PlayOnLinux second review - The magic man?

Discussion in 'all things UNIX' started by Mrkvonic, Oct 15, 2016.

  1. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    Testing again, five years later: a second review of PlayOnLinux, a WINE-based framework designed to simplify and automate Windows games and applications installations in Linux, including Microsoft Office, Kindle, iTunes, and Internet Explorer setup and testing, overall quality, compatibility and stability, other observations, and more. Have fun.

    http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/playonlinux-second-review.html


    Cheers,
    Mrk
     
  2. NormanF

    NormanF Registered Member

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    Forget Play On Linux.

    You would be better off running Windows in VB on top of Linux and get Windows apps working as expected if you need them.

    POL is like a sort of virtualization GUI for WINE in Linux and WINE leaves plenty to be desired in the way of compatibility for Windows programs.
     
  3. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    A terrible idea if you want performance, specially in games.

    But VM is not a dead end, you can use your on-board graphics GPU for your host Linux OS and then use an off-board GPU to power a Windows VM using QEMU. You'll have virtually the same performance.
     
  4. oliverjia

    oliverjia Registered Member

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    Dual boot with Windows is the best way, if using two OS at the same time is not the most critical for you.
     
  5. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    Linux on the desktop is continuing to re-assert its usefulness for little more than web browsing and emailing. Once I upgrade my hardware I plan on running a virtual Linux guest on a Windows host for web browsing, and that's about it. Either that or I'll just browse from Sandboxie in Windows.
     
  6. The Red Moon

    The Red Moon Registered Member

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    From a security perspective,that is a terrible idea.
     
  7. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    And why is that?
    Mrk
     
  8. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Done overreacting?

    Instead of the emotional text, why don't you explain in details what are the problems you're facing and then we can talk like adults and try our best to solve them in another thread?
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2016
  9. Anonfame1

    Anonfame1 Registered Member

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    Linux on the desktop is continuing to re-assert its usefulness for valuing a user's power over his computer and his privacy. Its also continuing to re-assert its usefulness for costing significantly less to maintain, and for being much harder to exploit (if its setup that way). Its also beginning to assert its capacity for gaming, and determined users can accomplish quite a lot of gaming if willing to use Steam and mess with Wine.

    It blows me away- I can understand the folks whove never heard of Linux or have little understanding of it. But how anyone can condemn it after learning about it? Baffles me. Despite being a crowd-sourced project divorced from corporatism, it has STILL managed to enter that sphere and compete. If everyone switched tomorrow and forced proprietary software companies to port the games and few applications needed over, the world would be much better off.
     
  10. I have transferred a few family members to Linux (from Xp and now also from Vista). As a Windows user my first choice was to use PlayOnLinux. But for a simple cards game (old Windows game Klaverjassen), PlayOnLinux started to provide problems, so I tried Wine. Until now Wine is not that much more complex and seems to be more solid as PlayOnLinux.

    As a non-Linux user, I started to doubt on myself that an 'easier' solution was harder to implement. Thx Mrkvonic to post his experiences (at last an expert user, providing open feedback and honest user experience).
     
  11. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    Notwithstanding the irrational invective against my comments, they are, for the record, honest and based on lengthy user experience as well, at least with linux in general and not playonLinux. The Linux evangelists have to admit Linux and the programs running on them tend to break far more often than with Windows, and the fixes for them that exist often involve more complex solutions than those for Windows. That said, I like the platform for basics such as web browsing, emailing and listening to tunes, in spite of rather numerous little problems I've had to find fixes for over time using it, even on the xfce or lxle desktops which I find to be among the most problem-free environments. If one can keep things simple, the user experience should be mostly pleasant.
     
  12. Anonfame1

    Anonfame1 Registered Member

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    The irrational invective against your comments? Huh?? You are in the "All About Unix" subforum railing against the utility of Linux as a platform in a thread specifically about playonlinux. That would likely be considered far more invective than anything I said. Further, suggesting that one (presumably me) is being irrationally invective is an implicit ad-hominem attack intending to dismiss what I had to say by dismissing my person (instead of debating my claims).

    I am not being a Linux evangelist here. If anything, you are being a Windows evangelist in a Unix subforum. I wouldnt even dare to suggest that Linux had more games, or that it had a larger proprietary software ecosystem- it doesnt. Nonetheless, it can do far more than simple web-browsing, listening to tunes, and emailing (like AAA title games when the developers actually write the games for it, tons of software development, creation and manipulation of tons of content, etc etc)- this is what I initially replied to point out (I can provide more in depth examples if you dont believe me). If you want to talk about interface prettiness and features, KDE5 blows any Windows desktop away.

