Gaming on Linux [howtos / hints and tips]

[Pangaea666]

Thanks, that was an interesting read. I suppose metapackages like that make it easier to install kde again if something goes awry. Had I gone through with that uninstall, would the system basically have been botched?

Wanted to clean up the system a bit by removing applications I don't use (and it's annoying Konqueror is used for opening web pages clicked on outside of Firefox), and save some space. Only had 1GB free despite removing wesnoth and droidrpg. Then I tried apt-get clean and autoclean, and to my surprise that freed up 1.4GB. Yay.

What do those letters (i, p, A) mean in the quoted list btw? I've used "aptitude search ..." sometimes, and it throws up letters like that too. For example for a package that could be autoremove'd, but I didn't know if it was wise.

Is there some kind of good Debian video tutorial out there btw, for learning purposes? 1000s of pages of documentation with everything between heaven and earth is too daunting, but a (video) tutorial with the most important things would be useful.

Just to take one example, how do one remove packages that are no longer needed in the system? Or is that done automatically, or by apt-get clean, apt-get autoclean or apt-get autoremove, that I ran earlier?

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Pangaea: Those letters are various flags which indicate the state of the package and potential actions that would be taken on it. You can find more details here: http://algebraicthunk.net/~dburrows/projects/aptitude/doc/en/ch02s02s02.html

As for Debian tutorial, here is a very good book which recently was liberated (i.e. published for everyone to access for free): http://debian-handbook.info
I'm not sure about video tutorials specifically, especially covering a wide range of topics. The best thing is to search for what you are interested in - there are many tutorials around, but not all made by the same people.

If you want for links to open in Firefox, you need to set up default browser for KDE. You can do that in System Settings > Default Applications > Web Browser > In the Following browser (and put the path to your Firefox in there). I usually don't use Iceweasel, and prefer stock Mozilla build which I put in /opt and update independently from the distro. But if you use iceweasel, still, just put the path to the binary in there.

apt-get autoremove removes packages which were installed automatcally as dependencies of other packages, and when those packages were removed (by you, or the system), these dependencies aren't automatically purged until you do autoremove. So in general it's OK to do it, unless you have a specific need in those packages. autoclean doesn't remove packages, but it partially cleans the cache of the repository, focusing on info for non retrievable packages. Cache will be rebuilt when you do update anyway.

 

[Pangaea666]

There is a Humble Bundle right now with loads of Spiderweb games. It says nothing about Linux support though, and they don't seem to support linux on their own website either, so is this bundle actually just for Windows and Mac? That kinda sucks. May still get it just to check out these games, finally, but would have been a no-brainer if they had linux support too. I thought that was kind of the deal with Humble Bundle.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Yeah, their weekly sales don't have Linux games most of the time.

 

[volsung]

Like Gilrond said, it's not a bundle. It's a weekly sale.

While weekly sales are also awesome (got Alan Wake there) but they don't follow the indie/multiplatform commitment of the bundles. They operate similarly though, on a donate what you want form.

 

[Pangaea666]

Ok. Thought it was just an expansion of the original idea due to popularity. Can't see me playing them for a long time, but maybe I'll pick them up for a fiver anyway, even if they don't work natively in Linux.

 

[volsung]

Avadon, at least, does have a native Linux client. I got it from a former Humble Bundle. It was very simple to run but the game settings are weird. Still, it runs fine.

And since we're here, let me post a quick guide on how to run Expeditions: Conquistador on Linux (Desura):

- Download the tarball.
- Extract the tarball, either with right click -> extract here or

$tar xf Expeditions_Conquistador_110.tar.gz

- Go into the game directory.
- Run the executable corresponding to your architecture. For example, double click on ExpeditionsConquistador.x86_64 or from a terminal

$./ExpeditionsConquistador.x86_64

Best packaged Linux game I've seen in a while

 

[Pangaea666]

Don't know how it compares, but I bought that bundle for 5 yankees and downloaded Avadon Black Fortress. Selected the .bin file, Properties and ticked "Is Executable", and then double-clicked it. Asked me where to install it, I put it in a new Games folder, and that was that. Was put into the Games menu tree and it seemed to work perfectly. Unfortunate none of the other games in the package has Linux support, but maybe they work quite flawlessly anyway. Looked like an interesting game btw, with better graphics and GUI than I've seen in screenshots of (other) Spiderweb games.

 

[volsung]

maybe Avadon is packaged with all executables. Awesome! It ran fine because it's a Linux binary. Otherwise you'd need Wine to run the Windows binaries.

And this is why games should support Linux. Imagine if most games worked like that!

 

[Pangaea666]

Indeed. It would be marvelous. All the business with wine, playonlinux, and other similar programs can be quite the hurdle. Wouldn't it be awesome if TW3 supported Linux from the get-go?

 

[bcheero]

Hi guys, I recently got into Linux and have been using Ubuntu at the moment. However, I'm bored so I'm trying another beginner friendly (or so I think) distro called Linux Mint KDE 15 and I really enjoy the K desktop environment. Just a quick question, I swear by my ears that my audio sounds much better on a GNU/Linux distro than it does on Windows. Seriously, someone tell me if my ears are wrong...

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Welcome to Linux and KDE No idea about the audio, but doesn't it depend on the driver anyway? May be Windows driver for your card is bad, while Linux ALSA driver (unless you use OSS4) is better.

