Mastodawn

I've ditched Windows 11 for Arch Linux on my Gaming Rig!

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/1158390

I've ditched Windows 11 for Arch Linux on my Gaming Rig! - Blåhaj Lemmy

I’ve been debating making the switch for a long time, but after spending like a week researching Proton, Lutris etc. on Linux, I decided to try it out and nuked my entire Windows 11 drive. :) So far, every game I threw at it works perfectly fine, including Elden Ring & Cyberpunk. I had to spend a little time troubleshooting some small issues but it’s part of the fun! Specs are in the neofetch, my compositor / WM is Wayfire (Wayland) :)

Yote.zip Jul 22, 2023

Congrats! If you haven’t already, don’t be afraid to distro-hop or spin up VMs with virt-manager to test out other flavors of Linux and/or Desktop Environments. I would stick to opinionated configurations while you’re starting out, since you probably don’t know what exactly you like yet.

If you ever have questions, check the wiki before using search engines, because it usually has the recommended way of doing things and sometimes information online can even get outdated.

Virt-Manager - ArchWiki

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Hey there! I’ve tried many distros in the past and always come back to Arch :) I’m pretty familiar with how it works, where to find information, the AUR, etc.! Thanks!

azvasKvklenko Jul 22, 2023

That’s a nice config you have there and despite what others say, Arch is an excellent choice for starter. Have a nice ride!

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Thank you. For sure, I could recommend Arch to beginners. I used to recommend Ubuntu but I’m not so sure about it anymore, it seems to have gone corporate with Caninocal’s “Ubuntu One” etc. Linux Mint is also another distro I’d recommend to beginners.

UlfKirsten Jul 22, 2023

I tried pop os a while ago and it wasn’t enough to ditch windows, but I wanted to come back to it in the future. Well … the future is now - do you know about how Pop os looks right now?

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Well, I haven’t used Pop!_OS myself, but it’s all Linux, so the concepts are the same. You’ll have Steam, Lutris, Proton, it’s all applicable. And it uses ubuntu/debian as a base, so you should have all your apps available, or good alternatives.

UlfKirsten Jul 23, 2023

Great, thank you!

Nyanix Jul 22, 2023

Whoo!!! Congrats, that looks great!

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Thank you!! It’s not all my doing (the ricing), it’s based on some dotfiles from the creator of Archcraft :)

Nyanix Jul 22, 2023

No shame in that! Code was made to be reused and repurposed, and I’m impressed at how quickly you’ve gotten into modifying your dotfiles! Cheers and welcome to the Linux community!

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Thank you! Wayfire’s ini file is very easy to understand, and rather straigthforward, so is the documentation for it. It’s my time using a WM and I’m never going back to standard DE’s, my workflow is so much faster!

Nuuskis9 Jul 22, 2023

You probably want to replace your neofetch with fastfetch from AUR :)

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Noted! I’ll check it out! :)

Nautical_Nomad Jul 22, 2023

I love the background! Have you got a link to it?

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Sure thing, here : imgur.com/QL6LuVQ

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Discover the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered entertainment destination. Lift your spirits with funny jokes, trending memes, entertaining gifs, inspiring stories, viral videos, and so much more from users like shelbysann.

Imgur

Nautical_Nomad Jul 22, 2023

Thanks!

zHenta7 Jul 22, 2023

Original artist: www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/94853837

scenery, background, original / 雨宿り - pixiv

pixiv

pixiv

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Thank you for crediting the artist for me! I uploaded it to imgur because I couldn’t find the original. :(

MentalEdge Jul 22, 2023

Check out saucenao. Reverse search on steroids, it is excellent for solving exactly this problem.

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Noted. Thank you very much 🙏

Nautical_Nomad Jul 22, 2023

Thank you!

dusty Jul 22, 2023

Gaming on Linux has improved so much it’s come to the point I only need windows for one game, that game being beamng.drive, and the only reason I ztill need windows for it is because for complicated reasons (that only the Dev team fully understands) the windows build runs like shit on proton, and the multiplayer mod for it won’t run on Linux, or at least haven’t figured out a way to make it run. Everything else? Perfect

Happy to have more Linux gamers on board

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

I know it’s not perfect yet, which is why when i built my PC, I went with Windows (I’m usually a Linux & macOS user), even if I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to waste my 2,000$ gaming PC by not being able to game well. Well, I’ll eat my words because it runs all my games perfectly fine. I just need to figure out Skyrim modding with MO2 but I’m told it works :)

Hopefully all your games work fine someday!