    What distribution have you had tons of little problems with? Ive been using a hybrid of xfce and openbox for years and years (on Arch nonetheless- a rolling distro that doesnt prioritize stability) and havent had any problems with the desktop (though I have had 3 issues with pulseaudio- optional software that I dont like). Perhaps this is a distro issue and not a Linux issue?

    Linux cannot do as much as Windows. This is a market problem- not a core problem with the Linux model. Linux is more secure, more customizable (in terms of the OS itself), more stable, and you can actually see what its doing (doesnt leak your data; open-source). Windows has a monopoly on the OEM market, and has a larger software catalog. Thats where we are- no more no less.

    Please take this as a response of clarification and not of attack.
     
  13. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    @Anonfame1 I strongly believe he was talking to me :argh:

    Great comment, BTW. I'm too on Arch and never had major problems. I'm here doing image editing, 3D creation on a tool that does almost everything that the Pixar Studios' tool can do (in the words of their own people), playing AAA games natively on Steam, and doing web browsing and audio/video playback. No issues whatsoever. I'm even using Kernel 4.9-wip, Mesa-git, and LLVM-SVN. Everything working as they should.
     
  14. daario

    daario Registered Member

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    Oh please let's not do this... ;)
     
  15. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Oh yeah let's do this ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

    Start a new thread with the following topics:

    • Which is more secure by default;
    • Which is more secure with 2 simple programs (on the Linux side, firejail and a new Kernel, GRSecurity);
    • Which has more eyes looking into the source code;
    • Which even has an open source code;
    • Which has it's vulnerabilities patched faster;
    • Which is more secure by default on the Net side;
    • Which doesn't have it's vulnerabilities delivered to the NSA;
     
  16. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    sorry you're wrong... it's both of you :argh:

    Thank you for this comment, as it clearly illustrates my point that no mainstream Windows user will ever, and I mean ever, go this route. You have no doubt invested a great deal of time and effort learning and even mastering the Linux platform, but never in the foreseeable future will the mainstream windows user even entertain the thought of dropping Windows programs and converting to Linux in the attempt to run "alternative" programs on the Linux platform.
     
  17. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Actually, my point there was to show that even using a "bleeding edge distro" with even more bleeding edge software (like LLVM-SVN and mesa-git, and the current development Kernel) I didn't have problems ;)
     
  18. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    Not meaning to drag this on, but it's important for me to clarify I should have stated most mainstream Windows users won't go your route.

    Let's face facts, you're at a far greater Linux knowledge level than most typical Linux users, such as myself, and certainly far greater than the mainstream Windows user. Even after several years of extensive use of Ubuntu-based distros and even Arch, my level of expertise is considerably less than yours, and some other members in this forum using Linux. That I can tell from reading your posts and tutorials, you have a much stronger grasp of it. I suspect the main reason you didn't have any problems with your setup is based on the fact you were able to avoid headaches and frustrations the typical user would have encountered with the installation and configuration of a similar setup. In my case when I encounter problems on my home machine I persevere and seek out solutions, all of which eat up considerable time, which doesn't bother me too much, unlike the majority of people, who likely won't have the time and patience to deal with it.

    I've long maintained that the intuitiveness of learning Linux, and the availability of help with problems, is no where near that of Windows. It also doesn't help that Linux has too many distros on the go, rather than the experts focusing on a smaller distro set. This latter initiative would no doubt reduce the problems that do exist with Linux distros in general.
     
  19. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    @wat0114 Thanks, but my knowledge is not so great, although it may seem that way =P

    And even if that was the case, you'd be surprised at how little maintenance I do. Seriously, after adding the git repos, I only did "pacman -Syu" to get the latest mesa and LLVM. Nothing else :argh:
    The same with the Kernel. If people want it, I could upload them somewhere so people can install them, and all they'd have to do is also "pamcan -Syu".

    I'm surprised myself on how well Arch works not only out-of-the-box, but with a few development repos.

    Cheers.
     
  20. Joxx

    Joxx Registered Member

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    Do you know how many PC users would understand the above?
    1 out of ten thousand would be an optimistic estimation.
     
  21. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    Again, not the point. I've explained myself on this subject already.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2016
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