I'm trying to make a budget gaming build for Minecraft, Gmod, TF2, ect. Windows is an extra $90 that I really could use elsewhere. So I have heard about Linux Ubuntu. Is this a good OS? Does it play things like IE, Firefox, or Google Chrome? And can I install Steam on it? Also I was wondering if there was anything like a video or something that would show me like a demo of it or something. Thanks
I'm not sure if you're still looking for advice, but here's my small part.
TF2, Garry's Mod, and of course Minecraft do run on Linux. As does Steam, so have a look around http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/ you can see whether any games you want to play that you own on Steam are released for Linux. If they are, great. If not... yeah, you'll more than likely have big problems getting them to work, if they will at all.
You might also experience lots of hassle getting Linux to work well for you, but bear in mind that it is free, and you can lose nothing by at least installing it (following guides if needs be) and giving it a spin for a while. If it's too much trouble, or some games you absolutely must play don't have Linux releases, then spring for Windows.
This get's trotted out far too frequently. "It's free, so be happy" seems to conflict with the idea that Linux is some massive 'threat' to other desktop operating systems. I've dealt with (and even contributed to) Open Source projects for some time, and I've come to notice a pattern- which makes complete sense from both sides.
First, from the perspective of a contributor, the users of the product are not "customers"; after all, there is no money changing hands. So from that perspective, they are leeching vermin, "non-contributors". The result is that even the most well-meaning bug report can be taken personally. Far too frequently bug reporters are told to fix it themselves and issue a pull request, or depending on the software make it dead-simple for the issue to be reproduced (beyond reproduction steps, things like actually making a VM image).
This makes complete sense. I contribute to OSS projects and I don't get paid for it, and I've found the users of that software to be more demanding and self-righteous about how they think the software should work than any of the users of my company's software- who pay tens of thousands in support contracts but are completely happy to use the software as is, voicing their concerns but not being either self-righteous or indignant. As an example, in order for our customers to be truly ed off at us we would need to seriously bungle up their databases, which simply doesn't happen. In order for a user of an Open Source product to be ed off, just use a Gendered Pronoun in the documentation and watch the drama unfold.
It's interesting to consider. the user of OSS expects the OSS developer(s) to be professional; the OSS developer(s), in contrast, find the idea laughable by definition, since "professional" quite literally means that they are doing it as their main occupation rather than as a hobby or pastime, and the thing is that OSS is by definition never going to be "professional" since the entire idea is that the Developers don't get paid for their work, at least not up front. That's the exact reason why all the biggest and most popular Open Source Projects (Apache, Firefox, Ubuntu, RHEL, etc) all have large companies or foundations behind them that accept donations and turn it into professional output by paying developers to contribute. Ubuntu wouldn't be even close to as popular as it is if it wasn't backed by Canonical, which is both good and bad since there are equally competent distributions available.
The big issue when it comes to Linux is that so many think they are making some strong political or even ethical statement about Software. Richard Stallman believes it is "unethical" to charge for software products. This is the same man who has a rather long list of demands about when and where he will speak. He also effectively insists people call Linux GNU/Linux, and that GNU be pronounced a certain way- with a hard G- ""GNU" is pronounced as one syllable with a hard g, like "grew" but with n instead of r.
This isn't a problem with Linux itself, but the fact is that Richard and his ridiculous, skin-eating ways are going to be inexhorably tied to most Open Source stuff for a very long time. In a way he's poisoning the well from inside by insisting that all Open Source be dealt with and work a specific way, and calling anything that doesn't follow his strict set of rules "unethical". Stem on Linux? Unethical. His entire drive is comprised of propaganda, skewing facts about proprietary operating systems and their companies in such a way to drive his point home by being purposely disingenuous. If he has a point to be made, you would think that he could use facts and present them as -is without his cheeto-filled, bearded concepts somehow colouring his every sentence. The way he speaks about it, you'd think that all proprietary software companies do business by molesting children. But of course that's not a fair comparison, since if that was true, Richard would be all for it- he has publically issued his support for pedophiles, so I think maybe his moral fabric is more like a moral cheesecloth.
