Taking the Linux dive

[MisterFister]

I'm not entirely sure if this thread belongs under modded or un-modded support, but my instinct is that it belongs here in modded. Moderators, if I erred, please relocate this thread if needed.

So, I have been a pretty luck guy with respect to Win64 stability issues and I note that v0.25 has changed that luck considerably. I archived my 0.24.2 install with GameData folder, so I am fortunate enough to simply continue my career in that version for now, but I know that this is not viable for the long term. At the same time, I am very well past the threshold where I could ever go back to Win32, even with the most aggressive of aggressive ATM settings.

So, I shall now work toward installing Linux and using that OS's x64 build for a while. And that's where I need some help.

I am very comfortable with operating system installs, partitioning and formatting hard drives, and tweaking config settings. I got my feet wet back in the days of MS-DOS 4.0, and they haven't dried off since. I custom-specked my current system and assembled it myself, so I am not normally intimidated by the prospect of performing any type of surgery on a computer, be that with a screwdriver or a keyboard. That said, I am a Linux (and Apple, incidentally) virgin.

I understand that many of the principles are the same, and I know I can install dual-boot scenarios, but I would appreciate some KSP-specific advice. What distro should I download? Is running Linux through a Windows shell possible (as that would allow me to not worry about losing access to some of my work-related and school-related always-on software that I run in Win7)? What other questions should I be considering in preparing for this migration / expansion?

Because it's relevant, my system specs are as follows:

Windows Experience Rating: 7.3 (slightly bottlenecked from a 7.4 by primary hdd)

Windows 7 Professional x64 (can upgrade to Win8.1 if necessary, but I would prefer not, as I actually manually downgraded back to Win7 for other reasons)

AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.41GHz

16GB ram

AMD RadeonHD 4895 (x3) on CrossFire 2.0

Primary 256GB SSD

Secondary 1TB RAID+0 Velociraptor (x4)

Display 1920x1200 primary, 1920x1080 secondary

No onboard optical drive, but I do have an external available, plus ample USB flashdrives and HDD's available

I keep a live cloud backup of all perishable data, so repartitioning, reformatting, and reinstalling Win7 to accommodate a dual install is easily justifiable and would likely only knock my system out of commission for a day while updates download and install. That said, I'd again prefer the ability to run Linux as a shell from within Win7 if possible, so as to maintain access to other Win7 programs while playing KSP. As I use MSE for my antimalware, running Steam and / or KSP64 from Linux as a hard boot would necessitate some form of antimalware solution, which again, is a duplication of effort that I'd care to try to avoid if doing so would not be too Rube Goldberg-ian. KSP64 is, at this point, the only durable reason to even consider this effort.

Any thoughts would be welcome. Thanks.

Edited October 9, 2014 by MisterFister
added consideration of antimalware

[NathanKell]

Don't even have to do that (wipe); you can non-destructively install Linux on a Win7 machine, it replaces Windows's bootloader with one that lets you dual-boot.

As for running a linux VM--you can try, but I'm not all sure you'd get acceptable performance. You might have better luck using WINE in linux.

As for what distro to pick, I'll let people who actually run linux answer that one (I maintain some Ubuntu machines but none are my own).

[DKay]

When it comes to gaming, I see this question of "which distro should I use" come up often, and the answers are always the same: just about any linux distribution does the job. None is specifically geared towards or against gaming, but they do offer you different levels of involvement. The more "streamlined" like Ubuntu are very hands-off and require little effort to manage whereas more involved distros like Archlinux or Gentoo come with little more than a terminal right out of the box: they allow you to decide exactly what to install and how, but it can be daunting prospect if you're not familiar with linux.

Whichever one you choose though, you're stepping into another world. Different filesystems, different file architecture, different console commands, different everything. There's a few tools available to emulate windows only games and programs (playonlinux, wine, even virtualbox/vmware) but if an alternative is available, you'll want to use the native client instead.

Fortunately KSP works natively on linux (as well as steam if you bought the steam version) but depending on your luck, you might have to wrestle with the radeon graphical drivers. I use nvidia so I couldn't tell you how annoying radeon is for this (probably less so, but I doubt it's hassle free).