GoodEye8 Jul 22, 2023

I just yesterday decided to give Linux a try and quickly switched back to Windows. The 2 main things preventing me from switching to Linux is the lack of proper HDR support and poor refresh rate support. I’m honestly bewildered that Linux doesn’t have proper support for relatively common things that have been around for pretty much 2 decades. Hope those things get added soon

person4268 Jul 22, 2023

For VRR, using Plasma on Wayland seems to work just fine for me (after you enable it), as long as the game in question is in full screen; it doesn’t seem to trigger otherwise. I think I ran a mixed refresh rates setup once too (165hz and 60hz) and didn’t have any issues. Idk how X11 handles mixed refresh rates (if at all), but it definitely didn’t support VRR well if at all when I tried.

Re: HDR, yeah. Color management is also missing in Wayland (but present on X11) iirc.

(In case you didn’t know, there’s currently two display “servers”/protocols that are in popular use, X11 and Wayland. X11 is old and has screen tearing issues, but greater support in general. Wayland is newer and has far more isolation between programs, and aims to replace it (and Fedora already has made it default, iirc))

mrmanager Jul 22, 2023

I game in 120hz, no issues. Are you on Wayland? Xorg is old and have issues.

bw1faeh0 Jul 22, 2023

Does Archcraft provide rolling releases like e.g. Manjaro?

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Archcraft is just a slightly modified version of Arch Linux, so it’s rollling release. Manjaro is based on Arch Linux. Manjaro holds back updates for 2 weeks, however. I haven’t heard very good things about it, but feel free to correct me.

bw1faeh0 Jul 22, 2023

I’m currently running Manjaro on my primary Linux machine, coming from Linux Mint before. I have no issues at all with Manjaro, but I’m open to new flavors. Since I’m not sticking to a specific operating system (I’m also having MacOS and Windows running on my machines), I sometimes reinstall my Linux machines with new distros 🙃

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

I’ve read that some packages expect your system to be fully up-to-date, so Manjaro holding some updates back 2 weeks can mess those up. I saw a post here on Lemmy that summed up why Manjaro is probably not the best choice of distro, but again, I’m not super informed on that end. Use whatever works for you :) I use Archcraft, which from my understanding is a slightly modified version of Arch with theming options. Cheers!

Archcraft : Home

Yet another minimal Linux distribution, based on Arch Linux.

SokathHisEyesOpen Jul 22, 2023

How do you install non-steam games? Specifically Cyberpunk and Eve Online?

frozen Jul 22, 2023

Those are both on Steam. Heroic Launcher exists for Epic/GOG games, though, and Lutris exists for games with their own launchers.

SokathHisEyesOpen Jul 22, 2023

Can you install Cyberpunk on Steam if you didn’t buy it through Steam?

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Check out Lutris

Lutris - Open Gaming Platform

Play all your games on Linux. Lutris is an Open Source gaming platform for Linux. It installs and launches games so you can start playing without the hassle of setting up your game. Get your games from GOG, Steam, Battle.net, Origin, Uplay and many other sources running on any Linux powered gaming machine.

SokathHisEyesOpen Jul 22, 2023

Thanks!

codanaut Jul 22, 2023

Just a heads up, Eve works but it’s pretty flaky. It’s working better then it was a few months ago but I still can’t play more then maybe 15-30 min before it just totally crashes. A lot of time when leaving stations it freezes for awhile and a lot of the game assets don’t seem to always render in. Sometimes opening the menus or settings crashes it, for some reason opening the map and selecting jump points is really bad about causing freezing. Trying it again about a week ago I lost a ship because the game froze then crashed mid fight and when I managed to get back in my ship was destroyed.

SokathHisEyesOpen Jul 23, 2023

That’s not really playable then when the risks are as high as they are in Eve.

Ocelot Jul 23, 2023

lutris. even has a little button to add it to steam.

KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ Jul 23, 2023

This is basically the recommended way to install Eve these days.

At one point when they were testing what is now the current launcher it worked flawlessly on Linux because it was based on Qt and they were compiling a Linux binary for it. They dropped that support fairly quick though sadly once it became the actual new launcher.

