Should i make the switch to lunix?

[agons]

Hello everyone,
I am a low level xhtml/html, c#, and C++ programmer and have always loved building computers as my biggest hobby. I've used Windows since my first computer which was my moms old desktop almost 15 years ago. I have had my eye on lunix and it seems recently to really catch my attention. I never really like ubuntu the UI never felt right but then i stumbled upon mint, I instantly felt like this could be my new OS for everything. The only catch is that i game,..... quite a bit. Triple monitor eyfinity BF3 and Need for speed are my fix of choice atm. So im hoping you guys can give me a little more insight on either mint can work for me, ive read about humble bundle and others that have lunix games but since everything seems to be gone all most 90% DirectX is there ever a chance for bug releases to go back to something cross platform that will work for lunix? I guess what im trying to get at is as a programmer but an advid gamer should i make the switch? i know you can run mint or dual boot but i like to have just one OS for everything.

[remoulder]

Triple monitor eyfinity BF3 and Need for speed are my fix of choice

These kind of games are probably never going to work properly if at all on linux, so basically if you want to play Windows games you are going to need that OS. Alternatively get a console and use your PC for other things?

everything seems to be gone all most 90% DirectX

I imagine it's pretty much the same thing. You can probably write the code on a linux box but compiling and testing would need a Windows box. It's likely someone will chip in and say this is not the case, but I would ask why you are considering an OS switch when much of what you do is Windows dependent?

[xenopeek]

remoulder has a point; if you are into the latest & greatest games from the big studios, those won't run on Linux. Indie games (as in, from independent software development studios) are quite well represented on Linux. Next to Humble Bundle, you can also use Desura and Indievania and other such stores, which have been growing their offerings rapidly since early last year. As for Humble Bundle, rumour is that they are in closed beta with a gaming store (for a while you could access it on their website if you knew the URL), where you will be able to buy games from past bundles separately.

Of course there is more to computing than games, so you could start with dual-booting Linux with Windows? Or you can install VirtualBox or Windows and run Linux as a virtual machine on top of Windows? Depends on what you do besides gaming

[MortalWombat]

Hi there!
I'm in a similar position to yours: also playing BF3 and doing some (web-)development...

I've been an on-and-off linux user for about five years now but just recently i tried out some distributions and ended up with linux mint set up to dual boot next to windows 7.
And i have to tell you that i ONLY boot windows for playing BF3 which also has its advantages... you can make windows your dedicated gaming OS without making it slow and fragmented through your everyday use. Its not that i decided to only use windows for games -- but everything else just feels so much more natural, stable, fast and transparent under Mint (and linux in general)!

I can especially recommend you using cinnamon as your desktop environment (even tough it still has some minor bugs (and may lack features that some wish for/require...))... i already like it better than gnome shell and it by far (FAR) beats unity at least for use on a desktop computer.

I would also highly recommend you getting a book about linux or unix systems in general. You will not want to miss out on all the possibilities that you get by using the shell for example. After reading two books on the subject i feel a lot more comfortable now knowing that i can deal with problems that may arise or that i at least know what to look for when i want to attack an issue (don't get me wrong, i also have used computers my whole life... it's just a totally different story to just consume windows or to be able to really shape your operating system and track something down).

Another thing is that, in the long run, i don't want a big part of my life to be dependant on a big company. I feel that a big part of the global society is not even aware of how much we depend on big capitalist companies. I sure hope that this will change over time but that's not on-topic at all

Edit:
P.S:
Dual booting works flawlessly for me and hasn't affected my experience at all. There's no harm in trying i suppose...