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Hey, hope everyone is doing well.

Im trying to learn Linux and so far in this research of the FOSS scenario I learned many things that the Windows environment won't teach the common user.

GOG users tend to value freedom (The basis of FOSS) in a way many places in the internet doesn't anymore, so I'd like to make some questions for users more experienced than me, which honest opinion I value in the 'Freedom' topic. So feel free to answer the way you think would help someone learning, whether it is me or any other future user reading through this.

• What Linux distro you use the most and why?

• If you use Linux alongside Windows or other OSs, do you use Virtual Boxes or Dual Boot? Why?

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of using two OSs in the same PC?

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of using ONLY Linux (any distro / comparison of distros, if you want to explain)?

• Does WINE really works well with Windows exclusive games?

• Is it true that Linux have compatibility issues with some hardware (GPU, specially)? What's your experience with this?

(edit - full WSL name) • Windows Subsystem for Linux 1 and 2, are they really usefull for learning Linux in a Windows environment? Do they really have compatibility issues with some more advanced Linux commands?

As I said before, feel free to answer and give your honest opinion.
Thank you for your time.
Post edited September 10, 2021 by .Keys
low rated
- manjaro , not good very unstable, i want to reinstall with something soon
- it is on an older ssd
- it can crap itself anytime at least manjaro and then you have to figure out how to cure it, it cant run many popular games and apps while win can
- wine well it should be able to run older games , ive tried mortal online 2 yesterday and it had graphical bugs...
so even if it runs many games have extra bugs
- read it doesnt like some hardware , havent experienced this thou, probably cause my stuff is not so old or not supernew
and nvidia drivers are not that good for linux
- yes wsl2 is very good , it is like you have a linux terminal built in if you need grahics or service runner you need to manually ad those in thou

imho linux offer nothing what you cant do on windows, if you are fine with win imho just stich with it
FOSS is way overhyped, win from my experience has more free stuff for everything you want to do(and they usually more complex than linux apps), and if you really need high end stuff there are plenty of paid apps
Post edited September 10, 2021 by Orkhepaj
high rated
Some of these may be tricky to answer as a lot of it is down to personal preference, and Distro doesn't mean that much in the long wrong as it all comes down to what software/apps you want pre-installed.

Many suggest Linux Mint, Zorin OS, and Solus as good starting points.

WINE is constantly being worked on and upgraded so even if a program doesn't work right now it can possibly work in the future, right now the only major hurdle is games using certain anti-cheat software. Overall depending on the game you may lose a few frames however I have run games through WINE that have had better performance than on Windows on the same hardware though this may be down to how the WINE build is

Hardware compatibility has never been an issue myself, though some features of newer hardware may take a little bit before being fully utilized in Linux.

The main advantage to using Linux is freedom and control, you have full say in what you want and don't want on your system, you can even get a vanilla version of Debian or Arch Linux and build it up yourself with whatever software you want and you are never forced into an update or upgrade.

I'd say the big hurdle to get into Linux is just adjusting to the different ways some commands are and adjusting to using the Terminal, many people these days do prefer using a GUI but the Linux Terminal is worth learning as you can do pretty much everything from the command prompt. It is possible to do everything from the GUI however.


I would also take what Orkhepaj says with a grain of salt as they are a notorious troll in Linux threads.
Post edited September 10, 2021 by wolfsite
As of the moment, between Mint and Slax. Mint is easy to use, Slax is modular and compressed bundles making programs you rarely use not only not take up much space but can be plugged in or removed without a long installation process.

I did VM's before, but running on hardware, old laptop and a HP chromebook that i replaced the OS. Not the best for gaming but great for a lot of simple things.

Advantages/disadvantages. Well if you're using VirtualBox and the plugins, you can be running native linux and windows programs side by side, the window border being the hint which system it's using (based on how XWindows works and the like). But other than that, i prefer the linux programming environment, not nearly as bloated as Microsoft's VS software.

