I’ve been working on converting my gaming PC to Linux for a few weeks, but everything is running, but it all is just a little jankier than I would like.

I have an 8th gen Intel i7 and an Rtx 2070, running Arch linux.

Sometimes I boot up and my mouse doesn’t work and I have to restart. Sometimes I launch games and they just don’t launch right.

It feels like I’m doing a lot of work for no benefit. In fact, Elden ring runs way worse on my Linux partition than my Windows partition.

I’ve tried GE proton, gamemode, steam compatibility, everything… I’m sorry but I’m going to have to stick with Windows for gaming.

  • Mechanize@feddit.it
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    5 months ago

    Just out of curiosity, is the mouse bluetooth?

    I heard there are some intermittent problems with them on linux because of proprietary blobs and similar driver issues, but I’ve never had one, so I’ve no direct experience.

    • Jambalaya@lemmy.zipOP
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      5 months ago

      It’s a wireless Logitech with a little USB dongle. It works from the bios so I wasn’t sure what was up with that.

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Allow me to piggyback on this a bit, s’il vous plait.

    Is there a Linux distribution that will run Adobe CC out of the box, games from Steam, and VR headsets? I need a new desktop badly, but I need to be able to use Adobe products as part of my job. (No, I can’t switch to GNU products, because I get files from clients, and I have to be able to work to industry standards.) I’ve used Tails before, which is not a user-friendly product, and it doesn’t play nicely with any other software.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Pretty much any major distro is going to have similar support for all of that. And for Adobe CC, that’s going to be limited at best. You didn’t specify which part of CC you need, but here’s an option for installing Photoshop 2022 on Linux. Trying to get the latest is likely going to be painful, since WINE would probably lag with supporting all the new updates.

      Steam works pretty well pretty much everywhere. I’ve used it on Fedora, Arch, and openSUSE, and I’m sure it works fine on any Debian-based distro. VR support is similar, you’re going to have a much better time with SteamVR headsets. That said, here’s a guide to VR on Linux, stick to “confirmed working” sections for minimal tinkering.

      Tails

      Yeah, don’t use that for regular work, that’s an uber-paranoid distro that’s intentionally locked down, which means things are likely going to be more difficult to get working.

      Try Linux Mint or Fedora (or Bazzite if you want gamer flavor), they’re both solid and tend to work pretty well out of the box. Software and hardware support doesn’t vary much between distros, so if it you can’t get it working with one of those and it’s not “officially supported” (i.e. instructions aren’t in one of my links), distro hopping probably won’t help.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        I have to use Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro every day for my day job. I have to keep up-to-date with my versions, because clients send me files that use features in the latest releases, and not being up-to-date means that things don’t render correctly. (I’m super-pissed that I have to update since Adobe dropped all support for Pantone colors abut a year (?) ago.)

        I use Corel Painter 2022 and a Wacom pen display for fun. My guess is that a pen display might get a little weird in Linux, but the one I have is not cutting edge at least.

        Yeah, don’t use that for regular work, that’s an uber-paranoid distro that’s intentionally locked down, which means things are likely going to be more difficult to get working.

        I know, I know, but I liked being functionally untrackable online, and not getting ads shoved down my throat (…despite working in advertising…) all the time. It’s neat, but almost everything online seems to have privacy-invading features so deeply embedded that the browser built into Tails just can’t use them at all.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro every day for my day job

          Probably easier to run a VM or dual-boot then. Trying to keep those up-to-date is going to be a nightmare.

          Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably get an Apple device. Adobe works great, and macOS isn’t as bad as Windows IMO.

          I liked being functionally untrackable online, and not getting ads shoved down my throat

          There are a lot of ways to get around that, such as:

          • uBlock Origin - blocks ads
          • use a VPN and switch locations periodically - limits efficacy of tracking
          • try Mullvad Browser - basically Tor Browser (i.e. the browser included w/ Tails), but without Tor, so fewer breakages

          But honestly, the first two are really easy to do and solve 80% of the problem with a very small amount of breakage, and Firefox is installed by default in most Linux distros, and is available in the repositories on those where it’s not the default.

          • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably get an Apple device.

            Sadly, I also don’t like spending money. :P You used to be able to make Hackintoshes, but Apple tends to break them with every software update.

            I had been thinking about getting an IoT Enterprise LTSC release of Windows and manually adding the components that I needed. Might still do that with dual boot.

