MAC on PC?

Sir Spankspeople · Post by **Sir Spankspeople** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:59 pm

I remember running Linux for a while. I dual installed RedHat and Win2K.

I played around in RedHat for a while, thought it was really neat... even somehow managed to crash it a few times... but slowly I just stopped using it since I kept having to switch back to 2K to do pretty much anything that I normally use a computer for.

There's also the fact that we have a computer in this house running Debian. It can barely watch video files at all, and even when it does it's quite a painful process, and it took forever just to get it to work at all. This same computer I had no problem playing movies on beforehand. I used to watch entire series on the thing.

It can barely run the Linux port of WarCraft 2, yet I was running GTA2 on the thing with no problems whatsoever. Hell, I was playing Diablo2 at an acceptable level, but it can't even run the Linux specific version of games that came out half a decade earlier.

I'm not saying it's the OS's fault, maybe something fried in the system and it's a hardware problem. And I suppose I'm lying when I say it's the same computer... it has 128mb more ram and a better network card now...

And every time VeKToR makes a major update to the system, ILurker(who uses the system, the houses fileserver, as a desktop computer) has to restart KDE. Since the desktop GUI is so integrated with Windows, I'd say this is about the same thing.

Nanosphere · Post by **Nanosphere** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 5:42 pm

Your friend doesn't have to use KDE if he doesn't want, you can change your window manager using a .xinitrc file in your home directory. I personally prefer something small and stable like FVWM. Also if your Linux system default boots into an X login server you can change this with the /etc/inittab file just be really careful and make sure you know what you are doing for that. I never use a X login server because I tend to very often switch into another console to do non-X dependant stuff.

That's just one of the many wonderful things about Unix is that the system is completely seperate from the graphical enviroment.

Nanosphere · Post by **Nanosphere** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 6:06 pm

People are often initially turned off by alternative environments because they can't get it to do everything they want right away. It took me a while of really mucking around in Linux before I got real comfortable with it.

I'm not sure how your Linux system is setup but if it can't do stuff the hardware should be able to handle then something must be setup wrong. It sounds to me like your system might be using either an out of date of incorrect driver for your video card.

Sadly while many of the popular Linux distributions are designed to be user friendly, they sometimes won't be able to do what you want them to right out of the box. I won't lie I did alot of mucking around and tweaking before I was happy with how my system performed, it didn't really matter what distribution I was using because I tend to not install the default stuff then install my own stuff manually, it's how I made sure everything worked the way I wanted it to.

Once you get all your hardware drivers setup properly check out Wine if you want to port some of your windows programs over to Linux, and WineX for your windows games. I've managed to get the majority of my windows stuff to work as well as they do in windows. You might have to muck around with the wine config file though.

The point is I know you can pretty much do everything you do in windows with Linux, setting it all up is the challenge though.

Sir Spankspeople · Post by **Sir Spankspeople** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 8:55 pm

There's no way in hell that I'm emulating 3D Studio Max using Wine. It's hard enough on Windows 2000 natively. =P

Nanosphere · Post by **Nanosphere** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 9:46 pm

No problem I just figured you were interested. Actually I might pull my old copy out and see if I can get it to work. Bryce managed to run fine at full speed.

If you are still interested, here's a couple things that might help.

* http://www.winehq.org/site/myths

* http://www.povray.org/

* http://www.blender3d.org/

* http://www.ac3d.org/

* http://www.cycas.de/

* http://www.op.net/~finklesk/3d.html

* http://www.moonlight3d.net/

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 10:32 pm

Also like to point out there is no reason to have to restart KDE..... ever.

Also there is no linux WC2 port. There is a clone, and that runs fine here. I can also run nwn, q3a, ut etc. just as good as on windows.

Basically, you are doing some things wrong. This isnt really surprising, a lot of things are different or tricky, and it takes a while to learn how to set up a new OS, if dumped with a windows CD you'ld probably have troubles too. You can either play with it more and learn, or stay with windows I dont mind, but please be aware that although it may be a flaw with linux that it was hard to set up, your performance issues (and stability I expect, though I'm not sure how) are not linux's fault.

corebreach · Post by **corebreach** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 12:17 am

To quote a Mac switcher person, "It just works." The same goes for Windows. From what I've read here and elsewhere, (and also my own experiences), Linux doesn't "just work"; it takes some tweaking to get it right, and I can safely say that the majority of computer users want a system that just works.

