Gamers – steam

[Forum Admin anticapitalista]

antiX is predominantly a distro for old boxes.
However, it also runs well on the latest and greatest.
I’m not a gamer (apart from supertuxkart and torcs), so those of you that are, how well does antiX fare?
Particularly in relation to games via steam. (or how about playonlinux?)
Is steam easy to install on antiX?
Does it work (well)?
How can we improve the gaming experience for those that want it on antiX?
Thanks

• This topic was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by anticapitalista.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - leaner and meaner.

[Forum Admin Dave]

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Steam installed and runs no problem for me. Though I have yet to run a game in it… The tux games also seem to work just fine. (supertux, supertuxkart, extremetuxracer). Minecraft also appears to run well. Playonlinux seems to install and run as well though I do not use it to run games. I am by no means heavy into gaming so my run well could be terrible performance from a “gamer” perspective but they do install without issue and are usable from my perspective.

Computers are like air conditioners. They work fine until you start opening Windows. ~Author Unknown

[Member number698]

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installed retropie (RetroPie allows you to turn your Raspberry Pi or PC into a retro-gaming machine) following the instructions for a Debian based distro

https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Debian

which appeared to be successful, but when starting setup – message said unsupported OS.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by number698.

[Moderator caprea]

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Did you try to make the changes under “SteamOS hack to allow installation” ?
__os_debian_ver=”9″ for stretch maybe

Dont copy and paste it from here, because quotation marks are malformed through forum-software

[Member number698]

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neglected to make that change, thanks caprea.

setup then continued to the ‘basic install’, I selected this and it began installing further, but then seemed to get caught in a loop ?
kept it running for 10 mins, whilst all that time my cpu was at 100%. So I assumed something was wrong and had to reboot.

[Moderator christophe]

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No Steam for me, but:

Dosbox runs everything wonderfully – doom, quake, any others without a problem.

Wine runs small old games for me with no problems.

Pcsxr is fast. Runs well EXCEPT the gamepad (generic, ps-1 usb clone) moves the mouse while I’m playing (the only hiccup). Fullscreen works best, since I can use the mouse to click on the screen, and the behavior seems to go away. In windowed mode, I see the mouse cursor moving around (not too obtrusive) but sometimes the root menu gets activated through random gamepad presses and interferes with the game window. This is even with the “hide mouse cursor” box checked in the pcsxr controller settings.

Virtualbox w/ WinXP games from win9x-era run excellently.

All these run equally well on the old 32-bit netbook w/ 1 GB RAM as well as on more modern hardware.

Hope that might be useful…

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Moderator BobC]

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Christophe, Does that mean that if I install Virtualbox and then somehow find a way to get Win/XP to load, that I could take a Win/95 game like Star Wars Episode 1 and run it?

I worry about getting XP to load because all my copies came with machines, so I think they only are willing to load on that machine, if you know how to solve that, please say because I have 3 of those machines that don’t run XP anymore.

Thanks…

[Anonymous]

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I worry about getting XP to load

off-topic, but I can’t resist mentioning that I have a similar quandry point of wonderment(?)

I had exported a longstanding, chockful o’ apps, XP Pro SP2 system to .VHD via the sysintinternals disk2vhd utility.
It successfully boots in VirtualBox, but only to the extent that it presents an XP screen demanding entry of a license key.
That’s understandable, it senses the “different hardware”. I wouldn’t even mind re-purchasing a license (via ebay?)… but I haven’t pursued the prospect, due to expecting it would lead to a dead-end ala “this (new) serial isn’t suitable for your [full retail] version of winXPpro” or “the license for this fullretail winXPpro is non-transferrable” or whatever.

Zero chance I’d ever attempt reinstalling all those programs. The prospect of revisiting that time capsule sits as a rainy-day project…

[Moderator christophe]

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I too was afraid of that, from my bought-pre-installed discs. Also afraid to hit a brick wall at the registration phase if I used my old XP retail discs (like “unsupported – sorry – purchase Win10”, or something). So I found something on the Puppy linux forum (which I was using at the time), which let me to a post on another site.

Read this short forum post; scroll down to the entry by Mike_Walsh (page 1, about two-thirds way down).
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/627328/where-do-i-download-windows-xp-sp3-in-iso/

I have used this alternate for around a year with no problems. It works just like any of my previous XP installs on “bare metal.” I disabled the network on the VM once set up, because it’s just for solo gaming (and to make sure it’s safe from outside influences…).

