I'm willing to give Linux Gaming a try

Stoly said:
Its the Anti-cheat. Very important IMO
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Plenty of windows games with strong anti cheats such as overwatch work 100% fine under Linux. A great many simply use Valves VAC. The issue is mainly how easy anti cheat works. EAC is used by fortnight it ties directly into the systems kernel. its basically a virus imo. I would never ever install that crap on any of my machines. Having said that I have heard Valve is working with the EAC developer and some of the game developers that use it to fix the issue so they can whitelist games like farcry5 and others that also use it.

One advantage to developers selling on steam is being able to use Valves VAC anti cheat system which works very well with Linux. It will be nice if Valve hammers out some deals to whitelist EAC games... but its not going to happen tomorrow, Valve is going to basically have to help those morons rewrite some of their shite.
 
ChadD said:
Valve is going to basically have to help those morons rewrite some of their shite.
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Hell if they're going to give it a go, it's not like Fortnite (or Overwatch or other games like them) can't run on a relative gaming potato.

I kind of want to see where this goes ;).
 
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IdiotInCharge said:
Hell if they're going to give it a go, it's not like Fortnite (or Overwatch or other games like them) can't run on a relative gaming potato.

I kind of want to see where this goes ;).
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The anti cheat software developers are an interesting bunch... much like many anti virus developers there founders and the people they employ started by writing the malicious code. Many of the anti cheats over the years have basically been root kits themselves, written by folks who where previously root kit designers. haha

IMO any anti cheat that won't run under wine... is highly suspect, I don't care how popular the game is using it. :) If it doesn't run under wine it means its using system calls not defined in the standard windoes system libraries... and is likely directly trying to access low level kernel level operations.
 
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ChadD said:
IMO any anti cheat that won't run under wine... is highly suspect, I don't care how popular the game is using it. :) If it doesn't run under wine it means its using system calls not defined in the standard windoes system libraries... and is likely directly trying to access low level kernel level operations.
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This exactly! There's another form of code that does the same thing...

...It's called 'malware'.
 
Mazzspeed said:
This exactly! There's another form of code that does the same thing...

...It's called 'malware'.
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Anti cheat software companies get started... when root kit designers have their "can't touch a computer" probation clauses expire.

I mean good on them for turning their lives around., hopefully. lol
 
Necro'ing a bit for an update-

I haven't gotten my Linux machine set back up yet, been a bit busy and it's behind some other stuff, but I did set up my ultrabook (ASUS, 8550U, 16GB) with Kubuntu, Steam, and WINE.

Steam runs great now, better than it did last year when I first tried it, though the hardware of course isn't going to be running anything modern. I just did a proof of concept load, and it does work.

WINE and Lutris are used for League of Legends which runs at a good 60FPS at the machines native 1920x1080 at minimum settings, but while reporting ~25FPS, it feels more like five. It's rough.

But the main issue is this: on this machine, being a 2-in-1 and being a daily driver with Windows-only apps (mostly Adobe), preserving the Windows installation is a requirement, and Secure Boot and Bitlocker really don't like having that Linux bootloader.

Fun part is that I started with Majaro which I'd prefer; I'm using Ubuntu for a bunch of other stuff and I'd like to spend more time with the Arch base. I tried Lubuntu, it worked well enough though wasn't something I liked, but really just switched off of it and off Manjaro before that to see if I could stumble onto something that would allow seamless dual-booting.

It doesn't, but I've kept to using it for now just to use something. Manjaro wouldn't boot with Secure Boot enabled and Windows required the Bitlocker key to boot period; the Ubuntu installs boot with Secure Boot on, but Windows still wants that damned Bitlocker key every time.

Any suggestions on getting Windows happy without breaking it? I do have a hard image of the system saved off of course if I break it, but I'm hoping to learn more than break here.
 
I used to play around with boot loaders (Windows NT 3.5.1, NT 4.0, Windows 95, and Slackware Linux all selectable using the Windows boot manager) but honestly nowadays I'd install the OSs on two separate hard drives and use your BIOS to select your boot device. That way, if you accidentally nuke something you have the other OS so you can continue to use your system.
 
