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Wheels Of Confusion

Wheels Of Confusion

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  • #1,721
    KDE has been pretty much RAM-optimized for now. It's about even with things like Xfce and MATE in that department. From my VERY limited experience, KDE hits the CPU a little harder, but it's got a lot more going on than the others. I used to dislike it but the OOtB experience in MX Linux is very familiar and comfortable for Windows users.
     
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    heartburnkid

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  • #1,722
    Got a new SSD to drop in my older gaming PC, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to take another stab at Linux gaming. What's a good, lightweight distro for gaming on an AMD graphics card?

    I used Ubuntu for quite a while back in the bad old Vista days, and I have a headless Ubuntu machine in my home running Jellyfin. Is Ubuntu still good, or is there something else I should try?
     
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    Oddabe19

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  • #1,724
    Lightweight and good for gaming don't typically run in the same race, but it depends on what your definitions are. Honestly "lightweight" is not really an issue in this day and age, since the traditional heavy hitters (KDE/Gnome) are very similar to XFCE now. Ubuntu is essentially discouraged due to its reliance around the Snap architecture. Notoriously slow and unstable depending on the app, far from "lightweight". Ubuntu server is still great though.

    Manjaro includes Steam and is pretty decent out of box, but Arch based and like most Arch distros, it can break if you're not careful. Arch distros are really fast, the AUR is incredible, and the wiki is the best online documentation out there. I use Endeavour myself.

    PopOS! (despite its stupid name) is Ubuntu based, without snaps (last I checked), out of box setup for gaming, and supported by a larger hardware company that specializes in linux systems (System76).

    Nobara is Fedora based, tuned specifically for gaming, rolling Fedora release, and built by one of the most influential developers of Linux gaming compatibility (GloriousEggroll).

    Or as @whm2074 states, why not Mint? It's very stable, well supported, easy to use, however, the Cinnamon desktop isn't nearly as lightweight as KDE, XFCE, or Gnome, and there's no Wayland support yet, if that matters to you.
     
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    Jonathon

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  • #1,727
    There's still no official release for non-Deck hardware of the "current" Arch-based SteamOS 3.x; supposedly it can be made to work on third-party hardware but YMMV on driver support (likely, the closer you are to the Deck's hardware, the better it'll work out of the box).

    I'm not sure how important the base distribution is these days, though, now that the Deck's frontend UI has made it to "mainline" Steam's Big Picture Mode. So you can pick a Linux distro where all your hardware works to your satisfaction, install Steam there, and get about the same experience. Or go to something like Bazzite (or there's at least one other that I can't seem to find again) if you want a third-party SteamOS workalike with better hardware support.
     
    Jonathon

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  • #1,729
    kperrier said:

    SteamOS

    store.steampowered.com store.steampowered.com
    Click to expand...
    That page is supposed to get you SteamOS 2 (based on an eight-year-old version of Debian), which is not what the Deck runs.

    It appears to be kind of broken right now because what it actually links you to if you click the download links is the Steam Deck recovery image-- installing from that doesn't match their instructions and it probably isn't what you want (because of the aforementioned hardware compatibility issues).
     
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    Blind Badger

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  • #1,731
    I am getting the AMD Framework 13 laptop, and I was wondering which Linux distribution to install. My requirements are:

    • KDE, preferably prepackaged, rather than starting with a Gnome distribution and then installing KDE on top
    • Linux kernel >= 6.5.5, for compatibility with the SSD I'm thinking of getting and the amount of memory (64GB)
    • If possible, a relatively 'user friendly' distribution that's stable and that doesn't require much manual tinkering
    • If possible, something that would allow me to install ZFS on root.

    I am currently running Kubuntu and KDE Neon, and would prefer to stick with KDE Neon, but since this is based on Ubuntu 22.04, I think its Linux kernel will be too old out of the box, and I don't know how easy it would be to substitute a newer kernel before installation. (Because otherwise my SSD won't even be recognised.)

    Therefore, I am considering the KDE spin of Fedora, which would have the 6.5 kernel.

    From what I've been able to find, installing ZFS on root would be complicated for both KDE Neon and Fedora. (I haven't used ZFS to date, but I figure a new system would be a good time to do so.)

    Anyone have any insights for me?
     
