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Our Blogs Apexing the Linux learning curve Gaming on Ubuntu Linux
Our Blogs Apexing the Linux learning curve Gaming on Ubuntu Linux | Gaming on Ubuntu Linux |
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| by Hamish Taylor | |
| Friday, 15 August 2008 | |
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Whilst I have had successfully "made the move" to Linux, I have to confess that I don't know much about gaming. My laptop doesn't have a dedicated graphics card and my PC is pretty low specced too with an onboard grahics card. In fact none of the hardware that I have, or have had for the last few years, has been capable of playing anything even moderately recent. So I haven't really got into gaming. Saying that, now that I have access to a vast array of free to install Linux games, I have had a bit of a play around! This article is no longer what I know off the top of my head, actual research has gone into it! Most people who are seriously into gaming will be using a console or a Windows based PC to play the latest, greatest commericial games. The commercial manufacturers haven't got around to releasing many of their titles for Linux yet. That is slowly changing, but the list of titles that have been "ported" for Linux is still quite small. It is possible to play many current commercial Windows games on Linux using an emulator, such as WINE (although strictly, WINE Is Not an Emulator), Crossover Office or Cedega. WINE is free but the last two are paid software programmes. As part of GetDeb.net, a volunteer project aimed to provide latest and up to date .debs for Ubuntu, a special gaming software repository is being setup. It is named Playbuntu and aims to have the latest Linux games and the latest updates. It is only in it's infancy at the moment, but represents an even easier way to install games and keep them up to date. There are many different types of games, including educational, games designed for children, action, adventure, arcade, strategy, roleplay, simulation, sports, puzzles and lots of other types. There are Linux games for each of these categories. So what games are available that have been purposely written to run natively on Linux? Let's have a look and see what we can install. I used the little trick that I detailed in a previous article and setup so that installations are done from my ISP's local mirror. This is quite a good little trick as some of the more advanced games are quite large in size when you include all the optional maps, backgrounds, music and so on. One game that I installed ran to over 400MB in size, which is a consideration if you are on a low-end Bigpond ADSL connection which may have a low monthly data allowance. Please read onto page 2 to have a look at some of the Linux games which I installed. |
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