Partitioning can be a pain if you're installing windows and linux on the same disk, because of the different filesystems (FAT16/32/NTFS drives can still be read on linux though). Depending on your hard drive setup, the windows bootloader will probably also have to be overwritten by a linux bootloader and it might not detect your windows installation from the get-go. You'll have to dig into those config files after some googling to figure out how you can get back to your windows install if that's the case.

Thankfully, all these issues are well-documented and all you need to get out of any linux mess is some intuitive reasoning and a LOT of google-fu. If that's not enough, post on your distro's forums and there will always be someone there to help you.

Linux can be an incredibly rewarding experience if you have the patience to get through it's quirks and don't expect things to work from the onset. It allows you to get a fundamental understanding of how your computer works and, above all else, gives you a CHOICE for everything. No two linux desktops are identical.

For a first time user I always recommend Ubuntu (I even recommend making a mock-install from your windows computer using vmware, or just use a liveCD so you can experience linux without the danger of destroying your system) but If you'd like to start with a more involved distro (can't blame you for that, I jumped straight into gentoo 10 years ago), do the install in a virtual environment first to see just what is required of you and, once you're comfortable with the process, go ahead and make the jump!

[technicalfool]

Suggest any distro that lets you play with a LiveCD/LiveDVD version first. That way you can check if it'll run (if very slowly) out of the box without twiddling. You should be able to resize your Windows partition without clobbering it, and Grub, Linux' bootloader, is generally good at detecting existing OS installs and adding them to the boot menu. What you shouldn't do is install Linux and THEN Windows, because the Windows bootloader is not so nice and will clobber the hell out of Grub, making Linux unbootable.

A lot of people set up three partitions, one for the root "/" partition, one for /home (the equivalent of c:\users in Windows), and one swap partition, the equivalent of virtual memory in Windows. To simplify things, just a root partition and swap partition would do, but that means that reinstalling Linux would also delete /home. What you choose depends on you there, really.

As for Linux in a "windows shell", there are virtual machines such as Oracle Virtualbox, but that will never run as fast as bare metal. Certainly worth a try, but I don't recommend it for games.

[steve_v]

Is running Linux through a Windows shell possible?

Technically yes, there are a couple of ways to do this - but performace will suffer badly so it's not really a viable option for games.

Linux as a hard boot would necessitate some form of antimalware solution

Nope

As far as I know there simply is no GNU/Linux malware in the wild.

Unless you get cracked, say via an open ssh server with a weak password, or runing a webserver with some dodgy PHP mess, there's pretty much no way for malware to get installed.

Unlike Windows, where applications tend to come as binary installers (which could do *anything*, you don't know until you run it), Pretty much all GNU/Linux distributions use a signed repository or database of software compiled for the distribution by the maintainers. Trust in said maintainers is implied, but no potentially dodgy binaries from J. Random website.

Any 3rd party stuff (steam springs to mind) is generally run with user priveliges - it could potentially trash your personal files (you do trust steam don't you but it can't infect the OS.

If you're paranoid, or running a server you might want to install rkhunter or ckrootkit, which are about as close to an 'anti-malware' solution as you will find. There are antivirus products for GNU/Linux, but they all scan for Windows viruses.

I have been using GNU/Linux fairly exclusivley since ~2000 and have never seen a rootkit, virus or malicious software package - despite running all manner of interweb accessible services, compiling a bunch of stuff from source etc. - I've even built a couple of 'from scratch' installs - lots of work, but a pretty good learning experience.

Running Windows applications on GNU/Linux is possible, through such things as the Wine API compatibility layer or playonlinux.

Some however are just not a happening thing so multi-boot or VirtualBox is still a good play.

Check your Windows apps on winehq if you want to give this option a go, be warned however that Wine is far from perfect & some fiddling may be required.

Of course GNU/Linux can access your Windows files and partitions just fine - the reverse is a bit more troublesome but still not a big issue.

Most modern installers will shrink an existing Windows install & set up the boot loader for you, or you can do it yourself with a live disk like partedmagic. No reinstall required just do a fresh backup, boot the install media and grab a coffee.

Also, as GNU/Linux tends to bundle all the kernel-mode drivers (monolithic kernel) so an install can usually be moved around from one disk or machine to another without the drama associated with doing this to Windows.

