Linux only for internet connected use - resolution for 2024

[WiscoMetro]

So my daily machine has long been an HP Elitebook 8530w from 2008, while still overall amazingly solid for its age I'm thinking it's time to retire it. I bought a HP ZBook G2 to replace it and am intending to move off of win7 for anything internet connected at long last with this switch especially as firefox's win7 days are numbered.

 

I have played around with ubuntu based mint 19.0 and debian based mint 5 bit by bit over the past couple years and my mint 19 installation is near perfect and I stand ready to recreate it with the latest version on a new install and make it my only web connected OS(will retain win7 for offline gaming desktops, GOG FTW). I did try win10 too at one point and it just annoyed me to death, despite the occasional frustrations Mint feels far better to me.

 

One nagging issue though is that I have 3 supposedly linux native games: Witcher 2, This war of mine both of which have a .sh file type from GOG, and One Hour One Life whose download is a .tar.gz... Despite reading guides on how to install these I've never managed to get any of these 3 to run after extracting, marking executable seems to make no difference. Why can't they just be normal "installation wizard" style .debs :( , I'm not opposed to the package manager concept but installing from file shouldn't be so convoluted. Is this a weakness of Mint, do other distros handle this better? if so I'm open to using that and tossing cinnamon on top of it. Preferably in the debian ecosystem?

 

Other sage advice from people who have made the switch welcome too!

[LloydLynx]

For the .sh file, you need to mark it as executable. Mint probably has it in right click, properties, and find execute permissions or something along those lines. Tar.gz files are archives kinda like .zip or .rar. They usually have an executable file inside them when used to distribute programs.

[Flavius Heraclius]

The sad state of native Linux games (closed-source, anyway) is that keeping them working can be a chore. There's a joke that the only stable interface on Linux is WIN32 (through wine), because the Linux native stuff changes quite frequently in ways that breaks old programs*. It's easy enough to fix by recompiling them, but if you don't have the source, you're kinda stuck. That's a big part of why Valve is more focused on Proton than on native Linux ports.

 

As far as distros handling installing the games differently... not really. If the game is open source, or otherwise packaged for their package manager, then it is simple. It's not much more complex if the developer hosts their own repository, or publishes the game in a package format (.deb, .rpm, etc.) that your distro's package manager can handle. But most games aren't like that. Arch, and its AUR, does provide a convenient system for installing non-official packages (like these would be), if somebody else has done the work of setting it all up and posting it.

 

I've noticed that Lutris tends to have automatic install scripts for some GoG games as well. That might be worth looking into. It's the same idea as AUR, somebody figures out the sequence of commands/etc., necessary to get the game working and then publishes the script so others can use it.

* Just as an addendum/clarification to this statement, the issue here isn't Linux itself. Linus has strong rules about kernel updates never breaking userspace. It's all of the other stuff sitting between Linux and your program that tends to change a lot.

[Ralphred]

17 hours ago, Flavius Heraclius said:

* Just as an addendum/clarification to this statement, the issue here isn't Linux itself. Linus has strong rules about kernel updates never breaking userspace. It's all of the other stuff sitting between Linux and your program that tends to change a lot.

Aye, a new glibc can totally btfo some older games that "used to just werk".

Running them through steam and proton is great, you can keep "old versions" of proton around with little space cost compared to a game, the "correct version" of libraries etc are kept around in the "steam linux runtime", and games will always work.

 

I know it's not a "philosophically ideal" situation, but more games working must = better user experience so...

[WiscoMetro]

On 1/15/2024 at 5:33 PM, LloydLynx said:

For the .sh file, you need to mark it as executable. Mint probably has it in right click, properties, and find execute permissions or something along those lines. Tar.gz files are archives kinda like .zip or .rar. They usually have an executable file inside them when used to distribute programs.

Thanks, while I didn't think that was news to me I tried again following that (my GOG install attempt was quite early on in my mint trial). I got TWoM to launch with ./ in command prompt but with no sound, Witcher 2 and OHOL remain unlaunchable. Though on this train of thought I tried prompt launching them too, and dependencies are missing.

 

 

Sorry, I am feeling a little hapless, but I couldn't figure out how to apt-get these, in addition to typing them in verbatim I was using https://packages.debian.org/buster/amd64/allpackages as a reference list and despite installing some very similar looking things the dependencies were not met.

19 hours ago, Flavius Heraclius said:

It's easy enough to fix by recompiling them, but if you don't have the source, you're kinda stuck. That's a big part of why Valve is more focused on Proton than on native Linux ports.

Flavius, OHOL actually does offer the source code for compile, but the only game I've ever compiled was a text based TicTacToe in JCreator and that was over 11 years ago now. Only heard about Lutris before when Linus and Luke were doing the Linux challenge, if that can solve the GOG installs and there isn't some simpler way to install those dependencies I'll surely be looking into that.

 

There is certainly a give and take between Windows and Linux, Linux you never need to worry about whether or not you have a driver, for windows things just install, lol .

 

---

 

It's a personal issue sure, but I'm not at all interested in steam.

 

The joy of getting Fallout New Vegas for Christmas in like 2010, followed by learning I had to make some online account, that forced me to sit through a needless daily 50 MB download over 768K DSL if I wanted to play it, quickly turned into utter hatred. Despite loving Fallout 3 I therefore never played but a couple hours of it before purchasing it again for myself years later on GOG. I can appreciate the effort Valve is putting into making Linux gaming possible, but I will just as soon not game on Linux before use Steam.

I've actually been largely putting off playing these three to play them on Linux, .