That I do on other systems, this one just happens to be an ultrabook where accessing the single drive is warranty voiding ;)
 
I think the easiest thing to do is to turn off both Bitlocker and Secure Boot, that's what I've done for a Linux/Windows dual boot setup on my Surface Pro 3.
 
heatlesssun said:
I think the easiest thing to do is to turn off both Bitlocker and Secure Boot, that's what I've done for a Linux/Windows dual boot setup on my Surface Pro 3.
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I assume that I can do that- though that isn't an avenue that I had intended to explore, simply because Secure Boot together with Bitlocker provide a real layer of security. I was hoping that there'd be a way to say 'register' the Linux installation such that Windows wouldn't freak out about it and would boot normally. Best of both worlds and all.
 
I use Veracrypt and ran in to similar issues. I gave up after a bit. It seems solvable but was too much trouble for me. You might look in to switching to Veracrypt. Likely better encryption software anyways.
 
Alright, so I played with the Litrus settings to get LoL running quicker, and it looks like I succeeded- but somewhere in there I lost the goddamned sound.

Normal troubleshooting with Alsa and PulseAudio resets/reinstalls has produced no results. Sound device is there, it shows applications outputting sound, nothing comes out of the speakers. Reboot to Windows?

What sound problem.
 
I'm willing to give Linux gaming one more try.

Tried fixing sound- who knows. Who knows if anyone knows. Shit just doesn't work. Surprise?

So since I disabled secure boot and bitlocker, I figure I'll try going back to Manjaro.

Want to write that to a USB stick?

HAHA FUCK YOU HERE ARE ERRORS THAT DON'T MAKE SENSE

Thanks Linux. Faster to reboot into Windows and use Rufus than debug this shit.
 
Anybody who is familiar with Linux should tell you it's not good for gaming. As optimistic as we are as a bunch, the games simply (typically) aren't built with Linux in mind. It's not the fault of Linux. It's the fault of the developers.
The follow statement I make are general. Yes, there are specific outliers on either end of the spectrum.
If you want something for gaming that's going to work properly almost 100% of the time, use Windows.
If you want to play specific older games and possibly troubleshoot for hours on end when you want to play a newer game, use Linux. By all means, anything you can do to contribute your skills to bringing gaming to Linux will help the community. As long as you document your efforts in the right place (or at least somewhere :D).
Just realize where the games are at with compatibility before jumping in (I realize we're far past that point already). With stuff like Anti-cheat software being built-in to the games, and required, it's becoming more difficult to make these games work on Linux. Especially when the Anti-cheat software doesn't exist for Linux.
So, we have a game that is designed and programmed to run on Windows, and an Anti-cheat that's designed and programmed to run on Windows. That isn't a good place to start when trying to get something to work on Linux.
The opposite is true for Windows. Windows is arguably not a good setup by default for a high level sysadmin/devops workstation. I need to SSH to a server. Windows, "oh, you want RDP?". Have to install another package to get basic functionality that's included in Linux. So, it goes both ways. Linux takes the brunt of it all most of the time because of the gaming argument.
Trying to run a game on Linux might be most akin to trying to run a deb or rpm file on Windows. It just likely won't work. (we aren't included the shitty sub-system of Linux that you can now use within Windows because that implementation is shit, and should not be considered Linux. Although, it does have some good use cases).
I've never seen a more stable operating system than a Debian/Ubuntu based OS for workflow. And, that will probably never change for me. I also dual boot for when I want to play games.
I'm glad you did go through the journey. Things change, and it's up to us to keep making progress. I'd stick with the Linux compatible games from Steam for now on a Ubuntu OS if you want to game on Linux. Which, again, may or may not work. And, you may invest hours or days into. It's all about your journey and experience. Path of least resistance, or path of most frustration and possible discovery? You decide
 
FNtastic said:
I need to SSH to a server. Windows, "oh, you want RDP?". Have to install another package to get basic functionality that's included in Linux. So, it goes both ways. Linux takes the brunt of it all most of the time because of the gaming argument.
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To be fair, base Ubuntu doesn't come with SSH installed (!!!), nor does it or many distros come with Remmina or SMB4K installed. I could be doing it wrong, but I had to set up stuff on my Windows desktop, server, and Linux installs to get them working with each other in a sysadmin context.


