Linux

My question is how can Linux run windows based programs be able to play EVE and other things such as running steam firefox etc...

Now onto my second question as I am planning on building a new machine and money is rather tight I was wondering if either of these builds would be able to run Eve at all. I think they might as my 6 1/2 year old dell inspiron 6400 can sort of run it even though the screen is spazzing out...anyway onto the builds:

build 1)
Biostar AMD A780L3C MoBo
AMD Athlon II X3 450 Triple Core CPU
ADATA Premier Srs 4GB DDR3 Desktop Memory Module
Case w/450W PSU
cost: $367.01 (includes shipping and tax's)

build 2)

GIGABYTE GA-A55M-DS2 AMD A Series Motherboard
AMD Triple-Core A6-3500 2.1GHz Radeon HD 6530D APU
2X Centon 4GB Desktop Memory Module
Ultra xBlaster Case w/450W PSU Bundle
cost: $334.24 (includes shipping and tax's)


build 3)

Biostar AMD 970 Motherboard
AMD FX-4100 3.60 GHz Quad Core AM3+ Unlocked CPU
ADATA Premier Srs 4GB DDR3 Desktop Memory Module
Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 1GB DDR3 Video Card
cost: $406.05 (includes shipping and tax's)

build 4)

MSI 970A-G43 AMD 970 AM3+ Motherboard
AMD FX-4100 3.60 GHz Quad Core AM3+ Unlocked CPU
Kingston HyperX Red 4GB Memory Module
Thermaltake TR-500 TR2 ATX 500W Power Supply
cost: $433.82 (includes shipping and tax's)

build 5)

GIGABYTE 760G MoBoard
AMD Athlon II X3 450 Triple Core Processor
ADATA 4GB DDR3 Desktop Memory Module,
Thermaltake 500W PSU
cost: $367.01 (includes shipping and tax's)

So anyway can any of these builds will work with eve I would appreciate it as what I had before was a :

Dell Inspiron 560s Q2800 Quad Core 2.2 ghz processor, 6 gb of ram and had an ATI Raedon 6450 graphics card and it melted so I had to go get a Pny Nvidia geforce gt 430 and it oddly enough played eve

in my experience i always had trouble with AMD/ATI-Graphics .. - mostly driver issues.
I haven't any problem with Intel/Nvidia though. I know they cost a bit extra but im willing to pay that.

As said, its personal preference. It may be that this was solved (on the driver side) in the last 1-2 years.

BTW: as to the Firefox question...IE is basically the only browser that doesn't come in a native Linux version.

There are three ways a linux box can run Windows programs.

The first is that they're not windows programs at all. Firefox, for instance, is cross platform, as is Chrome and Opera. You just use the linux version. Steam also has a native linux version, and a small handful of games that are also native that it can install. Pyfa, for instance, is the go-to replacement for EFT.

Second is via wine, which translates windows calls to linux calls. A program has to interact a lot with the OS. Wine pretends to be Windows, and every time the program asks for something from Windows, wine translates that and basically asks for equivalent stuff from the linux kernel. Sort of. That's .... well it's very simplified. The bottom line is that you can run many programs at nearly full speed, however SOME of the things that the program asks for can't easily be supplied by linux, and wine either ignores the request or does it very, very slowly. For instance, in EVE, you can't walk around in a station, and building your character EG what you look like is incredibly painfully slow. Create characters on a Windows machine, and play on Linux.

The third is via emulation. In qemu or virtualbox or vmware, you emulate a computer, with a complete windows install, and install software within that windows installation. That's the easiest way to get Evemon or EFT working, for instance. However, performance isn't very good, because you don't have direct access to the hardware. There is no 3D acceleration.

On to the other stuff:

IMHO I wouldn't bother with an AMD video card. Nvidia's drivers are so much better it's ridiculous. There are two driver suites for AMD graphics cards: drivers that are slow, and drivers that crash. The official nvidia drivers are fast and stable. The unofficial, open source nvidia drivers (called 'nouveau') are slow and stable. Note that eve doesn't really require a very good videocard. I play on my laptop with intel onboard video. It could be better, but it works.

Intel CPUs are preferred to AMD, because the single threaded performance is slightly better. AMD is fine though, you won't have problems per se just the performance won't be as good.

All those setups are pretty low end.

I have first hand experience with the AMD FX-4100, as that is what is in my machine. It is pretty fast for a cheaper CPU, get a good motherboard that can handle some heat. MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU HAVE A CASE WITH GOOD AIRFLOW, these run HOT!!!!!!, oddly enough the stock cooler is sufficient even with some mild overclocking, I have run mine at 3.9 ghz on the stock cooler and it never got to an unsafe temp for the CPU (but the mobo was getting a little warm for my liking and my poor video card was living at 75C anytime I ran any game), this is in a thermaltake v3 case with 3 chassis fans.

As for the linux side, I have never tried to run EVE in linux. My gaming rig is windows, but I have messed with a few linux distros.

If you are new to linux I would suggest using an Unbuntu based distro, If you dont like the ubuntu UI (its called unity but it is a modified version of GNOME), then try Kubuntu (KDE UI), or Xubuntu (XFCE UI) or LinuxMint (you can choose between GNOME, KDE or XFCE). KDE is the most windows like UI and my personal favorite (if you like insanely customizable UIs you will love KDE).