Its possible I won't claim to be an Ubuntu expert. I have used it... I have supported it for a few clients even, but its not my personal jam. I suspect your 100% correct.
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Forbes Tries To Game on Linux
- Thread starter AlphaAtlas
- Start date
Its possible I won't claim to be an Ubuntu expert. I have used it... I have supported it for a few clients even, but its not my personal jam. I suspect your 100% correct.
BloodyIron
2[H]4U
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The game crashes constantly, play a full game out. I've tried to play this game on LAN with friends repeatedly and we would have to go get like RAM hacks for it (so it can use more memory) and other community made patches to fix compatibility in newer versions of Windows.
Rattle
2[H]4U
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So here's a funny question for you linux guys. I don't game on my PC for years now. I'm on windows 8.1, I will never go to w10 this 8.1 install is years old now. I use my PC for browsing forums, reading, youtube and for storing files mostly flac and ISO. I may in the future use it to send flac/dsf to an external DAC. I want to go to linux but no experience. Is there a distro I can use that doesn't require mad code knowledge or all the weird driver stuff ? I just want it to look cool have ease of use and be minimalistic. My hardware is in sig,
Yeah, I played it more on Win7 and it usually crashed after an hour or two. I think it having memory issues has very little to do what version of Windows you are using.
Hard to understand why it was never patched, not even the GOG version which is missing multiplayer too. I love this game, but it has terminal internal bleeding.
Actually, the replies to this guide would have you believe that modifying the exe would fix this: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1349679487
That is hard to believe, as it should only delay the inevitable crash, although significantly. Hmm... if it can play for hours, then a simple enough script could monitor it and sound the alarm when the game's process approaches critical mass, so people could save and restart.
I don't have anyone to try it with over LAN, especially not for hours on end.
https://manjaro.org/
Install... select "use non-free" drivers as you have an Nvidia video card.
That is it done.
Flac works out of the box... not need to download anything like there is in windows. Its an open format and supported in every distro.
Manjaro ships with Firefox installed... but if you prefer you can install Chromium from the official repos. If you switch to chromium you can still log into google acounts... if you want to play DRM content (netflix) install widevine. Widevine is in the manjaro AUR. The AUR (arch user repository) is an extension to the standard Manjaro/Arch software repositories. In manjaro you open your package manager go to settings and simply click use and update from the AUR options. You can also simply install Google Chrome from the AUR if you prefer.... up to you really.
As for using an external DAC... it depends what you mean. If you mean plugging in a USB audio device... as long as the device conforms to USB audio standards just plug it in and go. I haven't seen a USB audio device that doesn't work in a very long time. Linux support for USB audio ix much much better then Microsofts. As an example I have a Line6 UX2 which isn't the newest device anymore... but is still a great device for a bit of home recording and is 96/24. Under windows 8 or 10 it randomly hangs the entire windows sound system... I have tried everything messing with windows USB sleep settings, changing out drivers ect ect. End of the day the line6 windows 8 and 10 drivers are either shit, or its on MS. No idea but windows sucking at USB audio seems to be a common theme.
As far as Linux audio players there are 100s and plenty of good ones... a quick google will give you plent of Linux top 10 lists. If your into lossless highq audio my suggestion would be Audacious its in the main repos of most every distro including manjaro. It doesn't have the most fancy UI or auto generated playlists or any thing complicated. It has a simple playlist system.. and most importantly a great back end. You can use Pulse audio (the main Linux audio subsystem) or switch it to directly access the low level ALSA sound system and force 96/24 or 192/24 ect) If your not a purist it can also interpellate 32 bit float and has a few other back end tricks. It matters now if your flacs are all CD rips... but if you do have legit 96/24 files. IMO its the best quality playback software on perhaps any OS.
[ not to make things sound confusing... but most players don't support direct ALSA sound because it makes for odd issues if other programs use the sound system. If your into audio and it sounds you are think of it as windows sound system vs ASIO.... Windows has ASIO for for low level recording and its much faster, zero latency but it can't handle multiple programs accessing it. Linux is sort of backwards... its low level fast single user format is ALSA and every system has it... Pulse runs on top and works like windows sound system directing multiple programs that need to use audio ]
If you mean you plan to use DLNA to stream audio to a device... and hope to do that in a lossless format. Linux has plenty of free software to do this... some people prefer Plex and with Manjaro you can one click install plex out of the AUR as well. My personal go to for DLNA streaming is Universal Media Player which again is a one click AUR install. UMS will stream flac just fine... it converts them to a wav format on the fly so any DLNA device can handle playback no issue and retain lossless playback.