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    koala

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  • #1,732
    IIRC, Ubuntu LTS versions have backported kernels. Not sure how well the installer handles that, but it's likely worth trying out if you prefer Ubuntu.

    If you want to try something "new", there's a Fedora Silverblue KDE spin too, but I haven't tried it. (I tried the Sway spin and it needed some polish.)

    Also IIRC, Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 still supported ZFS on root as an installer option.
     
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    spiralscratch

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  • #1,733
    The Ubuntu 23.10 installer apparently added back the ZFS install option. I don't know if this extends to the Kubuntu installer.

    (K)Ubuntu 22.04 LTS upped the kernel to v6.2 recently, which I'm guessing will cover that laptop. Not sure why you believe older kernels won't recognize your SSD? It should be using the basic, standard NVMe drivers AFAIK.
     
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    Oddabe19

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  • #1,734
    OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is probably one of the most well supported distros no one really talks about, but is fantastic and has been around forever. Meets all of your requirements, though ZFS is the only one I'm a little not sure about. No dealing Snaps, no old kernel issues, KDE is what they do best. YaST can be annoying but works well, and is the most complete "all-in-one" system config utility.

    My only complaint, is if you're not in Germany/Central Europe, downloading updates are a little slow when compared to Debian; Redhat/Fedora; or Arch that has great repo infrastructure.
     
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    Blind Badger

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  • #1,735
    spiralscratch said:
    (K)Ubuntu 22.04 LTS upped the kernel to v6.2 recently, which I'm guessing will cover that laptop. Not sure why you believe older kernels won't recognize your SSD? It should be using the basic, standard NVMe drivers AFAIK.
    Click to expand...

    This is the SSD I'm thinking of getting. Apparently its controller requires a patch that's only been included in the 6.5 kernel:

    community.frame.work

    Has anyone used a Lexar NM790 4TB with their Framework

    Same here - very keen to hear if anyone has the NM790 working, particularly on Ubuntu / Linux, and if so what was needed to get it going! I’ve already bought a 4TB NM790, for it to go in an AMD Framework 13 (coming in batch 8). I’m aiming to use Ubuntu as the OS. I’ve been reading up more, and...
    community.frame.work community.frame.work

    (Getting Linux to work with 64GB of memory apparently also requires 6.5, but that's less of an issue since I could start off with 32GB.)

    Oddabe19 said:
    OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is probably one of the most well supported distros no one really talks about, but is fantastic and has been around forever. Meets all of your requirements, though ZFS is the only one I'm a little not sure about. No dealing Snaps, no old kernel issues, KDE is what they do best. YaST can be annoying but works well, and is the most complete "all-in-one" system config utility.

    My only complaint, is if you're not in Germany/Central Europe, downloading updates are a little slow when compared to Debian; Redhat/Fedora; or Arch that has great repo infrastructure.
    Click to expand...

    Thanks! I've heard of OpenSUSE, but as you indicate, it hadn't been on my radar. Reading about it a bit, it looks like it might be an attractive alternative to Fedora.

    I might have to settle for btrfs instead of zfs.
     
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    koala

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  • #1,736
    So I'm changing jobs, so I have to send my T-series laptop with 32gb of RAM... so I decided I'd play with a few distros that don't seem appropriate to test without real hardware.

    This morning I played with Bazzite with KDE and Bluefin DX. KDE was a bit jarring, given I'm now so used to how "simple" Gnome is- KDE with the transparency and all was a bit too much (yeah, I'm aware everything in KDE can be tuned- but as I get older, I value defaults that suit me more).

    Bluefin was fine. But both distros had some bit of lag at points. Perhaps it was the initial install or something. Currently I'm on EL9 (CentOS 9 Stream) which has some occasional lag, but seems more responsive.

    I wanted to toy with Qubes OS, but that didn't work with Ventoy (there's a filed Ventoy issue). I'll see if I dig another USB flash drive for that.

    (Also like I wanted to sample distros for my new work laptop. Likely I'll ask what other people are running, but I think the people not on Macbooks are running NixOS, which I'm still a bit scared of. I'll likely go with EL9 again- maybe Alma now- because I know PaperWM will work on that for a loooong time.)
     
