Originally Posted by Wimpface
Alright, I read something about many games not running properly on Linux. I'm wondering if these games work (Without that wine thingy, if that's possible)
World of Warcraft (Quite sure it works, but hey, you never know!)
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Left 4 Dead
Counter-Strike: Source
3 of those are steampowered games, perhaps steam doesn't work on Linux?
Also, Is it hard to skin Ubuntu?
EDIT: Thanks in advance!
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I have Steam installed and runs on my machine. It's very slow however my machine is quite ancient and it does not have the horsepower (RAM and CPU) that is needed. However the COD, L4D, and CS:S issues may be related to missing DirectX APIs. While the Wine community has done a great job of building the APIs needed (through a "clean room" reverse engineering process), some of the DirectX APIs are currently incomplete (new versions of DX9, nothing for DX10 yet).
WoW works great on Linux because it can use either DirectX or OpenGL. It's just a simple matter of switching from DirectX to OpenGL via an additional line in your config.wtf. OpenGL games are going to work the best on Linux, then games that use older versions of DirectX. Eventually, all of the DirectX APIs will get Wine equivalents however DirectX is a moving target. Of course we would not be in this bind if Microsoft had not brainwashed developers into using DirectX and based the Xbox on DirectX (thus making for easy Xbox to PC ports).
Now for skinning Linux, it's generally quite easy to skin Linux. Currently the GNOME environment is the easiest to theme completely. It just a matter of dropping a packaged theme file onto the Appearance Preference panel (which installs the theme), then selecting it. From there you can customize your theme with icons, cursors, controls, borders, etc. By default, GNOME uses the Metacity window manager, however there are others available including Emerald, Enlightment (of which has since been developed into a desktop enviroment) and Sawfish.
KDE is trickier. While you can easily download and install Plasma themes, icons, cursors, etc. from within the Appearance panels, installing an overall system theme is much more involved. I hope the KDE devs fix this as installing a window theme is confusing for newer users. I do like KDE myself, I use several KDE applications in my GNOME setup, most notably Amarok. Windows can get many KDE applications thanks to KDE on Windows which is KDE (and it's applications) ported to Windows.
Overall, GNOME and Xfce are the easiest interfaces for new Linux users, KDE is great for the power users. Then there other interfaces such as Enlightment (E17), BMPanel, and more.
GNOME:
http://www.gnome.org
KDE:
http://www.kde.org
Ubuntu is a great distro to get started with as everything comes pretty much set up "out of the box". Likewise with OpenSUSE and Fedora however I am partial to Debian based distros (of which Ubuntu is). Even better is the Ubuntu (and by extension Debian) based Linux Mint which comes with the non FOSS bits (such as Flash and additional device drivers) that many PC users have become used to (and are needed for much of your online video viewing these days, **ahem** YouTube). Linux Mint also comes with some additional "polish" (beyond that of Ubuntu) and additional utilities that new users will find handy.
Ubuntu:
http://www.ubuntu.com
Linux Mint:
http://www.linuxmint.com/
OpenSUSE:
http://www.opensuse.org/en/
Fedora:
http://fedoraproject.org/