And I'm having the same problem again in Manjaro- except it seems explicitly tied to installing the stuff needed for League of Legends- wine, winetricks, and Lutris. Somewhere in there something manages to kill sound output for the whole system.

And yet without sound, the game actually plays!
 
IdiotInCharge said:
To be fair, base Ubuntu doesn't come with SSH installed (!!!), nor does it or many distros come with Remmina or SMB4K installed. I could be doing it wrong, but I had to set up stuff on my Windows desktop, server, and Linux installs to get them working with each other in a sysadmin context.


And I'm having the same problem again in Manjaro- except it seems explicitly tied to installing the stuff needed for League of Legends- wine, winetricks, and Lutris. Somewhere in there something manages to kill sound output for the whole system.

And yet without sound, the game actually plays!
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The desktop Ubuntu comes with SSH preinstalled unless you choose a minimal install and with the server version it's an optional selection during setup.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
To be fair, base Ubuntu doesn't come with SSH installed (!!!), nor does it or many distros come with Remmina or SMB4K installed. I could be doing it wrong, but I had to set up stuff on my Windows desktop, server, and Linux installs to get them working with each other in a sysadmin context.
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That's not really a fair critique though. SSH is built in, SSH Server is not. You can use SSH to remote into servers on a base Ubuntu Desktop install (even minimal), but you have to install SSH server to SSH into that desktop installation. One could make the argument that this is a security based decision as not having SSH server on port 22 on a desktop install removes an attack vector. On Ubuntu server 18.04 SSH server is installed by default. I know, because I just setup two Ubuntu Server 18.04 installs a week ago. SSH enabled out of the box. As far as Remmina is concerned, I could be wrong but I'm fairly certain that the Remmina snap is installed by default unless you choose the minimal option.

SMB4K on the other hand is really targeted at KDE Plasma, and for most people is unnecessary at this point with how good GVFS and, to a lesser degree, KIO are. Most people, I think, want to access network shares using their file manager, which Nautilus, Nemo, etc all support by default using GVFS support baked in. For most users this is a preferred method over using a separate application to mount network shares. KIO on the other hand isn't as robust in my opinion, but still is functional in much the same way for QT based desktops. And frankly, instead of using SMB4K I'd rather just use autofs to handle mounting my frequently used network shares. Takes a bit to get the hang of, but once configured autofs is a great way to handle mounting shares.
 
The necessary base package I can think of that isn't included in a Linux distro by default for a sysadmin is dnsutils. There are others that are nice to have, but that one is a necessity for the basics to get started.
B00nie and Lunar are correct
 
IdiotInCharge said:
To be fair, base Ubuntu doesn't come with SSH installed (!!!), nor does it or many distros come with Remmina or SMB4K installed. I could be doing it wrong, but I had to set up stuff on my Windows desktop, server, and Linux installs to get them working with each other in a sysadmin context.


And I'm having the same problem again in Manjaro- except it seems explicitly tied to installing the stuff needed for League of Legends- wine, winetricks, and Lutris. Somewhere in there something manages to kill sound output for the whole system.

And yet without sound, the game actually plays!
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In regards to the latter part of your comment about the game not working, it sounds like your pretty damn close! Check any logs for kernel or sound services?
 
Lunar said:
That's not really a fair critique though.
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I'll have to clarify here: I started using Ubuntu with 16.04 LTS, which was a bit more of a shitshow than the current 18.04 with respect to built-in stuff- and I started there because the Ubiquiti services I used (Unifi and UNMS) wouldn't run on 18.04 at the time. They still don't run on 18.04 Server... for me. Multiple VM runs have failed with inspecific errors, but the desktop version works (!!!). Go figure.

FNtastic said:
In regards to the latter part of your comment about the game not working, it sounds like your pretty damn close! Check any logs for kernel or sound services?
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Well, I figure I was there with Kubuntu, which I was sort of liking, and sort of not- it was probably KDE, but touchpad support was 'touchy'. Using Linux I've had to learn to 'click' the touchpad again as the touch to click function is either disabled or touch clicks just don't get recognized regularly. Gnome is better, whether that be on Ubuntu or Manjaro, but still not perfect.