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    koala

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  • #1,737
    OK, so I managed to get Qubes running (faced this issue https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/pci-tr...evice--no-flr-pm-reset-or-bus-reset-available out ot the box :(

    And yes, it's as resource intensive as it looks- I was dumb enough to run updates in parallel over multiple qubes and this beefy laptop was brought to its knees.

    But I have to admit this thing where multiple applications from different VMs integrate on the same desktop is quite nifty. However, I hope I'm never in a situation where the resource usage is worthwhile...
     
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    Invid

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  • #1,738
    Blind Badger said:
    This is the SSD I'm thinking of getting. Apparently its controller requires a patch that's only been included in the 6.5 kernel:

    community.frame.work

    Has anyone used a Lexar NM790 4TB with their Framework

    Same here - very keen to hear if anyone has the NM790 working, particularly on Ubuntu / Linux, and if so what was needed to get it going! I’ve already bought a 4TB NM790, for it to go in an AMD Framework 13 (coming in batch 8). I’m aiming to use Ubuntu as the OS. I’ve been reading up more, and...
    community.frame.work community.frame.work

    (Getting Linux to work with 64GB of memory apparently also requires 6.5, but that's less of an issue since I could start off with 32GB.)
    Click to expand...
    I have the 4TB version of that drive in my Lenovo Legion Go and it's been great (read uneventful). That's on Bazzite with a 6.7 kernel though.

    It's a single sided drive if that matters for your needs.

    koala said:
    This morning I played with Bazzite with KDE and Bluefin DX. KDE was a bit jarring, given I'm now so used to how "simple" Gnome is- KDE with the transparency and all was a bit too much (yeah, I'm aware everything in KDE can be tuned- but as I get older, I value defaults that suit me more).

    Bluefin was fine. But both distros had some bit of lag at points. Perhaps it was the initial install or something. Currently I'm on EL9 (CentOS 9 Stream) which has some occasional lag, but seems more responsive.
    Click to expand...
    I've been running Bazzite-deck/HTPC on the Legion Go I got for Christmas and it's pretty awesome as a gaming distro so far. Boots directly into the SteamOS interface by default which is appropriate for a gaming handheld. It fully supports the hardware and after some wrestling*, I got it and Windows 11 to share a microSD game library across a dual boot.

    I have a thunderbolt 4 dock that I use with the Go and a pair of monitors when I want to use it as a desktop and it's been nice having Wayland by default. Finally scaling that works properly. I think I may finally move my gaming desktop over to Linux full time after a bit more testing...I haven't touched my VR headset in over a year so there are no more excuses.

    First time using a Fedora based distro in years. I've pretty much stuck to Debian based distros for the last several years so I've got some learning to do I guess given that Fedora Kinoite/Bazzite is my first atomic distro (that's not a Steam Deck).

    *Updating games on Windows was breaking permissions on Bazzite until I changed the default uid in the registry entries for the Windows BTRFS driver.
     
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  • #1,739
    So, as a followon to my last post. I've since pulled the Windows 11 drive out of my gaming PC after backing up my docmuents and installed Bazzite desktop edition. It's basically Fedora 39 Kinoite with gaming ready to go out of the box. Very pleased with it so far and I think I'll be keeping it for a while. I left my gaming drives (2 SATA drives) in and converted them in place to BTRFS from NTFS. It's been a pretty smooth experience so far after a brief adjustment to the new way to handle package managment. The focus is on flatpaks for most applications which is fine.

    Recommended if you want a distro that's gaming ready with minimal setup but still stays close to stock Fedora. They also offer an Nvidia image that I assume has the drivers preinstalled and a Gnome flavour if that's how you roll.
     
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    koala

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  • #1,740
    Heh, we must be aligned.

    These weeks I've been using my Carbon gen3 for work, and... well, it's made me realize horsepower is more important than what I thought.

    So I decided to repurpose my gaming desktops (2; I live in two flats) from Windows to Bazzite. This time, with Gnome.

    It's been quite nice. PaperWM works, and I'm not sure if I think Bazzite is excessively turned, but for the moment I'm liking it. I still need to figure out a lot of things (I've lost my FreeIPA integration, got to work with my "electronic ID" [a PKCS#11 device], set up ZFS for my backups...), but I could see myself there for a good while.

