Two reasons I game exclusively on Linux

[Huw the Poo]

Two of the many reasons, I might add...

1. By extreme luck I acquired a considerably better graphics card lately.  After installing it in my PC, I booted up and Linux didn't bat an eyelid.  No popups, no messages, no offers to install a new driver.  It Just Worked, absolutely seamlessly.

Booted into Windows, however, and there went well over an hour of my life while that clunky piece of shit OS fumbled about getting the right driver installed and pissing about with screen resolutions.  Couple of restarts required as well, of course, because you can't so much as change the time without having to restart this miserable excuse for an operating system.  Oh, and when it was all done I got another message "yeah you should probably uninstall the previous graphics driver now"...cue another 20-odd minutes of my life down the toilet.  Oh god I hate Windows.

2.  Ever installed a game in Steam?  Ever eagerly clicked "play" for the first time, rubbing your hands together with glee, desperate to play the latest shiny, only to be forced to stare at this for 10-15 minutes?



Doesn't happen in Linux.  Game installs, you play.

Windows can suck it.

[sandman2575]

I keep thinking, "my next PC, I'm going Linux," but fear of the unknown usually keeps me from acting on that. Better the OS devil you know, than the one you don't...

Huw, what percentage of your games (roughly) do you have to boot up through Windows?  That's the other thing I worry about with Linux -- still having to rely on another OS (namely Windows) to play games --

[spelk]

Ive been moving towards using a Linux OS as my main 'do stuff' PC for a while, and I like Ubuntu, but it feels clunky with the Unity desktop.

The other month I moved over to using openSUSE as my main OS, and I really like it. It's stable, easy on the eye and easy to manage without much in the way of command line fiddling about. I use the GNOME 3 desktop version, rather than KDE. I find everything is within a single tap of the 'super' key or a slide in favourites bar, or an icon on the top status bar.

https://www.opensuse.org/en/

Most of the UI can be customised, especially with GNOME extensions, which are quite handy.

Here's my desktop, with all my UI features on it.



There are some games available in the games repositories
https://software.opensuse.org/appstore/games

http://opensuse-guide.org/games.php

I haven't given Steam a bash on it although there is a client for it
https://en.opensuse.org/Steam

Linux games on Steam
http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/

Not really given it a heavy thrashing games-wise, but as a smooth desktop experience I can't really fault it. Only issue I've had with it is that the Flash plugin in Firefox is a bit flakey at times, but then in Windows the same is just about true.

Everything can be downloaded from the web too (inlcuding extra packages)
https://software.opensuse.org/131/en

Its the most stable and user friendly Linux I've run, and I've tried quite a few distros (Ubuntu, Mint, Elementary, Peppermint, Puppy, EasyPeasy, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Kubuntu etc)

Still, your Matrix/Slitherine selection will be limited on Linux. I guess if you want to cover the widest range of wargames you can, you'll need a Windows partition a linux partition and an iOS and Android device. :)

[Huw the Poo]

Well, I have (or rather had, until Origin bollocksed up my hard drive) a very large number of older games installed that probably wouldn't have worked on Linux.  For simplicity, I'll go by Steam.  Currently my Steam collection is at 285 games, and of those, 123 are compatible with Linux.  That's 43%, which is astonishing given that the games market for Linux was almost nonexistent just a couple of years ago.

For me personally I generally don't boot to Windows to play games any more.  The next time I get an MMORPG itch I will have to, because MMORPGs are almost never ported to Linux.  And if my daughter wants to play The Sims I have to boot into Windows.

For now though, I have more than enough games to play on Linux.  I've also stopped buying games if they don't support Linux - a strategy that not only ensures I can play new games in my OS of choice, but also makes me a lot more immune to cheap game sales than I used to be!

There have also been some lovely surprises in the world of porting to Linux lately, like Civ 5 and XCOM.  And every now and then I'll load Steam to find my Linux games count has increased - someone's ported a game I already had into Linux!

[Huw the Poo]

The other month I moved over to using openSUSE as my main OS, and I really like it. It's stable, easy on the eye and easy to manage without much in the way of command line fiddling about. I use the GNOME 3 desktop version, rather than KDE. I find everything is within a single tap of the 'super' key or a slide in favourites bar, or an icon on the top status bar.

Great post Spelk!  I use OpenSUSE too, although I prefer KDE myself.  OpenSUSE is great, it's the best distro I've used in a long time.

[undercovergeek]

Two of the many reasons, I might add...

1. youre weird

2. see 1

[sandman2575]

1. By extreme luck I acquired a considerably better graphics card lately.  After installing it in my PC, I booted up and Linux didn't bat an eyelid.  No popups, no messages, no offers to install a new driver.  It Just Worked, absolutely seamlessly.

Wait a minute -- Does that mean you didn't have to install even the card's proprietary drivers? (nvidia or amd)?  'cause if so, that's pretty amazing. 'plug and play' graphics cards?  Nirvana!

(Out of curiosity, what card did you get?  If a GTX 980, then color me jealous...)

[RooksBailey]

Wow, this is a pretty interesting thread.  I didn't realize that installing hardware and games would be an easier experience on Linux!  I figured it would be the opposite, in fact! 

I wonder if one of the reasons that Windows X is going to be free to Win 8 users is precisely because Linux is gaining on Windows in a threatening fashion? 

[Huw the Poo]

Driver management has always been far simpler in Linux, although the actual availability of drivers wasn't so great in the past.  Sandman, I already had the nVidia driver installed, but in a way that makes it even more impressive that I didn't have to lift a finger after installing the new card.

