best linux for gaming/horsepower

[Dorkenstein]

I am looking for a linux distro that gives the most ability for gaming and speed, but I am kind of new to linux so a good GUI would be good. I have had good luck with PCLinuxOS and Slack in the past but those were right off a cd, not installed. Thanks.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Suse

 

[Dorkenstein]

Thank you, I've been eyeballing 10.1 for a little while. What's a good free one to toy with until I can afford the fee for Suse?

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Windows XP SP2 is the best "gaming distro"

If you've got something against that, try Ubuntu + WINE.

- M4H

 

[*kjm]

Originally posted by: Dorkenstein
Thank you, I've been eyeballing 10.1 for a little while. What's a good free one to toy with until I can afford the fee for Suse?

link for you

 

[batmang]

if your gonna play games on linux, make sure they are native, especially if your trying to do this: " best linux for gaming "

id games are native, and so is the unreal tournament series, i cant think of any others worth mentioning.

http://en.opensuse.org/Download

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Prey can also run on Linux. You can also subscribe to Cedega for DX9 games.

 

[batmang]

how good does cedega run... say... hl2? comparison to windows, how much of a framerate drop does it lose?

 

[Nothinman]

how good does cedega run... say... hl2? comparison to windows, how much of a framerate drop does it lose?

I don't know about HL2 in particular, but some games run better in Cedega so it's not guaranteed to be slower.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

how good does cedega run... say... hl2? comparison to windows, how much of a framerate drop does it lose?

I don't know about HL2 in particular, but some games run better in Cedega so it's not guaranteed to be slower.

Acttually, I'm wondering that myself sine it also has to run steam.

 

[Nothinman]

Acttually, I'm wondering that myself sine it also has to run steam.

I know people have gotten it work, so Steam must work too.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Do I need to partition before installing SuSe?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Dorkenstein
Do I need to partition before installing SuSe?

Suse will allow you to partition either a blank drive or a blank partition.

I'm not sure if Suse can partition a drive if you have Windows installed and want to keep it. gparted can, and has a handy dandy boot cd.

Of course, backup your data before you try.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Alright, downloading the gparted live cd. Is there a faq online for what linux file system is best and whether or not I need a swap partition etc? Thanks for the continued help.

 

[Nothinman]

Yes you need a swap partition, well technically you can use a swap file if you want but you'll have to set it up manually after installation and I don't know if any installers would let you do that. As for filesystem just stick with ext3.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Ok, so create 1 ext3 partition for main, and then make a separate ext3 partition and call it swap? Also, what is a good size for these? Thanks.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Dorkenstein
Ok, so create 1 ext3 partition for main, and then make a separate ext3 partition and call it swap? Also, what is a good size for these? Thanks.

Swap doesn't use a normal filesystem, you'll select the "swap" option.

The main partition will be "/", also known as root. You may want to create a /home partition also, since first installations get blown away quite often.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Great, thanks. Hopefully gparted really is non-destructive since I have no way of backing my stuff up.

 

[Nothinman]

It's non-destructive, but doing something like this is always dangerous.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Got it all installed smoothly. Now I am wondering how to get onto the internet with SuSe. It recognizes my network adapter and even sporadically gives me a message saying I am connected. But even then I can't browse to any web pages. Also, how do I enable graphical acceleration for games, and lastly how do I enable my sound card? I was playing some mp3's and couldn't hear anything. Thanks alot.

 

[n0cmonkey]

You should always be making backups. What if your hard drive dies?

Are you using DHCP? If so, are you getting an IP Address (ifconfig eth0)? Default route (netstat -rn, look for 0.0.0.0)? DNS servers (cat /etc/resolv.conf)?

 

[Dorkenstein]

Yeah I get an IP and it says I am sending and receiving packets. Apart from that I am still pretty dumb at this OS, learning a bit more each time. I notice that the updater program has a backup thing you can download, is it a good choice for SuSe or should I buy a different program? Thanks.

 

[sourceninja]

One thing I like about gentoo is if you can deal with the long compile times the gentoo package managment (portage) can actually install and deal with patching most games for you. That way you do not need to worry about patches or installing the games by hand.

Right now though, I'm using ubuntu and loving it.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Also, I don't think I am getting any dns servers.

 

[n0cmonkey]

You don't think? Find out, it's easy: cat /etc/resolv.conf.