I tried gaming on Linux…
I built a custom Linux gaming PC, and installed Ubuntu on it. I made some poor choices, but eventually got the thing working. After a week of testing and reflecting on the experience, I have a few thoughts.
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#Linux #Gaming #PCBuild
Mentioned in this video:
– Blog post: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/getting-rx-6700-xt-work-gaming-on-linux
– Linux Gaming PC Build Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obky7vN8aXY
– LTT Gaming on Linux playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8mG-RkN2uTyhe6fxWpnsHv53Y1I-K3yu
Parts list (some are affiliate links):
– AMD Ryzen 5 5600x 6-core CPU: https://amzn.to/3posFRQ
– AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT: https://amzn.to/3tgPV5B
– Gigabyte B550 AORUS Elite Motherboard: https://amzn.to/3K0pmbq
– Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro SL 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM kit: https://amzn.to/3tgQwnR
– Asus TUF Gaming GT501 eATX Case: https://amzn.to/36JaSON
– Corsair RM650x 650W 80+ Gold ATX PSU: https://amzn.to/3srWvXt
– Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD: https://amzn.to/3MdNtoT
– Samsung 870 QVO 8TB 2.5″ SSD: https://amzn.to/3C2dSl9
– ASUS XG-C100C PCIe 10 Gbps Ethernet Adapter: https://amzn.to/3IwVSSg
– MSI Optix G241 24″ 1080p 144 Hz IPS monitor: https://amzn.to/3K0rUX2
– Scythe Kaze Flex 140mm PWM RGB Fan: https://amzn.to/3C3lNPa
– Raspberry Pi Keyboard (Black/Grey): https://amzn.to/3IyvxTL
– Raspberry Pi Mouse (Black/Grey): https://amzn.to/36ETdru
Contents:
00:00 – tl;dr
01:04 – Why Ubuntu?
03:24 – What could go wrong?
04:59 – Fixing my mistakes
06:07 – Halo 3 at 144fps
06:40 – It was my fault
07:44 – Linux just works (sometimes)
08:30 – Takeaways
I’m commenting mid video about your decisions 😂😂😂
The Linux desktop is kind of in an interesting spot right now. Ubuntu is still the top dog for polish, it just is, all of those guides recommending Manjaro or Fedora or really any other bleeding edge distro are kind of missing that for newer users having something that is stable and at least kind of like the experience on Windows and MacOS for updates is important. The point about graphics drivers though is also worth noting, I think that’s a massive failure by AMD themselves, they should just retire their proprietary Linux driver entirely at this point because it just adds to confusion. Your video does have some great context though. There are loads of actually fun discussions going on with people involved in distro development about a lot of those shooting in the foot style problems.
The one advice I will give about choosing a distro is make sure it’s popular and supported. Now, let’s say you get the latest AMD graphics card or CPU. You’ll definitely want a more up-to-date distro with the latest kernel. It’s possible that even the latest Ubuntu releases won’t have the drivers because Ubuntu isn’t always on the latest kernel, but it’ll get to the build you need eventually. Debian is horrible for new hardware, but it’s not marketed for that.
Interesting video. I have always liked messing around with Linux, but using it for actual work never did it for me. I just rely on my Mac too much. I won’t even bother with installing Linux on my gaming computer since Windows already works best for it and I don’t even use it for anything else. Everyone has their use cases, but it sure is interesting try put different things
Windows vista 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Windows is usable even without a key. So I don’t get the point of any of this.
For a newcomer to Linux I would generally recommend the latest Ubuntu if they are installing something on their desktop, and the latest Ubuntu LTS if they are running it on a server. The reason is that Ubuntu goal is to be pragmatic and appeal more to beginners and newcomers. And the reason to NOT recommend an LTS for a desktop user is because consumer drivers change at a fairly fast pace so if you stick to an LTS you likely are going to miss few driver updates.
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.
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.
Every single time I try another distro I always fall back to Arch for many reasons, mainly because all the packages are updated.
Got it, continue using Windows machines for gaming.
