So, i want to Install Linux Mint as primary and only OS for everything except games. Would like to run virtual software for games. How would i go about this?


Thanks.

The Linux Help subforum might be better suited so I'm moving this topic in there

If I understand you correctly you will be running Windows in a WM (and your games)?

Is this wise? You will take a performance hit to say the least. Why not dual boot? Is Wine not offering you functionality with the software you wish to run?

I don't think it would be a good idea either. Unless the games you want to run demand very low graphics requirements then you'd be better off dual booting. If however you decide to press ahead with virtualisation you can do a lot worse than going here: http://www.virtualbox.org/ And of course, trying it out to see for yourself won't do your system any harm

anything directX9 and below can be run in vmware workstation 7+ but make sure you want to use alsa or pulseaudio as your sound provider in linux since vmware (as far as i know) is not compatible with OSS

otherwise a combination of wine, crossover linux and cedega will usually get you what you need for games in linux

and don't forget to add Dosbox and ScummVM for all your retro DOS needs on Linux!

I concur with the previous posters. Virtualisation is great on Linux, but I would not recommend it for Windows games, at least not 3D intensive graphic games. I am running 64 bit Sabayon/Gentoo, and have a number of KVM virtual machines. However, my recommendation is to dual boot. Then by all means try KVM, Virtualbox or similar for your games. If you find performance is satisfactory you can always remove Windows from the dual boot configuration and extend your Linux partition.

Always nice to meet fellow Linux users!


Im running Wolvix (2-0beta) and have found suprisingly better performance with Wine than running the same software in native Windows. I would always suggest (as above) that the best advice is to due boot and if you are using Windows only for games, you can strip it of much of the bloat that it would have otherwise had as a generic desktop machine.

I too think it's great to find others using Linux. I have been using it for years it for years now and find it restrictive to work in Windows or even OSX. I hadn't come across Wolvix before but it looks interesting. There is a lot to be said for avoiding the overhead of KDE or Gnome, though I am currently happy with my Sabayon running KDE4, which is quite responsive on a powerful X86_64 desktop system. For a more minimal system I find Puppy with ICEWM runs well on a relatively early EEEPC. And, given the nature of the present forum, my Mythdora MythTV server comes in very useful, giving a lot more freedom than an "equivalent" Windows Media Centre. These days I am not much of a gamer, so don't to dual boot Windows at all, though I do have a copy of XP running beautifully under Qemu/KVM for some specialist business applications. I am very impressed with the performance of KVM with hardware virtualisation.

Nice to meet you!

My experiences of Sabayon have been a little hit and miss (more a dodgy hardware issue) although since Gnome seems to be going down the route of a Mono dependency and I really don't like KDE, Im am looking at many more of the less known DE's. With that in mind I was recently impressed with Enlightenment which I discovered through Elive....a great distro with blistering fast perfromance.

Regards.

I'm enjoying Sabayon at the moment. I've played with a lot of distributions over the years, and it is my first choice at the moment. I was using Arch and Gentoo, but was impressed with Sabayon and particularly like the flexibility of being able to use both portage and entropy.

I've been meaning to have a look at Enlightenment, as I too have read good things about it. I might download Elive and give it a try. When I want to use something a little less resource intensive I tend to go for icewm.

It's interesting that you don't really like KDE, as I must admit to similar feelings about Gnome. What I do like is the freedom of being able to choose not only between them but also between any number of other alternatives. Do your reservations about Mono relate to Microsoft perhaps choosing to later assert its intellectual property rights and like issues? Or do you have other concerns?

I am uncertain about the patent trap argument when it comes to Mono (in that theres so many facets to the argument, all based on what MS might do). I feel that it's impossible to second guess what Microsoft will do in the future, a year ago, who would have thought that Microsoft would be caught "with its hand in the cookie jar" in respect of the Plurk incident and the src code Microsoft had "lifted" from another source?

My concerns of Mono and Moonlight et al can be broken down into a few:

a/ Its chasing the tail of a MS tech which is far more mature than Mono, making Mono the "poor cousin"

b/ It has no defining app that makes it mission critical to any distro. (and for that reason is adding a layer of bloat)

c/ When compared like for like with apps in say C++, Mono comes up short and in my opinion it even fails in its cross platform mission.

There are more but my dislike and refusal to use Mono mainly stems from those points.

Nice talking with you!

i don't get into the arguments that a lot of people have about mono/moonlight, but all i will say about it is after removing it and tomboy notes (replaced with gnote) in my OpenSuSE 11.1 x64 install, startup times increased substantially, and i dropped 70+mb of crap by removing mono

i don't mind novell, and personally i like the idea of linux being more "usable" in the idea that it will work the same as windows in theory (i go to a website and it works the same on linux as it does in windows) but i don't like the idea that they will add something like that to a distro simply for ONE program that is used by default.

also why was tomboy notes made cross platform, but in a way that kept it to windows only without good emulation/vm software that made it perform worse, other software companies make completely different builds for their cross platform software, why can't tomboy notes?

Ive got no real problems with Novell, they've shot themselves in the foot with the Microsoft deal and I think the fact that Canonical taking the mantle for the most popular distro is a testament to that.

