Pondering a switch from Windows to Ubuntu Mate

Support & Help Requests
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Hello, this is my first post here.
I came across Ubuntu Mate last night while looking for other Ubuntu flavors and much to my surprise it was exactly what I was looking for.

First of all, let me start by saying that I am on a high-end PC:

  • Intel Core i7 4770 3.4GHz
  • 16GB ram
  • Nvidia GTX 980

I am looking to make a permanent switch from Windows 10 to Linux. But I have many concerns that I’d like to hear your opinion about. I am a web developer, frontend and backend, I use PHP and MySQL so to me setting up a webserver and the entire web-dev environment is a lot easier in Ubuntu than in Windows. So to me that is totally covered and it’s the main reason why I’m switching OS.

But on the other hand, I’m also a photographer and a gamer so I’m gonna need to use Photoshop to edit my photos or create some quick graphics for a website I’m working on. Fireworks is a must too as many clients send me their designs in Fireworks or InDesign.

I am also a gamer, I enjoy playing Skyrim (with mods) a lot on my free time, I also like to try out new games whenever they’re released, like The Witcher 3 or GTA 5. So I need something that can do all that.

I didn’t want to use LinuxMint, I have used it before exclusively for 4 months on my laptop, it was great but ultimately it wasn’t what I wanted. Cinnamon just wasn’t for me.

And I don’t want to use normal Ubuntu because I hate Unity, don’t ask me why, and I have concerns over Amazon tracking. I know that you can switch it off but still, it just doesn’t sit well with me.

Ubuntu Mate looks like the perfect solution, it uses GNOME 2 which is perfect and has the backbone of Ubuntu which is awesome and doesn’t come with any Amazon integration! (please correct me if I’m wrong on Amazon integration)

  1. Do you think I’ll be able to do all that using Wine & Crossover? (Don’t mind paying $60 if it delivers)
  2. I also hear that Steam works on Ubuntu, are all games in the steam library functional on Ubuntu?
  3. Do you think I should keep a Windows 10 partition along side Ubuntu Mate just to play games or will Steam and PlayonLinux do the job just fine?
  4. What about connecting a TV through HDMI, last time I tried that on Linuxmint it didn’t work well. Will I have any problems if I tried to watch things on my TV through HDMI?
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Why not keep the windows 10 partition and dualboot until you know everything works or you found native applications that work for you.

I actually dualboot as I need windows for work. I added another drive and installed UM on that.

1 Like
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I just thought some of you have already went through this process and would care to shed some light.

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Hey @Halnex, welcome to the community. As far as games go, just check Steam and see if the games you want are available on SteamOS/Linux… it’s really the best gauge.

You may get the Adobe stuff working in wine… or you can just run a VM for the couple apps you need. I use windows for work and just do everything from virtualbox without needing a separate partition.

Goos Luck either way.

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When I first started using Ubuntu 11.04 (the last of GNOME 2) in 2011, I dual booted with both worlds for over a year due to a problem with the wireless adapter in Ubuntu 11.10. It was fixed in 12.10 thankfully, and there was no reason to keep Windows any more after that. :smile:

Based on your questions, I’ll share a bit of my experience to help you make a choice.

#1 Adobe and Wine

Photoshop, Fireworks and other Adobe software designed for Windows may work under Wine with a bit of tinkering, as most versions are reported to work, but there may be visual glitches or quirks… I don’t use them, so I can’t be sure.

If I need to open a PSD… GIMP imports them just fine, not vice versa though.

If you would sooner not have to dual boot Windows, you could install the Adobe software in a Virtual Machine. VirtualBox would be sufficient. VMWare Player I believe has better graphics acceleration – it’s license is for personal use only though. (I can’t seem to find a link on their site? :confused:)

I previously used a trial of Photoshop in VirtualBox (for a course) and it did the job. It felt a bit sluggish though, possibly due to lacking decent hardware acceleration for graphics.

#2-3: Gaming

@parzzix’s advice is spot on to check out which SteamOS/Linux games are natively available. Inevitably, there will be games that are still Windows-only, so Wine’s an always-improving option. For me, I only buy/play Steam games that support Linux natively, but I also have a Steam Wine prefix for 5 SEGA games I sometimes play now and then.

  • I have a GTX 960, so your card is likely to deliver better performance. :wink:
  • Only 1 of the 5 installed is unplayable – V-Sync issue, probably due to how the developer ported it, since it plays ridiculously fast (600+ fps?!!)… Being a rhythm game, that’s the only one I have scarified. :frowning:
  • 2 of them are ports of “older” games. They play at 60 fps like they would on Windows, no problems!
  • One is fairly modern, certainly not a buttery smooth 60 fps as on Windows, but it’s playable at I presume ~25-40 fps.
  • The last one is quite jittery, it’s playable, but not quite as enjoyable at a fluctuating ~15-20 fps. :thumbsdown:

I can only dream SEGA will port them to Linux/SteamOS one day :thought_balloon: – A Steamcast would be cool. :blush:

All of the aforementioned games are single player, so I can’t comment if such lag would be a problem for multiplayer games running under Wine. Frame rates can be tracked using the +fps flag in Wine.

Believe it or not, I have the most tiniest 34 GB partition for The Sims 2 under Windows. I hardly boot into it (I’ve hidden the boot options, so I forget it’s existance :stuck_out_tongue: ) I distaste the thought of having to reboot if I wanted to play an old classic! Wine is missing software shaders… until that’s implemented, Wine is no good for that game.

Overall, I’d say it really depends on the game and the developer. GTA 5 has no chance of working, but similar to my experience, Skyrim may run slower or even have the occasional crash than it would running under Windows natively. Wine is getting stronger, but if you’re a serious gamer, then you’d be best to keep a small partition for Windows for those Windows-only games… That’s just for now. That might change one day. :wink:

You can always give it a try though. Be sure to install the latest Wine for Ubuntu as well as the latest NVIDIA drivers. The Ubuntu team just recently announced a new PPA containing the latest ones then those provided via Software & Updates – that works without a problem on Ubuntu MATE 15.04. :thumbsup:

#4: HDMI

My monitor is connected via HDMI, sound also works (I use dedicated speakers though). If you’re referring to multiple monitors, that should work without much problems. I would recommend NVIDIA’s driver, since it has better support for the hardware and of course, 3D Acceleration. Not too sure what could’ve gone wrong on Linux Mint.

Good luck pondering that switch. Ubuntu is like grass and fields, it will only continue to bloom and get better. :wink: :sunflower:

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Thank you guys for your insight.

I have decided to wait a bit and buy a 128GB SSD to host UM on it.
Last night I tried partitioning my SSD for UM but it all went haywire after I’ve used unetbootin to install UM with no cd or usb. The system crashed and both hard drives went offline.
I had to connect them to a laptop and format both drives, installed Windows 8.1 again and now I’m in the process of recovering whatever can be recoverable from my 2TB HDD.