I hope nobody takes the comments about the live stream chat the wrong way-I'm not saying *that* was borderline toxic-that comment was directed at forum post replies, Reddit, etc. This community's wonderful, and I'm fine with people being nuts over their own favorite distro ;)
Agree, I just got my first job (though I know the company boss) and it involves using Linux to a fair extent. Which distro doesn’t matter too much for me. Usability is my most pressing concern.
@Jeff Geerling, you can configure the Ram by instaling Windows one time and saving the desired RGB Profile to the ram itself. That way it stays even after the install of a different OS. It limits you to only one Profile, but at least its somthing you chose and not the default RGB rainbow...Hope it helps you out :)
@Jeff I think you got too much angry with the live streams comments. Nobody was questioning your intelligence. You’re Dam too smart guy who makes things we admire. You know you choose a polemic route when decided to use Linux. You are from this community and you knew what you were getting… wish best luck with the new PC build.
As a longtime Linux user (and Linux gamer) here's my 0.02: When you try something from a random forum post or whatever, if you can leave a comment, DO IT! Works, doesn't work, what your hardware is, etc. It helps a lot for those coming after you so that they get a better picture of if this line I just copied into term is actually going to work. Good luck all. I'm still on Ubuntu, even though I distro shop at least once a week. Just can't get the guts to switch to Arch.... :-)
Always! Especially for those times when you find something posted a couple years ago that never got an answer. Even if you don't answer it 100%, giving some clues as to how *you* solve something will help future visitors quite a bit. And if you're like me, you'll be one of those future visitors as you remember you did the exact same thing and smack yourself for realizing you even wrote an answer about it before :D
I never do anything I find on a post or what someone tells me until i understand exactly what it is doing. Like... copy and paste a command? no... I need to understand each part and learn it, then if it sounds like a good idea I'll do it.
@@trapOrdoom ubuntu still working for you? i started on ubuntu, than debian, than 500 niche distros to land on arch. got back to ubuntu when my install got borked and i didnt want to fuss, really liked ubuntu mate, than started to get used to "new"gnome, now because of ubuntu im back on arch, but with gnome instead off all these fineky minimalist tiling window managers. ubuntu is my go to for just install and use, but it gets borring when it always just works. started dabeling in fedora the other day because gnome, also really good experience.
But don't forget that you need rep to comment and when you ask a question it will be downvoted and closed, so there's no way to earn rep but you need rep. Not to mention it's frowned upon to ask questions in stack exchange (ask ubuntu) - you are expected to already know the answer to every question that could ever be asked.
Me too man. Me too. Should just be a good time. Being a troll and lambasting new people is easy. Taking a political or ideological stance and berating those who think differently is easy. Contributing to open source projects, sharing code, and creating content to help build the community, and share knowledge is the hard part.
For AMD cards especially, my understanding is that the open source drivers (which AMD contribute to!) generally outperform the proprietary offerings. As for Nvidia... let's just say that if I never see the word "nouveau" printed monospaced on my screen again, it'll be too soon.
@@GSBarlev The only issue I've had with AMD was back 10 years around the Southern Islands GPUs which had some trouble with gpu-compute drivers, which was especially disappointing as I had paid more for a workstation card, which was designed for doing GPU-compute. (Along with much better CADD type workload rendering than gaming cards of the same GPU generation.)
The default graphics driver is generally okay with AMD. The GPUPRO drivers are only needed for a couple things and seem to work along side the built in driver
@@needlessoptions That absolutely depends on your card and your distro (specifically the kernel). If you're on Ubuntu 20.04 (or a distro built on Ubuntu LTS) then you're stuck with Linux 5.4! That means starting out without a ton of GPU improvements and innovations from the last few years. Tbh, this is probably a big reason *why* Steam switched SteamOS to Arch.
Right on point for the conclusion of the video. My wife, being a linux noob user and never wanting to be a linux sorceress herself, came with me to a linux con in our city and got a lot of flack for using Ubuntu... literally everyone said that her distro was shit and to switch {INSERT FAV DISTRO HERE}. Same with desktop environments, etc. Please, be kind, respect the decisions of new users, try to be helpful and in the end, when they are happy, you can always slide a comment like "By the way, I'm using this distro, I like it better for X and Y. Check it out someday if you want to, I'll be happy to help.".
I always find it funny. You can look at user post history and see people simultaneously complain about how Linux isn’t main stream and how toxic the community and then their next post will be telling someone they are stupid because of their distro
Ugh as a woman who spends a lot of time in predominantly male nerd spaces that's all too familiar. You'll always find that super loud minority of guys who don't really know how to talk to women all too well and gatekeep them from the space with that kinda stuff. Especially when you're new to a space, a few bad apples can spoil the bunch and put you off from engaging with it. It's happened to me a few times before I learned how to shrug that stuff off.
Its not just new users... I've noticed long time expert users fighting each-other over what is best and what is crap and berating each-other. It seems like there are a lot of really loud opinionated people who use Linux
@CreativeUnoriginals yeah I'm really glad I didn't pay attention to the community for the first few months of my Linux journey. There are good areas of it, but for me it seems you can only find them once you understand Linux itself and know what to look for. Some people unfortunately just don't have enough going on in their lives, and use elitism and distros to feel like they're part of some club when in reality no one gives a fuck and everyone should just use whatever distro suits their needs
By the way, I'm watching this on Arch. I love the drivers that have improved my experience from the community. That being said, I love that you are gray beard enough to know, linux has many ways to do the same thing. To stick with distros you know like Ubuntu, RHEL base like Fedora is great too. You can see the packages in their repos. You can make any distro function pretty well, it just takes time to break it in like some good old boots. Keep making videos that help us all. You know how to compile all kinds of kernel stuff. That is pretty legit.
@@Brancliff The best thing about the arch community is that most of the anti-arch burns come from them! I'm deb-or-die at least until "After Q3" 😢 but I appreciate how self-aware (and self-effacing!) arch folks are.
I literally JUST turned my first PC build into a linux. Thanks alot for this Jeff. Also a driver i use for my AMD is Mesa, it stays updated and is probably the most comfortable driver ive used.
Yes the amdgpu driver is great. Use a distro that uses a relatively recent kernel and mesa stack and you never have issues unless new hardware is released. In which case you’ll have to wait a few weeks.
since Radeon software doesn't work on Linux, do you have the ability to change brightness/contrast/vibrance/saturation etc. with profiles per-game / per-program with any alternatives?
@@Shajirr_ Usually you can change these settings in the display section. As far as I'm aware KDE allows you to do this in the settings. Gnome also has something similar. I'm not sure about per game/programm though.
Big rule of thumb for running desktop Linux: LTS releases for serious work (business and server use cases), cutting/bleeding edge releases for personal installs. Seems like you basically figured that out in the end, but I'm putting it here in the comments for the TLDW crowd :) I will say that going to the amdgpu pro drivers is often unnecessary, as the normal open source amdgpu drivers (which come bundled with most distros by default) have pretty decent performance. I game on them regularly with good results. Installing the pro driver (like Nvidia's Linux driver) can complicate things, as it's an out of tree driver, which always makes upgrading your kernel a pain. DKMS can help there, but it's not perfect.
Stable (aka old) software on servers is fine. Linux has nailed that use case for years and years. As soon as you attach a screen to any hardware that isn't ancient or you have the intention to do anything vaguely demanding (i.e., more than basic office work) I don't see the point of LTS releases. All releases are in some way broken, only the more recent it is the more likely the most glaring issues are fixed.
The last comparison I saw from phoronix on AMD driver options showed marginal if any advantage to Pro drivers, and it was highly dependent on the test as to which driver set won out. The ease of installation and maintenance of the open drivers (if there is any at all) makes them the clear winner.
@@09f9 One of the major reasons to use the pro drivers was their superior CAD performance, but they have sorted that out, so the Pro drivers may not be around that much longer.
For AMD cards, please remember to avoid AMD's official driver when possible. The open source drivers are generally better. The point about the toxicity hits a little close to home.
@@project0332 Most distributions install this automatically, or have it available as a package in the package manager. Fro example on Ubuntu, the command would be "sudo apt update && sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers", which should cover both AMD and Intel.
@@project0332 Technically you can not find it outside. The real system driver is directly built in the Linux kernel. Both Mesa and AMD driver are library that use the driver that is already built in the Linux Kernel. So if you want the new driver you need to make sure the kernel is updated too. And yes everything is supposed to be included in the distro. If you need to manually update or install these often it probably mean that you would be better to pick a distro that provide more up to date package.
@@project0332 They are literally backed into the Linux Kernel itself. He fixed the issue because he updated the Kernel by using a newer version of Ubuntu.
Kudos to you, Jeff. I would have crumbled under the weight of a livestream install. I can barely do a Jellyfin install in under 4 hours (ssh + keys, firewall rules, simple hardening, mounting, etc...) and that is with a put together machine.
Unfortunately Linux gaming isn't a one-size-fits all situation. There isn't a perfect distro for it... in fact, SteamOS was (is? it's been years for me) probably the closest we got and it really was only reliable for games in the Steam store - which makes sense given what it was. Ubuntu LTS is a good option along with many others. I'm pretty familiar with the NVIDIA proprietary driver headache since I've been using them for transcoding and acceleration on linux for over a decade. Despite my experience it still takes a bit of fiddling - what is the current "stable" driver version and can I compile a kernel module for it, or is there already a repo ecosystem out there that makes it easier (looking at you, rpmfusion - thanks!)... Anyway, thanks for sharing your journey. We need to improve this space, and critiques like yours here, of Home Assistant, etc all help the community see where we can help!
I’ve been wondering if the answer is not a single distribution, but a fancy boot loader. If the boot loader looks like steam and it is easy for users to add games then I see a lot of advantages. Game developers can package the kernel, graphics driver and so on for the game. This could actually make game development simpler and games faster.
Yeah nvidia drivers are crazy proprietary so buy all and laptop like amd processor amd gpu no acelerations are good if you use wayland and amd nvidia sucks at that
@@abhimaanmayadam5713 Similar concept but lower level. Linux kernel would be included. The main difficulty I see is with people who want / need to run other programs at the same time as gaming e.g. live streaming. Security could theoretically become an issue due to lack of maintenance, but I think there are solutions to that issue.
Steam OS initially was Debian based for atleast version 1.0 and 2.0... but even it switched to Arch linux for it's bleeding edge package manager instead of waiting for debian's latest release after months and then have set up drivers according to that release. Even Minisforum's DeskMini-UM700 (which is a Valve approved if you want to have your own SteamDeck on PC expecting same performance) ships in with Manjaro
Great video and excellent comments on the need for more civility when guiding new users. One recommendation I would make to anyone wanting to use Linux for the first time is to find an experienced Linux user, one who is familiar with various versions of Linux, and ask for help and advice. The other recommendation is to do your research, go to TH-cam, and view the many excellent videos available on Linux installs there. I would not recommend attempting a Linux installation without any background, as many think it will work like Windows or Mac, it won't. While there are many Linux distros, as Chris Titus has pointed out on his excellent TH-cam channel, most are Debian, Arch, or Fedora variations. Ubuntu, for example, is a Debian variation. Another suggestion is to use an old laptop or desktop as a test machine. That way, if you mess something up, you can wipe the disk and start over. This is all part of the learning process; there is no way around this. Most people have never installed an OS, and if you want a fully installed system, there are vendors like System 76 that make Linux machines that work out of the box and are tuned to perfection. The other route is to get a Raspberry Pi and start there. Again, watch TH-cam videos, read and research to blunt the usual mistakes people make with Linux. Learning a new system is a process, and you can count on making mistakes if you want to do it yourself. I agree with Jeff that Linux will probably never become a widely used desktop system. But it will continue to grow and get better. For me, once I learned to use it, I have never looked back. I love Linux!
I totally agree, I am still a Linux noob. Started to learn with my first Raspi B2+ (I think) when I tried to install RetroPie in like 2015, set up a Minecraft server with a headless Ubuntu on a Raspi 4 in 2020, and last year I switched my old Laptop from Win10 to Mint and if I didn't use Win10 on my work machine I would only use Linux at this point. Just my Desktop is now still on Windows but more because it is >10years old and I am not really comfortable to change anything about this machine without having a replacement ready 😅
Honestly outside of the driver issue, the rest of the desktop environment is quite comfortable! Besides missing a few of my favorite Mac apps, I'd be quite at home on most of the modern distros.
@@My_Old_YT_Account Its not ready on new Apple Silicon Macs. You can get an OS booted, but so much doesn't work and has problems... it just needs more work, you wouldn't want to do it as your main OS.
Ubuntu for now is making questionable things about following the release model of some of it's open source components, resulting in more of a Frankenstein os featuring a lot of not up to date components, so other distros are doing way better, even the ubuntu based ones like mint.
The reason why you use older versions of those component software packages is specifically to avoid needing lots of new regression tests since new software can often break things elsewhere in the OS
I've been daily driving Manjaro since 2015 and stopped using Windows in 2019, I play mostly single player games and everything runs fine, I spent like 10 minutes setting up everything to be ready to play
I've tried Manjaro KDE several years ago, spent weeks trying to enable regular Sleep mode, and never managed to do it. Tried all possible variants and all suggestions from support forum. Also took several days to enable Hibernation, by default it didn't have a working config for it. Also far from everything runs fine, a lot of older games have huge compatibility issues, often making them unplayable entirely, or for example with sound completely missing. Some games required very weird and complicated install instructions to be followed to run correctly.
