Hi guys! Happy new year!!

Ok im back again and even more annoyed with windows that usual im attempting to install the latest version of SUSE and Mandrake to finally attempt to find a linux distro to replace my Xp...
Previous attempts of getting clean have failed due to a number of reasons fundamentally....no games!! and also its really hard to pick up...

My question is then:

Im dual booting and have all my games on a MS partition called Media...can i run them from there using Wine in my linux OS?

Many thanks!

From wine it depends but probably no. There is WineX transgaming.com which will run more but it depends on the game and what it needs (biggest factor being which version of DirectX). They have a list on their site of games and how well they work with WineX so have a look at that and see if it will work for you.

cheers J...i have read into that cedega thing they offer....and it requires that the software is installed into the linux partion in a kind of false windows drive...it makes in a folder....

So i would have to reformat and start a fresh which would be an utter pain. Ill see how i get on with these news distros from mandrake and suse. If i find one that is comfortable i might make the big step and leave MS behind.

Which would make my day....i am sick of viruses and spyware.

Many thanks.

Oh if you have any recommendations for a distro for a newb...please shout..!

cheers

What its talking about is it will create a folder in your home directory called .transgaming. That is the fake windows drive (with folders for Program Files, system, systeme32 etc...). Anyway, if you do subscribe to it, you just download it in rpm format and install. Just make sure you check the games list and that your games are rated either 4 or 5 as far as compatibility.

Last time I used winex, they were working on DirectX 9.0b. I don't know how far along it's gotten, but alot of games that required 9.0b wouldn't work (this was around the 4.0 release or so).

One of my games requires DirectX 9.0c so I still have to dual boot for that one.

Distro's:

Mandrake's not a bad distro. I used 10.0 a little and it was nice ease of use wise. The only thing I didn't like about it was the package management system ( I compile alot from source and on Mandrake it's a little trickier) but thats just my personal preference.

Debian: Good distro with a strong following. the STABLE release is rock solid but a little outdated. you could install the TESTING release but it is not supported like the stable one.
overall very good distro with some of the best package management around.

Ubuntu: I have never tried it but heard alot of good things. Based on Debian but updated more frequently.

Slackware: Easily one of the fastest binary distro's around. Based on simplicity and speed.
Not hard but not the most user friendly distro either. Most configuration is done by hand editing config files.

thats just the tip of the iceberg as there are many many more, each with their own pros and cons. Just look around and try a few to see which ones would best meet your needs.