Justin writes “Gamespy’s latest Peripheral Visions newsletter takes a look at the latest Lindows release from the gamer’s standpoint.” You can read the rest here.
Gamespy Looks at Lindows 4.0
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Adam Scheinberg
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Being a rather hardcore OSS user I’ve always hated the idea of Lindows. However, my gf whines so much about Windows lockups that I might put this on a Shuttle box for the living room.
While I readily admit that Linux can’t yet offer what Windows does in terms of gaming, there is far more than the author realizes. I consider myself a fairly hardcore gamer, and I’ve done quite a bit of looking into what Linux can offer.
First there is the obvious http://wwww.transgaming.com“>Winex . It runs many of the most popular current games (Warcraft 3, Vice City, etc.) with my Radeon 9000. ATI cards are not even officially supported yet by Transgaming, but they work fine in most cases.
And beyond that there is increasing support by game developers. To list just a few; NeverWinter Nights,
Savage: The Battle for Newerth, Serious Sam,
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2003, and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory all have official native Linux support.
The Linux gaming world is small compared to Windows, but it isn’t as small as this article makes it seem.
I see that Nethack is in Click-N-Run. That would be enough to get me to switch from Windows. I am not exactly sure, because I only have a half dozen friends, but i don’t think that anyone really plays anything besides Nethack anymore anyway, and I haven’t even seen someone playing a game on Windows since about 1996.
I know it sounds like a troll, but trust me, I’m really this idealistic (and lonely)
true linux has a low market share but if it can offer few high quality games at lower hardware requirments then it would be enough for anyone to switch to linux instead of buying new comp in every 3 years. cause if today teenagers (game worlds biggest consumer) start using linux then after 4 to 5 years linux will grow. don’t expect linux to take away windows market share overnight
— “To clarify, LindowsOS really isn’t a true version of “Windows” in the Microsoft sense. It’s actually a windowed variety of the Linux operating system (that’s Linux not Linus, Charlie Brown’s blanket-toting friend).”
=0
Ive seen some… “interesting” reviews of LindowsOS and other distros, but those two sentances are so utterly wrong and misleading… wow, I just can’t stand it.
Yeah, I agree. I don’t mind them simplifying it, but why make Linux look like a cheap Windows-knockoff?
They should simply say:
LindowsOS is a version of Linux(a free operating system) that is made to be comfortable and familiar to Windows users.
It is not Windows at all, and is generally not compatable, but is a viable alternative with its own software.
or alternativly you can say that it is a special type of linux customized to make windows users feel like home………
Like it or loathe it, WineX is still a significant option when it comes to gaming on Linux. To some it might in fact be the single most significant thing about Linux in terms of gaming. Not having any mention of it in the article is an extreamly unfourtunate omission.
To clarify, Windows isnt really a true window in the construction sense. It’s actually a windowed variety of the NT operating system (that’s Windows not windows, the wooden/glass things in your wall).”
Not having any mention of it in the article is an extreamly unfourtunate omission.
I felt the same, and emailed the author regarding it. According to him, “I am aware of several solutions like Winex for Linux. However, I did not deal with them since, honestly, they won’t provide as good or compatible a play environment as Windows. They are also rather spotty on the programs they actually support.”
Really you can’t blame him. His target audience isn’t Linux geeks. Most of his readers have probably heard of Linux but really have no idea as to what it is capable of. Tossing around ideas about Winex would probably just confuse an uninformed reader. Plus, as he mentioned, Winex support is very spotty. ATI cards are not officially supported, which is one major feature it is lacking.
And yes, I am a Transgaming subscriber.
Games are 95% graphic card restrained and the quality of the drivers is on the windows side as good or (much) better than on the Linux side. Besides drivers don’t make a GF2 into a GF-FX
Its quite something when Linux even gets a mention, let alone a review, on a gaming site so thats a good start.
Talking about Lindows in general however, I tried Lindows 3 (a friend) and thought it was getting close.
A magazine here put the LindowsCD (4) on the cover this month though and I tried it and to be honest, it’s superb. For Joe Average wanting to do his browsing, email, chatting, documents, it’s brilliant.
Superb product and once I get a job I might be looking to fork out for it.
Has something of an editorial bias aginst emulation, which is what wineX essentailly does (layman’s terms of course). Their view seems to be “if it aint native, it’s nice, but what if I want something made for MY system.” Which, by the way, is pretty much how most average gamers think.
Hence their complete disregard for Mac gaming, since no real new games for Mac are coming out: updates of old mac classics, and ports of windows games (via Aspyr, etc.), but nothing Mac specific.
Now if Linux, as a whole, will break big (say >3% of desktop market), then we can agree that gaming is necessary-but it needs to be native, not through wineX. Gamers don’t want to open up a terminal and type: winex homeworld2.exe, they want to drop the disc in an go. Point2Play looks like it could be a solution, but from my reading around the net,and my personal experience, it seems to create more problems than it solves.
But, the thing that I thought was interesting was how they approached the review:it’s like windows, but not windows. That’s some pretty high praise from a mainstream gaming website and shows how far Lindows has come.
I also like how the author basically said, “well, I wouldn’t use it as your primary gaming OS, but you should dual boot it.”
Now, criticisms of Lindows running root, etc., notwithstanding, this is a big step in the right direction, if you are a linux evangelist. (I’m not BTW: I’ve never really gotten winex to run all my games properly, and I have alot of unsupported hardware, like my soundcard)
Think of lindows as the gateway linux drug, and you start to see the possibilities of this type of review, even if they are factually incorrect.
Gamers don’t want to open up a terminal and type: winex homeworld2.exe, they want to drop the disc in an go.
Certainly not, and we don’t. Winex (3.1 at least, I have never used previous versions) is fairly good about creating desktop icons for installed games, so all you do is double-click just-like-Windows. I use KDE exclusively, so it may not do the same in Gnome, but I don’t see why not.
Point2Play looks like it could be a solution, but from my reading around the net,and my personal experience, it seems to create more problems than it solves.
I really don’t like P2P. It seems to be an unneeded extra program in the way of running the game. All it is is a front-end for running the game, which the standard desktop or “Start menu” serve fine as. It’s just one more thing to break, fix, and upgrade, and frankly I’d rather it didn’t exist.
<Certainly not, and we don’t. Winex (3.1 at least, I have never used previous versions) is fairly good about creating desktop icons for installed games, so all you do is double-click just-like-Windows. I use KDE exclusively, so it may not do the same in Gnome, but I don’t see why not.>
Yes, I know you can do this in winex 3.11, but it’s not an end all. It doesn’t work all the time, unlike, say, clicking on play when you autorun the cd in windows. Hmm, come to think of that, that doesn’t work all the time either…..