Any linux users around, i want some advice

[Strike105X]

Hi all, i want to give linux a go on my main rig:

I haven't really used linux since mint 9, which i really, really loved, this are the things i'm interested in:

1. Compatibility with my hardware, and when i say hardware i mean my i7 6700 config.
2. i heard you can get visual novels to work nicely using vmware player, is that true ? Does it support fullscreen ? Can i access files on my Linux partition with it ?
3. Does Linux have something similar to MPC-HC, MPC-HC not only has a great compatibility with every video i ever played but subs and ass style subs work great. for instance with VLC i had issues.
4. I need to use  Photoshop CS5 or CS6, is that possible now ? Do not recommend me alternatives (like gimp), i've used photoshop for years its what i'm used to.

This is how mint looked when i really loved it leaving aside the backgrounds its that look and features i really loved, any chance of getting something similar on newer builds, i also digged compiz:

http://imgur.com/a/S6bjf

[ittaku]

1. It will work very well with your CPU, your main issue will be getting the GPU working. There is a very good driver for your GPU but it's not installed by default since it's non-free software so you'll usually be prompted to install it after installing the operating system.

2. Visual novels will work very well under any virtualisation software - kvm is the most common one used and is free, vmware is a commercial one but works very well. The reason they work well under virtualisation is you're actually just running windows within a virtual machine. Accessing your linux files from within the virtual machine is trickier but doable. Usually you can only copy from one to the other since they're seen as two separate machines, but you can do some file sharing magic which is now getting into some more advanced functionality and non-trivial. However, in general most visual novels will actually work with 'wine' the windows emulator that doesn't need windows installed, but is a little trickier to set up. I run all of my VNs under wine. Fullscreen works on all more recent ones, but some ancient ones have trouble going full screen.

3. The media players under linux are excellent. mpv is the best player, but if you're familiar with vlc it is equally available though as you said it didn't work for you but most people with vlc on linux have no issues.

4. Photoshop will work under wine again, or if you install a virtual windows you can just run it under that.

Mint is still available and a fine choice, especially if you've used it in the past and familiar with it.

[Kurisu-Chan]

2 hours ago, Strike105X said:

Hi all, i want to give linux a go on my main rig:

I haven't really used linux since mint 9, which i really, really loved, this are the things i'm interested in:

1. Compatibility with my hardware, and when i say hardware i mean my i7 6700 config.
2. i heard you can get visual novels to work nicely using vmware player, is that true ? Does it support fullscreen ? Can i access files on my Linux partition with it ?
3. Does Linux have something similar to MPC-HC, MPC-HC not only has a great compatibility with every video i ever played but subs and ass style subs work great. for instance with VLC i had issues.
4. I need to use  Photoshop CS5 or CS6, is that possible now ? Do not recommend me alternatives (like gimp), i've used photoshop for years its what i'm used to.

This is how mint looked when i really loved it leaving aside the backgrounds its that look and features i really loved, any chance of getting something similar on newer builds, i also digged compiz:

http://imgur.com/a/S6bjf

1-It's compatible with your hardware, no problem.

2-Either using Wine or Virtual Machine, it's doable with a bit of work (it's Linux, get ready to work a bit on it) for example you can run Steins;Gate 0 only using Wine.

3-It's weird that you have problems with VLC, really.

4-Gimp but it's less and less updated, Krita is pretty advanced, if you're ready to give it a chance. 

 

For OS? better get some good Gnome pussy.

[Okarin]

You can use Linux as a powerful base system. It has niceties not available in Windows, like virtual desktops, THE CONSOLE, software manager (installing software is dead easy), etc.

You'll still need Windows software (those VNs), so you have Wine or, as an alternative to VMWare, VirtualBox, which is easy to use and never gave me a problem. I don't know about the VNs that need Japanese locale and that's a problem, but with virtual machine you can do it. However I played Yume Miru Kusuri on a Linux Mint with Wine back in 2015 and it never gave a problem.

If you like Mint I'd suggest keeping with it. It's one of the best distros and the most popular.