            There are a lot of ways to get around that, such as:

            I’m doing all of that except the last one already. As has been noted in many other places, Windows itself is now in the business of serving ads directly, and it looks like that’s getting harder and harder to disable. I managed to mostly lock down the Pro release of Win 10 that I’m on right now, but Win 11 will make that much, much harder. If it weren’t for security issues surrounding end of product life, I wouldn’t switch versions at all.

            C’est la mort.

            But yeah, I’ll def. look for a user-friendly version of Linux when I build my next system in a few months.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              5 months ago

              So it goes.

              Good luck! I also don’t like spending money, so I don’t blame you. Definitely consider a dual-boot w/ Linux though, it can at least help you separate work from play. :)

  • MexicanJoker@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I understand your struggle. As others said, Arch is not a beginner friendly distro.

    I would suggest trying gaming tailored distros like Nobara, Chimera or Bazzite and see how you feel about them. Don’t install your full steam library during these testing period, try games separately and prioritize the games you play the most.

    Learning involves trial and error and the Linux ecosystem has a lot of that.

    In the end it’s ok if you say This is not for me right now

    • Moneo@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Do you have any comments/suggestions on picking one of those distros? I can do my own research so no pressure.

  • Presi300@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    If you’re a beginner… or hate jank, don’t use Arch. And make sure you’re using a desktop environment that supports Wayland (GNOME or KDE). Gaming on X11 can be buggy, janky and inconsistent

    • RBG@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 months ago

      I also heard good things about Nobara in terms of gaming. Haven’t tried it myself though.

      • MexicanJoker@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I’ve been using Nobara 39 for the last month and it has been a smooth ride. I’m playing Elden Ring with 0 issues and no tweaking needed on my part. The only friction I had was with the installer because I have a Nvidia card but once installed and got drivers updated all issues were gone.

    • thesporkeffect@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I installed Bazzite on my gaming computer and it just isn’t great, there is screen flickering and occasional crashes:( I am not going back to Windows but it has required more emotional energy to troubleshoot than I wanted

      I probably should get an AMD card, but I am going to try Nobara next to see if it just works…

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Are you using KDE? I’m on a fresh install of Arch with KDE Plasma on my gaming computer and I agree, it’s janky as fuck. I’ve gone through everything I can find about how to deal with the flicker, but it’s still there and it’s an awful experience.

    I have none of these issues on my Arch laptop with Gnome, so I’m going to switch my desktop to Gnome too when I have the time. Plasma is not ready for mainstream use if this is the best that it gets. Gnome however is awesome!

    So, I suggest changing your DE to Gnome. If that doesn’t fix the problem then switch to Pop!_OS. It’s a completely plug and play distro and I never had a single problem with it. I only switched to Arch because I wanted to get HDR support which requires Plasma. Well, it’s not worth it. I can’t even use adaptive sync which is a pretty big deal for gaming.

    Good luck, we’re all counting on you.

    Edit: otherwise Arch is an awesome distro. The power you have with all of the available programs is great! So, now it’s just about getting the screen rendering to be stable.

    • Jambalaya@lemmy.zipOP
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      5 months ago

      Yes I am using KDE mainly because gnome felt too mac os to me. Also KDE supports HDR (somewhat).

      Is there a way to change distro without losing steam installs?

    • tron@midwest.social
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      5 months ago

      The flickering thing is because you’re using Wayland and Nvidia GPU. If you switched to X11 (losing HDR support, unfortunately), the flickering goes away. However! I would recommend updating your system to KDE 6.1, which I believe has the explicit sync fix.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I’m not at my computer right now to check the KDE version, but I just installed Arch two weekends ago. Wouldn’t it be the latest version already, or did that just come out in the last week? If I don’t already have it then that would be amazing if it actually fixes the issue. I’ve enjoyed KDE’s layout and options so far.

        I’ve thought about switching to x11 instead of going back to Gnome, but I haven’t decided yet. HDR is definitely not worth all of these other visual glitches and latency, so I need to do something. I don’t understand how the system can perform so poorly and be considered stable enough to be the default. At least half the people out there are probably using Nvidia cards.

        Is there anything I should know before I switch to x11? Like, do I need to undo all these custom settings I made for the Nvidia driver, or use another driver? I’d appreciate the advice since this is one issue I’ve encountered that is definitely not resolved by reading the wiki.

