For me it’s exactly the other way around. Even though I have Windows 7 Pro installed on my secondary SSD, I only have it for the odd Windows game I still play. And in my eyes, that’s really the only thing it’s good for. I wouldn’t want to have Windows as my primary system. Arch Linux it is for me. Has been for years and I really am a happy teddy.

But I absolutely agree with you, for a person that wants to play the latest and newest games or simply is using his/her PC primarily for games, GNU/Linux simply isn't the right choice. And good point on running the system virtually or off an USB stick for the people that just want to give it a try.

Interesting thread by the way. Now that there’re obviously a couple of GNU/Linux users around, how about a dedicated thread or sticky about the compatibility of GOG.com games (DosBox or Wine) on GNU/Linux and how you made them work (if they weren’t working out of the box)? Or maybe such a thread exists already and I simply haven’t noticed it yet?

There's a couple of wishlists on Linux compatible GOG games but I agree a sticky on them would be excellent. I'd love a few GOG games on my HTPC even if it is primarily for movies & music (something like Call to Power 2 or Alpha Centauri but not Civnet)

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/gog_games_that_are_working_fine_with_linux_wine

Get Linux Mint. Ubuntu went full blown retard two releases ago.

Thanks a bunch. Appreciated.

Problem is, it gets outdated fairly quickly. It provides no details on the distribution, the version of Wine they used (which is a pretty big deal) or even if they used proprietary drivers or open source for both ATi or Nvidia.

It would be nice if GOG would officially support a Wiki (like gogwiki.com) which could allow users to maintain and add tidbits of useful knowledge and general information. (Much like Archlinux.org's fantastic Wiki.)

Anyway, Wine 1.4 is close to release which improves drastically upon 1.3 especially for games like Fallout and Abes Exodus due to the new DIB engine. So version matters, Wine suffers from a lot of regressions.

Edit: I'll write up a draft forum post containing a better compatibility list and some general advise

!!!WIP!!!

Wine & Native Game Compatability List

Platinum: No changes required in winecfg.
Gold: With some DLL overrides, other settings or third party software.
Silver: Works excellently for ‘normal’ use
Bronze: Application works, but it has some issues
Garbage: Cannot be used for the purpose it was designed for.

Abe's Exoddus (Platinum) Last Updated: 2012-03-02
Wine Versions: 1.4-rc5, 1.3.30, ...
Tested on: Arch Linux 64, ...

!!!WIP!!!

Tge problem with linux is the same as with wikipedia..there's no financial incentive to keep everyone honest. Of course you are going to have a harder time installing ubuntu overr windows...the latter is a multi billion dollar product, the former is a geeks toy.

I love the idea of open source, but the execution is always lacking on major products like an OS. I do love Open source for smaller utility programs like antivirus and such.

You get a free wireless card with every distro now?

Say what?

Ubuntu is Linux. It is based on Debian Linux. It is Linux and not something else because it uses the Linux kernel.

Solaris, BSD, etc. are not Linux. They are Unix.

Other than that, your statement is quite accurate. Google runs a heavily customized Linux. The control stations for the Predator drones run a presumably customized Linux; there was a big stink over repeated virus problems on the previous Windows-based stations. Linux share of publicly visible Web servers as a whole is approximately 60 percent.

Hehehe, I was quite surprised about the comment as well that Ubuntu isn't Linux and than mentioning Solaris and BSD as Linux systems. They are all Unices alright. But Solaris and/or BSD != GNU/Linux. :-)

Anyway, back onto the topic of the games wiki, I also agree with Kaustic that a simple thread/topic becomes outdated and confusing way too quickly. The link provided here is a good example. Probably no one's going to check 13 pages if the latest title he or she has just picked up from GOG.com has already been mentioned there.

A more centralised and clear structure is needed to be helpful here (I find the GOG.com forums pretty confusing and unclear anyway).



Btw., I'm positively surprised that this topic is going on for three pages without having become a major flame war already. Hope it stays this way.

Yes. I'm being pedantic. A lot of people seem to think Linux is synonymous with Ubuntu. That is what I meant when suggesting Ubuntu is not Linux. (I'm fairly certain you know what I mean :P)

However, I am still pretty thankful for Ubuntu's efforts in popularising the system regardless of their current issues.

I know that someone has started on adding Linux compatibility to the GOGWiki. So that is actually underway.

The GOG community is excellent. You guys are a great bunch. I really enjoy reading and communicating on these forums. I also appreciate very much that there is no moderation or censorship here. It's just one more thing GOG does right.

Back to the topic at hand, a wiki that could be updated and kept current would be awesome.

In other news, all the flavors of Quake III Arena I tried all failed in the server browser but this is NOT a Linux issue, it's just a Q3A issue. I'm wondering if after these many years that server is down or what. I had good luck running first Q3A in Wine but no joy in listing servers, then I tried the old ID binary but realized it was so out of date that it tries to directly access a sound device not even available by default in Linux Mint (/dev/dsp) so I then learned about ioquake3 and tried that which worked well but again no servers listed in the browser. To verify this was a Q3A issue, I ran it in Windows and sure enough, same problem. So while it isn't quite the same, I tried Quake Live in Firefox just for the hell of it and was happily surprised to find it installed and ran perfectly. The performance was excellent even on the laptop PC which I found with some testing is a little gimp to be running shooters with. Quake Live is pretty cool. It does take some things away but it also adds some nice things to the Q3A experience. So I can live with that. Just the same, if there is an external server browser that works well in Linux I'd try it. Anyone know of one?

So in one day of fooling around, I learned a lot and had fun tinkering with games on Linux. I got Warzone2100 and Wesnoth (native games) setup but haven't tried them out yet. I installed Wine and used Wintricks to get Steam working perfectly after some trial and error. I tested the Source engine on that older PC using Half-Life 2: Lost Coast which runs a video stress test and reports average FPS at the end of it. The HP laptop failed that miserably. It's a 2007 machine but a gimp one for gaming. I thought a dual core would do better but it's the low end Nvidia on board graphics that bring it down I think. It did run perfectly in Wine, just very slowly which I blame that PC for, not Linux or Wine.

I was most pleased at how well DOSBox worked! It was easy enough to install my GOG HoMM1 using Wine and then set it up to run with Linux DOSBox. That took a little tinkering too related to screen resolution and sound but those were relatively simple changes that would apply going forward to any DOSBox game run on that system. The game ran just beautifully! So I expect my Ultimas and other MS-DOS games should run well too.

It is funny how I started out bitching about not wanting to tinker and screw around with this and ultimately spending and entire day of doing it and having fun at it. For some reason I get off on making DOS and Windows games work in Linux, as if I am somehow getting away with something if that makes any sense.

One last thing and I'll shut up (for now). I found I like Firefox. I haven't used it in many years.

Are you running DOSBox via Wine? DOSBox has a native Linux version and works flawlessly. (Only game I play is Tyrian2000 these days).
Yup, it's pretty infectious and remarkably interesting/educational. Glad to hear you're enjoying it :)