So Linux has come a long way. Years ago (10-15 years) I tried Linux, and when I ran into an error, I asked about it on a forum. The answer is still in my mind. "Here you have a link to some documentation (1500 pages), read that, and when you understand it, you are smart, and when you have another question, read again. And when you do not understand it, throw away your pc, or install Windows." I did read everything and I wonder, why you should not do that. So I never touched Linux again, except for the present Raspbian. And that is explained, so that I can mostly use it, or find my way.
That's exactly the mentality that needs to die. I think some users have no humility and/or empathy, so they don't remember what it was like to be eager to learn but way over their heads. Breaking things is good, it's usually in the recovery that new skills are gained, and often you just need a positive nudge. "RTFM" is often a useless response-just don't respond at all if you don't have anything helpful. It's not like every forum post *must* get a response.
That is the kind of response I still receive a lot when asking for help on r/linuxquestions or worse, use Linux focused forums. Just like Jeff I am no stranger to Linux, not even on the desktop as I use it since late 2003 (next to Windows or exclusive even) but I grew tired of troubleshooting and tinkering, so when something doesn't work out of the box or by minimal changing one word or two in a config file, it's not worth my valuable time on this planet.
@Jeff Geerling and what is even worse is when it's a forum moderator that is spouting those RTFM statements. At the same time, the various search engines create problems too, dredging up ancient hits as the #1 result, but they're no longer relevant.
My experience too... But i had thicker skin i guess and soon realised that for each toxic " guides" there are quite a few mature ones who took time to help... Linux is today the most dominant OS in the non-desktop arena because of the latter group.
Linus didn’t paste a random command. The install of steam for Pop asked if he wanted to remove the GUI and he obviously didn’t read and typed Yes. No install should remove a critical feature.
Great video! The Linux community can be toxic at times, but it can also be very helpful and friendly. I'm glad you were able to get a good Linux system set up for gaming. Ubuntu is a fine choice for a starter or "just works" distro, even if many in the community don't like it. I'm not a huge fan of it myself anymore but it was my first distro too with Ubuntu 6.06. Coming from Mac or Windows, the notion of not just downloading drivers and apps from the Internet can be confusing, and having every distro use a different package manager also adds to the confusion. As for your RAM on OpenRGB, it looks like you're using an AORUS (Gigabyte) motherboard. You will need to add a kernel command line parameter `acpi_enforce_resources=lax` to your kernel command line (usually in GRUB configuration). Gigabyte's BIOS seems to prevent the I2C drivers from loading unless you add that parameter, and I2C is used to control the RAM RGB. You can install the i2c-tools package and confirm that the I2C interfaces are available using `i2cdetect -l`. For an AMD system you should have two PIIX4 SMBus interfaces showing.
I use Pop OS and it's flawless for the most part. What happened to Linus is really unfortunate, but the System76 team fixed it so quickly they should've gotten praise for it. I'm a bit disappointed that Linus didn't take 30 seconds to add that to the video, given that the LTT team was aware of the issue being fixed way earlier than the video released. System76 is a small company, probably around the same size as LTT, I genuinely think that pointing out how they quickly fixed the bug would've been the right thing to do, with Linus' massive influence. Even Anthony from LTT said that in a tweet. Instead S76 got quite a bit of unnecessary hate on Twitter and Reddit for a while and they truly don't deserve it.
It's just one bug. How long have they been selling their PCs with that Linux distro? Years man, years. Linux will always play catching up and the pain in the ass usability is contradictory to the good user experience. People have less and less time, they want to do stuff and not constantly pamper their linux frankenstein
I mean it actually printed out what the problem is "trying to remove essential packages" and it also was visible in the terminal... I guess Linux is not for everyone because with the power to use sudo comes great responsibility and if he had read what packages are gonna be removed he could have prevented that nuke.
After all the controversy lately surrounding Linus it isn't hard to believe, he wouldn't bother to fix something in his video. Especially if it was fixed before the video was released.
My first distro was Pop_Os... I installed the Nvidia drivers included version and it just worked. The file structure, drive mounting etc. took me by surprise but it wasn't that bad and it took me only few "how to" youtube videos to start using my OS. It was overall a pleasant surprise.
Pop!_os is probably the distro I would recommend to new Linux users wanting to game for the reasons you mentioned. One of the best out of the box for drivers. If someone isn't really into gaming I recommend Mint as I think it is one of the most user friendly. Reminds me of a mix of Mac os and Windows. Anyway, I haven't been on Linux for about a year now and am looking to come back and dual boot again. Since I am a normie now I will be installing Pop!_os and will dual boot windows.
I sometimes feel like "having no linux background makes the desktop experience difficult" is not actually the problem, but "having a strong background with other OSes". I often see people coming from Windows starting with Linux and expecting everything to work like Windows. If you want Windows, why not keep using it? People I know that switched to Linux and are happy about it usually switched to it because they were looking for something different that wasn't like WIndows and not just a Windows drop-in replacement that's free (as in beer). Going to the vendors website for drivers/software is problably the thing I see most often that causes trouble. A very "Windows thing to do". Linux distros all have their own package repositories with tested software preconfigured for the distros, often installable through fancy graphical tools these days, something Windows doesn't really have (ignoring the Windows app store obviously) and so people coming from WIndows are not even looking for it. So instead of exploring the OS, people fall into their old ways. Immediatly ditching the distro repositories defeats the whole point of chosing a stable distro. From my experience people less experienced with other OSes tend to have an easier time, even with distros like plain old Archlinux if the installation is assisted. It always surprises me to see people with little experience doing so much stuff they don't understand in a shell, while I, a full-time Linux user for almost 10 years, barely need to touch my shell unless I'm developing stuff. I use the graphical tools for system tasks that are preinstalled with my distro just like I'd expect newcomers to do. What I also don't quite understand: You went for AMD-based hardware, probably in part for their Linux friendly open source driver situation, yet you went for the proprietary driver from the website.
Most people, especially gamers and hardware enthusiasts have Stockholm syndrome. Windows has forced them to fix issues and manage the system in the unintuitive ways of Microsoft. The ease of use of Linux simply baffles them. IMO non-arch distros are a complete meme in current year. But in general the distro doesn't matter as much as it did in like 2010.
I am a heavy gamer, I play games almost every day and only on Linux (triple A, indie and everything in between) and I have to admit....the difference in distros, when it comes to gaming, is a serious problem. It boggles the mind that you can install Ubuntu, do all of this bs and still have a bunch of problems and then wipe the drive, install say...Manjaro and have everything work out of the box...this is crazy. Can you imagine someone who has only used Windows for gaming attempting to switch to Linux without any of this knowledge that Jeff has? They will get overwhelmed and discouraged in no time at all. I feel like there needs to be some sort of OFFICIAL guide, maybe written by the Linux Foundation, that says "You want to game on Linux? Start here" that we can ALL, the entire community, point beginners to. Some guide that will almost always work if you have an AMD GPU.
Hmmm... I like the idea of the Linux foundation having some sort of guide. But, I'd be hesitant to have them make a recommendation as it may stifel competition. I also doubt that there would be any consensus as to which distro to use as a starting point. What might be useful, is for them to have broad classifications of distro's (E.g. "Beginner" gaming distro/ security/ rolling etc.) and guides for each, maybe based on some template? These could then be maintained by the various distro teams.
@Private Pyle But I don't need to dual boot, almost all of the games I want to play just work on Linux and when they don't I feel like I know what I am doing and can usually find a way. I also dislike Windows. "Just dual boot" is a terrible advice to give to a *beginner*, because what you are basically saying to a beginner who is interested in learning how to play on Linux is that they just can't do it.
I largely agree, but users don't want a guide - they just want it to work. Zero fuss, zero effort. Install game on OS, play game: that's how it needs to be on linux, irrespective of distro! If linux cnnot do that, why should users bother trying unless they're in the 1% of enthusiasts?!
Very well said, thank you! I absolutely hated all the guys shouting in the chat saying why do you run Ubuntu and not arch? This is so not helpful and annoying....
i had the same problem when i tried using the official amd drivers. These can be quite janky so I looked for alternatives. Luckily there are fully open source drivers for amd and intel gpus called mesa. Since i started using the oibaf ppa to get the bleeding edge gpu drivers i never had any problem anymore.
if someone's a newbie and wants to game on linux i tell them to get manjaro kde, when it asks you to update, wait 10 days, then update. nothing will brick and kde really is the desktop enviroment you want for gaming because of their commitment to display driver improvements(wayland).manjaro is for up to date hardware/driver compatibility. most debian people seem to have problems because they have to track them down individually and install them. manjaro just throws it at you.
GNU/Linux has come a long way, if your hardware works "out of the box" you'll have a much better experience than Windows, most popular distros are rock solid and don't require constant micro-management like Windows. I personally run Mint but my GPU is an older RX 580 so the kernel already supported it, the only changes from stock to make gaming better is that I've added PPAs for the Liquorix kernel and Mesa. All of the software I used on Windows is available and I only play single player games anyway, so everything "just works" for me, even resizable BAR (AMD SAM) works out of the box. My laptop, home server and Raspberry Pi both run GNU/Linux as well, so I've removed Microsoft from my life. Now if only I could de-Google my computing as well that would be great, but it's a lot harder to do.
I keep hoping that the PinePhone or Librem 5 get the magical updates that give us very solid performance, all hardware works as intended, and battery life isn’t abysmal. It’d be amazing to have a Linux (proper Linux kernel with sane utils) phone with hardware killswitches.
the problem with linux today is where windows was back then. "dll hell" linux is going through that, it's a nightmare. dependencies which break part X to fix part Y. Once you get everything working just right on linux, good luck trying to maintain it and upgrade it without breaking stuff, it gets old very quick.
@@peterh7575 that is what distributions are supposed to fix. That is why we have apt and not flatpak or snap. Or why beginners should try install binaries instead of packages. And Ubuntu have a page in the apt configuration application to select closed driver sources, like nvidia.
@@peterh7575 From what I hear that is a problem of years ago (and certain distros) that isn't as big of a deal any more. I've been using Linux off and on for a couple years, and made it my main OS for everything for the last ~6 months and I've yet to ever run into anything like that.
I spent some weeks last month trying to get a graphics driver working on my backup computer. The driver itself worked after a TON of work but Minecraft alone refuses to acknowledge the graphics driver. It made me give up on it. I haven't touched it in weeks. Unlike previous years' attempts, I can at least get most things working. In 2005, I failed entirely to use Linux on my desktop. In 2018, I failed entirely again. In 2020, I failed pretty bad. Now, in 2022 it's nearly acceptable. I want to use it as my daily OS so bad but the continual technical issues are often too much for me to overcome. I think Linux communities do great at supporting users but a lot of the best discussions get drowned out by the noise you talk about here. Thanks for sharing your experience!
what GPU are you using? If you have AMD or Intel, then the GPU drivers should be pre-installed along with the kernel and other system libraries. NVIDIA is unfortunately a different kettle of fish because they refuse to open source their drivers.
I appreciate the honest take. I think the reason for the friction is that gaming on Linux is ALMOST there. Of course, there are a lot of issues to overcome depending on the distro, hardware, etc. But the frustration from the two sides seems to be that Linux CAN be used for gaming with some effort, its just not effort the other side of the argument wants to put into their gaming.
For a lot of people, it is there already, it just depends on if your main games are compatible or not, i went linux full time in 2019 and all of the games i played besides 1 worked fine. If you're a valorant or fortnite player, it's "not there" If you're a csgo/apex legends/arma 3 etc player, it's "there"
Jeff, the coolest part of this is that AMD drivers aren't actually installed on your 21.10 Ubuntu or your Fedora 35. You're experiencing those benchmarks and games using FOSS drivers from MESA that support OpenGL, Vulkan, and OpenGLES. Unfortunately the proprietary drivers, or part of the ROCm stack are required for OpenCL, but all of the video you are currently experiencing is using FOSS that was made by reverse-engineering, and later by assistance from AMD by clearing internal documentation about their GPUs so the open source community could make better drivers. NVidia's last series of GPUs that work with MESA are the 700 series, all the series after that can do 2D-ish, but need the proprietary drivers from NVidia installed to do much good. You can use glxinfo and vulkaninfo to query your GPU drivers. Looking forward to more ARM/non-x64 PCIe attempts, maybe with FEX.
Ubuntu deserves so much credit for furthering the linux desktop, however arch, more specifically arch distros that focus on usability such as manjaro are leaps and bounds ahead of ubuntu.
Ubuntu was relevant back in 2010 when dual-GPU laptops were HELL to setup. That was pretty much the only benefit of Ubuntu. As bad as Nvidia used to be, if you were on a desktop you only had to run one command to install the drivers and you were done. Canonical actually put Ubuntu desktop on the back burner a few years ago and shifted to IoT stuff. I personally have had the most issues with Ubuntu. Upgrading from one release to another always broke something.