Linux Mint supports Steam on its repositories, BUT not every game available for Windows is available for Linux. So I guess you'll be using your virtual machine a lot and why Linux then?

Linux gaming works better with GOG, because you can switch to a native Linux version of the game (I don't know though if they like more Red Hat-based or Debian-based).

Photoshop is a problem, I haven't tested it but I hear it's one of the last bulwarks of proprietary software still not available for Linux.

[pual]

16 hours ago, Strike105X said:

Hi all, i want to give linux a go on my main rig:

I haven't really used linux since mint 9, which i really, really loved, this are the things i'm interested in:

1. Compatibility with my hardware, and when i say hardware i mean my i7 6700 config.
2. i heard you can get visual novels to work nicely using vmware player, is that true ? Does it support fullscreen ? Can i access files on my Linux partition with it ?
3. Does Linux have something similar to MPC-HC, MPC-HC not only has a great compatibility with every video i ever played but subs and ass style subs work great. for instance with VLC i had issues.
4. I need to use  Photoshop CS5 or CS6, is that possible now ? Do not recommend me alternatives (like gimp), i've used photoshop for years its what i'm used to.

This is how mint looked when i really loved it leaving aside the backgrounds its that look and features i really loved, any chance of getting something similar on newer builds, i also digged compiz:

http://imgur.com/a/S6bjf

1. Searching around shows you need at least linux kernel 4.3 for this motherboard, which is pretty much everywhere by now (4.11 is most recent one). Your setup will most likely benefit from newer kernel and mesa since they bring lots of improvements to AMD graphics driver. Something like Antergos should do nicely ootb while Ubuntu ships outdated software you have to update after installation.
2. Visual novels work using wine (not a virtual machine but lighter alternative) but getting videos work in older games can be tricky if you're new to linux. Virtualbox with HyperV backend runs what wine can't. Win XP and 8 run at near native speed once you install guest additions.
3. mpv is great.
4.  https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=25607

[Strike105X]

Thank you all for the great advices!

[ittaku]

By the way there's a trick to getting Japanese locale within wine apps, but you have to start it on the command line or create a shortcut of sorts somewhere that calls it.

LC_ALL=ja_JP.UTF-8 wine app.exe

where app.exe is the game's executable filename.

 

As for getting videos to play within visual novels under wine, you need to use winetricks to install ffdshow, quartz and wmp9. When ffdshow installs and the configuration window comes up, you have to enable mpeg1 playback from it which is disabled by default (many VNs use mpeg1 for video).

[LeftHandedMagus]

On 6/14/2017 at 6:31 AM, ittaku said:

As for getting videos to play within visual novels under wine, you need to use winetricks to install ffdshow, quartz and wmp9. When ffdshow installs and the configuration window comes up, you have to enable mpeg1 playback from it which is disabled by default (many VNs use mpeg1 for video).

I have read alot of people talk about using Wine, Playonlinux, Proton to read VN's, and a common problem is they can not get the video's to play, My question is: Will these winetricks fix this problem in most [or all] video not loading issues? I am getting ready to go full linux, and VN's are the only reason I didn't do this years ago. Thank You for any input.

[ittaku]

4 hours ago, LeftHandedMagus said:

I have read alot of people talk about using Wine, Playonlinux, Proton to read VN's, and a common problem is they can not get the video's to play, My question is: Will these winetricks fix this problem in most [or all] video not loading issues? I am getting ready to go full linux, and VN's are the only reason I didn't do this years ago. Thank You for any input.

Absolutely not. What I listed will get more than half working. Some videos require quartz enabled, others want it disabled, others want ffdshow installed others want lavfilters installed and others just won't work at all. There are a million different ways to playback mpeg1 internally on windows and because of this clusterfuck you have to do a special song and dance with wine to get them working. If you want 100% of mpeg1 videos to play back, for god's sake stay on windows.