Which distro to install is one of those 'how long is a piece of string' type questions - so long as you have the minimum versions of core libraries you should be fine.

Unity requires libc version 2.15 or higher - a recent version of Ubuntu is probably the easiest (I don't like Ubuntu personally, but you might), IIRC Debian Wheezy (stable) ships a libc that is too old.

Arch or Debian Sid (unstable) would be fine choices too, if you're willing to live with perpetual updates. I'm running Debian Sid as I type, and KSP plays just great.

Obviously the bigger / more popular distros are likely to have better community support and a wider range of available pre-compiled software, but to a large extent *nix is *nix is *nix and it really comes down to personal choice - OSS and GNU are all about choice and freedom.

If you haven't already, check out The-Linux-compatibility-thread. for known issues & which distros KSP is known to run on out of the box.

There are literally hundreds of distros out there & there's no shame in 'distro hopping' until you find one that suits your taste, particularly as most come with a live disk you can boot and use without installing anything.

Go have a look around on distrowatch, download a few livecd/usb images and give them a spin.

None of your hardware looks like it would be a problem, do check the state of the GPU drivers in your chosen distro though, to get decent performance you'll want the proprietary closed-source drivers & historically AMD/ATIs Linux driver quality has been a wee bit suspect.

YMMV regards Crossfire - I don't have any AMD cards though so you'll have to find out for yourself.

You should be able to install onto pretty much anything resembling a hard disk, and several things that do not - if you want to put it on the RAID, check that there are drivers for your RAID card / motherboard FakeRAID

Installing from USB media is the defacto standard these days so no problem with the lack of an optical disk drive.

Seems I got beaten to it, oh well.

Edited October 9, 2014 by steve_v

[steve_v]

A lot of people set up three partitions, one for the root "/" partition, one for /home

A seperate /home partition is a good idea, if you want to install a different distro or reinstall after lousing something up you can format the system partition with impunity & all your personal files will still be there. Just be aware that some installers (ahem, Debian) have really-stupid-defaults - make sure you assign sensible sizes.

A swap partition is also a good idea, though it is possible to run without one or with a 'page file' like Windows does, having a seperate swap partition avoids fragmentation and allows you to position it on the fastest part of the disk - i.e. towards the outer edge of the platter.

[MisterFister]

As far as I know there simply is no GNU/Linux malware in the wild.

Unless you get cracked, say via an open ssh server with a weak password, or runing a webserver with some dodgy PHP mess, there's pretty much no way for malware to get installed.

Respectfully, I don't entirely buy this. If you're saying that the native security settings within the OS itself are less prone to malware intrusion on a structural or infrastructural basis, well, then, maybe, with particular note to the fact that my Linux-virginity leaves me at a disadvantage in proving otherwise in any case. But to say that malware of any stripe doesn't exist in the wild strikes me as... idk. "Off." Malware does exist for Macbooks, for example, and I've seen it with my own eyeballs in person. While malware ecology would tend to favor Windows due to heavy market share by Windows (large target-share for malware) well, of course, the most varied malware diversity would then be for Windows environments. But I respectfully refuse, on principle, to go blindly into the night without so much as a leather shield against the things that go bump. I wouldn't use the word "paranoid," per se, to describe that, but I would agree that it is perhaps over-cautious.

That said, I'm experimenting with a VM instance of Xubuntu. My specific and explicit problem would be departing my Windows environment. I would sooner need to get a second desktop tower built than run without my Windows due to work and school, that's not a brand preference, it's a harsh reality of my situation. That said, while the VM aspect seems to be promising so far, I'm having a hard time figgering how to actually install my AMD drivers, which I have downloaded btw. I'll tinker with it some more.

[MisterFister]

Suggest any distro that lets you play with a LiveCD/LiveDVD version first. That way you can check if it'll run (if very slowly) out of the box without twiddling. You should be able to resize your Windows partition without clobbering it, and Grub, Linux' bootloader, is generally good at detecting existing OS installs and adding them to the boot menu. What you shouldn't do is install Linux and THEN Windows, because the Windows bootloader is not so nice and will clobber the hell out of Grub, making Linux unbootable.