I daily drive linux and game on it too, using an RX6600XT, on Linux Mint 20 XFCE, which is based on Ubuntu 20.04. when I got the card, the only workable driver was the AMD proprietary one, specifically for vulkan support, which only really works with kernel 5.11 or older because of DKMS. Since then, the need for the proprietary drivers has been fixed, and I got vulkan working DKMS-less on kernel 5.13, with proton and DXVK working flawlessly on almost every game I've tried. I'll try dropping the rough steps I used back in January to get to that in a comment below later tonight.
Loved watching this. Linux gaming has even gotten better in the last 2 years to the point that some games run better on Linux (more stability than extra performance that I've seen). I too use Mac for my desktop environment, but Linux is 100% fine for that too and I've used it there before. Only reason I use Mac is because of it's seamless integration with it's own products with little leg work. People have to remember that a OS is just a tool, not a religion. Use whatever gets the job done for you and you are comfortable with.
Great video! It's nice to hear a non-newbie's perspective on how other non-newbies should treat newbies. You should do a full "voice of reason" series for this demographic.
Thanks for this video. It hit home for me because last week I decided to switch my gaming laptop from Ubuntu to Linux Mint and came across a problem that took me the entire night to resolve. Ubuntu is a good Linux distro from my experience but there are some key things out of the box I just didn't care for anymore which inspired the switch to Linux Mint. Installation to Linux Mint was fine, I updated everything in the update manager when the prompt appeared but when I went to update the Nvidia driver from nouveau to Nvidia 5.10, everything went to hell. The laptop has a 3080 in it so that driver HAD to work since this device was being used for gaming. But the update and reboot resulted in getting stuck on a black screen. This is where your video really hit close to home. Consulting the internet, there were a million and one responses in how to deal with the dreaded black screen and all but one were wrong. I spent hours trying different things, GRUB changes, various Terminal commands, OS reinstalls, script changes...nothing worked. I finally ignored the internet entirely, reinstalled Linux Mint (again) and looked closely at what exactly was being updated after install. That's when I noticed that the kernel was listed as being version 5.8. I let that ride initially because checking the update notes, version 5.13 is obviously later but only has support until August 2022. 5.8 has support until 2025 if I remember correctly. So it was similar to your Ubuntu 20.04 LTS issue. I ran with 5.8 because I assumed it was part of the LTS package (read: more stable) not realizing that being an older kernel, the Nvidia 5.10 driver didn't play nice with it causing the Black Screen of Death. Once I got it sorted, gaming on the Linux Mint powered laptop was as good or better than gaming on my Windows 3050 laptop I use for work and other projects. Generally, I prefer Linux over Windows for a lot of reasons. But in being fair, minus the rabid hatred of Windows that some Linux users have, there are some things that are far easier to set up and deal with using Windows than Linux. My kernel issue in Linux Mint has never happened to me on any Windows device I've used. I never had any problem mounting a external storage device or a secondary drive in any Windows device I've used in the last 10 years. I've never had problems with a Steam install on Windows or controllers not working on Windows. I've never had to deal with a boot partition running out of space trying to install updates on Windows. But all of this happened to me using Linux. Mileage varies. But I'd still take Linux over Windows because after it's all said and done, after a user installs and configures Linux on their rig, it is truly their own. YOU control how it runs, how it looks and what it runs. Not some company that's trying to monitor every single thing you do on that device. When Linux works, it's been fantastic for me overall even when running Linux on Microsoft's own Surface devices (no dual boot) and that includes gaming. Sorry for the length but my switch from Ubuntu to Linux Mint was so recent that I could really relate to your video.
I got the feels when you mentioned about continuing things afterwards without the people looking over your back. You're right, many times it's easier to just ignore everyone and push through to the end solution without all the "noise" as you call it. Personally I've been running linux since '96 and I'm still not really at the point of recommending it to people in general; it does what I want, it does it well, it does give me headaches at times and sometimes I succumb to the "Aw damnit!" and do a full reinstall from scratch. I must say though, the jump from 20.04 LTS -> next version seems to have had issues because I've not had a single upgrade succeed without clobbering something. 20.10 / 21.04 seems to only go well when installed anew :( Many thanks for the live stream, it was a nice introduction to your work - hopefully you'll be doing that a few more times?
I play with different emulators with linux Mint: mednaffe for ps1, pcsx2, dolphin for gamecube and wii, dosbox and wine. These work best after trying many of them. Games are old, but I don't care
i think you should always include a segment at the end of every video after the "until next time, im Jeff Geerling" part. maybe it's bloopers like u do sometimes, maybe just an additional piece of info or smth u found mildly interesting. heck, maybe make it a regular thing with a fun challenge or smth that u come up with. i always watch videos till the end, and those little things at the end really make it for me. also it will -at least, it can- increase the average view duration, so i think it might be worth it. of course this is me saying that sitting on my sofa, and i know how time consuming making those videos already is, and i 100% appreciate your effort, but this is just a little suggestion. anyways keep up the good work!
First off, thank you for addressing the toxicity in the Linux community. Second, and to go off my first point. I've given up trying to compile driver's for both my 5700XT and GTX 660 (don't ask lol) as I just can't get them to work correctly with OpenGL :(
Thank you for having a platform and saying a lot of what I keep saying about Linux. I want Linux to work for me, but I keep finding myself hitting issue after issue like you. And I have been testing with Linux for a few decades now. It is just so hard to get honest and up to date information when it comes to Linux.
open source drivers for amd built-in to the OS is better than the official proprietary drivers nvidia on the other hand is better to use proprietary drivers instead but a lot of games doesnt work on nvidia due to poorly-developed drivers created by nvidia itself
nouveau driver is open and reverse engineered with very bad performance due to insufficient information about how nvidia gpu's work nvidia official driver is proprietary instead
but at the same time i like nvidia. they do powerful and efficient graphics cards. I would totally buy a nvidia card without thinking twice if their drivers were open source, built in to the kernel and consequently running almost everything just fine like amd does
i was around 13 when i first installed Linux, that was when Debian 9 Stretch was released (im fairly young). i committed a lot of mistakes looking back and the experience was very rocky but that's what made it fun! linux is really fun to use as a tool for accessing videogames, and it has grown a lot over the years. running fedora right now for their continued innovations in the linux desktop space and up-to-date software, glad you gave it a try in the video. have fun with your machine!
oh and i highly recommend checking out the new GTK4 apps on Flathub. it's the new version of the toolkit for the GNOME desktop environment, and I think you'll find the design language of these applications very appealing coming from macOS. i'm using Linux and GNOME just so that i can stay involved with GTK4 development
I think Nick (TheLinuxExperiment) made a good point in a recent video. Ubuntu is really no longer the best beginner distro due its weird Frankenstein combination of old and new software. Ubuntu-based distros like Mint and Pop!_OS have stepped in to take that place, or semi-rolling release distros like Fedora. Maybe not Arch for new people though, unless they like to dive head-first into the deep end. for most people, all they need is something with the newest drivers and software that isn't months behind, with an interface that doesn't need to ever use a terminal. And while I think Linux is getting close to that, it isn't quite there yet.
TL;DR, the important thing in a "gaming distro" is primarily how easy it is to get the latest drivers. That's really it. If a version of a distro is an "LTS" release or only gets updates every few years, probably stay away. When they talk about stability, they mean stability in mission-critical environments, not your gaming PC. (Fedora was a very good choice because it's stable despite how bleedlng-edge it is. Good choice.) And yeah, the greatest remaining problem is anti-cheat solutions (EAC in particular) flipping out.
Awesome that you spent this "episode' talking about a important part of a 'noob' experience (you're no noob ofc) and about some peoples communication styles. Iv'e almost stopped posting to StackOverflow as the answer always seems to be 'that's not a valid question' or 'that's been asked before' (even when it hasnt) or 'why do you want to do that'. Unfortunately when I posted on the Ubuntu forums or Answers/Questions there were crickets. So I end up just generally reading an any Linux related articles that pop up in my DuckDuck searches. I dualboot with Ubuntu for similar reasons. Its debian based and my other car(s) is a Raspberry. It's seems pretty well maintained. It has ROS.
Totally agree Jeff. I install Ubuntu and then install Lubuntu desktop on top of it to have a smoother lighter experience. I do quite a bit of video encoding on Linux for fun via ffmpeg. Nvidia NVENC works great but other hardware video encoding on Linux isn’t straightfoward. So I feel your pain. Stick with whatever OS / distro works for you.
Linux comunitty: Best ever! New user: Why? Linux community: You can do everything you can on Windows and stick it to the "man". New user: Sounds good! Linux community: Actually you might have to do "some things" first. New user: NP. Can you help me? Linux community: Fuck no! New user: Then I'll use Windows that already does everything "Windows does". Linux community: BuT mY eNtItLeMenT !!! tl;dr Kit cars are fun, but I need a car that can work as soon I turn the key, not having to assemble it just because I need to feel superior. Steam deck can change that because they realised that being a douche bag is counter productive to generalize linux usage. Change My Mind!
Nothing to change here, I'm using Linux on the desktop for almost two decades and while I really enjoy it when it works (which to be fair really became a more out of the box experience over the last years), searching and asking for help shows just how stubborn of its community really is and with that why it probably won't change any time soon, no matter how optimistic waves of new users are.
There is a huge community with lots of support out there in the Linux world for when you do run into problems, and unlike the Windows world you never need to get the offical M$ expert with the hidden internal documentation to finally fix your problem. With the degree of control and configuration you can just have in a Linux (other FOSS is available) without having any WIndoze insider knowledge to futz with registry keys etc means you can always make the system do exactly what you want if you care to and actually fix the flaws in the default configuration (for your usecase) - something you just can't do on Windows in many cases at all. There will always be some toxic elements, and a little gatekeeping is probably to be expected - if you can't read the simple and documentation that tells you how to fix an easy config problem then FOSS stuff isn't for you anyway I'd suggest, and you won't attract the interest of the unpaid community expert as the problem is just too uninteresting - Get yourself back into that nice safe walled garden of Apple's where you can't bugger anything up even if you tried, and that is fine too - its your choice to use the tools that suit what you need, and you can't expect a spade to be a leafblower, though you can try and move leaves with either...
@@foldionepapyrus3441 At the same rate you guys should stop praising Linux on the desktop then and also stop recommending it, telling people why it is safer to stay with their current operating system even if its quirks are annoying. Easy task, right?
@@MegaManNeo Huh? Linux just works for almost everyone, and when it breaks (which is getting ever rarer) you can fix it, usually really really easily, with a large community out there that does help when you hit problems... The only reason to stick with whatever you are currently using is if you actually LIKE it, or are so tech illiterate that reading the manual, details on the settings screen, or the first web search result for your problem when you get stuck in a simple problem is beyond you - which is fine, unfortunate for you in the modern world perhaps, but we are what we are...
The situation is immensely improved over the last time I tried just two years ago, but I think in general it will always be a Windows-first world, as long as all the games are built natively for Windows, and work through translation/emulation on Linux.
@@JeffGeerling It depends on the games. You will rarely find AAA games for Linux, although there are exceptions. Indiegames, on the other hand, are surprisingly often have a Linux Version or they use engines that are supported through Proton.
@Jeff Geerling , you can configure the Ram by instaling Windows one time and saving the desired RGB Profile to the ram itself. That way it stays even after the install of a different OS. It limits you to only one Profile, but at least its somthing you chose and not the default RGB rainbow...Hope it helps you out :)
Thanks! I wonder if I could do it via Windows in a VM, too... Also, after recording the video I found that the main problem has to do with some i2c packages not being present, though I didn't get time to fix it yet. I moved the computer and now it won't boot 😭 (won't even POST).
@@JeffGeerling It's not RAM, but I have had issues with Windows software that tries to talk directly to hardware. For example, I have a mod in my car that requires hooking up a serial connection. They have a Windows GUI that talks to the thing over serial to program it. For whatever reason, I could not get that to work in WINE at all. Perhaps a USB serial cable passthrough to a VM would work, but in your case, the Windows VM wouldn't be likely to see the actual motherboard RGB controller (I would assume). Worth a try I guess but it might be a long shot.
I watched the build live stream, and this is a brilliant follow up with an important message . You hit the nail right on the head in this one. 👍 I love all your videos. You're very knowledgable, engaging, and have an obvious passion for what you do. Keep doing what you do. Thank you. 🙂
As the core of the Linux experience is common across basically every remotely desktop oriented distro these days I am not at all surprised, gaming just works well on all of them because the skeleton its all hanging off knows how to play and the magic of package mangers keep the users from having to worry about how (most of the time)...
I am using Manjaro only for gaming since half a year. It works very well. Except for a few minor problems after updates (which is too much for a standard user). Manjaro was never completely unusable, but had some graphical issues with KDE. Back when i used windows 10 it was basically the same, the problems were just different. In my eyes the quality of windows updates also have decreased, so all the remaining problems on linux go with slower drivers (Nvidia) or anti cheat issues in terms of gaming.
For the people who might want to try gaming on linux, I would recommend manjaro. Steam OS 3.0 would based on this, and I guess proton would get lesser problems on it.
Correction: Steam OS is based on Arch itself, not Manjaro. But, Valve recommends Manjaro for game developers who don’t have steam deck, because it shares a lot of packages with Steam OS. Nevertheless, Manjaro is a great option for gaming on Linux.
