Ubuntu: I'm a noob

[teh_mewse]

Ok so i got a new computer and i want ubuntu cause it looks pretty badass.

Pretty much my only question is.... does it run windows files? For example, would it run party poker, poker tracker (which uses microsoft access databases and SQL), pahud, games, etc

[Neuge]

No. It's possible to get some Windows binaries to run using Wine (Windows emulator), but it's usually difficult. I've seen Stars running under Wine on Ubuntu, but don't expect anything to run.

You can dual boot your new comp with Ubuntu though and still run Windows when you need those apps.

[teh_mewse]

gah alright xp it is i guess

[funkyworms]

Don't try to use Linux as your main OS until you have played with it for a while. Dual booting is a good way to play. VMware is another way.

[TomHimself]

http://venturecake.com/10-minutes-to...ubuntu-desktop

will this help? just saw this on RSS

[Freakin]

[ QUOTE ]
http://venturecake.com/10-minutes-to...ubuntu-desktop

will this help? just saw this on RSS

[/ QUOTE ]

this is virtualization, not natively running it. You won't have sound & multimedia ability with some serious extra steps.

[CORed]

If you really want to run Windows software, you need Windows, either under Vmware, or dual boot. Pokerstars works reasonably well under Wine, but the table resizing is a tad flaky, and I don't think the pot and stack totals show when you hover your mouse cursor. I never did really get Party to work very well under linux/wine, in spite of hours of fiddling with dll's and the config file, I like Linux, but the need to run Windows software (especially Poker software) keeps me on the dark side a lot of the time.

One option for Linux (Ubuntu or other distribution), is to run it on an old PC. Linux isn't quite as demanding as Windows in terms of hardware, but you do need at least 512K of memory if you want to run Gnome or KDE. If you have a Linux box and a Windows box on a LAN, you can run an X server or(Xming is a decent free one) on the Windows box to access your Linux apps, or run rdb (Linux remote desktop client) on the Linux box to access the Windows box. You can also use a VNC client and server to go in either direction.

[Josem]

(bump)

what's the advantage in running something like ubuntu? (or, for that matter, another linux implementation?)

[Freakin]

[ QUOTE ]
(bump)

what's the advantage in running something like ubuntu? (or, for that matter, another linux implementation?)

[/ QUOTE ]

Free, generally very stable, highly configurable, and a huge selection of free software generated by the people, for the people.

It's also much more effecient with hardware, so you can do a lot more with a lot less. I think it's also better at multitasking than Windows.

[CompatiblePoker]

Like was said above it won't run Windows files but quite a few poker sites have Java based poker software which works fine. Party Poker has it and so does Absolute Poker, Pacific Poker, and all the Ongame/Bwin sites.