Hey, thinking of switching to Linux

[Royaltramp]

Hi there, my name's Matt and it's nice to meet you all

I spend a lot of my time on my computer, and use it for all sorts. Most of the time I'm just talking on MSN and Skype while browsing the internet (Using Firefox), but I also run a gaming community website (the link is on my profile if you're interested), so I often spend time coding in HTML and PHP, as well as doing some other coding (Java, Python, VB6, VB.NET, etc). Along with the above I do spend some time gaming, I've been playing World of Warcraft since last October, but since I have barely logged in at all during that time, and only got to level 46 on my first character, I haven't renewed my subscription yet, and hope to move to Tibia for now. As for other games, I play Counter-Strike 1.6 and Source, Oblivion, Morrowind, Guitar Hero III, Frets on Fire and anything else that takes my fancy at the time.

I've used a few operating systems so far; Windows 95, Windows 98/ME, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Fedora 9 and Ubuntu 7. Overall the system which I found easiest to use and gave me the least trouble was Windows XP, but I really like the foundations behind Open Source, and want to do what I can to support it.

I currently have two PC's, one old, one new; here are their specs:
PC1 - Main PC
Built August 2007
Monitor: Acer AL1916W 19" 1440x900
Case: Casecom Black Case W/ Blue LED Fans
Power Supply: HiPower 700W PSU
Motherboard: Asus P5N-E SLI Socket 775 Motherboard
Processor: Intel Core2Duo E6550 2.33Ghz
Memory: 2048Mb Kingston DDR2 667Mhz
Graphics: 1Gb Inno3D Nvidia GTX280
Hard Drive 1: 250Gb Western Digital Caviar SATA 7200RPM
Hard Drive 2: 160Gb Maxtor IDE 5400RPM (I think it's 5400 anyway)
Operating System: Windows Vista SP1
Network Adaptor: BT Voyager 1055 USB

PC2 - Older PC, secondary machine
Built 2001
Monitor: Unknown 1024x768
Case: Unknown old case
Power Supply: Unknown 230W PSU
Motherboard: Forgot, Unknown
Processor: 1.2Ghz AMD 64
Memory: 768Mb SD 133Mhz
Graphics: 64Mb Nvidia 5200
Hard Drive 1: 120Gb IDE 5400RPM
Hard Drive 2: 40Gb IDE 5400RPM
Operating System: Ubuntu Linux 7
Network Adaptor: Some Edimax PCI card I recently bought that was recommended on Linux Emporium

Now I'm thinking about installing Linux on PC1, my main PC, however I have my doubts and I also have lack of knowledge about Linux and GNU.

My main issue is my graphics card. I recently spent £300 on my GTX280 and I'm fairly sure that in Linux it'll go to waste and my money won't have been well spent, whereas if I stick with Windows I'll be buying more graphically advanced games to utilise it.

As far as gaming goes, with Linux and Wine, I'm pretty sure I can play most/all of the games I mentioned, which is good. But what about games like Crysis, would I be able to play anything like that in order to get the most out of my card?

Browsing: I'm fairly certain that Linux will be able to meet all my browsing needs just fine :P

Coding: Linux will be just grand for Python, Java, PHP, HTML and such.. However I don't know if Wine supports VB.NET and VB6?

Instant Messaging: Skype + Pidgin.

Now for the alternatives. I could simply downgrade this computer to XP or upgrade my processor and RAM once I can afford to do so, and then play around with Linux on my second machine. Or alternatively I could dual boot XP/Vista and the Linux distro of my choice, though I'd need to find out more about partitions and dual booting first, since I'm a newbie when it comes to both of them.

Finally, what distro would you recommend? For my main PC I want something that looks nice, has nice features, is fully functional and gives me the best gaming experience possible on the games mentioned (not sure here). For my secondary PC I want something very lightweight, while still allowing me to browse, code, listen to music, etc (maybe Puppy or DSL?).

Thanks in advance (Even if you only read this and didn't reply, it is a long post after all, at least it was to write :P)

-Matt

[rokytnji]

Any of the major distros (like Ubuntu, Mepis 7, Mandriva, Fedora, Etc...) will run fine on PC 2. Besides Puppy and DSL, Small fast distros like NimbleX, Crux, Mepis antiX, Vector, Slax, Debian, Arch, etc.... are also viable options.

PC 1 will fly on Slackware and Gentoo if you have the linux knowledge of installing them.

For easier install Sabayon, Linux Mint, PcLinuxOS, are some other options for PC1

Ubuntu Hardy Heron will do everything all the other distros mentioned will do and run fine on both PCs.

Hope that gave ya a small answer to your question.

[Royaltramp]

Thanks. What do you think about the graphics card situation? I'd either like to be able to fully utilise it under Linux, or set up a dual boot, but it'd be helpful to know which would be the best option.

-Matt

[oz]

Thanks. What do you think about the graphics card situation? I'd either like to be able to fully utilise it under Linux, or set up a dual boot, but it'd be helpful to know which would be the best option.

