But this is exactly the part I'm wondering about. You say that Linux is Linux, no matter the distro, yet you say that specific diistros shouldn't be used for gaming. Is this because Linux isn't Linux, because Linux can be Linux of a different flavour, or because no matter how Linux is like Linux, it's best to use specific Linux instead of any Linux?

No, it's mostly because Tinycore was designed around being as small as possible, it is compressed to the ground and has a few kernel features stripped down (which could potentially result in worse gaming performance and driver issues as well as hardware detection issues, in theory it could also do the opposite and massively boost the performance, I don't know, I haven't tried, I just have a hunch it might be unsuitable for gaming performance)

Tinycores purpose is to fit on as small a device as possible, you can game on it, I just said I would not recommend it (and I would not recommend it because if you're installing games, it won't be so tiny anymore and therefore it already defeats the purpose of the distro, and if the kernel is so heavily compressed I would be surprised if there is no hit on the driver performance for it, still, I might be wrong and maybe there is no performance hit, I haven't tested the theory, it might be the opposite and it could actually be faster, I know some BSD flavors were able to run Linux's native games faster than Linux itself by implementing a Linux compatiblity layer in it's kernel, tinycore might do something similar, performance is not the same across distributions because of different kernel versions and driver versions, and for example I know tinycore in the past could not run Steam when it was new to linux because libc6 was outdated on it, but if you can't run steam itself of course you're not gonna be trying to buy games on it, right?)

So my point wasn't that it's best to use a specific linux, if there was any I'd point towards Gentoo because it can be carefully customized to outperform all other linux distributions in any area the user chooses (this is because of how it is set up, and requires a LOT of user expertise i.e. is not some default setting so I am not recommending to actually use Gentoo here, the reason it can be customized so much is 1: Configuring the kernel is a part of the installation process, I know of no other distribution that does this and for amateurs this is an overwhelming task which they usually can't be responsible for, 2: Almost every program installed (Exceptions: Some proprietary programs, and video games, the steam runtimes too, but you can run games by manually installing dependencies instead of using the steam runtimes) is going to be compiled on your system for your system (you don't install programs like you do on other operating systems, by going through an installation, you install it pretty much the same way a programmer creates it, this process takes a lot of time btw) and as a result depending on how your compiler is configured you can have all installed programs specifically optimized and geared towards your system (this means that this installed program would probably not work on somebody elses system, for example if you optimize it for an intel i7 processor it might not work on a computer that uses an AMD processor) and of course configuring the compiler parameters is part of the installation as well and something that needs to be actively changed as well by the user depending on which application they are installing, now that is what you can call complicated. But if you do it all and you do it right, then in theory your Gentoo setup should be faster than any other setup as long as it's up to date.

But there are some Linux distributions aimed specifically at gaming, these include (but are not limited to) SteamOS (which has brought a lot of improvements to the Linux gaming arena as a whole, not just for itself, for example Valve pulled some strings and got nvidia to actively start updating their Linux drivers like their lives depended on it, this happened before SteamOS was officially announced by name and I was reaping the benefits of it already, this is because they wanted to set their steam machines up aimed at primarily using Nvidia graphics cards) there is also the Gentoo based Sabayon and Linux Console (which implies SteamOS wasn't the first distro with the idea of running as a console)

I do not however suggest you should use whatever distribution is best suited for gaming, I recommend you use the distribution that is best suited ]for you as a user. Mint offers easy access for people who are used to Windows 7/XP like user interfaces, Ubuntu offers in turn easy access for people who are used to OS X/Windows 8 environments. This is why the two are what is most commonly used. But for me neither was really right, I like to customize, I love to customize, I'm that type that spends hours in character creators if there are enough options in it (ELDER SCROLLS!!) so for me I wanted to find a distribution that offered me as much choice as possible. My favorite Desktop Environment currently is Enlightenment (version 17 or newer) and this desktop environment only comes installed by default on one distribution which is known as Bodhi, I hate Bodhi's default settings for it (theming, i didn't like the bodhi themes, but I liked Enlightenments default theme quite a lot!)

By definition this means I should use Bodhi because it's the only distro with the environment I want to use, but instead I opted to use a distribution like Arch Linux or Gentoo which offers me the freedom of choice to install and uninstall desktop environments as I please, when I get tired of one I can try another, what if I really always wanted to use something like Xmonad or AwesomeWM? what about Openbox? Maybe I just wanted XFCE all along!

So no, it's not use specific Linux instead of any Linux, but it is most commonly suggested to use Ubuntu because everyone "officially" supports it as the most widespread Linux distribution, this does not mean however that stuff that works on Ubuntu wont work on everything else, it just means it won't work on everything else UNLESS it is as up to date with its kernel and dependencies as Ubuntu is (which most distributions should be, if they're not theres normally a specific reason for it, for example in Debian's case they want to maintain elite levels of stability and thus only officially release LTS class kernels which use LTS repositories as well which means outdated software, this makes it highly ideal to use for servers for example.)

