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Ubuntu's the only major distribution (that I know of) that has an integrated and supported process for installing the closed video drivers you'll need to run th

by trotsky 14y ago

Ubuntu's the only major distribution (that I know of) that has an integrated and supported process for installing the closed video drivers you'll need to run their games on ati/nvidia.

mitchty 14y ago
Arch linux isn't all that hard, not sure if this counts as "integrated and supported" But... # pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA Is all I did for the work install, took longer to finish the setup but thats more due to me having 2 monitors than anything else, one is mad simple. Can't speak to the ati stuff. I know SuSe is about as simple as well.
- trotsky 14y ago
  looks like it was a good thing i hedged ;)
- wickedchicken 14y ago
  > Arch linux isn't all that hard Yes. Yes it is.
  - mitchty 14y ago
    I'll admit, i'm biased. >.< But having installed Linux back in 1997 and dealing with X11Rwhatever it was back then and minicom and all that jazz, kinda makes my view of hard a bit off of what most people view as hard.
    - wickedchicken 14y ago
      The problem I ran into with Arch was that it forced you to make many decisions about your system up-front, before you had a system to begin with. I even found Gentoo easier to set up, and Gentoo forced me to pick which version of cron I wanted to install. One nice thing about Arch though is the ArchWiki: it has copious amounts of documentation on software that is usually applicable to other distros. A good example is https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Awesome https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Awesome
  - datalus 14y ago
    Running Arch Linux on a Raspberry Pi, it's pretty awesome as a next step distro beyond Ubuntu, but yeah... as an accessible platform for gamers of all kinds, ah no :)
  - mediocregopher 14y ago
    (I wrote all this then realized I've gotten off the point, this isn't really addressed at your comment. I recognize that the typical computer user couldn't give a damn about customizing their system and certainly wouldn't bother with setting up Arch, which makes it a poor gaming platform. I'm just tired of constantly hearing about how hard Arch is. It isn't hard, it just takes a bit of effort). I'd say Arch is pretty simple, just not easy [0]. Easy would be inserting the install cd, walking away, coming back and being able to hit the internet. Which is fine, if that's all you want to do. Arch installation isn't easy, it's simple, and more importantly it works. When I install windows from scratch you know what it comes with? Nothing. No drivers, no programs, nothing. Not even an ethernet driver for me to get the other drivers. Arch comes with all of it out of the box, you just need to go through the tutorial so you can choose which things in the box you actually want. Arch is simple in that if I go to any scary looking file in /etc and open it up I won't be completely baffled by what's in it. I can randomly shut down any service running on my machine and I know my box will keep chugging and I can recover from it. There's no weird services that I don't know what they do, no scripts that run on startup that I can't understand let alone find. There aren't inter-dependencies that I don't know about. When I run ps aux I can account for every single thing running. And even then, the package management is simple AND easy. I have never had a problem installing something with pacman, not once. There's this oft-repeated line about upgrades breaking systems, but I've never seen it. If an upgrade fails I look at the front page of archlinux.org and see that some manual commands are needed, copy-paste them and voila things work. I've used arch on three computers now, two laptops and a very old desktop, and have never had any problems. I know there's going to be some horror stories, but I can counter any of them with a quick search for the same in windows. Problems upgrading happen, but they're not common, and not something that's inherent to Arch like I've seen people suggest. [0] http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy
    - recursive 14y ago
      Every time I've installed Windows, it's come with basic drivers and programs.
      - eitland 14y ago

by trotsky 14y ago

Ubuntu's the only major distribution (that I know of) that has an integrated and supported process for installing the closed video drivers you'll need to run their games on ati/nvidia.

mitchty 14y ago

Arch linux isn't all that hard, not sure if this counts as "integrated and supported" But... # pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA Is all I did for the work install, took longer to finish the setup but thats more due to me having 2 monitors than anything else, one is mad simple. Can't speak to the ati stuff. I know SuSe is about as simple as well.

trotsky 14y ago
looks like it was a good thing i hedged ;)
wickedchicken 14y ago
> Arch linux isn't all that hard Yes. Yes it is.
- mitchty 14y ago
  I'll admit, i'm biased. >.< But having installed Linux back in 1997 and dealing with X11Rwhatever it was back then and minicom and all that jazz, kinda makes my view of hard a bit off of what most people view as hard.
  - wickedchicken 14y ago
    The problem I ran into with Arch was that it forced you to make many decisions about your system up-front, before you had a system to begin with. I even found Gentoo easier to set up, and Gentoo forced me to pick which version of cron I wanted to install. One nice thing about Arch though is the ArchWiki: it has copious amounts of documentation on software that is usually applicable to other distros. A good example is https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Awesome https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Awesome
- datalus 14y ago
  Running Arch Linux on a Raspberry Pi, it's pretty awesome as a next step distro beyond Ubuntu, but yeah... as an accessible platform for gamers of all kinds, ah no :)
- mediocregopher 14y ago
  (I wrote all this then realized I've gotten off the point, this isn't really addressed at your comment. I recognize that the typical computer user couldn't give a damn about customizing their system and certainly wouldn't bother with setting up Arch, which makes it a poor gaming platform. I'm just tired of constantly hearing about how hard Arch is. It isn't hard, it just takes a bit of effort). I'd say Arch is pretty simple, just not easy [0]. Easy would be inserting the install cd, walking away, coming back and being able to hit the internet. Which is fine, if that's all you want to do. Arch installation isn't easy, it's simple, and more importantly it works. When I install windows from scratch you know what it comes with? Nothing. No drivers, no programs, nothing. Not even an ethernet driver for me to get the other drivers. Arch comes with all of it out of the box, you just need to go through the tutorial so you can choose which things in the box you actually want. Arch is simple in that if I go to any scary looking file in /etc and open it up I won't be completely baffled by what's in it. I can randomly shut down any service running on my machine and I know my box will keep chugging and I can recover from it. There's no weird services that I don't know what they do, no scripts that run on startup that I can't understand let alone find. There aren't inter-dependencies that I don't know about. When I run ps aux I can account for every single thing running. And even then, the package management is simple AND easy. I have never had a problem installing something with pacman, not once. There's this oft-repeated line about upgrades breaking systems, but I've never seen it. If an upgrade fails I look at the front page of archlinux.org and see that some manual commands are needed, copy-paste them and voila things work. I've used arch on three computers now, two laptops and a very old desktop, and have never had any problems. I know there's going to be some horror stories, but I can counter any of them with a quick search for the same in windows. Problems upgrading happen, but they're not common, and not something that's inherent to Arch like I've seen people suggest. [0] http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy
  - recursive 14y ago
    Every time I've installed Windows, it's come with basic drivers and programs.
    - eitland 14y ago