Yes WINE will work with windows exclusive games. WINE is WINE Is Not an Emulator. It basically is an intermediate step that converts calls from one OS to another. Now will it run ALL games? No. But the API has been getting better for years. A lot of programs may work, and a lot of games may work. Depends on what you really need.

Though i suggest you get familiar with the bash shell/terminal window. Understanding and using commands in the CLI is key to using Linux properly. Though you can do without maybe, certain things are quite hard without the CLI especially if you're doing it manually. Like mounting a loopback device to take an ISO and mount it to read the contents...
low rated
oh and keep in mind most of what they tell u are lies , there are way too many fanatics pushing linux nonstop
just look how they cant handle the truth and dvote :P

and install zsh shell with addons to make terminal easy to use
Post edited September 10, 2021 by Orkhepaj
• What Linux distro you use the most and why?
Nixos, fire and forget system - hardly any issues when upgrading or updating, but very steep learning curve.
Pick a project on distrowatch, which is sufficiantly large, with large community, that corresponds to your needs. Initially, you may want to get software running, testing things, later you may have specific needs and can look into specific distros.

• If you use Linux alongside Windows or other OSs, do you use Virtual Boxes or Dual Boot? Why?
Dedicated hard drives. Reduces the overheads. Unless you want to learn three things at same time: Linux, Windows and making them run together.

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of using two OSs in the same PC?
More pain and more gain.

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of using ONLY Linux (any distro / comparison of distros, if you want to explain)?
If hardware works, then there maybe less hardware settings, but software just runs. How it runs depends on distro. If you stick to stable projects, then you will get a boring system. If you pick cutting edge, you get to taste your blood. Some systems allow mixing.

• Does WINE really works well with Windows exclusive games?
Wine IS for running windows-exclusive software. You can see specific game on wine appdb.

• Is it true that Linux have compatibility issues with some hardware (GPU, specially)? What's your experience with this?
None with GPU, unless you run SLI and notebooks with two cards. I've been using AMD gpus since ~2014, since ~2016 its supersmooth.

(edit - full WSL name) • Windows Subsystem for Linux 1 and 2, are they really usefull for learning Linux in a Windows environment? Do they really have compatibility issues with some more advanced Linux commands?
Server mumbo-jumbo. If you want to get dirty with Linux stack, I suggest to dive into Linux From Scratch project in VM.
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.Keys: • What Linux distro you use the most and why?
debian. Thing with debian is that, if you stick to stable, you don't need to worry about things suddenly changing with updates until the new stable version comes out and you upgrade to it (this happens roughly every 2 years, and the old stable version still gets about a year or so of further support; worth noting the a new stable version just came out).

If you would rather get newer software closer to when it releases, you could try Fedora, or even Arch (though installing Arch is somewhat advanced, so you might want to try it in a virtual machine first). There's also Gentoo, but be aware that it can take a while for software to install (because it has to compile; a fast CPU with lots of cores and plenty of RAM will help here), and I recommend learning what systemd is before you try to install Gentoo.
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.Keys: • Does WINE really works well with Windows exclusive games?
These days, WINE actually works rather well. You might need some winetricks for some games, and there's issues like videos not playing, but otherwise WINE is actually really good at this point.

One catch is that any games requiring kernel level stuff (like some DRM schemes and anti-cheat, things that you wouldn't find on GOG but might on other stores) might fail to work (though, interestingly, some commercial interests are trying to find ways to get anti-cheat to work).
Post edited September 10, 2021 by dtgreene
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.Keys: • What Linux distro you use the most and why?
Linux Mint, because I got annoyed by something that Canonical did with Ubuntu in the past, but didn't want to part too far away from Ubuntu as it seems possibly the most suitable desktop Linux OS for a gamer (because of official Steam support etc.). It actually seems Mint is even more geared to desktop gamers than Ubuntu, as Canonical is trying to make Ubuntu also more "touch tablet friendly" with big icons etc., and also catering for server use so Ubuntu always comes by default with all kinds of cloud-integration shit that only annoys home desktop users and gamers. cloud-init this, cloud-init that...