My only suggestion is to go watch Vice Grip garage right after this video. He's a pretty cool guy. I've went down the gaming on Linux rabbit hole once in my life, probably wont bother again for some time longer yet. I do find it encouraging that there are many more options now though. I have several purpose build systems in my home running Linux and I love them just the way they are, configure once and run forever. None of those purposes are gaming. I have many other hobbies that I prefer to spend more time on.
I think Linus talked about RGB ram, he had to spin up a Windows VM on the Linux machine, run the software for it and change it, and then shut down the VM
It sounds like that might be a quick way to solve the issue-though I also found out that I need some i2c software running to work with the Gigabyte board and OpenRGB. Haven't gotten too deep into it.
Yes I never questioned it. But having 2 different drivers for the same GPU (mesa/amd) is weird. But the rule is quite simple NEVER DOWNLOAD DRIVERS FROM WEBSITES.
Great video. Im playing on Debian and especially since i have a very old GPU i had many issues with vulkan since Debian decided to use the old driver which are not compatible. But after some tweaking and forcing Linux to use the newer driver it runs just like a charm. In the end it doesnt matter what Distro you choose. They all have their reasons. In the end we are all part of the linux community and as that we should stick together to make Linux great. Not just one fav distro.
Gaming is the very last thing that makes me keep win on my personal PC (on pro laptop I switched to Linux years back). I'm counting on Steam to make that system work (maybe release some special distro?) to finally get rid of that joke of a system which is windows.
Dont use amds propiertary drivers, use the open source Drivers which are always preinstalled in every linux distro which has an desktop environment. ubuntu 20.04 lts ships with an old mesa release which doesnt support navi or not that well. A Ubuntu version ships only with one package version its whole lifetime. f.e Mesa 20.0.4 is used by ubuntu 20.04 lts, but there are also backported packages from f.e 20.10 or whatever to 20.04 which are later versions. you can also use custom repos to get the lates mesa version like kisak-ppa. ubuntu 20.04 has acutally an security repository which ships with mesa 21.2.6. Mesa 22.0.0 is already out
I wouldn't call Ubuntu's latest releases "bleeding edge" as they're too conservative compared to real bleeding edge distros (and so is the whole Debian branch if I'm not wrong), mind you this comes from a "Ubuntu server + whatever DE I need on top" user
Fedora is bleeding edge. Like you said, Ubuntu definitely isn't. But Debian DOES have a bleeding edge branch and a few distros are built off that. I can't remember the names of any of them right now, but I know they exist.
@@shriteendhamasker9499 debian testing is great for daily use, i think. I've been using testing on my laptop and older desktop since debian 9, and my partner's laptop for about a year. I haven't had any problems except for a brief period when there was a bug in the kernel that caused occasional issues with intel integrated gpus.
Very Awesome Jeff! Bravo, on all The success. Seems like once it got going it was pretty seamless. For people who love linux and are diehards for the games that do run on linux, this is a dream.
Great video - we can see there actually is a cost to Linux- it’s certainly not “free”. Fun for technology enthusiasts to play around with gaming on it and satisfaction at some success. Bet money a MS Linux distro will be in the future. Steam Deck will certainly carve out a niche, but DX stack is very ingrained for billion dollar studios and lifecycle, those don’t flip overnight.
@ 0:59 "[Fedora is] a more bleeding edge Linux distro." Sorry Jeff. There is nothing _bleeding_ edge about Fedora. Each version is well tested by competent and highly experienced people before it's released. Perhaps you meant _leading_ edge?
Bleeding edge doesn't mean untested and unstable, just means it's using the latest of practically everything. I don't think of bleeding edge as a negative attribute, it's just an indication that something chases HEAD more closely than something like an LTS release.
@@JeffGeerling Thanks for your reply! I agree that your definition accurately describes Fedora, but I don't share your definition of _bleeding edge._ I'm old school, programming since the punch card days; to my colleagues and I it's always meant untested and likely to bite you enough to make you bleed. From a software developer's perspective: _alpha!_ Here's Merriam Webster's definition: "the newest and most advanced part or position especially in technology : the extreme cutting edge" Fedora is closer to HEAD than most distros, for sure. Its maintainers contribute quite a lot to upstream Linux. It's definitely a developer's distro which is probably why I feel comfortable with it... In addition to its numbered releases, Fedora has a rolling release called _Rawhide,_ which is bleeding edge because it's actively developed, full of daily builds. Fedora's numbered releases are shiny but thoroughly tested. I've been running it for decades and have yet to bleed even once! BTW, I thoroughly enjoyed your _Ansible for DevOps_ book. I've read a few Ansible texts; yours stands head and shoulders above the rest IMO. It's clear you've thought outside the box while keeping your Ansible code tight and coherent. *Well done, sir!!*
@@NibsNiven Thanks, glad you like the books! I guess my view is it's 'bleeding edge' in comparison to the LTS releases I normally use, but it's definitely more of a blunt edge than the truly bleeding edge (e.g. people running on nightlies).
Yep, the linux community is the worst enemy of itself. I don't know how many times I've searched online for how to do something, and the first result is "just flippin google it"....
I am still tramuatized when I was in 11th grade over a decade ago I wanted to learn os development. The community was so toxic especially god forbid you wanted to develop on windows. Yeah Linux community can be pretentious then they wonder why new people are afraid of them. Lot has changed though to be fair I know I shouldn't judge action of a few. But I still am a little angry especially the guy with a momo avatar yes that cute animal from avatar.
It's worth pointing out there are 2 communities. The desktop Linux community is a cesspool, obsessed with tiling window managers and faux-busy screenshots. The server community is actually pretty nice and is more focussed on solving technical issues rather than posting i3 screenshots and obsessing over Arch Linux as if it's a hallmark of excellence...
You'd think they get the idea that when every newcomer searches for their question instead of finding the result they end up with even more people looking for the same, resulting in running in circles.
This is the problem with Google and most search engines. They pull up articles from 10 years ago as the top hit, and of course that article is either wrong or just flat out of date. And it's a continuing cycle, since people click on the first hit, which only reinforces it for the search algorithm. I end up using the Tools option and changing it to only return results in the last year, month, week or whatever to get more useful results.
at this point the only few reasons why i stuck with arch/based is that their repo is the most complete without adding custom ones, drivers are a command line or gui (pamac,octopi) away, never needed to do distro upgrade, the amazing wiki, and the confidence that i will be able to find any software i need in the AUR. btw, a lot of aur's *-bin packages just uses rpm and deb file to be converted into pkg by makepkg.
Asking for help in the world of linux is no different than finding the needle in a hay stack where all the leaves are incorrect answers and the needle being the correct one
I've been an on and off linux user for years. I started with Redhat 7.3 (ok, yes, I'm old) as it was provided by my college. I was a big fan of Mandrake and later Mandriva, sadly they don't exist anymore but I always had issues with KDE back then anyway. For the last 12+ years or so, I use Mint. easiest for ME to use, though it ain't prefect. I did for a time last year switch entirely to Linux full time, but my main rig had issues and to run games and to fix the network issues that occurred only on my main rig, I went back to windows. However, my media box in my lab that I watch youtube, twitch, kodi, and a bunch of other things has always been linux Mint and never had problems. My laptops are also Mint. The only reason I'd even suggest it, so you could say it's in .. "Mint Condition," otherwise use what works for you. Keep up the good work.
Linux can be awesome but can also be a pain in the rear end! I have used Manjaro, Ubuntu, Arch, PopOS, Linux Mint, Fedora and many many more and Linux Mint is my favorite but that is the one I have had the least trouble with, but I like many of them, great video and showing the flaws of Linux is important
Very good suggestion. "Being kind" is something we should strive for. I've lost count how many times being mocked just because my question seemed stupid to some guys in forums. Just some days ago, I asked a simple question about OpAmp to do a very simple task and my lord!!!!
I actually started out with Linux Mint 19.1 back in 2019, initially as an experiment on my first PC build, plus as a cost saving measure. Eventually I switched to Manjaro KDE about 6 months later, and so far I haven't seen the need to install Windows spyware on it. It's now become my main home PC that I use for both gaming and media server duties. I chose Manjaro because it was also the closest I could get to W10 without it being W10, I grew up with various Windows versions from W98 onwards.
@@brachiosaurus6541 Manjaro is more up to date than Mint, meaning you get software packages a lot quicker since it is a rolling release distro, but at the cost of some stability, so you have to be a little more careful with updates. A good way to secure yourself from such problems is using Timeshift, a backup tool for your system and make sure you store your backups on a separate HDD from your install drive.
@@TopHatCat1989 Awesome. So Manjaro can have more performance on gaming but is more unstable. Since I'm using Mint I didn't have the need to restore a backup or a snapshot. I'll give it a try anyway. Thanx
Totally agree with the parts about Linux and it's community, there's lot of ways to do the same, some shorter than others, i broke 3 Ubuntu and 2 Manjaro installs in 3 months before knowing what to do. But once you're passed that point, it's delightful. The thing is the Windows enter bar is still lower than the Linux one, but the Linux one is lowering at a good rate. I just hope to see Linux as a viable competitor in the desktop space one day
My wife sets it all up for me. I've got no idea wtf she did but my Ubuntu system runs everything just fine, including games that supposedly are broken from running on Linux, such as EVE Online and WoW. But I generally play older XP or earlier games. If they can't run stuff on it then they likely don't get how to set it up. One thing I can attest to after having messed with Ubuntu in its 16 versions is that the newer the version, generally, the better it runs, unlike Windows. They actually figure out the bugs and make it simpler with each version. Maybe they'll include stuff to run games inherently so you don't have to learn all the monkey business.
i have an ubuntu 20.04 system (kubuntu) from more than a year by now and im really happy with it so far. i play overwatch mainly and it runs just fine with lutris and some steam games run fine and others you need a diferent version of proton. to be honest linux is amazing for power users like me or enthusiast and the debate about distros its just a tip on the diversity of the ecosystem, you can tell de computer to blow himself up and it will do it and also the open source comunity its beautifull.
I hope nobody takes the comments about the live stream chat the wrong way-I'm not saying *that* was borderline toxic-that comment was directed at forum post replies, Reddit, etc.
This community's wonderful, and I'm fine with people being nuts over their own favorite distro ;)
Agree, I just got my first job (though I know the company boss) and it involves using Linux to a fair extent. Which distro doesn’t matter too much for me. Usability is my most pressing concern.
@Jeff Geerling, you can configure the Ram by instaling Windows one time and saving the desired RGB Profile to the ram itself. That way it stays even after the install of a different OS. It limits you to only one Profile, but at least its somthing you chose and not the default RGB rainbow...Hope it helps you out :)
@Jeff I think you got too much angry with the live streams comments. Nobody was questioning your intelligence. You’re Dam too smart guy who makes things we admire.
You know you choose a polemic route when decided to use Linux. You are from this community and you knew what you were getting… wish best luck with the new PC build.
You can use Garuda Linux to play games
Should have chosen Arch you fool. Go with Gardua OS. It's out of the box set for gaming purposes.
As a longtime Linux user (and Linux gamer) here's my 0.02: When you try something from a random forum post or whatever, if you can leave a comment, DO IT! Works, doesn't work, what your hardware is, etc. It helps a lot for those coming after you so that they get a better picture of if this line I just copied into term is actually going to work. Good luck all. I'm still on Ubuntu, even though I distro shop at least once a week. Just can't get the guts to switch to Arch.... :-)
Always! Especially for those times when you find something posted a couple years ago that never got an answer. Even if you don't answer it 100%, giving some clues as to how *you* solve something will help future visitors quite a bit.
And if you're like me, you'll be one of those future visitors as you remember you did the exact same thing and smack yourself for realizing you even wrote an answer about it before :D
I never do anything I find on a post or what someone tells me until i understand exactly what it is doing. Like... copy and paste a command? no... I need to understand each part and learn it, then if it sounds like a good idea I'll do it.
I just made the full switch to Ubuntu and I just love it.
@@trapOrdoom ubuntu still working for you? i started on ubuntu, than debian, than 500 niche distros to land on arch. got back to ubuntu when my install got borked and i didnt want to fuss, really liked ubuntu mate, than started to get used to "new"gnome, now because of ubuntu im back on arch, but with gnome instead off all these fineky minimalist tiling window managers. ubuntu is my go to for just install and use, but it gets borring when it always just works. started dabeling in fedora the other day because gnome, also really good experience.
But don't forget that you need rep to comment and when you ask a question it will be downvoted and closed, so there's no way to earn rep but you need rep. Not to mention it's frowned upon to ask questions in stack exchange (ask ubuntu) - you are expected to already know the answer to every question that could ever be asked.
Well said Jeff. I try to do my own part being non-toxic in the Linux community. Hopefully I'm successful.
Me too man. Me too. Should just be a good time. Being a troll and lambasting new people is easy. Taking a political or ideological stance and berating those who think differently is easy. Contributing to open source projects, sharing code, and creating content to help build the community, and share knowledge is the hard part.
I just don't get how to use linux and its so complicated. I like windows 10 so why should I change?
@@Thomas_Angelo honestly no one cares about what you use
Just use the right tool for the job
I use linux cause it doesnt have bloatware and tiling wms
@@despair1177 I literally didn't understand what you said and that's my problem about linux.
@@theonlyethanhiroshiki Ok? Then shut the hell up and go on your day. No one is stopping you.
