Linux and Proton.

KotangaGirl

Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
My daughter has just removed a nasty piece of bloatware named Windows 10 from her own Xeon computer and has installed Linux instead which she much prefers. Overtime she had noticed that her computer had been performing less well with every Windows update so she decided to get rid of it. At the moment she is experimenting with Proton to run some of my game collection that she fancies trying out and I'm certainly interested to see how that goes.
I would much prefer to be running Linux too, but on checking the Proton website it's very plain that Trainz will not run under Proton. Most reports basically say the start screen loads and then it's the black screen of death with only the sound effects playing. Plainly something isn't connecting up in the software and I wouldn't have a clue why that would be so.
 
Bloatware? You can actually remove most of it quite easily. Proton uses Steam which IMO comes into the Bloatware category and if it wasn't for the Wine project wouldn't work in Linux, it should not needed to have additional junkware to run a game.

Using Proton IMO equates to swapping the Evil of Microsoft for the Evil of Valve and I can live without Steam Games. ;o)

Before I got tired of fiddling in Linux to get things to work, every time Wine was updated it broke things requiring yet more messing around, I got around 60 Windows Games to run in Linux, mostly open GL ones although managed a few DirectX ones.
Some of these Linux Distros these days though have as many, if not more updates than Windows unless you opt for an LT version which rapidly gets out of date and there are far too many different versions and forks.
Ultimately it's far easier and less stressful to dual boot Linux and Windows or use separate PCs and run programs in the OS they were designed for.
 
Ultimately it's far easier and less stressful to dual boot Linux and Windows or use separate PCs and run programs in the OS they were designed for.

I will second that. Just a few years ago I installed Linux (Ubuntu) for the very first time on a notebook that was surplus to my needs (it was not "good enough" to run Trainz!). While it was an interesting experience I quickly found that my most commonly used Linux application was the updater with numerous updates per month - some of them quite large. My attempts to run Wine were not successful and, in general, the Linux versions of Windows software did not impress me. I acknowledge that many of my "issues" with Linux were likely to have been a result of the hardware I was running it on (but it did meet the Ubuntu specs).

I appreciate that there are many Linux supporters out there, and quite a few who only use Linux, but in my case running a well established OS with a big corporation behind it is a far better option.

My opinions only.
 
Yup - OS horses for courses is the way to go.
I use Linux for my ISP mail servers and Internet access provision, SQL databases, etc. and Windows 10 for all my business, creative and gaming requirements.
Some people use MacOS for their creative needs and sometimes become dismayed about the lack of available games/ GPU choices.
Each to their own. Best solution is use the OS that does the job best - even if that means running more than one computer system concurrently.
Linux servers talk to Windows & Mac networked computers nicely, and just as often, vice versa.
Different strokes for different folks - and all that...
 
Debian Linux is the one my daughter prefers. My daughter used to work as a software troubleshooter, but she doesn't keep good health these days and she was just plain tired of messing about with Windows. She worked with Linux quite a bit in the past so I think she just wanted to go back to what she knew best. She has most of the games she likes to play on Playstation, but she wanted to try out Flight Simulator from my computer game stash so hence the Proton experiments.

I didn't know that Proton was tied up with Steam so that really does put the brakes on any interest I had in it.
 
Over the years I've had quite enough of Windows. The bloat and completely unnecessary features of Windows 10 are getting to be too much, and it seems nearly every update breaks something. The problem is, and I'll get crucified for saying this, you can't do anything with Linux. At least not the stuff I do. I suppose Mac is an option as well, as I love using the MacOS and the integration with my other devices (I'm pretty invested in the Apple ecosystem), however a Mac that has similar specs to my custom built PC would be upwards of $5000, and it seems Mac versions of Trainz just aren't quite there yet.

By "Not quite there yet", I mean this: TurfFX is disabled in the Mac version of TRS19. Well, many of the routes I'm building rely heavily on TurfFX grass. Without TurfFX, they'd be empty boards painted one color and, as far as I'm concerned, ruined.

Matt
 
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As much as they try to do it, Linux just ain't there yet. The biggest problem is each flavor of Linux has multiple forks and each flavor has different drivers. With the OS moving as quickly as it does, simple things like installing up-to-date video drivers presents a problem because there are not always new drivers to install.

Linux does have its place, however, as a tool or adjunct to Windows 10. You can install it as a separate shell and it will interact with Windows but still remain a separate entity. There's no graphics, but having supported and used the operating system while in IT, I still find grep'ing to be a lot faster and sometimes easier than the stupid Windows search. For that I bring up an Ubuntu console window and do what I have to do. For non-Linux functions that require a command prompt, I use Power-Shell. It's really a super scripting language, and for those that used the DOS prompt and wrote batches, this is a dream come true.

I also run Ubuntu in a virtual machine. I found this to be very helpful when searching those scary Trainzing websites with lots of popup ads and scripts. I figured running in a non-Windows environment meant I can get what I need without getting my Windows 10 infected.

For those interested in Virtual machines, I highly recommend Oracle's Virtual Box over Microsoft's Hyper-V. Both do the same thing, but Virtual Box is more versatile. If you plan on trying this, install Virtual Box first before trying Hyper-V because typical of Microsoft, installing Hyper-V first will kill the Virtual Box program completely so that VMs don't load at all.
 
Over the years I've had quite enough of Windows. The bloat and completely unnecessary features of Windows 10 are getting to be too much, and it seems nearly every update breaks something. The problem is, and I'll get crucified for saying this, you can't do anything with Linux. At least not the stuff I do. I suppose Mac is an option as well, as I love using the MacOS and the integration with my other devices (I'm pretty invested in the Apple ecosystem), however a Mac that has similar specs to my custom built PC would be upwards of $5000, and it seems Mac versions of Trainz just aren't quite there yet.

