Answering Questions (Mostly of the Linux Persuasion)

I got a couple positive responses to my Linux guide (thank you for the shout-outs, Lassirra and Kestrel!) as well as a couple questions that I would like to address:

Think it's possible to dual boot a Linux distro onto a macbook? Although I haven't had experience with this, a google of "dual boot linux macbook" brought up some promising looking links and Pelides mentioned this: "With Paralells installed on an Intel Mac, you could run Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and any other X86 operating system within the Mac OS X environment. You could theoretically run WoW under WINE in Linux through Paralells on your Mac. You'd be working about 2 virtualizations deep at that point, but it should work." So I'd say the answer is a yes!

Just for fun, I'm going to say the screenshot used in your wallpaper is a character overflying Mulgore, north side somewhere. Hehe, that particular wallpaper is available here and yes, I'm going to say it's Mulgore too. (I actually find myself wanting to say they're headed southwest through Mulgore from the direction of the Barrens, but that's probably just me being a geek, as usual.)

Did you use the RPM based Wine or did you get Cedega? Because I use a Debian-based distro I do not use RPM files which are for Red Hat based distros. To install Wine I would either use a Deb file, compile the thing from source, or do it in the terminal via a sudo aptitude install wine. As for Cedega... a lot of people swear by it and say it works a lot better than Wine. I prefer to use Wine for two reasons: one is that it simply works for me, so why fix it if it ain't broken ;P and secondly because it is one of the few Linux programs I have run into that you have to pay for, and I would rather keep my stuff as "free" as I can. But if you are having issues getting Wine to work and you really want to play games on Linux, then Cedega might be worth a shot, and your money.

"World of Warcraft is unable to start 3D acceleration." *sad panda* Sucks, because other than that, it feels like I'm SO. CLOSE. I got that same message when I tried to install WoW (via Wine) on my laptop. Now I didn't spend too long trying to figure this one out because firstly I don't know if my laptop can even adequately run WoW =P And secondly because I've got it working fine on my desktop. But from my quick research I was able to determine that it is possibly a driver problem. You may want to try seeing if you need to update your video drivers at all. (This would also be a good place to mention that as far as Linux is concerned, Nvidia is the clear winner over ATI.) Otherwise I would recommend asking around for help on the many Linux forums out there; if you use a 'buntu then Ubuntu Forums is an invaluable resource.

Alrighty, that does it for now, as far as Linux is concerned. Please let me know if you have any more questions or comments, I love getting them! Also, I want to mention something. I seem to have inspired some people to try installing Linux or even just consider it. I think it's great that a lot of people want to try it out and that I have inspired some people that way, but I also want to remind the adventurous reader that WoW and Wine are not a foolproof combination and that while there are a lot of people like me who have managed to get it working with little problems, there are also a lot of people who haven't got it working at all, for whatever reasons. There is truly a lot of luck involved in what kind of hardware you've got and how Wine reacts to it, and things like that. But don't let that deter you from giving it a try if you want! You will gain a deep satisfaction for "getting it working" if you are successful, and of course you will be using a very fun new operating system ;) But I wanted to lay the cautionary note out there too. Back up your stuff, and be prepared to revert back to your previous operating system if it doesn't work out right.

Lastly, I got this question in my previous post...

"More information on BG's would be cool, it sounds like you enjoy them and spend quite a bit of time there. I have not found or read much information about them but they sound interesting. Any guidance you can provide would be appreciated."

Firstly thank you very much, TazButane, for your faith in my PvP abilities, which are in my opinion still rather meager. Your question is a rather "large" and open-ended one as opposed to a more specific one, and as such I will probably have to think on it for a bit and see if I can come up with a good satisfying post for you. So stay tuned =)

Patch 2.3 next week! My alts are quivering with excitement.