It's highly recommended to use official repo packages to install drivers, unless it's not available
For AMD cards especially, my understanding is that the open source drivers (which AMD contribute to!) generally outperform the proprietary offerings. As for Nvidia... let's just say that if I never see the word "nouveau" printed monospaced on my screen again, it'll be too soon.
@@GSBarlev The only issue I've had with AMD was back 10 years around the Southern Islands GPUs which had some trouble with gpu-compute drivers, which was especially disappointing as I had paid more for a workstation card, which was designed for doing GPU-compute. (Along with much better CADD type workload rendering than gaming cards of the same GPU generation.)
The default graphics driver is generally okay with AMD. The GPUPRO drivers are only needed for a couple things and seem to work along side the built in driver
You don't have to install anything. Mesa, which provides OpenGL, is included by default on Ubuntu, and Vulkan drivers get installed alongside Steam.
@@needlessoptions That absolutely depends on your card and your distro (specifically the kernel). If you're on Ubuntu 20.04 (or a distro built on Ubuntu LTS) then you're stuck with Linux 5.4! That means starting out without a ton of GPU improvements and innovations from the last few years. Tbh, this is probably a big reason *why* Steam switched SteamOS to Arch.
Right on point for the conclusion of the video. My wife, being a linux noob user and never wanting to be a linux sorceress herself, came with me to a linux con in our city and got a lot of flack for using Ubuntu... literally everyone said that her distro was shit and to switch {INSERT FAV DISTRO HERE}. Same with desktop environments, etc.
Please, be kind, respect the decisions of new users, try to be helpful and in the end, when they are happy, you can always slide a comment like "By the way, I'm using this distro, I like it better for X and Y. Check it out someday if you want to, I'll be happy to help.".
I always find it funny. You can look at user post history and see people simultaneously complain about how Linux isn’t main stream and how toxic the community and then their next post will be telling someone they are stupid because of their distro
Ugh as a woman who spends a lot of time in predominantly male nerd spaces that's all too familiar. You'll always find that super loud minority of guys who don't really know how to talk to women all too well and gatekeep them from the space with that kinda stuff.
Especially when you're new to a space, a few bad apples can spoil the bunch and put you off from engaging with it. It's happened to me a few times before I learned how to shrug that stuff off.
Its not just new users... I've noticed long time expert users fighting each-other over what is best and what is crap and berating each-other. It seems like there are a lot of really loud opinionated people who use Linux
Ubuntu is great to start with tbh but the only reason I switches is because it wouldn't boot
@CreativeUnoriginals yeah I'm really glad I didn't pay attention to the community for the first few months of my Linux journey. There are good areas of it, but for me it seems you can only find them once you understand Linux itself and know what to look for. Some people unfortunately just don't have enough going on in their lives, and use elitism and distros to feel like they're part of some club when in reality no one gives a fuck and everyone should just use whatever distro suits their needs
By the way, I'm watching this on Arch. I love the drivers that have improved my experience from the community. That being said, I love that you are gray beard enough to know, linux has many ways to do the same thing. To stick with distros you know like Ubuntu, RHEL base like Fedora is great too. You can see the packages in their repos. You can make any distro function pretty well, it just takes time to break it in like some good old boots. Keep making videos that help us all. You know how to compile all kinds of kernel stuff. That is pretty legit.
How do you know you're talking to an Arch Linux user? Don't worry, they'll tell you :|
ive gotta try arch.. even memes promote arch lol
@@Brancliff The best thing about the arch community is that most of the anti-arch burns come from them! I'm deb-or-die at least until "After Q3" 😢 but I appreciate how self-aware (and self-effacing!) arch folks are.
@@Brancliff That's the joke.
"BtW, iM wAtcHinG thIs on aRcH "
I literally JUST turned my first PC build into a linux. Thanks alot for this Jeff. Also a driver i use for my AMD is Mesa, it stays updated and is probably the most comfortable driver ive used.
Mesa’s AMD driver is crazy for how well it works.
Actually the AMD drive is xf86-amdgpu, mesa is just a library for interacting with that.
Yes the amdgpu driver is great. Use a distro that uses a relatively recent kernel and mesa stack and you never have issues unless new hardware is released. In which case you’ll have to wait a few weeks.
since Radeon software doesn't work on Linux, do you have the ability to change brightness/contrast/vibrance/saturation etc. with profiles per-game / per-program with any alternatives?
@@Shajirr_ Usually you can change these settings in the display section. As far as I'm aware KDE allows you to do this in the settings. Gnome also has something similar. I'm not sure about per game/programm though.
Big rule of thumb for running desktop Linux: LTS releases for serious work (business and server use cases), cutting/bleeding edge releases for personal installs.
Seems like you basically figured that out in the end, but I'm putting it here in the comments for the TLDW crowd :)
I will say that going to the amdgpu pro drivers is often unnecessary, as the normal open source amdgpu drivers (which come bundled with most distros by default) have pretty decent performance. I game on them regularly with good results. Installing the pro driver (like Nvidia's Linux driver) can complicate things, as it's an out of tree driver, which always makes upgrading your kernel a pain. DKMS can help there, but it's not perfect.
Stable (aka old) software on servers is fine. Linux has nailed that use case for years and years.
As soon as you attach a screen to any hardware that isn't ancient or you have the intention to do anything vaguely demanding (i.e., more than basic office work) I don't see the point of LTS releases. All releases are in some way broken, only the more recent it is the more likely the most glaring issues are fixed.
Pro driver usually gives worse performance for amd, especially in opengl
The last comparison I saw from phoronix on AMD driver options showed marginal if any advantage to Pro drivers, and it was highly dependent on the test as to which driver set won out. The ease of installation and maintenance of the open drivers (if there is any at all) makes them the clear winner.
@@09f9 One of the major reasons to use the pro drivers was their superior CAD performance, but they have sorted that out, so the Pro drivers may not be around that much longer.
For AMD cards, please remember to avoid AMD's official driver when possible. The open source drivers are generally better.
The point about the toxicity hits a little close to home.
where do i find the radeon open source drivers? any link or something?
@@project0332 Most distributions install this automatically, or have it available as a package in the package manager. Fro example on Ubuntu, the command would be "sudo apt update && sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers", which should cover both AMD and Intel.
Yes, they’re far, far better. On Ubuntu, for bleeding edge mesa, use the oibaf ppa
@@project0332 Technically you can not find it outside. The real system driver is directly built in the Linux kernel. Both Mesa and AMD driver are library that use the driver that is already built in the Linux Kernel. So if you want the new driver you need to make sure the kernel is updated too. And yes everything is supposed to be included in the distro. If you need to manually update or install these often it probably mean that you would be better to pick a distro that provide more up to date package.
@@project0332 They are literally backed into the Linux Kernel itself. He fixed the issue because he updated the Kernel by using a newer version of Ubuntu.
Kudos to you, Jeff. I would have crumbled under the weight of a livestream install.
I can barely do a Jellyfin install in under 4 hours (ssh + keys, firewall rules, simple hardening, mounting, etc...) and that is with a put together machine.
Unfortunately Linux gaming isn't a one-size-fits all situation. There isn't a perfect distro for it... in fact, SteamOS was (is? it's been years for me) probably the closest we got and it really was only reliable for games in the Steam store - which makes sense given what it was. Ubuntu LTS is a good option along with many others. I'm pretty familiar with the NVIDIA proprietary driver headache since I've been using them for transcoding and acceleration on linux for over a decade. Despite my experience it still takes a bit of fiddling - what is the current "stable" driver version and can I compile a kernel module for it, or is there already a repo ecosystem out there that makes it easier (looking at you, rpmfusion - thanks!)... Anyway, thanks for sharing your journey. We need to improve this space, and critiques like yours here, of Home Assistant, etc all help the community see where we can help!
I’ve been wondering if the answer is not a single distribution, but a fancy boot loader. If the boot loader looks like steam and it is easy for users to add games then I see a lot of advantages. Game developers can package the kernel, graphics driver and so on for the game. This could actually make game development simpler and games faster.
@@_winston_smith_ so basically flatpaks or snaps
Yeah nvidia drivers are crazy proprietary so buy all and laptop like amd processor amd gpu no acelerations are good if you use wayland and amd nvidia sucks at that
@@abhimaanmayadam5713 Similar concept but lower level. Linux kernel would be included. The main difficulty I see is with people who want / need to run other programs at the same time as gaming e.g. live streaming. Security could theoretically become an issue due to lack of maintenance, but I think there are solutions to that issue.
Steam OS initially was Debian based for atleast version 1.0 and 2.0... but even it switched to Arch linux for it's bleeding edge package manager instead of waiting for debian's latest release after months and then have set up drivers according to that release. Even Minisforum's DeskMini-UM700 (which is a Valve approved if you want to have your own SteamDeck on PC expecting same performance) ships in with Manjaro
Great video and excellent comments on the need for more civility when guiding new users. One recommendation I would make to anyone wanting to use Linux for the first time is to find an experienced Linux user, one who is familiar with various versions of Linux, and ask for help and advice. The other recommendation is to do your research, go to TH-cam, and view the many excellent videos available on Linux installs there. I would not recommend attempting a Linux installation without any background, as many think it will work like Windows or Mac, it won't.
While there are many Linux distros, as Chris Titus has pointed out on his excellent TH-cam channel, most are Debian, Arch, or Fedora variations. Ubuntu, for example, is a Debian variation. Another suggestion is to use an old laptop or desktop as a test machine. That way, if you mess something up, you can wipe the disk and start over. This is all part of the learning process; there is no way around this. Most people have never installed an OS, and if you want a fully installed system, there are vendors like System 76 that make Linux machines that work out of the box and are tuned to perfection. The other route is to get a Raspberry Pi and start there. Again, watch TH-cam videos, read and research to blunt the usual mistakes people make with Linux. Learning a new system is a process, and you can count on making mistakes if you want to do it yourself.
I agree with Jeff that Linux will probably never become a widely used desktop system. But it will continue to grow and get better. For me, once I learned to use it, I have never looked back. I love Linux!
I totally agree, I am still a Linux noob.
Started to learn with my first Raspi B2+ (I think) when I tried to install RetroPie in like 2015, set up a Minecraft server with a headless Ubuntu on a Raspi 4 in 2020, and last year I switched my old Laptop from Win10 to Mint and if I didn't use Win10 on my work machine I would only use Linux at this point.
Just my Desktop is now still on Windows but more because it is >10years old and I am not really comfortable to change anything about this machine without having a replacement ready 😅
Thank you for this video, you encouraged me to try a Linux desktop again (I just need to buy a PC, because years ago I became a Mac user)
Honestly outside of the driver issue, the rest of the desktop environment is quite comfortable! Besides missing a few of my favorite Mac apps, I'd be quite at home on most of the modern distros.
You can run Linux on any Mac
@@My_Old_YT_Account Its not ready on new Apple Silicon Macs. You can get an OS booted, but so much doesn't work and has problems... it just needs more work, you wouldn't want to do it as your main OS.
@@AyaWetts Since he said he became a Mac user "years ago" he probably already has a non-arm Mac already, which are as supported as normal PCs in Linux
Ubuntu for now is making questionable things about following the release model of some of it's open source components, resulting in more of a Frankenstein os featuring a lot of not up to date components, so other distros are doing way better, even the ubuntu based ones like mint.
The reason why you use older versions of those component software packages is specifically to avoid needing lots of new regression tests since new software can often break things elsewhere in the OS
@@evannibbe9375 what Ubuntu does goes beyond LTS/Stable
This a fantastic take on the whole process. Thank you for doing your part to help the community keep going forward.
I've been daily driving Manjaro since 2015 and stopped using Windows in 2019, I play mostly single player games and everything runs fine, I spent like 10 minutes setting up everything to be ready to play
I've tried Manjaro KDE several years ago, spent weeks trying to enable regular Sleep mode, and never managed to do it. Tried all possible variants and all suggestions from support forum.
Also took several days to enable Hibernation, by default it didn't have a working config for it.
Also far from everything runs fine, a lot of older games have huge compatibility issues, often making them unplayable entirely, or for example with sound completely missing.
Some games required very weird and complicated install instructions to be followed to run correctly.
Who cares
@@Shajirr_ give it a go on a vm, distros can change a lot in a month let alone a couple of years, wish your the best of luck
So Linux has come a long way.
Years ago (10-15 years) I tried Linux, and when I ran into an error, I asked about it on a forum.
The answer is still in my mind.
"Here you have a link to some documentation (1500 pages), read that, and when you understand it, you are smart, and when you have another question, read again.
And when you do not understand it, throw away your pc, or install Windows." I did read everything and I wonder, why you should not do that.
So I never touched Linux again, except for the present Raspbian. And that is explained, so that I can mostly use it, or find my way.
That's exactly the mentality that needs to die. I think some users have no humility and/or empathy, so they don't remember what it was like to be eager to learn but way over their heads. Breaking things is good, it's usually in the recovery that new skills are gained, and often you just need a positive nudge. "RTFM" is often a useless response-just don't respond at all if you don't have anything helpful. It's not like every forum post *must* get a response.
That is the kind of response I still receive a lot when asking for help on r/linuxquestions or worse, use Linux focused forums.
