Sick of Windows...

[CMetaphor]

Alright Linux fanboys, its time to convince me to switch. Im having soooo many headaches trying to get vista to install recently and its making me consider other options. So if you can, please answer some question for me (a total linux newbie)

#1 - Do windows apps work normally under linux when using an emulator or whatnot? How about games/encoding/recording software?

#2 - Will linux take full advantage of my new system (sli/4g ram/dual core, etc) or will it be a waste of pretty pretty hardware?

#3 - Where can i find a version that isnt a mess to install (ive only has minor experience with some 5+ year old distros....)?

All or any help would be appreciative. Thanks!!!

[sswilson]

Everything but gaming is fairly comparable under linux.

Unfortunately, even using the "pay to make games compatible" service it's dicy.

[CMetaphor]

Explain please? Pay to make it play? How does that work and why is it dicy?

[sswilson]

There is a subscription service for linux which takes most of the pain out of configuring windows DX games to work under linux.

It doesn't work for all titles, and there is a performance hit as you are essentially adding another layer of coding to the game.

Gaming is still the achillies (sp?) heel of Linux. Most folks who want to run Linux yet still want to play recent game titles have dual boots and play their games under Windows.

[CMetaphor]

Im pondering doing just that (using a plain window xp x64 or mce for games Only) using a dual boot and making linux my recording/encoding/editing/everyday use computer. Are there any distros that are better than other for encorperating windows programs? What about getting the full usage of my systems hardware?

[sswilson]

If it's been 5 years since you tried a linux distro I think you'll be pleasantly surprised as to how easy the new ones are to install, and use. You'll also find a lot of "live" distros which can be run right off of a bootable CD to give you a good idea of how it looks/feels/works without having to install it first.

I'm pretty sure I've seen a distro which was tailored specifically for sound editing with some pretty awesome GPL apps pre-configured.

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by CMetaphor

Alright Linux fanboys, its time to convince me to switch. Im having soooo many headaches trying to get vista to install recently and its making me consider other options. So if you can, please answer some question for me (a total linux newbie)

#1 - Do windows apps work normally under linux when using an emulator or whatnot? How about games/encoding/recording software?

#2 - Will linux take full advantage of my new system (sli/4g ram/dual core, etc) or will it be a waste of pretty pretty hardware?

#3 - Where can i find a version that isnt a mess to install (ive only has minor experience with some 5+ year old distros....)?

All or any help would be appreciative. Thanks!!!

1) No. Even using wine you are very very very very limited to what will work and what won't. Recording and encoding software is plentiful and works well in linux!

2) Yes it will take full advantage and probably run faster and smoother than windows but in regards to SLI I am not sure.

3) Ubuntu is a great platform to start with as it allows you to get your feet wet without drowning and when you feel more comfortable you can do a full install away from the live cd and get to learn it more and more and when you feel that you can master linux switch over to something like slackware or gentoo; gentoo is my favorite.

[MacJunky]

Yes, work your way up to Gentoo, it really is great and actually is not as hard to install as many say. One thing you must remember though is that most people learn very little about linux with ubuntu because they are not forced into doing much, whereas people starting with Gentoo are forced to do more and and up working with more of their OS's innards. As a result, being more comfortable and knowledgeable in relation to linux in general.

[Deathspawner]

Welcome to the Linux world CMetaphor ;-)

I agree with everyone on this thread but will just add that SLI is useless under Linux. Last I checked, it was virtually a non-possibility. However, since you are going to dual-boot, you really are not wasting hardware. There is nothing really in Linux that is going to push the limits of SLI regardless, except for a select few games being released later this year.

For 4GB of ram, just make sure you have a 64-Bit distro. Working your way up to Gentoo is a great idea also, although it's not going to be for -everyone-. I really hate Ubuntu, but it might be a good starting point.

[pscout]

I recently (last Dec) starting running ubuntu for the sole purpose of running the 64 bit SMP folding client from stanford. (Join the HCF folding team - we need new members )

While ubuntu is pretty good for a noob like me it still took some learning so i could do simple tasks and file sharing in support of my folding, but not a huge amount.

One thing to consider tho, is you seem to be moving to get away from setup issues with vista. There is no plug and play in ubuntu ... not sure if there is anything like it in the other distros since i have not tried them.

My first setup was pretty smooth on a p5b-d once i learned to disable the nic in bios that ubuntu wouldn't use/got hung up on - the other onboard pci nic worked fine.

Lately i have been having problems with lan drivers on fiesty 7.04 with multiple ds3's. Only 1 of them will use the onboard marvell nic and the others i have had to put older pci nics into them to.
6 of the 7 ds3's are the latest rev level with a newer marvel chip.

I also run it on p5w64's and p5wd2/-E/-P - no issues with onboard nic's with these. On the p5wd2-p i needed to update to the latest bios level.

I run minimal pci video on these rigs but i expect you could have similar driver issues with new graphics cards. From what i have read, the linux graphics drivers are not 'as good' as the windows ones from a performance/oc'ing perspective, and default drivers are not always that great.

I don't know if the sound works or not since i don't connect speakers to any of the folding rigs.

If you change your hardware config very often, you may need to learn a lot more than i have to get it running. When i make a hardware change, i just reinstall since it is pretty fast ~30-45 minutes. To get my folding app running i just copy its directory from a template on another rig so it is trivial - it just runs in a terminal window. But that is the only app i use on them other than the built in ones.

I am running Ubuntu 6.06 on ~ 5 rigs, 6.10 on another 5 and 7.04 on another 5.

I am not trying to turn you off linux (ubuntu), I think it is great, and free
But for the enthusiast, i think it takes a bit more than windows since there are so many linux distros, the software/hardware packages don't get the same amount of testing and integration work that they get on wxp.
For just running office/browser apps, i think it is a pretty good alternative to windows.