To Linux or Not To Linux

[OmnitronDefenseSystem]

So, I've been researching for a while, and Linux has become more and more tantalizing. It seems to do just about everything but playing games and editing multimedia better than windows. I was wondering what everyone else thought of it, and if it would be worth it for me to switch to Linux and just use Wine, a windows compatibility program, to play games with. Also, any particular flavors and why you like them would be nice.

[Cilraaz]

If you have an AMD/ATi card, they have horrendous OpenGL support. Gaming will come at about a 50% framerate penalty.

Do you have an nVidia card? If so, then the choice is 50/50.

Personally, I have a server running Debian, 2 Win7 x64 boxes, and a Win7 x86 laptop. I dual booted my main gaming system into Xubuntu for a while, but saw no real purpose for it, so I ended up reclaiming the space when Win7 SP1 hit. Now I just use VirtualBox to load a BackTrack5 instance when I want to do penetration testing on the server.

As far as which flavor to use, I'd suggest Xubuntu for home use. It's just Ubuntu using the Xfce desktop environment instead of Gnome or KDE. If you're going to do any type of production server use, I love Debian. Then again, Ubuntu isn't much more than a fork of Debian anyway.

[Jaqera]

@ Cilraaz

I use an ATI card and I find gaming on Linux to not be noticeably different from Windows 7 - FPS wise that is. Thus your "50%" theory is void. Perhaps I am just lucky though.

@ OmnitronDefesneSystem

I currently run Crunchbang #! on my laptop. Crunchbang is:

"a Debian GNU/Linux based distribution offering a great blend of speed, style and substance."

The reason I use Crunchbang is because of it's minimalistic style, thus making it very good on weak hardware, such as that in my laptop. Furthermore, I use Ubuntu alongside Windows 7 on my desktop for coding and various other things. It's very good and I do recommend at least giving it a test drive. If your hardware is weak you should certainly look into Crunchbang.

Give it a go and see how you find it! At first it will be rather confusing Once you get the hang of it you will enjoy it and be able to customize and do a lot of things windows is unable to. Plus all the software is free, no need to pirate Yaaaarrrrr!!

[ispano]

I personally use Gentoo on my router, and have dual booted it with Windows on my desktop in the past. I've also used it on an old Asus EeePC netbook. It's not.... easy, nor is it hard, I found it good for learning though. If I was to forgo the method Gentoo uses, I would personally try Mint, seeing as i've wanted to and never have.

[Leven]

Now I just use VirtualBox to load a BackTrack5 instance when I want to do penetration testing on the server.

VirtualBox or the free VMWare player will be good to let the OP try out a new operating system without erasing their machine. Ubuntu or Xubuntu are definitely a good starting point.

[Djinni]

VirtualBox or the free VMWare player will be good to let the OP try out a new operating system without erasing their machine. Ubuntu or Xubuntu are definitely a good starting point.

This or alternatively, use the dual/multi boot method. VirtualBox and VMWare have the advantage though that they don't change your current boot settings, which can be a pain to fix with the new windows setup.

[Deleted]

VirtualBox or the free VMWare player will be good to let the OP try out a new operating system without erasing their machine. Ubuntu or Xubuntu are definitely a good starting point.

Ubuntu has a windows installer, it installs inside Windows, and gives you a bootloader at boot as normal, however, you can still just boot into windows, go to your programs in config and just delete Ubuntu, and then it's gone again.

[Wries]

To Linux or Not To Linux

NOT! TOOLS OF THE DEVIL!

*throws liveCD in toilet*

PRAISE MS!!!11

--

Dual boot and try it out. I didn't find my ubuntu experience all to enjoyable for everyday use (personal preferences and stuff) but I put the netbook version of Ubuntu on an Acer Aspire One (the one with an 8GB "ssd") and it worked out great for that machine though obviously no games.

[Laurcian]

I've been using Kubuntu for years.. I play wow and get 60 FPS constantly. I do have an nVidia card.

Linux is amazing...I seriously want to kill myself anytime I get stuck using a windoze box...ugh so slow, ugly and infested with viruses and malware.

