Gaming should i switch my OS?

[BedtimeGuy]

well, i have a myriad of dangerous viruses on my windows xp, and im WAY to cheap to pay for a mac or windows 7. so i thought i might switch over to linux, all of a sudden i was presented with a RIDICULOUS amount of choices... i narrowed it down to ubuntu and kubuntu but i dont really know what the difference is. i do like gaming quite a bit (except buying actual pc game discs, ill stick with my wii for real games), i'm sort of an end-user (no real experience with complicated things), and i like all my windows programs, so is wine really all that reliable for running windows programs? is there a different linux i should look into? should i make my computer a dual boot xp/linux (is there any problems with this? how does it work?). as you can see, i have a lot of questions, please vote and give reasons.

IF YOU RECOMMEND A DIFFERENT LINUX DISTRIBUTION PLEASE SAY WHICH ONE!!!!!!!!

 

[noONE]

I'm currently dual booting with OpenSUSE/XP haven't had OpenSUSE for such a long time, but it's a really nice Linux distrobution, before that i had Ubuntu, but wanted to try a couple of other distrobutions and stopped at this, so far so good, but most of the time i'm on XP instead... Ubuntu is great though.
Why not reinstall XP?.. also, get a proper anti virus (AVG Free is an awesome free option) Windows firewall is "ok" if you're careful enough on the internet and got a good anti-virus.

About WINE compatibility, search for your apps here: http://appdb.winehq.org/index.php

 

[sonicwii24]

I recommend Ubuntu Linux since is my main OS, easy to understand and user friendly. The difference between Ubuntu and Kubuntu is the desktop environment, Ubuntu uses Gnome and Kubuntu uses KDE, it's just a matter of personal taste. Wine in my case is very reliable, but for some reason I can't run my video editor, that's why I have my Windows OSs. I would recommend to dual-boot XP and Ubuntu, I have a quad-boot with Ubuntu, Opensolaris (programming purposes) Windows XP and 7. No problems at all. You can use a virtual machine on Ubuntu to run Windows XP or 7 if you don't want to use the dual-boot option. Go here if you want to know how to install Ubuntu step by step, use EXT4 for your system, it's faster than EXT3.

 

[mayhem366]

If you know a lot about Linux i would suggest Ubuntu as it is very user-friendly and is a good alternative to Windows.

If however you don't know much I would not suggest the switch unless you are prepared to lose some functionality of Windows programs and be prepared to learn the Linux way.

Personally i am currently sticking with Vista and just run Ubuntu (and Windows 7) on Sun's Virtual Machine Software.

I think you're best choice will be Windows 7 as it just works.

 

[BedtimeGuy]

hmmm, yeah i have heard that the difference was different desktop environments, that's just a graphical difference isn't it?? well, i suppose i could just find a youtube video comparing them. as far as open SUSE goes, isn't it sort of business friendly? any reasons you like it more than ubuntu? and many of you are saying to keep xp as part of a dual boot, any reasons i shouldn't upgrade to vista/7? and what exactly is a virtual machine (just a program that runs your desktop under a different OS i suppose? any reason thats better than dual boot?)?

 

[BedtimeGuy]

*bump because my questions are dieing alone...*

 

[Banger]

You must be french Canadian.

 

[BedtimeGuy]

no way, french canadian < canadian < americn (personal pinion, no insult meant, no flaming pl0x)

 

[Vidboy10]

Hackintosh.
:3

 

[BedtimeGuy]

isnt that just... macintosh on a microsoft computer, cuz that would SUCK....

 

[Vidboy10]

No, It's a patch for a Mac OSX disc so you can install Mac OSX on your PC

 

[BedtimeGuy]

pretty much what i said >.> but i meant osx when i said macintosh, i looked into it already but its not for me!

 

[MicShadow]

Use Windows 7 + DAZ's Loader
Dual boot it with either Linux Mint (nicer version of Ubuntu, In my opinion)
OR Fedora 11

 

[Technik]

Is hackintosh annoying to set up/slow?

 

[KDH]

I suggest Linux Mint dual-booted with Windows 7, mainly because Linux Mint is far better than (K)Ubuntu when it comes to restricted drivers (mp3, etc.).

 

[Vidboy10]

Is hackintosh annoying to set up/slow?

If you have the right specs.