New to Linux

InsomniaCalls

InsomniaCalls

InsomniaCalls

Soldato
Joined
20 Jan 2005
Posts
2,722
Location
Whitley Bay
Hi folks.

I've newly installed Ubuntu on my PC and it's opened my eyes a little to the open source alternatives to the software I currently use.
I'm considering moving to Linux completely rather than dual booting with Vista.
I've not decided on which distro yet as there are a couple of things which put me off.

The first one is gaming - I'm not a huge gamer but I do dabble.
Is there any kind of emulation software available?
If not I guess I could continue to dual boot and have an optomised Windows installation purely for games.

The second is streaming to my XBox 360.
Is this possible from Linux?
My media is currently stored on an NTFS drive which I can read from ubuntu (not tried writing - if I was to move over permanantly I'd migrate my files to another file system).

Another little niggle is drivers for printers/scanners etc.
I've not really tried installing any hardware so far so this may be easy
- are drivers generally available? I'm using an epson printer and canon scanner so they're not really obscure devices.

If anyone could put my mind to rest that'd be good! :p

TIA
Si
:)
 
transgaming.org (subscription service, but it's low at about £2/pcm.)

Wine (from WineHQ) will allow the running of a lot of apps, but it's not aimed at just games, so some handy work is needed to get things running.

Drivers is just a bummer, vendors don't always bother releasing drivers for !windows and some don't even bother releasing tech-specs so that budding linux users can write their own drivers.
 
Yep, Cedega from Transgaming.com might enable you to play your games under Linux. It all depends which games you play - have a look for them at http://transgaming.org/gamesdb/ and see what level of playability the games have. Some games, such as HL2, run surprisingly well, whereas some other games won't work at all.

I've not tried streaming from Linux to a 360... as I don't have a 360 (but I'll do it if someone gives me a 360 :D) but I seem to remember reading somewhere that you can use VLC to transcode DivX, XviD, etc... files to WMV so that the 360 can play them.

As for the drivers for printer, scanner, etc... the best thing to do is to check the Hardware Compatibility List for the distro you choose to use, and see if your items are listed. Epson and Canon are popular manufacturers, so you should be in luck :)

HTH
 
Thanks guys.
So does VLC have the ability to stream? I haven't tried it because I'm at work so can't.
I guess if VLC wouldn't work I could try using one of the Windows apps from Wine?
 
Yes, VLC can act as both a server and a client to stream and receive network streams. Whether the 360 will work receiving the streamed output from VLC is beyond me, as I've never looked into that.
 
All the games developed by id Software should run natively under Linux. I installed Quake 4 and it worked fine. Installing is not as simple as it would be under Windows for some games, so be prepared to do some work. However, you're using a free, open source OS, so to get anything working on it, there's a price of putting some effort behind it. :P

A list of native Linux games or games that have been ported to Linux can be found here:
http://icculus.org/lgfaq/gamelist.php

Installing Steam using Wine should allow you to play all your Steam games too.

Write support for NTFS from Linux is now possible with NTFS-3G so you don't really need to migrate your whole filesystem. It's upto you though.
 
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