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**Coyote** · 06-30-2008, 09:04 PM

I've been using Linux as my desktop system for almost ten years now. I've gone from Slackware to Red Hat to Debian to Ubuntu now and have had a great time with it. I finally upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04 and it's been running great on my big honkin' flashlight (thx, Moo). I boot into Windows when I need to for work, but otherwise spend most of my time in Linux there as well. There's very little reason to switch back to Windows I find. Yeah, there's a number of web sites that have movie content that isn't flash so I can't download it, but that's never been a big deal for me.

I don't know what distro you're using, but even Radeon accelerated graphics have pretty good support in Ubuntu. The reason I got into UT99 and UT2K4 was because of the Linux support. Other than the Half Life series, I played only games that would play under Linux (Quake Wars and Enemy Territory included) and never had a problem. Only recently with the huge selection of great FPS games out there have I gone back to gaming exclusively in Windows. By keeping gaming separate from productivity, I keep my Windows install pretty lightweight.

**HTM~ZenEye** · 06-30-2008, 10:38 PM

I was running Ubuntu feisty fawn for a while and I really liked it. Linux > Windows in a lot of ways however the gaming support is not there. I too, use ATI graphics and the driver support isn't the greatest. So I switched back to windows for gaming. In a production environment Linux is king, as well as an inexpensive server OS.

**Coyote** · 06-30-2008, 11:50 PM

So if you're really insistent on using Linux as a gaming machine, I hear that Wine and, more specifically, the commercial version of Wine called Crossover can allow you to run Windows-only games on Linux pretty well. In all, its probably cheaper in the long run than paying for an XP license anyway.

I've found though that Ubuntu's restricted ATI drivers work pretty well on my laptop... the only downer is that I can't suspend due to a stupid flag not being sset in the default kernel. I don't run 3D games on my laptop anyway, so I just use the open-source (e.g. SLOW) drivers instead so I can get the benefit of suspending. Anyway, if your compiz is slow, then you probably don't have an accelerated X server working properly. You might want to try Ubuntu if that's not what you're running now. The device support is really impressive in general. Just my $0.02 on the distros...

So, I have to ask... kingofhearts, you do know that MINT also stands for Mint Is Now TOS, right? Although, I guess that would actually properly be spelled MiNT. This was an interesting little POSIX-like system that I played around with back in the mid-nineties. However, after doing a bit of Googling, I guess you must be referring to Linux Mint as the distribution you're running now? I'm curious what you meant by [MINT] in your subject title for this thread.

**HTM~Par** · 07-01-2008, 01:27 PM

I have an ATI card and played UT on linux before (mine was fedora 7) and it ran fine. Good ATI drivers are a little hard to find, but they are out there.

**Coyote** · 07-01-2008, 05:25 PM

Yeah, ATI's support is nowhere near as awesome as NVIDIA's, but they're a heck of a lot better than they were a few years ago. The closed-source accelerated drivers should work pretty well and depending on your distro, should not be difficult to install. YMMV though.... I have no experience with anything besides NVIDIA.

**HTM~ZenEye** · 07-01-2008, 07:48 PM

I just downloaded the new Ubuntu 8.04 and there were catalyst drivers listed in with the software packages. I was only running from live cd so i didn't actually get to install or play with them. Ubuntu seems to be trying really hard to make a user friendly desktop os, maybe give it a try there hearts.
I read somewhere that this newest version was being considered for public release as a commercial desktop OS. It even has a "one click" dual boot install option, says it will install right along with an existing windows system.

To me it seems to be a monkey in the middle OS, still to advanced for the average joe and too crippled for the linux pro.

"Linux is not for wimps" - ComTIA Linux+ Intro video

**Coyote** · 07-01-2008, 08:20 PM

I agree with most of that but disagree with the statement that it's too crippled for the linux pro. Name one thing that you can't do with Ubuntu that you can do with any other Linux distro (assuming the same architecture and standard PC hardware...) If you don't want a specific package because its too old or you want to patch the source, you just uninstall the Ubuntu binary and install everything from source into /usr/local/... no difference there from any other linux distro. If you don't like Gnome, KDE, or whatnot, there's nothing stopping you from installing any window manager of your choice or running just from the text console either.

On a slightly tangental topic, I just upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04 (amd64).

**HTM~ZenEye** · 07-01-2008, 09:30 PM

ok maybe crippled was too strong a term lol. I'm a linux noob, forgive me

**Coyote** · 07-01-2008, 10:04 PM

Perhaps a more accurate sentiment is that the linux desktop environment (regardless of distro) is too crippled for the *nix pro. While yes, there are lots of pretty apps and control panels to do things, I do damned near everything save for reading email and surfing the web from the command prompt. The only thing I use the GUI tools for is handling the network since in Ubuntu they work pretty well. Frankly, for the longest time, the only reason I ran X windows was because I could open a ton of individual command lines simultaneously. Oh and it was useful for viewing graphics once in a while as well. lol

<Standing on soapbox>
I like Ubuntu for the following reasons

1) It is derived from one of the strongest completely community-supported Linux distributions: Debian. Because they share the same core, packages from both distros can be shared between them with ease.

