I used Ubuntu for a while but now switched back to Windows. I got a new laptop and it seems that the graphic card just don't work well with it. Painful lags and wavy lines while watching streaming videos. I installed the AMD proprietary driver but it didn't solved the problem. That's unfortunate because I think Ubuntu is a nice OS with lots of potentials.
Back to Windows now and experiencing no such problem..
Buying computer hardware with Linux pre-installed is still not possible worldwide, but it can be done in some countries.
I hope so since at least 95% of all PC sold worldwide are Windows pre-installed. Usually what Linux users do is just purchase one (second-hand or new) and wipe the harddrive to install Linux.
Ubuntu 14.04 support a wide range of hardware, including that of my Asus laptop. Everything worked out of the box: wifi, webcam, bluetooth logitech mouse & speaker. So I have nothing to complain on that regard.
I just couldn't stream any HD video and going full-screen even on low-resolution. It resulted in painful lags and waivy lines n the video. I have tried the latest pepperflah in Chrome/Chromium to no avail.
While searching for a fix I read many thread about issues with ATI Radeo video cards on Ubuntu/Debian. The best solution that have been suggested to me is to replace the open-source driver with the AMD proprietary one. I did just that but it didn't help. The best it achieved is to destroy my Ubuntu splashboot screen with large ugly font.
I am an open-source enthousiam, don't get me wrong. Nearly all my software on my Windows installation are open-source. I think it's the way forward for the computing world. But as an intermediary user who don't have countless of hours to spend on fixing problems, I had to give up on Linux for this time hoping it may yet improve.
I was a Ubuntu user about last five years (sometimes dabbling into Kubuntu as well), but I left Ubuntu after Unity and now exclusively use Linux Mint. Currently I am on Linux Mint 17 and I swear I will never use anything else for my personal use. However, I have also kept Windows because my wife doesn't want to spend fraction of a second in learning a new operating system interface. I am patiently working in converting her, and so far she has started to like the default wallpapers that come with Linux!
As far as chess is concerned, you can use Pychess -- hands down one of the most beautiful interface on chess in any operating system, I feel. It comes with Pychess engine by default, which is enough for me for this life. However, I have also downloaded stockfish and crafty and enjoy two engine play each other. Nobody can beat stockfish, but Crafty does draw against Stockfish sometimes. Problem is, in Linux, you have SF 3, whereas SF is now version 5. Wonder why the SF team does not upgrade the Linux distro.
To create a database and review your games, SCID and ChessX is free to download (I prefer ChessX). However, I would strongly suggest you install wine and run Arena with whatever Engine you want (I have SF5 and Komodo free version for analysis). Sadly Arena is not natively available for Linux.
@eehc: Ubuntu 14 did not recognise my wifi on laptop. Apparently it is yet to work on some realtek drivers. Anyway, did not want to use Ubuntu anyway. Uninstalled. Have you tried the latest Linux Mint? Hats off to developers and I thank them profusely for their love and care.
Also, @eehc if you want to give a try to Linux once more, good news. ATI Radeon video card driver issue has been sorted in Linux Mint 17. Please give your kind consideration to that distro. My heart breaks if people leave Linux for something else, I am a big, big fan of the entire Linux universe.
No virus ... N.O. V.I.R.U.S.!!!
Cinnamon, @mcris.
While most old Linux users want the Gnome 2 back and thus Mate (I heard), I don't have any such emotional attachment. I thought Cinnamon is both Gnome 3 in its heart but Gnome 2 in interface. I left Ubuntu because their Gnome 3 environment forced the Unity bar on me, which essentially has some glitch.
However, let me admit, while downloading, I did not select Cinnamon or Mate. I just downloaded and when it installed, it installed as Cinnamon. My friend uses Mate and I don't see much of a difference. If at all, I love Cinnamon menu bit more than Mate.
@Daniel_2002: Bit unrelated, but as I was typing here, I was downloading Komodo 5.1 single core free edition. Here's a 5 min blitz game where I pitted Komodo against Stockfish 3. Stockfish wins, again. This is just to give you an idea what you can do with Pychess. Besides, with side panels on, you can analyse your games too. Don't need arena (but I like the arrow option of Arena while in analysis mode, which in Pychess I am not able to figure yet)
I think Stockfish is 64 bit.
You can compile Stockfish 32-bit very easily from source tarball (or git repository, if you want the latest devel version) using
make build ARCH=x86-32
Compiling in any decent, or half-decent machine takes no more than three minutes.
I use Linux.
In fact it was because I couldn't find a good computer chess program on Linux to play against that I ended up on chess.com
Well playing against people from all around the globe is even more fun than playing against the computer.
Yet it has a 64 bits version. I think a more fair game would be if both engines are 64 bits.
I have a 32 bit machine. By default stockfish 3 was 32 bit. It was a fair game, I will run a 30 mins one and let you guys know.
Yes, do that and it will be also interesting for us to know the hardware - CPU, RAM.
I will. May be tomorrow. My Desktop is Linux Mint 17, Core 2 Duo 2.93 ghz, 4gb Ram, 32 bit.
Ok, with Core 2 Duo and 4 gigabytes of RAM you can take advantage of a 64 bits system. As I know there is a Mint version of 64 bits.
Yeah. There is. But my motherboard is not of 64 bit architecture. I am not getting enough time to go for an hour's game. Please bear with me. I will post it, when I have some spare time.
Here's the long format game between Komodo and Stockfish. It ended in a draw, even as Komodo was leading in the middle game with 1.5 points. I could not set time as 30 minutes for each because stockfish won't move for an eternity and if both the engines don't start moving, the timer won't start. It was frustrating to wait for the first move. Hence I gave 1 min with 1 minute extension for each move. A fair compensation, I guess, because this particular game went on for hours. One thing I noticed is that Komodo moves pretty quickly for simple moves, which stockfish doesn't. While Komodo soon added 10 minutes, Stockfish was still using its full time and sometimes moving when the time left was at 0.02-0.3 seconds. Also Komodo reached 20 depth, but mostly playing at 18 depth strength, whereas Stockfish was reaching 25-27 depth and still calculating. My personal favourite engine now is Komodo, free edition.
Welcome to Linux, it is very rewarding albeit challenging! It's nice to hear that more and more people are joining open source world.