A lot of people set up three partitions, one for the root "/" partition, one for /home (the equivalent of c:\users in Windows), and one swap partition, the equivalent of virtual memory in Windows. To simplify things, just a root partition and swap partition would do, but that means that reinstalling Linux would also delete /home. What you choose depends on you there, really.

As for Linux in a "windows shell", there are virtual machines such as Oracle Virtualbox, but that will never run as fast as bare metal. Certainly worth a try, but I don't recommend it for games.

All info that seems useful, given my VM experiences in the last hour. And, hattip: I run Punish The Lazy. Cute little mod. I like it.

[MisterFister]

*sigh* I'm stuck on a 640x480 little peephole of a desktop until I can get my AMD drivers installed on this thing. And most of the control buttons seem to be below my visible field.

[steve_v]

I'm going to be lazy and quote wikipedia: "There has not yet been a single widespread Linux virus/malware infection of the type that is common on Microsoft Windows; this is attributable generally to the malware's lack of root access and fast updates to most Linux vulnerabilities."

While there are rootkits and trojans out there, they typically target specific, server orientated software such as Apache or OpenSSH. Holes in these are patched swiftly as they power ~70% of the web as we know it.

Because users don't tend to run random binaries the way IME they do on Windows and no-one except Chuck Noris runs as root for day to day activities privilege seperation tends to work as intended. *nix was designed to have many, many users on the one system and it's pretty important that a singe users foolishness can't bring down the whole OS.

The way system software is installed is also totally different, it's not that it would be hard to write GNU/Linux malware, more that it would be very difficult to hide it *and* trick the superuser into installing it - try embedding a virus into a bit of open source code and see how many distro maintainers include it in the repositories.

Creating a fake installer exe for windows with something unpleasant inside is somewhat easier - windows users are used to running downloaded binaries and clicking 'yes' when asked for privilege escalation.

Of course the standard precautions still apply, i.e. if you don't know what it is don't execute it.

Nor does it stop a malicious site hijacking your browser through some 0-day exploit - but that's the browsers problem and once again can't get into tho OS unless you do something *really really dumb* like running a web browser as root.

Edited October 9, 2014 by steve_v

[steve_v]

*sigh* I'm stuck on a 640x480 little peephole of a desktop until I can get my AMD drivers installed on this thing. And most of the control buttons seem to be below my visible field.

Distro? on Debian it's 'apt-get install fglrx-driver' but I don't have an AMD card to test it on.

You're not trying to install GPU drivers in a VM are you... that's not gonna work.

IMHO Dual boot really is the best way, even if you only use GNU/Linux for KSP it's as simple as reboot - select Linux - play KSP - reboot - select Windows - do other stuff.

Edited October 9, 2014 by steve_v

[MisterFister]

IMHO Dual boot really is the best way, even if you only use GNU/Linux for KSP it's as simple as reboot - select Linux - play KSP - reboot - select Windows - do other stuff.

Because I have VOIP setup on Windows. For KSP multiplayer. Because I have other multiplayer games set up. Because my vidcap software is windows based. Because my audio virtual cables are set up to allow me to share not only my screen over voip during vidcap sessions, but also system sounds, and my sound levels balanced, so I can have remote commentary on the first take. Because I have remote access provisions allowing someone else on another continent to help me edit those vidcaps into final productions. Because I am always-on-call for my job and part of my contract is that I receive job notifications through proprietary messenger software.

And because, if I decide that the VM is not high enough performance for me -- and, really, frustration aside, I am pragmatically willing to believe that it might not be -- I want to establish proof-of-concept within a VM environment, period, because investing money in hardware for another machine without even proving that I can manage the operating system on a testbed basis is... "inefficient."

I appreciate the obviously-well-intended suggestions I avoid VM. I recognize that I may not end up, ultimately in VM to do what I want to do. But VM is my toolbox for now. I respectfully put forward that advising me that I need better tools doesn't help me.

[MisterFister]

Distro? on Debian it's 'apt-get install fglrx-driver' but I don't have an AMD card to test it on.

You're not trying to install GPU drivers in a VM are you... that's not gonna work.

For some reason I went Xubuntu first off. Ubuntu will be the next guinea pig.

