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Linux Has Better Windows Compatibility Than Vista

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the wine-keeps-getting-better-with-age dept.

Several readers have written to tell us about one users rant in which he tells the story of being so frustrated with gaming on Windows Vista that he tried comparing gaming on Vista to that on Linux using Wine, with surprising results. "This post is clearly a bit biased. What shocked me though was how easy it was to find games that didn't run under Vista but did in Linux by using Wine or DOSBox. I'm not a huge gamer, so I don't have a huge collection of games to try out, but even still with just a few hours of frustrating work, I have been able to show that not only is Linux a reasonable alternative to Vista for gaming (XP is still king though), but also that Linux handles application failures more gracefully than Vista. Every game but Blackthorne crashed my Vista box, this didn't happen a single time under Linux."

4 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Everyone keeps saying... by Smordnys+s'regrepsA · · Score: 5, Interesting

    -just to head this off-

    I'm Hearing Year of the Linux Machine around here a lot again (again, or continuously... you decide).

    Strangely, I've yet to hear a kind word from the normals in the real world.

    Maybe this Linux thing isn't catching on quite as much as you think it is.

    (not trying to troll, just an observation)

    --
    Just -1, Troll talking to another.
    1. Re:Everyone keeps saying... by Daniel+Phillips · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm Hearing Year of the Linux Machine around here a lot again (again, or continuously... you decide). It has been year of the Linux desktop for 10 years now over here. Yes, it is true, I have never booted Windows box in that period and do not miss a thing except the annoyance. Registration key? Feh.

      At the moment I am running on one of these, Ubuntu, everything just worked when I turned it on including sound, Youtube, several different browsers including firefox 3. Runs KDE like a champ, very smooth. While I type, KDE 4 is installing. Not bad for an embedded box I brought in to be my always-on (5 watts!) server and just thought I'd try running KDE on it for fun, which turned out to work really well.

      Oh right, time to install openoffice too, you never know when you might need that on a server :-)
      --
      Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
    2. Re:Everyone keeps saying... by ricegf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Strangely, I've yet to hear a kind word from the normals in the real world.

      Y'know, the odd thing is that I have.

      For instance, we hosted several young British missionaries (these were religious missionaries, mind you, not Linux missionaries ;-) at our house last summer (I'm in North America), and they all had laptops (nat'chully). To my surprise, one of them was running Ubuntu. I asked him why he chose Ubuntu over Windows, and he replied with admirable British conciseness, "It doesn't crash so much."

      I've run across several others in my church who were using Ubuntu when I met them (and that one Suse guy ;-). Yes, it's a big church, but it's a church, not an engineering conference or engineering club. Nor is it a high-tech firm such as where I work, where Linux is a rather commonplace choice, even for the spouses.

      I'm no longer surprised to meet "normals" using Linux. I'm more surprised nowadays to find someone like you who hasn't. :-)

  2. WoW on Linux by krischik · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I too play WoW on Linux - Without cedega that is. There is an endless discussion on the internal cedage forums about it - but the bottom line is: Sometimes it's better to use an up-to-date Wine with OpenGL instead.

    The only thing which does not work is the Microphone - but it won't work the Linux version of Skype either so the trouble is elsewhere.

    See my installation aid: http://martin.krischik.com/index.php/Main/WoWOnLinux

    Martin