You won't have any major hurdles using Ubuntu or Mint either... a few more clicks on the GPU driver, and you will need to add a PPA (personal package archive) to have the latest GPU driver. (although you may be able to skip that if your really not gaming... the driver those distros suggest may be older but it works). USB audio is no issue on any distro... Linux open source drivers are part of the kernel so hardware support is based on the kernel version. USB audio hasn't changed in a real long time... although the newer kernels do have a few newer devices added in terms of addional support... as a direct example. My Line6 UX2, has worked no issues with Linux for years but the device has analog input and output level meters on it... although it worked on older kernels those level meters didn't move, about a year ago someone added a bit of code for them to the kernel and they now work.
Do a bit of reading... but ya no reason based on your usage that Linux wouldn't only work but in fact work better for you. Have fun if you decide to give it ago. (using a personal computer should be fun)
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naib
[H]ard|Gawd
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Ubuntu or Mint.
Sure there are shiny, sure there are distro's with more upto date libraries (which would help with gaming), but if this isn't your initial concern then the learning curve is the major concern so just go with the distro's that have tonnes of user friendly guides
Rattle
2[H]4U
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https://manjaro.org/
Install... select "use non-free" drivers as you have an Nvidia video card.
That is it done.
Flac works out of the box... not need to download anything like there is in windows. Its an open format and supported in every distro.
Manjaro ships with Firefox installed... but if you prefer you can install Chromium from the official repos. If you switch to chromium you can still log into google acounts... if you want to play DRM content (netflix) install widevine. Widevine is in the manjaro AUR. The AUR (arch user repository) is an extension to the standard Manjaro/Arch software repositories. In manjaro you open your package manager go to settings and simply click use and update from the AUR options. You can also simply install Google Chrome from the AUR if you prefer.... up to you really.
As for using an external DAC... it depends what you mean. If you mean plugging in a USB audio device... as long as the device conforms to USB audio standards just plug it in and go. I haven't seen a USB audio device that doesn't work in a very long time. Linux support for USB audio ix much much better then Microsofts. As an example I have a Line6 UX2 which isn't the newest device anymore... but is still a great device for a bit of home recording and is 96/24. Under windows 8 or 10 it randomly hangs the entire windows sound system... I have tried everything messing with windows USB sleep settings, changing out drivers ect ect. End of the day the line6 windows 8 and 10 drivers are either shit, or its on MS. No idea but windows sucking at USB audio seems to be a common theme.
As far as Linux audio players there are 100s and plenty of good ones... a quick google will give you plent of Linux top 10 lists. If your into lossless highq audio my suggestion would be Audacious its in the main repos of most every distro including manjaro. It doesn't have the most fancy UI or auto generated playlists or any thing complicated. It has a simple playlist system.. and most importantly a great back end. You can use Pulse audio (the main Linux audio subsystem) or switch it to directly access the low level ALSA sound system and force 96/24 or 192/24 ect) If your not a purist it can also interpellate 32 bit float and has a few other back end tricks. It matters now if your flacs are all CD rips... but if you do have legit 96/24 files. IMO its the best quality playback software on perhaps any OS.
If you mean you plan to use DLNA to stream audio to a device... and hope to do that in a lossless format. Linux has plenty of free software to do this... some people prefer Plex and with Manjaro you can one click install plex out of the AUR as well. My personal go to for DLNA streaming is Universal Media Player which again is a one click AUR install. UMS will stream flac just fine... it converts them to a wav format on the fly so any DLNA device can handle playback no issue and retain lossless playback.
You won't have any major hurdles using Ubuntu or Mint either... a few more clicks on the GPU driver, and you will need to add a PPA (personal package archive) to have the latest GPU driver. (although you may be able to skip that if your really not gaming... the driver those distros suggest may be older but it works). USB audio is no issue on any distro... Linux open source drivers are part of the kernel so hardware support is based on the kernel version. USB audio hasn't changed in a real long time... although the newer kernels do have a few newer devices added in terms of addional support... as a direct example. My Line6 UX2, has worked no issues with Linux for years but the device has analog input and output level meters on it... although it worked on older kernels those level meters didn't move, about a year ago someone added a bit of code for them to the kernel and they now work.