Nanosphere · Post by **Nanosphere** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:48 am

This is true. No software or OS is perfect, including Linux. If you want your computer to just work and run your programs, then please save yourself some headaches and stick to windows or mac. Maybe one day Linux will be able to do anything windows or mac does out of the box, but not yet. Several companies and organizations are working to try to make that day become a reality. For now, Linux and other Unix variants are still a niche OS for people who like to muck around to learn and know how their computer works instead of just being content that it does.

Sir Spankspeople · Post by **Sir Spankspeople** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 2:44 pm

Personally I'm a graphics guy. I really couldn't give a damn about how my computer works as long as I can do my graphics work.

And I'd think I'd have a hard time getting 3DS Max to run on Linux, even with wine... it manages to screw itself up if I'm running anything but Win2K SP2. It begins to randomly crash and corrupt files with different service packs installed, and don't even consider running it on anything other OS. The one major problem that Max has compared to the other major programs is that it's not incredibly stable, nor does it play nice with many operating systems.

Though I'm working on figuring out Maya. There's OSX and Linux versions of that, plus the Personal Learning Edition is free and fully functional! =P

jaxbrokenheart · Post by **jaxbrokenheart** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 6:24 am

[quote="Sir Spankspeople";p="201845"]plus the Personal Learning Edition is free and fully functional! =P[/quote]
except for that watermark that's over all your files

Penguin_Biker · Post by **Penguin_Biker** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 3:22 pm

when linux is set up proporly it just runs but the key here is you have to get it set up proporly, how much work that takes depends on your computer and distro (i currently run Gentoo and it took me 3 weeks to get everything on my computer to work right but now that it is my computer rocks. my video performance is even better tyhan it was with SuSE and a hell of a lot better than in windows

i run a 64mb ddr agp radeon and get about 24 fps on anubis in UT2003 with all setting on high at a resolution of 1024x768

but it took a bit of work to get it to perform that well

after i got my computer set up it has been running constant without a single problem since

i do alot of graphics and gentoo suits me just fine

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 11:34 pm

> i run a 64mb ddr agp radeon

Is that the r100 or newer? If r100 are you using ut2k3 with the no-S3TC patch, or using not-entirely-legal dri drivers?

corebreach · Post by **corebreach** » Sat Nov 01, 2003 1:54 am

[quote="Penguin_Biker";p="202914"]i do alot of graphics and gentoo suits me just fine[/quote] What GFX program(s) do you use and how well do they run on Linux (if ports)?

Penguin_Biker · Post by **Penguin_Biker** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 12:46 pm

as far as my radeon's performance i can't really explain it, the version of ut2003 is totally legal with all the latest patches and i start it without kde behind it so i can have all my resources devoted to the game. (with kde behind it performance drops considerably)

but about my card, i got it in late 2001 and it just runs faster and hotter than other radeons of the same make (i've done considerable research into this) and i don't know why, it just does. but its kinda funny, it had crappy performance when i ran win xp.

but latly it seems the more i use it the faster it gets, so mabye it will just level off but more likely it will burn up, the question for me is when it will crap out. (i've already had the card lock twice)

i overclock as much of my other hardware as i can (which will prob come back to haunt me but for now nothing has gone wrong) and it really only needs to hold out for about 2 or 3 more months because i'll be getting a dual G5.

but i think my card performance comes down to pure luck (aided by the fact that i use Gentoo), i got one that runs hotter and faster.

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 1:19 pm

Um I dont think you understood me, the standard ut2003 wouldnt run at all without s3tc support. ATI do not support the r100 (7200) radeons so they only driver to use is the DRI one. Via own the patent on S3TC and refuse to let an open source driver support it.

There was a patch released to play ut2003 without s3tc, and it may have been merged into the main update, I dont know.

It is likely that you have a r200 or newer radeon and are using the official ati drivers, yes?

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