FS9 and Linux

[jgf]

I recall an extensive thread on the "old site" regarding this but cannot find a search function for the forum.  So, how much trouble is it to run FS9 in linux?  how stable is it?  any issues installing payware? system requirements more or less than windows?

[caphavoc]

Could try reading this thread over on Avsim:  https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/596952-install-fs2004-on-ubuntu-it-works-heres-how-to-do-it/

 

Regards,

Dorian

[jgf]

Thanks, some interesting info there.  Sounds like he ran into the same issues I did.

-much of the information is horribly out of date

-there are several variants of Linux and several different emulators, each with its own group of fans, threads always degenerate into which variant is best, which emulator is best, whose system is more impressive ...and I tune out

-helpful threads become so technical that I'm soon thinking, "if I had any idea what they are talking about I wouldn't need to be here"

-there are no instructions delineated anywhere, but plenty of "I got such-and-such game working in Linux with a little tweaking"

 

I'm rebuilding an old gaming rig and thought it would be nice to not deal with windows, if FS9, my racing sims, some rpgs, etc.  (basically the resource hungry games) will run reliably in Linux.

 

 

[Skywatcher12]

45 minutes ago, jgf said:

I'm rebuilding an old gaming rig and thought it would be nice to not deal with windows, if FS9, my racing sims, some rpgs, etc.  (basically the resource hungry games) will run reliably in Linux.

 

 

You run many of the games I do. Windows 7 is the way to go.
Of course you may want updates etc so then you are stuck with Win 10 or 11. Most things can be made to run on Win 11 but you sometimes really got to know what you are doing.
I would never touch Linux. Realistically, as far as compatibility with software goes, it's worse than Win 11.

Linux users get no benefit running from Microsoft. I think people just like to say, "I don't use Windows."

[lnuss]

4 hours ago, Skywatcher12 said:

I would never touch Linux. Realistically, as far as compatibility with software goes, it's worse than Win 11.

Linux users get no benefit running from Microsoft. I think people just like to say, "I don't use Windows."

Of course compatibility is minimal, since there is no commonality between the two operating systems. Until very recently Linux could only run a (relatively) few Windows programs with WINE, an open source effort to make an emulator to get Win games (and a few other things) to run under Linux. Recently MS has partially embraced Linux for many things.

 

But the key is that they were designed for different things by different people. Windows came from a DOS background, while Linux, though independently developed, came from a Unix background -- apples and oranges.

 

"I think people just like to say, "I don't use Windows." That's not the case. Oh, sure, I'll grant you that a lot of Linux folks don't much care for Windows, and many have a lot of bad things to say about Windows, with a lot of justification. It's only since Win 7 that Windows has been fairly stable over a period of weeks, while Linux (and Unix before it) can run literally for years without a reboot, if updating isn't needed, and often even through updates.

 

I'll stop here except to say that you are (perhaps with a few exceptions) wrong to say that 'people just like to say, "I don't use Windows."' Instead they have a different need and a different outlook on things, It took me years to get to sort of like Windows (I'm from a Unix background), and I'd still like to have a way to avoid some of MS's policies.

[PhrogPhlyer]

16 minutes ago, lnuss said:

I'd still like to have a way to avoid some of MS's policies.

The devil we deal with on a daily basis. MS aggressively pushes into your life, constantly trying to tell you what to do, rather than ask you what you want to do.

[jgf]

7 hours ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

The devil we deal with on a daily basis. MS aggressively pushes into your life, constantly trying to tell you what to do, rather than ask you what you want to do.

Exactly.  Each new version of windows removes more and more end user options;  and the few remaining options cause windows to cry if you change them.  I suspect in the not too distant future windows may, possibly, allow you to change the desktop wallpaper ...of course if you do there will be incessant popups, "Windows desktop wallpaper has been changed!  Click here to restore default!"

 

If Micro$oft would spend as much time and energy producing an OS that people actually want as they do on excessive "security" and draconian "validation/registration/activation/legislation/masturbation" processes and intrusive telemetry where the OS is constantly snooping on you and your system and reporting back to MS periodically, they might have a product to brag about.

