Will you still use Linux after KSP 1.1?

[Motokid600]

I installed Linux for KSP. I will probably uninstall it for 1.1. However only if it's stable. Pretty much my bottom line. Linux is nice. I like how easy it is to tab through different applications with the flick of a mouse. I'll miss that big time. I'm sure you can get Windows to do that, but DirectX screams bloody murder when you tab away from it.

We'll see...

[Dr Farnsworth]

I am becoming worried about the new windows 10, so I may actually be switching over to Linux in the near future. Eventually Bill Gates will force everyone to migrate to the new program. I don't think I want to comply.

[Duxwing]

I've always used Windows for the ease, games, and upgrades, but I will switch to Linux should I need a new OS and Microsoft continue data mining.

-Duxwing

[peachoftree]

Aww, what's wrong with good old X?

So it's a sprawling tangled mess written in the '80s and nobody's sure exactly how it works anymore... But it's not that bad is it?

What'd you pick? Wayland? Mir? I've been watching those projects get nowhere slowly for a long time... don't tell me it's finally time?

Ubuntu 16.04 is expected to run on Mir, I use Ubuntu based distros (elementary os). I think the end of X11 is on the horizon.

link for proof (sort of): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ubuntu_releases#Ubuntu_16.04_LTS

[waterlubber]

Installed Linux because I hate Windows. So laggy. So unfree. Only windows I use are the clear ones and an XP VM for poorly programmed incompatible software. I'm just sad I can't be smug about 64-bit anymore.

[soulsource]

Ubuntu 16.04 is expected to run on Mir, I use Ubuntu based distros (elementary os). I think the end of X11 is on the horizon.

From what I've read no Ubuntu based distribution is going to switch to Mir, not even the various *buntu flavours that aren't using Unity. They all plan to stay with X11 until Wayland support is ready.

Anyhow, [insert generic rant about Mir being a step into the wrong direction and that it would have been better for everyone if Canonical would have adhered to the Wayland protocol here].

The main reason why people want to get away from X11 is that its no longer being used in the way it was designed to be. Proper usage of X11 would require programs to use X11 draw commands to display their UI. While this can be extremely fast for simple UIs, it would be slow for features not supported in the original X11 protocol (for instance gradients). Therefore most modern GUI toolkits don't draw using X11 commands, but prepare their output as a bitmap which is then given to X11 to be displayed. Actually, nowadays X11 doesn't even do that any more, but instead forwards those bitmaps to a compositor, which then arranges them in a nice way, and then hands back a fullscreen "bitmap" to X11. The new concept used by Wayland (and its ugly evil twin Mir) is to get rid of all unnecessary drawing commands, and to eliminate the middle-man between GUI toolkit and compositor. Another reason to go away from X11 is input handling, but I don't know enough about that topic to comment on it.

Back on topic: I've been running Linux since 12 or 13 years (sorry, I don't remember exactly), and since more than 4 years I don't have a Windows installation on my PC any more. So, while I'm happy for Windows users that they'll get 64bit KSP soon, I don't intend to install Windows in the foreseeable future.

[Xyphos]

X11 was good for it's time, but now we need a better toaster.

[Sidereus]

I'll probably be switching over to Linux just to play KSP at some point, since my Windows is 32bit.

[Thomassino]

I had an Ubuntu dual boot some time ago. It ran well, but performance was terrible (thanks AMD ). But if I was running it, I'd probably stop using it as soon as 1.1 hit the market. I couldn't get used to Ubuntu interface...

[Renegrade]

Aww, what's wrong with good old X?

So it's a sprawling tangled mess written in the '80s and nobody's sure exactly how it works anymore... But it's not that bad is it?

What'd you pick? Wayland? Mir? I've been watching those projects get nowhere slowly for a long time... don't tell me it's finally time?

GUIs aren't my strong point, but I've written some simple crapplications directly on top of X, and I don't see any of this 'sprawling tangled mess' you speak of. I don't know what it looks like under the hood, but the API to X11 is fairly straightforward and simple and clear.

I'd imagine most of the mess is from DEs and widget toolkits and window managers etc.

