Minecraft on Linux

[Cosford]

I'm new to Linux and was wondering if It is possible to play minecraft on Linux? I am aware it probably won't play other games without the use of wine, just purely interested in minecraft here :)

If so, does anyone have a suggestion for a distribution of Linux? Looking to play minecraft as efficiently as possible. Laptop specs are: 1.86ghz pentium dual core, 2gb ram.

Cheers.

[Ricko97]

Yes, Minecraft will run on Linux as it's written in Java. Easy peasy :) (see .jar download here: http://www.minecraft.net/download.jsp)

It's not a particularly graphics-intensive game (lol) so should run OK with your specs, although it might slow down when generating new landscape. Also, depending on your graphics chipset, you might experience slowdowns with a lot of landscape, creatures, objects, etc in view. I know I do on my lappy, which has an 8800M GS.

[Jackster]

Make sure you install Java 6.


Java 7 has lots of bugs and MineCraft does not seam to like it.

[Cosford]

Ok, I've been running it in vista on the laptop and it's Okay, but suffers from lag spikes, dropping down to 5 fps or so at times.

I've been wanting to play around with Linux as it is, now I have an excuse ;P
Any suggestions on a distribution? I was just going to go for ubuntu unless you have any better ideas?

[FunkY]

Ubuntu's a good one to get started with :)

[Cosford]

I'll probably go ahead and play around with Linux anyway, but do you think I'll see any improvement in the performance using it over windows vista?

[iGoD ReLeNtLeS]

I would say overall theres quite a performance increase, ubuntu i think uses around 200mb RAM idling, vs. windows which must use about 1GB or so. Mind it depends how much RAM you have to how much windows will using idling :p

[Cosford]

Well I normally find windows idling at 700mb and 12-15% CPU, but it's odd, the CPU usage fluctuates massively, even with just a movement of the Cursor it can jump the 70% 0.o

It's on a pretty much fresh install aswell!

[iGoD ReLeNtLeS]

Dual boot it. If ubuntu is no better then simply remove the partition its installed on and extend the windows partition.

[Cosford]

I plan to dual boot it :) as I have office applications etc.

[sb89]

I plan to dual boot it :) as I have office applications etc.

Linux has free office applications and they are just as good as the Windows applications.

[Mr Banana]

Linux has free office applications and they are just as good as the Windows applications.

+1 to this, i use Libre Office for word docs and spreadsheets, works without a hitch, don't see a need to MS Office for light use.

[waba]

i used to use openoffice on ubuntu, they seem to have libre on it instead, but ya it does work well, havnt used ms office for a while

[iGoD ReLeNtLeS]

i used to use openoffice on ubuntu, they seem to have libre on it instead, but ya it does work well, havnt used ms office for a while

libre is openoffice, just oracle had a bit of a rebrand :thumb:

[Mr Banana]

libre is openoffice, just oracle had a bit of a rebrand :thumb:

Actually libre office is a fork of open office and nothing to do with oracle.

[waba]

ahhh ok, thought it seemed familiar, haha!

[Mr Banana]

Yeah it's run by a new foundation so unlike open office it can't ever be messed up by commercial plans - so libre office is the way forward :)

Anyway this has been derailed enough don't you think...

[iGoD ReLeNtLeS]

Actually libre office is a fork of open office and nothing to do with oracle.

Could have sworn libre office was the rebrand of open office after oracle went on a bit of a rebranding spree, removing all existance of sun along with it. :scratch

[Mr Banana]

Could have sworn libre office was the rebrand of open office after oracle went on a bit of a rebranding spree, removing all existance of sun along with it. :scratch

It is basically a rebranding, but it's nothing to do with oracle. It was forked.

Libre Office was forked by people completely unrelated to oracle.

Now shall we stop derailing the thread? :P