Why linux is not a desktop OS.

F

Flagg

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 12, 2001
Messages
266
Okay, i dont really mean that but i did get your attention!

I have been using linux on and off for over 4 or 5 years. Im not the worst at it, but then again I am not the best. I have seriously been thinking about switching to linux as my main os. The reason I havent? Well let me list em

CD Burning
DVD Burning / Copying of DVD's(like DVDShrink)
WMV/ASF Movie Playing
Adobe Acrobat reading
Mutli-Monitor support
Games (to name a few) Halflife 2 / Doom 3 when they are released
XBOX Application support (i use excuter :) )
Newsgroups (i love agent)

Those are my main ones. I was hoping that some of you could give suggestions of software that I could use to accomplish the tasks listed above. One of the biggest problems a new user experiences in learning a new OS (especially when its there main one) is what software can I use to do what i was just doing in windows XP? Any suggestions would be great
 
check the Post your Linux Programs thread. many of the things you have listed are in there. as far as gaiming goes, linux is not the best choice, imo. first of all, not many major games are made for it. and in many cases the linux versions of games are released long after the windows version is out. i remember waiting forever for the neverwinter nights port :(
 
There is supposed to be a version of Doom3 for linux included on one of the cds. There is an Acrobat reader included with most distros. I'm not sure about Multi Monitor support, I'll setup two monitors tonight and see what happens.
 
CD Burning
Can do. Under GNOME Nautilus has a built in burner.

DVD Burning / Copying of DVD's(like DVDShrink)
I know there is some but dont own a DVD burner so dont have the prog

WMV/ASF Movie Playing
try mplayer

Adobe Acrobat reading
try Adobe Arcobat reader (linux native) for true rendering or gpdf very fst at rendering

Mutli-Monitor support
doing right now. Just a bit of config with the Xconf file - using nVidia card

Games (to name a few) Halflife 2 / Doom 3 when they are released
ok you have m on that one. There are a few. WineX does a good job with most. Any yep Doom3 has a native and also UT2004

XBOX Application support (i use excuter )
is that legal?

Newsgroups (i love agent)
what do you mean?? I use Gentoo forum and they have been nothing but helpful
 
I just looked at the "Post your linux software" thread and it did answer many of my questions. Thanks for all the replies. I guess there is more out there for linux than I initially thought. Very cool stuff
 
software that runs on the xbox is legal. the mod chips are near the red line tho.
 
Originally posted by saturnine2
There is supposed to be a version of Doom3 for linux included on one of the cds. There is an Acrobat reader included with most distros. I'm not sure about Multi Monitor support, I'll setup two monitors tonight and see what happens.
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Yes, yes, and yes.

LInux has a Doom III port, just as Quake, Quake II, and Quake III have had. UT and the UT lineage also have ports as well. Actually, what's mildly amusing is the lack of optimization found in many of the Linux ports doesn't seem to hinder performance much.... generally Linux beats Windows by 10%, at least according to many of the benches I've seen. (Assuming you're using an Nvidia adapter... ATI is another story. Great hardware, crappy Linux drivers.)

XPDF or GPDF should fill your needs for a PDF viewer. Actually, they have some features that Acrobat may not have, such as postscript viewing. (I must admit I coudl be wrong on this though...)

Multimonitor support is present in XFree86, as far as I know. Additionally, you can have many virtual desktops.

Pan is an excellent newsgroup browser, and is a very mature product.

Xine or mplayer, given that you have the Win32 codec installed, are easily able to view WMV or WMF. As for your DVD recording needs, I agree that this is one area where Linux may lack some support. You should check out 'dvdrecord', however. It does allow you to dupe DVDs, but I wouldn't say it has as many advanced functions as the Windows DVD recording tools.

Who cares about X-Box. PCs are better ;)
 
Originally posted by Josh_B
As for your DVD recording needs, I agree that this is one area where Linux may lack some support. You should check out 'dvdrecord', however. It does allow you to dupe DVDs, but I wouldn't say it has as many advanced functions as the Windows DVD recording tools. [/B]
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Last time I looked k3b let you burn DVDs, but I have no idea about the functionality and features. (It's also my personal favorite for burning CDs, definitely worth checking out.)
 