 

XP was the best version of windows, a fact that galls MS no end because it was the only OS not developed fully "in house".  When IBM decided to leave the consumer market, MS bought OS/2 and tore into it to see why it had been so popular;  they then built a new "experimental" OS using it with a windows UI - XP.

 

I will stick with Win7 until it is no longer a viable OS, but looking at Linux as an alternative.

[Skywatcher12]

19 hours ago, lnuss said:

Of course compatibility is minimal, since there is no commonality between the two operating systems. Until very recently Linux could only run a (relatively) few Windows programs with WINE, an open source effort to make an emulator to get Win games (and a few other things) to run under Linux. Recently MS has partially embraced Linux for many things.

 

But the key is that they were designed for different things by different people. Windows came from a DOS background, while Linux, though independently developed, came from a Unix background -- apples and oranges.

 

"I think people just like to say, "I don't use Windows." That's not the case. Oh, sure, I'll grant you that a lot of Linux folks don't much care for Windows, and many have a lot of bad things to say about Windows, with a lot of justification. It's only since Win 7 that Windows has been fairly stable over a period of weeks, while Linux (and Unix before it) can run literally for years without a reboot, if updating isn't needed, and often even through updates.

 

I'll stop here except to say that you are (perhaps with a few exceptions) wrong to say that 'people just like to say, "I don't use Windows."' Instead they have a different need and a different outlook on things, It took me years to get to sort of like Windows (I'm from a Unix background), and I'd still like to have a way to avoid some of MS's policies.

I'll go along with much of that Larry but I do know there are people who absolutely do like to say, "I don't use Windows." lol

Unrelated to above quote:
On the Windows privacy aspects, I personally think it's becoming less of an issue. I think we have much bigger concerns with our phones.

[ftldave]

16 hours ago, jgf said:

" ...but looking at Linux as an alternative."

People have been saying that for decades and it rarely works out, desktop Linux versions never gaining more than a few meager percentage points of users compared to Windows and even the more-popular-than-Linux MacOS. Linux is great for grandma, who only checks email and watches funny cat videos on YouTube. And it's of value if you have real tech savvy and the time needed to do lots of effort to make it perform to your liking.

 

As a Linux user, I can tell you that the old saying "Linux is free only if you don't value your time" is very true. I like Linux, run Ubuntu and Ubuntu Budgie, but I recognize its many limitations and shortcomings. Here at home I run Linux on my living room media pc (only browsers for streaming and VLC for music and optical disk playback) and I run Linux with the Samba service on an older Dell pc to emulate a Windows file server with RAID-protected hard drives. But it would never suffice as my daily driver pc nor for my hobby interests, including flight sims. Linux is powerful but crude compared to Windows, and anyone who starts blabbering about the upcoming "Year of Linux" is a comedian. That's been heard for decades now and is never going to happen. For those of us who work in IT for a living, "The Year of Linux" is considered a joke, a laughable notion that it can ever compete head to head with Windows on the desktop. Would have happened, by now, you think, back when turkey Windows 8 so badly shamed Microsoft? But desktop Linux use barely budged. Though I do wonder if there may be some small boost in interest in Linux when Windows 10 reaches end-of-support, come October 2025, for all the running computers that aren't on Microsoft's Windows 11 compatibility list, the ones that have burned-in-the-silicon security flaws and such.

 

It's very effortless to carp about Microsoft and Windows, but give it due credit. Windows has the largest library of software in history, with plenty of free and open source stuff, too, unlike the Apple world. And we rarely give credit to Windows for its hardware support, being able to run on many thousands of different types of computers with thousands of peripherals. You don't have that in Linux, I know from experience. Microsoft gaming on Linux ... problematic in the past, present and, I expect, the future, too. I too don't like Microsoft's software bullying of late, how they obnoxiously push the Edge browser and now, at work, making Microsoft Teams the most reviled software program since Lotus Notes. Windows 11 is a hot mess, a tainted brand now, following the every-other-Windows-is-bad release tradition. Its low adoption rate reflects that ugly truth. There's a purported Windows 12 coming next year that, maybe, will address Windows 11's design and functional stupidities, so maybe Microsoft will get it right next time. But I could never give up my Windows hobby pc or Microsoft's flight simulators. They work and they're great!

