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Question

I have a Vista laptop and I want to buy a Linux based computer to try, will I have problems networking via ethernet? Also I want to get the nVida graphics card(or similar), can I play PC games on a Linux PC?

Answer 1

Both Nvidia and ATI publish binary drivers for use with Linux, so you should have little or no problem with most cards made in the past few years.

Network drivers are very well supported by the Linux community. When I built a PC I actually had to install drivers to get my onboard network card to work, but Linux supported the card without any extra software.

Games can be a difficult issue. You can play native Linux games, but not all Windows games will work. Because Windows applications (and games) are stored in a different format than Linux applications they must be run in an simulated environment. This is achieved by running the applications in Wine (http://winehq.org/).

Personally I dual boot Linux and Windows XP. Linux is used for all of my Desktop operations, and Windows is used for gaming. This allows me to avoid all of the hassle of hoping that every game I play will work with Wine. However, if you would like to try a game under Wine, you can see how well it works prior to buying/installing it by checking for it in the Wine Application Database (http://appdb.winehq.org/) and reading reports of how to get the game running.

Answer 2

linux will go on anything; no need to buy a new computer.  I would start off with Ubuntu as it is great for beginners and has excellent wireless networking support.  Windows games won't really play on linux without some tweaking, but you could have linux and vista on your laptop and select which one you want to run whenever you turn on the laptop.

Answer 3

There should be no problem networking Linux to any decent computer.  Well, so you'll probably have problems with Vista.

Nvidia is a good card with Linux - they are well supported.

Yes, you can play PC games on Linux.  Not all of them...