Because I want to be as disassociated as possible from this insane individual,(as should anybody not equally insane) tend to purposely avoid GNU software where I can. Thankfully, it's pretty easy- I can just choose the better alternative, rather than buy into some political BS about how the license a piece of software is more important than the actual capability of that software to do what I need it to do. Even with Linux it's pretty easy to swap out the GNU coreutils with the more capable BSD licensed equivalents, which also has the advantage of being more secure thanks to extensive security audits.
and you can lose nothing by at least installing it (following guides if needs be) and giving it a spin for a while.
Time is something. For many it is valuable. And if somebody doesn't think their time is valuable it's because they have Self-worth issues.
It will run steam and should run some of Vavle's games. Minecraft yes.
It will also run Web browsers, the most popular is Chrome/Chromium and Firefox.
As for a video maybe YouTube, but alarm bells are ringing at that thought, Just becareful Windows is defindently more well-designed. It could pain you to spend the 90 bucks? Try OEM copies and several shops that do computers.
They will surely have windows of some sort.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
This is a legacy account, meaning it is no longer active
Apologies for snipping the majority of your post, but anything I've left out I quite simply agree with. Stallman is.. yeah, he does more harm to any kind of open source community than he does good. Not to mention the man certainly is violent. (Psst: for those who didn't click on the link, that last part's a joke)
There's also the issue, that I would say virtually anyone who has used Linux has faced:
Time is something. For many it is valuable. And if somebody doesn't think their time is valuable it's because they have Self-worth issues.
Absolutely. And if the OP doesn't have the spare time available, and he/she isn't willing to dedicate almost all of it to fiddling about getting Linux working smoothly, it's not for him, and should probably just go with Windows.
I also thought I was clear I was referring to time and effort by saying, "If it's too much trouble, or some games you absolutely must play don't have Linux releases, then spring for Windows", but reading back I can see I really wasn't. My bad there!
Honestly, I think Linux is either for those who have time to sink experimenting with it, or need to learn it for whatever other reason. I submitted it as an option for the OP, if he/she felt spending however much time experimenting was worth saving however much Windows costs these days.
*Basically every popular and well-known steam game, including every AAA game.
hay but srs sam is 4 linux
In all seriousness though, I wouldn't personally consider SS3 a AAA game, and even if it is one, it is most certainly the exception.
I own 73 steam games and about 4 of them function on Linux. Starbound, Thomas and Forced was alone are the only two that function without problem. Serious Sam 3: BFE takes a massive performance hit on Linux due to driver quality compared to Windows.FTL lists support but does not function with FOSS drivers or proprietary.
As someone who either runs RHEL or Ubuntu on a daily basis don't bother. They have their places and none of them are home use for games. FreeBSD also has its uses as a firewall, just not something you should use.
This get's trotted out far too frequently. "It's free, so be happy" seems to conflict with the idea that Linux is some massive 'threat' to other desktop operating systems
Way to completely miss the point of that quote. He's saying "it's free, so you're not out $90 for at least trying it," not "it's free, so deal with it."
Given that from what I understand, OP is installing on a fresh system, this is true. If he doesn't like Linux, he can just wipe the drive and install Windows, nothing but a bit of time deciding the best fit for him lost. Unlike if he were installing on an existing system with a lot of time sunk in a Windows install where anything that was forgotten to be backed up is gone, and the money spent on the Windows license is gone if he decides to stick with Linux.
No harm in trying it out. At least if you can't afford a Windows license at the moment you still have a computer you can surf the web and play a handful of games on until you can.
I own 73 steam games and about 4 of them function on Linux. Starbound, Thomas and Forced was alone are the only two that function without problem. Serious Sam 3: BFE takes a massive performance hit on Linux due to driver quality compared to Windows.FTL lists support but does not function with FOSS drivers or proprietary.
As someone who either runs RHEL or Ubuntu on a daily basis don't bother. They have their places and none of them are home use for games. FreeBSD also has its uses as a firewall, just not something you should use.
