Should I switch to 64 bit Linux?

[lordmuffin]

I was wondering, with all the windows 64 bit incompatibility, since I have an unused linux install on a disk, do you think I should switch to it?

Oh, and by the way,

Why do people not support 64 bit windows?

[Pecan]

If you are familiar enough with Linux to use it then it will almost always give you better performance than Apple/Windows OSs.

If you are familiar enough with it to tune your install that's almost guaranteed.

Which is not to say that any particular application will be available for Linux or, if it is, that that specific one will run better.

KSP is available for Linux and works a whole lot better so I'd say definitely go for it.

KSP mods do not support 64 bit Windows because the version of Unity which KSP uses runs very badly on it.

Although that's a Unity problem, causing KSP bugs/crashes, the mods get so many people claiming "their" mod doesn't work they just got sick of it and stopped supported 64 bit.

[Malah]

I was wondering, with all the windows 64 bit incompatibility, since I have an unused linux install on a disk, do you think I should switch to it?

Oh, and by the way,

Why do people not support 64 bit windows?

[LinuxFanboy]YES! You need to switch [/LinuxFanboy]

And on KSP we don't support windows 64b because it's too buggy for being properly used. But I think it's temporary, in the beta, Squad will improve KSP and certainly KSP win64b.

[lordmuffin]

Okay, I guess I should do it.

[Barefoot Friar]

I've been virus free, er, Windows free, for going on six years now. KSP 64-bit is working beautifully on my new machine; I can multitask, launches only take a few minutes real time, and there's no stuttering when the camera view is looking at a planet. The only down side, and this is something I've asked about on the Linux thread, is that the GUI in one of the desktop modes I'm using is crashing when the game starts. This doesn't affect the game; it just means I have to restart the computer when I exit the game. I'm confident I can fix that, I just have to figure out why.

So yeah, try it out. If you don't like it, you're not stuck with it.

[Starman4308]

My strong suggestion is to dual-boot to Linux and keep Windows around: I had success with Ubuntu, which is regarded as easy to install. If you're not familiar with the command line and the concept of a package, Linux will probably drive you up the wall a bit, because seemingly nobody in the open-source community seems to understand the concept of an installer. It's also useful to have Windows around anyways so you can natively launch Windows-only programs, without worrying about whether Wine (Windows Is Not an Emulator*) might have some small bug.

*Basically a Windows pseudo-emulator which goes about things in a different way. Standard emulators run slowly: they simulate running Windows, a slow process. Wine goes about it by implementing the Windows API: when a program asks something of Wine, it knows exactly how to go about doing that in Linux. It's open-source, which comes with the standard advantages and disadvantages of open-source software. If you have Windows, might as well keep Windows.

That said, once I finished dealing with my graphics card issues (highly specific to my weird GPU setup), I have had no issues with Ubuntu, and I only switch back to Windows when I need to run Office. There are a few annoyances, like difficulty tying into Facebook chat on IM programs, but those are mild issues.

[steve_v]

seemingly nobody in the open-source community seems to understand the concept of an installer.

That would be because installers are evil, and give the software vendor *complete control* over your system.

Embrace packages, stop worrying if that installer executable might contain a virus.

Bask in the warm glow that is GPG signatures for each and every piece of software on the system.

Let the distro maintainers iron out the bugs and incompatibilities for you.

Never have to deal with that bit of malware that doesn't come with an un-installer, you get a database of every file installed on the system

[LinuxFanboy]Here's another one! [/LinuxFanboy]

Does Oriffice not run in Wine? Did last time I checked, but I've switched to LibreOffice.

If you don't need to run anything too heavy, VirtualBox in seamless mode is awesome, I use it to run e.g. AutoCad (ok, so it's AutoCad 2006, but meh).

I do however dual boot for blockbuster games.

@Barefoot Friar: If your DE is crashing you probably don't need a full reboot, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will kill / restart X (if it's not disabled with 'DontZap' in Xorg.conf)

Also, starting KSP in a seperate X session may curcumvent the problem.

Edited November 8, 2014 by steve_v

[sal_vager]

There's no reason why you can't give it a go, the great thing about Linux is that it gives you choice

[lordmuffin]

My strong suggestion is to dual-boot to Linux and keep Windows around

Yeah, that's what I'm doing right now.

Status update: On Linux and feeling fine.

[Barefoot Friar]

@Barefoot Friar: If your DE is crashing you probably don't need a full reboot, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will kill / restart X (if it's not disabled with 'DontZap' in Xorg.conf)

Also, starting KSP in a seperate X session may curcumvent the problem.

Thanks for both of those. I'll try it.

[lordmuffin]

A little problem: my game stops loading when it tries to load B9_Aerospace/Parts/Cockpit_S2/part/Cockpit_S2.

I had this problem before, and deleted that file. Would that work?

[barney_jekon]

I'm not sure that it can work after such actions. As you have been in such a situation, please share with us - if it caused some problems or not.

[Camacha]

Let the distro maintainers iron out the bugs and incompatibilities for you.

To be fair, dependencies are a hell if not properly automated. Installing anything on Linux outside of the software centre or without prebaked terminal commands (i.e. someone else tells you exactly what to do) is only for the brave or very experienced.

On the other hand, if you work out the basic ways of getting around the system, something like Ubuntu is a very pleasant OS.

I've been virus free, er, Windows free, for going on six years now.

That is a hurtful stereotype, not unlike those about Linux. Every software that is not obscure has viruses.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Camacha

[Kulebron]

I use Ubuntu 64 bit for 5 years now, and used 32-bit version 2 years before that. I tried different combinations, and Ubuntu is still the most maintained and compatible with everything, and Mate Desktop Environment is the best replacement of stock Unity DE.

But the question is what software you're using. Desktop Linux is and will always be for developers (I'm web dev), for those who can google and apply fixes (like edit a config file). There's no TweakUI analog here. Running the most basic things takes some new skills.

And things only get harder when you need things that average prorgammer does not need much, like to work with graphics or video. I use Audacity for sound editing, Inkscape instead of Illustrator/Corel, GIMP for Photoshop, OpenShot for Premierre, but these lack a lot of features or some are still buggy, crashing in the middle of nothing.

All because Linux is "fix-it-yourself" model, and those who are able to fix it are developers, who don't need these things. Linux systems always lag behind in big features, offering just small incremental ones. Otherwise, Linux is very reliable.

Video/graphics/publishing/printing is quite a pain, and I often need a virtual Windows machine for this. If you need to work with this, you don't even need to try Linux. If you want to be/are a developer, it takes the same skills, and running Linux will be very easy.

So, question is what you're ready to pay for more reliability of Linux.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Kulebron

[cantab]

Regarding the OP's question:

Do you want to use lots of part pack mods and not have to worry about RAM? If yes, KSP on Linux is a good idea.

Do you have an AMD graphics card and want to use visual enhancement mods? If so, KSP on Linux might not be a good idea because AMD graphics cards underperform on Linux. (nVidia cards by contrast do very well.)