[ccubed]

So here's the thing. I've been thinking about trying to be an exclusively ubuntu person for awhile. My question revolves mainly around how well wine works. I have the portable ubuntu installed, the one that gets installed alongside windows. I like it, quite frankly, and it's at a point where I could see myself using it constantly, but my one thing is my games. How good is wine with certain games? I'm fine with it not working with all games, but just how compatible is it with games? Or should I still keep windows alongside if I want to game.

Don't really have any other questions. I know that most of the programs I use I can find replacements for. None of that scares me, but it's gonna be annoying to find my wireless driver, because I have a dell wireless n card (I hear they're bad), but I can find that and I primarily use ethernet connections anyways.

But since I have you all, Fences. Linux alternatives? Only one I don't know of a linux alt for.

[RudiVisser]

Dell wireless drivers arn't that bad, they're generally based on a broadcom chipset so even though Ubuntu will pester you, it's a simple install (search for, I think "b43fwcutter"? and you should get a full tutorial) and you can generally use your Windows drivers as a last resort if required.

Don't know what you mean about Linux Alternatives, but if you mean Distros other than Ubuntu, well then definitely either Gentoo or Fedora, or for a more "desktopy" than "real linux" solution, Mandriva is always my fave.

On to the main question about games, I would honestly keep Windows alongside for games. WINE (and related, like CrossOver for Games) are great, but they're certainly no replacement in my opinion.

Of course, give them a try with your favourite games and see how they go. Remember you can always find other users' experiences on WineHQ AppDB.

[ccubed]

Oh, Linux Alternatives for Fences. it's a program from impulse, but afaik only works for windows.

Also, cool, didn't know about crossover, but most of mine seem to work with wine with just a few cavaets.

However, yeah, I just choose ubuntu because I'm use to it, but I imagine I could learn any linux distro. The only reason I haven't actually used mandriva, isn't it a paid distro? I don't want to buy a linux distro - though I may assuming I stay with it.

And really, i'll probably just go straight linux, see how it goes. I need to clean my HDD out anyways and all the important stuff is on an external.

Thanks for the advice about that b43fwcutter. I'll check it out.

Edit: So, I was just wondering. I think I narrowed it down.
I'll either use Fedora, Mint or Kubuntu. Does anyone have anything to say about them?

This post has been edited by ccubed: 18 August 2011 - 12:10 PM

[RudiVisser]

ccubed, on 18 August 2011 - 06:55 PM, said:

However, yeah, I just choose ubuntu because I'm use to it, but I imagine I could learn any linux distro. The only reason I haven't actually used mandriva, isn't it a paid distro? I don't want to buy a linux distro - though I may assuming I stay with it.

Nah, there's a "PowerPack" edition, but there's no need for it. What you need is Mandriva One 2011, the PowerPack basically gives you more support and a few paid apps, but nothing more.

ccubed, on 18 August 2011 - 06:55 PM, said:

Edit: So, I was just wondering. I think I narrowed it down.
I'll either use Fedora, Mint or Kubuntu. Does anyone have anything to say about them?

Kubuntu - No. If you're serious about Linux I wouldn't go with Ubuntu in any flavour, but perhaps that's just me.

Personally out of the 3 I would use Fedora. Mint is nice but again I think it's trying to focus too much on the "easy" desktop. I like the way that RHEL is laid out and Fedora kindof follows suit as it was part of the same project.

All that said though, I do recommend that you try out a few different distros for a couple of days and see which feels more natural for you. For me, it's generally Mandriva as it's easily available and unlike every other distro I've had installed, works out of the box.

For a server, I'd use CentOS or FreeBSD (not Linux sorry!), and if I was feeling like a geek, I would use Gentoo and make everything completely custom to myself.

[ccubed]

I heard fedora was lacking in packages and kernel updates though. Is it true?

[KYA]

It seems to be updated frequently. I can't stand the new desktop in 15 though.

[RudiVisser]

ccubed, on 19 August 2011 - 02:15 AM, said:

I heard fedora was lacking in packages and kernel updates though. Is it true?

Not at all? It's always updated, never heard of any such issues really.

KYA, on 19 August 2011 - 03:24 AM, said:

It seems to be updated frequently. I can't stand the new desktop in 15 though.

That "new desktop" is everywhere, it's GNOME 3 and it's god awful - Completely agree!

[stackoverflow]

I like how you said, "Ubuntu exclusive" and then the first thing you mention is wine?

If you want to be exclusive, go wine-less.

I highly recommend if you need to run Windows applications then run them through a virtual machine like VirtualBox. VB integrates nicely into the UI of most distros out there. You can pretty much dedicate one work space to Windows and others for Linux.

Though, I think it's best to try an go wine-less and VM-less. Try to experience Linux with Linux tools and applications.

I think Ubuntu is newbie friendly, but I suggest using Lubuntu. It's much faster and has good support from the Ubuntu repos etc. I actually run Lubuntu on my USB for my work computer.

[RudiVisser]

stackoverflow, on 19 August 2011 - 11:26 AM, said:

I highly recommend if you need to run Windows applications then run them through a virtual machine like VirtualBox. VB integrates nicely into the UI of most distros out there. You can pretty much dedicate one work space to Windows and others for Linux.

I would tend to agree, however he specifically stated it was for games.

Unfortunately (even with VB's recent addition of 3D Acceleration) it's still pretty much impossible to run a game within a VirtualBox VM, which is a shame!

[ccubed]

I went ahead and grabbed Fedora 64bit Games Spin. Sounds fun. But few more quick questions.

I use VB and .NET a lot. I was going to get mono for that, but do you have another IDE that you recommend? What about IDEs in general in linux?

[RudiVisser]

ccubed, on 19 August 2011 - 06:12 PM, said:

I went ahead and grabbed Fedora 64bit Games Spin. Sounds fun. But few more quick questions.

I use VB and .NET a lot. I was going to get mono for that, but do you have another IDE that you recommend? What about IDEs in general in linux?

Mono for everything. I used it even for normal (asin C) code, definitely the best IDE out there for Linux.

But you'll probably find that only one thing really stands out for all open source software.

[ccubed]

So, rather than starting a new thread, I'll throw this in here.

So, I go Fedora 15, did a package update, downloaded KDE, hated it, removed it. I don't like gnome 3 either, so erased that and downloaded XFCE. Then I installed the ATI linux drivers.

Why did I just tell you that? Because it got rid of the initial lagginess of the UI - and it's still super laggy, especially when switching to applications. Programs run fine once they're started and as long as I don't touch the quick bar in the upper left, we're fine.

However, Video is terrible. It skips, it's awful and it's slow. I didn't have this problem on Windows 7. I tried a couple of different video players (Mplayer, KMplayer, The default Fedora Player, VLC) and it's slow on all of them. Now, they are big files and granted they are on an external HDD using NTFS. Any ideas? (I don't think I had this in ubuntu)

[RudiVisser]

How did you install the ATI drivers?

They're normally really good just running from a single installer if I remember correctly.

[ccubed]

Yeah, that was it. I got them off the AMD ATI Driver site. I just installed the 8.82 Generic drivers versus the specific fedora implementation. I suppose I should try throwing one of the videos on the local drive and playing it.