Just like Jeff I am no stranger to Linux, not even on the desktop as I use it since late 2003 (next to Windows or exclusive even) but I grew tired of troubleshooting and tinkering, so when something doesn't work out of the box or by minimal changing one word or two in a config file, it's not worth my valuable time on this planet.
@Jeff Geerling and what is even worse is when it's a forum moderator that is spouting those RTFM statements.
At the same time, the various search engines create problems too, dredging up ancient hits as the #1 result, but they're no longer relevant.
My experience too...
But i had thicker skin i guess and soon realised that for each toxic " guides" there are quite a few mature ones who took time to help...
Linux is today the most dominant OS in the non-desktop arena because of the latter group.
@@BradClarke Yes I was just thinking the other day to look for a DuckDuck setting to always cull search-hits older than a few years.
Linus didn’t paste a random command. The install of steam for Pop asked if he wanted to remove the GUI and he obviously didn’t read and typed Yes. No install should remove a critical feature.
I am commenting mid video about your decisions.
They're great!
Great video! The Linux community can be toxic at times, but it can also be very helpful and friendly. I'm glad you were able to get a good Linux system set up for gaming. Ubuntu is a fine choice for a starter or "just works" distro, even if many in the community don't like it. I'm not a huge fan of it myself anymore but it was my first distro too with Ubuntu 6.06. Coming from Mac or Windows, the notion of not just downloading drivers and apps from the Internet can be confusing, and having every distro use a different package manager also adds to the confusion.
As for your RAM on OpenRGB, it looks like you're using an AORUS (Gigabyte) motherboard. You will need to add a kernel command line parameter `acpi_enforce_resources=lax` to your kernel command line (usually in GRUB configuration). Gigabyte's BIOS seems to prevent the I2C drivers from loading unless you add that parameter, and I2C is used to control the RAM RGB. You can install the i2c-tools package and confirm that the I2C interfaces are available using `i2cdetect -l`. For an AMD system you should have two PIIX4 SMBus interfaces showing.
I use Pop OS and it's flawless for the most part. What happened to Linus is really unfortunate, but the System76 team fixed it so quickly they should've gotten praise for it.
I'm a bit disappointed that Linus didn't take 30 seconds to add that to the video, given that the LTT team was aware of the issue being fixed way earlier than the video released.
System76 is a small company, probably around the same size as LTT, I genuinely think that pointing out how they quickly fixed the bug would've been the right thing to do, with Linus' massive influence.
Even Anthony from LTT said that in a tweet.
Instead S76 got quite a bit of unnecessary hate on Twitter and Reddit for a while and they truly don't deserve it.
It's just one bug. How long have they been selling their PCs with that Linux distro? Years man, years. Linux will always play catching up and the pain in the ass usability is contradictory to the good user experience. People have less and less time, they want to do stuff and not constantly pamper their linux frankenstein
@@zeus1117 Exactly, I don't have time to waste, that's why I use Linux in the first place
I mean it actually printed out what the problem is "trying to remove essential packages" and it also was visible in the terminal... I guess Linux is not for everyone because with the power to use sudo comes great responsibility and if he had read what packages are gonna be removed he could have prevented that nuke.
After all the controversy lately surrounding Linus it isn't hard to believe, he wouldn't bother to fix something in his video. Especially if it was fixed before the video was released.
My first distro was Pop_Os... I installed the Nvidia drivers included version and it just worked. The file structure, drive mounting etc. took me by surprise but it wasn't that bad and it took me only few "how to" youtube videos to start using my OS. It was overall a pleasant surprise.
Pop!_os is probably the distro I would recommend to new Linux users wanting to game for the reasons you mentioned. One of the best out of the box for drivers.
If someone isn't really into gaming I recommend Mint as I think it is one of the most user friendly. Reminds me of a mix of Mac os and Windows. Anyway, I haven't been on Linux for about a year now and am looking to come back and dual boot again. Since I am a normie now I will be installing Pop!_os and will dual boot windows.
I sometimes feel like "having no linux background makes the desktop experience difficult" is not actually the problem, but "having a strong background with other OSes". I often see people coming from Windows starting with Linux and expecting everything to work like Windows. If you want Windows, why not keep using it? People I know that switched to Linux and are happy about it usually switched to it because they were looking for something different that wasn't like WIndows and not just a Windows drop-in replacement that's free (as in beer). Going to the vendors website for drivers/software is problably the thing I see most often that causes trouble. A very "Windows thing to do". Linux distros all have their own package repositories with tested software preconfigured for the distros, often installable through fancy graphical tools these days, something Windows doesn't really have (ignoring the Windows app store obviously) and so people coming from WIndows are not even looking for it. So instead of exploring the OS, people fall into their old ways. Immediatly ditching the distro repositories defeats the whole point of chosing a stable distro.
From my experience people less experienced with other OSes tend to have an easier time, even with distros like plain old Archlinux if the installation is assisted. It always surprises me to see people with little experience doing so much stuff they don't understand in a shell, while I, a full-time Linux user for almost 10 years, barely need to touch my shell unless I'm developing stuff. I use the graphical tools for system tasks that are preinstalled with my distro just like I'd expect newcomers to do.
What I also don't quite understand: You went for AMD-based hardware, probably in part for their Linux friendly open source driver situation, yet you went for the proprietary driver from the website.
Well said
Most people, especially gamers and hardware enthusiasts have Stockholm syndrome. Windows has forced them to fix issues and manage the system in the unintuitive ways of Microsoft. The ease of use of Linux simply baffles them.
IMO non-arch distros are a complete meme in current year. But in general the distro doesn't matter as much as it did in like 2010.
Im glad you got the drivers sorted eventually, it was nice hanging in chat as you built the rig
I am a heavy gamer, I play games almost every day and only on Linux (triple A, indie and everything in between) and I have to admit....the difference in distros, when it comes to gaming, is a serious problem.
It boggles the mind that you can install Ubuntu, do all of this bs and still have a bunch of problems and then wipe the drive, install say...Manjaro and have everything work out of the box...this is crazy. Can you imagine someone who has only used Windows for gaming attempting to switch to Linux without any of this knowledge that Jeff has? They will get overwhelmed and discouraged in no time at all. I feel like there needs to be some sort of OFFICIAL guide, maybe written by the Linux Foundation, that says "You want to game on Linux? Start here" that we can ALL, the entire community, point beginners to. Some guide that will almost always work if you have an AMD GPU.
Of course, the obvious solution is: Install Gentoo.
I’m kidding, please don’t hurt me!
Hmmm... I like the idea of the Linux foundation having some sort of guide. But, I'd be hesitant to have them make a recommendation as it may stifel competition. I also doubt that there would be any consensus as to which distro to use as a starting point. What might be useful, is for them to have broad classifications of distro's (E.g. "Beginner" gaming distro/ security/ rolling etc.) and guides for each, maybe based on some template? These could then be maintained by the various distro teams.
@Private Pyle But I don't need to dual boot, almost all of the games I want to play just work on Linux and when they don't I feel like I know what I am doing and can usually find a way. I also dislike Windows.
"Just dual boot" is a terrible advice to give to a *beginner*, because what you are basically saying to a beginner who is interested in learning how to play on Linux is that they just can't do it.
@@johnbuscher lol "Step 1: Jump in the water.
Step 2: learn to swim"
I largely agree, but users don't want a guide - they just want it to work. Zero fuss, zero effort. Install game on OS, play game: that's how it needs to be on linux, irrespective of distro! If linux cnnot do that, why should users bother trying unless they're in the 1% of enthusiasts?!
Very well said, thank you! I absolutely hated all the guys shouting in the chat saying why do you run Ubuntu and not arch? This is so not helpful and annoying....
i had the same problem when i tried using the official amd drivers. These can be quite janky so I looked for alternatives. Luckily there are fully open source drivers for amd and intel gpus called mesa. Since i started using the oibaf ppa to get the bleeding edge gpu drivers i never had any problem anymore.
AMD is crap when it comes to driver support. Especially for older GPUs.
@@rmcdudmk212 I mean better than nvidia but its still rough what the deliver
@@sakurajin_noa agree
@@rmcdudmk212 well goodluck with old Nvidia GPU on Linux
@@dreamyuki I hate Nvidia on Linux
if someone's a newbie and wants to game on linux i tell them to get manjaro kde, when it asks you to update, wait 10 days, then update. nothing will brick and kde really is the desktop enviroment you want for gaming because of their commitment to display driver improvements(wayland).manjaro is for up to date hardware/driver compatibility. most debian people seem to have problems because they have to track them down individually and install them. manjaro just throws it at you.
GNU/Linux has come a long way, if your hardware works "out of the box" you'll have a much better experience than Windows, most popular distros are rock solid and don't require constant micro-management like Windows.
I personally run Mint but my GPU is an older RX 580 so the kernel already supported it, the only changes from stock to make gaming better is that I've added PPAs for the Liquorix kernel and Mesa.
All of the software I used on Windows is available and I only play single player games anyway, so everything "just works" for me, even resizable BAR (AMD SAM) works out of the box.
My laptop, home server and Raspberry Pi both run GNU/Linux as well, so I've removed Microsoft from my life. Now if only I could de-Google my computing as well that would be great, but it's a lot harder to do.
I keep hoping that the PinePhone or Librem 5 get the magical updates that give us very solid performance, all hardware works as intended, and battery life isn’t abysmal. It’d be amazing to have a Linux (proper Linux kernel with sane utils) phone with hardware killswitches.
the problem with linux today is where windows was back then. "dll hell" linux is going through that, it's a nightmare. dependencies which break part X to fix part Y. Once you get everything working just right on linux, good luck trying to maintain it and upgrade it without breaking stuff, it gets old very quick.
@@peterh7575 that is what distributions are supposed to fix. That is why we have apt and not flatpak or snap. Or why beginners should try install binaries instead of packages.
And Ubuntu have a page in the apt configuration application to select closed driver sources, like nvidia.
@@AndersJackson I don't think apt is really helping, it will just tell you but then you have to chose and make compromises, something will break.
@@peterh7575 From what I hear that is a problem of years ago (and certain distros) that isn't as big of a deal any more. I've been using Linux off and on for a couple years, and made it my main OS for everything for the last ~6 months and I've yet to ever run into anything like that.
I spent some weeks last month trying to get a graphics driver working on my backup computer. The driver itself worked after a TON of work but Minecraft alone refuses to acknowledge the graphics driver. It made me give up on it. I haven't touched it in weeks. Unlike previous years' attempts, I can at least get most things working. In 2005, I failed entirely to use Linux on my desktop. In 2018, I failed entirely again. In 2020, I failed pretty bad. Now, in 2022 it's nearly acceptable. I want to use it as my daily OS so bad but the continual technical issues are often too much for me to overcome. I think Linux communities do great at supporting users but a lot of the best discussions get drowned out by the noise you talk about here.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
what GPU are you using? If you have AMD or Intel, then the GPU drivers should be pre-installed along with the kernel and other system libraries. NVIDIA is unfortunately a different kettle of fish because they refuse to open source their drivers.
I appreciate the honest take. I think the reason for the friction is that gaming on Linux is ALMOST there. Of course, there are a lot of issues to overcome depending on the distro, hardware, etc. But the frustration from the two sides seems to be that Linux CAN be used for gaming with some effort, its just not effort the other side of the argument wants to put into their gaming.
For a lot of people, it is there already, it just depends on if your main games are compatible or not, i went linux full time in 2019 and all of the games i played besides 1 worked fine.
If you're a valorant or fortnite player, it's "not there"
If you're a csgo/apex legends/arma 3 etc player, it's "there"
I love your SCSI shirt. brings back memories of old (like 90s) macs
Exactly why I made it! I love the simple icons of the past.
Jeff, the coolest part of this is that AMD drivers aren't actually installed on your 21.10 Ubuntu or your Fedora 35. You're experiencing those benchmarks and games using FOSS drivers from MESA that support OpenGL, Vulkan, and OpenGLES. Unfortunately the proprietary drivers, or part of the ROCm stack are required for OpenCL, but all of the video you are currently experiencing is using FOSS that was made by reverse-engineering, and later by assistance from AMD by clearing internal documentation about their GPUs so the open source community could make better drivers. NVidia's last series of GPUs that work with MESA are the 700 series, all the series after that can do 2D-ish, but need the proprietary drivers from NVidia installed to do much good. You can use glxinfo and vulkaninfo to query your GPU drivers.
Looking forward to more ARM/non-x64 PCIe attempts, maybe with FEX.
Thanks 🙏
Really liked the video. Hope you'll do more Linux Desktop videos in the future!
Ubuntu deserves so much credit for furthering the linux desktop, however arch, more specifically arch distros that focus on usability such as manjaro are leaps and bounds ahead of ubuntu.
I'm using Garuda and it has a config tool for setting up gaming and the graphics driver. The zen kernel is nice too
i use ubuntu since the beginning and i stick with it. i just love everything about it. xD
Ubuntu was relevant back in 2010 when dual-GPU laptops were HELL to setup. That was pretty much the only benefit of Ubuntu. As bad as Nvidia used to be, if you were on a desktop you only had to run one command to install the drivers and you were done.
Canonical actually put Ubuntu desktop on the back burner a few years ago and shifted to IoT stuff.
I personally have had the most issues with Ubuntu. Upgrading from one release to another always broke something.