2) Ubuntu is sponsored by a South African company called Canonical and has an emergency backup fund so that Ubuntu can be run like a company w/o having to chase profit essentially. They can instead focus on making releases every 6 months with long term-support releases LTS every 18 months I think. So you can either wait 1.5 years to upgrade to a new stable distro or take a chance and upgrade every 6 months to get the latest and greatest that they have to offer (and submit bug reports!!!)

3) It's got a huge support forum where you can find pretty much everything you need to know about a problem if you dig long enough. The large forums are a detriment too since often times questions just fall off the front page w/o being answered because people don't bother to take the time to read the forums to see if there is already an open thread on that topic. In general, the knowledge contained within the forums outshines the noise by a long shot.

Read more here.
</Standing on Soapbox>

4) And the name is just so darn fun to say.

Originally posted by kingofhearts

Anyhow, I'm posting this Thread to head all of your opinions of Linux XD.

Well, kingofhearts, you've certainly got me spouting off my opinions on Linux...

**HTM~Par** · 07-02-2008, 12:03 PM

I liked ubuntu, mainly because of it's more user friendly interface. Even my computer illiterate parents could use ubuntu as "easily" (I use the term loosely) as windows xp. The main reason any linux pro might hate ubuntu is its lack of a default root account that is readily accessible, but with some playing around you can get into the true root. Other than that, sudo works fine for anything you need to do.

Speaking of root/sudo...I'm hungry, eye

**Coyote** · 07-02-2008, 08:05 PM

Originally posted by HTM~Parlatz

The main reason any linux pro might hate ubuntu is its lack of a default root account that is readily accessible, but with some playing around you can get into the true root. Other than that, sudo works fine for anything you need to do.

I hate having to type sudo in front of everything so when I want root, I just do 'sudo -s' to get a root shell so I have access to everything I need. This is nicer than using 'su' on Debian or whatnot because it seems to properly preserve the DISPLAY variable so I can open X apps as root if I need to.

Now, if you want a proper root account that you can log in remotely to, it turns out it's pretty easy to enable. I did a quick Google and found this:

http://www.ducea.com/2006/06/21/ubun...-root-account/

Essentially, you just give the root account a password and you have a fully functional root login that you can log into from the console or that you can do a 'su' into. However, for security and safety issues (e.g. protect yourself from yourself) it's better to just keep using sudo IMHO.

**HTM|Minion** · 07-02-2008, 10:02 PM

Originally posted by Coyote

I hate having to type sudo in front of everything so when I want root, I just do 'sudo -s' to get a root shell so I have access to everything I need. This is nicer than using 'su' on Debian or whatnot because it seems to properly preserve the DISPLAY variable so I can open X apps as root if I need to.

Now, if you want a proper root account that you can log in remotely to, it turns out it's pretty easy to enable. I did a quick Google and found this:

http://www.ducea.com/2006/06/21/ubun...-root-account/

Essentially, you just give the root account a password and you have a fully functional root login that you can log into from the console or that you can do a 'su' into. However, for security and safety issues (e.g. protect yourself from yourself) it's better to just keep using sudo IMHO.

**HTM~Par** · 07-02-2008, 11:44 PM

Originally posted by HTM|Minion

or, in php:

PHP Code:


<?php
  $head = MINIONS_HEAD;
  explode $head;
  echo "Head destroyed!";
  //PHP is much more powerful :P
?>

**HTM|Scarecrow** · 07-03-2008, 04:11 AM

lol, nice to see such great feedback.

I've named this Forum Topic Linux [Mint] simply because I'm using the Mint Distro of Linux XD
[simply stated; there is no clever message within the thread title]

I'm surprised that there's someone here [coyote] who has been using Linux for over 10 years. I've been using Linux for only about 1 week. I'm sure there's much i can learn from [all of] you. [including Parlatz]

I've actually used Ubuntu as my first Live CD. I liked it, but i actually found Linux Mint more user friendly than Ubuntu. As far as being a noob is concerned, I've had only a few problems with Linux. Otherwise, everything about Mint is running smooth. The only crappy thing about Linux [or ATI as i should say] is that there are no decent ATI drivers for linux. I've searched everywhere for a decent ATI driver for my Linux Mint. I've come across "Envy" and "EnvyNG". They both installed a ATI driver which [for now] works. But the graphics is just horrible. When i turn on my effects [if i dare], my whole comp almost crashes..... As far as i can see, There's no hope for people who wish to run Linux flawlessly [3D-graphics-card-wise] through an ATI graphics card. As you can see, my main concern is my ATI graphics card acting retarded due to the lack of a decent Driver. Furthermore, perhaps thats why even though i installed UT2K4 flawlessly, my computer hilariously lags when i play.

I might even create a partition for Windows XP [Professional] just for UT....
Actually, i was going to do that just a few days ago but my EX-gf started bitching so i guess I have to fix my X-girlfriend before i fix my PC....
I cant wait to fix my Comp and get back to playing UT with the HTM clan.

Linux cant help but make me feel stupid.... whenever i get error messages... i always render them to be something like these....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Bad Command or File Name. Good try, though."

"Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue."

"Scandisk is now checking your hard drive. You can start praying."

"Smash forehead on keyboard to continue."

"Bad command or filename. Go stand in the corner."

"C code. C code run. Run, code, run! PLEASE!"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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