Originally posted by HHunt
Last time I looked k3b let you burn DVDs, but I have no idea about the functionality and features. (It's also my personal favorite for burning CDs, definitely worth checking out.)
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the latest k3b (11.6 i think?) works perfectly with the 2.6 kernel and DVD burning. you might also look into dvd::rip (transcode front end. much better than any windows programs i can find, for free). it's not the fastest at ripping dvds, but it works regardless.
www.freshmeat.net
packages.gentoo.org
 
Multimonitor support is there, though not perfect yet. (you need xinerama installed, and mess with your xf86config file.) Doing it right now, works great!
 
if your using an ATi card, you do not need xinerama installed. they have a built in ability to do multimonitor. (i got mdk 9.2 and slack 9.1 both working 100% multimonitor using my ati 9500 pro)
 
CD Burning
DVD Burning
WMV/ASF Movie Playing
Adobe Acrobat reading
Mutli-Monitor support
Newsgroups (i love agent)
Click to expand...

Did you just boot linux up to look at it and shut it down the last 5 years? A miniscule amount of research could of told you you could do all of those things.
 
Like to mention that cdburning has been improved a ton with the 2.6 kernel. I can finally burn at 52X. I've heard dvd burning is much improved as well.

XPDF works perfectly fine for viewing pdf files.

I just wish there were more games.
 
One investment that you might want to make is VMWare Workstation for Linux. Yes, you could dual boot with Windows since the license for VMWare is a tad expensive, but in the long run having the ability to open up Windows (in a window, hehe) and run that critical app that you might struggle with initially on the Linux platform will ease your transition into the Linux world.
 
Originally posted by jarman
One investment that you might want to make is VMWare Workstation for Linux. Yes, you could dual boot with Windows since the license for VMWare is a tad expensive, but in the long run having the ability to open up Windows (in a window, hehe) and run that critical app that you might struggle with initially on the Linux platform will ease your transition into the Linux world.
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i think liveCDs might be a much better way of going about it. running knoppix for a while of the CD until you're a bit more comfortable with it might be a bit more sane on the wallet. personally, i was able to set everything up when i had a break from school - i def wouldn't have started into linux during school tho. woulda been too frustrating (even if they're minor problems, when you're stressed and NEED them to be fixed shit isn't clear and your attitude goes down hill fast). vmware, imo, is a bitch to set up (maybe it's me, but i had to struggle through about 5 different config files and new driver versions and bs to get it to work. luckily i didn't have to worry about patching vmware itself, gentoo handled that for me)
 
Did you just boot linux up to look at it and shut it down the last 5 years?
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Yeah, damn you caught me, thats exactly what I did. :rolleyes:



i think liveCDs might be a much better way of going about it. running knoppix for a while of the CD until you're a bit more comfortable with it might be a bit more sane on the wallet. personally, i was able to set everything up when i had a break from school - i def wouldn't have started into linux during school tho. woulda been too frustrating (even if they're minor problems, when you're stressed and NEED them to be fixed shit isn't clear and your attitude goes down hill fast). vmware, imo, is a bitch to set up (maybe it's me, but i had to struggle through about 5 different config files and new driver versions and bs to get it to work. luckily i didn't have to worry about patching vmware itself, gentoo handled that for me)
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Im not so sure about Knoppix. In order to really get a feel for linux shoudn't you totally immerse yourself in it. i.e. load in on a hard drive, screw around with the config files, created mount point, yadda yadda. With knoppix isnt it just running a "virtual" linux desktop environment?

BTW how much is the licensing for vmware?
 
Originally posted by Flagg
Im not so sure about Knoppix. In order to really get a feel for linux shoudn't you totally immerse yourself in it. i.e. load in on a hard drive, screw around with the config files, created mount point, yadda yadda. With knoppix isnt it just running a "virtual" linux desktop environment?

BTW how much is the licensing for vmware?
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the best way is indeed to totally immerse yourself in it, but if you don't learn the fastest (if on a tight time schedule) or aren't very comfortable experimenting it could be "overload" if you will. the true way of learning the linux base is LFS, but...it's not practical from my experience. next on the list is gentoo, my ultimate pick. slackware and debian are also good alternates.

vmware downloaded from their site is 299, plus w/e windows is (unless you own that). that's for a linux or windows native version. in this case, you'd want the linux native version. gentoo has an ebuild for the latest version, and i'd imagine it's not too hard to find binary's floating around for other distros. but you still need a key. it's like pre-xp windows, you be the judge on what's ethical for liscensing.
 