Garuda(Garooodaaah)
I daily drive linux and game on it too, using an RX6600XT, on Linux Mint 20 XFCE, which is based on Ubuntu 20.04. when I got the card, the only workable driver was the AMD proprietary one, specifically for vulkan support, which only really works with kernel 5.11 or older because of DKMS. Since then, the need for the proprietary drivers has been fixed, and I got vulkan working DKMS-less on kernel 5.13, with proton and DXVK working flawlessly on almost every game I've tried. I'll try dropping the rough steps I used back in January to get to that in a comment below later tonight.
I have that GPU too.
Jeff, you have some of the most interesting tech content on TH-cam
Loved watching this. Linux gaming has even gotten better in the last 2 years to the point that some games run better on Linux (more stability than extra performance that I've seen). I too use Mac for my desktop environment, but Linux is 100% fine for that too and I've used it there before. Only reason I use Mac is because of it's seamless integration with it's own products with little leg work. People have to remember that a OS is just a tool, not a religion. Use whatever gets the job done for you and you are comfortable with.
Based.
Great video! It's nice to hear a non-newbie's perspective on how other non-newbies should treat newbies. You should do a full "voice of reason" series for this demographic.
Thanks for this video. It hit home for me because last week I decided to switch my gaming laptop from Ubuntu to Linux Mint and came across a problem that took me the entire night to resolve. Ubuntu is a good Linux distro from my experience but there are some key things out of the box I just didn't care for anymore which inspired the switch to Linux Mint. Installation to Linux Mint was fine, I updated everything in the update manager when the prompt appeared but when I went to update the Nvidia driver from nouveau to Nvidia 5.10, everything went to hell. The laptop has a 3080 in it so that driver HAD to work since this device was being used for gaming. But the update and reboot resulted in getting stuck on a black screen.
This is where your video really hit close to home. Consulting the internet, there were a million and one responses in how to deal with the dreaded black screen and all but one were wrong. I spent hours trying different things, GRUB changes, various Terminal commands, OS reinstalls, script changes...nothing worked. I finally ignored the internet entirely, reinstalled Linux Mint (again) and looked closely at what exactly was being updated after install. That's when I noticed that the kernel was listed as being version 5.8. I let that ride initially because checking the update notes, version 5.13 is obviously later but only has support until August 2022. 5.8 has support until 2025 if I remember correctly. So it was similar to your Ubuntu 20.04 LTS issue. I ran with 5.8 because I assumed it was part of the LTS package (read: more stable) not realizing that being an older kernel, the Nvidia 5.10 driver didn't play nice with it causing the Black Screen of Death.
Once I got it sorted, gaming on the Linux Mint powered laptop was as good or better than gaming on my Windows 3050 laptop I use for work and other projects. Generally, I prefer Linux over Windows for a lot of reasons. But in being fair, minus the rabid hatred of Windows that some Linux users have, there are some things that are far easier to set up and deal with using Windows than Linux. My kernel issue in Linux Mint has never happened to me on any Windows device I've used. I never had any problem mounting a external storage device or a secondary drive in any Windows device I've used in the last 10 years. I've never had problems with a Steam install on Windows or controllers not working on Windows. I've never had to deal with a boot partition running out of space trying to install updates on Windows. But all of this happened to me using Linux. Mileage varies. But I'd still take Linux over Windows because after it's all said and done, after a user installs and configures Linux on their rig, it is truly their own. YOU control how it runs, how it looks and what it runs. Not some company that's trying to monitor every single thing you do on that device. When Linux works, it's been fantastic for me overall even when running Linux on Microsoft's own Surface devices (no dual boot) and that includes gaming.
Sorry for the length but my switch from Ubuntu to Linux Mint was so recent that I could really relate to your video.
I got the feels when you mentioned about continuing things afterwards without the people looking over your back. You're right, many times it's easier to just ignore everyone and push through to the end solution without all the "noise" as you call it.
Personally I've been running linux since '96 and I'm still not really at the point of recommending it to people in general; it does what I want, it does it well, it does give me headaches at times and sometimes I succumb to the "Aw damnit!" and do a full reinstall from scratch. I must say though, the jump from 20.04 LTS -> next version seems to have had issues because I've not had a single upgrade succeed without clobbering something. 20.10 / 21.04 seems to only go well when installed anew :(
Many thanks for the live stream, it was a nice introduction to your work - hopefully you'll be doing that a few more times?
I fell asleep to that livestream, lol. woke up and you were still going at it -:) I knew you'd eventually figure it out...
I play with different emulators with linux Mint: mednaffe for ps1, pcsx2, dolphin for gamecube and wii, dosbox and wine. These work best after trying many of them. Games are old, but I don't care
Games with good 3d Aged well
i think you should always include a segment at the end of every video after the "until next time, im Jeff Geerling" part. maybe it's bloopers like u do sometimes, maybe just an additional piece of info or smth u found mildly interesting. heck, maybe make it a regular thing with a fun challenge or smth that u come up with. i always watch videos till the end, and those little things at the end really make it for me. also it will -at least, it can- increase the average view duration, so i think it might be worth it. of course this is me saying that sitting on my sofa, and i know how time consuming making those videos already is, and i 100% appreciate your effort, but this is just a little suggestion. anyways keep up the good work!
Thanks, not a bad idea! I'll continue experimenting :)
First off, thank you for addressing the toxicity in the Linux community.
Second, and to go off my first point. I've given up trying to compile driver's for both my 5700XT and GTX 660 (don't ask lol) as I just can't get them to work correctly with OpenGL :(
The toxicity is big, especially when you try to compare to windows... on windows-like distros
@@enkiimuto1041 im not Toxic im radioactive....toxic is not trend anymore...
Thank you for having a platform and saying a lot of what I keep saying about Linux. I want Linux to work for me, but I keep finding myself hitting issue after issue like you. And I have been testing with Linux for a few decades now. It is just so hard to get honest and up to date information when it comes to Linux.
open source drivers for amd built-in to the OS is better than the official proprietary drivers
nvidia on the other hand is better to use proprietary drivers instead but a lot of games doesnt work on nvidia due to poorly-developed drivers created by nvidia itself
"poorly-developed" is more like "reverse engineered to the best effort" because nvidia is a very open corp., and you do not even appreciate that.
nouveau driver is open and reverse engineered with very bad performance due to insufficient information about how nvidia gpu's work
nvidia official driver is proprietary instead
nvidia can do better with this situation but for some reason they still want to keep their driver closed source
but at the same time i like nvidia. they do powerful and efficient graphics cards. I would totally buy a nvidia card without thinking twice if their drivers were open source, built in to the kernel and consequently running almost everything just fine like amd does
i was around 13 when i first installed Linux, that was when Debian 9 Stretch was released (im fairly young). i committed a lot of mistakes looking back and the experience was very rocky but that's what made it fun! linux is really fun to use as a tool for accessing videogames, and it has grown a lot over the years. running fedora right now for their continued innovations in the linux desktop space and up-to-date software, glad you gave it a try in the video. have fun with your machine!
oh and i highly recommend checking out the new GTK4 apps on Flathub. it's the new version of the toolkit for the GNOME desktop environment, and I think you'll find the design language of these applications very appealing coming from macOS. i'm using Linux and GNOME just so that i can stay involved with GTK4 development
I think Nick (TheLinuxExperiment) made a good point in a recent video. Ubuntu is really no longer the best beginner distro due its weird Frankenstein combination of old and new software. Ubuntu-based distros like Mint and Pop!_OS have stepped in to take that place, or semi-rolling release distros like Fedora. Maybe not Arch for new people though, unless they like to dive head-first into the deep end.
for most people, all they need is something with the newest drivers and software that isn't months behind, with an interface that doesn't need to ever use a terminal. And while I think Linux is getting close to that, it isn't quite there yet.
Garuda is the ubuntu of arch
@@ogami1972 does it have a de? I remember it having only steam big picture
TL;DR, the important thing in a "gaming distro" is primarily how easy it is to get the latest drivers. That's really it. If a version of a distro is an "LTS" release or only gets updates every few years, probably stay away. When they talk about stability, they mean stability in mission-critical environments, not your gaming PC.
(Fedora was a very good choice because it's stable despite how bleedlng-edge it is. Good choice.)
And yeah, the greatest remaining problem is anti-cheat solutions (EAC in particular) flipping out.
Linux gaming has been getting so good in the last 3 years. You can never say never.
Why was it bad ? I always used Windows and I don't know much about Operating systems. Can you explain a little to me?. Maybe I'll convert to Linux.
Awesome that you spent this "episode' talking about a important part of a 'noob' experience (you're no noob ofc) and about some peoples communication styles.
Iv'e almost stopped posting to StackOverflow as the answer always seems to be 'that's not a valid question' or 'that's been asked before' (even when it hasnt) or 'why do you want to do that'. Unfortunately when I posted on the Ubuntu forums or Answers/Questions there were crickets. So I end up just generally reading an any Linux related articles that pop up in my DuckDuck searches. I dualboot with Ubuntu for similar reasons. Its debian based and my other car(s) is a Raspberry. It's seems pretty well maintained. It has ROS.
The licensing for an OS comment...I chuckled as I glanced at my desktop on my second monitor to see "Red Hat Enterprise Linux".
Totally agree Jeff. I install Ubuntu and then install Lubuntu desktop on top of it to have a smoother lighter experience. I do quite a bit of video encoding on Linux for fun via ffmpeg. Nvidia NVENC works great but other hardware video encoding on Linux isn’t straightfoward. So I feel your pain. Stick with whatever OS / distro works for you.
Just use Mesa drivers .. you dont really need AMD drivers .
Thanks Jeff. Great summary.
Linux comunitty: Best ever!
New user: Why?
Linux community: You can do everything you can on Windows and stick it to the "man".
New user: Sounds good!
Linux community: Actually you might have to do "some things" first.
New user: NP. Can you help me?
Linux community: Fuck no!
New user: Then I'll use Windows that already does everything "Windows does".
Linux community: BuT mY eNtItLeMenT !!!
tl;dr Kit cars are fun, but I need a car that can work as soon I turn the key, not having to assemble it just because I need to feel superior. Steam deck can change that because they realised that being a douche bag is counter productive to generalize linux usage. Change My Mind!
Nothing to change here, I'm using Linux on the desktop for almost two decades and while I really enjoy it when it works (which to be fair really became a more out of the box experience over the last years), searching and asking for help shows just how stubborn of its community really is and with that why it probably won't change any time soon, no matter how optimistic waves of new users are.
There is a huge community with lots of support out there in the Linux world for when you do run into problems, and unlike the Windows world you never need to get the offical M$ expert with the hidden internal documentation to finally fix your problem. With the degree of control and configuration you can just have in a Linux (other FOSS is available) without having any WIndoze insider knowledge to futz with registry keys etc means you can always make the system do exactly what you want if you care to and actually fix the flaws in the default configuration (for your usecase) - something you just can't do on Windows in many cases at all.
There will always be some toxic elements, and a little gatekeeping is probably to be expected - if you can't read the simple and documentation that tells you how to fix an easy config problem then FOSS stuff isn't for you anyway I'd suggest, and you won't attract the interest of the unpaid community expert as the problem is just too uninteresting - Get yourself back into that nice safe walled garden of Apple's where you can't bugger anything up even if you tried, and that is fine too - its your choice to use the tools that suit what you need, and you can't expect a spade to be a leafblower, though you can try and move leaves with either...
@@foldionepapyrus3441 At the same rate you guys should stop praising Linux on the desktop then and also stop recommending it, telling people why it is safer to stay with their current operating system even if its quirks are annoying.
Easy task, right?
@@MegaManNeo Huh? Linux just works for almost everyone, and when it breaks (which is getting ever rarer) you can fix it, usually really really easily, with a large community out there that does help when you hit problems... The only reason to stick with whatever you are currently using is if you actually LIKE it, or are so tech illiterate that reading the manual, details on the settings screen, or the first web search result for your problem when you get stuck in a simple problem is beyond you - which is fine, unfortunate for you in the modern world perhaps, but we are what we are...
Hey Jeff, thank you for making this video! The points you raised are so important, specifically about bringing in new users.
Gaming on linux is possible but can be very frustrating to be sure.
The situation is immensely improved over the last time I tried just two years ago, but I think in general it will always be a Windows-first world, as long as all the games are built natively for Windows, and work through translation/emulation on Linux.
@@JeffGeerling I've had a lot of luck using Wine or PlayonLinux to get games working.
@@JeffGeerling It depends on the games. You will rarely find AAA games for Linux, although there are exceptions. Indiegames, on the other hand, are surprisingly often have a Linux Version or they use engines that are supported through Proton.
Great video! Looking forward to some follow up videos with other games!
I absolutely love the smoothness of gaming on Linux, inputs feel so much more fluid and responsive
i booted into x11 by exident, and the screentearing was horrific, in wayland i agree with you :)
As a Linux beginner, I'm greatly encouraged by your video. Thanks.
@Jeff Geerling , you can configure the Ram by instaling Windows one time and saving the desired RGB Profile to the ram itself. That way it stays even after the install of a different OS. It limits you to only one Profile, but at least its somthing you chose and not the default RGB rainbow...Hope it helps you out :)
Thanks! I wonder if I could do it via Windows in a VM, too...