You guys let me know how it goes, whether you try this or something else. 🙂

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by christophe. Reason: clarification of meaning

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Moderator christophe]

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In case my last reply was a bit too cryptic:

Yes. Virtualbox runs Windows XP & games from Win9x-era very well on antiX. The key, in my experience, is to use a CD/install image that does not require a registration code. That’s what the post above is about. All my games work like expected/hoped. If the specific game doesn’t run right initially, use the “compatibility mode” check box (right-click on the shortcut -> properties) & choose the previous Windows version you think will work. (You know, just like back in the old win-days… )

Regarding newer games, the only stipulation is the cpu: my old 32-bit doesn’t cut it, but the newer laptop runs that great, too.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Anonymous]

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Thanks, christophe, for sharing the link to Mike_Walsh tips+download post.

IIRC, the sticking point for the the VHD containing the kids’ archived xp “games” system was this:
its licence was SP2 (original install media is onhand) but the system had been upgraded, in place, to SP3.

[Moderator christophe]

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skidoo, I’ve read of doing a “repair install” with Win XP CD. It looks like it would work in Virtualbox with the VHD. I’ve never done one, but it looks like it just might work…

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/256341-32-move-comp-stil-programs

Options to try: with the original CD, & then with the new image if that fails?

Again, maybe a project for a rainy day…

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Moderator christophe]

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Regarding my issue with the mouse cursor moving with the gamepad: I found a way to solve it.

Edit or create the file /etc/X11/51-joystick.conf as follows:

Section “InputClass”
Identifier “joystick catchall”
MatchIsJoystick “on”
MatchDevicePath “/dev/input/event*”
Driver “joystick”
Option “StartKeysEnabled” “False”
#Disable mouse
Option “StartMouseEnabled” “False”
#support
EndSection

A reboot was needed, but it worked in antiX 17.3.1 like a champ!

(credit: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gamepad#Disable_joystick_from_controlling_mouse )

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Anonymous]

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Either you’re serious about gaming or you’re still using Linux. 😉

If you are a real masochist, you’d install 64 bit Linux.
Next you would install Wine, both, 64 and 32 bit.
Then you would add PlayOnLinux atop of it.

The reason is simple: POL without Wine install will throw you ‘1001 error’.

Wine without POL is virtually useless. It’ll install everything once and only once, which is to be avoided by all means.
Upon installing Wine, you’ll have only one ‘wine prefix’ (== ‘bottle’) in Wine — which is what you don’t want.
Having only one version of Wine is also sub optimal — newer version doesn’t mean ‘it’ll run better’.

POL can manage multiple bottles very well — one can install different versions of Wine in every bottle and same so, all necessary dependencies for the games or applications.
Having 5 bottles, you can have 5 times same Internet Explorer, 5 times same fonts, 5 times same libraries … This needs 5 times as much space, but it has one huge advantage.
Removing something becomes a simple ‘throw the bottle’ and it doesn’t affect other bottles. Removing one Game from Wine (or ~prefix) can sometimes kill all of the others.

After having Wine + Winetricks & POL up and running, you would install Steam for Linux itself.
Then you would go into the Steam settings and activate the Proton.
It’s disguised Wine.

Many games run fine, many more are bugged and even many more are completely useless (from the ‘officially’ supported ones).
The unsupported ones … well, the name said it all. 😉

If you are serious about playing, you’ll stop ‘playing’ to start playing. 😉

However, I really appreciate the hard work of all involved developers and wish them luck and success.
It would be really nice to see, the fall of the last Windows bastion, but time has not yet come. Pity!

[Moderator caprea]

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anticapitalista wrote:

Is steam easy to install on antiX?

Yes.
Because I’ve seen some members still think it’s somehow tricky, here’s a quick How To

Go to the control-centre –>system—->package installation
Look under games
Click on steam
Click on install

That’s it.
The packageinstaller will handle and install everything that is needed for you.
Perfectly easy.

Steam runs nicely and fast under antiX.

Proton support:
With the appropriate hardware,that always depends on the game, Proton runs nicely, too.
https://www.protondb.com/

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