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Posted (edited)

Hi, I used to use windows 8 on my PC, but due to different reasons, now i dont.  I am now running windows 7 Ultimate, but my wifi driver will not work.

 

My question is, which FREE OS can i install on my PC, and then run ET on?  Here are my basic needs, Unity 3d, Gimp, Wolf ET, and Xfire.

 

I have run Ubuntu 13.10 on my PC, and the wifi does work on linux.

 

My PC specs:

4Gb ram

320GB hdd

E1 amd cpu

crappy graphics card ;)

 

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

Regrads,

Thomas

 

BTW I am fully prepared to use the new OS (linux based i assume) as my only OS.  I have dual booted before, but im done with that.

Edited by Dare2BeFair / Captain.
Posted

Maybe Ubuntu for a start? Other prefers other distros like ArcLinux , Fedora and more.

  • Clan Friend
Posted (edited)

First of all Linux is Linux, you can start with any distro then decide to uninstall some stuff and install other things. At most the difference will be the availability of readymade packages in the official repository, the amount of infos and forums you find around with support, etc.

 

xfire for linux doesn't exist afaik, but there is a software called pidgin with a plugin called gfire, and you can login to xfire with it (without ingame xfire, though)

 

If wifi doesn't work, then I would focus on solving that first, maybe even from a livecd. And probably Ubuntu is the best choice

 

edit:

another important thing is getting the right drivers for your graphics card and checking if it's supported, if it's crappy as you say you really need proprietary drivers because opensource ones are slower

 

And maybe a distro that is more stable and doesn't have updates all the time with the latest and greatest (but maybe unstable) version of everything... recently I updated my graphics drivers on Arch Linux and ET crashed with a segfault, I had to roll back to the previous version and block the updates for that package

 

Not to mention maybe old cards which aren't supported in newer drivers but old drivers don't go well with newerr kernel versions... Windows is better from this point of view.

Edited by SunLight
Posted (edited)

First of all Linux is Linux, you can start with any distro then decide to uninstall some stuff and install other things. At most the difference will be the availability of readymade packages in the official repository, the amount of infos and forums you find around with support, etc.

 

xfire for linux doesn't exist afaik, but there is a software called pidgin with a plugin called gfire, and you can login to xfire with it (without ingame xfire, though)

 

If wifi doesn't work, then I would focus on solving that first, maybe even from a livecd. And probably Ubuntu is the best choice

 

edit:

another important thing is getting the right drivers for your graphics card and checking if it's supported, if it's crappy as you say you really need proprietary drivers because opensource ones are slower

 

And maybe a distro that is more stable and doesn't have updates all the time with the latest and greatest (but maybe unstable) version of everything... recently I updated my graphics drivers on Arch Linux and ET crashed with a segfault, I had to roll back to the previous version and block the updates for that package

 

Not to mention maybe old cards which aren't supported in newer drivers but old drivers don't go well with newerr kernel versions... Windows is better from this point of view.

Sry just realized i just titled this Ubuntu on non windows os. I ment ET on non windows os.

 

Thx for the comments on xfire, I gotta look it up. Looks like unity would need a VM or wine. I'm leaning towards Ubuntu, the most graphicly pleasing, but zorin and mint both look interesting.

 

It all depends on what will run ET.

Edited by Dare2BeFair / Captain.
Posted

Ubuntu is the most user-friendly distro.

It also has the most support documentation , most apt-get packages and was also the recommended linux distro before Steam OS.

You can also run any windows programs by using Wine.

Some may say virtual box aren't the best options but I saw alot of programs run as good as on windows thru wine.

I saw someone code C# using Microsoft's visual studio on Linux using Wine.

 

@Wifi problem you might need to look for compatible user-made drivers and test a few of them.

Posted

Ubuntu is the most user-friendly distro.

It also has the most support documentation , most apt-get packages and was also the recommended linux distro before Steam OS.

You can also run any windows programs by using Wine.

Some may say virtual box aren't the best options but I saw alot of programs run as good as on windows thru wine.

I saw someone code C# using Microsoft's visual studio on Linux using Wine.