Gnome puts the bar at the top Apple-style, and that only really frustrates with browsers, because that means that I cannot ground the cursor to the top and move laterally for the tab, i.e. a pair of one-dimensional inputs, and instead requires 2D control which is slower. Not like I can't work with it. KDE wanted to put the system bar up there; you could disable it, but your minimize and close buttons didn't manifest (???). Boneheaded ergonomic design all around.

But the real issue is that nothing I've tried has brought back sound- not even removing Lutris, Wine, and Winetricks. Something somewhere is getting toggled, and as I've never dug through logs to the point that I'd even know which logs might be relevant let alone what to look for in said logs, the prospect of troubleshooting the issue presents itself as rather baffling.
 
Yeah, I wish I could help, but for some reason sound is still one of the biggest trouble spots for Linux when it comes to hardware. In my experience, the cause of problems can vary wildly. Pipewire might be the fix for sound issues, but Pulseaudio and ALSA were also supposed to be the magic bullet that was supposed to fix sound too, so who freaking knows?
 
IdiotInCharge said:
I'll have to clarify here: I started using Ubuntu with 16.04 LTS, which was a bit more of a shitshow than the current 18.04 with respect to built-in stuff- and I started there because the Ubiquiti services I used (Unifi and UNMS) wouldn't run on 18.04 at the time. They still don't run on 18.04 Server... for me. Multiple VM runs have failed with inspecific errors, but the desktop version works (!!!). Go figure.



Well, I figure I was there with Kubuntu, which I was sort of liking, and sort of not- it was probably KDE, but touchpad support was 'touchy'. Using Linux I've had to learn to 'click' the touchpad again as the touch to click function is either disabled or touch clicks just don't get recognized regularly. Gnome is better, whether that be on Ubuntu or Manjaro, but still not perfect.

Gnome puts the bar at the top Apple-style, and that only really frustrates with browsers, because that means that I cannot ground the cursor to the top and move laterally for the tab, i.e. a pair of one-dimensional inputs, and instead requires 2D control which is slower. Not like I can't work with it. KDE wanted to put the system bar up there; you could disable it, but your minimize and close buttons didn't manifest (???). Boneheaded ergonomic design all around.

But the real issue is that nothing I've tried has brought back sound- not even removing Lutris, Wine, and Winetricks. Something somewhere is getting toggled, and as I've never dug through logs to the point that I'd even know which logs might be relevant let alone what to look for in said logs, the prospect of troubleshooting the issue presents itself as rather baffling.
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Start with 'dmesg --level=err,warn' in terminal
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Thanks, that gives some errors- 'spurious response'- now how does that relate to a Wine install romeo foxing all sound on the system?
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Losing all sound sounds like an issue with JACK/alsa/pulseaudio. It has happened to me also in the past. IIRC some application that I installed wasn't happy with the existing sound architecture and decided to install it's native one and that nuked all sounds due to having two conflicting systems and their settings present.

Did you try the instructions here already?
 
More or less- frustrating answer, but the reality is that much doesn't seem to apply.

Aside from restarting and/or reinstalling Alsa and Pulseaudio, most of the troubleshooting I've run across has to do with the wrong sound device being detected. That's not really the problem here, that I can see- I've had sound showing as playing through the sound interface and yet had no sound.

If this were my desktop, I'd be looking for my DAC to have switched inputs or a volume knob having gotten buried. This is a laptop, and there is no 'knob'. Manjaro and Ubuntu both responded to the function keys appropriately, and that's as close as it gets.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
More or less- frustrating answer, but the reality is that much doesn't seem to apply.

Aside from restarting and/or reinstalling Alsa and Pulseaudio, most of the troubleshooting I've run across has to do with the wrong sound device being detected. That's not really the problem here, that I can see- I've had sound showing as playing through the sound interface and yet had no sound.

If this were my desktop, I'd be looking for my DAC to have switched inputs or a volume knob having gotten buried. This is a laptop, and there is no 'knob'. Manjaro and Ubuntu both responded to the function keys appropriately, and that's as close as it gets.
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With Pulseaudio a common problem is routing - your default desktop audio interface is not compatible with it so it shows other settings than what Pulseaudio actually uses.
Check this writing out: https://freedompenguin.com/articles/how-to/pulseaudio-toilet-full-roses/
 
I should note: I had working sound at install. I'm tempted to reinstall and see if I can't figure out exactly the breaking point; I'm so used to not having sound in the background that it's a general surprise when it doesn't work on any system.
 
