Install Virtualbox, go find Linux Mint 32-bit. I keep a VM on my PC to stay familiar with what's going on over the hedge. So far there are a lot of things that still need work, but I could port to Linux easily if I didn't need to play PC games.Originally Posted by The Joker
For the launch, probably just through streaming from another PC. Valve has internal software that they used to wrap DX code and present it to the system as OpenGL for testing purposes, but since then they haven't announced anything in that regard. They may have improved that since the L4D2 Linux betas and already offer it to devs eager to jump on the bandwagon. We'll probably know more on Wednesday.
(I know WINE does a similar thing, but Valve's design was from the ground up apparently.)
It depends on the version of OpenGL and the driver support. Once properly optimised it is indeed better, but the Linux environment doesn't have the same modular design that Windows boasts, where DX isn't completely tied to the system. The other main issue with OpenGL is lack of proper documentation which Valve would have been adding in from their own efforts by now. Feature-wise, OpenGL 4.4 is comparable to DirectX 11.1.
As far as drivers go, Nvidia is the better option at the moment, although AMD is catching up with driver support for the HD5000 and HD6000 cards. There's quite a few bugs affecting HD7000 performance in a number of titles still.
I think that was the right way to go - open everything to allow for enthusiasts to customise and offer feedback and improvements while accommodating for games to be played with little hassle and stress. I'd like to see how everything is implemented, especially how they do the streaming part and get around the lack of dedicated decode hardware in most machines.