Mint is primarily for desktop users, and that's it, and I like that. Mint developers seem very pragmatic to me, not trying to push me to some of their preferred technology (like Canonical pushes snapd with Ubuntu), but trying to do the right and the most sane thing with their decisions.

So Mint, to me, is Ubuntu without all the annoying Ubuntu stuff, and wrong decisions made by Canonical (for Ubuntu). Mint has reverted some of the questionable decisions made by Ubuntu, e.g. how the Chromium browser was delivered in Ubuntu.

https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/2492

The makers of Ubuntu, Canonical, are more and more starting to look like "Microsoft of Linux", with some similar practices, so I rather distance myself a bit from them. Then again IBM (Red Hat) doesn't look much better, with how they killed off CentOS 8 etc.

Almost all Ubuntu tips and tricks online apply also to Mint, so it is easy to find information for it online. The same .dep installers work etc. The last thing I remember being different was e.g. release upgrade, which is a totally whole different process in Mint than in Ubuntu, but that kinda makes sense because they still are two different distros, even if Mint is based on Ubuntu...

I use the XFCE desktop environment with Mint as it seems to do everything I want from a desktop environment, and is a relatively low-resource option. Why use a heavier DE that takes more resources for no good reason, other than maybe more eye candy etc.? At least I didn't see any advantage in using a heavier desktop environment like Cinnamon or MATE or KDE or whatever over XFCE when I tried them, so XFCE it is.
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.Keys: • If you use Linux alongside Windows or other OSs, do you use Virtual Boxes or Dual Boot? Why?
Both, on different PCs.

On my (main) home gaming PC, I dual-boot Windows 7 and Linux Mint. Windows 7 is there mainly for some (older) Windows games that may have issues running on Windows 10 on my other PC, and/or Linux. Most of the time I use Linux on that PC, especially when going online (I am going to put the Windows 7 partition offline soon anyway, with no internet connectivity. for security reasons).

On my work laptop which is running Windows 10, I am running Linux Mint (and also Manjaro and FreeBSD, because why not?) as a virtual machine with Virtual Box. This is because I don't want to alter my work PC too much by setting up dual-boot, and I don't feel like dividing its 500GB SSD to two separate OSes anyway.

I run Linux Mint there in a virtual machine so that I can freely and securely install some (Linux) software there, experiment freely with stuff within Linux, and so that I can do my Linux stuff there like if I need to use curl or try some bash scripting etc.
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.Keys: • What are the advantages and disadvantages of using two OSs in the same PC?
To get the benefits of both on the same PC:

Windows for running Windows-only applications that don't have a good equivalent in Linux, or don't necessarily work 100% in WINE. Many Windows games, for example.

Linux for all advanced stuff like bash scripting or running a server or whatever, less silly restrictions in Linux, like in Windows you don't get Bitlocker on Windows 10 Home.
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.Keys: • What are the advantages and disadvantages of using ONLY Linux (any distro / comparison of distros, if you want to explain)?
Advantage against dual-boot:
- Hard drive space is not wasted across two separate OSes.
- It is simpler to just clean install your PC from the scratch if you have only one OS installed, as you don't have to try to figure out how it might affect the whole system, like the dual-boot system.
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.Keys: • Does WINE really works well with Windows exclusive games?
In my limited experience, with mostly older games, sometimes it works great, sometimes ok, sometimes doesn't work well or at all. However, so far I've been mostly pleasantly surprised how well it works, and in some cases it has been even the best environment to play the game (e.g. for Icewind Dale 2, for some reason it works the smoothest for me in Linux Wine, better than in Windows 10 or Windows 7).

I suggest you have both "basic" WINE, and something like Lutris, both installed in Linux. I usually first try if the Windows game starts working fine with basic WINE, and if not, I can also try it in Lutris. I can have both installed side by side, if I want.