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 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 😉
As for me, I currently have experience with Linux around 2 years and 6 months. I decided to throw away Windows 10 after a high HDD, CPU, and RAM usage.
My recommendation: First, be honest with yourself. Do you seriously want to start using Linux as the main OS? If your answer is "yes" you should be prepared for diversity a lot of solutions, and ways how to achieve your goals.
to be honest, i only see dificulties and no real good positives of switching to lunix from a windows 10 user standpoint. I think it might be cool, but don’t see a real advantage. everything, from server software from minecraft and installing steam or whatever is just easier on windows compared to lunix (i know this from rasberry pi). ya sure the performance is better, but what about everything else? if a expert takes hours at it, then who actually would do it well even if they were good at tech? the most simplest lunix install is chrome os, but that is an entire diffrent thing entirely. while lunix is a great idea, it just isn’t as great as windows in a lot of cases. the best use of lunix is servers, where you don’t even have to think about it most of the time. but most people don’t have servers as thier job or use it all of the time. so lunix probably won’t become the new windows any time soon as far as i say, but it is a great thing for a few use cases. just isn’t as great as windows for most cases. thats why windows is the one for me.
It was already big mistake to download drivers from a webpage… Usually best to download drivers using package manager or something. In linux if you download something from a webpage instead of a package manager you should be suspicious if you are doing something wrong.
Other take-away: if you have old hardware, go for some LTS that is new-enough. If you have new hardware you better of always just using the very latest updates. Also when slowly growing more pro, one will naturally tend to always use latest from everything anyways.
Also I am not really sure how much knowing linux on servers and embedded helps for desktop. The other way around (using linux daily) surely helps for professional use for work too, but the best way to know linux well is well… just to use it 😉
I would not advise ubuntu neither, but to be honest distros do not count as much as you think. After a while you will feel home on any linux anyways – usually that is the point when someone just go for arch/void/whatever and instead of configuring down a system just "configure it up" from bare-bones.
I think having many ways to do linux is a pro and not a con. What might be however good for the things is that the community maybe should pick out a sole winner for the "what is the noob distro". Like 10+ years ago it was indeed ubuntu, but now I would not say that, others would say something else than me. Having a single noob distro agreed on might indeed help I feel.
Sorry for asking but in the end, what was the distro that worked well for u?
i dont use arch btw
“Bleeding edge Ubuntu 21.10” *laughs in Arch.*
>be a windows user for years
>Decide to switch to linux
>Install arch
>Just works
God I love this distro
Welcome to linux community where you get bullied by old users that assume you should know everything, and never assume that every thing is new to you.
About gaming on linux: fuck LTS. No matter what distro, you need the latest kernel. Kernel = drivers. That’s all a newbie with AMD gpu needs to know while selecting a distro. AMDs work great on open source drivers. With Nvidia, unfortunately they need to google how they need to install proprietary drivers. İt is that simple. Install steam, install Lutris. And you are golden…
Another rule of thumb: old info/guide/tutorial is almost always useless and dangerous. Linux keeps evolving in pace windows users can’t even imagine. Just use recent info.
STOP DOWNLOADING DRIVERS FROM THE WEBSITE GOOD LORD
Linux is simple. Open a terminal, and use your package manager.
apt install amdgpu
done. You are all having complications because you’re treating linux like windows, downloading crap from websites. Stop it.
PopOS would have been better. Its the trending Ubuntu based Ubuntu alternative. Especially when you have to deal with Nvidia.
okay so i will not switch to linux
Next time just use Manjaro and you won’t have to worry about any drivers as everything works out of the box. Ubuntu is not what it was anymore
Linux(Ubuntu20.04-22.04) still sucks till the date of 14-June-2022. I’ve no idea about the future. Halo, is not the only game people play. There is endless game selection. For example, Far Cry 6, DMC 5, Tekken, SFV, HZD and the list goes on. These games don’t work and if they do maybe you’ve 1.5K GPU at hand. But most people in this world don’t buy that much expensive GPU.