I'm hoping that Vulkan will give KSP on Linux a big boost in performance, possibly rivalling that of DirectX12 on Windows and Metal on OSX, who knows, KSP on Windows or OSX with -force-vulkan might be more impressive than their native API's

It's a Unity issue/flaw. OpenGL is already faster and more efficient (and more correct and less idiotic and less LPHURTSMYHEAD) than Direct3D. The fact that Unity is a dog under OpenGL tells us that Unity is badly written (quelle surprise!). Of course the fact that it doubles textures in DX9 tells us the same thing as well.

Oh well, maybe Unity 5's OpenGL render path is less broken. :/

[steve_v]

GUIs aren't my strong point, but I've written some simple crapplications directly on top of X, and I don't see any of this 'sprawling tangled mess' you speak of.

I think Soulsource hit what I was talking about - not many recent applications are actually using X as intended, rather going through various intermediaries (such as compositors). There's also the issue that of the ~27 extensions to the original protocol, 26 are being used by pretty much everything. It's not that X11 is overly difficult to use, it's more that nobody's using it as intended any more... I don't have a problem with it, but some people are keen on doing things that were never imagined when the core protocol was developed.

I'd imagine most of the mess is from DEs and widget toolkits and window managers etc.

Exactly that.

Another point would be the network support, XDMCP exists, but it's no longer particularly viable due to latency and security concerns. Things like NX are hacks that would be better of properly integrated.

Edited August 29, 2015 by steve_v
More 'C' in XDMCP

[InterCity]

Made the switch three years ago. Now my 3 machines are running Debian Wheezy, Ubuntu 14.04 trusty (Main computer), OpenSUSE and Raspbian. Had no problem just yet except for Space Engineers being really picky and jerky about running on Wine. I see no reason to go back to windows, especially since when I was still dual-booting (Needed that for iTunes, and only that), just about everything (gaming-wise) was running faster on Linux, and in case of native versions, even more stable. For example WoW Cataclysm was giving me low-60 FPS at medium setting in Windows 7 and gives me high-70-to-low-90 FPS at the same setting in Ubuntu. No native client. Oh, and runs out of the box with Wine.

Maybe I'll reconsider this when Windows 10 grows out of the early buggy stages. I am already intrigued by it, though I'm not happy with this data mining stuff. And I'd probably miss the whole tinkering possibility you get with linux - althouh I won't miss the day my xorg.conf broke for some unknown reason and I was left just with the tty1 console until I figured out what went wrong.

Edited August 29, 2015 by InterCity

[godarklight]

I've been using it for the last 8 years, although I do find it interesting people would switch to linux purely for KSP x64 (-force-opengl will save you ram on windows but it will hurt your framerate, you might want to do this instead if you have out of memory problems).

Linux has different problems to windows, we lack viruses/adware and gain an awesome package manager but we basically lose our ability to play most games (wine really does not cut it).

I'll definitely stay linux only as windows just simply annoys me, but if you're a gamer you really do need windows.

Also keep in mind you need the windows CD to get rid of GRUB and restore the MBR otherwise your PC won't boot. Only after grub goes away you can delete the partitions

[steve_v]

Eh, If I were to do that I'd definitely keep grub around (and a dedicated boot partition), even if it's only chainloading Windoze. It's far more flexible than bootmgr.

[Renegrade]

I think Soulsource hit what I was talking about - not many recent applications are actually using X as intended, rather going through various intermediaries (such as compositors). There's also the issue that of the ~27 extensions to the original protocol, 26 are being used by pretty much everything. It's not that X11 is overly difficult to use, it's more that nobody's using it as intended any more... I don't have a problem with it, but some people are keen on doing things that were never imagined when the core protocol was developed.

Duly noted

Linux has different problems to windows, we lack viruses/adware and gain an awesome package manager but we basically lose our ability to play most games (wine really does not cut it).

Well, that depends on your distro. I don't think slackware has the greatest package manager for instance~

(I favor apt-based systems personally)

Eh, If I were to do that I'd definitely keep grub around (and a dedicated boot partition), even if it's only chainloading Windoze. It's far more flexible than bootmgr.

LILO forever~~!~

[steve_v]

LILO forever~~!~

In days gone by I'd agree, but grub has grown on me somehow.

I'll never forget those 'LIL.... Oh drat, the bootloader's borked' moments.