For instance, the GOG version of Diablo didn't work right with basic WINE (the menu screen is black, showing no graphics, music plays in the background though...). I know you can fix it manually somehow, but it was much easier to just install it through Lutris, after which it worked perfectly.
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.Keys: • Is it true that Linux have compatibility issues with some hardware (GPU, specially)? What's your experience with this?
I have no experience with new GPUs, but with older NVidia and AMD GPUs, Linux has worked great for me,

I prefer AMD more in Linux because it offers official open source drivers, which probably guarantee future Linux versions will keep supporting older AMD GPUs longer.

With NVidia, officially NVidia offers only their proprietary drivers (which have worked fine for me overall, even if they don't remember the screen brightness setting across reboot for some reason), but NVidia will stop supporting my older NVidia GPU in future Linux releases. There are still the unofficial open source NVidia drivers I can keep using, but they are somewhat slower for games etc.
Post edited September 10, 2021 by timppu
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.Keys: • Is it true that Linux have compatibility issues with some hardware (GPU, specially)? What's your experience with this?
For Linux systems, I would stick to Intel or AMD GPUs; NVIDIA GPUs require proprietary drivers, which can cause issues with kernel upgrades or newer technologies like Wayland, and anything else likely either is poorly supported (PowerVR), or is not something you would not find on an x86 PC (VideoCore IV/VI).
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.Keys: (edit - full WSL name) • Windows Subsystem for Linux 1 and 2, are they really usefull for learning Linux in a Windows environment? Do they really have compatibility issues with some more advanced Linux commands?
WSL1 should work fine for commands that don't need advanced Linux kernel features (so something like Docker might have problems).

WSL2 should work with anything that could run in a Linux VM.

Graphical software might be an issue, but apparently some solutions exist (though I don't think you can run a modern game with GPU-accelerated graphics, at least not yet).
Post edited September 10, 2021 by dtgreene
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.Keys: • What Linux distro you use the most and why?
Fedora. Out of familiarity / for historical reasons.
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.Keys: • If you use Linux alongside Windows or other OSs, do you use Virtual Boxes or Dual Boot? Why?
Used to Dual Boot when first started to explore Linux (some 14 years ago), and in fact, would recommend to newbies.
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.Keys: • What are the advantages and disadvantages of using two OSs in the same PC?
Advantages:
-- not losing Windows ecosystem right away before "acclimatization" (before all essential substitutions for programs are found and skills acquired)
-- having (if needed) full uncontested power (CPU/GPU) and functionality of both systems without any major investments into dedicated hardware for each OS
Disadvantages:
-- switching takes time, is rather tiresome
-- some problems with file transfer (Windows doesn't "see" Linux partitions without an experimental and unstable 3rd-party silesystem driver)
-- sometimes Windows update would mess dual-boot setup up
-- some probability to damage/lose your data on disk during initial setup due to inexperience/bad luck (archiving your data is recommended just in case)
-- disk space is halved (or at least some of it is being dedicated to currently unused OS and can be considered "wasted")
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.Keys: • What are the advantages and disadvantages of using ONLY Linux (any distro / comparison of distros, if you want to explain)?
Advantages:
-- Linux (with every benefit)
-- Not using Windows eliminates complexity of setting up a dual-boot
-- Not dealing with Windows updates
Disadvantages:
-- Not having access to Windows with all its wast collection of software (often specialized professional one, like CAD/CAM/CAE software, custom-made Electromagnetic Tomography, bank accounting, stock exchange access etc.), some of which has no substitution
-- Not having access to Windows games (do not listen to Proton™ crowd -- they "omit" some details, like the need to meddle with custom setup/version-matching/compiling for each game, some games on ProtonDB being "false positives", inter-version regressions or developers dismissing bug reports for unsupported OS or refusing to provide any level of tech support)
-- not being one of the "Glorious PC Gaming Master Race" and being shunned by True Gamers and developers alike
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.Keys: • Does WINE really works well with Windows exclusive games?
Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on a game. It can, for example, run with no problems some recent Windows game, like, IDK, "Resident Evil Village", but fail miserably on "Pathologic Clasic HD" due to the latter using WMF video files with Indeo Video codec or some other ancient BS that no one ever gonna implement, or "Yume Nikki", or other RPGMaker title. Game age means nothing.
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.Keys: • Is it true that Linux have compatibility issues with some hardware (GPU, specially)? What's your experience with this?
Yes, it is true. More true for really old hardware, like WinModems (do someone still remember those?), Creative X-Fi soundcard for PCI-E (which STILL has no drivers due to Creative® being a$$holes) or some old ATi videocards (Radeon HD 5900 Series and the like). It is considerably better for modern hardware. GPUs should not give many problems. Yet, some Gamers' mice/keyboards/gadgets rely on Windows-exclusive drivers, so beware. Also, there are some reports about WiFi hardware issues. And VR hardware support is as good as nonexistent, if you are into this.
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.Keys: (edit - full WSL name) • Windows Subsystem for Linux 1 and 2, are they really usefull for learning Linux in a Windows environment? Do they really have compatibility issues with some more advanced Linux commands?
Maybe. Didn't use it, but I've heard there are some discrepancies in filesystem handling (hidden files/allowed characters etc.) at least, but they are far too specific for any average user to notice. Dunno for GUI applications: Microsoft has/had plans on supporting those, but I have no information on the current state of things.
Post edited September 10, 2021 by Alm888
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.Keys: • What Linux distro you use the most and why?
Fedora. I use it because I like having a technological edge without being throw full force like Arch. It's basically a banal office system with no gimmick or surprises. I have 7 or so desktops installed, depending on how you count.