Also, after recording the video I found that the main problem has to do with some i2c packages not being present, though I didn't get time to fix it yet. I moved the computer and now it won't boot 😭 (won't even POST).
@@JeffGeerling It's not RAM, but I have had issues with Windows software that tries to talk directly to hardware. For example, I have a mod in my car that requires hooking up a serial connection. They have a Windows GUI that talks to the thing over serial to program it. For whatever reason, I could not get that to work in WINE at all. Perhaps a USB serial cable passthrough to a VM would work, but in your case, the Windows VM wouldn't be likely to see the actual motherboard RGB controller (I would assume). Worth a try I guess but it might be a long shot.
@@vinnytube1001 I second this, I suspect the VM would probably not see the actual controllers.
@@vinnytube1001 did you add serial permissions to your user? it think its called "dialout"
@@JeffGeerling Pull your cmos battery for a minute and try again best of luck man
I watched the build live stream, and this is a brilliant follow up with an important message . You hit the nail right on the head in this one. 👍
I love all your videos. You're very knowledgable, engaging, and have an obvious passion for what you do.
Keep doing what you do. Thank you. 🙂
Never heard that before: too many good distributions for gaming. 😂😂😂😂
But few *great* ones!
Both Garuda and pop (debian family) are great for gaming imo. I'm kind of a newb and love em
As the core of the Linux experience is common across basically every remotely desktop oriented distro these days I am not at all surprised, gaming just works well on all of them because the skeleton its all hanging off knows how to play and the magic of package mangers keep the users from having to worry about how (most of the time)...
I am using Manjaro only for gaming since half a year. It works very well. Except for a few minor problems after updates (which is too much for a standard user). Manjaro was never completely unusable, but had some graphical issues with KDE. Back when i used windows 10 it was basically the same, the problems were just different. In my eyes the quality of windows updates also have decreased, so all the remaining problems on linux go with slower drivers (Nvidia) or anti cheat issues in terms of gaming.
For the people who might want to try gaming on linux, I would recommend manjaro. Steam OS 3.0 would based on this, and I guess proton would get lesser problems on it.
Correction: Steam OS is based on Arch itself, not Manjaro. But, Valve recommends Manjaro for game developers who don’t have steam deck, because it shares a lot of packages with Steam OS. Nevertheless, Manjaro is a great option for gaming on Linux.
My only suggestion is to go watch Vice Grip garage right after this video. He's a pretty cool guy. I've went down the gaming on Linux rabbit hole once in my life, probably wont bother again for some time longer yet. I do find it encouraging that there are many more options now though. I have several purpose build systems in my home running Linux and I love them just the way they are, configure once and run forever. None of those purposes are gaming. I have many other hobbies that I prefer to spend more time on.
I think Linus talked about RGB ram, he had to spin up a Windows VM on the Linux machine, run the software for it and change it, and then shut down the VM
It sounds like that might be a quick way to solve the issue-though I also found out that I need some i2c software running to work with the Gigabyte board and OpenRGB. Haven't gotten too deep into it.
Love your kind attitude, Jeff. Keep up the good work.
Yes I never questioned it. But having 2 different drivers for the same GPU (mesa/amd) is weird. But the rule is quite simple NEVER DOWNLOAD DRIVERS FROM WEBSITES.
Great video.
Im playing on Debian and especially since i have a very old GPU i had many issues with vulkan since Debian decided to use the old driver which are not compatible.
But after some tweaking and forcing Linux to use the newer driver it runs just like a charm.
In the end it doesnt matter what Distro you choose. They all have their reasons. In the end we are all part of the linux community and as that we should stick together to make Linux great. Not just one fav distro.
Gaming is the very last thing that makes me keep win on my personal PC (on pro laptop I switched to Linux years back). I'm counting on Steam to make that system work (maybe release some special distro?) to finally get rid of that joke of a system which is windows.
Dont use amds propiertary drivers, use the open source Drivers which are always preinstalled in every linux distro which has an desktop environment. ubuntu 20.04 lts ships with an old mesa release which doesnt support navi or not that well. A Ubuntu version ships only with one package version its whole lifetime. f.e Mesa 20.0.4 is used by ubuntu 20.04 lts, but there are also backported packages from f.e 20.10 or whatever to 20.04 which are later versions. you can also use custom repos to get the lates mesa version like kisak-ppa. ubuntu 20.04 has acutally an security repository which ships with mesa 21.2.6. Mesa 22.0.0 is already out
I wouldn't call Ubuntu's latest releases "bleeding edge" as they're too conservative compared to real bleeding edge distros (and so is the whole Debian branch if I'm not wrong), mind you this comes from a "Ubuntu server + whatever DE I need on top" user
Fedora is bleeding edge. Like you said, Ubuntu definitely isn't. But Debian DOES have a bleeding edge branch and a few distros are built off that. I can't remember the names of any of them right now, but I know they exist.
@@SuperDavidEF Debian testing and debian sid(unstable)
@@shriteendhamasker9499 debian testing is great for daily use, i think. I've been using testing on my laptop and older desktop since debian 9, and my partner's laptop for about a year. I haven't had any problems except for a brief period when there was a bug in the kernel that caused occasional issues with intel integrated gpus.
Very Awesome Jeff! Bravo, on all The success. Seems like once it got going it was pretty seamless. For people who love linux and are diehards for the games that do run on linux, this is a dream.
I have said this and I'll say it again :P
- I absolutely LOVE Linux as a developer/selfhoster
- I don't like Linux as a user
Great video - we can see there actually is a cost to Linux- it’s certainly not “free”. Fun for technology enthusiasts to play around with gaming on it and satisfaction at some success.
Bet money a MS Linux distro will be in the future. Steam Deck will certainly carve out a niche, but DX stack is very ingrained for billion dollar studios and lifecycle, those don’t flip overnight.
@ 0:59 "[Fedora is] a more bleeding edge Linux distro." Sorry Jeff. There is nothing _bleeding_ edge about Fedora. Each version is well tested by competent and highly experienced people before it's released. Perhaps you meant _leading_ edge?
Bleeding edge doesn't mean untested and unstable, just means it's using the latest of practically everything.
I don't think of bleeding edge as a negative attribute, it's just an indication that something chases HEAD more closely than something like an LTS release.
@@JeffGeerling Thanks for your reply! I agree that your definition accurately describes Fedora, but I don't share your definition of _bleeding edge._ I'm old school, programming since the punch card days; to my colleagues and I it's always meant untested and likely to bite you enough to make you bleed. From a software developer's perspective: _alpha!_
Here's Merriam Webster's definition:
"the newest and most advanced part or position especially in technology : the extreme cutting edge"
Fedora is closer to HEAD than most distros, for sure. Its maintainers contribute quite a lot to upstream Linux. It's definitely a developer's distro which is probably why I feel comfortable with it...
In addition to its numbered releases, Fedora has a rolling release called _Rawhide,_ which is bleeding edge because it's actively developed, full of daily builds. Fedora's numbered releases are shiny but thoroughly tested. I've been running it for decades and have yet to bleed even once!
BTW, I thoroughly enjoyed your _Ansible for DevOps_ book. I've read a few Ansible texts; yours stands head and shoulders above the rest IMO. It's clear you've thought outside the box while keeping your Ansible code tight and coherent. *Well done, sir!!*
@@NibsNiven Thanks, glad you like the books! I guess my view is it's 'bleeding edge' in comparison to the LTS releases I normally use, but it's definitely more of a blunt edge than the truly bleeding edge (e.g. people running on nightlies).
Great video! Great message!
Yep, the linux community is the worst enemy of itself. I don't know how many times I've searched online for how to do something, and the first result is "just flippin google it"....
I am still tramuatized when I was in 11th grade over a decade ago I wanted to learn os development. The community was so toxic especially god forbid you wanted to develop on windows. Yeah Linux community can be pretentious then they wonder why new people are afraid of them. Lot has changed though to be fair I know I shouldn't judge action of a few. But I still am a little angry especially the guy with a momo avatar yes that cute animal from avatar.
It's worth pointing out there are 2 communities. The desktop Linux community is a cesspool, obsessed with tiling window managers and faux-busy screenshots. The server community is actually pretty nice and is more focussed on solving technical issues rather than posting i3 screenshots and obsessing over Arch Linux as if it's a hallmark of excellence...
You'd think they get the idea that when every newcomer searches for their question instead of finding the result they end up with even more people looking for the same, resulting in running in circles.
This is the problem with Google and most search engines. They pull up articles from 10 years ago as the top hit, and of course that article is either wrong or just flat out of date. And it's a continuing cycle, since people click on the first hit, which only reinforces it for the search algorithm. I end up using the Tools option and changing it to only return results in the last year, month, week or whatever to get more useful results.
As generic as this may be, but "who wants to play all games anyway?" is a nice implication to the current state of gaming on Linux.
Just happy you're giving Linux a try my man. Hope you stick with it.
Ubuntu is horrible 😭 unless you remove snapd
Great video and great point, always be kind to other people! 😊
Try Nobara distro. It's an arch-based distro tweaked for gaming.
at this point the only few reasons why i stuck with arch/based is that their repo is the most complete without adding custom ones, drivers are a command line or gui (pamac,octopi) away, never needed to do distro upgrade, the amazing wiki, and the confidence that i will be able to find any software i need in the AUR. btw, a lot of aur's *-bin packages just uses rpm and deb file to be converted into pkg by makepkg.
Asking for help in the world of linux is no different than finding the needle in a hay stack where all the leaves are incorrect answers and the needle being the correct one
The groups I have spoke with can't even agree on a "beginner friendly distro" and defend their own picks and even get into fights
I've been an on and off linux user for years. I started with Redhat 7.3 (ok, yes, I'm old) as it was provided by my college. I was a big fan of Mandrake and later Mandriva, sadly they don't exist anymore but I always had issues with KDE back then anyway. For the last 12+ years or so, I use Mint. easiest for ME to use, though it ain't prefect. I did for a time last year switch entirely to Linux full time, but my main rig had issues and to run games and to fix the network issues that occurred only on my main rig, I went back to windows. However, my media box in my lab that I watch youtube, twitch, kodi, and a bunch of other things has always been linux Mint and never had problems. My laptops are also Mint.
The only reason I'd even suggest it, so you could say it's in .. "Mint Condition," otherwise use what works for you. Keep up the good work.
Linux can be awesome but can also be a pain in the rear end! I have used Manjaro, Ubuntu, Arch, PopOS, Linux Mint, Fedora and many many more and Linux Mint is my favorite but that is the one I have had the least trouble with, but I like many of them, great video and showing the flaws of Linux is important
Thank you! Great explanations and commentary.
>be a windows user for years
>Decide to switch to linux
>Install arch
>Just works
God I love this distro
Very good suggestion. "Being kind" is something we should strive for. I've lost count how many times being mocked just because my question seemed stupid to some guys in forums. Just some days ago, I asked a simple question about OpAmp to do a very simple task and my lord!!!!
love your videos and great advice at the end. just be kind! :)
I actually started out with Linux Mint 19.1 back in 2019, initially as an experiment on my first PC build, plus as a cost saving measure. Eventually I switched to Manjaro KDE about 6 months later, and so far I haven't seen the need to install Windows spyware on it. It's now become my main home PC that I use for both gaming and media server duties. I chose Manjaro because it was also the closest I could get to W10 without it being W10, I grew up with various Windows versions from W98 onwards.
Is Manjaro better for gaming than Mint¿?
@@brachiosaurus6541
Manjaro is more up to date than Mint, meaning you get software packages a lot quicker since it is a rolling release distro, but at the cost of some stability, so you have to be a little more careful with updates. A good way to secure yourself from such problems is using Timeshift, a backup tool for your system and make sure you store your backups on a separate HDD from your install drive.
@@TopHatCat1989 Awesome. So Manjaro can have more performance on gaming but is more unstable. Since I'm using Mint I didn't have the need to restore a backup or a snapshot. I'll give it a try anyway. Thanx
Totally agree with the parts about Linux and it's community, there's lot of ways to do the same, some shorter than others, i broke 3 Ubuntu and 2 Manjaro installs in 3 months before knowing what to do. But once you're passed that point, it's delightful.
The thing is the Windows enter bar is still lower than the Linux one, but the Linux one is lowering at a good rate.
I just hope to see Linux as a viable competitor in the desktop space one day
My wife sets it all up for me. I've got no idea wtf she did but my Ubuntu system runs everything just fine, including games that supposedly are broken from running on Linux, such as EVE Online and WoW. But I generally play older XP or earlier games. If they can't run stuff on it then they likely don't get how to set it up. One thing I can attest to after having messed with Ubuntu in its 16 versions is that the newer the version, generally, the better it runs, unlike Windows. They actually figure out the bugs and make it simpler with each version. Maybe they'll include stuff to run games inherently so you don't have to learn all the monkey business.
i have an ubuntu 20.04 system (kubuntu) from more than a year by now and im really happy with it so far. i play overwatch mainly and it runs just fine with lutris and some steam games run fine and others you need a diferent version of proton.
to be honest linux is amazing for power users like me or enthusiast and the debate about distros its just a tip on the diversity of the ecosystem, you can tell de computer to blow himself up and it will do it and also the open source comunity its beautifull.
I'm currently playing on Pop OS and currently is freaking cool using My Epic, Steam and GOG games work like a charm no issues.