My stab at Linux. Stab! Parry! Evade!

Well, based on some experiences another WoW player has recently had with Linux (see here), I decided last weekend to try out Ubuntu 7.10 in a separate install on my drive. The experience was enlightening and completely frustrating. I had wanted this to work SO badly, but it fails on a very deep level that forced me to go back to the Windows of the XP. The story is long, but the summary is short. This is why I cannot do Linux (yet):

• Video driver consistency with Linux is a huge issue. Either get in bed with proprietary drivers or stop complaining about them. AMD might be opening their driver, but this won't fix things for nVidia users. The AMD source isn't going to be any sort of immediate fix.
  
• Related to video: Why does X behave so differently using two different minor version differences of a video driver. ATI 8.4.37 lets wine set gamma, but 8.4.42 doesn't? Maybe its a driver problem.
  
• Linux audio is a nightmare. ALSA? OSS? Who gives a damn? Why the hell can't you play audio from multiple sources without understanding how low level audio configurations are put together between 2 legacy platforms? Soundpulse/eSound could conceivably fix all the problems that plague audio on Linux, but unless it just works, its not worth my time to solve all its problems.
• Overall, Linux doesn't just work out of the box to do what you think it should. I could accept that I might need to put some extra effort into doing things. Sure, there should be a learning curve, but I should be able to configure one thing in one way and it should work all the time and never need to be changed. Tinkering with settings for 4 hours and restarting Wine/Cedega to test each iteration is a WASTE OF TIME.
  
• In all fairness, maybe its my hardware. I did get things working, and they worked pretty well on their own. WoW worked, and it worked decently (especially under Cedega), but it didn't work well with other audio apps or Compiz. Compiz worked, but it took me several tries and various drivers to get it to work. Eventually, I abandoned it though, because Wine was not friendly with it.
  

I do plan on trying this again in the future. Maybe after I upgrade my box. Anyhow, here are some additional details on my adventure with Linux & WoW:

Installation was very smooth overall. Got some basic tools installed and was ready to start tweaking. This hit the first bit of fun: ATI drivers. I decided on the proprietary driver, since its supposed to be "the best". This caused all sorts of problems as things went along. Overall, it worked, but when you needed it most, it would not work as expected. I'll come back to that in a sec.

Next task, give me some Compiz candy. This installed fairly well and got some nice wobbly windows moving around. However, something was quite odd, OpenGL didn't want to work right. This was odd, since the Compiz effects were fine and dandy, but the OpenGL never detected right. Seems there are some library linking issues. Fixed this and everyone was happy. What next? WoW of course!

So, we find Wine, and even go for the latest repository versions we can find (use Wine's Ubuntu repository list). Installed and initializes fine, no problems. Based on some stuff we read, we find we can copy the whole WoW install from the XP install. Great, this goes in the right place and we are ready to rock. We modify the WoW WTF so that it will run as its supposed to. Lock and load, and its running pretty well. Well, except that the gamma is completely off and we can't see the screen. I launch the game anyway, and it seems to come up fine. However, it does not run as well as the XP version at the same graphic resolution (1600x1200). I exit, tweak back the settings on resolution and change the gamma. I start again, and the gamma is still the same. Discouragement rears its ugly head.

So, I read about Cedega, and I take the plunge, pop down by $15 and pull the download. It sets up pretty quickly and then I push WoW into the Cedega install. It starts great, the gamma is right! The graphics even look as good as XP for the most part (OpenGL is missing "something"), the resolution at 1600x1200 is still slow (9FPS in Shatt), so I bump down, tweak my UI layout and am good to play awhile. That is... until I decide to listen to music while I am playing. Thus the ugly Linux nightmare of OSS and ALSA appears to destroy my last vestiges of sanity.

"Soundpulse" you say? Yes, that might work. Install, read, configure, curse, read, install, configure, curse. This cycle continues until you realize "Why am I wasting my time trying to get this to work when it does work on something else?" And yes, I was wasting my time. Lots of it. Lots and lots of it. I am a tech head and I love this stuff. I eat tech problems and smile at their bitter aftertaste, but like eating too much spicy food, I had enough. I needed something sweet and light. XP, is a bit too sweet sometimes, but for now it works and that is good enough.