In the past I did my share of distrohopping, but well, Debian derivatives drive me up the wall.

• If you use Linux alongside Windows or other OSs, do you use Virtual Boxes or Dual Boot? Why?
I don't. I used to, but then I realized that Windows was just sitting there taking up space while I was losing more control and power over it. While the circumstances were an accident, I still do not regret losing Windows.

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of using two OSs in the same PC?
Mostly, logistics. WIndows likes to not notice that it is sharing a partition or drive with another OS. Otherwise, there isn't a real advantage, if I may say so.

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of using ONLY Linux (any distro / comparison of distros, if you want to explain)?
That's a loaded and complicated question. I feel it'd get into philosophical levels of diatribes if an attempt was made to explain. The main advantage of Linux is that you're the one in control.

• Does WINE really works well with Windows exclusive games?
Yes. And thanks to Proton work being backported into Wine, even bigger strides and steps are being made. The main problem these days are scummy anti-cheat systems.

• Is it true that Linux have compatibility issues with some hardware (GPU, specially)? What's your experience with this?
Well, when the creator of Linux says a strong phase like this?
Post edited September 10, 2021 by Darvond
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timppu: I suggest you have both "basic" WINE, and something like Lutris, both installed in Linux. I usually first try if the Windows game starts working fine with basic WINE, and if not, I can also try it in Lutris. I can have both installed side by side, if I want.
For whatever reason, Wizardry 8 didn't seem to actually install on my small laptop using lutris (version in debian, forgot whether it was (stable) bullseye or (testing) bookworm at the time, but bookworm isn't yet that different from bullseye). On the other hand, it did install just fine with plain WINE.

Annoyingly, lutris does not save the installer anywhere by default, so unless you press the button to set a cache directory (or something like that), you'll need to re-download the installer if you want to install it again.
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.Keys: • What are the advantages and disadvantages of using ONLY Linux (any distro / comparison of distros, if you want to explain)?
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timppu: Advantage against dual-boot:
- Hard drive space is not wasted across two separate OSes.
- It is simpler to just clean install your PC from the scratc if you have only one OS installed, as you don't have to try to figure out how it might affect the whole system, like the dual-boot system.
Also, you don't need to worry about hibernation or Windows's fast startup (which is really just a form of hibernation) corrupting your data.