[Cilraaz]

@ Cilraaz

I use an ATI card and I find gaming on Linux to not be noticeably different from Windows 7 - FPS wise that is. Thus your "50%" theory is void. Perhaps I am just lucky though.

You're quite lucky then. You're the first person I've seen that didn't have performance degradation from AMD's shitty OpenGL support. It's been discussed a bit here in the past and a few others on this forum noted the same problem. I'd be curious to see a screenshot of WoW's framerate in linux and in Windows on your system.

[Zyzzyx]

You're quite lucky then. You're the first person I've seen that didn't have performance degradation from AMD's shitty OpenGL support. It's been discussed a bit here in the past and a few others on this forum noted the same problem. I'd be curious to see a screenshot of WoW's framerate in linux and in Windows on your system.

When I tried Wine and also OpenGL in Windows on my Radeon 4870 it ran like molasses flowing uphill. Was utter crap, so I'd believe it.

[Jaqera]

You're quite lucky then. You're the first person I've seen that didn't have performance degradation from AMD's shitty OpenGL support. It's been discussed a bit here in the past and a few others on this forum noted the same problem. I'd be curious to see a screenshot of WoW's framerate in linux and in Windows on your system.

I'll get a few to pasted into this thread soon. Perhaps then if the OP has an ATI/AMD card he will not be afraid I have been revising and taking a break on here and certainly do not want to log onto wow! Admittedly, these forums have become as additive!

In addition, the OP should just give it a go! Try Ubuntu to see if you like using the command prompt as often as one must

[Deleted]

If you have an AMD/ATi card, they have horrendous OpenGL support. Gaming will come at about a 50% framerate penalty.

Well, I run wow, in opengl, in pinguyOS amd64, with a ATI Radeon HD 4290 (Onboard!!) and have slightly better fps in linux with opengl than windows with directx...

short video i made, fps in the video is between 20-30 as i was recording



So yea, AMD's opengl support has improved loads since you checked last time

OP, If I were you I would definitly make the migration, more and more people are using linux everyday and more and more things are becoming supported.

EDIT: Reason i'm using an onboard card is because my 5870 died ><

[Havermeyer]

http://www.archlinux.org/ is my favorite flavor. BSD-style init system for easy under-the-hood mods, pacman is the best package manager I've ever used plus you have the Arch Build System to install from source code, and a rolling-release schedule combined with the goal of providing bleeding-edge, but stable builds keeps it all up to date.

It's not as easy or complete as Ubuntu, but it'll certainly teach you about Linux without going through (all) the pain of Gentoo.

[ispano]

Gentoo isn't painful, unless you're like the people who never learned how to learn the right way. Or figured out how to think about things in a way to solve them. I know I will totally take flak for those, but that's how i've seen it since middle school.

[Deleted]

Another Vid of me running Zul aman on my druid:



I'll be uploading some raid videos soon aswell

[vesseblah]

Another Vid of me running Zul aman on my druid:

I'll be uploading some raid videos soon aswell

Oh the irony... You're demonstrating how to run a subscription based game with copyrighted music slapped on it (youtube won't play the video for me because of the music) for people who don't want to pay for their operating system...

[Deleted]

You can't get all the eye-candy with OpenGL.
If you use your PC mainly for gaming and media, Windows 7 is your best bet.
Linux' are great for software developement etc. but not as good for media as Windows.

Get Ubuntu 10.04 if you want to try a fast and stable linux distro.

[Havermeyer]

Gentoo isn't painful, unless you're like the people who never learned how to learn the right way. Or figured out how to think about things in a way to solve them. I know I will totally take flak for those, but that's how i've seen it since middle school.

Or I don't like to compile when I don't need to. But enjoy having the option if I do. That's really the biggest difference. You lose some functionality in pacman+ABS versus portage because it's a binary package manager with a companion for compiling from source packages. You gain less banging your head on the desk waiting for crap to compile and faster updates.

[ispano]

Well, guess it's because I don't consider waiting on compiles as painful, I just go do something else. Oh that note, I need to toss Gentoo on my other laptop sometime.