[LeftHandedMagus]

2 hours ago, ittaku said:

Absolutely not. What I listed will get more than half working. Some videos require quartz enabled, others want it disabled, others want ffdshow installed others want lavfilters installed and others just won't work at all. There are a million different ways to playback mpeg1 internally on windows and because of this clusterfuck you have to do a special song and dance with wine to get them working. If you want 100% of mpeg1 videos to play back, for god's sake stay on windows.

I honestly don't care if video's play (its nice, but not required), if I really want to see video, I can find them on YouTube 99% of time, I was just wondering if a lot of the people just didn't do something right in wine or wine tricks. I am getting to the point that my hate for windows outweighs any benefit of running it and loved Linux back in the day.

There is always VM and with valve throwing a large amount of money towards Linux gaming, I wouldn't be surprised if proton eventually will be able to run most games. I don't know if this is true, but I read that some of the work being done on linux kernal for proton (sponsored by valve) could make it possible to play DRM games on linux in the near future! I don't like supporting valve with their history of censorship, but I have to admit their work with proton (especially making it open source) is a big plus for the Linux community! Thanks for answering my question though.

 

Edit: It says in this article that linux gaming will be a lot better probably with the release of Kernal 5.11 due to the work Collabora has been doing for valve: https://www.techradar.com/news/major-improvement-for-windows-gaming-on-linux-expected-next-year

Edited October 30, 2020 by LeftHandedMagus
to add source for my comment

[ittaku]

4 hours ago, LeftHandedMagus said:

I honestly don't care if video's play (its nice, but not required), if I really want to see video, I can find them on YouTube 99% of time, I was just wondering if a lot of the people just didn't do something right in wine or wine tricks. I am getting to the point that my hate for windows outweighs any benefit of running it and loved Linux back in the day.

There is always VM and with valve throwing a large amount of money towards Linux gaming, I wouldn't be surprised if proton eventually will be able to run most games. I don't know if this is true, but I read that some of the work being done on linux kernal for proton (sponsored by valve) could make it possible to play DRM games on linux in the near future! I don't like supporting valve with their history of censorship, but I have to admit their work with proton (especially making it open source) is a big plus for the Linux community! Thanks for answering my question though.

 

Edit: It says in this article that linux gaming will be a lot better probably with the release of Kernal 5.11 due to the work Collabora has been doing for valve: https://www.techradar.com/news/major-improvement-for-windows-gaming-on-linux-expected-next-year

For what it's worth I run everything still on linux. Proton works quite well but still isn't the godsend you're looking for. Don't get too excited by upcoming kernel (correct spelling) releases. They get a lot of publicity but there is always kernel development going on and these features you read about almost never translate into revolutionary improvements. If you end up going down the linux path, you can always ping me on discord to help you try and get some games running if they're not working. I've been using linux exclusively for over 20 years. I generally give up on videos after just one try these days and turn them off if I can. Sometimes I just wait with a blank screen because you can't turn them off, or I watch the video without audio. Most videos have spoilers I find anyway so I don't really care for them anymore.

[LeftHandedMagus]

15 hours ago, ittaku said:

For what it's worth I run everything still on linux. Proton works quite well but still isn't the godsend you're looking for. Don't get too excited by upcoming kernel (correct spelling) releases. They get a lot of publicity but there is always kernel development going on and these features you read about almost never translate into revolutionary improvements. If you end up going down the linux path, you can always ping me on discord to help you try and get some games running if they're not working. I've been using linux exclusively for over 20 years. I generally give up on videos after just one try these days and turn them off if I can. Sometimes I just wait with a blank screen because you can't turn them off, or I watch the video without audio. Most videos have spoilers I find anyway so I don't really care for them anymore.

Thanks for your input, and thanks for correcting my spelling of kernel . After thinking about it, I think I am going to turn my second ssd into a linux boot. I wanted to avoid dual booting because because a long time ago I ended up losing a bunch of data after a windows update [this was when XP was the current Microsoft OS], But after doing a bunch of research, It seems pretty safe to dual boot from two drives. I do want to move from windows eventually, but this will give me a chance to relearn Linux. If I ever have issues that I cant figure out on my own, I'll definitely ping you, Thank You.

Edited October 31, 2020 by LeftHandedMagus