Ubuntu

I have installed Ubuntu 10.10 on an H.P. laptop that previously had windows vista installed on it, but am having issues with gaming. What can be done?

Asked by Steven D. Shown

I received an H.P. laptop from a friend of mine that was originally equipped with Windows Vista. It did not have any hard drive installed when I received it, so I purchased a hard drive and installed it. I tried to install Windows XP, but windows said there was no hard drive installed in the machine. So, I inserted my Ubuntu 10.10 disk, and it installed with no problem what so ever. How can I use this machine for playing Windows games, besides using Wine, since I have found Wine to be quite complicated to work with at times, and does not work well with alot of my windows programs (I have Ubuntu installed on my desktop computer and have been having fairly good luck with it). P.S., When I called H.P. tech support, they told me that I would have to purchase a Windows Vista disk from them intended for an H.P. computer only, and that is a lot more money than I am willing to pay, since I already have an XP disk. I do not use my desktop for games so I don't already know my options and would really appreciate your help with this issue, since I will be giving this laptop to my son who wants to use it for gaming. Thank you for your time.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

The XP installer couldn't find the drive as the SATA controller in your system does not have a driver in the XP data, you needed to grab a floppy and provide the driver or create a new ISO of the OS with your driver on it using a method known as slipstreaming.

To play windows games there is also Cedega and CrossOver Office which are NOT free and are based on Wine. There is also PlayOnLinux which IS free and is a pretty GUI to wine.

There are native games for Linux:

cd; wget http://archive.getdeb.net/install_deb/playdeb_0.3-1~getdeb1_all.deb; sudo dpkg -i ./playdeb_0.3-1~getdeb1_all.deb

You can now use:
http://www.playdeb.net/updates/ubuntu/10.10/

And install some awesome native games (Urban Terror kicks a LOT of ass if you like Counterstrike like games)

If you are a big gamer then Windows is a great way to go. The games will run better as they are designed for that OS, however some games do run BETTER under wine, like Doom3.

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