As for drivers not working, I don't know what else the problem could be, then, because I have a thirty-come-odd inch monitor display in a native windows resolution of 1900x1280, but the Xubuntu desktop is stuck with unnamed graphics drivers at 640x480. My visible workspace is literally three inches across by four inches tall, and there are buttons and functions not visible through that peephole. I can tab through them with my keyboard and select them blindly on a trial and error basis, however. I have a quad core CPU, 16gb of ram, and 3 crossfired graphics cards that are capable of running Crysis at full-bore highest settings including 16x AA. I question the presumption that it's not possible to get a larger workspace so that I can navigate the Xubuntu desktop.

[steve_v]

If you're only getting 640x480, its probably because you're running the generic VGA runs-on-anything-post-1993 xorg driver. As mentioned elsewhere, AFAIK you cannot use drivers for your real hardware inside a VM as the guest OS can't see it directly anyway. Unless of course VMWare has some new magical passthrough thing, been using VirtualBox for a while now.

Try vmware-tools, either through the 'All Settings' -> 'Software & Updates' -> 'Additional Drivers' helpy helper or as described here.

Performance will still suck hard, but it should be somewhat less painfull than generic VGA

The core components are the same across the various Ubuntu 'spins', the only difference being the default desktop shell and list of pre-installed applications. You can turn xubuntu into ubuntu or kubuntu and vice-versa by installing the relevant desktop packages.

Edited October 9, 2014 by steve_v

[MisterFister]

^^ Apparently I'm blocked from adding more rep to you, but I would if I could. Yours was the first answer completely useful, but... still dead end.

Listen, folks, obviously I'm in the wrong place, and getting frustrated with this great KSP community is not the way for me to go about things. I'm about an hour of final desperate attempts to make progress before I actually say screw this, and restrict my KSP and KSP-vidmaking to v0.24.2 for a few months until Squad and / or Unity decides to uncork the awesome.

At this point, even Google hates me. Apparently, "I am new to Linux" implies that I know something about Linux, because all of the answers it seems to yield, either here or on Google, is "oh well, do [something I don't understand how to even begin doing] or [something else that provides no context whatsoever] but first you have to identify if [unintelligible circumstance X] or [unintelligible circumstance Y] exists because that would determine how you proceed from there."

I'm not trying to sound angry here, but perhaps I have been inarticulate to this point. I. Have. Absolutely. No. Frame. Of. Reference. Here. I know in general, MS-DOS / Microsoft terms what a command line prompt "is," but I have exactly zero knowledge of how it works, or how to use it. I can transcribe character strings and repeat back to a helper the output error messages, or even post screen snips (ONLY made possible by the fact that I'm running a VM instance in a Win7 host, thank you) but I have no ability to make any substantive use of any help provided so far, at all, period, zilch. You might as well give me phonetic instructions how to order a meal in Klingon, I can repeat the sounds, but I will have no greater ability to "speak Klingon." I can watch YouTube videos of major abdominal surgery, but I won't have any idea how to practice medicine. I can perform some pretty daring feats in KSP, but I am wholly unqualified to fly to the ISS in orbit, or to advise NASA on Project Constellation. I have watched the movies Crimson Tide and The Hunt for Red October countless times, but that doesn't make me qualified to operate a United States Navy submarine. I am untrained, unexposed, and ill-equipped to even pass coherent information through to those that are legit trying to help me.

I can offer to have a live call on Skype, with screen sharing, and have someone talk me through the process, but even then, see the above examples of Klingon = language or abdominal surgery.

Thank you to all for your help so far. I apologize for not being able to use your help.

[steve_v]

Mkay, as a native UNIX neckbeard speaker (I haven't used windows for more than 10 minutes at a stretch in at least 8 years) I suspect I will have as much difficulty translating out of 'klingon' as you do in reading it

Note on Google: years out of date misinformation and context-free command-line snippets abound, try searching the ubuntu community forums and wikis first - if you don't understand or can't find the answers you need, post in the newbie section and be patient

There tends to be a bit of intollerance for people who have not done any homework regarding basic GNU/Linux concepts, or expect things to work just like Windows. It's not nice but it happens, I too am guilty of this at times. Don't let it get to you.

