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wolfwings ([personal profile] wolfwings) wrote2008-01-14 03:37 am
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And... goodbye Microsoft!

Took the plunge yesterday... tried to set up a dual-boot Windows/Linux for a'while, got tired of driver issues. Then realized I had a 64-bit Ubuntu DVD I picked up for free from my new job (yay for Linux geeks keeping stockpiles!) and decided to just say 'screw it' and give the automated stuff a try.

Um... wow.

City of Heroes. Almost worked out of the box, DID work fully after I manually upgraded to the latest Wine instead of the included-on-DVD version that was about 6-8 months out of date.

Steam, and Half-Life 2. Again, worked out of the box. No issues playing Team Fortress 2.

Again... wow. Holy crap. Screw dual-boot, Linux Just Works these days. =O.o=
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[identity profile] yokenlynx.livejournal.com 2008-01-14 04:41 pm (UTC)(link)
If you want the simplest and easiest way to install the best video drivers for either ATI or NVidia cards, go get this kid's script. http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

It's called ENVY. I had a bitch of a time getting my card to work right with dual monitors and the high-quality graphics (NVidia GeForce 8500GT 512MB). This did it perfectly in about 5 minutes.

Oh, no, this was Windows drivers issues.

[identity profile] wolfwings.livejournal.com 2008-01-14 06:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Ubuntu? Out of the box, one checkbox, done, drivers installed and out of my hair. I'd been toying with trying to get Windows XP drivers, and kept running into issues of 'Sorry, no Bluetooth/802.11 for you!' since all my chips were Broadcom based. Linux, again, worked out-of-box. :-)

[identity profile] jwoulf.livejournal.com 2008-01-15 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
I need to get back into Linux again. I gave it up years ago because simply; I'm a gamer. Things seem to be changing when it comes to Linux and games. I think it's time to give it another chance.

Still takes a bit of planning...

[identity profile] wolfwings.livejournal.com 2008-01-15 10:52 am (UTC)(link)
...mostly because there is are a few video-cards that still have poor support, in particular the non-dedicated-video-RAM cards from ATI require the propietary ATI driver still, and DX10 stuff isn't revealed for emulation under Linux, but most other stuff works.

Largest obstacle I'm running into is Steam: The disk caching under Linux is so effective I keep hitting race conditions starting some games, something that can happen under even plain XP, and is remarkably common under Vista though since it finally got some decent disk-cache logic as well. MMORPG's by-and-large Just Work™.
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