A prime example of how someone's experience will be completely different to another's. Serious Sam 3: BFE, Minecraft, Starbound, and FTL all work perfectly fine for me on Linux. Minecraft and Serious Sam 3 even work more smoothly for me. This is using Nvidia's proprietary drivers, of course. I wouldn't at all expect FOSS graphics drivers for AMD/Nvidia cards to run games like that.
Don't get me started on getting AMD GPUs to play nicely on Linux.. I've never succeeded at that.
FTL lists support but does not function with FOSS drivers or proprietary.
To be fair, saying that as a generalisation is completely false. It may not on your system, which further highlights the problems people may face on Linux, though.
This is using Nvidia's proprietary drivers, of course. I wouldn't at all expect FOSS graphics drivers for AMD/Nvidia cards to run games like that.
Proprietary drivers seem to fracture the community. With the practical smart folks saying "I want the hardware to work" and using the proprietary drivers, and the other half threatening suicide because it's unethical, which would be a tragedy if they could be injured jumping from their parents basement window.
Don't get me started on getting AMD GPUs to play nicely on Linux.. I've never succeeded at that.
What I find ironic is that even though the AMD drivers are garbage, for some reason Linus decided to only tell Nvidia to go f**k themselves. That doesn't seem like the best way to garner more goodwill from a company, but i thought it was weird because it was really the best implementation.
To be fair, saying that as a generalisation is completely false. It may not on your system, which further highlights the problems people may face on Linux, though.
He didn't say it generally though, but I agree it would be false. It also seems to vary between distros as well as versions. Mint 7 couldn't use my laptops Wifi Adapter, but Mint 11 and later can.
Personally I think one of the biggest issues is the "paradox of choice" eg. we can "choose" betwee nsay Gnome, KDE, or any number of other desktops, but they are all basically trying to work towards the same goal, and all of them do things in a slightly different way. The issue is that this changes the "paradox of choice" into a nightmare of supported software for other programs. For example Desktop Drapes, which is a piece of OSS software designed for cycling through wallpapers much like how Windows can do by default in Vista and later. It doesn't work on Mint 12 (I believe that was the version) because they changed the desktop environment (Gnome 3) and Desktop Drapes doesn't work. it doesn't crash. It doesn't even tell you why it's failing. It just doesn't work. This annoys me. I ended up writing a script to do it myself.
I think that's sort of what it comes down to. Linux is OK if you have a lot of spare time to write your own programs and scripts to customize the OS.
But then again, you can do the same thing on Windows if you have the aptitude, too. In fact I have an easier time writing quick little scripts or programs to add functionality to Windows than for Linux; the Script in the linked blog post took probably a few days to come up with, because documentation on how to do many of the things I wanted to do (specifically, how to change the wallpaper for Gnome 3 via CLI) were sparsely documented. The Linux ecosystem, being Open Source, susbscribes more readily to the idea that a Program's Source code is it's documentation, which has it's positives and negatives. positive being the developers don't have to write documentation, negatives being there is no documentation.
Way to completely miss the point of that quote. He's saying "it's free, so you're not out $90 for at least trying it," not "it's free, so deal with it."
"You might also experience lots of hassle getting Linux to work well for you, but bear in mind that it is free"
Seems to me my interpretation is not as unreasonable as you are trying to say. Whether they intended the meaning that you are ascribing them, I don't know. Some of the rest of the paragraph does follow that concept.
Given that from what I understand, OP is installing on a fresh system, this is true. If he doesn't like Linux, he can just wipe the drive and install Windows, nothing but a bit of time deciding the best fit for him lost.
and an extra $90, given the consideration is to use the money otherwise used on Software towards hardware. If Linux doesn't work for them they need another $90. If it does, they've still spent the $90, they just spent it on something else.
No harm in trying it out. At least if you can't afford a Windows license at the moment you still have a computer you can surf the web and play a handful of games on until you can.
Except they can afford a Windows license, he just wants to use the money that he would put towards a Windows License towards the hardware. It's fundamentally just a case of trying to swap parts to save money, just in this case we are talking about software.
Ignoring the Linux thing for a moment, I think we ought to address the core problem with the Original Post:
Except they can afford a Windows license, he just wants to use the money that he would put towards a Windows License towards the hardware. It's fundamentally just a case of trying to swap parts to save money, just in this case we are talking about software.
