Gaming on Linux 2021 | A GNU Era of Gaming

Crayon · Feb 8, 2022

I thought about mentioning proton, and I felt like leaving it out for some reason. Didin't think about it a ton, lol. I suppose I thought it's something the user shouldn't worry about as it could be seen as a behind the scenes thing that the player doesn't have to worry about. But no that I think about it more, a user is going to go all of five seconds before they hear some discussion of proton and pick up that it's something crucial. So it should definitely have a section.

eonden said:
It lacks a "Basic DONTs of Linux" (aka, stuff that you should never touch as someone who isnt really an expert).

Also in Emulation, is it console emulation or Windows emulation? Cause Proton / Windows emulation probably should have its own section.

What would you list as basic don'ts? Perhaps putting in your password unless you actually understand what you are about to do? Or not go ham pasting stuff into the terminal?

eonden · Feb 8, 2022

Crayon said:
I thought about mentioning proton, and I felt like leaving it out for some reason. Didin't think about it a ton, lol. I suppose I thought it's something the user shouldn't worry about as it could be seen as a behind the scenes thing that the player doesn't have to worry about. But no that I think about it more, a user is going to go all of five seconds before they hear some discussion of proton and pick up that it's something crucial. So it should definitely have a section.

What would you list as basic don'ts? Perhaps putting in your password unless you actually understand what you are about to do? Or not go ham pasting stuff into the terminal?

I mention Proton because some people might want to use it for games outside of Steam, so giving a small summary of how to use it would be great. If we are going to talk about Heroic / other launchers in Linux, you might as well explain why enabling Proton for them would be a good idea.

Regarding the "Basic DONTs", more similar to "what you shouldnt let Linus do ever". As well as some key differences between Linux and Windows about how stuff works in general that might be a big jarring for users.

MoogleMaestro · Feb 8, 2022

eonden said:
I mention Proton because some people might want to use it for games outside of Steam, so giving a small summary of how to use it would be great. If we are going to talk about Heroic / other launchers in Linux, you might as well explain why enabling Proton for them would be a good idea.

Regarding the "Basic DONTs", more similar to "what you shouldnt let Linus do ever". As well as some key differences between Linux and Windows about how stuff works in general that might be a big jarring for users.

I'm not sure I would recommend using proton for non-steam games, as proton is kind of just a wine wrapper with dxvk and others preinstalled. Lutris and Heroic guides would be much more beneficial to users imo, as they set up good wine containers for games outside of steam.

Crayon · Feb 8, 2022

This might give you guys an idea of the level of technical depth I was imagining. It's the "what is proton/what is linux" intro section. I'm picturing a console user getting a steamdeck as their first foray into serious pc gaming.

PLEASE if anyone else wants to edit or write another one wholesale... DO IT. I've never done an ot. I'vce made a few fun threads in my time, but that's it.

SteamOS & Linux Gaming OT | ???? ?????? ????

---What is SteamOS

SteamoOS is a version of Linux provided by Valve for free. It is an alternative to Windows for gaming and general PC usage.

SteamOS will have it's own advantages and disadvantages to Windows. This will no doubt be a topic of civil and dispassionate discussion in the years to come.

SteamOS is featured on the Steam Deck, but can be used on any PC, free of charge. It has a controller-driven console gaming mode, and a normal desktop mode where you can do normal desktop things.

--- What is Linux tho

A kernel is the tiny, ultimate-control core of an operating system. It's not a whole operating system, but it's the main part. Windows has a kernel. Mac has a kernel.

Linux IS a kernel.

Anyone can use the Linux kernel at the center of their operating system as long as they obey the rules of the copyleft licence. This is how Android was made. You may have heard of it.

Linux that you use on your PC is actually an operating system called GNU that was written at MIT in the 80's. It uses Linux as the kernel. We should call it GNU/Linux, but we colloquially call it Linux.

GNU/Linux-based operating systems are numerous. They are called "distributions". Valve now provides a distribution. A free operating system optimized for gaming. SteamOS.