Audio is rolling through:

upload_2018-11-6_13-51-10.png
 
I did this with Chrome:

Try the following in a terminal to see if the issue is PulseAudio or the ALSA driver:

pasuspender -- name of problem software
This will run that specific application as if PulseAudio wasn’t installed. Note, no other software will have audio access until you close this application instance. If the application still fails, then it’s not a PulseAudio issue.

Netflix wouldn't play- it'd load the screen, and appear to be paused while play was set. When I stopped the console command, it immediately started playing, still with no sound of course. I assume this means that it's some form of an Alsa issue?
 
IdiotInCharge said:
I did this with Chrome:

Try the following in a terminal to see if the issue is PulseAudio or the ALSA driver:

pasuspender -- name of problem software
This will run that specific application as if PulseAudio wasn’t installed. Note, no other software will have audio access until you close this application instance. If the application still fails, then it’s not a PulseAudio issue.

Netflix wouldn't play- it'd load the screen, and appear to be paused while play was set. When I stopped the console command, it immediately started playing, still with no sound of course. I assume this means that it's some form of an Alsa issue?
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Can you point me to the link where you found these instructions? I'll try to help from there. I'm mobile and handicapped because of that...
 
FNtastic said:
Can you point me to the link where you found these instructions? I'll try to help from there. I'm mobile and handicapped because of that...
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Right here:

B00nie said:
With Pulseaudio a common problem is routing - your default desktop audio interface is not compatible with it so it shows other settings than what Pulseaudio actually uses.
Check this writing out: https://freedompenguin.com/articles/how-to/pulseaudio-toilet-full-roses/
Click to expand...

Though it still didn't work. Think I'm going to go back to Windows only on that and give the Linux Desktop Revolution another shot in ten years or so.

[been using it for over twenty, it's still not ready...]
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Right here:



Though it still didn't work. Think I'm going to go back to Windows only on that and give the Linux Desktop Revolution another shot in ten years or so.

[been using it for over twenty, it's still not ready...]
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Lol. Between mobile and being busy today, I've been trying to poke in and help. Admittedly, I overlooked that. If you're familiar with IRC, it may be worth jumping in there for the channel for your distro and seeing if anyone will help out.

Then, of course, there's always Windows...
 
lol windows. Anyway.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Advanced_Linux_Sound_Architecture/Troubleshooting

Go through and figure it out. Its not like MS has had a perfect history of sound card support. The windows sound system is complete shit for anything higher end. There is a reason most sudios use macs.

My guess is your system is switching your default device to a secondary device. A video cards HDMI sound device or something. The arch wiki should help you out. In general myself blacklisting video audio devices is one of the first things I do... I never plan to send audio over HDMI. (not that that is the only fix) I just always have my internal soundcard which I don't bother disabling for teamspeak type stuffs... while my main card is an external. Its just easier for me to blacklist the NV audio device. Never having to see it again.

Run might give you a bit more of an idea what is going on.
systemctl --user status pulseaudio

If its something you did settings wise. You could always just rename ~/.config/pulse to pulse_bak or do the same to the conf files in the dir or something and restart. The pulse service should create a default setup again.
 
On stupid question as well... what happens if you check the "built-in audio analog stereo" box (if it is I seem to remember that is normally an icon there I don't know lol) that is unchecked in your pavucontrol screen shot. Also check the speaker drop down. (perhaps its as simple as your speakers are plugged into the headphone jack or something)

Also make sure in output its set to analog output stereo... and not something odd.
 
Checked all that. Go Linux!

Partition wiped. Three days of troubleshooting is enough. I'll see if I can replicate it on something that is not a daily driver later.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
I still have at least three Linux instances running on my home network right now.

I just won't be spending time to unfuck a system that was never actually designed to work in the first place.
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It was designed to work perfectly but running games that were originally intended for another platform is no easy task. How many linux native games does Windows run?
 
B00nie said:
It was designed to work perfectly but running games that were originally intended for another platform is no easy task. How many linux native games does Windows run?
Click to expand...

An irrelevant question as virtually all PC games are Windows compatible.
 
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