In regards to Tomboy though, there is an increasing dependence on Mono in Gnome and the fact that the experiences you describe are typical for many users, it begs the question, what is the point of it? I'd say (forgetting Patent issues) its an attempt at lockin on the Novell, they are loosing their grip on the Linux home desktop and Redhat is reporting decent profits....where is Novell going to get the money from? Miguel de Icaza has just been made a Microsoft MVP and I think that says it all. Microsoft view Novell as an ally and we only have to remember what Ballmer said in regards to Linux being a cancer.

Microsoft does not want Linux to suceed, why would it? Theres no money for MS in Linux if users drift away from Windows, so one can only assume that whilst MS will appear to tollerate Linux (and other alternatives) it will do anything to remove them.

Novell are now lost in my opinion, theres talk of layoffs, Mono is creating bad feeling whenever its mentioned and I think even Canonical have a backup plan to pull the plug. Look at the popularity of KDE and the fact that alternative DE's are now quite suitable as replacements to Gnome means (I believe) that Gnome is not long for the chop. You have to remember that many new Linux users (from Windows) will be attracted by a nice DE, Gnome for them is not an enticement to Linux and its growing Mono dependency (coupled with the experiences you describe) is hardly going to sweeten the pot.

Regards.

Thank you for your interesting and insightful comments. As much as I would like to be able to, I cannot disagree with you significantly on anything you mentioned. Novell certainly lost the plot with the Microsoft deal and did themselves a lot of damage in the Community. I don't know to what extent this contributed to the success of Ubuntu. Whilst it certainly would have played some role, I don't want to take anything away from Ubuntu which is a great distro for newbies or even for use as a business desktop.

Mono I also must agree. In one way it is nice to know that there is support for dotnet in Linux for those who want it. But we don't need it, and the price we risk paying if we come to rely on it may be far too high. And of course I agree with your earlier post that existing alternative tools produce a better final product. Why is indeed the relevant question to be asking about Mono.

I truly hope you are wrong about Gnome. I have been concerned about their direction for some time, and not only because of Mono. I think Linus summed it up when he acknowledged his use of KDE some years ago, basically saying that Gnome was striving so hard for simplicity that it no longer met the needs of many users. Admittedly, the last I heard he had become a reluctant Gnome user after the KDE 4 fiasco, though I don't know whether he has now returned to the KDE fold. I myself reluctantly used Gnome at work for some months around this time. I believe that the competition between Gnome and KDE is healthy, and I want this to continue. Even though I have never used Gnome as my primary desktop for any real length of time, I often try it with various distro's and like to think that I am open to a change should it become worthwhile.

Microsoft do not wish Linux well, though it is handy to have around. For instance, I believe that Firefox played a major role in forcing Microsoft to again develop Internet Explorer, despite its fears that browsers may eventually become an alternative platform to Windows. This competition, though limited, is I would suggest healthy not only for Linux but Microsoft also. And, of course, Linux can be paraded before various regulatory bodies as required and presented as a real threat and a dangerous competitor. The facts are different. Microsoft have a stranglehold on the desktop and neither Linux, OSX or any Unix or other operating system is making significant inroads. Nor do I think such are likely. Microsoft came through the Vista saga without significant loss of customers, many of whom stayed with XP rather than move to another OS. And based on my so far limited exposure to Windows 7, it seems to be quite a reasonable consumer OS, particularly when compared with Vista.

I do hope Novell are not lost, as they have been very good for the community in many ways. Unfortunately, like SCO, I think they overestimated the scare value of Microsoft's Patent Arsenal. Businesses would not pay for an SCO source licence based on mere assertions of unspecified copyright code in Linux. Likewise, I think most businesses were unimpressed by Microsoft assertions of unspecified infringing code in Linux, and I doubt Novell gained any appreciable Suse Enterprise customers from this FUD.

Completely agree with your comments and in respect of Novell I truely believe they are a victim of sorts. Whatever people want to say about Microsoft I dont think many can argue that the one thing Microsoft has sorted is perception managment. Since Linux (in respect of the home user) mostly depends on word of mouth from other users (as theres certainly no real mainstrem adverting campaign) I think MS used the deal to "muddy the waters" in respect of the userbase suse has. One look at distrowatch click stats shows Opensuse decline.

In respect of the antitrust case of the eu and browsers, i thought that was a silly idea then and a silly idea now. If people are used to IE and are completely ignorant of anything else then I dont think a ballot screen will make any differrence whatsoever, they will always go with what they know. I think looking at OEM would have been far more appropriate than any browser issue which if you look at the stats seems as if the average user is quite capable of finding an alternative on their own and they are already experiencing the benefits of this.

I think the main issue now is that MS and their business plan are not as relevant. There is a plethora of free alternatives to all of their products, why would a home user want to pay for Office when you have Open Office completely free?

MS now, in my opinion realize this. They cant compete on terms of reliabily or functionality with their software, so they only have one weapon left - patents, if in striking deals they can disrupt popular distros then for them they must be laughing all the way to the bank. MS must love the Ubuntu / Mono relationship (in the case of Gnome) as they are disrupting a popular distro without even getting their lawyers involved.

MS is the company that wont bring BBCi to its console because the BBC wont let them charge extra for it.

I think patents asside Mono is a way to "get them hooked" offerring the btter and more mature .net if you come over to Windows. As I said before, giving de Icazza MVP says it all and its a very clever way for MS to cause even more rifts in the foss community. It business genius on MSs behalf.

Anyway sorry to waffle, great speaking with you!