The overwhelming majority of the SteamOS code is cooperatively developed by many organizations, corporations, and communities who all have their reasons. Valves is just modifying it to optimize for gaming.

hikarutilmitt · Feb 8, 2022

MoogleMaestro said:
I'm not sure I would recommend using proton for non-steam games, as proton is kind of just a wine wrapper with dxvk and others preinstalled. Lutris and Heroic guides would be much more beneficial to users imo, as they set up good wine containers for games outside of steam.

100% agree. Absolutely need a Lutris guide of some sort because even as an advanced user (or maybe because I'm an advanced user?) I found the Lutris UI to be horrible to navigate the first time and still kind of do. We're going to have a lot of people who are used to driving their new shiny with a GUI and the HL one is fine and good, the Lutris is really, really not and lacks some user feedback in some cases.

Crayon · Feb 8, 2022

Yah. Lutris and heroic guides good Idea.

bmfrosty · Feb 8, 2022

Flatpak and Appimage. Mostly about how historically installing GUI apps on Linux requires root access (as it involves the package manager) and these will be important because root partition is (within reason) immutable. You could also touch on that these are supported as containers by kernel features.

EDIT: Who even knows if they'll support flatpak on SteamOS!?!

Crayon · Feb 8, 2022

Mmmmm. I have never even used a flatpak/appimage/snap. Sure sounds nice but I haven't needed that for anything so far.

Jon of the Wired · Feb 8, 2022

bmfrosty said:
EDIT: Who even knows if they'll support flatpak on SteamOS!?!

They do. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Valve-Steamworks-Steam-Deck

Crayon · Feb 8, 2022

Do we know if steamos is going to use pacman or somethingh else?

It would be kind of cool to host the most popular apps on steam like blender and krita do.

Jon of the Wired · Feb 8, 2022

Crayon said:
Do we know if steamos is going to use pacman or somethingh else?

It would be kind of cool to host the most popular apps on steam like blender and krita do.

By default the root filesystem will be immutable, so installing packages with pacman won't be possible. They have said you can make root read-write, though, so if you do that then I imagine you would be able to use pacman.

If you just want to install desktop apps, though, it'd be a lot easier to just use flatpaks. Blender and Krita are both available on flathub, as is pretty much every other popular Linux desktop app.

bmfrosty · Feb 8, 2022

Jon of the Wired said:
By default the root filesystem will be immutable, so installing packages with pacman won't be possible. They have said you can make root read-write, though, so if you do that then I imagine you would be able to use pacman.

If you just want to install desktop apps, though, it'd be a lot easier to just use flatpaks. Blender and Krita are both available on flathub, as is pretty much every other popular Linux desktop app.

I'm really hoping we see Chrome. I learned today(!) that mcomix was updated for the first time in 6 years(!) a couple weeks ago, and I have yet to find a comic reader app that I like more, so I've me too'd the request for flatpak support on their issue tracker. If it's not there by the time *my* steam deck comes around, I will work it out myself.

Crayon · Feb 8, 2022

Sounds like flatpaks will be important. It sounds like they would be a really good choice for new linux users.

Jon of the Wired · Feb 8, 2022

bmfrosty said:
I'm really hoping we see Chrome. I learned today(!) that mcomix was updated for the first time in 6 years(!) a couple weeks ago, and I have yet to find a comic reader app that I like more, so I've me too'd the request for flatpak support on their issue tracker. If it's not there by the time *my* steam deck comes around, I will work it out myself.

Chromium is on flathub, at least. Not really sure what the difference between that and Chrome is, tbh.

Crayon · Feb 8, 2022

Jon of the Wired said:
Chromium is on flathub, at least. Not really sure what the difference between that and Chrome is, tbh.

A long time ago, I could get 60fps video on chrome but not chromium. Now? They seem identical, to me. We use chromium day and night and the only thing to remind me it's not chrome is the blue logo.