Sounds to me like you're a Windows 'power user' used to knowing what you're doing - I feel your pain every time I have to use Windows and can't remember how to do basic tasks I can do in *nix without thinking about it. Trust me, it will come.

I will do what i can to help out, but I can only go so far:

I don't have a copy of VMWare to work with.

I am _not_ booting into Windows to do this - like you I have 'always on' software i.e. the ssh tunneled remote desktop I'm typing this in, therefore you will need to do some experimentation yourself.

Patience, you'll need to un-learn much of what you know.

"but... still dead end." _really_ doesn't tell me anything, did you try the "additional drivers" wizzard? if so, what did it detect & where did it fail?

Did you try 'apt-get install open-vm-tools' and 'apt-get install open-vm-dkms' on the command line? (from the wiki I linked) if so, what output did you get?

If you get 'permission denied', prepend 'sudo' (Super User Do) to the above commands to 'run as administrator', little details like this are often omitted under the assumption that you already knew that

Hint: apt = Advanced Packaging Tool. If you run a Debian based distribution i.e. Ubuntu, sooner or later you will need to learn how to use it as it's the primary means to install or remove software. The GUI tools are nice, but they're just calling apt in the background to do the real work.

Repeating the sounds is fine, but you need to tell me what the reply was

Installing the vmware drivers *should* solve all your immediate woes, but there's a bit of a disconnect from the Windows 'visit website -> download -> run installer' to the GNU/Linux 'tell the package manager what you want to install and have it fetch it for you'. It doesn't help that proprietary vendors are notorious for NOT doing things the *nix way - leading to multiple confusing ways to achieve the same end .

FWIW, I just fired up xubuntu 14.04 in VirtualBox to make sure I'm not feeding you BS, I get a nasty little 640x480 desktop too. The "additional drivers" wizzard correctly detects that I am running in VBox and offers the VirtualBox tools as a driver for selection. Select driver > apply > enter password > reboot VM gives me a nice resizeable desktop at whatever resolution I want.

I suspect VMWare will be much the same.

Ok, so IMG tags don't appear to work. This is what it looks like for VirtualBox.

Edit: Where did my edit go?

This is what installing the VMWare tools the old school way (apt on the command line) looks like. Of course it won't actually load the drivers for me since I'm not using VMWare, but you get the picture.

Edited October 10, 2014 by steve_v

[technicalfool]

If you're using Virtualbox, you may need to ensure the "Guest Additions" are installed on the client OS. This should give you some graphics acceleration as well as other nifty stuff like mouse pointer integration, clipboard and folder sharing between client and host.

Somewhat convoluted instructions

Now I'm sure there is or was a Virtualbox guest additions package in the package manager, or was, but the above should work if you can't find one or it doesn't work with your OS version. Also if you're using Ubuntu Software Center to install everything... install Synaptic. That tends to list all of the funky little packages like drivers and libraries and wotnot that don't always show up in the Software Center.

(Also yay, someone who runs Punish The Lazy. My day: Complete.)

Edited October 10, 2014 by technicalfool

[MisterFister]

Sounds to me like you're a Windows 'power user' used to knowing what you're doing - I feel your pain every time I have to use Windows and can't remember how to do basic tasks I can do in *nix without thinking about it. Trust me, it will come.

I really think this accurately characterizes my frustration.

Update: For what little it's worth, I haven't given up on this, and I do appreciate everyone's help so far. First off, I established a proof of concept in a VM environment and did manage to load to the KSP title screen. As was repeatedly suggested to me, this instance had poor performance, but like I said, it was the proof of concept and Linux-learning laboratory I needed. (For the record, not only did I never disbelieve the advice suggesting that this wasn't the way to go, I also kinda knew it to have been the case from the outset. What made me -- admittedly -- very visibly chafe was the from-some-sources-sarcastic insistence on pointing out that it would not be a sustainable solution instead of actually answering a question.)

For other unrelated reasons that are very unsexy and outside the scope of this forum, I already had a slowly brewing excuse to reformat anyway, though in the process I did lose some raw Fraps footage I'd generated of a really awesome (and successful!) station deorbit. I repartitioned, and have a functionally complete dual-install of Win7 and Ubuntu. I'll spend a few days finishing the setups for my Win7 messenger apps and other software before, as this thread title suggests, taking the plunge headlong into actually learning Linux.