VMWare isnt really distro dependant (ie you either get .rpm, .deb .tar.gz) they ship a .bin file that will run on all distro with the standard base installation.
 
As mentioned before Linux is not the best choice for games. Not only because there are bearly any for it in the first place but because of the shear lack/lag in 3D support.

I'm pretty sure that many cards are supported for 3D under linux but I havn't found one.

The Radeon 9800 in my notebook doesn't support 3D.
(same as the desktop version except not PCI/AGP)
The GeForce 4 mx400 I had in my desktop doesn't support 3D.
Nor does the GeForce 2 I have in my server.

Please correct me if I am wrong but: unless you have the proper card you can rule out any 3D gamin entirely, even if you have a game that runs under linux.

(and I have installed all the proper drivers and the lot for those cards. it simply doesn't work. )

«SK»
 
Originally posted by dc_firedrake
As mentioned before Linux is not the best choice for games. Not only because there are bearly any for it in the first place but because of the shear lack/lag in 3D support.

I'm pretty sure that many cards are supported for 3D under linux but I havn't found one.

The Radeon 9800 in my notebook doesn't support 3D.
(same as the desktop version except not PCI/AGP)
The GeForce 4 mx400 I had in my desktop doesn't support 3D.
Nor does the GeForce 2 I have in my server.

Please correct me if I am wrong but: unless you have the proper card you can rule out any 3D gamin entirely, even if you have a game that runs under linux.

(and I have installed all the proper drivers and the lot for those cards. it simply doesn't work. )

«SK»
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nVidia drivers have OpenGL support
donk know about ATi but i am sure they do as well
 
Originally posted by dc_firedrake
As mentioned before Linux is not the best choice for games. Not only because there are bearly any for it in the first place but because of the shear lack/lag in 3D support.

I'm pretty sure that many cards are supported for 3D under linux but I havn't found one.

The Radeon 9800 in my notebook doesn't support 3D.
(same as the desktop version except not PCI/AGP)
The GeForce 4 mx400 I had in my desktop doesn't support 3D.
Nor does the GeForce 2 I have in my server.

Please correct me if I am wrong but: unless you have the proper card you can rule out any 3D gamin entirely, even if you have a game that runs under linux.

(and I have installed all the proper drivers and the lot for those cards. it simply doesn't work. )

«SK»
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a lot of it might not be out of the box working, but the support is there (And not bad, i might add) for all 3 cards you mentioned.
is it as good as windows? not close. but it's there, for xfree86 X servers.

i play unreal 2k3 native to linux, neverwinter nights, quake 3 arena (2 and 1 are also native), snes everything, and cube. emulated stuff i play CS 1.6 (steam), warcraft 3, grand theft auto 3, need for speed underground, and battle field 1942. no problems with any of it (only thing is i can't talk to others with voice in CS. but i don't care about that. i can hear them)
is it close to as good as windows? no. but it's not so horrid that you can say linux has barely any 3d support.
 
OpenGL support is definately there. I have no experience with ATi under Linux, but I can guarantee that nVidia will work. You just have to install their closed-source drivers, and then it works great.
 
Originally posted by fat-tony
OpenGL support is definately there. I have no experience with ATi under Linux, but I can guarantee that nVidia will work. You just have to install their closed-source drivers, and then it works great.
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Ay, I have installed all of that lot. It simply doesn't work. Albiet I am no where near proficient in linux, but I have never had much luck with good graphics.
 
Ay, I have installed all of that lot. It simply doesn't work. Albiet I am no where near proficient in linux, but I have never had much luck with good graphics.
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It does work, read the instructions. Nvidia is about as easy to get working in linux as in windows. You probably just need to change the name of your driver in the XFree86-4 config.
 
I personally play a bunch of games under linux, in fact my GeForce 4 is even a bit faster under linux playing quake 3.
 
Originally posted by Zlash
It does work, read the instructions. Nvidia is about as easy to get working in linux as in windows. You probably just need to change the name of your driver in the XFree86-4 config.
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*twitch*

-> to self: leave it be... walk away...
 
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