I’m a Microsoft guy. I admit it. I actually miss the blue screens of death from win98. And I grudingly switched to firefox after taking loads of abuse from Internet Explorer, and it wasn’t easy. Bill Gates… I think it’s the fact that he’s a blonde guy with glasses like me, but he’s a hero of mine. Well… perhaps an anti-hero type of guy.
Needless to say, I’m a big defender of WinXP. It’s like an eccentric uncle you only love because he takes you to the Dairy Queen to get ice cream… and runs off the road half the time. I can do everything I care to do on XP.
It’s a good thing too, because I’m too broke to buy a Mac, and Linux distros always look ugly to me. Not to mention hardware support is still lacking. And then there’s the gamer deal: Most games don’t get official ports to Mac or Linux… Unless they’re from Blizzard: They do hybrid discs. Hopefully, that’s going to be a non-issue in the near future with Win-API “emulation” such as Wine on Linux.
I do like to check in with these alternatives every once in a while to see how they’ve improved. So, I downloaded Ubuntu Linux and got it all installed. One of my pet peeves with linux has been the lack of hardware support, especially video drivers. Ubuntu totally surprised me by actually nailing both of my sound card drivers, which has never happened before. The video drivers were a bit of a challenge, but Ubuntu has a great community… which I guess most Linux communities are pretty ok since it’s all open source.
But, I’ve got everything up and running, and, besides a few sputters with Networking and DVD playback, I’m pretty happy with it, despite the total lack of video games. That’s what dual booting is for.The sheer amount of customization to be had is really impressing me right now, as well as the gigantic array of software provided by the open source community, most of which is totally free, including my browser of choice, Opera.
So… I actually wrote this while I was on Ubuntu, and it’s working ok. Opera actually seems to work better in Linux. Firefox is about twice as fast as well, which isn’t surprising since it’s developed on Linux.
The tenative verdict: I don’t see Ubuntu totally replacing XP based on video games and hardware. However, for development and server tasks: I’ll be using Ubuntu or some other Linux variant.
If I ever get a laptop, it’ll be a Mac. My web server/development comp’ll be Linux, and my gaming rig Windows.
Hmmm… got a little off topic there. I’ll try for more detail when I’m not sleepy.
Filed under: Linux, Tech | 2 Comments
There’s no reason why you should go without games on Linux. I’m currently running World of Warcraft, Quake 4, UT2004, Enemy Territory, and demo versions of Prey, Medal of Honor, and other games.
Even with WoW running under wine these games run far better on my Linux box than my former Win 2k install.
I won’t argue that Linux has the edge on gaming – it doesn’t. But it isn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Check the wine app db for non-native game info:
http://appdb.winehq.org/appbrowse.php
You might also find this useful if you prefer the Mac look:
http://www.taimila.com/ubuntuosx.php
There are ugly Linux desktops out there but there are many beautiful ones as well. Play with it a while and you’ll realize that you have complete control of the gui. You can do virtually anything you like with your gui. Check out some of the Xgl vids on google and youtube for example.
Hey, thanks for the comment. I’m still a bungling neophyte when it comes to linux, but the community has been really helpful. Today is day 2.
I’ve been messing with wine, but I’ve only tiptoed so far, as I’m trying to get all the basics together first. I actually did get Starcraft installed, but it’s going to take some tweaking to get right. I haven’t gotten to my more modern games like Quake 4, but I may give it a shot tonight.
Anywho, thanks for the help, especially the links. I’m pretty excited about the whole Xgl thing.