Ubuntu or other Linux OS

[paradisiac]

can these OS's be used successfully on pcs that are used for gaming or are they pretty much for home/office use?
what i really mean is, can a free Linux OS (dont really know which ones do what) replace windows completly?

 

[paradisiac]

I haven't tried in quite a while now but I don't think you can seriously use a Linux machine for gaming. Indie devs are getting very good at supporting Linux but for your mainstream AAA titles you can probably forget it. There's a good database for Wine here that lists people's attempts at getting all sorts of Windows software working via Wine. Also there's a program called Crossover that you have to pay to use; it's built on Wine and apparently supports a fair number of Windows games but I haven't tried it myself.

Personally I dual-boot. Gaming is the only reason I have a Windows partition at all; it's just easier that way.

ok thanks. im just looking at the possibility of knocking out some cheap pcs to make some extra cash, and one of the biggest cots is windows. so i want something thats user friendly and supports as much as possible. if it means sticking to only knocking out office/student type pcs then thats kool. just want to know in advance than getting complaints.
what about things like HTPC usage, does Linux offer a system that is good for this and supports most filetypes, or do apps like VLC work well on Linux?

 

[paradisiac]

Linux is absolutely brilliant for this, there's even prebuilt distrobutions around whe whole premise

prebuilt distributions?

 

[paradisiac]

Look into Mythbuntu for all your HTPC needs, and as Hairybudda says, there are other distros built around the premise.

Frankly, and this may attract some flak from Windows users but I don't care, there isn't a great deal Windows can do that Linux can't. Besides the fact that games devs tend to rely on DirectX, the only other advantage Windows has that I'm aware of is hardware support. Some hardware manufacturers blatantly target Windows only and refuse to provide Linux drivers. However in a huge number of cases even that isn't an issue, because the Linux community just write drivers of their own.

If I permanently stopped gaming my Windows install would be nuked immediately.

thanks, will look into Mythbuntu

 

[paradisiac]

how easy are these OS's to setup and are there any brands that have better compatibilty (Gigabyte, ASRock, AMD....) or do most companies generally offer support/drivers?
also does Linux suffer from viruses, if so, what do people use?

 

[paradisiac]

It depends on the distribution you're installing and your familiarity with linux, can range from being incredibly easy (ubuntu) to tough (LFS). Big name companies generally do release drivers yeah, smalelr companies tend to neglect linux more.

i have never used Linux, so will be a first for me. what is the main difference between the versions? ubuntu seems to be the one most people talk about, so is this the easiest and most flexible/user friendly version?

 

[paradisiac]

Aesthetically (which your users will probably be more interested in) they 3 big desktop environments in major distributions are Gnome, KDE and XFCE.

The main difference between common distributions are their release cycle (ubuntu for example releases a new version every 6 months I believe), their software management, kernel version and their 'out of the box' hardware support.

Ubuntu is probably the most common desktop version around right now, originally it was based on Debian before it took off on its own direction. Linux Mint is another good starter distro I gather, started off based on Ubuntu and migrated to a Debian base.

Personally I like using Arch & Gentoo but they're probably too 'enthusiast' to be putting on machines you're planning on punting.

ok thanks for that. downloading ubuntu, Linux Mint and Mythbuntu now. will try to find an old pc to stick them on and have a play

 

[paradisiac]

Let us know if you run into any problems pal!

will do
thanks for all your help so far guys, didnt realise before there were soo many different versions of FREE OS's

 

[paradisiac]

also, is there anyway to streamline programs like you can with a windows install so you can make recovery discs? or a good program that will make a bootable clone cd?

 

[paradisiac]

Streamlining isn't really needed with Linux

The install does everything you need and your system will work straight away

No need to I stall drivers or anything. These are done for you as well

Don't really need recovery disc or anything either
You can get a lot of livecd versions that boot and run off the CD without having to install anything

surely they cant have all the drivers preinstalled?

also what about things like programs people use, or do these pretty much come with Linux OS's too?

 

[paradisiac]

Ya wanna bet?

Most Linux drivers are built into the kernel. Unless you have some obscure or exotic hardware then yes, believe it or not, all drivers are pre-installed!

You're about to discover some of the many reasons that Linux is a superb OS.



