This is just FYI. I've shifted the entire production side of ..::LvL from WinXP to Linux. This is something I've meaning to do for a while and have finally done.

This means everything from the play testing, screenshots, panoramas, video editing, zip and data file uploads, etc.

This also means the February update is running late as I had a few things to learn and a few scripts to write.

Originally the shift was going to be to FreeBSD (which is the server software I like to run, and ..::LvL runs on), however FreeBSD is clearly "server" and Linux is clearly "desktop". There were too many issues with FreeBSD as a video, graphic and programming (for Android) environment. For a basic a desktop (email, web surf, basic programming) FreeBSD is more than fine. I have used it this way on my second PC for at least 12 years. Linux on the other hand worked without a problem for everything I needed. So, Linux it is.

On a side note, I have not booted into WinXP for over a month (and do not intend to boot it again). I would highly recommend people still running WinXP give Linux a go. You can download a "Live" version for most Linux versions. These are DVD or USB version of the distribution which can be booted without installing to a hard drive to try out. When I started to run into issues with FreeBSD, this is what I did. I then tested everything I needed to test from the Live version. When there were no issues, I installed the OS :]

I installed Linux Mint if you are interested in knowing which distro I went with.

Great to know! I've been on Linux (Ubuntu in this case) since 2008. It takes some time to get used to it, but for daily use (and even for some specific stuff) it's more than OK.

Did you try Ubuntu? Some people don't like its default interface (Unity) but there's an official "Gnome fallback session" package that will make it look like it was before Unity and it works fine. Xubuntu is an alternative that's highly recommended, less eye-candy but a lot more customizable and a lot easier on computer resources, runs fine even on 10 years-old machines.

Xubuntu looks like a good option to me. I prefer less candy and do most things from the command line / terminal. I'll grab a Live version of Xubuntu (if there is one) and give it a go.

You'll like Xubuntu then. Current release is 13.10, which is an intermediate release, I'd recommend 12.04 which is an LTS (Long Term Support) release, or wait until the next LTS which will come out in April.

Of course you can try it live, grab it from xubuntu.org/getxubuntu/

I used to use Ubuntu around 2005-2009 but I got fed up with the lack of drive letters, the overdependency on the user's home directory, and the lack of tablet drivers, so for 3d art production it wasn't that great. I returned to Windows since.

Edited 33 seconds after the original posting.

@leilei: That is pretty much the same reason why my partner has stuck with Windows too. She uses a Wacom and Photoshop (and other graphics apps) a lot. When testing the Wacom on Linux, there just is not the same level of control. Then there is no Photoshop as well.

Another reason why I left Linux was a regression in X about color control - Q3 could not control the screen brightness/contrast anymore for the overbrights to work. Naturally this lead to many complaints about OA being "too dark".

Is this still the case these days?

I use IOQuake3, and the menu brightness option does not work, however the following console options do work:

Set these two:
r_ignorehwgamma 1
r_overbrightbits 0

Then you can tweak with:
r_intensity 1.2
r_gamma 1.2

The tweak values are a float between 0 and 2, both are 1 by default.

Most will require a vid_restart to see the results.

I wouldn't recommend mentioning r_intensity in front of leilei. :P
Though yeah, that sucks about the brightness. I have a problem regarding brightness, minimizing and fullscreen with both ioQ3 and OA and it even affects Windows. Haven't tried other games, though.

Edited 4.13 minutes after the original posting.

I wouldn't touch r_intensity at all. That's a Quake2 holdover that made that particular game infamous for 'washing skins out' by turning them all white, because the game didn't support true gamma control for non-3dfx hardware. Also it has the side effect of breaking shaders that use modulated blends because it also turns them white as well, instead of blending properly to no opacity. Why Carmack didn't remove r_intensity in the first place, i'm not so sure.

r_gamma works though? That's good. Fortunately I did a renderer hack that simulates overbrights by a blended polygon on screen. This allows to work within a window, the only real downside is that it slows down software rasterizers (coughBSDcough) and really old Voodoo-era video cards.

openarena.ws/board/index.php

I've yet to commit this engine change online since I have trouble getting Git to work right now. I am also a little surprised this has not been done earlier for being such a simple solution.

id Software love r_intensity... so much so that they cranked the sucker up to 10 default value in QL!

I wonder how much of that is Id and how much of that is the fact that they have arQon on the team.