Do a bit of reading... but ya no reason based on your usage that Linux wouldn't only work but in fact work better for you. Have fun if you decide to give it ago. (using a personal computer should be fun)
Thanks for all the info, it will just be via USB if I bother for music to a DAC. There's a bunch of "editions" already confusing
Should I go with the "budgie" edition? I don't want tiles and I wouldn't mind something with cool graphics .. would that be cinnamon or gnome 3 ? Also I don't want steam on my machine is there an option to not install it from the the start ?
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Thanks for all the info, it will just be via USB if I bother for music to a DAC. There's a bunch of "editions" already confusing
Manjaro.... unlike most Distros... doesn't force you to pick a desktop.
The editions are all the same accept for what Desktop Enviroment they use.
The most popular options are....
Gnome (this is the standard basic desktop option for Ubuntu and Fedora and most major distros these days). It doesn't look like windows, The manjaro standard Gnome looks like a cross between windows 8 and MacOS. As it will have a software dock down at the bottom. Some windows users have a hard time getting used to Gnome... as it looks far different from windows. Its my personal favorite DE... but some people do have a strong hate for it. Just FYI.
I love that when I hit my super key (windows key) it pops up activities for me. Basically it shows my every running program on all my desktops in a tile format. But for many people not having a bar with all their open programs on it is disconcerting. If you select Gnome... Know that you will likely want to use the Gnome tweak took, which Manjaro installs for you by default. Just hit the super key and type "tweak" it will pop up, click it. It allows you to change desktop fonts, and change gnome extensions. So you can add almost anything to gnome to customize it.https://extensions.gnome.org/
Gnome loads extensions via a web site. Firefox and Chrome/chromium both have an extension you install... then you can one click any Gnome extension from the web site. With the tweak tool you can turn them on and off (or uninstall them) and change any settings the extensions have.
Manjaros default gnome settings are pretty logical but you can add things. I add an extension to turn off hot corners... and disable the menu extensions. But to each their own. Gnome has plenty of customization options.
XFCE This used to be Manjaros default... but some time ago they decided to make as many "official" DE spins "editions" as possible. XFCE is minimilistic.... its popular for older hardware as it will use like 200 MB of ram by default. It may look a little oldish... but it is very functional. I really like XFCE... its not fancy but it works well, is reliable... and yes seeing your system at idle using 200mb is always nice.
KDE This is the second "major" DE... Gnome and KDE are the two big DEs. KDE is very popular as well... it looks the most like windows. I have never been a big fan... but it has some real strong following.
Other options...
Openbox / i3 / awsome. (not for new users...these are windows managers not a desktop enviroments. I won't go into a ton of detail on the difference but as a new user probably not for you)
Cinnimon... is a desktop that again looks a lot like windows. Its actually the desktop developed by the Mint Linux distro folks. It has its fans... and a lot of Linux Mint users that switch to Manjaro go that way. They get their old Mint DE... but get Manjaro/Arch repos.
Budgie... is the desktop from a Distro called solus. Again Manjaro gives a default budgie install for people that want it. Its actually a very nice DE and pretty popular. You can go this way if you like. Budgie users and boosters will hate my saying so... but budgie really is Gnome at the end of the day with a bunch of hard coded tweaks. It has its following though.
MATE... is a stripped down version Gnome. WIthout getting into Linux politics. Gnome... is Gnome 3.0 Gnome 2.0 was very different and not everyone was a fan of the direction Gnome went with version 3. So a group of people forked Gnome 2.0 and continued its development under the name Mate. Its a good solid DE... its basically Gnome 2.0. Its a solid option.
Deepin... is a chinese DE that has gotten popular. its slick looking I guess. Anyway its there as an official option. lol
On the DE "edition" you choose. Its really up to you. Know that you can change your DE after the fact... I won't lie and say its a one click change. But its easier to change a Manjaro DE then pretty much any other distro around... as the Manjaro team doesn't try and play favorites in terms of DE anymore. (they are rare among distros in that regard).