-Matt

Welcome to the forums!

The GTX280 has been supported since Oct 7th:

Linux x64 (AMD64/EM64T)

The 5200 should work fine with Linux as well.

[jayd512]

Welcome to LinuxForums!

Your specs for PC 2 are stronger than what I have on my rig, and I'm currently dual-booting with Fedora 8 and CRUX 2.4. So you shouldn't have any problems with any modern distro.

[Royaltramp]

Thanks again guys. Alright so I'm fairly confident all of my hardware would function well (on both computers) in Linux. What about my keyboard and mouse though? I know the (admittedly not very good) wireless keyboard and mouse I use for my second PC work fine with Ubuntu and Fedora, I don't know about my Logitech G11 keyboard and Saitek GM3200 mouse on my first computer.

When I looked up the Logitech G11 and it's functionality under Linux, I've read that it's very hard to get the extra macro keys working - and although they're not essential to me, I'd like to get them working if possible, as they're the main reason I bought the keyboard at the time. As for my mouse, I'm not sure, I guess it should work, but it does have a DPI slider I can adjust on the mouse, and I'm not sure if Linux will support that.

-Matt

[schwim]

If you're hinging your use of linux on a kb/mouse combo, then we've got larger issues to discuss . The best anyone can suggest is that you try it.

In regards to utilizing your graphics card to it's upmost potential, nobody here can state that you use linux for the gaming. You don't. You can use Wine or CrossOver Office to play certain games through. You could run it though a virtual machine, but why? I'd just keep an XP partition handy for games.

I run all of my games through a machine with XP on it. For everything else, I use linux.

thanks,
json

PS just got my main to 66 on WoW(Barthilas server). I won't make 70 before the expansion pack comes out

[glaston]

Why exactly do you want to install Linux on PC1?
If PC2 runs Linux just fine, you could do your coding and scripting, and browsing on it.
And leave PC1 to games.

If gaming is why you bought PC1, and if it's what you'll be doing with PC1 whether you do it in Linux or XP, why bother installing Linux on it?
Playing games in Linux under wine will have no benefit at all.
You'll probably take a big performance hit running that configuration.

Are there any reasons why running Linux on PC1 would be beneficial in real terms?
Meaning aside from just wanting to use the new machine, and just knowing that it's running on newer-faster hardware?
In other words, will Linux running on PC1 give you enough of a performance gain in consideration to what you'll be using Linux for to justify the act of installing it?

Just consider for a moment that running Wine to play games will degrade the performance of the machine compared to if you played the games under windows.
And the fact that most of the tasks you'll be using Linux for(web browsing, HTML, PHP, python) won't be anywhere near as hardware intensive as playing games.
From my perspective there seems to be no justifiable reason to go through the trouble.
Maybe you want the experience and/or challenge of setting up a dual boot?
That would be justified.
I'm just trying to point these things out so that you don't end up wasting alot of time setting up the dual boot, and possibly messing it up and becoming so frustrated that you wipe out all the drives and reinstall windows.
Things like that can often hve a negative effect on a Linux newbies overall experience.
Leading to them abandoning Linux and having a bad opinion of it that might prevent them from even looking into it in the future.

If you have a Linux machine already running, take some time to get to know it beyond just the installation.
Get acquainted with the terminal, compiling/installing software, directory structure, configuration files, customizing the system to suit your needs.
Download some Live CD's of different distros and play around with them.

Maybe some virtualization to start off with.
Don't jump the gun.
It happens so often.
People get overzealous and jump in head first.
Things don't work out, they get frustrated and wipe out their whole system and go back to windows.

[Royaltramp]

Cheers, yeah, I've been thinking about it a lot and I'm not entirely sure yet whether I'll be putting Linux on PC1 or not, that's part of the reason I came here, to get opinions.

However, the reason I wanted to put it on PC1 is not for gaming. It's because of the fact that since January I've done hardly any gaming whatsoever, and much more of my time is spent chatting/browsing/coding - and I'd prefer to do that on my main PC rather than my secondary one which is currently downstairs sitting on the floor of my dining room.

I won't be making my decision quickly, and I'll learn more about Linux on PC2 first, since PC2 was a wreck a month ago, and if I mess anything up I'm not worried about it.

It's the Linux experience that interests me, I like the idea that I'm not just renting a piece of software, and that I can actually change the operating system as I see fit. However it's still possible that I could do this on PC2, it's just I have noticed a bit of slowdown in Ubuntu, so I'd probably be best off moving to a less graphical distro, or possible switching to using KDE.

I'm guessing as Linux users you're mostly all fans of Open Source, another question of mine would be what software I can replace with Open Source alternatives on PC1 while I'm still on Windows? I have Open Office, though I use both OO and MS Office, and I use Firefox, but aside from that I don't really have much Open Source software on my computer, and I'd like to.

Thanks again everyone :P

-Matt

[rokytnji]

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