Windows XP Pro and Linux

[dunklegend]

I would like to try Linux can someone give me a link to a free linux flavor.
I would like the easiest to use and the more powerful (free, of course) to play with them.

The specs of my machine are:

Raidmax gaming case 420W PSU
ASUS "K8V SE Deluxe" Socket 754 Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 2800+
Kingmax 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200
NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive
eVGA nVIDIA GeForce FX5600 Video Card, 256MB DDR
System HDD WD 80GB 7200 RPM SATA RAID 0? (the one with a single HD)
Storage HDDs 160GB + 200 GB IDE
Win XP Pro SP2

I like to play games is it posible to setup this system to have windows and linux? and how easy it is? I don't mind reading but for linux questions I had googled there's just too much information and it sometimes assumes that the reader knows what they're talking about.

PS: The only thing I know about Linux is that it is some other OS that anti-MS people use so try to speak in plain english (or spanish), I don't know a lot of technical language (yet) =)

 

[folken]

Give Mandrake or SuSe a try. They are very easy to install and fairly userfriendly to work with. Granted you won't be able to simply dive right into them but it shouldn't take long to get used to them.
Lots of windows games are avaliable for linux too. Getting games installed and running will sure make you learn linux fast

<A HREF="http://www.folken.net/myrig.htm" target="_new">My precious...</A>

 

[bjpatrick]

http://www.linuxiso.org/
www.justlinux.com
www.linuxquestions.org
www.transgaming.com
www.google.com/linux

Sorry man. I'm not real interested in posting right now. Those links should point you in the right direction.

 

[bjpatrick]

I have been using linux for years! You should not have any problems with drivers. Unless the hardware is built into the motherboard.

What are you trying to do?

 

[dunklegend]

Thanks for the replies and the links!
If one of you have more good links and/or the knowledge to do a guide for the people like me that would like to try linux but is afraid of the unknown please share it with the community. Windows may be bad but at least I know how to use it pretty good.

 

[bjpatrick]

Ohh geese wusy,

What type of game server do you want. It's real simple to be quite honest. Install a server and then install the gaming software. After the gaming software is installed then it might be time to write a firewall and configure that servers.

What version of mandrake are you running?

What problems are you having?

Another site for you:

www.freshmeat.net

http://sourceforge.net/

As for the other poster. Installing XP and linux on the same harddrive is real easy.

1.) Wipe your drive clean
2.) Create two partitions
3.) Install Windows
4.) Install linux (Use grub as a boot manager)
5.) Reboot system and choose to use Windows or Linux

 

[dunklegend]

Thanks bjpatrick:
That sounds pretty easy.

The specs of my machine are:

Raidmax gaming case 420W PSU
ASUS "K8V SE Deluxe" Socket 754 Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 2800+
Kingmax 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200
NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive
eVGA nVIDIA GeForce FX5600 Video Card, 256MB DDR
System HDD WD 80GB 7200 RPM SATA RAID 0? (the one with a single HD)
Storage HDDs 160GB + 200 GB IDE
Win XP Pro SP2

My system drive is the SATA 80 GB HDD. Will linux detect the SATA drive or do I need to do something like the F6 in windows XP. Or would it be easier to get an IDE HDD for the system

 

[bjpatrick]

dunklegend,

Honestly I have not dealt with SATA referencing linux. You should not have a problem. You might to check out www.justlinux.com and ask around over there. Hopefully you will be running one of the newest distros. The reason that I present this question for noobs referencing linux. Corresponds with possibly having to edit the boot loader to boot between windows and linux. It's not tough but can be daunting for someone new to linux. Distros such as Fedora (Redhat), Suse, and Mandrkae should not give you any problems. Be sure to read everything during the linux install.

You system is more than fine regarding linux.

Wusy,

Man you usually have to get the gaming server from the company that created the game. Such as, Valve created a linux gaming server for half life.

Linux is not DOS. Linux is Unix and the command line is a great tool. Most of your work can be completed via GUI. Most people that use both linux and windows know and understand the power of the command line.

 

[bjpatrick]

Like any new OS that you learn. It takes time to learn. Once you learn the commands and how to use a text editor. You will probably love the unix based OSes. The learning curve is very deep. I'm still learning to this day. The great thing about unix based OSes is that you are not confined referencing what you do.

 

[CopperLion]

I've been using SuSE Linux for a couple of years, and I've been pretty happy with it. All of the parts you listed for your system are fully supported, and there is a huge community out there to help you get started. I personally recommend two sites:

http://www.suseforums.net
http://www.suselinuxsupport.de

The installation DVD images can be downloaded from:

ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/x86_64/9.2/iso

This is a huge file (roughly 3.3 Gb), so it will only fit on a DVD. This will get you everything except the commercial software that is normally included in the retail box and the manuals. It looks like LinuxCD.org has the DVDs already burned for about $24.99 if you don't want to spend the time on a download.

SuSE is probably one of the easiest and most polished distros available. It's one of the most recommended for newbies, though Ubuntu is gaining ground as well.

Another option would be to try several "LiveCD" versions to find one you like. These versions are designed to run off of a CD without actually loading anything onto your hard drive. They are slower due to the data transfer speed of a CD-ROM drive, but they will give you a decent feel for what the distro is like.

As for installing alongside WinXP, that is not a problem. Most distros will recognize a Windows partition and set up the bootloader for you. When you start the computer, a screen will ask you which OS you want to start in, and load from there.

