Windows 7 Gamer thinking of switching to Linux

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AlatusVir

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Hello Linux users,
As the title suggest, I have a Windows 7 PC I built bout a year ago. I have heavy gaming such as PS2 and EVE online. Ive glanced over at the forums here and ive heard of many many pros to linux. Is Linux be okay to try for me? Can I still keep Windows 7 to play my games on AND Linux for everything else? What would i be losing and gaining if I switched to Linux?
 


If you have about 50-100 GB space unused on your hard disk, you can install linux on that and still keep Windows 7. This is called dual booting. While startup, you can choose which operating system to boot into.
You won't get much of the good gaming franchises on Linux. You can get some good steam games like Dota on ubuntu. Thats about it. So you might want to keep windows for gaming and use linux for everything else. Also, you can't get most of the popular (and heavy and costly) video and photo editors on linux.
The main advantages of Linux are security, flexibility and freedom. You can also have lots of customization if you choose a distro that allows it.There are no/very less viruses or malwares in Linux. The same linux OS can me made to look different for every user that uses it. Linux is also the best OS for programming (apart from .NET or something :p )
Since you're a gamer, these wont apply to you : Linux has a higher hardware compatibility and many linux distributions can run on low end hardware.
Most of all, Linux is free!
 
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Hello Linux users,
As the title suggest, I have a Windows 7 PC I built bout a year ago. I have heavy gaming such as PS2 and EVE online. Ive glanced over at the forums here and ive heard of many many pros to linux. Is Linux be okay to try for me? Can I still keep Windows 7 to play my games on AND Linux for everything else? What would i be losing and gaining if I switched to Linux?

Switching to linux won't help your gaming. But depending on which distro you use, you may solve a low resource problem with your machine. Try out AntiX on a LIVE cd/dvd. It is an extremely lightweight distro based on Debian linux, but has all the functionality as the big boys like Ubuntu. Go checkout the videos on YouTube by run with the dolphin on AntiX to see.

One big advantage of AntiX is what little amount of resources it uses. Once you get it ready for Steam, it will rock your boat.

My OLD machine is a pre-Y2K model PII 996Mhz Pentium with 512Mb memory and a 40 Gig hard drive. I play several Steam games and don't have the problems with it like my i7 setup.
 
I have heavy gaming such as PS2 and EVE online. Ive glanced over at the forums here and ive heard of many many pros to linux. Is Linux be okay to try for me?
To be honest, if the primary purpose of the computer is gaming, the best option is to stick to Windows. Gaming without limit and no need tinker with the system to play games in an emulator or virtual system. To each their own, but I see no value in dual-booting simply to have a game player on one partition. My opinion, to be taken any way you wish.
 
To be honest, if the primary purpose of the computer is gaming, the best option is to stick to Windows. Gaming without limit and no need tinker with the system to play games in an emulator or virtual system. To each their own, but I see no value in dual-booting simply to have a game player on one partition. My opinion, to be taken any way you wish.

True. Even though Linux is great, gaming is its weakest point. There are more games for Windows than there are for Linux.
 
If you developed games for a living, would you be working for a game company or volunteering your effort for open source games?
 
Same here, though I am not exactly new to linux, (dabbled with Red Hat 4x) Linux was never my day to day OS of choice. However because of Steam and the recent interest in linux as well as more "modern" games (notably Shadowrun : Returns, the upcoming Pillars of Eternity) now showing up, I too have kinda moved from Windows to all things Penguin.

I am however undecided on which distro to run with, other then what most recommend, that being Ubuntu, I seem to like the feel of Mint's KDE or perhaps OpenSuse more.
Not sure which would be the more polished for gaming purposes. Thoughts?

Regardless, what I have done is actually installed "pristine" drives for each OS as stand-alone mounts. That is 1 drive for Linux, 1 for Windows and one large (2tb) as a repository drive and just UEFI boot into the OS I feel like using.
 
I would suggest Ubuntu. That is what I use for my games (and everything else).

Huh.
Figures. I played around with a live USB (Pen drive) version of the latest version and am not sure what to make of the desktop UI.
My issue is that the default ubuntu variant feels sluggish.

While I don't have a "hot" gaming rig, only a Nvidia 670 GTX, 8gig Ram and an 3.2ghz i5 Intel, its no slouch either.

Would Unity handle game windows better or is there any difference at allbcompared to KDE, xfce or gnome assuming I have the proper vid drivers?
 
Huh.
Figures. I played around with a live USB (Pen drive) version of the latest version and am not sure what to make of the desktop UI.
My issue is that the default ubuntu variant feels sluggish.

While I don't have a "hot" gaming rig, only a Nvidia 670 GTX, 8gig Ram and an 3.2ghz i5 Intel, its no slouch either.

Would Unity handle game windows better or is there any difference at allbcompared to KDE, xfce or gnome assuming I have the proper vid drivers?

The user interface (Unity, XFCE, GNOME, etc....) does not really matter besides the fact they consume more or less memory than the others.

To play Windows games on Linux, try installing WINE (http://www.linux.org/threads/installing-and-configuring-windows-emulator-wine.4368/). Be aware though that WINE will not run all Windows programs correctly or without errors. Some programs run very well while some have minor issues and others may have severe issues.
 
