Nvidia and Linux

[safstar]

Hey guys,

I just assembled my Gaming PC ( AMD 6100/ GTX 650 SC/ GA series Gibabyte mobo/ 8 GBs RAM) and now after booting I realize I need an OS( Silly me). After the build i am broke and do not want to pay $90 for WIN7 (NO WINDOWS 8!!!)

So I think i will load Ubuntu( Linux) into it. But i have heard that linux and Nvidia dont get along...I will be doing some heavy gaming so if you could tell me what my future problems might be and how to slove them i would be EXTREMELY greatful.

Thanks

 

[ex_bubblehead]

You heard wrong. NVidia cards and Linux get along just fine. Historically NVidia has had better Linux drivers than ATI/AMD.

 

[safstar]

You heard wrong. NVidia cards and Linux get along just fine. Historically NVidia has had better Linux drivers than ATI/AMD.

Thanks Bro,
But can you tell me about the Wine/PoP thing? (Include Steam as that is the major deal for PC gaming) Thank you very much

 

[Pinhedd]

Hey guys,

I just assembled my Gaming PC ( AMD 6100/ GTX 650 SC/ GA series Gibabyte mobo/ 8 GBs RAM) and now after booting I realize I need an OS( Silly me). After the build i am broke and do not want to pay $90 for WIN7 (NO WINDOWS 8!!!)

So I think i will load Ubuntu( Linux) into it. But i have heard that linux and Nvidia dont get along...I will be doing some heavy gaming so if you could tell me what my future problems might be and how to slove them i would be EXTREMELY greatful.

Thanks

The software (kernel, drivers, render stack, window manager, etc...) get along fine. It's the maintainers that do not get along

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Wine works well but really isn't there yet as far as Windows gaming. Steam is soon to release a native Linux client and is busy porting a large part of their library over.

 

[Pinhedd]

Thanks Bro,
But can you tell me about the Wine/PoP thing? (Include Steam as that is the major deal for PC gaming) Thank you very much

There's very little difference between a native Windows application running on an x86 processor and a native Linux application running on an x86 processor. They're just structured files that contain x86 macro instructions and references to external libraries and system calls.

Even then, there's a lot of common ground between libraries and system calls. They may be structured differently, or behave somewhat differently, but the objective is often the same and with a little bit of work they can be made to be interchangeable.

Thus, if a Linux OS can expose its own libraries and system calls in a fashion that will satisfy the Windows application then that Windows application should run on Linux without much issue. This is what WINE does, it's a black box that sits in between a Windows application and the Linux subsystems that it depends on.

The same thing can be done with OSX as it also runs on the x86 architecture.

 

[safstar]

Best answer selected by Safstar.