        • tron@midwest.social
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          5 months ago

          KDE 6.1 just hit Arch repos like 3 days ago. You’re likely on 6.0.5. Switching between X11 and Wayland is effortless just change the default manager in SDDM settings.

        • Russ@bitforged.space
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          5 months ago

          I’m pretty sure the explicit sync fix requires the 555 beta version of the Nvidia driver to be installed, as there’s a driver component that’s required.

          What distro are you on? If it has a decent way to install the 555 beta that would probably be a good route to go with - but otherwise, no, switching to X11 shouldn’t require reverting any settings at all. I used to switch between the two sessions all the time, right before you enter your password on the login screen (you have to be completely logged out, not just at the screen lock) click the menu at the bottom right and it should have a “Plasma (X11)” option.

          • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Thanks! I’m on Arch. I actually tried X11 last night after posting and it seems to fix the glitch. I’ll see if there’s a driver update for me. I appreciate the advice!

            • Russ@bitforged.space
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              5 months ago

              No problem! It looks like there’s an AUR package for it - though exercise caution since it is still in beta. That being said, 555 has been in beta for a bit now, so I expect it’ll probably be promoted to an official release imminently.

              Definitely would give Wayland another try once the newer Nvidia driver is installed later on (either via the beta or the official release). I don’t use an Nvidia card anymore (this bug is precisely what caused me to switch, ironically - it has been around for a while and got worse for me when 535 came around) but I’ve heard from a lot of folks that it resolves the flickering issue.

              Either way, I’m glad to hear that you’re glitch free now - and on a side note, it appears its your cake day so happy cake day!

    • CrabStick1@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I had screen flicker on my endeavour os using kde and had to switch screen dimming off. Haven’t had it since.

  • ulkesh@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Good luck! Linux is sadly not quite yet for everyone, but it’s so much further along than it was when I started in 1999.

    I bounced between Linux and Windows for decades, but when the Recall debacle happened, it became clear that Microsoft have lost their collective minds. I wiped my system, put Garuda Linux on it, and everything works quite well for me with no tinkering except with user-level KDE settings. I also changed from an NVIDIA RTX 3070Ti to an AMD RX 7800XT just so everything related to graphics would just work and I didn’t have to wait and hope that explicit sync really does fix everything for NVIDIA on Wayland.

    I also use proton-ge for everything (in Steam as well as in Lutris which uses umu-launcher) and every game I’ve attempted to run (thus far on the order of 35+ games), has run great, including Elden Ring. I’ve found in my 25 years experience, the trick with Linux is two-fold: researching hardware to guarantee full Linux support…and having patience. And I’ve fell victim to that last one dozens of times over the years which led me back to windows each time.

    No more.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Wayland and Plasma have not been good experiences for me. Gnome on Pop was awesome. I can’t get the flicker to stop. So I’m going to try Gnome on Arch and see if that fixes it. Unfortunately I think it also uses Wayland, so I may have to go back to Pop. I’m not spending another $1000 on a GFX card when I have a perfectly fine 3070 ti already .

  • sgibson5150@slrpnk.net
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    5 months ago

    FWIW, I’ve got an i7-8700k with an RTX 3080. I initially had two major issues when I replaced Windows with Bazzite:

    1. Steam doesn’t do great with libraries on NTFS partitions. Supposedly there are workarounds, but I couldn’t get them to work for me. I had to reformat a couple drives as ext4 (and do a bunch of file management in the process) before things would play nice.

    2. I had my CPU overclocked to 4.8 GHz in Windows. BG3 kept crashing on me on Bazzite. Finally occurred to me to drop the overclock and I’ve played 40+ hours since, solid as a rock. Performance is comparable to Windows with OC. GPU temps are consistently better than Windows. Only thing I’m missing is HDR.

    Bonus: GreenWithEnvy (for GPU fan curve) won’t run in a Wayland session yet, apparently, so I’ve been running under X11 instead.

    Hope this helps. YMMV. Happy gaming, whatever OS you use!

    • Jambalaya@lemmy.zipOP
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      5 months ago

      Are you sharing steam library with windows? Why would you have an ntfs partition?

      • sgibson5150@slrpnk.net
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        5 months ago

        When I replaced Windows, I had two other disks with NTFS volumes, one of which was full of Steam games, the other with assorted crap. I built this box in 2017. The SSD where Windows was installed is only 256 GB.

      • ComicSads@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        5 months ago

        Valve pre installs a lot of programs and tools to make it work that stock arch expects the user to already know about or to read the wiki

    • ulkesh@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Works quite well for me. But I would agree it’s not the best to start with if having little desktop Linux experience.