    Perhaps I'm a bit erratic, but I prefer the extremes for desktops- either LTS distros (RHEL clones or Debian Stable), or bleeding edge but with rollbacks (Silverblue and derivatives, or probably Nix?).
     
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  • #1,741
    koala said:
    Perhaps I'm a bit erratic, but I prefer the extremes for desktops- either LTS distros (RHEL clones or Debian Stable), or bleeding edge but with rollbacks (Silverblue and derivatives, or probably Nix?).
    Click to expand...
    I used to be an LTS guy too, but on a gaming system I wanted something quicker moving but also more resilient than something like Arch. I haven't really done any distro hopping after settling on Pop_OS for the last few years and it was feeling kinda stale, so KDE and Fedora are a nice change of pace. I've only really customized the taskbar and otherwise I'm running a pretty bog standard KDE desktop. KDE 5.27 has some bugs but I've been able to work around them and I really like the functionality.

    The Bazzite spin saved a ton of time in setup. It was literally gaming ready out of the box. Now if only Capcom would fix Dragon's Dogma 2...
     
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    koala

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  • #1,742
    BTW, I'm getting a ThinkPad X12 detachable for work. I really didn't get it for using it as a tablet, but I'm wondering if there's any recommendation for something that supports occasional use of tablet mode? (E.g. something that pops us a virtual keyboard without much fuss.)

    For $REASONS I'm leaning towards Ubuntu 24.04, because I want a) LTS b) not a lot of fuss (mostly everything supports Ubuntu LTS) c) I have to do some 22.04 stuff at work, so after a few years of using mostly RHEL-derived distros, I suppose using a Ubuntu desktop will help me get into the groove again.

    (I really prefer Debian to Ubuntu, but I think Ubuntu will make some stuff easier, and this is work.)

    (The selection I get to choose is a bit bad. It's either an ANSI keyboard [and I really prefer ISO], a ThinkPad Edge, or the X12. And of the available ThinkPads with an ISO keyboard, it actually seems the beefiest. Plus, I walk a lot with my work laptop in the backpack, so the reduced weight is likely to be nice. However, I'm a bit concerned because I use a ThinkPad USB keyboard and a 14" Carbon, and I don't know if the keyboard size difference will drive me nuts.)
     
    Made in Hurry

    Made in Hurry

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  • #1,744
    A noob question. I recently converted my 12500H based Vivobook to Linux Mint, and i have had no issues so far. Graphics is Intel Iris, so not a gaming laptop by far, but i am wondering if there is a benefit to use a different kernel for battery life or scheduling reasons, or is what i am already running good enough? It seems that batterylife is reduced compared to Win11. I think i am running 5.15.107 which seems to be the default Mint kernel.

    I am a bit confused as to why there are so many different series of kernels, so an explanation would be nice.
     
    Wheels Of Confusion

    Wheels Of Confusion

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  • #1,746
    Mint is LTS-Ubuntu based and the prior two versions of that are both on 5.15. The newest LTS is on 6.4, and Linux Mint will move to that as its base sometime this summer according to their roadmap.

    Linux Mind Debian Edition is on 6.1.something. It's based on Debian Bookworm.

    So if you need something newer, you could either wait and upgrade or do a lateral switch to LMDE and still be in the Mint ecosystem.
     
    Andrewcw

    Andrewcw

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  • #1,748
    Which lightweight GUI distro that has some automatic update functionality should i put on an old crap laptop.

    Windows 10 did run on it ok when it first came out becuase it was designed for low low low speced machines.. But 10 years later of add-ons it doesn't work.

    Here's the limitations.
    32GB emcc
    2GB ram
    Celeron 2480

    My use is to use it to be able to attempt to browse Youtube.
     
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    koala

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  • #1,749
    Andrewcw said:
    Which lightweight GUI distro that has some automatic update functionality should i put on an old crap laptop.

    Windows 10 did run on it ok when it first came out becuase it was designed for low low low speced machines.. But 10 years later of add-ons it doesn't work.

    Here's the limitations.
    32GB emcc
    2GB ram
    Celeron 2480

    My use is to use it to be able to attempt to browse Youtube.
    Click to expand...
    See https://arstechnica.com/civis/threa...linux-des-for-low-end-hardware.1469178/page-2
     
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