To the Linux cheerleaders out there -- the discussion threads and other resources out there do seem to be somewhat noob-hostile, and I suppose that I (an admitted "power-user" of Windows) maybe just never noticed that Windows is the same way. There's also some sort of undertone in some of the reddits of derision toward migrating Windows users specifically, or at any rate it's a lot less pronounced toward migrating Apple users. That said, I'm looking forward to expanding my horizons.

[skeevy]

Been reading this thread, and yeah, VM's suck for gaming.

I'll list some distros I've used and give a quick review of them. There's a lot of stuff below, but it's all helpful and unbiased.

Arch Linux -- Fast, optimized, horrible community to noobs, hard to install, worth it in the end (I'll be doing this today or tomorrow)

Manjaro Linux -- Arch Linux for Noobs or Arch's Ubuntu, easy to install, good community

ArchBang -- Unofficial Arch Linux that installs to an Openbox desktop (use this if you want pure Arch and don't want to do it "the Arch way")

Debian -- Stable, not the fastest, power user community, not the hardest to install but some basic knowledge helps

Siduction -- Stable for the most part, faster than Debian, based on Debian Unstable, not the hardest to install but some basic knowledge helps (run this if you want the most modern Debian that isn't Ubuntu based)

Ubuntu -- Based on Debian Unstable, slow, bloated, helpful community, really easy to install

Mint -- Based on Ubuntu, not as slow, still a bit bloated, helpful community, really easy to install

SolydXK -- used to be Linux Mint Debian Edition until Mint dropped it, based on Debian Testing, easy to install, unsure of the community (I never needed to go there...comes with 10 years of Debian experience)

Funtoo/Gentoo -- Stable, fast, optimized, everything builds from source, hardest of all to install, helpful communities

Lists are done in a best, middle, worst from left to right.

Best Documentation -- Gentoo/Funtoo & Arch tie, Ubuntu, Manjaro (uses Arch's documentation outside of Manjaro specifics), Debian (documentation kind of sucks for new users).

A lot of Ubuntu documentation references and links to Arch documentation. Regardless of what distro you go with, you'll learn to appreciate the Arch documentation.

Best Community -- Mint, Ubuntu, Manjaro, Debian & Funtoo & Gentoo all tie (helpful poweruser communities; they expect you to search and help yourself before asking), Arch (some are helpful, a lot are ass clowns).

Best for Noobs to Install -- Mint & Ubuntu tie, Manjaro, Debian, Arch, Gentoo, Funtoo (you can pretty much lump all the Debian based distro installers with Debian, some are easier, some harder)

I don't really have much experience with Red Hat, Fedora, Cent, Suse, Slackware, and others. I could list a few other Debian based distros, but they're pretty much all the same outside of the default configuration and UI layout.

My personal recommendations since you're new to Linux would be Manjaro 8.10 or Mint 17. Because of your "old" GPU, you'll be limited to using the open source Radeon driver or a legacy proprietary driver. I'd recommend going the Manjaro route so you'll have the most up to date kernel and Xorg to increase 3d performance with the Radeon driver -- that's the exact reason I'm going over to Arch (I might use Manjaro if I can figure out how to install it to a ZFS root). Mint might be the better of the two for you because it is easier and more KSP players use Mint/Ubuntu more than anything else from what I've seen.

The only thing to keep in mind with Manjaro is it isn't exactly like Arch, so a few things from Arch's documentation will be different on Manjaro (read up on Manjaro's Wiki, they list it all). If you go Arch Linux via ArchBang...for the love of dog do not mention you installed Arch that way on the Arch forums...you've been warned...you'll need to put on your best flame retardant suit if you decide to mention Bang or Manjaro on the Arch forums. Arch users are notorious pricks towards noobs and users that don't follow "the Arch way".

Arch Linux does have some of the best documentation around which is why it's a good choice of a distro. I'm currently running Mint 17 and I reference the Arch documentation more than Ubuntu documentation when issues arise. The only place with better documentation is Gentoo, only be prepared for shell shock and a very steep learning curve if you want to install it. You will learn a hell of a lot about Linux with the both of the *toos and Arch installs.