Ignoring the Linux thing for a moment, I think we ought to address the core problem with the Original Post:
I would like to add, at OP's budget, the $90 otherwise spent on windows would not result in any noticeable performance difference if thrown into another area. Sure, you might get another half a year out of a graphics card, but that's about it.
Personally I think one of the biggest issues is the "paradox of choice" eg. we can "choose" betwee nsay Gnome, KDE, or any number of other desktops, but they are all basically trying to work towards the same goal, and all of them do things in a slightly different way. The issue is that this changes the "paradox of choice" into a nightmare of supported software for other programs.
But choice is what makes Linu- I mean GNU/Linux great! Screw the man! Thing is though, you're spot-on, bang-on correct. Except in the case of the FHS, which is followed precisely by every distro out there. Oh, no.. wait. It isn't. It just goes to highlight the point that even if there was a perfectly set, perfectly logical, incredibly well-made standard for libraries and drivers to follow that put failsafes in place for incompatible versions for instance, it just wouldn't work. Purely because Programmer B will read the standard invented by Programmer A, and thinks he'll implement it differently. Then you end up with Ubuntu using Programmer B's version because it's more "hip" or something, and you have Fedora going with Programmer A's version.
I do think Valve with SteamOS is at least taking a step in the right direction. I don't know if it'll work or not, but having a more centrally controlled distribution to target is always a good thing when it comes to getting things to work.
I think that's sort of what it comes down to. Linux is OK if you have a lot of spare time to write your own programs and scripts to customize the OS.
But then again, you can do the same thing on Windows if you have the aptitude, too. In fact I have an easier time writing quick little scripts or programs to add functionality to Windows than for Linux; the Script in the linked blog post took probably a few days to come up with, because documentation on how to do many of the things I wanted to do (specifically, how to change the wallpaper for Gnome 3 via CLI) were sparsely documented. The Linux ecosystem, being Open Source, susbscribes more readily to the idea that a Program's Source code is it's documentation, which has it's positives and negatives. positive being the developers don't have to write documentation, negatives being there is no documentation.
I'll fully admit to having next to no scripting experience aside from what was necessary in my old MCDST. Yeah, mapping a network drive is tough stuff. I don't really count that. I think the reason for that is I simply had no need to write anything for myself in Windows. In Linux? Hell, I've got 42 little Bash scripts in my own little /opt/Launchers directory to make running games and software less hassle. Some are only a few lines long, but I've never had to do such a thing in Windows. I personally don't mind that sometimes being necessary. Some might.
Speaking of source for documentation.. sure, that's fine. If you've got the ability and time to either trawl through the code and understand it, or the source is incredibly densely and well-commented, which I don't think I've ever seen out in the wild.
Now that we've finally moved to a more on-topic track..
budget gaming build
As much as I like Linux, and enjoy using it, and contrary to many recommendations (my own included, due to lack of paying attention on my part), Linux can royally suck for games on low budget machines. I know, I know, people praise Linux for its strengths on brining old and otherwise-useless computers back to life, and it can for some usage scenarios.
But a low-powered GPU and CPU.. I don't know. Nothing solid or evidence-based, but in my experience, there's a certain threshold with Linux below which gaming performance takes a nosedive. The most foolproof path is almost always going to be Windows for gaming. But OP, if you feel the inclination to try it out, then try it out. Could be all of the games you play work on Ubuntu for instance. In which case, great.
Oh, and just to briefly backtrack to the segmentation and choice part: X11 is finally going to be replaced, and we may all regain some sanity! No, wait.. Wayland and Mir.. yeah, way to go community. Split things up even more than it already is. That really helps you out!
Why? People have mentioned it and I want to know more about it.
You cannot play windows games on linux. This includes basically every steam game.
Some people will tell you to use WINE, but wine is pretty garbage for games and literally no games made in the past 8 years will run.
Ok thanks
I'm not sure if you're still looking for advice, but here's my small part.
