it's quite likely I can talk you through fixing it over the phone etc.

I'm not a bigot. I don't hate windows. I just don't need it for my job or anything other than gaming, and I'm REAL used to using Linux for day to day stuff. I've been using mostly linux for about 10 years or so now, so any expertise on Windows left over from my days as a Windows NT 3.51 admin is pretty weak.

 

^^^ There's nothing wrong with not using Windows lol. While I do admit that I'm pretty heavily invested in Microsoft's stuff right now (7, Office, WP7, Xbox, Windows Server, Dreamspark, etc), that's just because that's how things are done with the stuff I do. Best tool for the job, right? However, I'm pushing myself towards learning more Linux though, and I find myself using my Debian VM a whole lot more these days. Kinda helps that I get a lot of the stuff for free too .

But I know how you feel about friends calling for support on other platforms. Lot of my friends use OSX and when they call me for tech support on that, the best I can give is "I dunno!". Same with Linux for the most part (I could handle the really basic stuff, but anything more and I just tell them to reinstall).

 

I use it as my main distro, work, music. movies...all linux :thumbsup:

 

Everything, just love the security, freedom and customisability. Run Win7 in virtualbox pretty much just for Garmin Basecamp the odd time though I might also run photomatix under wine occasionally too.

 

Windows gaming isn't what it used to be. I'm having a very hard time justifying the dual-boot myself.

 

Depending on which type of gaming you do though.

I'm the average Joe who can resist though eye candies and stuff when it comes to gaming, so I keep a Windows 7 install for that. The license comes with hardware, so why not use it?

For work It's another story.

 

I'd like to also add that since I've installed Ubuntu 12.10 on my X61t, I now use Linux for just about everything I do on a computer (minus Windows-only programs, since I don't run Wine). Also, Xournal is pretty freakin' awesome .

 

I use Linux to partition and sort my hard drive space, but I like it best when I dual boot Windows and Linux.

 

That's basically my point. The steam linux port is enough for most users. I don't see why the average Joe would be disappointed by that. Eye candy delivers great gameplay for a week and then you realize you wasted another $50 on a game with zero replay value. Most of the big names in the industry haven't had a fresh idea since the late 90's (lookin' at Blizzard here) and it really shows.

 

@Proletaria

Someone once asked me why do game programmers and hardware designers push graphics quality endlessly when the available tech is good enough for normal consumers to enjoy. My answer was better graphics tech can open up new possibilities for game design. I gave him some imaginary examples where current graphics tech would deliver poor quality/performance and kill immersion if the gameplay is designed in a specific way, but better graphics tech may solve the problem.

Then I realized that it's simply not happening...

 

Well i just got my new "linux box". its a used Dell mini netbook with a x32 hyper-threading atom cpu / with passive cooling. It's going to be running a debian server with some services like murmur, ircbot, and some other stuff.

 

My complaint isn't really the bog-standard nostalgia for text-based and 2d, bur rather an acknowledgment like the one you just made: that the industry has lost touch with me as a consumer. Frankly, I can understand the arithmetic of age and predication for letting the gaming hobby slide.

More importantly, once you realize the windows gaming scene sucks you have more free time for things that don't suck.

 

Well I use linux for development, because I'm not tied to any software or tool. The only thing that makes me still running Windows is Visual Studio. I don't do to much new gamming, i'm more into emulations. So I do play with my Linux, but I play: psx, ps2, nintendo 64, snes, gba, gbc, Game Cube. Yes I like some new games, but I still prefer to see my laptop playing old school games than newer games.

Everything that I did before on Windows I can do it on Linux, so I'm happy with it. (I said I do, I know that Windows have more games and stuff, but I just don't use them).

I'm tired of trying Windows thanks to Blue Screens... So I'm a full time Linux user. Except for this semester that I had to use Visual Studios. I have never got any problem with Linux and I have been running Linux for 2.5 years.

 

I am not a heavy user, I use my computer mostly for gaming & multimedia, uni work and some light programming. Linux does all of that, but some compatibility with Flash, my GPU and torrent makes me use Windows more than Linux, so my Linux is mostly as a backup in case my Windows dies.

 

To answer your question in the very first post, which was, "What do you use Linux for?"

I use Linux for EVERYTHING, personal and business.

- Office Suite: Libre Office
- Database: MySQL, with PHP web interface, or Libre Office interface.
- Finance Software: Gnucash
- DVD Video player: VLC, Totoem
- Music Player: Amarok, Rythmbox
- DVD, CD burner: K3B
- Media Center: XBMC
- Web-Site: WordPress, Apache, PHP MySQL
- Business Invoicing System: MyClientBase (PHP, MySQL Firefox browser-interface)
- Email: Thunderbird (My Android Linux phone has pretty much taken over this. I use Thunderbird to download and store my emails locally.)
- Web Browser: Firefox
- Vector Graphics Design: Inkscape (All my business artwork is done in Inkscape. I had one advertiser demand ai format, I told them if they wanted my business, they need to accept my svg format. . . period. They found a way to make it happen.)
- Raster Graphics Design/Photo editing: GIMP
- Video Encoding: Handbrake
- MP3 tagging software: Easytag
- etc..
- etc..