So, I would like you guys to tell the truth and not just praise Linux for being able to play games. Yes, it is an achievement without a doubt but it still has a long way to go. I’ve not seen you pros play actual games on Linux but rather show some dumb footage.
You, dumb people, show that you install steam then download the darn game. Dumb and dumber, when you’ve downloaded the game already why the heck you’ll download it again for Linux? Pro dumb and dumber. You’ve it in your secondary hard drive and you want to play just like in Windows. By just letting steam know the path. In Linux, you do that and even then the game doesn’t run and I’m telling you dumb and dumber pros by experience. Only Valve native games run without a problem but others don’t run at all or you’ve to search the internet to run each one differently.
It has still a long way to go. I guess before the end of the world Linux will achieve that. Gaming is best suited for Windows only.
Ubuntu is the most popular distro, sure, but only for what it used to be, and not for what it is now.
I absolutely love the smoothness of gaming on Linux, inputs feel so much more fluid and responsive
People regurgitating advise they’ve gotten elsewhere so rarely go well. I was once on a technical forum and I forget the specifics, but a user asked for help and received specific advise from me in regards to his/her situation and general advise from another person who literally read it from one of my previous posts in another thread ! A debate started on who’s advise the OP should follow; a mod came in and deleted my advise because he had regurgitated my own advise to other people more times and was right enough of those times to be "more" correct than me…
Gaming on Linux is just more value. First You play the puzzle game of trying to run the God damn thing and than You play the actual game. Maybe…
HoloOs(SteamDeckOs 3.0 clone) is the best for linux games
That’s a long way of saying you’re bad.
Apple is not any better than Microsoft since Mac os only runs on overpriced hardware.
The toxicity and general feeling of being better because you use Arch/Gentoo/insertyouradvanceddistroofchoice is pretty strong… I used Arch for years, but i settled on a custom Fedora because, at the end of the day, i want something that works OOTB (i had to move to a place with poor internet so Arch with their daily updates was getting in my way). Arch is the best imho when you have time to install and config a barebones system, and to maintain it.
you could always pirate windows
I always recommend people to install any distribution they want and try as many as possible and then select the best one which is suitable for their need.
I always suggest people of Linux users don’t recommend any newbie any distribution. Just tell them to install some and then test it to find good one for themselves. Well, I like what you’ve said that Linux is improved a lot since past few years.
The main problem I see with people coming to Linux, is that a lot of times they rush it making bad decisions or that they expect Linux to behave like mac or windows when it ‘s another different OS.People should read more before taking a blind action.
Give Garuda Linux a try it’s based on arch and manjaro, Garuda is built with gamers specifically in mind. Also make sure you download the steam linux runtime packages(3 of them) from steams tool section in your library, games that are built with ubuntu as the recommended distro of choice will run on any distro when you use the runtime packages.
LTS releases have never been good to me for gaming.
I tested many Linux distros (but none based on Debian), I never run on driver install issue for my radeon RDNA2… Mesa runs just perfectly nowdays.
If you get a prebuilt that is not a problem
I don’t understand your comment about Windows licensing – all operating systems have licenses, including Mac OS and Linux. Yes, Linux has a much more permissive license, but it’s still a license.
I remember installing Ubuntu for my school work. it was my first time trying linux and my first 3 installs didn’t work at all and after hours of trying to figure out the issues i got it working on my own because the solutions you find online never quite work without some tinkering first and based on my experience so far i can say one thing there is no BEST distro but if you are willing to find the solutions then just pick one and start your journey
Great video bro
This is why Linux will never be mainstream. I love Linux, but if someone is not technical they will constantly have issues and nobody to help resolve them.
"Anti-cheat" is literally malware.
btw i use Arch.
awome video. .ubuntu is great specially for starters
Great video! Looking forward to some follow up videos with other games!
Ubuntu is not pronounced OobAntu, it is pronounced ooboontoo, I see a lot of American/English reviews getting it wrong. The GUI for Ubuntu was first designed by a South African, Mark Shuttleworth and the naming is based on the African term Ubuntu.