GCostanzaStepOnMe Jul 22, 2023

Installed Linux on my gaming rig, now it’s a rig.

Lettuce eat lettuce Jul 22, 2023

Welcome to the club :) true freedom will feel great!

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

It already feels amazing! I feel ike my ultrawide display is actually being used properly. Same for my PC hardware, it feels 10x snappier and it was already super fast :)

mrmanager Jul 22, 2023

This is why we can’t stand windows. Everything is laggy and filled with ads. Wtf. :)

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

For sure, no telemetry, no ads, no tracking. I even use DuckDuckGo and some privacy plugins for Firefox. Debating building LibreWolf but it takes like, an hour.

Miku Luna \ she/it Jul 22, 2023

How long have you been using Linux for?

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Hey! It’s been a long time since I’ve used it as my main OS, but since Ubuntu 11.04, I’ve been on and off on Linux. I’ve tried many distros, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Arch, Manjaro, Antergos, elementaryOS, Fedora, Solus… I’ve tried pretty much every “mainstream” distro, and always come back to Arch.

HousePanther Jul 22, 2023

I went to Arch and haven’t looked back. It’s a great distro!

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

It really is!

inurblacchole Jul 22, 2023

howwwwww. i have a pretty nice amd chip and radeon graphics card, on arch with wayland. i get stuttering, which i read was normal, on my more intensive games like dead space. deep rock galactic i can’t play with my friends and it also stutters…what were the small issues you troubleshooted?

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

I have made quite a few tweaks to my system :

My kernel is the linux-tkg kernel
I’ve installed gamemode
I use wine-tkg to get FSYNC
I check ProtonDB for each game I install, to check for any launch parameters that might be needed / help with performance

GitHub - Frogging-Family/linux-tkg: linux-tkg custom kernels

linux-tkg custom kernels. Contribute to Frogging-Family/linux-tkg development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

SunRed Jul 22, 2023

Yeah, the linux-zen kernel is a good alternative to linux-tkg for gaming that’s available in the official repos. What most likely makes the biggest difference and is probably the issue for @[email protected] is the lack of gamemode. Depending on the cpu and the default governor used it might not boost enough in games where performance or schedutil is needed.

mrmanager Jul 22, 2023

Actually phoenix showed that the zen kernel has slim to no advantage compared to the vanilla kernel for gaming. But I use it anyway because it’s not worse.

SunRed Jul 22, 2023

Yeah, I would even say that most custom kernels have a very negligible advantage in gaming. I know the zen kernel aims to reduce latency but I would say it comes more down to compatibility and features. For example one rather recent thing I remember since Fedora changed this as well is that the vm.max_map_count is already set on linux-zen to the same value the SteamOS kernel uses (I think it’s just INT_MAX) that helps with game compatibility on Wine/Proton.

Fedora 39 Looks To Boost vm.max_map_count To Help Windows Games With Steam Play

inurblacchole Jul 23, 2023

thanks so much to you and @mrshelbysan! gonna try the tweaks out

mrmanager Jul 22, 2023

Always happy to see another user join the ranks of gamers on Linux. I’ve been gaming for years now since proton came. The fact that it’s just a checkbox in steam to use proton is fantastic.

GustavoM Jul 22, 2023

My man just went from 0 to hero in one single tap! Nicely done.

It took me like a couple months (4’ish) to start using Arch Linux.

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

It’s not my first distro, as mentioned below, I’ve tried pretty much very “mainstream” distro. I tried Arch on a pal’s computer a few years ago, practiced installing it in a VM and kept it for a few years. I went back to Windows when I built my gaming PC before I didn’t know how far Linux gaming had gone. :) So i’m already very familiar with Arch, just not with Window Managers like Wayfire or Hyprland, learning one config file at a time!

GustavoM Jul 22, 2023

Oop. Despise my “oopsie”, you’ve done great regardless and I hope you have a great time in the marvelous world of Linux/GNU.

Matthew Jul 22, 2023

Oh no problem at all :) I already know I will, I was missing it, and getting an itch I couldn’t scratch with macOS. Now I almost want to sell my M1 mac for a cheap XPS 13 or Framework laptop…

tarneo Jul 22, 2023

C’mon you’ve ditched windows but your wallpaper is full of them… /s