I decided to use Linux from the get-go with my business, so I have the opposite problem that others seem to have. I can't run Windows-only machines because Windows won't run the software that I need. So I have developed this unique perspective of looking form the Linux world towards the Windows world, and thinking, nahh. . . that windows stuff won't work for me.

Actually Linux, as an OS, is ready for this type of software. What it boils down to is, Linux has very little desktop usage, so the software vendors don't create proprietary software for it. That's exactly where Linux needs to be right now. If the software vendors create proprietary software for Linux, then the Open-Source software won't get developed. . . . at least not as fast.

If Microsoft had created Microsoft Office for Linux first, we probably wouldn't have Libre Office. I know so freakin many people that us Libre Office/Open Office now.

You can also use VLC to argue this point. The Linux world has had no good proprietary video software for watching videos or DVD's. So the open-source society created VLC, which is now the official play-all software on ALL platforms. If someone had created a decent proprietary software solution that worked well in Linux, VLC might have never reached it's current state.

Linux as an OS, and a it's GUI environments are far superior to Windows, in all aspects. Usability, stability, and security.

 

You have problems with torrent in Linux???

That's funny, because as I understand it, torrent was originally developed for the purpose of sharing Linux distributions.

Maybe you are having issues with magnetic torrent links not working. Magnets are something new, and all you have to do to solve the issue is use a current version of Linux.

 

I haven't used Linux much since college. When I do use it now, it's mainly for cross-platform testing of Java stuff, and occasionally fixing the stuff where write anywhere, run everywhere didn't work. And every so often trying a distribution to see what the newest UIs look like (lately, I'm a fan of maté).

Back in college, I had a fair number of C or C++ programming assignments, almost all of which were on Linux. Linux's better command line was useful, and although I didn't always use it, vi is not a bad editor once you learn enough about it (never did bother learning emacs, however). But I grew up with Windows (and initially, OS/2), so I already had ways to do everything else I wanted on Windows. In the end, I wound up doing more Java than C/C++ development, and that being platform independent, I did it on Windows where almost everything else I had was.

Inertia and being fairly happy with Windows means I'll probably stick with it. Though if I dislike the next version of Windows I try at home as much as I disliked Vista when I moved to it for 5 months, that could change. And I'd seriously try a Linux distro before trying a Mac, both due to preference and cost.

That's a really good point. It's still worth asking, "Have you test driven an Altima?" to someone looking for that type of car who has a Toyota now. And it might be fun to debate the merits of the Versa as opposed to the Corolla or whatever (though I really don't know anything about Nissans). But the flame wars that happen so often (and amazingly haven't in this thread) are just as silly as ones over what type of car you drive.

Not that I could blame someone for being exasperated if someone else bought a GM with a goal of reliability...

That's quite interesting. Are CPU performance and disk access also at that level? Can the VM access more than 1 CPU? That's always been the issue with I've had with virtualization before - try to do anything intensive, and it bogs down. Try to do anything 3D or otherwise intensive on the GPU, and it's almost hopeless.

Doing something like that might actually end up being more appealing than booting Windows 8 and having a separate XP boot when I eventually move off XP as a main OS. Especially if I could essentially leave Windows up in the background all the time, so it'd take less time to get there than a reboot would.

I thought sharing Linux distributions was what everyone used Linux for...

(half-joking, but it actually is my #1 use of torrents)

 

@Apollo13

I highly doubt the line "I can get 98-100% of the performance of booting into Windows natively". By definition it shouldn't.

However, most Windows games you can play these days aren't really hard on CPU/RAM/Storage. They only need a fast GPU to run, which won't be crippled too much if virtualization is done right. (Correct me if it's not like that. I don't know much about the inner workings of GPU virtualization.) It's probably possible to run a 3D game in a VM without noticing any performance issue. Not sure what VM you were using but physical multi-core VM isn't anything new.

However, VGA doesn't sound right for any modern 3D gaming. Maybe dalingrin was talking about some retro stuff?


@OP
Actually, if you can't do what you want to do with a Linux distro, maybe you shouldn't be trying in the first place. You get Windows licenses with hardware purchases anyway, right? People here may love G/Lin for varies reasons, but from a consumer perspective, the route that leads to things being done with least trouble is usually the best one.

 

Yes you can do more than 1 cpu. VGA passthrough could be called "graphics card PCIe passthrough" but it's a bit more complex than that, so it has its own name.

Xen VGA Passthrough - Xen