HD technical help and Linux, sorry split topic

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

For all the distros I have heard about, I believe the answer is yes; you can install off the live CD. Certainly you can with Ubuntu and Knoppix. Mandriva has a separate install CD set, but that may just mean that you get more applications with it.

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:33 am

Quote:

If I have a live cd to boot from, can I also install it to the drive or is there another install version of it

There should be an "Install to HD" icon on the desktop when you boot from the CD.

[Edit: been beaten to it)

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 7:52 pm

Great and thanks again, I will begin the install tomorrow Wink

wish me luck and I will hopefully have no probs either Very Happy

Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:30 am

Remember to check out LinuxQuestions for hints and tips. Most of the time you can find a solution to your problem just by searching that forum.

DrWho wrote:

While in windoz you will not be able to read or access the linux partition.

Huh? I use XP for gaming, and I have full read/write access to the ext3 partitions. Check out Ext2 Installable File System For Windows. (Before you ask - yes, it works for ext3, too.)

Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:46 pm

@Dark Spirit

Can i recommend the following website as an excellent resource for installing a dual boot system.

http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/

Its a personal matter but i happen to htink that a linux beginner really needs a good support forum. www.ubuntuforums.org is the best OS forum bar none!!
The other suggestion I would make is to ensure that you put /home on a separate partition. That way you can change distro's, upgrade your existing distro etc without losing any data and without having to update your bookmarks etc after a reinstall etc

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:57 pm

Thanks for all the help you have given me and now I must step up to the task of getting the install of linux up and running as a duel boot system.
To be honest I do like the way linux runs so far and if it really is more stable than windows then I must convert, as I am really fed up with the instability of windows Smile

Thanks again to all

Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:21 am

Quote:

if it really is more stable than windows

Not a problem. Not even a contest.
A loose quote I read was: "You have to work at Linux to break it, You only have to work on windows to break it."

Let us know how it goes.

Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:51 pm

I liked the loose quote, excellent

I will keep u all posted on my progress Shocked

Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 9:07 am

Ok so here is the update,,

I tried Ubuntu, Knoppix and I have also got a Mandriva dvd and so far ? I like everything I have seen BUT still the question of how to get my son's games to run in Linux

as I said before he plays Quake 3, Unreal 2004 and the like, so can I get these to run in linux? or should I keep a duel boot system for this problem???
I don't really want a duel boot system as the though of having to reboot between my work and his games is not something I really want to do.

EDIT: I know now that windows = problems and linux = headache Laughing

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

I'm glad that you're enjoying yourself DS. If you're running Mandriva, I can recommend the Mandriva_Newbies mailing list; they're a great set of people and really friendly.

Games are the one thing that Linux does not do well. The effort in producing a game these days is comparable to producing a movie; so the open source ones are fairly crap. Several companies do have Linux ports of their games, but not enough to make any difference. There just isn't the market for it yet, and Linux machines tend to be all different, so it isn't easy to do. Of course Microsoft keep moving the goalposts as much as they can, because they know it's an important advantage.

Get him a Playstation 3 - that's what I use for gaming. Well actually I use a PS2, but that isn't going to get your son off your back Smile

Try Wine. It's angled towards gaming, and their website has detailed info on which games work and how to get them working. I haven't tried too hard myself, but it is supposed to be quite good. It is likely that the version that comes with your Linux distro is quite old, so you may end up uninstalling that and building Wine from source. Quite easy to do, but uncustomary for Windows people.

If your machine is a real beauty, then you could run Windows in a virtual machine under Linux. But that would require that you committed enough resources to it to satisfy the game, and they are the most resource-hungry applications that you can run.

But if your son likes to be at the bleeding edge of games, then there's probably nothing for it except dual booting.

Edit:

Then I checked back and realised which games you'd mentioned. ID Software was just about the first to offer Linux ports.

Your solution for Quake III: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Quake-HOWTO.html
Ureal 2004 seems to have a Linux installer already on the CD set. See http://www.linuxelectrons.com/features/reviews/playing-unreal-tournament-2004-linux

Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 11:53 am

Thanks thud419, I owe you big time Wink

the links are great and as for the playstation, I did suggest this to my son but he wants to stay on the PC,, coz then he is like daddy, always using a PC, yes he is a little smart ass and only 6 years old Laughing

I appreciate that to learn all the bits in linux will take me some time but I will succeed, like I said before, I like everything I have seen in linux so far and I know it can only get better. I hardly ever play games so for me the duel boot is not a big issue, but if I kill my sons games, he will kill me Shocked

Thanks again, Wink

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 3:58 am

The problem is that (as I understand it) most windoz games rely on activex APIs. This locks games into the M$ environment. To run them in linux, you need those APIs. They have to be reverse engineered for obvious reasons. Try Winex also. It is directly aimed at the graphics dlls needed. I think you have to buy it, about $25 IIRC.

But what is wrong with dual (not duel Smile

) boot? It takes may be 5 minutes. You could try running windoz in a virtual environment so you don't have to reboot.

(6 years old and playing first person shooters? I know, none of my business.)

Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 5:42 pm

oops duel boot Embarassed

Thanks for the info Dr who and embarassing me to with my iffy spelling Wink

I think I am going to have to go with a dual boot and take it from there Shocked

Here is a loose quote of mine Wink

windowz gives you problems, Linux gives you a headache Confused

OK OK I will go with the dual boot,, wish me luck.

PS my 6 year old son just loves Kicking Ass, I know, I know, only 6 but, he does know the difference between games and real life Wink

I hope

Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 6:47 am

@DS Try this: Leave your case open and when the machine is first posting try tapping the side of the hard drive. Not gently either. Really. I had to do this for a Real Estate company that was to stupid to get a new Hard Drive. The reason it works is because a hard drive has a stylus arm just like an old 33 record. If that arm gets stuck in the park position, or on the platter, whacking it can jar it lose. However this should be considered a last resort.

I started my son off at 4 with a dual boot edubuntu & W2K laptop. The edubuntu was for the gcompris suite of games. Check them out at http://gcompris.net/ My son really enjoyed them until he saw Age of Empires. Now he plays AOE all of the time and has a rather unique view of history.

For running windows games take a look at http://www.transgaming.com/products/cedega/ Cedega is based on WINE but tweaked for games.

You can check out linux games at http://games.linux.sk/ and http://www.linuxgames.com/

I always found it better to pick up old laptops for linux. Most of the Linux distro's will run great on a laptop that's a couple of generations out of date. Right now I am working on an old HP ze4600 running Ubuntu. While I like Ubuntu you will need to go through a few extra steps to get the multimedia working on it.

For the most windows like Linux take a look at Xandros. Easy transition and great forum. I've purchased and used quite a few versions of their software and am running their server version currently on a project.

Quote:

(6 years old and playing first person shooters? I know, none of my business.)

I was a little unnerved at first to hear that my son's plan for the day was to "kill all of the Yellow guys and take all of their gold." however he seems to tell fact from fiction well too.

HD technical help and Linux, sorry split topic	View next topic View previous topic