Questions regarding Arch Linux prior to switch.

Hello Linux Peoplez!

I am thinking of porting my laptop over to Linux Arch, due to the bleeding fast repo's, the rolling releases and well i've only ever stuck to the basic linux releases such as Ubuntu, Fedora, and LinuxMint. Its time for a change! I have checked the installation guide on youtube and feel it should be easy enough to follow.

Questions prior to switching:
(I have attempted to find answers, but fell short of exact answers, would love to hear some current testimony.)
Gnome3 Desktop.

1. I have an ATI HD 5730 Mobile Graphics card, I had problems before getting ubuntu w/ (pulseaudio) to play movies through my HDMI output in DTS Format. (Note files are 1080p bluray mkv files). Would Catalyst 11.8 be the best choice in terms of graphics driver? and What sound sink should I install?

2. Has anyone tried Starcraft II through WINE with an ATI card and had good success?? What was your FPS like?

3. I need to use SAP Netweaver for school, I noticed its a windows only executable I have and was wondering if anyone has tried it on wine and it worked? WineDB doesn't list it.

4. MS Office 2010 Anyone used it with wine and had success with it? I am supposed to use it to submit files in Access to Sam2010 online school. They say using 2007 may cause small things to end up different and will cost you marks (note it uses an automatic marker to grade your work).

5. Video tearing? I heard mplayer2 is really good now, but I play 1080p files through my HDMI to my Sound System and TV. I love quality, and it would drive me insane if theres bad noise or tearing. Again with the old drivers back when it was catalyst 11.2-3 the quality on movies was bad and tearing was an issue, now they have 11.9 out is it fixed??

Thanks for your time! If you cant answer them all, just one or two would be perfect. Anything you can add helps :)

Sorry if this post annoys anyone, I just want to make sure my switch from windows (again for the 100th time!!) wont leave my day to day hurting.

Thanks!
Jacob S

I like your enthusiasm with making the switch over to linux! :)

Do you still have windows installed on you laptop? If so, you should probably keep it and setup a dual boot. The reason why is because windows is expensive and removing it off a system is like tossing 100$+ depending on which version. I suggest you setup a simple dual boot. That way you have access to both without any ill effects. The install, I think, will setup the dual boot for you.

Also if you are worried about messing up during the install give it a try on a virtual machine. It's not difficult to install but it also never hurts to do a simulation before the real thing.

As for you driver, go to the AMD website, fill out the information on the driver page and then you can download the proper driver. If one doesn't work try another driver. You have a lot of freedom with linux.

As for the wine stuff I don't use wine much. Maybe someone else can help you with that one.

Hey thanks :D

How do you find dual booting? I think it'd be hard to allocate space to both sides and keep changing it depending on which you use more.

Ok, I'm a little confused as to what exactly you are saying. Regardless, with a dual boot you will end up partitioning your hard drive like so:
Windows(first two or three partitions)---Linux(next two or three partitions)

Now, of course, that is basically what it will look like. In reality it will be more like this:
/dev/sda1---Windows NT partition and MBR
/dev/sda2---Windows(whatever version you have)
/dev/sda3---possibly a recovery partition depending on the manufacturer of your laptop. If it's not on there then subtract 1 from the following.
/dev/sda4---Linux root partition
/dev/sda5---Linux swap partition

When you set up the dual boot you will also set up and install GRUB(GRand Unified Bootloader). GRUB will give you a menu at boot time and from there you will select the OS that you want to boot into. It will look something like this:
Linux 2.6
Linux 2.6(recovery)
Windows NT
Windows xp/vista/7
-any other kernels will be listed here-

One will be the default and after a certain amount of time(usually 10 seconds) the default OS will boot.

The amount of space allocated to each will never change unless you want it to. You will reallocate at install time but that's it(you can of course change the amounts of space given to each OS). All you would do is chop off some unused space from your windows install(of course leaving some space to work with for windows). You will then re-allocate the space you just unallocated and then put Linux on it. In general Linux does not need much space. If there is stuff that you want accessible by both operating systems then you can make another partition and format it to NTFS. It will act like another drive and make it so you don't need two copies of stuff. Also instead of changing the space for Windows and Linux you can just change the size of the storage partition.

I will gladly help you through the entire install process and with anything else your confused about. :)