Just give it a shot for a couple of weeks, take the time to ask a few questions on the message boards, and get a real feel for the Linux distro you choose. Too many people install, get scared, and start trash-talking about it without really giving Linux a chance. It's different from Windows, but it's not really as hard to learn as some people might make it out to be.

Enjoy!

If ignorance is bliss, education will blow your mind.

 

[Huh]

Will linux detect the SATA drive or do I need to do something like the F6 in windows XP. Or would it be easier to get an IDE HDD for the system

If you want to test out Linux on your system without installing to the hard drive you can use something like the Knoppix Live CD that can be doawnloaded from <A HREF="http://www.knoppix.org/" target="_new">http://www.knoppix.org/</A>.

When it starts to load you should see something that describes your hard drive. If that information matches your HD info you should be good to go.

 

[LinuxRocks]

I can say that Doom3, HL2, UT2004 run on Linux. All the UT2004 mods work great as well. Also note that Doom3 and UT2004 run natively on Linux. UT2004 ships with a Linux installer on the CD. Doom3, you have to download them. HL2 runs using Cedega (WineX) and runs great despite only haveing implimented DX8 so far.

I find that performance wise that Doom3 and UT2004 runs right on par with Windows. HL2 does ok, but you loose a little "Eye Candy" only using DX8. But it runs good...

Joe

 

[LinuxRocks]

Yeah, on the UT2004 cd (Disk one) is a setup script for the client. Not the server. You have to copy the .sh file to your /home directory before it will run because of disk swapping.

As for Doom3, here is the link for installation:
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/doom/

Hope this helps!!!

 

[lcdguy]

don't count out Ubuntu. they will even ship you commercially pressed CD's 100% free they just take usualy around 1-2 months to arrive but come with an install cd and a live cd.

 

[linux_0]

Check out:

http://mirrors.kernel.org/

They have ISOs for most major distributions and a lot more

Knoppix is great to play with and for fixing windoze.

Fedora, Ubuntu, SuSE, CentOS, etc are great for installing and support the vast majority of modern hardware.

 

[mdd1963]

Even with WInXP Pro on my machine (mulitple NTFS partitions), Suse 10.0 resized the C partition, installed a bootloader select menu for dual boot, and installed flawlessly....

Suse seems as easy to install as XP...

(Xp2000+/Kt400/9700 Pro AIW)

Now I'll tackle seeing if I can get any OpenGL games to work!

 

[lcdguy]

try cedega for your games

 

[linux_0]

try cedega for your games

Cedega is great although nothing is perfect.

Check out:

http://transgaming.org/

http://winehq.org/

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

http://qemu.org/

Good Luck :-D

 

[mdd1963]

"1.) Wipe your drive clean
2.) Create two partitions
"

Depending on your Linux flavor, some (Suse at least) can resize the Windows XP NTFS partition and create room for Suse...

(I was prepared to wipe the disk, but figured what the heck...!)

 

[linux_0]

"1.) Wipe your drive clean
2.) Create two partitions
"

Depending on your Linux flavor, some (Suse at least) can resize the Windows XP NTFS partition and create room for Suse...

(I was prepared to wipe the disk, but figured what the heck...!)

Most modern distros can resize windoze partitions.

Naturally even though Linux is very reliable, resizing partitions does not always work perfectly so backing up your data is recommended before you resize.

Linux is beautiful :-D

 

[MU_Engineer]

Yes, it should be able to take advantage of Dual Socket A. I know a guy who has a dual Athlon MP system that runs Fedora 4 really nicely, and my Athlon 64 X2 box runs very nicely as well. All you need to do is make sure that the SMP kernel is installed.

 

[linux_0]

Yes, it should be able to take advantage of Dual Socket A. I know a guy who has a dual Athlon MP system that runs Fedora 4 really nicely, and my Athlon 64 X2 box runs very nicely as well. All you need to do is make sure that the SMP kernel is installed.

Linux has great SMP across the board :-D

You can run SMP on Athlon MPs, 2xx and 8xx Opterons (single and Dual core), 1xx Dual Core Opterons, Dual Core Athlon64s, PowerPC, IA64, Sparc, Alpha, IA32/EM64T CPUs with HT, etc

 

[mdd1963]

"Linux is Unix and the command line is a great tool."

Oh, it's a 'tool' all right, that much is certain!

 

[linux_0]

"Linux is Unix and the command line is a great tool."

Oh, it's a 'tool' all right, that much is certain!

There are certain tasks which are hard or impossible to do under windoze.

Linux is faster, more reliable, more secure when deployed properly.

With the right devices you can accomplish a lot with Linux.

Should you expect games designed for windoze to work 100% correctly under Linux? Of course not.

Should you expect multi-million dollar software written for Unix, *BSD or Linux to work under windoze without any issues? Certainly not, although a lot of well engineered software will work on almost any platform but there isn't a lot of highly-complex software that is truly platform independent.

Is Linux a perfect platform for games? No, NOT yet.

Is Windoze a perfect platform for games? Absolutely not.

 

[mdd1963]

"Should you expect games designed for windoze to work 100% correctly under Linux? "

Someone should make an application that perfectly emulates WinXP (with full Direct x 9.0c features) for all games that XP can/will play, and with better framerates than possible under WinXP....

(Oh, and I want it for free, too!)

A guy can dream, can't he??