TF2, Garry's Mod, and of course Minecraft do run on Linux. As does Steam, so have a look around http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/ you can see whether any games you want to play that you own on Steam are released for Linux. If they are, great. If not... yeah, you'll more than likely have big problems getting them to work, if they will at all.
You might also experience lots of hassle getting Linux to work well for you, but bear in mind that it is free, and you can lose nothing by at least installing it (following guides if needs be) and giving it a spin for a while. If it's too much trouble, or some games you absolutely must play don't have Linux releases, then spring for Windows.
This get's trotted out far too frequently. "It's free, so be happy" seems to conflict with the idea that Linux is some massive 'threat' to other desktop operating systems. I've dealt with (and even contributed to) Open Source projects for some time, and I've come to notice a pattern- which makes complete sense from both sides.
First, from the perspective of a contributor, the users of the product are not "customers"; after all, there is no money changing hands. So from that perspective, they are leeching vermin, "non-contributors". The result is that even the most well-meaning bug report can be taken personally. Far too frequently bug reporters are told to fix it themselves and issue a pull request, or depending on the software make it dead-simple for the issue to be reproduced (beyond reproduction steps, things like actually making a VM image).
This makes complete sense. I contribute to OSS projects and I don't get paid for it, and I've found the users of that software to be more demanding and self-righteous about how they think the software should work than any of the users of my company's software- who pay tens of thousands in support contracts but are completely happy to use the software as is, voicing their concerns but not being either self-righteous or indignant. As an example, in order for our customers to be truly ed off at us we would need to seriously bungle up their databases, which simply doesn't happen. In order for a user of an Open Source product to be ed off, just use a Gendered Pronoun in the documentation and watch the drama unfold.
It's interesting to consider. the user of OSS expects the OSS developer(s) to be professional; the OSS developer(s), in contrast, find the idea laughable by definition, since "professional" quite literally means that they are doing it as their main occupation rather than as a hobby or pastime, and the thing is that OSS is by definition never going to be "professional" since the entire idea is that the Developers don't get paid for their work, at least not up front. That's the exact reason why all the biggest and most popular Open Source Projects (Apache, Firefox, Ubuntu, RHEL, etc) all have large companies or foundations behind them that accept donations and turn it into professional output by paying developers to contribute. Ubuntu wouldn't be even close to as popular as it is if it wasn't backed by Canonical, which is both good and bad since there are equally competent distributions available.
The big issue when it comes to Linux is that so many think they are making some strong political or even ethical statement about Software. Richard Stallman believes it is "unethical" to charge for software products. This is the same man who has a rather long list of demands about when and where he will speak. He also effectively insists people call Linux GNU/Linux, and that GNU be pronounced a certain way- with a hard G- ""GNU" is pronounced as one syllable with a hard g, like "grew" but with n instead of r.
This isn't a problem with Linux itself, but the fact is that Richard and his ridiculous, skin-eating ways are going to be inexhorably tied to most Open Source stuff for a very long time. In a way he's poisoning the well from inside by insisting that all Open Source be dealt with and work a specific way, and calling anything that doesn't follow his strict set of rules "unethical". Stem on Linux? Unethical. His entire drive is comprised of propaganda, skewing facts about proprietary operating systems and their companies in such a way to drive his point home by being purposely disingenuous. If he has a point to be made, you would think that he could use facts and present them as -is without his cheeto-filled, bearded concepts somehow colouring his every sentence. The way he speaks about it, you'd think that all proprietary software companies do business by molesting children. But of course that's not a fair comparison, since if that was true, Richard would be all for it- he has publically issued his support for pedophiles, so I think maybe his moral fabric is more like a moral cheesecloth.
Because I want to be as disassociated as possible from this insane individual,(as should anybody not equally insane) tend to purposely avoid GNU software where I can. Thankfully, it's pretty easy- I can just choose the better alternative, rather than buy into some political BS about how the license a piece of software is more important than the actual capability of that software to do what I need it to do. Even with Linux it's pretty easy to swap out the GNU coreutils with the more capable BSD licensed equivalents, which also has the advantage of being more secure thanks to extensive security audits.