If you do decide to dual boot, make sure to turn off Windows's fast startup (or whatever it's called) so that you don't corrupt your data by accident.
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.Keys: • What Linux distro you use the most and why?
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Alm888: Fedora. Out of familiarity / for historical reasons.
I actually switched from Red Hat (not Enterprise!) Linux, which is the ancestor of Fedora, because of the lack of good package management. RPM doesn't do dependency handling, and yum and dnf did not exist at the time, but debian already had apt-get. (Fortunately, the situation has improved since then._
Post edited September 10, 2021 by dtgreene
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dtgreene: RPM didn't do dependency handling, and yum and dnf did not exist at the time, but debian already had apt-get. (Fortunately, the situation has improved since then.)
The situation has improved so much that it is my understanding that apt-get ended up getting a DNF based rebase.
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timppu: I suggest you have both "basic" WINE, and something like Lutris, both installed in Linux. I usually first try if the Windows game starts working fine with basic WINE, and if not, I can also try it in Lutris. I can have both installed side by side, if I want.
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dtgreene: For whatever reason, Wizardry 8 didn't seem to actually install on my small laptop using lutris (version in debian, forgot whether it was (stable) bullseye or (testing) bookworm at the time, but bookworm isn't yet that different from bullseye). On the other hand, it did install just fine with plain WINE.
Well, to me Lutris is a bit like using ScummVM:

If Lutris (or ScummVM) specifically supports the game you are trying to install or play, then you are (probably) golden and it works great.

If it doesn't support your game, then you are totally out of luck and have to use some other method to install and run your game. In the case of Lutris, it means using "basic" WINE without Lutris, with ScummVM it might mean running the game in DOSBox, or if it is a Windows game, try to run it with dgVoodoo2 or something...

Dark Reign (GOG version) is one such game for me. There is an entry for it in Lutris... but it seems to be unfinished and not officially approved to Lutris.

So in that case I installed the game with basic WINE instead, and it actually works fine... except that it doesn't play music.

Dark Reign is overall quite a problematic game also to Windows users, the GOG subforum for it is full of reports of issues trying to get it to run on Windows, either people can't get past the "insert CD" error, or it doesn't play music in Windows either.

There is apparently some third-party "patch" for Dark Reign, but funnily the size of that patch is much bigger than the whole game. So maybe it is more like a total modification or even a remake of the game... I haven't tried it yet, the installation instructions were odd, or not present at all. Some user suggested copying the files over your existing GOG installation, but I didn't find such (or any) instructions on the web page from which that patch is downloaded.

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dtgreene: Annoyingly, lutris does not save the installer anywhere by default, so unless you press the button to set a cache directory (or something like that), you'll need to re-download the installer if you want to install it again.
I must admit I have no idea what you mean by that.

When I use Lutris, I just initiate the game installation from within Lutris (if it is supported by Lutris), and at some point Lutris wants me to show where the (GOG) installer is. It uses that installer to install the game, and the installer is still there after the installation.

Maybe the most "annoying" thing about Lutris is that sometimes it has an entry only for the "Linux" version of the installer. I recall "Two Worlds (GOG version)" is like this, it requires you to use the "Linux" GOG version of the installer (which is basically just the Windows version with integrated WINE as far as I know), and there is no option to use the Windows installer instead.

I think I had some issues with Two Worlds also in Lutris. The graphics seem to work ok (both in Lutris and basic WINE), but audio doesn't currently work. I didn't look into it too much why not.
Post edited September 10, 2021 by timppu
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dtgreene: I actually switched from Red Hat (not Enterprise!) Linux, which is the ancestor of Fedora, because of the lack of good package management. RPM doesn't do dependency handling, and yum and dnf did not exist at the time, but debian already had apt-get. (Fortunately, the situation has improved since then._
To be honest, "dpkg" also does not do dependency handling. I am not _that_ experienced to actually had to use "Red Hat Linux" (my first Linux was "ASPLinux 11.2" based on "Fedora Core 4"), so I can not tell who was the first to introduce it.