And like Steve_V, I too get lost when I go to do some administrative crap in Windows. Once you get used to the linux way of doing things, Windows just seems so clunky, backwards, and unnecessarily difficult to do simple things. And whoever in MS decided that Win8 needs to have the calculator run with Metro in fullscreen needs to be kicked in the shins and pushed down a flight of stairs....writing up job proposal, needs to do some math, clicks start, clicks run box, types in 'calc', it runs full screen covering up all the stuff I need the calculator for...well dammit...hits ALT+F4, pulls out phone, starts up a TI emulator, does math, finishes bid...I've since fixed that issue with Classic Shell, but that first time I used it and I really needed it...

I'm embarrassed about how long it took me to figure out Windows 8 (I never used 7 or Vista and my only XP experience was in high school PC labs...12 years ago). At home, I quit using Windows when I started seeing the first Longhorn beta releases and decided to make the switch to Linux. At the time, my PC was crap for games and all I really needed was a safe and stable way to browse the internet and type up reports, so I updated from Win2K (Best MS OS ever) to Debian. Really happy I made that decision. Honestly, I never actually figured out Windows 8...I just used Classic Shell and made it as close to Win2K as I could.

[steve_v]

Debian -- Stable, not the fastest, power user community, not the hardest to install but some basic knowledge helps.

I certainly haven't noticed any observable speed difference between the Debian based distros, if you ignore the overgrown desktop cruft. The biggest issue with Debian stable is, IMHO, the somewhat outdated glibc - however this can be worked around, at your own risk.

The forums.debian.net community will probably bite you if you install foreign software, muck with sources.list (without knowing what you're doing) or *mention* Ubuntu...

I don't really have much experience with Red Hat, Fedora, Cent, Suse, Slackware, and others.

I started out with zipslack 3.5 - on a 486 Slackware is actually a really good distro, and fairly up to date too. Provided you like things done the old school way, with minimal automation. You will however, need to learn Shell and get used to compiling things yourself

I haven't touched anything Red Hat based since the GCC 2.96 / RH7 debacle, 'nuff said.

For anyone wanting an _educational_ GNU/Linux project, I heartily recommend linuxfromscratch - not really a usable desktop distro and about the steepest learning curve out there, but you can make it into pretty much anything you want.

Once you pick a distro 'family' eg. Debian based, Red Hat based, Arch based etc. it's pretty easy to get too used to the distro 'isms' and loose sight of the generic inner workings common to all GNU/Linux systems.

Linuxfromscratch or Slackware will cure this - if you're willing to get your hands dirty

Edited November 6, 2014 by steve_v

[MisterFister]

Ladies and gentlemen, I think I've almost got my Linux house in order [i hope]. My last piece of the puzzle -- vidcap software. Fraps won't work in Linux, or anywhere else outside of Windows for that matter. Any suggestions?

Preferably software that generates .avi output files, though exact codec / format is negotiable. IDEAL is something free or low cost, though I'll consider paying, especially if a trial version works out on a few test runs. Better yet is something that can record multiple independent audio streams, so I can divorce live voiceover audio from in-game audio.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I've googled the question and being peculiarly new to Linux, and my YouTube experience so far as been as a contributor to others' channels [meaning the actual recording has always been done either in Windows, or on someone else's machine entirely] I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking at.

[sal_vager]

Try Simple Screen Recorder

[MisterFister]

I'll try this.

[Ruedii]

Your computer should be fine, but you will need Proprietary drivers for your video card.

As for screen recorders on Linux, I recommend Istanbul. I know it's a little old school, and can be clunky at times (lacking multithreading) but it's low overhead and runs nice.

For a more advanced system use a system streamer to run to a remote server which then you can program to record said stream. (This has the lowest processor overhead, but does create a small amount of network overhead, but it's fine for games like KSP, even if that network overhead might cause problems for some fast-paced first person shooters.) To eliminate the network overhead, you can simply place it on a separate network card. However, that is an extreme solution for a minor overhead.

Edited December 15, 2014 by Ruedii