linux help

[joshuamurphy]

hey guys this is my first post.

was just wondering what distro of linux you use for gaming and what graphics card and how is the graphic card support foir that card. also how long do you think until a few good titles on linux will arrive? i know valve is porting some titles. anyway thanks in advance for your thoughts

[911^NEmeSis]

Well there has defo been some big improvements but it's mostly Indie devs and Steam who really care about Linux imo. If there were a few more mainstream games on Linux I would just personally switch asap.

 

AMD I think make Linux drivers so hardware compatibility I guess is ok but most things will work fine afaik. There just needs to be more games available!

[Jechu182]

I dont know that much of gaming in linux. But both Nvidia and AMD has good support for drivers. 

 

The distros that I recommed would be Linux Mint or Ubuntu. 

[zoltan]

Distro with preinstalled Steam client and hardware detection utility that works great for installing proprietary drivers, and most bad/ugly/tainted packages are also preinstalled, so you don't have to worry about those either, and it's based on Arch Linux, so it'll actually work and work fast and there will be a huge amount of software available through AUR, and it's not as buggy and incompatible and boring as Ubuntu and it's derivatives: MANJARO LINUX!!!!!

 

Forget about Ubuntu and it's derivatives. Canonical is doing everything it can to make it impossible for the community to build upon Ubuntu. The KDE maintainer has already confirmed that it is highly unlikely that Mir will be supported by KDE. Not only Qt-based (KDE), but also non-Unity gtk-based DE's (Gnome, Mate, Cinnamon, XFCE, etc) will not work with Mir anymore. So Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint, etc, will all be having problems in the future. And that's not the only problem Ubuntu has, it's generally a subpar user experience and a buggy pos in comparison to most other linux distros, and especially in comparison with the big 4, and even in comparison with the big 7.

 

There are three distros Steam works on without any configuration or problems:

 

- Manjaro: it's preinstalled, all proprietary drivers have been tested and work, it's fast and stable, it's Arch based and fully package compatible, so it's a remix of a major distro (Arch). I can wouch for it working without any problems whatsoever (using Steam in Manjaro 0.8.5 on AMD+AMD).

- Fedora: the most advanced distro in existance, the testing bed of the operating system the world economy and the internet run on (RHEL), more bleeding edge than Arch if you want it to, and you can install a third party app called Fedora Utils that will allow you to one-click install all the bad-ugly-tainted packages, the proprietary graphics drivers, and steam (and a lot of other things). I can vouch for it working without any problems whatsoever (using Steam in Fedora 18 on Intel+nVidia);

- OpenSuSE: a company effort like Fedora, this time from Novell. Modern but not bleeding edge distro that focuses on ease-of-use. Primarily KDE-orientated, it offers an online one-click install for Steam and proprietary graphics drivers.

 

Don't use Ubuntu, their advertising is on the Steam website, but it's a lot more difficult to get Steam running on Ubuntu, and once it's running, that doesn't mean that all games will run, because Ubuntu is not a fine quality product, Canonical approaches GNU/Linux coding like an elephant approaches a tree. Ubuntu has a lot of marketing going on, but it's not worth the spit needed to pronounce it's name.

[wkronbaek]

There are three distros Steam works on without any configuration or problems:

 

- Manjaro: it's preinstalled, all proprietary drivers have been tested and work, it's fast and stable, it's Arch based and fully package compatible, so it's a remix of a major distro (Arch). I can wouch for it working without any problems whatsoever (using Steam in Manjaro 0.8.5 on AMD+AMD).

- Fedora: the most advanced distro in existance, the testing bed of the operating system the world economy and the internet run on (RHEL), more bleeding edge than Arch if you want it to, and you can install a third party app called Fedora Utils that will allow you to one-click install all the bad-ugly-tainted packages, the proprietary graphics drivers, and steam (and a lot of other things). I can vouch for it working without any problems whatsoever (using Steam in Fedora 18 on Intel+nVidia);

- OpenSuSE: a company effort like Fedora, this time from Novell. Modern but not bleeding edge distro that focuses on ease-of-use. Primarily KDE-orientated, it offers an online one-click install for Steam and proprietary graphics drivers.

 

Don't use Ubuntu, their advertising is on the Steam website, but it's a lot more difficult to get Steam running on Ubuntu, an

I've just switched from ubuntu to fedora on my laptop and i've loved it so far, but i thought i'd have to go Ubuntu-gnome for steam to work when i got my gaming pc assembled... Great news for me i guess xD

 

But i really recommend Fedora, and if you use gnome use gnome extensions! Its amazing.

