What's the fastest, easiest, most painless way to get Linux going with KSP?

[Frostiken]

I want to play with tons of mods. Windows 64 bit is pretty poor right now and most plugins don't support it. So the only option is Linux.

I've never done anything with Linux before... generally speaking what's the fastest, easiest, and most painless way to get it all going?

[xtoro]

There's 2 options for installing depending on how many hard drives you have.

How to video here:

First, download the newest Kubuntu 64-bit http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu Make sure to chose the 64-bit

Burn the image to a disk and then boot from it.

OPTION 1> If you only have one disk in your computer, it will ask you to shrink your windows partition so make sure you have at least 30GB of free space on your windows C:\ drive. If you're really just installing it for KSP then give yourself about 20-25GB for your root drive. It's pretty easy when you see it during the install...

OPTION 2> Best way to do this through is to get yourself a cheap second hard drive. The smallest you can find is fine. Install it in your PC as a second drive and then boot from the install CD. Then just tell it to install on the empty drive and it will take up the whole disk.

During the install for either option, it will ask you if you want to install a bootloader. You do. Install it on the active drive, usually called SDA or HD0. It's the drive with windows on it that your computer boots from.

Linux will detect all your devices for you so you don't have to worry about that stuff. It will only ask you things like timezones and what username and password you want for your account. It will also connect you to your WiFi and ask for that password as well so that it can get updates as it installs.

Now after the install, when you boot up, you'll be given the option of either booting into windows or linux.

Assuming you have an ATI/AMD video card, hit the "start" button, click on Applications > Settings > System Settings and at the bottom is an option "Driver Manager". Here you can pick what video card drivers you want to use. Select "Using video driver for the AMD graphics accelerators from fglrx-updates". Then restart Linux.

If you have an nVidia card, you'll have to google or wait for someone else to chime in because I've never used nVidia cards in Linux.

Finally, download the Linux version of KSP from the KSP site, and extract it into your Home folder using Dolphin, it's a file browser which you can find by hitting the "start" button and start typing "Dolphin". Don't bother with the KSP launcher, just run KSP.x86_64 directly. You can also copy all your mods and save files from your windows game and dump it into the Linux KSP folder and it will work fine. To get to it, use Dolphin again. On the bottom left of Dolphin, you'll see your Windows partition under "Devices". Go find your Windows KSP folder and copy your mods and save files from there to your Linux KSP folders. Just right-click and copy and paste like you would in windows.

Hints: If you click the "start button" (called Kickoff in Linux btw) and just start typing "Dophin" or "System Settings" it will find the application just like in windows. When you find the app you're looking for, you can right click on it and select "Add to favorites" so that it shows up pinned to the start menu.

Also, you'll notice that in Dolphin, everything is single-click to open. You can change it to be more like Windows. On top of the Dolphin window, there's a menu called "Control", click on that, and then "Configure Dolphin". A screen will come up with options. On the left, click on "Navigation", and under Mouse, chose "Double-click to open files and folders". Then click the OK button. Dolphin will now behave like Windows Explorer does.

Edited October 17, 2014 by xtoro

[LordFerret]

"KSP sometimes can run out of memory, especially if you use many mods - the 32-bit application cannot handle memory over 4GB, and the 64-bit Linux version has a small bug, but can be cured before use." - http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Linux

They post a solution.

Edit: Don't know if any of it applies to .25

Edited October 18, 2014 by LordFerret

[xtoro]

"KSP sometimes can run out of memory, especially if you use many mods - the 32-bit application cannot handle memory over 4GB, and the 64-bit Linux version has a small bug, but can be cured before use." - http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Linux

They post a solution.

Edit: Don't know if any of it applies to .25

No there's no bug, at least not since .23.5... At least not for me anyways...

[Frostiken]

There's 2 options for installing depending on how many hard drives you have.

How to video here:

First, download the newest Kubuntu 64-bit http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu Make sure to chose the 64-bit

Burn the image to a disk and then boot from it.