 

@Wifi problem you might need to look for compatible user-made drivers and test a few of them.

Maybe I was not clear.  I need a FREE OS that will run ET.  I have used wine before, but ET did not run well in it

Posted

I run Ubuntu 13.10. ET works fine. Don't run ET in Wine. There is a native Linux version.

 

I use Pidgin for Xfire, but it's somewhat limited.

 

I'd probably recommend Mint. I gave that to my wife (on the LiveCD) to use on her laptop while we were waiting for a replacement HD. I liked it a lot and it was easy for her to use. It's based on Ubuntu with different configuration. Personally I want to move away from Ubuntu, probably to either Debian or Fedora, but I'm not ready to redo everything right now.

Posted

Maybe I was not clear.  I need a FREE OS that will run ET.  I have used wine before, but ET did not run well in it

I meant wine for the rest of the programs , ET runs natively in ubuntu

Posted

I would also suggest you go with Ubuntu 12.04.4, 13.xx have the most bloatware.

  • Clan Friend
Posted

Another thing to consider when you choose a Linux distro is how long you will be able to update the system (for many it's not important but I prefer not to do reinstalls or upgrades when a new version comes).

 

I use Arch Linux which is a rolling release (i.e. you can update it forever) in fact there are no Arch Linux version numbers, there is only one and you can update it forever.

But Arch Linux is not really user friendly, since sometimes you need to fix or change stuff on your own after updates, not to mention that the whole install took me 2 hours and after that I had just a console with no desktop, nothing, just the core system. Then I had to choose which desktop to use, install and configure everything etc.

You can imagine how many hours it took me to get the final system running

 

When I used Fedora (and the same is for Ubuntu, but you have lts which lasts longer), after a while I needed to upgrade to the next version or I wouldn't be able to install updates anymore.

 

And another thing, if it's easy to install proprietary drivers for your gfx card

 

---

 

To install ET, it doesn't make sense to run it on Wine, since you can install the native Linux version.

If your os is 64bit you need to install 32 bit libraries and drivers, plus you need to update punkbuster manually if you want to join servers with pb, but it's not that hard to install, there are tutorials around

 

  • Like 1
Posted

Another thing to consider when you choose a Linux distro is how long you will be able to update the system (for many it's not important but I prefer not to do reinstalls or upgrades when a new version comes).

 

I use Arch Linux which is a rolling release (i.e. you can update it forever) in fact there are no Arch Linux version numbers, there is only one and you can update it forever.

But Arch Linux is not really user friendly, since sometimes you need to fix or change stuff on your own after updates, not to mention that the whole install took me 2 hours and after that I had just a console with no desktop, nothing, just the core system. Then I had to choose which desktop to use, install and configure everything etc.

You can imagine how many hours it took me to get the final system running

 

When I used Fedora (and the same is for Ubuntu, but you have lts which lasts longer), after a while I needed to upgrade to the next version or I wouldn't be able to install updates anymore.

 

And another thing, if it's easy to install proprietary drivers for your gfx card

 

---

 

To install ET, it doesn't make sense to run it on Wine, since you can install the native Linux version.

If your os is 64bit you need to install 32 bit libraries and drivers, plus you need to update punkbuster manually if you want to join servers with pb, but it's not that hard to install, there are tutorials around

I think Im leaning to wards Mint, cuz of all the good things i have heard about it.  As the the tutorials, iv tried every one i found and none would ever run ET successfully.

I run Ubuntu 13.10. ET works fine. Don't run ET in Wine. There is a native Linux version.

 

I use Pidgin for Xfire, but it's somewhat limited.

 

I'd probably recommend Mint. I gave that to my wife (on the LiveCD) to use on her laptop while we were waiting for a replacement HD. I liked it a lot and it was easy for her to use. It's based on Ubuntu with different configuration. Personally I want to move away from Ubuntu, probably to either Debian or Fedora, but I'm not ready to redo everything right now.

Maybe we can talk some time on Xfire about how u got ET running?  My xfire captainamerican

Posted

Sry just realized i just titled this Ubuntu on non windows os. I ment ET on non windows os.

 

 

 

Fixed :)

  • Like 1

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