Huh.
Figures. I played around with a live USB (Pen drive) version of the latest version and am not sure what to make of the desktop UI.
My issue is that the default ubuntu variant feels sluggish.

While I don't have a "hot" gaming rig, only a Nvidia 670 GTX, 8gig Ram and an 3.2ghz i5 Intel, its no slouch either.

Would Unity handle game windows better or is there any difference at allbcompared to KDE, xfce or gnome assuming I have the proper vid drivers?
Whether or not games would be sluggish with Unity depends on the hardware. Your hardware should be able to handle it, but keep in mind Unity is a bloated and buggy monstrosity.* Since it consumes a huge amount of resources, there is a possibility that performance could be affected if a game is resource-intensive.


* Probably the majority of the board's members are Ubuntu users. So my opinions and advice concerning that derivative will be different than the majority.
 
*steam os* (yeah, I can't post stuff with links)

Nods.
Thought of that one. I might try it out once I get back into the grove of using Linux again.
Its been maybe 15+ years since I used Linux and everything's so .... shiny now. :)

Though from reports I hear that Steam's OS isn't quite ready for day to day use yet. I'll wait a bit.
In the mean time I am just experimenting with different distros at the moment, installing them / updating them, getting a feel of actual use per se which includes how fast / easy it is for me to update / install / configure the environment and then nuking it all and installing/reinstalling distros till I find the one that I feel is right.

At the moment I am NOT happy with ubuntu. What's with its slow and I mean REALLY slow driver / software installation? (45 mins later and its still trying to install my printer)

@DevynCJohnson @Cyber-Berserker

Nods. Am aware that the different platforms are essentially gui fronts (oversimplifying things here) and its really the kernel / drivers that does the job but from experience I know for example that KDE tends to be a little funky with Nvidia's driver (unless that's changed, hence my experimenting above ... hope to cut that process short with valuable advice / feedback from the community) and that sometimes planes / windows can look stretched. xfce gives the best in terms of load vs performance but can be a little barebones and I never liked gnome. :) Something about it rubs me the wrong way.

As for difference of opinions, that's valuable.
Often those who like something just don't see why or what can be wrong with it to others who don't.

Hence all advice / opinions and feedback are valuable, since it paints a bigger picture and from my point of view gives me a better idea what to expect.
Ultimately though, I have to come up with *my own* opinion and stick with a distro that I feel fit my needs.
Which is the strength of Linux is it not? :)
 
At the moment, I have been using Steam with Arch Linux and KDE. With great benefit by the way. Free games for the early Linux testers. (Me for example).

**EDIT: Just noticed your comment about KDE and Nvidia. KDE is now using OpenGL 3.1 which is fantastic with Nvidia. I HIGHLY recommend it.:)
 
At the moment, I have been using Steam with Arch Linux and KDE. With great benefit by the way. Free games for the early Linux testers. (Me for example).

**EDIT: Just noticed your comment about KDE and Nvidia. KDE is now using OpenGL 3.1 which is fantastic with Nvidia. I HIGHLY recommend it.:)

Interesting. :)
I am nuking this current system (Unity Ubuntu) and yeah, so far the KDE builds are looking really nice.
I am now not so sure about the **buntus since I have also tried Kubuntu and while I liked that environment a lot more (probably because it feels more like windows) the buntus still have that odd issue of taking forever to install updates / drivers, even from their own repositories.

Best / fastest so far I have is Mint xfce, but as with any other xfce builds, they feel a little bare, but hence the speed. I like speed though. :)

Anyone tried the new OpenSuse?
They still use yast right?

ps: downloading OpenSuse and going to try it out in realtime / actual HDD install. Livedisks / USB bootables can only go so far. :)
 
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Generally speaking, most people either love or loathe KDE. It is another resource-hogging GUI that requires lots of RAM and CPU, but most people who like full-featured DEs love it. At least most of KDE's applications are very good. I even have a couple installed on my system using Openbox. If I could only use KDE or Unity, there would be no decision to make. (At this point, the Ubuntu users here hate me.:D)

XFCE may not be as bare you think. Play with the customisation tools. XFCE can be tweaked to look pretty nice. Such as shadows around dialogue boxes that create a three-dimensional look.
 
Interesting. :)
I am nuking this current system (Unity Ubuntu) and yeah, so far the KDE builds are looking really nice.
I am now not so sure about the **buntus since I have also tried Kubuntu and while I liked that environment a lot more (probably because it feels more like windows) the buntus still have that odd issue of taking forever to install updates / drivers, even from their own repositories.

Best / fastest so far I have is Mint xfce, but as with any other xfce builds, they feel a little bare, but hence the speed. I like speed though. :)

Anyone tried the new OpenSuse?
They still use yast right?

ps: downloading OpenSuse and going to try it out in realtime / actual HDD install. Livedisks / USB bootables can only go so far. :)

OpenSUSE is not a suitable system for gaming. I would suggest Lubuntu which uses the LXDE desktop and is more lightweight than Xubuntu (XFC). Yes, OpenSUSE still uses YaST.

Ultimately, probably the best distro to use would be Slackware or Arch.

By the way, even though Puppy Linux is very lightweight, it is not good enough for gaming.
 
I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing about Puppy not being good for gaming, but it would be best if you gave the reasons. I for one am interested in why.
 

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