OPTION 1> If you only have one disk in your computer, it will ask you to shrink your windows partition so make sure you have at least 30GB of free space on your windows C:\ drive. If you're really just installing it for KSP then give yourself about 20-25GB for your root drive. It's pretty easy when you see it during the install...

OPTION 2> Best way to do this through is to get yourself a cheap second hard drive. The smallest you can find is fine. Install it in your PC as a second drive and then boot from the install CD. Then just tell it to install on the empty drive and it will take up the whole disk.

During the install for either option, it will ask you if you want to install a bootloader. You do. Install it on the active drive, usually called SDA or HD0. It's the drive with windows on it that your computer boots from.

Linux will detect all your devices for you so you don't have to worry about that stuff. It will only ask you things like timezones and what username and password you want for your account. It will also connect you to your WiFi and ask for that password as well so that it can get updates as it installs.

Now after the install, when you boot up, you'll be given the option of either booting into windows or linux.

Assuming you have an ATI/AMD video card, hit the "start" button, click on Applications > Settings > System Settings and at the bottom is an option "Driver Manager". Here you can pick what video card drivers you want to use. Select "Using video driver for the AMD graphics accelerators from fglrx-updates". Then restart Linux.

If you have an nVidia card, you'll have to google or wait for someone else to chime in because I've never used nVidia cards in Linux.

Finally, download the Linux version of KSP from the KSP site, and extract it into your Home folder using Dolphin, it's a file browser which you can find by hitting the "start" button and start typing "Dolphin". Don't bother with the KSP launcher, just run KSP.x86_64 directly. You can also copy all your mods and save files from your windows game and dump it into the Linux KSP folder and it will work fine. To get to it, use Dolphin again. On the bottom left of Dolphin, you'll see your Windows partition under "Devices". Go find your Windows KSP folder and copy your mods and save files from there to your Linux KSP folders. Just right-click and copy and paste like you would in windows.

Hints: If you click the "start button" (called Kickoff in Linux btw) and just start typing "Dophin" or "System Settings" it will find the application just like in windows. When you find the app you're looking for, you can right click on it and select "Add to favorites" so that it shows up pinned to the start menu.

Also, you'll notice that in Dolphin, everything is single-click to open. You can change it to be more like Windows. On top of the Dolphin window, there's a menu called "Control", click on that, and then "Configure Dolphin". A screen will come up with options. On the left, click on "Navigation", and under Mouse, chose "Double-click to open files and folders". Then click the OK button. Dolphin will now behave like Windows Explorer does.

Thanks, I'll give this a shot. Question I have is - where do I get the Linux version? I don't see it anywhere and I transferred already to Steam.

[AmpsterMan]

Moving this to a place where you may get more targeted support.

EDIT: Found this thread it may be of some use to you.

EDIT 2: I was informed of this thread as well

Edited October 18, 2014 by AmpsterMan

[xtoro]

Thanks, I'll give this a shot. Question I have is - where do I get the Linux version? I don't see it anywhere and I transferred already to Steam.

Oh I don't know how the whole steam thing works, never liked it. Can you not log into the ksp site and download whatever version you want? If not, are you able to download your games from the steam website and maybe choose the Linux version there?

There is also a linux version of steam...

[cantab]

If you get KSP through Steam, just install Steam on Linux. You might have to do the "SteamGuard" stuff, then tell Steam to install KSP and wait for the download.

[skeevy]

While Xtoro's post above has some good information, since you didn't post system specs, Kubuntu may or may not be a good choice to use because it's one of the heaviest running Linux systems there is (as in ram and processing power used by the base system).