Matt

Chris Bergmann had some interesting stuff to say on this as well. He's a 100% Mac guy, loves the OS, etc. He said it's their hardware which ruins it for Trainz because Apple chintzs out on the video by putting in mobile chips and using mobile processors on the consumer-grade machines, making a machine that's capable of running Trainz the right way out of the ballpark for many users who want to use it.
 
Chris Bergmann had some interesting stuff to say on this as well. He's a 100% Mac guy, loves the OS, etc. He said it's their hardware which ruins it for Trainz because Apple chintzs out on the video by putting in mobile chips and using mobile processors on the consumer-grade machines, making a machine that's capable of running Trainz the right way out of the ballpark for many users who want to use it.

At least with newer models with Thunderbolt 3, you can hook up external GPU's, which will give it that juice, but they'd still be bottlenecked by low power mobile CPU's and horrible thermals in just about all of their consumer grade systems. I suppose I could take the 8 GB Overclocked GTX 1070 out of my current PC and... nope. Apple has completely ditched Nvidia and newer versions of MacOS have little to no Nvidia GPU support at all. I'd have to buy an AMD card.

Matt
 
Yes i can recommend Oracle's Virtual Box as well. My old XP machine which I keep around for running old software and hardware that won't run on later versions has Windows 7 running in a Virtual Box so it's highly adaptable to run whatever you want for the particular task in hand.

My daughter uses Linux for her software projects and at the moment she's writing a new Android app to keep herself amused, - so as you say it's very much horses for courses.
 
I gave up on Linux some years back when the Ubuntu version I had looked much the same as Windows 8. I recall thinking that if it was going to look like Windows then I may as well use the real thing.

It always seemed to me that using the standard apps that came with Linux was fine but if you wanted to do anything interesting then it become exponentially difficult. I got tired of looking up obscure commands with umpteen parameters and then being told I didn't have the privileges to do what I wanted.

I've always wanted some non partisan operating system that just provided some base I/O and tools to manage partitions that can hold other O/S's such as Windows, some Mac O/S, Linux/Unix, etc. Something more than dual boot.

Maybe if Trainz got ported to Linux I might reconsider. A lot of the tools I like to use such as Blender and some software compilers are available for Linux.
 
I started using Linux 12 years ago and never looked back. Trainz is the only program installed on my Win10 here. If Trainz came out with a Linux version, I would be one of the first to purchase.
 
While everyone is entitled to their opinions and, as one poster wisely observed, it is "horses for courses", some "facts" should be allowed to "get in the way" here.

From StatCounter (Nov 2019) and other sources on the OS market share for desktops:-


  • Windows - a whopping 79% of which about half (39% of the total) is now Windows 10, 33% is still Windows 7 and 5% are still using Windows XP (go figure!). This makes Windows 10 the biggest single OS in the desktop market.
  • Mac OS X - just under 15% (desktops) with MacOS just under 10% (desktops + laptops)
  • Google Chrome OS - 1.5% but of that 51% is in the K-12 education market where it has now overtaken Apple for the first time
  • Linux - ranges from 1.6% to 2.2% (depending who you listen to). About 40% of the Linux market is Ubuntu which makes it the biggest Linux distro. So Windows XP still has a greater market share than Linux. However, Linux is much bigger in the server market (unable to locate exact or inexact figures)

For mobiles:-


  • Android - a runaway winner now with 85% of all smart phones. 8.1 Oreo dominates with 18.5% while my favourite, 9 Pie, has 10%
  • iOS - a distant second at 13.2% with iOS 12.1 taking over half of that.

From this I think you can probably see why N3V is very unlikely to offer a Linux version of Trainz and, you could argue, that future iOS mobile versions may also be unlikely.

My opinion (supported by some figures)
 
Interesting that a month before being cut loose by Microsoft Windows 7 is at 33% of market share.
I still use a Windows XP computer for some things, but I don't connect it to the internet.

I never liked Ubuntu and much prefer using Debian instead.
 
Any particular reason? Based on this discussion I was thinking of reinstalling VM Workstation and Ubuntu.

This Linux talk did that to me too! I already have Ubuntu running and use that for some chores such as I mentioned, but tonight I reinstalled Solaris and Oracle Server (Red Hat) so I can play with it again and reacquire my tech skills not that I'll use them anytime soon, but more to dust off the brain cells for a bit. The Oracle Server comes as part of a developer-day pre-built VM directly from Oracle. Import the appliance and the VM is done. There's no install and that's the best part.
 
Any particular reason? Based on this discussion I was thinking of reinstalling VM Workstation and Ubuntu.

Mostly to do with personal preference to do with the desktop and the way the menus worked. Debian just seemed to have a cleaner and less complicated approach to things and it wasn't dressed up in fake Windows makeup like Ubuntu was.
 
Mostly to do with personal preference to do with the desktop and the way the menus worked. Debian just seemed to have a cleaner and less complicated approach to things and it wasn't dressed up in fake Windows makeup like Ubuntu was.

I thought it might have been although I was hoping it might have had a technical purpose. The "fake Windows" effect was the main reason I lost interest in Ubuntu as I said before.

Like John, I will have another look but might prowl through the distros first to see what generates the most interest.
 
I use Xubuntu: same kernel and programs, but a much simpler desktop. Since it is debian based, it is very simple to install programs too.
 
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