 

[Pangaea666]

KDE is good. Have that myself, though it's in the Debian KDE distro. Wish it was easier to get games working, but other than that Linux is pretty good.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I hope I'm still allowed to talk about my general GNU/Linux experience aside from gaming...so with that said long story short I tried going from Windows 8 to Windows 7 using the HP recovery disks my laptop came with and I couldn't get Windows 7. I had the Linux Mint KDE live cd and I managed to install the entire distro on my hard drive.

Here's the thing though, I'm anxious about leaving Windows and everything I'm familiar with. idk I'm still in college and I feel I might face issues with docx files on Libreoffice and general issues with the pptx extension on the Libreoffice version.

Am I worrying unnecessarily? Any advice for my rather trivial worries? On a lighter note, I really love KDE though I still have much to learn about widget customization and how package installation/uninstallation works. I feel this could be a rather fantastic experience.

I have another question as well. Can someone explain why my root directory and user directories have to be on separate partitions? I just went with the default "install over entire hard drive" during installation for Linux Mint KDE.

Latest LibreOffice (since version 4) improved support for various MS office formats a lot. So I wouldn't worry about this issue much. There is also KDE office suit - Calligra which is developed independently and complements LibreOffice well. Some edge cases can happen of course. There were some rumors that MS even plans to create a version of their Office for Linux. Weird times it seems. There are also some web based services from MS (Office 365 or something?) that can probably read their formats in any decent browser, though I never used anything like that.

About partitions, it's not necessary to keep your home directory on a separate partition. But it's commonly done. You can even install the whole system including boot to one partition, though it's not the best option. Usually, it's good to keep boot, swap and root as separate partitions. home can go to the same partition as root, or you can set a dedicated one for it, it's really up to you.

 

[GuyNwah]

If you have institutional reasons for exact compatibility with particular versions of Word or Excel, then you don't really have an alternative. If your prof says, for example, your papers must open correctly in Word 2010 without error or alteration, then it is your responsibility to make sure they do exactly that.

LibreOffice 4.1 has gotten very good with MS Office compatibility. I use it for any purpose that doesn't require slavish bug-compatibility. It's only when profs and bosses say "it reads correctly in Office, or it comes back unread" that you have to comply no matter how unreasonable you or anybody else may think their demand is.

There's no specific reason why you must have multiple partitions, other than that it is a good practice. The biggest reason is that if you inadvertently fill the root partition (/), you will have a crash or freeze and have to do work to recover from it, probably at an inconvenient time.

I usually set up /boot, swap, / (root), /usr, /tmp, /var, and /home.

/boot is not written except when configuring GRUB or the kernel.
/usr is not written except when installing software.

Since these partitions are "write never" in normal operation, you can use a format like ext2 for them that does not do journaling. But the performance difference for doing so is not really worth it.

 

[Glaroug.531]

Hello, I am also new to Linux, use KDE, and am in college No problems with documents/spreadsheets/presentations-----yet, hehe.

Only thing that prevents my from only using Linux is my unfortunate ati/intel hybrid graphics card. However, the games I play that would need the juice of the ATI card work much better with far less headache in Windows anyway (e.g. TW2, Dark Souls, Arkham City) so I gave up my battle with the hybrid card--for now...

Edit: Even though you are using Mint, the Arch wiki is an incredible resource with loads of documentation. You can find information on pretty much anything linux related from partitioning to screenshot software.

 

[volsung]

I think it is a digital imposition to demand that your files "open" under a specific software unless you are given a license for it. There are standard formats for documents that have to be sent to other people's platforms, such as PDF and, if you need the source, Open Document.

What your university should do is define or adopt a standard for digital documentation. It is not rare for academic and research institutions to adhere to open standards that everyone can read and write. Just remember: if you receive a Word doc, you need to buy MS Office. If you receive an Open Document or PDF doc, you may choose from many free and open source options, and chances are your OS already has software to read it.

Partitions: I normally make one for /, one for /home and a small one for swap. This is useful if/when reinstalling, as you may skip formatting /home and simply transfer all your files onto your new system.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

By the way, I just decided to use PlayOnLinux more, for simply easier decoupling of applications and Wine versions. Just reinstalled Witcher 1 (manually, not using their scripts but like "custom application", since their scripts don't use latest Wine), and set it to use Wine 1.7.2. First of all, some old bugs are gone (for example health, endurance and toxicity bars work now, as well as highlighting circle for targeting NPCs). Secondly, no native DX overrides are needed at all anymore. Thirdly, performance looks better in result. Wine obviously improved a lot (I tried it last time with Wine 1.5.5).

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I just installed Debian on a new machine with UEFI motherboard. It was a bit messy, since I decided to use gpt partition table and UEFI boot mode (not because of Windows - I had none there, but just for the fun of it, and it's the way forward anyway). Setting that in Debian when using the installer from Wheezy is tricky (especially since my motherboard had hard time booting gpt partitioned disk in BIOS mode, which was required as an intermediate step). If anyone is interested in the details of how to do it, I can make a post.

Note - that's not about secure boot, just about booting in UEFI mode, which is different from booting in BIOS mode. Secure UEFI boot is a whole thing on its own (which goes on top of UEFI boot), I didn't try enabling it.

 

[volsung]

Hey Gilrond.

Thanks for your post and yes, please add a guide for UEFI boot with Debian.