God, I feel sorry for people who've never used a desktop browser with a gyro mouse on their tv. Streaming apps are trash when you can have the real deal all up at the same time.

Dave. · Feb 8, 2022

Chrome is the trademarked name for the version of Chromium compiled and distributed by Google themselves, with their choices of settings / flags / telemetry endpoints etc. Crayon back in the day that 60fps thing was probably one shipped with hardware acceleration enabled for your gpu and the other didn't by default. Or maybe a DRM (digital rights) thing.

Something like that.

bmfrosty · Feb 8, 2022

Crayon said:
Sounds like flatpaks will be important. It sounds like they would be a really good choice for new linux users.

It's how I get spotify, discord, and spotify on my system76 laptop. Hell, here's a list of my installed flatpaks:


bmfrosty@vac:~$ flatpak list | sed 's/com\..*//g' | sed 's/org\..*//g' | sed 's/io\..*//g' | sed 's/net\..*//g' | sed 's/us\..*//g' | sort | uniq
default
Discord
Flatseal
Freedesktop Platform
Freedesktop SDK
GNOME Application Platform version 3.36
GNOME Application Platform version 3.38
GNOME Application Platform version 40
GNOME Application Platform version 41
HakuNeko
Intel
jstest-gtk
KDE Application Platform
MasterPDFEditor translations
Mesa
Midori Web Browser
openh264
Pop Gtk theme
QGnomePlatform
QGnomePlatform-decoration
QtSNI
Quadrapassel translations
Slack
Spotify
Sublime Merge
Sublime Text
Sublime Text Developer Utilities
Zoom

Like everything Linux there are like 12 competing things, but the only prominent one that's a no go is Snap as it's canonical proprietary.

There are additionally technical arguments about which one is better, but it's more of a use case thing anyway.

Appimage is pretty great too, but it's missing an installation infrastructure, but will put an application and all of it's dependencies in a single file.

Crayon · Feb 11, 2022

What do you think should be said of antivirus for new Linux users? I don't worry about it but I don't think that's good one size fits all advice.

bmfrosty · Feb 11, 2022

Crayon said:
What do you think should be said of antivirus for new Linux users? I don't worry about it but I don't think that's good one size fits all advice.

An antivirus solution is mostly not needed. More problematic are the stupid things people do in browsers and the things they click in their emails.

Jared Mohammed · Feb 11, 2022

bmfrosty said:
An antivirus solution is mostly not needed. More problematic are the stupid things people do in browsers and the things they click in their emails.

I would say that it would always be beneficial to install antivrius software, at least ClamAV, for rare cases such as copying instructions on Github or Gitlab where the file in questipn !ight be corrupted, or when opening a document downloaded from another website.

bmfrosty · Feb 11, 2022

Jared Mohammed said:
I would say that it would always be beneficial to install antivrius software, at least ClamAV, for rare cases such as copying instructions on Github or Gitlab where the file in questipn !ight be corrupted, or when opening a document downloaded from another website.

I'm fairly certain that clamav is run on demand.

My understanding of viruses is very outdated, but ones like stoned - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoned_(computer_virus) - used to infect boot sectors and dos exe files. I thought most modern viruses are really malware or replacement executables and libraries that replace existing ones. It's more beneficial (for the spread of the virus) than infecting existing executables and is more possible with every computer being network connected.

hikarutilmitt · Feb 11, 2022

bmfrosty said:
I'm fairly certain that clamav is run on demand.

My understanding of viruses is very outdated, but ones like stoned - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoned_(computer_virus) - used to infect boot sectors and dos exe files. I thought most modern viruses are really malware or replacement executables and libraries that replace existing ones. It's more beneficial (for the spread of the virus) than infecting existing executables and is more possible with every computer being network connected.

It typically runs in the background and can scan on demand or in real-time. It's still relatively recent to run on file changes (real-time) but it does work.