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Install_Desktop_Environments
This link gives you what you need to know to change DEs later..... and even includes some DEs they don't have "editions" for. lol
Also FYI... you can run more then one DE. I wouldn't suggest running 10 or anything crazy... but if you really love Mate but still want to have budgie or gnome around ect. IME having a couple installed isn't a problem. You just select which to fire up at your log in screen.
More options more options. haha I know its not as bad as all that honest. Start with Gnome / KDE / XFCE or Mate. Those would be my suggestions look them up a bit and see what looks right to your eye.
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MavericK
Zero Cool
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- Sep 2, 2004
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The older I get, the more I agree with this sentiment as well. Troubleshooting for fun has a time and a place, but that time and place is not after a full day of IT work and at my home machine where I just want to play games and relax.
oh Rattle one other minor thing....
Fonts. Manjaro and most distros are going to include a ton of fonts. Manjaro defaults to a fairly easy on the eye font in all their DEs imo.
Adding more fonts though...
Just go to;
https://fonts.google.com/
download a bunch of fonts you like
The default download location will be /home/Downloads
In your file manager in any DE edition... go to your downloads. And right click and select open terminal here.
This will open your terminal program. (the command line isn't scary honest)
At your terminal prompt type
sudo unzip fonts.zip -d /usr/share/fonts
it will ask for your root password... and then unzip your downloaded font.zip to your font directory.
That is it you now have the fonts you grabbed from googles free font repository in your system.
To explain the command... sudo gives the program you are going to run root or admin access. Which you will need to copy files to a system location.
unzip well runs the command line unzip program... and -d "directory location" tells unzip where to unzip the contents oft he zip to.
Their are GUI unzip programs of course... but the terminal is the fastest way to get the job done. (and its DE agnostic.. terminal is the same everywhere)
If you do go with Gnome... first thing I do in most new installs is add a bunch of fonts and use the tweak tool to change out my default fonts. There are lots of nice sans sarif options ideal for system font use. Roboto, open sans, lato, Oxygen, Noto, Ubuntu, cantarelle and 100s of others that look great.
Fonts. Manjaro and most distros are going to include a ton of fonts. Manjaro defaults to a fairly easy on the eye font in all their DEs imo.
Adding more fonts though...
Just go to;
https://fonts.google.com/
download a bunch of fonts you like
The default download location will be /home/Downloads
In your file manager in any DE edition... go to your downloads. And right click and select open terminal here.
This will open your terminal program. (the command line isn't scary honest)
At your terminal prompt type
sudo unzip fonts.zip -d /usr/share/fonts
it will ask for your root password... and then unzip your downloaded font.zip to your font directory.
That is it you now have the fonts you grabbed from googles free font repository in your system.
To explain the command... sudo gives the program you are going to run root or admin access. Which you will need to copy files to a system location.
unzip well runs the command line unzip program... and -d "directory location" tells unzip where to unzip the contents oft he zip to.
Their are GUI unzip programs of course... but the terminal is the fastest way to get the job done. (and its DE agnostic.. terminal is the same everywhere)
If you do go with Gnome... first thing I do in most new installs is add a bunch of fonts and use the tweak tool to change out my default fonts. There are lots of nice sans sarif options ideal for system font use. Roboto, open sans, lato, Oxygen, Noto, Ubuntu, cantarelle and 100s of others that look great.
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BloodyIron
2[H]4U
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Me and my friends would play it like all weekend, so we had to go through a whole bunch of hoops just so we could stay in the game lol. It's one of the more extreme examples of old Windows games that are wonky on newer versions.
And the hard part... the crashing behaviour varies from one person to the next T_T
And the hard part... the crashing behaviour varies from one person to the next T_T
One comment on this, when doing the initial install/load from USB, I was having problems with it just going to a black screen after selecting an option at the Initial Menu to "Install Ubuntu" or "Try Ubuntu without installing". Seems for some cases, you will need to change the options to include "nomodeset" as a parameter.
I have actually yet to experience too much of being "forced" into a desktop. For Ubuntu, I can go with default Ubuntu for Gnome, Kubuntu for KDE, Xubuntu for XFCE, etc. Similarly, Manjaro lets you choose your flavor, albeit you get to make that selection from a single place. This has even made me of the mindset that Linux is less a replacement for Windows, more a replacement for DOS. It is just that Windows has long since hidden all of the "DOS" stuff behind the Desktop Environment it forces on you (and yes, I know that Windows no longer runs on top of DOS in any way). Linux has the "DOS"/command line core, with it up to the user what (if any) Desktop Environment to use.