I got a GTX 570.  Considering I had a Palit GT 240 that's quite a step up!  My CPU is a bottleneck now, but at least I can have shadows in games again! \o/

By the way, dual booting is a piece of piss.  The initial side-by-side install can be a pain in the arse because you have to partition your disks etc, but once it's done, all you ever need to do is choose your OS at boot time.  Couldn't be easier.

(Some extra info concerning drivers in Linux.  Unlike Windows, Linux drivers live in the kernel and 99% of what the average person needs is already compiled into the kernel of any major distribution.  You'll find that most hardware is properly plug 'n' play thanks to this.  With a fresh install of Windows you'll spend at least half a day downloading and installing drivers and updates, but with the average Linux distro a fresh install requires a few updates (that don't require restarting your PC) and everything's good to go. When I install a new distro the entire process, from booting from the live media to a fully working and updated desktop, typically takes less than an hour.

Graphics cards will generally default to open-source drivers, but proprietary drivers - i.e. the ones that come from nVidia or ATI - need to be specifically installed.  This is usually a very simple process though, and much better than that "Geforce experience" bullshit.  Some distros offer to install the proprietary drivers at the initial install.)

[sandman2575]

Great info Huw, Spelk too -- thanks!

I have a reasonably up-to-date desktop that I use 95% of the time (running Win 7), but my laptop is getting on 5 years old and starting to show its age. What I should do is make its replacement my 'practice Linux' machine. And dammit, that's just what I'm a'gonna do! 

[Huw the Poo]

Excellent Sandman!  You're always welcome to ask me for advice.  As a starter's distro, may I humbly suggest Linux Mint?  It's very slick right out of the box, and being based on Ubuntu might be a boon for a gamer since Ubuntu is more often than not the distro that's supported best by developers.  That's not to say some games will only work on Ubuntu, but if you do have any problems the developer is likely to be more helpful if you're running Ubuntu or one of its derivatives.

[sandman2575]

Thanks Huw -- I think I recall you mentioning Mint before, in a thread awhile back.  I will definitely keep it in mind -- newb-friendliness will be a major factor in any distro I consider.  :)

[spelk]

Great info Huw, Spelk too -- thanks!

I have a reasonably up-to-date desktop that I use 95% of the time (running Win 7), but my laptop is getting on 5 years old and starting to show its age. What I should do is make its replacement my 'practice Linux' machine. And dammit, that's just what I'm a'gonna do!

Linux is definitely the way forward if you want to revitalise old hardware. Not necessarily for heavy gaming use, but if you want to make a 5+ years old laptop run like the wind, then a Linux distro (like openSUSE, peppermint, or puppylinux) can really make it fly. I've had sluggish XP machines get a new lease of life on a linux distro.

I think the later Ubuntu/Mint variants are built with newer hardware in mind, and their UI's try to take advantage of the extra power. But if you pop over to

http://www.distrowatch.com

you can usually find a popular flavour of Linux builds for whatever your needs may be. Be careful though, because distro hopping is VERY addictive. Luckily most come with a live CD, that you can boot with and test without performing a full install on the hard drive.

I would actively encourage everyone to taste a few Linux OS distros on Live CD's just for the hell of it. See how the other half lives! :)

Dual booting is usually taken care of by most installs, and the GRUB loader takes into account the Windows partition. If you do zap a machine totally though, be prepared to have a bit of a faff about if you then want to put Windows back on, because the Windows boot loader will have to be set up again from scratch.

If I'm taking a machine over to Linux totally, I don't anticipate wanting to swap back to Windows again.

Even though Linux looks more complicated than Windows, I personally think its a much more elegant solution in terms of structuring your operating system than your average Windows box is. It is built to be customised and tinkered with. It is built to offer valuable free software without all the DRM nonsense. The support communities tend to be very large and active and willing to chip in without having to pay for information or expensive corporate training sessions.

i've found if you have a Linux problem, you can usually find a solution online without much trouble, without having to trawl through endless shite on MSVP/MSDN/Experts Exchange sites. Just nip over to askubuntu, or superuser.com and you'll be fine :)

If you want a very stable desktop without much config effort, then I'd say openSUSE is the way forward. I watched this guys change and was very impressed from the off, after being an Ubuntu man for quite some time.

Switch Part 1

Switch Part 2

Switch Part 3

Why I changed to openSUSE

[vyshka]

I imagine for gaming the best support for now will be Ubuntu and the derivatives since that is what Steam has targeted, but it is possible on other distros as well. The upstream gpu has been getting much better over the past few years with Nvidia, AMD, and Intel supporting the efforts, but the best performance will probably still come from their drivers for the time being.

I have been running Linux in some fashion since the mid 90s, and have been working with it since around 2004. I'm a Fedora person myself, but that is probably mostly because I have been dealing with Red Hat based stuff for a long time both at my previous jobs and the current one with Red Hat. I have a disk around somewhere with Ubuntu and steam loaded that I can throw into a esata docking station and play with, but most of my time is spent in Fedora in terminal windows running in the i3wm tiling window manager. At some point I'd like to spend some time Arch, but I never seem to find the time.

[RedArgo]

How well would Linux work running from a usb 3 flash drive?  I have a 64 gb one I bought and then never used for anything.  I'd like to mess around with Linux, but I don't want to fool around partitioning my main computer.

Thanks.