Crayon · Feb 11, 2022

Elden ring better fucking work so help me god. This EAC situation is so frustrating.

vitacola · Feb 12, 2022

bmfrosty said:
An antivirus solution is mostly not needed. More problematic are the stupid things people do in browsers and the things they click in their emails.

I second this. Even on Windows it's mostly just snake oil ...

Crayon · Feb 12, 2022

more questions re: steamos&linux OT.

1. Is there yet a software packaging method recommend by Valve?

2. If not, what would you recommend? Is flatpak that good? Is it's future that bright? Would you tell a new user to "just use flatpak, for now" to get their Spotify, LibreOffice, Audacity, etc?

3. and finally, just in case the so3 iso doesn't come out with the deck, are any of you very very early in the deck queue?

Bowl0l · Feb 12, 2022

Steam OS3 ETA? I hope AMD GPUs return to MSRP before it release

Jon of the Wired · Feb 12, 2022

Crayon said:
more questions re: steamos&linux OT.

1. Is there yet a software packaging method recommend by Valve?

2. If not, what would you recommend? Is flatpak that good? Is it's future that bright? Would you tell a new user to "just use flatpak, for now" to get their Spotify, LibreOffice, Audacity, etc?

1. As far as I know, the only non-Steam software packaging that Valve has talked about with regards to SteamOS 3 is Flatpak.
2. Yes, Flatpak is that good. I still prefer distro packages when they're available, but for anything not available directly from my distro I use Flatpak and it's great. Since SteamOS 3 isn't going to have installable packages (at least by default), Flatpak is definitely going to be the way to go.

Jon of the Wired · Feb 12, 2022

Bowl0l said:
Steam OS3 ETA? I hope AMD GPUs return to MSRP before it release

Given how hot it sounds like the Steam Deck software is coming in, I suspect any resources they would have spent on getting SteamOS 3 in shape for a general release is going to be dedicated to Steam Deck work for the foreseeable future.

Delusibeta · Feb 12, 2022

AFAIK, Flatpaks are available in the "standard" desktop environment, and my understanding is that if you want to install non-Steam apps from not-Flatpak sources (such as AUR) then you'll need to enable Dev Mode.

hikarutilmitt · Feb 12, 2022

Jon of the Wired said:
1. As far as I know, the only non-Steam software packaging that Valve has talked about with regards to SteamOS 3 is Flatpak.
2. Yes, Flatpak is that good. I still prefer distro packages when they're available, but for anything not available directly from my distro I use Flatpak and it's great. Since SteamOS 3 isn't going to have installable packages (at least by default), Flatpak is definitely going to be the way to go.

Signed +1

I was keeping flatpak at arms length as caution for a while because I'm always skeptical of newer tech and seeing how it shakes out before jumping in, but I recently "converted" from using AUR builds to using flatpak for what I could. So far I've had a better time wuth things like Discord and Spotify, though I'm still keeping things like Libreoffice from the repos because it's not a heavy need to switch.

Otoh my random Steam crashing has stopped ever since I swapped to using the Steam flatpak.

Deleted member 1849 · Feb 12, 2022

Crayon said:
more questions re: steamos&linux OT.

1. Is there yet a software packaging method recommend by Valve?

2. If not, what would you recommend? Is flatpak that good? Is it's future that bright? Would you tell a new user to "just use flatpak, for now" to get their Spotify, LibreOffice, Audacity, etc?

3. and finally, just in case the so3 iso doesn't come out with the deck, are any of you very very early in the deck queue?

Valve's recommended method of getting software is through flatpak: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/faq

Will there be a way to install external apps on deck without going into dev mode?

Yes. You'll be able to install external apps via Flatpak or other software without going into developer mode.

I personally really like flatpak, but don't always recommend it to new users on the general Linux side as there's still the occasional fixable problem that comes up that can throw off newcomers (eg, needing to give directory permissions to flatpak steam so that it can find existing steam directories, or missing icons in Plasma). Flatseal helps a lot with this though.

3, I am unfortunately not.

