The Linux Equation

[Jaeram]

I was always interested in Linux platforms and always wanted to toy around with them. I had always planned on using an entirely old system to do the messing with, because I didn't want to mess with my normal computer/games/windows setup, but luck has had it that every time I updated a substantial amount of equipment in is because something critical failed on the old equipment rendering it useless.

My interest had been highly piqued lately, and since I just got my tax refund, I decided to go back to newegg and buy another WD 160gb HDD (exactly the same kind currently in my machine) that I was going to use to test some linux stuff. Basically disconnect my current HDD and connect the other one that I will install a linux OS on and spend some time toying around with it, see what I can get working etc. (I hear theres a way to mount or trick software and games into thinking the Linux is Windows so you can install them).

I was wondering, do any of you use linux? Toyed around with linux OS's? If so, what would you suggest?

After looking around I figured the first one I'd test is Kubuntu, it looks nice, gOS space also looked nice, and Mandriva doesn't look bad. Although, I am partial to the more aesthetically pleasing ones, windows XP spoiled me by rounding off the corners to things, and I notice some of the linux systems kind of remind me of the computers I used in elementary school, or like windows 95.

Thoughts?

Edit : Oh right, if I ever decide I don't want to use the linux anymore I can just raid the HDD with my other one, for anyone who might have wondered why I bought a new HDD for only that.

[Saulus]

Well I have my Linux+ from CompTIA so I guess that qualifies me on the subject

There are a lot of flavours of Linux and essentially the kernel is the same on all of them, it's just the software packages that differ from distro to distro (you also might get a few different commands).

If you're new to Linux I highly recommend Ubuntu, it's a great distro, easy to use, and rather user friendly.

There's tons of resources out on the net for linux/unix, I would familiarize myself with the basic commands and OS structure before delving too deep (Linux is built to be fast and will do it whatever way possible, the bash shell is very intuitive but can take a bit of getting used to).

Sundren's DB server happens to run on an indepedent linux machine (MySQL has hooks built right into the linux kernel, as does apache, the worlds most popular webserver)... that machine runs Fedora which is basically the community version of Red Hat, the standard for Linux in enterprise networks. Fedora is nice if you like to play around with server services on Linux while Ubuntu is more of a Linux client centric distro.

[Jaeram]

Yeah, I've looked at a few of the different distros so far, I just chose Kubuntu over regular Ubuntu because I liked the way it looked and after looking at the different forms (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, gobuntu, and a few other buntus) and the features they mentioned it seemed like they were all pretty similar so I figured I'd test Kubuntu out first.

I figured you ran our server on a linux client. I think the thing I'm most worried about is trying to get my games to work on it, if I can figure a way around that I think it would be cool to use as an operating system. That's exactly why I plan to test it for awhile on another HDD though. Not to mention that there's just something about the whole 'open source' thing that seems very provocative, and the fact that's it free. There's also the whole community built aspect to it, if you listen to a lot of different people in technology news you'll see that a lot of great products have benefited more from community support than anything else. Look at our game here, there's a community of people out there designing great new content for it every day, if there's a problem someone out there is probably already trying to fix it.

I mean since I build my own computers I don't necessarily have to buy the Windows XP or Vista or whatever that all the manufacturers push on you. That was one of the biggest turnoffs for me when it came to pre-built pc's they are always shoving a bunch of shit down my throat that I don't want, here we'll include this OS, a bunch of bundled software that you probably don't want and we'll throw our 'hassle your ass' tech support in to and rack the price up $600. It's really hard to find a place and just say hey, give me just the hardware and keep the other garbage.

Not to mention that I have a 64 bit capable processor but my windows XP is only a 32 bit OS. I noticed some linux OS's have 64 bit versions, and I have to wonder how that will effect/enhance my computers performance, I've never used the processor in a 64 bit environment because I wasn't going to pay for Vista until I absolutely had to.

[Saulus]

Well to run Windows games on Linux there is CEDEGA (formerly WineX). It's far from perfect (it's also not even free), expect poor performance, tons of setup, and bugs when trying to play most Windows games on Linux (some won't even be supported at all).

Keep in mind this little mantra, Mac for productivity, Windows for gaming, and Linux for speed.

In terms of 64bit, Linux x64 distros you won't see a lot of a performance difference unless you're running into 4GB of memory or more (or are running server applications). Of course, on pretty much any platform today (including Vista) if you can run x64, do it. The driver support is there now so it can't hurt.

And the big reason behind Linux's speed is in fact because it's open source, that's also why it's more secure (some people would argue otherwise because it's open source). Compare hundreds of thousands of programmers, at least a handful are going to be far smarter than you are, and already have found a better way to do something, or found an exploit and patched it. Compare this to a coproration who has far more QA to go through, not to mention the fact that sheer numbers taken into account, they cannot compare.

And Sundren's DB only runs on Linux, the main server runs on Windows Server 2003 R2 x64. Nwserver can run under wine but it's not worth the hassle trying to set it up, especially with all the custom code and plugins Sundren runs.

[Jaeram]

Keep in mind this little mantra, Mac for productivity, Windows for gaming, and Linux for speed.

Yeah, the gaming part is one of the main reasons I've been using Windows for as long as I have, which is another reason I'm going to keep the two drives separate for awhile while I'm doing all the linux fooling. The idea of being able to use that linux speed with gaming is an attractive thought though, which is another reason I wanted to check it out.

Have you ever tried running a game like NWN2, or HL2 on a linux client?

Edit : From what I've seen from some screen shots on the CEDEGA site, it's possible to play WoW and Elder Scrolls with it. Among other games.

[Saulus]

Don't expect Linux speed + Gaming = faster. It doesn't work that way. Remember Linux for the most part is not a client-centric OS.

[Jaeram]

I've also read about doing a partitioned 'Windows section for gaming' Linux for other, I thought I might toy around with that after I became more familiar with it.

[sparkeh]

Just a note on 64bit distros. I tried out a few a while ago and found that there weren't many 64bit versions of apps, even things like flash weren't available (although I think this has changed now) and had to run most stuff in a 32bit environment anyway. Check out if its worth it beforehand, probably not (as mentioned above) the small performance gain.

My fave distro is Suse, check the sig.

[sparkeh]

*double post*

[mugsyman]

Jaeram,
Depending on your hardware you may want to consider running Ubuntu within virtualization software (you will want a lot of memory). I am almost sure Microsoft Vitural PC 2007 is free (I run Ubuntu server with a couple of Dev/Beta servers within MS 2008 server virtualization and VM fusion for Macintosh).

I would think MS VPC supports dynamic sizing disks - your Ubuntu virtual drive file would only then consume space based upon how much is written to the virtual drive. (I would not think a virtual instance of Ubuntu would take much more the 5-8GB of disk space) Just a thought that may save you some $.

[Jaeram]

If you mean because I bought the new HDD (already on the way), that wasn't the only reason for buying it. I'm just using it for that when it gets here, when my current one gets lower on space (about 40 gigs left now) I'll raid them together, or maybe slave one, haven't decided yet.

Sparkeh, I had forgotten about your sig, how do you play NWN2 in SUSE? Do you have like a dual boot system set up, or something else?