[geeks] HD/IDE question

velociraptor velociraptor at gmail.com
Tue Sep 26 15:00:47 CDT 2006


On 9/26/06, Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at verizon.net> wrote:
> What about VMWare Player on Linux host - can it run your games adequately? Why not
> just divorce yourself from Windows as a platform for any "work" that requires "files" (i.e. a
> pure game machine)? If need be, your Windows desktop can access FTP servers on other > platforms and work reasonably well with them (i.e. access the folders via Windows
> Explorer)...

I hadn't thought about running StepMania under Linux, but I will have
to build the box out to run it.  I am pretty sure I won't find a
LiveCD that includes it. ;-)  As for Diablo II under Linux, that's a
non-issue, I play it on my Mac.  Most of the other games I play,
though, I doubt would run on Linux--not that I've done a lot of gaming
lately.  I've fiddled with VMWare some, but it's performance is not
inspiring even for simple stuff.

The two things that I think will be the hiccups for getting 100% off
of Windows are the lack of fully functional scanner driver under
Linux/Mac OS X for my current scanner and Adobe Acrobat.  If Acroread
on OS X is any indication, Acrobat is probably not worth the effort on
the Mac.  I find the OSS pdf tools lacking; it's nice to be able to do
quick and dirty CLI conversions, but otherwise they are pretty
primitive.  In trying to deal with business issues from two coasts
with no landline/fax capabilities it has been a huge help having the
scanner integrated with Acrobat as well as having digital signing
capabilities.

I am conserving funds at the moment as I have plans to go back to
school so building another box just for gaming and Acrobat is not top
priority as far as computing needs go.  The 3Ware RAID card doesn't
have drivers for OS X.  I originally bought this card because it was
the only reasonably priced alternative for "real" RAID 5, even though
it meant sticking with x86 hardware.

=Nadine=



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