[lnuss]

1 hour ago, ftldave said:

For those of us who work in IT for a living, "The Year of Linux" is considered a joke, a laughable notion that it can ever compete head to head with Windows on the desktop.

And the converse is true in reverse, that there are many uses where Linux is superb and Windows is rather less than stellar. For the sims and for things such as video editing Windows is a much better fit (I use Win 7) and its stability is not bad any more, and I'll agree that Linux GUI leaves a lot to be desired, though it's getting better, but for server use it's hard to beat and, even for desktop, it can often (not always) serve its users better than Windows if the user doesn't need the Windows' specialties.

 

Once again, each is better at some things than the other one is, but MS' policies and push-push-push to do their best to lock folks in, get them to subscribe to this and that, and many other things make me hate what you have to put up with in Windows (thankfully not as bad in Win 7), including forced updates, even when an update causes serious problems.

[PhrogPhlyer]

15 minutes ago, lnuss said:

including forced updates, even when an update causes serious problems.

On one laptop with a standard hard drive it take 3-6 HOURS per update. With another and a SSHD it takes 5-10 minute per update. MS has never given even a slight acknowledgement to this issue, even with dozens and dozens of people asking about it on the MS support pages.

[loki]

1 hour ago, ftldave said:

Microsoft gaming on Linux ... problematic in the past, present and, I expect, the future, too.

 

Thanks to Valve with their Steam support on Linux, there are plenty of games available on Linux now. Some, like Microsoft's sims, will probably always be an issue, but there are plenty of games to choose from. The Unreal Engine that many games use has supported Linux for over a decade now too, making it easier for developers to support multiple operating systems from the start.

 

https://store.steampowered.com/linux?offset=12

 

With the increasing levels of control Microsoft, Apple and Google are pushing, not to mention subscriptions popping up everywhere, I suspect Linux desktops could become more popular as time goes on. Dell, HP, System76 and others sell decent systems that come with Linux out of the box, which was always a hurdle for many people. I've had Pop_OS running on an old MacBook, and it runs quite well with far less hassle than I had with Linux desktop systems years ago.

[jgf]

On 3/6/2023 at 4:33 AM, Skywatcher12 said:

I'll go along with much of that Larry but I do know there are people who absolutely do like to say, "I don't use Windows." lol

Unrelated to above quote:
On the Windows privacy aspects, I personally think it's becoming less of an issue. I think we have much bigger concerns with our phones.

Privacy vs security, there is a "noyb" aspect here (none of your business).  https://www.extremetech.com/computing/342941-windows-11-collects-an-awful-lot-of-telemetry-about-your-pc

 

As for phones, privacy is unknown.  In context of this thread it is interesting that Android phones work on a version of Linux.  But google wants their tendrils in every aspect of our lives;  I tried blocking a number, a simple request that should be accomplished locally on the phone - just do not respond to this number - but instead I get a popup "google needs to access your caller list".  Hell no google doesn't. 

 

 

 

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

8 minutes ago, jgf said:

"google needs to access your caller list".  Hell no google doesn't. 

Concur!

[jgf]

On 3/6/2023 at 12:29 PM, loki said:

 

Thanks to Valve with their Steam support on Linux, there are plenty of games available on Linux now. Some, like Microsoft's sims, will probably always be an issue, but there are plenty of games to choose from....

Unfortunately this entails dealing with Steam, little better than google.

 

As I told them years ago, "you could offer me every game in your catalog for a mere $1, to download and install at my convenience, but as long as that entails installing anything at all beyond the game itself ...no deal;  but remove your totalitarian demands of installing unwanted and unnecessary software and you could quintuple the price of your games and I would be over there now, debit card in hand".  But my wrath is less at Steam, which I could otherwise ignore, than at developers who decide to solely release their product via Steam, thus denying me the option of where to spend my money.

[jgf]

On 3/6/2023 at 10:19 AM, ftldave said:

People have been saying that for decades and it rarely works out, desktop Linux versions never gaining more than a few meager percentage points of users compared to Windows and even the more-popular-than-Linux MacOS. Linux is great for grandma, who only checks email and watches funny cat videos on YouTube. And it's of value if you have real tech savvy and the time needed to do lots of effort to make it perform to your liking.