[wkronbaek]

Also to when i think linux games will arrive: Soon

First off, you can use wine with alomst any game that doesn't require DirectX11 with a bit of tweaking and sometimes none, but games being released natively for linux:

Indie games like Don't Starve, Kerbel space program, Game dev tycoon, Surgeon simulator, Amnesia etc are already released natively for linux

Also, Steam's favor of linux is making every game developer look more to Linux. CS is now available on steam, Blizzard is as far as i remember developing something, and it's generally starting to get more normal releasing a linux version of a game.

[zoltan]

Also to when i think linux games will arrive: Soon

First off, you can use wine with alomst any game that doesn't require DirectX11 with a bit of tweaking and sometimes none, but games being released natively for linux:

Indie games like Don't Starve, Kerbel space program, Game dev tycoon, Surgeon simulator, Amnesia etc are already released natively for linux

Also, Steam's favor of linux is making every game developer look more to Linux. CS is now available on steam, Blizzard is as far as i remember developing something, and it's generally starting to get more normal releasing a linux version of a game.

 

I really hope so mate, it would be such a technical advancement, and I hope that RedHat keeps pushing the envelope and that new distros that are gaming-oriented like Manjaro, Angel, Spark, etc can change the very fabric of which the gaming market is made, but I don't think GNU/Linux will ever become a major gaming platform, because there is too much choice and compatibility and options and features etc... so much that it's impossible for any company to provide consumer support for software on GNU/Linux. Even Samsung is now offering the GS4 with vanilla Android to cut down on development and support costs, if others follow and do the same, there will only be vanilla Android left and the platform will be locked down, even if it owes everything to the open source community. Everyone knows linux is the future platform, even Microsoft itself can only provide a demo of it's XBox Illumiroom technology with GNU/Linux and linux native games, it's just that commerce will prevail over common sense any time.

 

As you say, a lot of hope is vested in Gabe Newell, who points at the deficiencies of the legacy software platforms, and who actually succeeds in providing native GNU/Linux games for Valve titles and the combined effort of Valve developers and the FOSS-community have succeeded in delivering great compatibility and support (except Canonical that has the official Steam support, but yeah...), so he's a great example of how free and open source actually is much better, but his main business is to retail third party software via the Steam store, and I'm just not sure if other developers will be willing and able to do the same thing Valve did, and provide the same quality. Microsoft is already re-DRM-ing the Steam games on Windows 8 to lock down Valve, they will do everything they can to sabotage technological advancement they themselves cannot afford, and they will do everything they can to steal the open source technology and lock it down. That's just how it goes, the marketing motor is running at full speed to convince users to downgrade to the Windows 8 clickfest GUI nightmare, giving up features (which makes the system lighter and thus a bit faster for a week or so on a new install, compare the speed between a new install of Windows 7 and a new install of Windows 8 though and there will be hardly any difference, compare the speed of a year-old install of Windows 8 with a new install of Windows 7 and Windows 8 will bite the dust, that's just how lying to consumers in the name of commerce goes), and it's nothing but the classic honey trap: users use Windows 8 and all their Steam games, with which Microsoft has nothing to do, are re-DRM'ed by Microsoft, and they hold the consumers in their death-grip again, suddenly the cross-platform features Steam offers for Steamplay games are blocked by Microsoft, and the consumers have to make a choice, play on GNU/Linux and have all the features and speed but less games, or play on Windows and be locked down from playing the games on GNU/Linux. And then there is the matter of the GPU drivers, which are not made available to open source platforms, even though they exist, and probably are even better than the DirectX versions, because I can't imagine Sony or Microsoft bringing consoles to the market with AMD GPU's that don't have all the features, and it's clear that those consoles do not run on the Microsoft Windows kernel since Microsoft is demonstrating it with linux native games.

 

I hope that Gabe Newell doesn't simply keep pushing native GNU/Linux game development, but also keeps pushing wine, because if wine can get really good in the nearby future, it would take the wind out of the sails of Microsoft, because Windows as a platform would not be necessary anymore, and they couldn't keep the platform locked down fast enough to stop GNU/Linux becoming the preferred platform, at least in the non-Anglo-American world.

[wkronbaek]

A bunch of stuff

Yeah you're right in most of that, but i still feel like games released in .tar.gz formats ready to be played will be a thing. But for now, wine is the way to go. 

For anyone out there not sure about linux compatibility: http://appdb.winehq.org/index.php Platinum and gold is what pretty much everyone should be able to get running.