Time is something. For many it is valuable. And if somebody doesn't think their time is valuable it's because they have Self-worth issues.
It will also run Web browsers, the most popular is Chrome/Chromium and Firefox.
As for a video maybe YouTube, but alarm bells are ringing at that thought, Just becareful Windows is defindently more well-designed. It could pain you to spend the 90 bucks? Try OEM copies and several shops that do computers.
They will surely have windows of some sort.
This is a legacy account, meaning it is no longer active
K95 RGB / Logitech G502 PS / Alienware AW3418DW / ViewSonic XG2703-GS / Sennheiser HD 598
I really only see a handful of games there that I've ever heard of, and I'm pretty into the indie scene.
But we do not know if those are exclusively the games he is playing, now do we?
I have a feeling the people telling him to go for linux are being purposefully misleading, and OP has no idea what he is getting into.
There's also the issue, that I would say virtually anyone who has used Linux has faced:
Absolutely. And if the OP doesn't have the spare time available, and he/she isn't willing to dedicate almost all of it to fiddling about getting Linux working smoothly, it's not for him, and should probably just go with Windows.
I also thought I was clear I was referring to time and effort by saying, "If it's too much trouble, or some games you absolutely must play don't have Linux releases, then spring for Windows", but reading back I can see I really wasn't. My bad there!
Honestly, I think Linux is either for those who have time to sink experimenting with it, or need to learn it for whatever other reason. I submitted it as an option for the OP, if he/she felt spending however much time experimenting was worth saving however much Windows costs these days.
hay but srs sam is 4 linux
In all seriousness though, I wouldn't personally consider SS3 a AAA game, and even if it is one, it is most certainly the exception.
On that agree I screwed up, and should have been a little more forthcoming as to the potential problems in my post.
As someone who either runs RHEL or Ubuntu on a daily basis don't bother. They have their places and none of them are home use for games. FreeBSD also has its uses as a firewall, just not something you should use.
Way to completely miss the point of that quote. He's saying "it's free, so you're not out $90 for at least trying it," not "it's free, so deal with it."
Given that from what I understand, OP is installing on a fresh system, this is true. If he doesn't like Linux, he can just wipe the drive and install Windows, nothing but a bit of time deciding the best fit for him lost. Unlike if he were installing on an existing system with a lot of time sunk in a Windows install where anything that was forgotten to be backed up is gone, and the money spent on the Windows license is gone if he decides to stick with Linux.
No harm in trying it out. At least if you can't afford a Windows license at the moment you still have a computer you can surf the web and play a handful of games on until you can.
A prime example of how someone's experience will be completely different to another's. Serious Sam 3: BFE, Minecraft, Starbound, and FTL all work perfectly fine for me on Linux. Minecraft and Serious Sam 3 even work more smoothly for me. This is using Nvidia's proprietary drivers, of course. I wouldn't at all expect FOSS graphics drivers for AMD/Nvidia cards to run games like that.
Don't get me started on getting AMD GPUs to play nicely on Linux.. I've never succeeded at that.
To be fair, saying that as a generalisation is completely false. It may not on your system, which further highlights the problems people may face on Linux, though.
Proprietary drivers seem to fracture the community. With the practical smart folks saying "I want the hardware to work" and using the proprietary drivers, and the other half threatening suicide because it's unethical, which would be a tragedy if they could be injured jumping from their parents basement window.
What I find ironic is that even though the AMD drivers are garbage, for some reason Linus decided to only tell Nvidia to go f**k themselves. That doesn't seem like the best way to garner more goodwill from a company, but i thought it was weird because it was really the best implementation.
He didn't say it generally though, but I agree it would be false. It also seems to vary between distros as well as versions. Mint 7 couldn't use my laptops Wifi Adapter, but Mint 11 and later can.
