Making my PC Dual Boot with Ubuntu and W7

[Fletcher]

I'm going to start giving Ubuntu a chance, though I know its not the most compatible with gaming, and I'm a PC gamer these days.

Anyone got tips and advice since I've never used the blasted OS?

I know I gotta get WINE though, I'm not totally in the dark :wacko: Though I heard that there is a Steam prefix or something that helps alleviate problems with that too. Hell, if I can run my Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 with Civilization V in the background I'm game. (When I wait to respawn I take a turn on Civilization V, just don't run huge maps with MANY city states is all).

So aye, anyone got some knowledge that I can have?;)

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Hielor]

Why? What are you wanting to do with Ubuntu that you can't do with Win7? Especially if you're a gamer, you'll find the gaming experience to be seriously disappointing on Linux compared to Win7...

[Kazinsal]

If you haven't installed it yet, I'd suggest trying WUBI - it's an installer that throws GRUB on your machine as a bootloader to dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu, and throws Ubuntu in a disk image that is mounted as the primary hard drive by GRUB when you fire up Ubuntu. That way, your Ubuntu partition is safely contained as a disk image on your Windows partition(s). Best of all, it's officially supported by the Ubuntu dudes. Grab it from http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/windows-installer.

You'll want OpenOffice for Word/Excel/etc. compatibility, though I think that comes on the CD/DVD. Read over the WINE docs to learn how to get it all working - games seem to work well under WINE on Ubuntu these days.

And make sure you grab Chrome/Firefox/whatever and the latest Java JRE.

Feel free to hit me up on skype if there's anything specific you need help with.


@Hielor: Gaming under Ubuntu is not "seriously disappointing". Have you even tried it recently?

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Retired, permanently.

[Fletcher]

Well, I've had some very annoying issues at first, like it gets to near finishing the first install from DVD and can't find the bootloader and refuses to do anything, the annoyance of the restarting everytime a new device is installed and activated. Hmm.

Also annoying that I can't copy-pasta my music and video library to Ubuntu... For now I shall move onto the next phase of retooling my computer a bit.

Also I got Firefox and OpenOffice on the system already, came pre-packed which is very nice.

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Hielor]

@Hielor: Gaming under Ubuntu is not "seriously disappointing". Have you even tried it recently?

No, why would I?

What possible reason do I have to use Ubuntu over Windows? Running all my games under an emulation layer instead of natively? Oh man, sounds sweet, sign me up!

[Fletcher]

I was on the same boat, though I'm willing to try new things to expand my computing experiences.

Just because it may not run TF2 natively, doesn't mean I should shun it. After all emulation saves me from digging my Mega Drive and Gameboy from the attic, I can play them on PC since I own the games.

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Kazinsal]

No, why would I?

What possible reason do I have to use Ubuntu over Windows? Running all my games under an emulation layer instead of natively? Oh man, sounds sweet, sign me up!

If it doesn't work right under Windows, you're SOL. If it doesn't work right under Linux, someone can find a way to fix it.

You'd be amazed at how well a lot of programs and games work under WINE these days. Starcraft II, for example, is rated "Platinum" on the WINE AppDB. As is TF2, which should please you, Fletcher.

It's like trying to make OS X applications run on Windows. Getting it to work right without access to the source code would be really hard, don't you agree?

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Retired, permanently.

[Fletcher]

Platinum on TF2 you say?



Delightful.

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"Oh chuffing blimey, another day, another person being whiney!"
Fletcher's Feedback and Stories Thread

[Hielor]

If it doesn't work right under Windows, you're SOL. If it doesn't work right under Linux, someone can find a way to fix it.

That doesn't really give me a reason to switch, given that I haven't run into anything I've wanted to use that "didn't work right" under Windows in quite some time...

You'd be amazed at how well a lot of programs and games work under WINE these days. Starcraft II, for example, is rated "Platinum" on the WINE AppDB. As is TF2, which should please you, Fletcher.

And both of them run at least as well on Windows as they do on Linux...

[Kazinsal]

Yep, apparently Steam works and the game downloads and installs from Steam just as it does on Windows. Plays great as well. I have yet to try it myself as TF2 barely runs on my PC under Windows 7.

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Retired, permanently.