Linux Users,

I am seeking to turn my laptop into a gaming machine.
It is a Dell 8600 with 2.4-2.6 GHz and 1 MB of RAM.
It has a nVidia GeForce graphics card, and AC97 speakers.
I am seeking to install a distro which is extremely lightweight, with a graphic installer, and will detect my laptop hardware.

Any suggestions?? I was looking at Dam Small??? But maybe there is something better out there!!!

SK

Mahine? What is this strange new device :P

^ lol

@ IM,

On different news, today I purchased a copy of SuSe 10, and installed it after formatting my desktop, and removing Xandros. It will be interesting how this machine runs now, but so far hardware detection was better than Ubuntu hands down, and slightly better than Xandros as I now have Audigy sound card finally working.

Lately, well over the last few days, I have been annoyed by Xandros, as for some unknown reason it has crash Thunderbird on numerous occasions, so much so that I almost lost my e-mails. So today looking for a change I changed to SuSe. While a majority of Linux Distro's are free to use, I don't mind paying for a more complete package. If it all goes well I might use a stripped down version of SuSe, minus many applications, to run my gaming machine!!!

SK
- And on the 7th day God created Linux.

SuSe 10? Ubuntu was pretty good, it even got my supposedly WIndows-only WNIC. If SuSe's better, I gotta see it.
I have a Debian CD burned and ready to go.

If you want something that will take up almost NO space on your hard drive, I would suggest Damn Small linux. It only takes up 50mb!

I am running Fedora 4 with GNOME and I can run Castle Wolfenstien: Enemy Territory and America's Army both at 130+ FPS!

Last edited: Thursday, November 24, 2005 at 5:52:58 PM

And if you don't mind spending $100 on a sound card, go ahead and buy an Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA for your laptop.

@ Dj Wings,

I bought my copy of SuSe 10, but you can download it for free from www.opensuse.org. It is a quality distro, and after having read many of the reviews around I thought I would try it. I have tried over the last two months, Xandros, Ubuntu, FC4, Slackware, and a few more.

There is no doubt in my mind that SuSe has the best installation process including the best hardware detection hands down. Xandros was very good, but SuSe is in a class of its own. YaST makes the whole installation process that easy, and I think most people would agree here.

There are so many good distros out there, it is just a matter of sitting down, and seeing what is best for you!!!

@ FoFoFi,

I am yet to try Damn Small. I have inherited a few old PC's and I will try them out the second a get a few seconds. It will be interesting how well they run TT on an old machine!!!

SK

NICE!!! I'm trying Debian right after I finish typing, I got 2 CDs, and so far, I got Debian, but no X Windows or GNOME. All that's coming soon, tho... I'll get KDE instead of Gnome, that way I won't need Firefox, I can just use Konqueror.
Who am I kidding, we'll all see how it turns out in the end.

TT runs great on a 450 mhz PIII with 256mb RAM and a Riva TNT2 32MB video card. Constantly getting 30 fps.

Oh, and a great app to install for a gaming machine is WINE. It emulates Windows so you can play windows games on it such as World Of Warcraft (leeeeerrroooy) or Half-Life 2. You can get it here. Here is a list of all the apps and games supported and if they have issues or not.

Last edited: Friday, November 25, 2005 at 11:46:23 PM

Try and upgrade the shoft ware and get more virus protectin too

I just tried loki's Setup to install Need For Speed Underground 2 on linux and all I can say is wow. Just plain wow.

It grabbed the data from my official game CDs, then it converted the whole game to run as a shell script! AWSOME!!! You can get loki's setup and setupdb (you need both) HERE! You can get installers for it here. Make sure to get them direct.

You need to./configure and make setupdb, then do the same for setup. Once you are done, sh your installer.

I have small damn linux installed inside windows. Is there anyway to install think tanks into it? And how do I get it to recognize my drives?

If you mean NTFS drives, you will need to download and install the ntfs driver located at linux-ntfs.org. BTW Damn Small is a stripped down Knoppix, so anything that runs on Knoppix should work on Damn Small too.

Other than that, FAT drives are automaticly detected.

To install TT, download the linux version from GarageGames, then open a terminal. 'cd' to wherever you downloaded TT to, usually /home/your user name. Then type 'sh Think*' which should install it.

For the record CB, I do not have any experience with Knoppix or Damn Small. I have Fedora Core 4.

@ Racer
Thanks, I'm just messing with this damn small until I get my hard drives configured , then I will be installing Ubuntu with Roosters help. I'm tring to end up with two hard drives my original with windows me, and a new one with windows xp , and linux ubuntu. My goal is to have a boot option on startup as to what system runs.

Last edited: Saturday, November 26, 2005 at 10:17:24 PM

@ Crappy,

You will like Ubuntu, and you will notice major time difference between running TT on Windows, and on Linux. I am trying to sort out some issues with SuSe, but I am currently running Kubuntu on my machine, and I prefer it over Ubuntu. The difference between KDE (Kubuntu) and GNOME (Ubuntu) is a personal choice.

Enjoy LInux!!!

SK

PS:- If you need a hand installing it, drop a line here and I will be more than happy to help!!! There seems to be a nice little Linux Community within TT, and I am sure most of them wouldn't mind lending a hand!!

^ Yep, I'll try to help, even with my low Linux knowlage level.

Aha! Damn Small and Knoppix are both Debian.

I am looking at putting the Linux Mobile System distro on my 30 gig USB Drive, and it is nice because lots of parts in the distro are used in Fedora.

I have Ubuntu installed permanently, btw. I'm using it now.

