Steve Searle wrote:
Around 01:58am on Sunday, April 22, 2007 (UK time), Norm scrawled:
My sister is in the process of buying a new computer for her 15 year old
son. She would prefer to follow my advice and use a Linux operating
system, the catch is there does not seem to be many games for Linux that
would hold a typical 15 year olds attention. The option of an emulator
such as wine is out as the games I have tried to install under wine
require additional setup or work that neither my sister nor my nephew
wish to learn. The option to do the work for her is out as she lives a
days drive away from me, and frankly driving a day to install some game
even if I do have opportunity to visit with my sister is just not worth
the effort very often. Is there a source of a selection of games
available for Linux? The tetrex/ solitaire style games just don't have
the type of action a kid expects.
I'll no doubt attract the odd flame, but to be honest in these
circumstances I think he would be better with a MS Windows PC. The
games that his peers will be playing, and that he will probably want to
play are just not available for GNU/Linux.
You can always set the PC up as a duel boot PC, and encourage him to use
GNU/Linux for other activities. I did that for my son's - the elder now
in his early 20s uses GNU/Linux for development, etc., and my 10 year
old likes to use it for web browsing and "messing about on", but both
revert to MS Windows for most games (as do I).
Steve
As much as it hurts to admit it the reality is one seems to need access
to a windoze box from time time, purest can argue no but the reality is
one is needed.
I have toyed with the idea of sort of a dual boot. The sort of part is
to use a usb boot with M$ installed, don't know if the performance will
take too much of a hit but the extra hassel of pluging in the second
hard drive should keep him on the linux system more often. Has anyone
tried this method, is the performance fast enough provide the computer
itself is up to the job?
Also thanks Frank for the link to some linux games, as unimportant as
games really are the reality is there availability is an important
factor for many when buying a computer.
