Another Arch Linux user checking in here. Dual-booting with Windows to play my GOG games and for school purposes.

I'd actually like to try out Linux on my new laptop... but I do not want to mess with boot menus, side-by-side. At least not as long as I'm unsure I want to run Linux alongside, just so that it doesn't somehow mess up the Windows recovery partition, or I can't easily get rid of the boot menu anymore etc. I usually prefer running Linux on a completely different PC (or at least separate HDD), but they are all quite old HW now, and distros like Ubuntu seem to drop support for older graphics cards etc. quite fast (many other distros don't, luckily).

But, now I have two internal 750GB hard drives in my new PC (laptop), so I could actually install Linux on the second HDD, and set it from BIOS (UEFI?) from which HDD to boot. So if I want to run Win7, I boot from HDD1, and Linux from HDD2. Then I can't easily exchange files between the two OSes, but I guess I could live with that.

*raises hand*

But, being a gamer, I'll always have Windows and I've come to terms with that. Indeed, it's nice having all my games on one OS, although that's changing because boot up times are lightning fast with SSDs.

Eh, ambivalence.

So, since last time I posted here, I've completely dumped my windows.
I'm now running a linux-only pc. Game-wise it's not bad at all (I've now got arx libertatis running too! Fun game.). Mostly I play old games, so GOG or old discs that I've got. The majority works well, but there are still some I need to tinker a lot with, especially newer games. I believe somebody who uses steam wouldn't be happy on a linux PC.

Remember to vote for dosbox archives!
http://www.gog.com/en/wishlist/site/extra_file_archives_for_dosbox_games

Mostly a mac user.
Used to frequent http://www.insidemacgames.com/ forum, which I'd heartily recommend to any mac gamers out there.

Nowaday's though, I'm maintaining a dedicated gaming PC (and do everything else on macs) so I havent bothered to keep current with the forum either.

Ubuntu / Win7 user here. I mainly use GOG's DosBox games on linux, and dual-boot for all other games.

As a gamer, I stopped using Windows a while ago. Wine works sufficiently good for me. (Note I don't use Steam because of their DRM).

I'm a proud GNU/Linux gamer with a gaming rig constructed especially for Linux gaming (I sentimentally call it Linus-Tux-Machina).

Until recently, I mostly played free and open source games, but since I recently earned some money (through participating in Google Summer of Code), I find myself buying all Humble Indie Bundles and many of the games on sale on GoG. I have a great respect for open source developers and a great respect for game developers who create quality games, so I Intend to support anyone who has a reasonable approach to game development and distribution (eg. no DRM, multiple OS support, reasonable licenses), I am personally working towards becoming a commercial open source game developer, but right now I'm working on my own graphics engine based on real-time ray tracing, so it might take a while ;)

In any case, my current gaming environment consists of Ubuntu, CrossOver and DosBox, but I'm considering spending some time to learn Gentoo, just for the fun of it. I do have a virtual machine running Windows XP, since some projects in my university are Windows specific, and if necessary I use this VM to run stuff that doesn't run through CrossOver, but I'll get rid of it as soon as I'm done with my studies.

I also recently bough an Android tablet and I already play some Humble Android Bundle games on it. I'm considering installing Ubuntu on it too, but sadly having root access apparently voids warranty... which is strange considering the owner of a machine should always have root access... but whatever. I'll probably root it anyway for the purpose of creating a swap partition since Android has a bad habit of killing apps without asking for permission if I run more than two games at once.



As for GOG, I see three major options:
1. GOG offers full support for all games on all operating systems.
2. GOG offers full support for the most popular operating systems, but if a game offers native binaries for less popular operating systems, or if it can be run through some third party software (eg. Wine, DosBox, scummvm), they sell those games without support. Or rather, users have to rely on the developers and the community for support. In other words GOG dedicates an amount of money/resources for supporting a given OS roughly proportional to the amount of money they can get from the users of this OS.
3. GOG offers full support for the most popular operating systems and nothing else.

The first option is best, but impossible/impractical. The second option is worse, but possible. The third option is the worst.

Apparently, from what I have seen from GOG's responses on this subject, it appears since they can't choose the best option, they choose the worst instead, since anything in between doesn't meet their quality standards. Strange, considering that not offering a service at all is a much worse quality of service than having it available without support.

The good news is, GOG will eventually have to either support Linux, or cease to exist, since someone else will. In any case we will have great distributors of games with Linux support. It's a matter of time. I personally hope GOG chooses the first option, because as much as non-existence has it's advantages, I think GOG deserves better both for promoting DRM freedom and for reasonable prices.

timppu, what you write is completely wrong. All of them :) When i have time i will explain it all(about graphic driver support, about not messing the boot partititons etc...)

I'm primarily a Linux user.

I boot Windows on the odd occasion for a game, or for something work-related, but apart from that I'm using either Ubuntu (on my desktop) or Fedora (on both of my laptops)

I do often try to get games (including many of the ones I have on GoG) to work on Linux, too.

Switched to Linux Mint completely, after dual booting with XP for a good while before, about 5 months ago.

Do have windows 7 running through virtual box since a few days again, though: I do a lot with photography and neither GIMP and rawtherapee are quite on the same level. I am so, so much quicker using Photoshop, especially if I have to edit a lot of photos in a short time and with a deadline coming up. And as I have a retail copy that wasn't doing anything, anyway ...

Playing around with arch linux in a virtualbox, too. Want to switch over, eventually. Mostly for the rolling updates, secondary for the custom build approach.

I've Win7 on my gaming computer, and Arch Linux on my laptops.