Virtually every distro out there pre-installs most commonly-used apps. On a clean install you will almost certainly already have a full-fledged office suite, browser, PIM etc. And when you want something that isn't there, you can open up your distro's package manager (or in the case of Ubuntu and Mint, a Software Centre) and have a good old browse - you don't even need to visit the developers' websites.

This thread is reminding me why I think Linux is awesome.

its also making me wish i didnt play games so i could ditch windows

 

[paradisiac]

You could always check out http://www.winehq.org/ and see if the games you play are supported in any way. It's not ~that~ bad gaming under linu, you just need to give it a bit of time for wine developers to catch up

most of my games are through steam, is this supported in Linux?

 

[paradisiac]

Sadly not. Valve decided to begin Mac support but not Linux, even though supporting Linux would be trivially easy if they're going to support Mac.

that sux.

cant wait to have a play with it, see how it runs and prey that everything is pretty user friendly. if im going to be selling pcs with it installed then i need to be confident customers will be able to work out the basics pretty quickly else i will get a lot of returns

 

[paradisiac]

With regard to gaming; bear in mind that to a lot of non-savvy people gaming means browser-based games or Facebook stuff. All of which works fine on Linux.

lol yeh. i think if i just market them in 2 categories :
Media PC
Office + Web-browser PC

then i should be ok. im assuming they use firefox and thunderbird, or something else?

 

[paradisiac]

well im running off of mythbuntu cd now and it seems to be pretty good. firefox as i thought is the default browser so thats good. found wireless connections straight away, awesome. now just need to play with it and see if everything works.
is there something similar to device manager which will tell me if a driver isnt installed?

 

[paradisiac]

That's like saying you can't game on a PS3 due to the lack of DirectX.

but thats like saying a ps3 game would work on an xbox or pc surely?
games for pc generally use directx, without it the game wont run. so as linux does not support it then most games surely will not work.

 

[paradisiac]

With regard to browsers, I haven't heard of a single one that doesn't run on Linux. All the major browsers have native Linux versions. Hell, you can even use IE on Linux via Wine if you really want to!

There isn't anything directly comparable to device manager that I'm aware of, although I dare say Linux Mint or any *buntu will have something if you browse through the system menus. Actually there is something...look up 'hardinfo' in your package manager. The last version of Ubuntu I used had hardinfo installed already but it was called something else, whose name escapes me.

There is command-line stuff to get the info you want but I assume you want to use GUIs wherever possible. I'll have a think (or undoubtedly someone else will chime in with an answer).

cheers. i was running off of mythbuntu cd so not sure everything was available to me as it seemed very limited and no software manager i keep reading about.
i had full screen res, internet connectivity, didnt test sound so not sure if it worked, but overall it seemed to find things (better than windows 7 did ). only thing i wanted to try was the webcam but couldnt find out how.
how is Linux for printers, webcams etc? do they pretty much plug and play? does it have webcam software integrated as my laptops built in webcams software isnt Linux compatible.

if i install to a pen drive or external hdd will it mess up windows bootmanager or do i just select removable media as first boot device and if its plugged in it boots if its not it jumps to windows and windows is none the wiser?

 

[paradisiac]

If you install to a device like that your bootloader shouldn't be touched. So yeah, set your BIOS to boot from the device first and internal disk second, and like you said, if the device is plugged in it'll boot, and if not your PC will boot the same way it always did.

ok kool, this was my biggest concern, dont want to mess up windows as i will only use it for testing for now until i decide if A)i think customers would be able to get on with it and B)it will support enough to give me confidence to install on machines to sell without people coming back because stuff doesnt work properly.

 

[paradisiac]

Oh yeah, I was going to talk a little about hardware. Motherboards, CPUs, etc - all your standard internal components - are absolutely fine as long as you don't use anything too exotic. Stick to known brands and widely-used stuff and I can all but guarantee you'll never have compatibility issues. Monitors are plug and play, as are keyboards, mice etc. Never heard of a hard drive that wasn't supported either.

what about touchscreen monitors?
hardware i want to try to keep as low a price as possible, as i want to try and do some budget pcs so i can have quick sales. make like £10 on each and just bulk sell.

 

[paradisiac]

If you wanna do a pendrive install, grab unetbootin ad just pick your distro from the dropdown (or choose an iso) and you're golden

from the site this looks like it makes a live cd on the pendrive that runs in windows i will have a proper read though, probably my skim reading missing something.