 

As a Linux user, I can tell you that the old saying "Linux is free only if you don't value your time" is very true. I like Linux, run Ubuntu and Ubuntu Budgie, but I recognize its many limitations and shortcomings. Here at home I run Linux on my living room media pc (only browsers for streaming and VLC for music and optical disk playback) and I run Linux with the Samba service on an older Dell pc to emulate a Windows file server with RAID-protected hard drives. But it would never suffice as my daily driver pc nor for my hobby interests, including flight sims. Linux is powerful but crude compared to Windows, and anyone who starts blabbering about the upcoming "Year of Linux" is a comedian. That's been heard for decades now and is never going to happen. For those of us who work in IT for a living, "The Year of Linux" is considered a joke, a laughable notion that it can ever compete head to head with Windows on the desktop. Would have happened, by now, you think, back when turkey Windows 8 so badly shamed Microsoft? But desktop Linux use barely budged. Though I do wonder if there may be some small boost in interest in Linux when Windows 10 reaches end-of-support, come October 2025, for all the running computers that aren't on Microsoft's Windows 11 compatibility list, the ones that have burned-in-the-silicon security flaws and such.

 

It's very effortless to carp about Microsoft and Windows, but give it due credit. Windows has the largest library of software in history, with plenty of free and open source stuff, too, unlike the Apple world. And we rarely give credit to Windows for its hardware support, being able to run on many thousands of different types of computers with thousands of peripherals. You don't have that in Linux, I know from experience. Microsoft gaming on Linux ... problematic in the past, present and, I expect, the future, too. I too don't like Microsoft's software bullying of late, how they obnoxiously push the Edge browser and now, at work, making Microsoft Teams the most reviled software program since Lotus Notes. Windows 11 is a hot mess, a tainted brand now, following the every-other-Windows-is-bad release tradition. Its low adoption rate reflects that ugly truth. There's a purported Windows 12 coming next year that, maybe, will address Windows 11's design and functional stupidities, so maybe Microsoft will get it right next time. But I could never give up my Windows hobby pc or Microsoft's flight simulators. They work and they're great!

Tech savvy?  Above average but no guru.  Time?  Twenty years ago I loved tweaking, would spend all day exploring options on new vid driver software;  would tinker endlessly getting an old program to run in XP.  But that was twenty years ago.  Time is more precious now.

 

Windows has been hit or miss those twenty years.  XP was great, Vista was a kludge, Win7 was (and is) popular, Win8 was a joke, Win10 is controversial (seems generally a love/hate relationship), Win11 doesn't seem popular (except among the  "latest must be greatest" crowd). 

 

"Windows has the largest library", obviously, because they have a virtual monopoly on the market;  if windows, Mac, and Linux (or any other OS) had equal shares of the market there would be roughly equal amounts of software for each.  I recall some games years ago had versions for DOS, W95, and Mac on the same disk.  But it seems currently the only Linux native software is browsers, word processors, video editors, etc.

 

But I recall hearing people had FS9 (and maybe FSX) running in Linux, though no idea how well it ran or how much trouble it was to get it running.  So came here.  I do know the ordeal I went through getting Win7 running on this system (installing over Vista, MS had already taken down the update/activation servers, I had two threads on two tech sites for two weeks, and d/l'd nearly a gig of extra software by the time it was done), so was dreading something similar for Win7 x64 on the system I'm rebuilding.  Was hoping Linux might be a simpler option, but maybe this is a case of "the known evil".

 

No matter what game you're considering there are threads where someone says they have it running fine in Linux, and on another site is someone saying they've been cursing it for months, have it running but some things do not work, some cause it to crash.  No consensus at all.  I'm wondering if Linux isn't as tolerant of different hardware combinations as windows, thus it may run a windows game fine on one system but not another.  Sounds like the proverbial can of worms.

[Skywatcher12]

12 hours ago, jgf said:

As for phones, privacy is unknown.

I think there is very little privacy between what Apple gather and other apps. Tik Tok is a good example.