Personally I think one of the biggest issues is the "paradox of choice" eg. we can "choose" betwee nsay Gnome, KDE, or any number of other desktops, but they are all basically trying to work towards the same goal, and all of them do things in a slightly different way. The issue is that this changes the "paradox of choice" into a nightmare of supported software for other programs. For example Desktop Drapes, which is a piece of OSS software designed for cycling through wallpapers much like how Windows can do by default in Vista and later. It doesn't work on Mint 12 (I believe that was the version) because they changed the desktop environment (Gnome 3) and Desktop Drapes doesn't work. it doesn't crash. It doesn't even tell you why it's failing. It just doesn't work. This annoys me. I ended up writing a script to do it myself.
I think that's sort of what it comes down to. Linux is OK if you have a lot of spare time to write your own programs and scripts to customize the OS.
But then again, you can do the same thing on Windows if you have the aptitude, too. In fact I have an easier time writing quick little scripts or programs to add functionality to Windows than for Linux; the Script in the linked blog post took probably a few days to come up with, because documentation on how to do many of the things I wanted to do (specifically, how to change the wallpaper for Gnome 3 via CLI) were sparsely documented. The Linux ecosystem, being Open Source, susbscribes more readily to the idea that a Program's Source code is it's documentation, which has it's positives and negatives. positive being the developers don't have to write documentation, negatives being there is no documentation.
"You might also experience lots of hassle getting Linux to work well for you, but bear in mind that it is free"
Seems to me my interpretation is not as unreasonable as you are trying to say. Whether they intended the meaning that you are ascribing them, I don't know. Some of the rest of the paragraph does follow that concept.
and an extra $90, given the consideration is to use the money otherwise used on Software towards hardware. If Linux doesn't work for them they need another $90. If it does, they've still spent the $90, they just spent it on something else.
Except they can afford a Windows license, he just wants to use the money that he would put towards a Windows License towards the hardware. It's fundamentally just a case of trying to swap parts to save money, just in this case we are talking about software.
Ignoring the Linux thing for a moment, I think we ought to address the core problem with the Original Post:
But choice is what makes Linu- I mean GNU/Linux great! Screw the man! Thing is though, you're spot-on, bang-on correct. Except in the case of the FHS, which is followed precisely by every distro out there. Oh, no.. wait. It isn't. It just goes to highlight the point that even if there was a perfectly set, perfectly logical, incredibly well-made standard for libraries and drivers to follow that put failsafes in place for incompatible versions for instance, it just wouldn't work. Purely because Programmer B will read the standard invented by Programmer A, and thinks he'll implement it differently. Then you end up with Ubuntu using Programmer B's version because it's more "hip" or something, and you have Fedora going with Programmer A's version.
I do think Valve with SteamOS is at least taking a step in the right direction. I don't know if it'll work or not, but having a more centrally controlled distribution to target is always a good thing when it comes to getting things to work.
I'll fully admit to having next to no scripting experience aside from what was necessary in my old MCDST. Yeah, mapping a network drive is tough stuff. I don't really count that. I think the reason for that is I simply had no need to write anything for myself in Windows. In Linux? Hell, I've got 42 little Bash scripts in my own little /opt/Launchers directory to make running games and software less hassle. Some are only a few lines long, but I've never had to do such a thing in Windows. I personally don't mind that sometimes being necessary. Some might.
Speaking of source for documentation.. sure, that's fine. If you've got the ability and time to either trawl through the code and understand it, or the source is incredibly densely and well-commented, which I don't think I've ever seen out in the wild.
Now that we've finally moved to a more on-topic track..
As much as I like Linux, and enjoy using it, and contrary to many recommendations (my own included, due to lack of paying attention on my part), Linux can royally suck for games on low budget machines. I know, I know, people praise Linux for its strengths on brining old and otherwise-useless computers back to life, and it can for some usage scenarios.
But a low-powered GPU and CPU.. I don't know. Nothing solid or evidence-based, but in my experience, there's a certain threshold with Linux below which gaming performance takes a nosedive. The most foolproof path is almost always going to be Windows for gaming. But OP, if you feel the inclination to try it out, then try it out. Could be all of the games you play work on Ubuntu for instance. In which case, great.
Oh, and just to briefly backtrack to the segmentation and choice part: X11 is finally going to be replaced, and we may all regain some sanity! No, wait.. Wayland and Mir.. yeah, way to go community. Split things up even more than it already is. That really helps you out!