Finding and running games on Linux

My last post was all about selecting a Linux desktop distro. One of the major factors that hold many users making a switch from Windows to Linux is Gaming support.

This article strikes at the heart of one of the biggest Linux myths out there - that it doesn't have gaming support. One of the primary reasons many forumites say that they can't give up the Windows OS is that they don't want to give up their games - is it true?

Gaming is the one thing that Windows has to offer over Linux. There are plenty of open-source office packages, photo editors, web browsers, mail clients,... but the general impression of gaming on Linux is poor. This is because most big gaming developers only use DirectX in their games; and, as we all know, DirectX is one of Microsoft's greatest gifts to gamers. But that doesn't mean there aren't great games that run natively, or through so-called emulators (though most actually aren't, which we'll cover later). In this article we'll discuss some of those games.