Gaming on Linux [news and developments]

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If you are talking about Optimus, Nvidia at last (they REALLY took their time doing it) enabled it in their recent driver release. Linus persuasion must have worked :D (Optimus is supposed to be supported starting from 319.12).
 
Volsung said:
There are lots of good free and open source games, but the average gamer doesn't know about them[...]
Yeah! I had lots of fun playing Battle of Wesnoth. And Mahjong :)
 
I used to play Sauerbraten a lot. It's a Quake 3 style multiplayer arena shooter. A cool feature is that mapping is integrated in the game and everything was built free and open source from scratch. It uses the Cube 2 engine.
 
As for MMORPGs, I recommend PlaneShift - it's open source (except the art assets though) and has a good community of roleplayers. Naturally it has a Linux client. It has some downsides (like lack of developers at times because people have disagreements with the project leaders and many have left during the project existence) but it still moves forward.
 

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gregski said:
And noone seems to care about the monopoly (pretty much) Valve has for digital games distribution.

One of my great sorrows :(
 
Volsung said:
There is a Debian-based Linux Mint. I think it's pure Debian with a theme, some applications and eye candy. That's what I recommend for home users.

I should read into that whole Wayland/Mir issue you mention.

On a side, nostalgic note: back in 99-00, I was looking to get a linux-based OS for my laptop, to give it a try (had been using Solaris x86). I asked one of my co-workers, a linux "militant", which one would be good to try. He suggested I try Debian. When I asked him why, he said "if you can get that thing installed on a laptop, you da man". Over a decade later, I still use it :).

I have never seen Mint, but I hate Ubuntu (besides the FS mess, because of the way is presented/marketed); and really nowadays Debian is very easy to install and use.
 
SystemShock7 said:
On a side, nostalgic note: back in 99-00, I was looking to get a linux-based OS for my laptop, to give it a try (had been using Solaris x86). I asked one of my co-workers, a linux "militant", which one would be good to try. He suggested I try Debian. When I asked him why, he said "if you can get that thing installed on a laptop, you da man". Over a decade later, I still use it :)/>.

I have never seen Mint, but I hate Ubuntu (besides the FS mess, because of the way is presented/marketed); and really nowadays Debian is very easy to install and use.

Debian used to be considered a barebones Linux for advanced users. Maybe, MAYBE 15 years ago. But not anymore, as you well know.

I think nowadays Debian is an excellent universal system (that happens to use the Linux kernel, but here are FreeBSD and Hurd versions :)) that is available for a buttload of architectures and doesn't impose configurations on you, it lets you do what you want following strict standards (unlike Ubuntu).

I found Linux Mint Debian to be an OK choice for certain people because it presents a system similar to Ubuntu but it uses Debian and its standards underneath. You might as well simply use Debian and configure it for them, but meh :p

I also use Debian on laptops, and it works wonderfully!
 
I use Lubuntu (Ubuntu with LXDE instead of that abortion Unity) for desktop (and laptop) and Debian for servers. I also keep a few installations of CentOS around to run ancient stuff that needs old kernels or libraries.

If you stay away from Unity, Ubuntu is just a derivative of Debian. But I ought to try Mint for a desktop.
 
At present Ubuntu deviated from Debian to a degree (to make their repositories incompatible), but it didn't deviate yet radically from the middleware perspective (except for Unity). However Canonical seems to be interested to take it further. They are developing their own display server (Mir) with which they intend to replace the current X.org. While the rest of the Linux world is working to switch from X.org to Wayland. What kind of fragmentation it might cause, and especially for gaming - time will tell. But for me it's enough of a reason to stay away from Ubuntu.
 

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What distro would you suggest for a noob? Given what Ubuntu has turned into, I don't really want that any more, but is Debian manageable for somebody with no knowledge of linux?
 
It is manageable. But I sure had help from friends who explained me key concepts when I first used it (it was my first desktop distro anyway). Any first distro will require some learning, no matter how friendly it is.
 
Pangaea, try any distribution in a live CD. That way you don't have to install right away.

I think Debian is easy enough, but I'd recommend Linux Mint Debian. It's more automatic than Debian and comes with a nice looking Mate or Cinammon desktop of your choice. If you feel like running something light, it also comes with the less fancy XFCE.

Somethings might feel different at first coming from Windows, but you'll get used to it. Like when you try a new browser, media player or office suite.
 
I guess that is, why I never got into Linux. I like the idea and would prefer much more, if most software would be open source and therefore cutting edge (hopefully) and DRM-free. But there is just too much choice. I don't feel like spending the time to find out, what would be right for me, what I want and need. And then in the end I won't be able to play my games on it or communicate with everyone that uses the proprietary software solutions. So for now I am trying to use plug-ins and programs, that reduce the company spying on me and not buy DRM-games.
 
Why wouldn't you be able to communicate with others? Protocols exist for a reason, and they are independent of the operating system and their implementation. The Internet itself is full of computers running different everything, from hardware to software. Using a Linux-based operating system doesn't restrict you from communicating with others in any way.

About games, and commercial software, you are right to an extent. You can't natively run software that is not built for a specific architecture-OS. That's why we want companies to make their games available for other systems, not just Windows.

Alternatively, you can use Wine to run some Windows applications. By now it is fairly stable and works well. Gilrond played TW2 on Linux with Wine if I am not mistaken. Also a large number of games on GOG.com are DOS programs, which can be run with a native DOSBox for Linux. You also have ScummVM for the classic LucasArts Adventure games.

What we need is more companies releasing multiplatform software. PC does not equal Windows.
 
Volsung said:
Why wouldn't you be able to communicate with others? Protocols exist for a reason, and they are independent of the operating system and their implementation. The Internet itself is full of computers running different everything, from hardware to software. Using a Linux-based operating system doesn't restrict you from communicating with others in any way.

Sorry, I was unclear on that. I basically meant communicating like chatting or phoning, ie Skype, facebook. There are alternatives and they might work, so that i can get my facebook friends on that program, but I don't think that facebook would support it the other way round for them to find me. Haven't really tried though. Maybe it is a misconception.
 
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