Linux

[Maxil223]

What purposes is linux used for?? Can you install games like EQ2, HL2, and SWG on Linux and actually play them??

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Maxil223
What purposes is linux used for?? Can you install games like EQ2, HL2, and SWG on Linux and actually play them??

Not if they didn't make it for that OS. There is a 3rd party program that allows you to game on linux, but why go through that hassle when windows does it better? Plus you won't get any tech support if you are on an unsupported OS.

 

[Nothinman]

What purposes is linux used for??

To operate my computer, what purposes is Windows used for?

Can you install games like EQ2, HL2, and SWG on Linux and actually play them??

Yes and no. Linux can't run them natively because they're written for Windows, but there is a win32 implementation called WINE that allows Windows apps to run, since there's a lot to get working in WINE some things work really well and some don't, it's hit and miss.

Plus you won't get any tech support if you are on an unsupported OS.

Tech support is worthless 99% of the time anyway, I can't remember the last time I called and got an answer to a question that was more than "we need a replacement for X".

 

[ProCoolingKevin]

Linux is great for me. My office PC is old. It's a 450mhz P3, 10gb hard drive, with 128mb of RAM. I added 128mb of RAM to make it 256. Normally this PC would run windows really slowly, but with Linux installed, it's not too bad at all! Plus, it is free. It is great because I get a whole slew of amazing, free, open source applications available right away... OpenOffice.org, Thunderbird, Firefox, Evolution, Gimp, etc... It's also incredibly stable. It was running W98 on it before, and i'd much rather haver paid $25 for more memory than a hundred bucks or two hundred bucks (not sure what the upgrade cost is these days) to get XP on an old, slow machine.

I much prefer the environments of Linux (xfce, gnome, kde) in reference to Windows. However, you mentioned gaming. For gaming, you're going to want the best drivers and the best everything for your PC. So if you want to game and use linux, a dual boot option might be best.

the reason I switched was because I couldn't stand MS's bloated OS and because I had an old PC. If you have no reason to switch, probably not worth the hassle... Then again... it's really fun to play with. Maybe make a small partition on your harddrive just for playing with Linux? Some good distros to try are Fedora and Ubuntu. I use Fedora.

 

[jbfstplk]

I need help installing Linux. I've tried several times and have had no success. I've tried old machines (like an AMD 450) and new ones (inculding an AMD 2400) but they didn't work. I've tried Corel and one other CD. Then I bought the HP version for $35 and after trying it several times, and talking to the tech support people, gave up and sent it back to them. Wonder if I should buy one of the cheapies from Fry's for $200 with Lindows/Linspire on it, and maybe it would enable me to copy it to another drive and . . .

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Plus you won't get any tech support if you are on an unsupported OS.

Tech support is worthless 99% of the time anyway, I can't remember the last time I called and got an answer to a question that was more than "we need a replacement for X".

Tech support for games, however, is not useless. Especially EQ2. All the usual fixes, the tweaks, etc... may not help.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: malak

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Plus you won't get any tech support if you are on an unsupported OS.

Tech support is worthless 99% of the time anyway, I can't remember the last time I called and got an answer to a question that was more than "we need a replacement for X".

Tech support for games, however, is not useless. Especially EQ2. All the usual fixes, the tweaks, etc... may not help.

You get tech support thru Transgaming if you pay for it. Most of those games work with transgaming to get it so that their games work with Linux. It's just cheaper and easier to work with transgaming rather then port to a platform which they don't understand and rapidly changes.

Not if they didn't make it for that OS. There is a 3rd party program that allows you to game on linux, but why go through that hassle when windows does it better?

Because there are lots of reasons to use Linux over Windows if your a person who is a computer hobbyist, enthusiest, hacker or programmer or whatever. No viruses, no worms no spyware, no nagware, no crappy software piracy protections to muddle around with. A large internet community, large amounts of free code, free software and libraries. Powerfull server OS were you can run the same exact software at home that the largest websites use. All sorts of reasons.

Of course if all you do is game, then use Windows. But why even use that? If all you do is game use PS2 or Xbox, both those are a hell of a lot easier, cheaper, and have gobs of inexpensive games.

Linux (or *BSD, Solaris, and OS X for that matter) is for people who just want more from their computer without having to spend gobs of money to get it or belong to special developer clubs or whatever.
Not for everybody, definately.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I use it for a variety of things. I've used it as a desktop, although I didn't use it for games. I've run webservers, databases, and file serving services on it. I've also used it for a NIDS. It's not my favorite, but it works better for what I like to do than most other OSes.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: jbfstplk
I need help installing Linux. I've tried several times and have had no success. I've tried old machines (like an AMD 450) and new ones (inculding an AMD 2400) but they didn't work. I've tried Corel and one other CD. Then I bought the HP version for $35 and after trying it several times, and talking to the tech support people, gave up and sent it back to them. Wonder if I should buy one of the cheapies from Fry's for $200 with Lindows/Linspire on it, and maybe it would enable me to copy it to another drive and . . .

Have you tried Fedora, SuSE, or Mandrake?
Those are the most popular distros, very easy to setup, just click a few buttons and you're done, pretty much.

 

[losershot]

S T A B I L I T Y

 

[uOpt]

Core Linux was a joke.

Stop spending money on useless Linux distributions, get Fedora Core 2. Or pay Mandrake for decent install. No Suse if you want high install probablity.

Don't rely on Wine to run anything. If it does, fine, but don't expect it to.