Need help switching - Hardware & Software

Hello all, I am thinking of switching to Linux from Shitdows 7, (Has given me 2 BSODs so far, just for clicking on the task bar) But I do not want to install all my steam games over again, I also want to get the best out of it for gaming, so do any of you know what would be good for that? Thanks if you can help me out.

There are no guarantees your games will work. If you're getting Linux for games then you're doing it wrong. That said, WINE works for some games. I've gotten CSS TF2 and L4D working but never tried other ones. If you don't want to reinstall your games then you can move them to their own partition, install linux over the rest of the hard drive then move the files into their proper spots in your WINE directory. Then in steam tell it to verify the game cache. Sometimes installing games like this works, sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't then you'll have to reinstall. Each game might require specific tweaking with WINE. Google specific problems and someone will probably have a guide for whatever game you're trying to play. Alternatively, there are some good games that have Linux versions that don't suck. Give that a Google.

Any distro you use will have the ability to use steam and play [I]some[/I] games with no downsides. I'm currently using Arch Linux it runs steam and any source game (tf2, gmod) fine, as well as S.T.A.L.K.E.R, dues ex, and system shock 2. I have a good amount of native linux games too like doom3, minecraft, everything in the humble indie bundle, and several nes/n64 emulators. How i kept all my steam games though is i installed linux next to windows, and since linux can use ntfs partitions i could play steam games right off the window's partition.

[QUOTE=Naelstrom;32515604]Any distro you use will have the ability to use steam and play [I]some[/I] games with no downsides. I'm currently using Arch Linux it runs steam and any source game (tf2, gmod) fine, as well as S.T.A.L.K.E.R, dues ex, and system shock 2. I have a good amount of native linux games too like doom3, minecraft, everything in the humble indie bundle, and several nes/n64 emulators. How i kept all my steam games though is i installed linux next to windows, and since linux can use ntfs partitions i could play steam games right off the window's partition.[/QUOTE] Thanks, will try to do that tomorrow.

[QUOTE=A spaicrab :D;32514322]Shitdows 7, (Has given me 2 BSODs so far)[/QUOTE] Only two? I could get two in about 3 hours on my Windows system. [editline]28th September 2011[/editline] As for the games, I used Steam to make backups of my games then I put them on my external hard drive, and I can reinstall them without downloading.

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;32524913]Only two? I could get two in about 3 hours on my Windows system.[/quote] Interesting. I get 0, and I've been on XP, Vista, and Windows 7. I'd like to say I got two ever in the last few years. Everyone talks about Windows blue-screening like crazy, but that seems more like an individual user's problem, not Window's.

Blue screening is due to hardware problems; so yeah it's usually the user's fault that it bluescreens.

Blue screen are windows kernel panics (correct me if I'm wrong). They can be cause by a multitude of things. In fact, I have a few friends with ATI cards and they blame the drivers for frequent BSODs. I always thought that ATI drivers were shit regardless of platform. (I could be wrong)

[QUOTE=Boris-B;32546413]Blue screen are windows kernel panics (correct me if I'm wrong). They can be cause by a multitude of things. In fact, I have a few friends with ATI cards and they blame the drivers for frequent BSODs. I always thought that ATI drivers were shit regardless of platform. (I could be wrong)[/QUOTE] Yes, they're basically kernel panics. You can actually write down the error code and search it on the MSDN for what's causing it so it can be fixed. The documentation is limited (if the solution isn't there, you're probably screwed), but pretty easy to follow as well.

[QUOTE=wauterboi;32540521]Interesting. I get 0, and I've been on XP, Vista, and Windows 7. I'd like to say I got two ever in the last few years. Everyone talks about Windows blue-screening like crazy, but that seems more like an individual user's problem, not Window's.[/QUOTE] I get BSOD's all the time in Windows (some user, mostly random), I have yet to get a single Linux kernel panic that isn't due to me being stupid.

[QUOTE=Naelstrom;32546238]Blue screening is due to hardware problems; so yeah it's usually the user's fault that it bluescreens.[/QUOTE] I got BSODs all the time just by having 8gb of RAM plugged in (Win 7 Ultimate x64). If I took out 4gb, it worked fine, and it didn't matter which modules I took out. But if all 4 sticks were hooked up at the same time it would BSOD once every hour or two. Meanwhile, Linux could run forever on the same machine.

Can't remember the last time I got a BSOD under normal use (not fucking around) and I don't employ shit like proper driver installation, defragging, etc Sure my computer runs slow but it doesn't BSOD.