Crayon · Feb 12, 2022

Excellent. Thanks, guys.

zoku88 · Feb 16, 2022

XWayland 22.1 is out with DRM lease support helping VR on Linux

XWayland, the way to run older games and applications that don't yet have native Wayland support has a brand new release out, bringing new features.

www.gamingonlinux.com

I've been too lazy to use my Index recently due to having to switch to an Xorg session. I'll finally get to finish HL:Alyx

zoku88 · Feb 18, 2022

zoku88 said:
XWayland 22.1 is out with DRM lease support helping VR on Linux

XWayland, the way to run older games and applications that don't yet have native Wayland support has a brand new release out, bringing new features.

www.gamingonlinux.com

I've been too lazy to use my Index recently due to having to switch to an Xorg session. I'll finally get to finish HL:Alyx

I did end up trying this on sway and it seems to work fine. So yay!

Crayon · Feb 20, 2022

Okay, all. This is marked as taking the first 3 posts of the thread, which is probably unnecessary. Maybe 2 or even one.

Please digest and suggest:

Code:

Post 1: introduction what why when where who

.SteamOS & Linux OT
   
    -Will cover in OT
        -Steamos General capabilities
        -How to get started with installation on non-deck machines
        -How and where to get non-steam applications
    -Will not coverining in OT
        -Other Distros
        -Power User Stuff
    -Acknowledgements:
        -Linux Era
        -Codeweavers
        -Stallman for the oridinal GPL and the Free Software Movement
.History
    -Linux
    -SteamOS
    -Proton
   
.Gaming Capabilities
   
    -Deep steam integration
        -BPM session
        -Controller operation with on screen keyboard
        -Unified system update
        -Suspend
   
    -Gamescope
        -FSR scaling
        -framerate limiter
        -Menu-based performance/battery use adjustment



.Not gaming capabilities

   
    .Productivity and creativity
        -Office work
        -Teams, remote access
       
    .Media production and creativity
        -Art and image manipulation
        -3d animation
        -Video editing
        -Audio production
        -Any develpment
   
    .Chillin
        -Browsing
        -Streaming
        -discord
        -Music and media play
       
   
.Mini FAQ
    -Do all steam games work?
    -Can I run Emulators?
    -Can I run stores other than steam?
    -Do I have to use the terminal?
   

   
Post 2: how to
    .install
    .set up
    .download and install software
        -flathub
    .Dual boot


Post 3: bookmarks

(this post would be bookmarks of super useful posts that will be showing up in the thread for a long time)

Also, come up with a bangin title. My placeholder is not terribly cleaver. "OT | Super Users"

vitacola · Feb 20, 2022

Crayon said:
Okay, all. This is marked as taking the first 3 posts of the thread, which is probably unnecessary. Maybe 2 or even one.

Please digest and suggest:

Code:

OP content

Also, come up with a bangin title. My placeholder is not terribly cleaver. "OT | Super Users"

Erm, title? "I use SteamOS btw."
I suggest to hide the joke somewhere at least.

I like the content idea's that you wrote down so far. Do you want explicit suggestions for the single topics or did you already collect the neccessary information on the ones you already put in your post?
Maybe a section about emulators would be nice?

Crayon · Feb 20, 2022

vitacola said:
Erm, title? "I use SteamOS btw."
I suggest to hide the joke somewhere at least.

I like the content idea's that you wrote down so far. Do you want explicit suggestions for the single topics or did you already collect the neccessary information on the ones you already put in your post?
Maybe a section about emulators would be nice?

Any suggestions, please!

Also please please!!::: Anyone who wants to write in a blurb for any of those bits, throw it out there! I feel comfortable writing those up quickly but you know, quick, cheap, good - choose two lol

hikarutilmitt · Feb 20, 2022

Steam Deck and SteamOS |OT| Valve finally counts to three!

Crayon · Feb 20, 2022

SteamOS & Linux OT | JUST SUDO IT

SteamOS & Linux OT | See that mountain over there? You can run Linux on it.