I still remember the old days when you installed Windows on top of DOS and could even run a different Operating Environment than Windows on top of DOS (i remember DESQview, think there were others).
IdiotInCharge
NVIDIA SHILL
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- Jun 13, 2003
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So now that I've got my Ubuntu Mate install running reasonably well on my laptop- has Manjaro started signing for secure boot yet?
Ya nvidia sucks.
Some nvidia cards still have issues with the basics on the free nouvsuckeou driver.
nomodeset is a good general way around live media that uses the free driver... you skip it then install with the non free driver and things are all good.
It doesn't seem to effect all Nvidia cards (most are fine) it seems there are differences in some of the different Nvidia mfg brands that effect their use with the free driver. It also seems to effect laptops with 2 cards more often. Manjaro though handles optimus properly once installed.
No and who cares. Turn that crap off.
MS has already leaked the master keys anyway... its about as "Secure" as using IE4 to do your banking in 2019.
Really why should the Manjaro team or any other linux distro be paying MS for every iso they publish. Never mind issues with kernel changes.... I mean install fedora then install the Nvidia driver and see what happens. lol
Shut SB off and forget about it. It does nothing for users.
IdiotInCharge
NVIDIA SHILL
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Well, running Ubuntu Mate right now, but dual-booting Windows 10 which ties Bitlocker to Secure Boot. Would prefer to keep all those bits working well together.
Wait.... what is wrong with me doing my banking in IE4 from my unpatched Windows 95 machine?
Understandable. I don't think bit locker requires secure boot though. I believe you have to jump through some extra hoops without it. Using a USBkey or some such BS I'm sure.
IdiotInCharge
NVIDIA SHILL
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Yeah, I've been down that road. This is an ultrabook with two USBC ports, one of which is used to charge. Right now Ubuntu is working very well with it; I'd want to use Manjaro because Ubuntu doesn't have a signed kernel beyond 4.18, and I'd like to get newer kernels (and newer WINE versions) running on it.
Ya that is the problem with Manjaro. They allow you to run basically any one of 10 or so official kernels. Not sure why you would want to run a really old kernel but there is a manjaro package for it. Then you run into the issue of NV drivers and other DKMS modules in the manjaro/arch repos causing issues again.
Secure boot is such a mess. I understand your pain. MS has made it as hard as possible to dual boot, which is so very unlike MS.
IdiotInCharge
NVIDIA SHILL
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MS has made it as hard as possible to dual boot, which is so very unlike MS.
Actually extremely easy with Ubuntu. Really the same as without to be honest.
For ubuntu, suse, fedora.... ya its no big deal. They ship one kernel powered release at a time, and in general they only ship a few a year. So $99 bucks or whatever it is ms charges is nothing.
Its the rolling distros that get steam rolled. Manjaro would have to jump through a lot of hoops as the official kernel changes every couple months.
I don't know I know some of the Manjaro people have looked into it.... but they also haven't announced anything about going that way either. I know for a lot of people it would make life easier with more niche hardware as well.
ManofGod
[H]F Junkie
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Please show me proof that secure boot belongs to Microsoft? I will wait.....
IdiotInCharge
NVIDIA SHILL
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That's certainly an unwanted side effect; won't stop me from using it on other systems, but it looks like the majority of laptops are going to be running firmware-based TPM backing up secure boot and Bitlocker. Probably better to stick with Ubuntu and the like.
NoOther
Supreme [H]ardness
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Just to be clear, the $99 is a one time fee to use the portal where MS handles the certificates for the distribution. In addition, you aren't actually paying MS, I believe you are paying Verisign for the certificates. They do not need to pay for it for each rollout. Manjaro does not do this because of an ideological stand, not a financial one. Also, you do not even need Microsoft for Secure Boot. You can create your own certificates and load them in. You can even remove Microsoft's certificates from Secure Boot. It all depends on the UEFI build and that is determined by the hardware manufacturer, not Microsoft.
EDIT: For those that are using an Arch distro and want instructions on how to use Secure Boot.
Also, more information on Secure Boot and what it is about and how MS is involved with handling Linux certs.
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