Ubuntu to the Rescue


Per the suggestion of commenter Tough_Nutz in my previous post, I burned the Ubuntu Linux distribution to a CD, booted the OS from the CD-ROM drive, and transferred my critical files to an external hard drive. It totally worked! I’m so happy that I haven’t lost my files. I’m going to reinstall Windows on my desktop tomorrow night, and on Saturday someone from the cable company is going to install my internet so I’ll finally be able to play Guild Wars at home.

I’ve been curious about Ubuntu for a while, but never got around to trying it out until now. Ubuntu is incredibly easy to install and from my brief experience it’s also easy to use. It’s kind of cool that I can run the entire operating system from a CD-ROM. If so many games didn’t run on Windows, I’d probably want to use Ubuntu. Gaming on a Linux OS seems like it’s beyond my capabilities. I’m probably more proficient at computers than the average user, but probably not enough to mess around trying to get games to work with a Linux distribution. If I get another laptop that I don’t intend to use for games, I’d probably put Ubuntu on it though.

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April 10th, 2008
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
erik w.
Posted on:
10 April 2008 at 22:37

Its not as hard as you might think, I am very suprised at how many games work under “wine” for ubuntu (i am personally a huge fan of ubuntu studio, check it out!) also there are tons of free linux games..still i use windows for the most graphic intense ones, there are games like battle for wesnoth, which is a throwback to old school genesis style strategy with the convenience of huge free online multiplayer…

and also check out a FPS game called CUBE2 and the variations of it…!

I run all my machines dual boot now, there have been a few times where windows crashed and ubuntu still loads up…I recommend trying out a dual boot system when you reinstall..you can do most basic key things you need windows for (internet, publishing, ftp, etc, text editors, open office is almost entirely compatible with regular microsoft office…so you can grab say those documents and open and use them with you linux…bah..
im ranting and must sleep now

cheers!

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Matthijs Groen
Posted on:
10 April 2008 at 23:43

Windows games playing on linux is pretty easy.

1. System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager
2. search for ‘playonlinux’
3. check the application and apply
4. go to Applications -> Games -> Play on Linux
5. Choose the game you want to install and it works.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Stropp
Posted on:
11 April 2008 at 0:26

I’m not a Linux user per se. I’m quite happy with XP (please don’t hate me :p )
but I googled Wine “Guild Wars” and came up with this link. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_on_Wine

It looks like you can get GW to work with Wine under Linux. There are also instructions for getting it to work with Ubuntu. I didn’t read too far, but it seems there are issues, but I’m not sure they’re major.

Do a google for your other games. I’ve heard there are a lot of AAA games that will work with Wine.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Henti
Posted on:
11 April 2008 at 6:33

Hi Regina,

Just found your blog from the guildwars site.

I’m one of the many advocates for guildwars on crossover games. if you have any problems getting guildwars to work on crossover games, wine, please give me a shout as we have a large pool of experiance that will gladly help.

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Arthur
Posted on:
11 April 2008 at 11:30

Hi Regina,

I too found your site off of Guild Wars’ site. I also would lie to advocate gaming on Linux and Mac. I’m a former WinXP user, currently a Mac/Linux user, and I have a windows partition specifically for Guild Wars.

Since you are the community manager now, and since you do like Linux (yay), I feel that you’d be the right person to talk to to have GW2 (and maybe GW) loaded with a Mac (and/or linux) install/launch client.

Thanks, and congratulations!

Arthur

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
Juillen
Posted on:
11 April 2008 at 17:20

If tweaking WINE’s not your thing, have a peek at Cedega (http://www.cedega.com).

They tend to support a quite a few games, and cover the cracks left by WINE as it develops.
Last time I tried it, Guild Wars ran quite reasonably on it. Oh, and Guild Wars is one of their officially supported games, so they’re actively trying to keep up with it and get as good an experience as possible.

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
maxwell
Posted on:
12 April 2008 at 18:53

i’m an avid ubuntu user. i do have guild wars running under wine but the fps is a heavy issue i’m currently trying to fix. it’s widely known that guild wars does run in wine and from firsthand experience it has, but graphically it is indeed clunky. i haven’t yet tried cedega but i’ll do that now since i’ve been postponing that for a while.

the only other issue i seem to have with guild wars and wine is that it won’t connect while i’m at home, but at least i have my desktop with xp for that.

lastly, welcome to the gw community regina and if you need any kind of help with ubuntu feel free to write.

Comment Number:
8
Written by:
Andre
Posted on:
14 April 2008 at 14:49

Welcome to Guild Wars.

I have to thank you, if it wasn’t for you i’d never found out that we could play GW on Ubuntu as i’ve installed it as dual boot on my laptop cause of university. Thanks! And good luck in your new job.

Comment Number:
9
Written by:
Uj Aya
Posted on:
14 April 2008 at 17:13

I ran Ubuntu for a long time on my laptop, it was really easy to get up an running quickly with all the apps I needed. I recently switched to openSUSE and the performance is much better on the laptop. Very easy to install, you might want to give it a try.

Comment Number:
10
Written by:
Brinstar
Posted on:
17 April 2008 at 1:02

Hey, everyone, thanks for your comments. Please be aware that this is not the place for Guild Wars suggestions. I will not deliver any Guild Wars suggestions that are posted here, because this is not a work blog. So please use official channels if you have any feedback related to GW.

It’s cool that GW can run under Linux, but I’m not keen on doing that for myself because I also run Xfire to track my gameplay time data, and Xfire is Windows only. Also, I fear the amount of troubleshooting and reading up on Linux will take up more time than I’m willing to commit to that sort of endeavour.