Ubuntu and gaming

You can try it out now without deleting Windows. See if you like the change.

You should definitely deep-throat Tux's sexy penguin meat.

I recommend dual booting both instead. You get the best of both worlds.

try it with virtual box

You can try using WINE :> still dual booting is still better option :>

Try it and see if you like it.

I don't use it for gaming, many games run there worse than on Windows.

I've Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 8 Pro, Linux Ubuntu and Linux BackTrack.

I prefer Windows 7, because of the simplicity. Then I'd go for Windows 8 Pro, for the speed. But Linux BackTrack is also 'very' fast. :)

However, if you want to play on Steam, I'd stick to Windows for a year or two ;)

I'm playing on ubuntu.
It's good OS - never had a crash :D
If you have good PC you can play whatever you want - WINE is good emulator. Same as PlayOnLinux.

Since this thread is about Ubuntu and gaming, maybe someone can answer my question:

I'm planing on creating a bootable USB stick with the latest Ubuntu version - will I be able to use my existing (windows) Steam installation, if I boot into Ubuntu, or will I have to create a separate Steam installation?

It's not really the installation that bothers me, but I don't want to re-download all (Linux compatible) games to try them.

(My Steam installation is not on the same HDD as my Windows installation, if that makes any difference.)

Edit: thanks for the answers so far.
I guess I'll try the following:
1) install the Linux Version of Steam into a different folder
2) install a small game (so the sub folders will be created, I guess)
3) copy over the steamapps folder of the game I want to try
4) pray that it works, or at least that I will not have to re-dowload all of the files =)

I'd use wubi installer or, even better, a usb stick installation. Very little hassle involved and if you don't like what you see, which is kinda likely — gaming is still kinda ass on linux — you can easily revert everything to the way it was.

I don't use Ubuntu, but operating systems with Linux have treated me well in the past. It's worth trying out. But there's no reason to abandon Windows just to try it (unless you have some other reason for now using Windows). Look for a "live" version of Ubuntu (or some other OS) and you can run it on your computer without even having to install it. Live Operating Systems run off a DVD or USB stick - the perfect thing for taking a test-drive.

I think you should first try it out on virtual machine or as second OS in dual boot system. No reason to abandon Windows because it has some things Linux doesn't have.

installed ubuntu 12.10 having a hard time installing steam lol

i use linux mint!

works good - only aobut 10 of my games are avialable so far but ones ive tried work well

I currently have an external HDD with ubuntu + Steam. Not the Live version - direct install. It works pretty good.

Hey, i think that i have to check the nVidia drivers. Is that neccesary before starting to use Steam? I don't know how to check it :/

to drunk to try all those suggestions said

I only run Linux on machines that are too shit to run Windows.

Then I stop using them anyway because I hate Linux.