But there are general purpose distros and there are targeted distros, Ubuntu is aimed at general purpose, Mint is aimed at general purpose, Tails OS is aimed at internet anonimity, it doesn't even want to run if you don't run it from a livecd, you could game from it, but it would just be very unhandy because of how it is set up. Same with Tinycore, it's aimed at cramming an operating system into the smallest space possible (currently as low as 15MB if I recall correctly, even arch comes out of the box as like 2GB, and that one doesn't even ship with a desktop environment at all)

SInce we're on topic with Tinycore, one thing it (and also Slitaz which I previously named) does is something really special, it is designed to run from RAM alone (i.e. you do not need a hard drive to run it) basically if you install it, it will load all your data off your hdd/ssd onto your RAM, all your installed programs, everything, as a result it will perform lightning fast (SSDs are slow in comparison) but in return it just might take a bit longer to boot since it has to offload all the files on your hard drive to the RAM first before it can boot at lightspeed.

I don't really get where does Rabcor stands.

Anyway, it's crazy to expect GOG to target multiple distros. But what wouldn't be crazy would be to make binaries more portable. That will also make it work on different distros or on Ubuntu 5 years from now. There are multiple ways to make portable bundles. And I hope GOG will at least test that as idea in the future. Mozilla and OpenOffice are doing it for ages now. You can even run old binaries from years ago like old versions of Netscape or Acrobat Reader for Linux.

Well, in this thing you are wrong. Tiny core is a specialty distro. It's not a mainstream desktop distro.

That's like trying to use Windows Embedded POSReady 7 for gaming.

I'm not saying they should target or officially support multiple distros, just that if a user using another distro than their officially supported one has tried to get a game working and gives up on it, he should be eligible for a refund even if he's not on Mint or Ubuntu.

I didn't realize how exactly it worked until now, but now I have read up about it and it seems they only will refund if customer support fails to make the game run.

They can do this by say supporting you if you have an up to date kernel and up to date dependencies for the game (they decide what is up to date)

I.e. they should instead of being confident in the quality of the game on a specific distro, they should be confident in the accuracy of their dependency list (or if they go the Steam route, their intergrated runtimes)

And this isn't that hard to test either, granted they will use runtimes eventually like steam currently does, you just get a few (one might be enough) minimalist distros to test on (Arch, Gentoo, Slackware or even just no distribution, i.e. custom Linux) install the GOG Client on it (The upcoming GOG Galaxy in this case) and then you see if it will run or not on that/these distro/s, if it doesn't, find out what is missing/why. This should of course be done as soon as the game is already working on their officially supported distros.

In theory, if the runtimes provided by GOG are good enough, the game will run no matter what distro you're on unless it's a driver issue (outdated GPU driver normally, or wrong variant of it (i.e. open source driver rather than proprietary))

So similar to TinyXP or Tiny7? TinyXP had a memory footprint of less than 50mb from what I recall, though it did have quite a few features stripped out. But it was still XP, so XP core, plus needed dependencies, XP requirements fulfulled?

Assuming Tinycore has the same kernel as Ubuntu 14.04, and the same dependencies can be installed, would it be equivalent to Ubuntu, or will it be different?

And as for the Desktop environment you want, couldn't you install that one on Ubuntu? Or is Ubuntu lacking features that Arch and/or Gentoo has? They are all Linux, aren't they?

P.S. The ability to run an OS from RAM is also available with Windows, assuming you have a small enough installation (or quite a bit of RAM). It has been there for as long as Windows exist, though it was only used in very few cases.

One step at a time, like Steam they do not officially support Arch etc. Give em a chance, because quick frankly I am getting sick of Linux users being abusive towards developers/distributors. If you have something to say, try it in a constructive manner.

GOG, step in the right direction!

See above. Is Windows Embedded or TinyXP a more similar case?

And the point was that saying "Linux is Linux" and then saying "But this distro is a different Linux from Linux" does not seem right. Either "Linux is Linux" thus Tinycore is same Linux as Ubuntu or "Linux may not be Linux" and Tinycore may be different from Ubuntu.

Only Linux distro I've used lately was Backtrack to check a few Wi-Fi networks, so I'm not one to talk about distros.

Well technically Tiny Core comes with a limited and non-typical software choice. It's really, really minimal. That also means a minimal and custom gui and a subset of typical command-set. Not a standard system or a desktop environment. But you can install some of them if you wish. It's actually made minimal so you can adjust it to your needs using the software from the repositories. So you can actually install a typical system. :)

Nicely said. I tried not to complain but give a specific comments. I think I failed. But I'll try to keep down and give them more space. :)

No worries, when the current mafia games stall, I do get argumentative in other threads. And I do love using other people's arguments against themselves, thus the lines about "Linux is Linux".

Anyway, enjoy your stay here, and I hope you'll never have a need for a "Game not working" refund :)

Is there a Linux support forum? :) I think I saw that info somewhere, but can't find it now.

Thanks for supporting linux GOG!

Thank you GOG team for implementing Linux support.

Do you plan to add Linux versions for another games that are already purchasable on GOG for Windows (e.g. Brutal Legend or Broken Sword 5)?

No offense guys, but who had the bright idea to name the installation folder under the /opt directory "GOG Games"; You could have chosen something like "GOG_Games" or "GOGgames", etc.

PS: Maybe I am missing something :/