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General Discussion & Help / Questions about using Linux on a dual Windows/Linux build
« on: May 28, 2022, 11:45:11 AM »
Hi there!
I'm starting to switch to Linux, as I'm still on Windows 7 and Office 2003, and most of the programs I use (besides games) are already open source and can be used on Linux. For now I'm just testing things with a bootable USB with Linux Mint, and so far I'm loving what I see and I'll install the dual boot soon. My problems so far are with games, and I wanted to ask both Linux users and people who use both OSS some questions...
My current build is on a NAS Linux system. Apart from the usual storage of data, pictures, program installers, videos, music... I have all the games installed on the NAS itself, but they execute on the PC connected to it. That's possible because I use portable versions of emulators AND the PC games I install are usually DRM free and can be copy-pasted without much trouble. This let me use everything from every PC at home (even playing on LAN on two PCs at once with the same game installed on NAS), switch to another computer easily after installing just the needed drivers, etc. That means I don't need to install the thousands of PC games I have each time.
I've learnt about Wine and I understand not every Windows PC game will work on Linux (although Wine is not an emulator, it's just like in any emulator, some things may work and some won't). I've also learnt that on Linux there usually weren't portable versions of programs, so you needed to install them, but now appimages are starting to be more common. Lastly, I can use the same retroFE build, as I can have a launcher folder per OSS. But now I don't know what would be a better approach to continue:
* Should I have two folders (like emulators.windows and emulators.linux) with the same emulators with their OSS version per folder? Or should I just use Wine to run them? What are you using? In both cases, I will try to have the same config per emulator.
* What about games? Do you usually use the native Linux builds or do yo use Wine? Most of my games are old Windows PC games (except some new indie releases), so many of them will probably work. Usually performance is rarely a problem, as the games usually aren't resource intensive and the PCs I use have powerful CPUs. I could get the native Linux version of many of them, but I just try to avoid redundancy whenever possible.
I know it's not a common build, but I just wanted to know what Linux users and dual users are currently doing before starting the entire process. I'll post progress here in case somebody has similar needs.
I'm starting to switch to Linux, as I'm still on Windows 7 and Office 2003, and most of the programs I use (besides games) are already open source and can be used on Linux. For now I'm just testing things with a bootable USB with Linux Mint, and so far I'm loving what I see and I'll install the dual boot soon. My problems so far are with games, and I wanted to ask both Linux users and people who use both OSS some questions...
My current build is on a NAS Linux system. Apart from the usual storage of data, pictures, program installers, videos, music... I have all the games installed on the NAS itself, but they execute on the PC connected to it. That's possible because I use portable versions of emulators AND the PC games I install are usually DRM free and can be copy-pasted without much trouble. This let me use everything from every PC at home (even playing on LAN on two PCs at once with the same game installed on NAS), switch to another computer easily after installing just the needed drivers, etc. That means I don't need to install the thousands of PC games I have each time.
I've learnt about Wine and I understand not every Windows PC game will work on Linux (although Wine is not an emulator, it's just like in any emulator, some things may work and some won't). I've also learnt that on Linux there usually weren't portable versions of programs, so you needed to install them, but now appimages are starting to be more common. Lastly, I can use the same retroFE build, as I can have a launcher folder per OSS. But now I don't know what would be a better approach to continue:
* Should I have two folders (like emulators.windows and emulators.linux) with the same emulators with their OSS version per folder? Or should I just use Wine to run them? What are you using? In both cases, I will try to have the same config per emulator.
* What about games? Do you usually use the native Linux builds or do yo use Wine? Most of my games are old Windows PC games (except some new indie releases), so many of them will probably work. Usually performance is rarely a problem, as the games usually aren't resource intensive and the PCs I use have powerful CPUs. I could get the native Linux version of many of them, but I just try to avoid redundancy whenever possible.
I know it's not a common build, but I just wanted to know what Linux users and dual users are currently doing before starting the entire process. I'll post progress here in case somebody has similar needs.