  • Jambalaya@lemmy.zipOP
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    5 months ago

    Thanks for the recommendations everyone! I plan on keeping Linux on my second drive to continue playing around with it, but my gaming will probably go back to Windows. Might give bazzite or popos a try next.

    • dodos@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Just a heads up, but gaming on an external drive with bazzite is a nightmare (if you end up trying to go that route).

        • dodos@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          My bad, that’s what I mean. Whatever drive bazzite is not installed on is difficult to deal with when it comes to flatpak steam. There’s a bunch of mount params you are supposed to use but for me they didn’t work whatsoever on bazzite.

    • exocortex@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 months ago

      I recommend trying another linux distro for a while. Arch has a pretty steep learning curve. So big respect for getting it to work as a first distro, but there is a lot of stuff you have to setup manually that just works on other distros. If you got more stuff working and get a little more familiar you can always go back to arch.

      I use arch nowadays, but the first time i tried to install it i basically gave up a few times. If you just want to try it out in order to learn then it’s perfectly cool to take some time. But if your goal is to play games then arch is just a means to an end. Then it becomes really annoying, because you cannot reach your goal.

  • jemikwa@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 months ago

    Nobara is a very good starting point for Linux. I personally know Linux stuff from an IT perspective, but personal use/driver troubleshooting is not something I care to fiddle with regularly. I started with Kubuntu since it’s familiar, but eventually swapped to Nobara when I had some issues with the few games I play.
    Nobara has been seamless and easy. Having all wine and proton dependencies preinstalled is much nicer and a lot of games Just Work ™️ out of the box.

  • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I switched my gaming PC to Linux a few months back. I distro hopped for a while due to various issues, and landed on openSUSE Tumbleweed. Everything just works (except for the occasional bug in the updates where I have to wait for the next snapshot for a fix, but that’s NBD).

    Caveat: I’m all AMD so no Nvidia stuff to worry about. YMMV.

    • Jode@midwest.social
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      5 months ago

      Same here except I stuck with leap as the newer kernel does not play nice with the suspend function. My little travel laptop has tumbleweed on it no problems. I’m surprised I haven’t seen more suse recommendations because it’s the only one that mostly “just worked” out of the box.

  • Josie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 months ago

    with the issues you’ve had i think it’s perfectly understandable, but I’ll agree with other commenters that arch is not a good choice for a first distro. i recommend trying dual booting windows and a more "beginner " distro like Linux mint or pop_os

    • kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      the reason why arch gets recommend a lot as a gaming distro is that it is bleeding edge. Their for has very up to date drivers and parches that can help gaming. But with the current state of gaming on Linux this is a bit less of a requirement. most distros are new enough for most games. Exception might be debian LTS or something.

      So i totaly agree that choosing something other then arch for gaming is a good option if you are rather new to linux.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Bleeding edge should still work though. KDE Plasma does not seem ready for Nvidia. They should have a big-ass banner on the wiki that says “this DE will be janky as fuck if you have an Nvidia card”.

        • kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 months ago

          I never said bleeding edge wouldn’t work. But bleeding edge comes with its own complications that might not be suited for a newbie

      • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
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        5 months ago

        Funny. I just had to downgrade my kernel from 6.8.9 to 6.1 for my main game to work. So much for bleeding edge… 😅

        (Not on Arch btw, but still applies)

      • ticho@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        As a longtime Debian Stable user, I can attest that gaming on it works just fine, whether via Proton or natively.

        It was rough at the first half year or so after Steam Linux client launched where system libraries were simply too old and one had to smuggle in libc from Ubuntu, but that got solved by the next Debian release, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since. :)

        Of course, I wouldn’t recommend Debian for a gaming system for a newbie. It’s just what I’ve been using as my daily driver for decades, so I did not want to switch to something else just for something as unimportant as gaming.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      What the hell, he uses Arch as a first checkout linux gaming distro?

      Bro, you missed one small but crucial information there just at the beginning of your journey…

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    First of all nothing to apologize, no one should be forcing anyone to use any OS.

    Secondly, you shouldn’t start with Arch, it’s a very manual process that has several small things that can be done wrong. I recommend you try Mint, Pop or any other beginner friendly distro, you can still tinker and customize them as much as you want, but you will be starting from something that works instead of having to build a working system from the ground up without knowing what that looks like.