[ComradeWolfe]

I decided to try out Mint as a free alternative to Windows (couldn't find my Win 7 key for a fresh install, so I figured why not try it?). For web browsing and KSP it's great. Pretty soon I'll be building my wife and self new computers. I plan on testing a few games under WINE -- if they work ok, I plan on keeping Linux for the long run and getting my wife to make the switch as well.

I'm also highly driven to Linux by Win 10's spying -- especially now that they are pushing updates to make Win 8 and Win 7 have similar data collection.

[soulsource]

LILO forever~~!~

Bad news: LILO development will cease end of 2015... (Fellow LILO user here, as I don't want to face GRUB2 configuration, and there's no 64bit version of GRUB legacy)

I decided to try out Mint as a free alternative to Windows (couldn't find my Win 7 key for a fresh install, so I figured why not try it?). For web browsing and KSP it's great. Pretty soon I'll be building my wife and self new computers. I plan on testing a few games under WINE -- if they work ok, I plan on keeping Linux for the long run and getting my wife to make the switch as well.

Don't expect too much from WINE. For games that have OpenGL output it works rather well, but for Direct3D the performance is typically quite a bit lower than on Windows, and rendering errors might occur. If you have an AMD graphics card, you can get improved Direct3D 9 performance by using Gallium Nine.

[tbob]

I stopped using Windows at home some time ago, and won't be back without a compelling reason.

... I already thought about getting VMware for Linux and running Windows virtual machines.

You probably don't need to shell out for VMWare if you don't need to swap VM images with work. Unless you need special features you can probably get by with a linux-based VM (see virt-manager and libvirt) that's free. (Since you've been using VMWare obviously your hardware is sufficient.)

[peachoftree]

Are there any significant performance hits when running Windows in a vm? why not let it have its own partition?

[radonek]

Well, that depends on your distro. I don't think slackware has the greatest package manager for instance~

Well, even slackware is better then what passes for "package management" on windows. And slackware has great package manager if simple-as-pointed-stick is what you need. Think of heavily customized router boxes, livecds and alike.

[Laie]

Bad news: LILO development will cease end of 2015... (Fellow LILO user here, as I don't want to face GRUB2 configuration, and there's no 64bit version of GRUB legacy)

Back in the day, I was quite proficient at fixing LILO and later grub issues from a rescue system. With grub2, this never happened because I don't need to. That nifty "Super-Grub2-Bootdisk" will automagically boot practically any system (provided all the parts are there), and then you can fix issues from the inside. Lovin' it. Replacing hard disks in a hurry is part of my job, and I definitely don't miss the old days where fixing the bootloader easily took 20-30 minutes even when everything went well.

[steve_v]

Are there any significant performance hits when running Windows in a vm? why not let it have its own partition?

I find that VMs provide very, very close to native performance for anything that's not graphically intensive*. Boot times are actually somewhat better in a VM.

As for VM software, my vote goes to VirtualBox. It does almost everything VMWare does and it's free.

There are many advantages to using a VM, some that come to mind:

Differencing disk / state snapshots.

Ability to run several VMs at once (RAM permitting).

Shared clipboard and drag/drop with the host.

Ability to 'hotplug' devices in software.

Ability to create virtual hardware configurations you don't physically have (multiple NICs, disk drives etc.).

Good isolation for testing of potentially dodgy software.

Relatively safe way to run outdated/unsupported/insecure operating systems.

VirtualBox has "seamless" mode, presenting guest windows with the host window manager - run apps from the vm as if native.

I'm sure there are more.

*Assuming you have VT-X/AMD-V, which pretty much all modern CPUs do.

OpenGL performance is ok, but not game-worthy unless passing through to a real GPU.

- - - Updated - - -

Bad news: LILO development will cease end of 2015... (Fellow LILO user here, as I don't want to face GRUB2 configuration, and there's no 64bit version of GRUB legacy)

GRUB2 isn't all that bad, the configuration complexity is mostly due to distro automation. You can still create a "simple" all-in-one-file grub.cfg that's no more confusing than LILO is.

Edited September 2, 2015 by steve_v

[Rakshasa]

What is this bizarro world I live in where people are asking if they will switch from Linux to Windows because the game will run equally well on the latter?...

[lodger]

Using Linux and Linux only on my Desktop since 1998. Now, if there was a native FreeBSD version of KSP ...

Edited September 4, 2015 by lodger