If you have an AMD card, 14.04 isn't what you want to be using. Use 14.10. AMD GPU's really, really benefit from the updated kernel and Xorg that only the newest distro's have. I have an R7 260x, with Ubuntu 14.04 I had to use the fglrx driver to get 20-30 fps with heavy mods. I can do the exact same with Manjaro Linux running the latest Xorg and Radeon driver (radeon is the open source AMD driver...it's in the kernel so you have to be running the latest kernel, xorg, and mesa to be using it's updates). Manjaro is a snapshotted, Arch Linux, really good blend of bleeding edge and stability. While I think Manjaro is awesome, it is rough around the edges and does require a bit of terminal maintenance to deal with a few quirks it has. One benefit with Manjaro is Steam comes preinstalled, and in the Manjaro repos, you'll find a steam-native package that tweaks the default Steam install to use your system libraries and, for a lot of games, run better than with using the Ubuntu 12.04 libraries that Steam comes with. That steam-native package also comes with a Steam compatibility mode that forces Steam to use it's old libraries for the few games that have issues. KSP benefits from using the system libraries and is why a lot of us copy/paste it to somewhere else and run either directly or with a script.

Oh, and one other AMD/FGLRX issue you need to know -- don't use the driver from the driver manager....seriously, you'll regret it....go to AMD.com, download the latest available driver (14.9 the last I checked), and build and install it manually (it's two terminal commands you can copy and paste).

With Nvidia cards, for GPU drivers and Ubuntu, do a search for the Xorg-edgers PPA and install the Nvidia driver it has.

Another option for GPU drivers is the SMXI or SGFXI scripts. SMXI works with Ubuntu/Debian based systems and does a lot of neat stuff. SGFXI is a driver installing script that works with Ubuntu/Debian and Arch/Arch based systems.

If you just wanna play KSP, go with Ubuntu 14.10. If you wanna play KSP and also wanna learn a bit of Linux with an optimized and up-to-date system, go with Manjaro 8.10 or 9 testing (recommended over 8.10...it's old and about to be replaced...you'll thank me when you don't have to hit the terminal on first boot to fix some very minor annoyances...or ' sudo pacman -Syyuu'). Both have easy installers and Xtoro's 30GB shrink rule is true with both (I think all us Linux people have been repeating that like a broken record lately).

If you don't have the greatest of system specs, steer clear of Kubuntu and instead use Xubuntu or Lubuntu. They all have the same installers and instructions to install, but they have different desktop environments when you're done. X and L run with the least amount of bloat out of all the Ubuntu based systems. With Manjaro, go with either the XFCE version (what I'm using) or the Openbox version (what I used last year) for the light weight .

Once you get it installed..or not..come to the Linux support thread and we'll help ya as best as we can. I wish there was a Linux support subsection.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I'm referring to the AMD GPU's from the 5000 series and up, especially the 79xx and Rx 2xx cards. If you have a GPU older than those, it really doesn't matter what distro you go with because you'll be using the old, legacy drivers, but you will still benefit more from an up-to-date OS because the legacy driver is one of the various radeon open source ones (the legacy flgrx is kinda crap).

Oh I don't know how the whole steam thing works, never liked it. Can you not log into the ksp site and download whatever version you want? If not, are you able to download your games from the steam website and maybe choose the Linux version there?

There is also a linux version of steam...

If you bought KSP through Steam or from a vendor that sells Steam keys (what I did...at Gamefly on sale for $15 USD), you don't have the option of downloading KSP from the KSP Store...it's Steam or bust.

Just install Steam, log-in, and KSP will be in the Games tab. From there, just download and install it. Really easy and simple...it's same on every Linux distro that has Steam and identical to how it's done on Windows. After that, I like to copy/paste KSP to a different folder so my Steam KSP is always unplayed and untouched in case I do something dumb and screw up my mods or whatever. It's just nice having a clean KSP around versus having to have clean it all up, repair the install, blah, and blah.

Edited October 18, 2014 by skeevy

[xtoro]

@skeevy Good point on the system specs... I've got a beast of a machine so I never worry... i7 4790k @4.55 Ghz, 16GB FURY RAM @2400, three SSD drives in RAID0, Crossfired 6990's... So I use what I want

[steve_v]

Kubuntu/KDE will run sweeet on that, so should KSP

Been a long time KDE fan (since 1.0), shouldn't be a problem unless you're really short on RAM.

IME, KDE is actually less resource hungry than the current Gnome-shell or Unity desktop.

I run KSP in KDE with full desktop compositing glitz on, and regularly alt-tab out to do other stuff. No discernable performance hit, and your rig is faster than mine...