RF Generation Message Board

Everyone, I have something wonderful I would like to announce:


GoG is now supporting Linux!  Finally, after a few doubtful announcements and a lot of negative speculation, GoG has finally decided to support Linux!  At last, we Linux users will be able to finally play all those delicious old and Indie games featured on GoG in native Linux as opposed to in Wine!  No longer will we have to wait 15 or 20 seconds for Wine to load the DOSBox shell, now Linux will happily so it much faster and with less fanfare!

Wait, where is everyone going?  Seriously, this is a landmark moment, and something that everyone should be interested in.  Okay, I think I know where I went wrong.  Was it the part about Wine?  I know some people really hate penguins, too.  Was it that?  Crap.

I've got Tux on my desk around here somewhere, so there's no way I could ever hate on Linux. You know, you COULD post this announcement on Bil's front page post too!
http://www.rfgeneration.com/blogs/wilbdil52/Dust-Off-Your-DOS-Box-2809.php

EDIT: Looks like 'Norch beat you to it!

That's all right, Shadow.  I wanted to inform but more tell a self-depreciating joke, seeing that I am primarily a Linux user (Windows pretty much for new-ish games only).  I also kind of wanted to tell make to make a pun that (I figured) no one else would get.

My wife constantly talks about how much she wants to put Linux on the computers at home - this makes it less of a barrier now. I still need to learn the basic commands though for Linux. :'(

They aren't that difficult to learn. If you picked up a lot of the Windows keyboard and programming shortcuts pretty easily, I feel the Linux stuff is just as easy with repetition. Remember, all the Android stuff for the most part worked off Linux programming, so having experience there will transfer a little knowledge over.

@Shadow: I'm sure you will learn it quickly.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-lpic1-v3-103-1/

I'd learn it quickly - I just don't have anything I can tool around with it on.

@Shadow: What about a VM such as Virtualbox?

Laptop is running like garbage, so anything that takes up resources doesn't help. :'(

@Shadow: Use a Live CD like Knoppix?

With Linux it is best to start simple. I suggest going and downloading Universal USB Installer (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/) (allows you to make bootable USB "Live" drives), then go to DistroWatch (http://distrowatch.com/).  Scroll down a bit and on the right side of the page is the top Linux distributions based on amount of page clicks, which for the purposes of this website is a great indicator.  I suggest either Mint 17 or Ubuntu, although I would go with Mint (though if your processor is weaker than a Core Duo we need to choose something else).  With Mint there are a few choices for the desktop environment;  Cinnamon looks great and has a search built into the "Start" menu (much like Windows 7) but is slightly heavy on the resources; MATE also looks a bit like Windows but is less heavy on resources; XFCE is a lightweight desktop and runs pretty well on less resources; KDE is...  different.  It it flashy like Cinnamon and feels unique.  I would stay away from Debian Mint, as it is a rolling release, and the chance that a update could wreck your OS install is pretty high.
 
If you don't really feel like doing any of that right now I suggest looking around on DistroWatch. Many a Linux addict has wasted away a day on that website, looking at all the pretty flowers.

I wouldn't put a full install on a flash drive though. I did that and it was getting slower and slower. (Basically wearing out the USB stick.)

I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 at the moment.

There's Lubuntu, a lightweight Ubuntu...

You could say that about pretty much all linux distros.

Oh, no.  This isn't going to be a Ubuntu versus Mint troll, is it?  Absolutely not what I intended with this.  All that aside, UUI doesn't install the distro onto the USB, but rather turns it into a Live disc.  Good for trying, but nothing else.  That is all.  I'm out.

I side with whichever has the fewest users. That makes me the most cool and edgy right?

It's not really a processor issue - the hard drive is failing, folks, so I'm trying to reduce any type of strain on file access on the HDD. A live disc might be the way to go, but I'll talk with my wife and see what she wants to do.

You could get another hard drive...