@ Dj,

Ubuntu is an excellent distro, and recipient of many awards. There is a huge community behind a distro that seems to be moving forward in leaps and bounds. Enjoy it amigo!!!!

@ FoFoFi,

Insteresting distro. I too have a USB external hard drive - Maxtor 250Gb. Unfortunately it has too many important files in there for me to muck around with it, but I am curious to hear your feedback - esp. To see if it is fast!!!

SK

Ok I have a new hard drive I installed and formatted and made two partitions in it. My origin HD is a 40 gig and I want to keep it the new one is 120 gig with two empty partitions. My original is master and the new one is the slave. The first time I took the new one out of the box I unplugged my original master and put the new one on. I then put the windowx xp disk in and it installed. Later I uninstalled it because the windows xp installation would not let me set the partitions and made my 120 gig 32 gigs and that was it. Now I boot to the windows cd and it tells me it don't see any harddrive. The same happens when I boot with the linux Ubantu cd.
Any help or ideas?

Re wire the speakers so the main wire _{the metle part} and do the same things with a car subother and tie them or use electric tape on them then turin it up 2/3 of the way and play.you might jump up 1ft in the air by the vibrathion.

$corpion %)

Last edited: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 at 12:50:35 AM

^ scorpian your spamming the thread please remove it.

@CrapBlaster
If I understand what your doing right, your trying to set up a dual boot system? Looks like you have a 40 and 120. Make the 120 the master with windows and then the 40 as Ubuntu. For whatever reason using dual boot, windows needs to be first. When installing ubuntu just place it on hdb/sdb (the second drive) and have it load the boot loader on the MBR. So when you start your computer you cam choose which drive. This is the same system that I have going, Windows XP on sda and the Ubuntu Breezy on sdb.

This business with the 120GB drive being originally seen by windows XP as 32GB smells funny. Check the manufacturer site for the drive to see if there are any drivers which need to be loaded before doing the windows XP installation. When a drive is manufactured after an operating system is released the operating system often doesn't have the driver and can't properly recognize the drive. I see this a lot when building servers with new raid cards and to a lesser degree with new disks. Windows XP needs to be installed first. Leave a partition or disk open(not used by windows) for ubuntu. Then install ubuntu.

If you don't find any info on the manufacturer site and they state that it should be fine with XP as is then you probably have a dead/dying drive on your hands. Just bad luck. Most drives will die in the first 30 days or run great for 5+ years.

@ all

Right now I have the drive set as storage only and it is fine with that as a slave to my 40 gig original with windows Me. I do have two partitions on it. But If I take the original drive off the ide cable and hook up the 120 that is recognized by windows Me, and reboot to the cd drive with windowx xp disc and the 120 set as master, it tells me it doesnt see any hard drive on the system. I have gone into the bios pryor and reset the factory defaults and saved. I came up with three things to check upon running trouble shooting software, check cable connections, check jumpers, and check the system bios setup for hardware. The only thing I'm unsure of is the setup in the bios and really don't want to screw this up rendering my puter a dust collector.
One oother note is when I'm formatting this I have three choices: format as extra storage, or as boot drive keeping old drive, and as boot drive removing old drive. I only set it as storage.

@Nap

I do want to keep my original 40 gig the way it is as it is loaded and has everything I use for modding, plus many other programs that took a long time to get installed.

Thanks all
CB

I asked for a 2 DVD Debian collection for Hannukah.

You Linux gamers should check out Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. It's free and it runs great on Linux and Mac. It's really fun shooting the crap out of the windows players. :)

By the way... I play that game as PatrolPenguin #445.

The problem is that Ubuntu has no dev tools whatsoever. And that sucks hard. That means I can't install the stuff I need for SuperTux, among other things. So I'm removing Windows and installing Damn Small and Debian.
My partitioning scheme:
about 37GB HD space total,
640MB Swap,
13.5GB for Ubuntu,
18GB for Debian,
and the remainder for DSL.
Sound good? And I'm also installing Alien on Debian so I can read RPM packages.

Fedora has tons of dev tools. If all else fails give it a shot, mmm, k?

Ubuntu has a lot of tools as well. Just have to intall the ones you need.

I actually have a FC1 DVD from Fedora for Dummies, but it doesn't support my WNIC. Ubuntu does.

Oooh craaap... I NEED HELP FROM AN UBUNTU USER!
I'm trying to back up all my files from C:pub (in Ubu, /media/hda1/pub) to /home/djwings/pub. Here's what I got:

Aight, so the problem's obvious: What's wrong with CP? What does that error "omitting directory" mean? How can I fix it? I looked for it in man cp, and didn't find it. Any help?
PS: My /pub folder is 5 GB. Might that be the problem?

@ Dj,

Wish I knew enough, but I don't? You might consider posting in the Ubuntu forums for help. There is a large community there, and I am sure someone will come up with your answer rather quickly. Also join a LUG (Linux User Group) - there is a complete list at LUG user list. Join one of the mailing lists in your local area, and send e-mails with your problems, you will be amazed at the help you will get!!!

I am in the process of reading up on BSD, as I am seeking to to test shortly PC-BSD . I have been reading up on this distro (BSD based), and Linux compatibility is excellent, and since its based on FreeBSD, there is plenty is apps available (eg OpenOffice, Mozilla, Java etc.). BSD is simple, and thus runs extremely fast, but moreso it is one of the most stable O/S on the market!!!

Once I load it I will send some feedback through!!!

SK

Never mind, I tarballed all of it with 7-Zip and it transferred fine.