SteamOS & Linux OT | There are dozens of millions of us.

SteamOS & Linux OT | Free as in "Freedom", not free as in "DOTA".

SteamOS & Linux OT | Going Terminal

SteamOS & Linux OT | Super Users

SteamOS & Linux OT | Feel free to interject for a moment.

Cien · Feb 20, 2022

hikarutilmitt said:
Steam Deck and SteamOS |OT| Valve finally counts to three!

I like this. a lot.

Crayon · Feb 21, 2022

Okay I officially claimed thet SteamOS $ Linux OT.

Zexyen is doing the Steam Deck OT and we are in communication.

Crayon · Feb 21, 2022

I have 1 banner image in it is basic af. Can anyone help with some general graphics to spice it up?

Cien · Feb 23, 2022

So fired up Monster Hunter Rise in Linux and the colors are all messed up. Tried 3 different versions of Proton with it, but all exhibit the same issue. Is there anyone who has run Rise on Linux can offer some assistance? I've seen plenty of videos where people have run it, but I can't get much more info than "it just works" This is a fresh install of Pop_OS, so No major changes have been made.

Basically looks like this:

strudelkuchen · Feb 23, 2022

Cien said:
So fired up Monster Hunter Rise in Linux and the colors are all messed up. Tried 3 different versions of Proton with it, but all exhibit the same issue. Is there anyone who has run Rise on Linux can offer some assistance? I've seen plenty of videos where people have run it, but I can't get much more info than "it just works" This is a fresh install of Pop_OS, so No major changes have been made.

Basically looks like this:

I just played it with no issues.

What GPU?

Cien · Feb 23, 2022

strudelkuchen said:
I just played it with no issues.

What GPU?

Reference AMD Radeon 6800 XT.

And of course, worked perfectly fine in Windows, so I know the GPU is good. This is what I get for being brave and finally going full Linux. I feel like Linus right now LOL.

strudelkuchen · Feb 23, 2022

Cien said:
Reference AMD Radeon 6800 XT.

And of course, worked perfectly fine in Windows, so I know the GPU is good. This is what I get for being brave and finally going full Linux. I feel like Linus right now LOL.

Which GPU driver?

Cien · Feb 23, 2022

Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
Kernel modules: amdgpu

Should I switch to the Mesa driver?

strudelkuchen · Feb 23, 2022

Cien said:
Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
Kernel modules: amdgpu

Should I switch to the Mesa driver?

Yeah I think the mesa driver (radv) is *way* better for dx12.

I use nvidia, but this is what I read about amd.

edit: I could be wrong (asked on a discord), maybe wait for someone with AMD to chime in.

edit2: you should keep the kernel driver, but check mesa version (if it is < 21.3.x it is outdated and might be the reason)

edit3: you could post your system info with (in a terminal): inxi -Smgxx

you can also try this launch option (RADV_DEBUG=llvm %command%):

nded · Feb 23, 2022

Cien said:
So fired up Monster Hunter Rise in Linux and the colors are all messed up. Tried 3 different versions of Proton with it, but all exhibit the same issue. Is there anyone who has run Rise on Linux can offer some assistance? I've seen plenty of videos where people have run it, but I can't get much more info than "it just works" This is a fresh install of Pop_OS, so No major changes have been made.

Basically looks like this:

What video card do you have and what drivers are you using?

Edit: Late post. I believe radv is recommended by Valve for use with Proton.

Cien · Feb 23, 2022

I'll take a look at those. Running into another issue now. I added the newer Mesa PPA and it still will not update the drivers. This is driving me insane. Maybe switching to another distro would be better. Seems pop isn't deciding to play nice with me. But I liked the UI for it.

Also inxi -Smgxx does not work for me, incorrect parameters. I'll poke at the man file for it.

This is not a fun first few hours with this.

nded said:
What video card do you have and what drivers are you using?

AMD Radeon 6800 XT. I am trying to update the Mesa drivers, but not having much luck with it.

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