The Linux Topic

[CreepinDeth]

Greetings from Zorin OS!

I finally got my spare PC going and installed Zorin on it. Enjoying it so far. Feels much cleaner and minimalistic than Windows. Haven't done much yet. Just getting it all setup with software that I might need. 

[CreepinDeth]

So I had to switch from Zorin OS over to Pop_OS. Turns out Zorin 15.3 is based on Ubuntu 18.04, and since I also plan to game on this machine, makes it too old for my needs. It's actually a nice OS and if you don't plan to game it's solid.

Switched over to Pop_OS since they are still supporting 32bit libraries that are required for Steam and automatically installs the latest Nvidia drivers for you if you happen to have one of their graphics cards. So far, so good. It uses Gnome so it has a lot of the aesthetic features of Zorin. I'm enjoying it so far.

[retro junkie]

Zorin is a solid OS. My Daughter still uses it. I had to look up POP. I have not heard of it. But of course I have been out of the Linux scene for a while. Looks good.

[CreepinDeth]

Pop!_OS is a relatively new distro. It's only been around for like 3 years I think? System 76 (the developers of Pop!_OS) also make hardware that is tailored with their distro. It's actually really nice hardware.

[BLUEVOODU]

@CreepinDeth  - Interesting... I have not heard of this one.  So this is more on the bleeding edge that has more up-to-date drivers that you need?  If I am understanding this right... it would be more on the Fedora side of the Red Hat equation?


I will check this one out.   

[CreepinDeth]

@BLUEVOODU - I don't believe it's that bleeding edge. System76 still does a lot of testing before they release updates (and sometimes hold them back a few days, if necessary) but because they also cater to gamers, they try to make getting drivers and other libraries easier and automatic.

They are Steam/WINE/Lutris friendly.

[CreepinDeth]

So now I might jump back to Zorin OS. Version 16 has just been released and the developers are claiming it's now much more gaming friendly. It honestly looks pretty good.

I was already thinking about dual booting Zorin and Pop!_OS. Pop for gaming and Zorin for daily driver. Might not have to anymore.

Zorin OS 16

[retro junkie]

@CreepinDeth is there a difference that you are noticing between using Windows and linux for gaming?

[CreepinDeth]

@CreepinDeth is there a difference that you are noticing between using Windows and linux for gaming?

There are a ton of differences that mainly involve the OS and how you go about playing games that don't have official Linux ports. However, once they run, there's not much differences. I'll try to outline a few.

Official Linux Ports
The only official ports that I've tried so far are the latest Tomb Raider trilogy games (Tomb Raider (2013), Rise of the Tomb Raider & Shadow of the Tomb Raider.)

They run pretty well and don't need much tweaking. However, I learned about CPU Governors trying these out as I got a message from the game saying that my CPU is not set for Performance which could cause issues. So I installed CPUFreq and I can switch it on the fly from the desktop.

Overall though, it's as simple as installing Steam and then installing the game. It's good to go just like on Windows.

Windows version on Linux
Steam has come a long way to have Windows versions run on Linux. You do have to set in the preferences that you want to use Steam-Play and select the version of Proton you want to use and you're usually good to go. Proton is a WINE compatibility layer that has been modified by Valve to help games run on Linux. There is also Lutris which helps you play games that are not acquired through Steam but I haven't tried that yet.

I've played Doom (2016) and even the original DOS Tomb Raider from 1996 and both ran with no fuss. I have yet to try out more but, so far, it's been fairly painless.

I did try Batman Arkham Asylum but that one requires some tweaks to Proton to run. Don't feel like doing that right now though.

There is currently a site called Proton DB which is a database that lets you know which games work with Proton and those that still need work from Valve to become playable. Valve is looking to have 100% compatibility by the time the Steam Deck releases.

If I can think of anymore, I'll post them.

[CreepinDeth]

Linus over at Linus Tech Tips started a challenge to make Linux their daily driver for a month. Part 1 is out.

[CreepinDeth]

Thread resurrection time!

I've been using Zorin 16 for the past couple of years now. It's been a pleasurable experience and have not felt any need to jump back to a Windows machine for daily general use.

However, I'm planning on jumping over to Fedora. I don't need to be bleeding edge but I do occasionally update hardware whenever there is a good sale so I would like to have a distro that eventually gets support for it within a few months and not years. There's also some gaming software that I would like to use (eg. MangoHUD) that doesn't seem to play well with Ubuntu based distros.

@BLUEVOODU Are you still using Fedora at all? Any tips or things to think about before I make the plunge?

[BLUEVOODU]

@CreepinDeth - man... there are good replies here and I missed them entirely since 2021.  Sorry about that! 

That last Linus Tech Tips video was great btw.  They always have awesome content.

Right now... I'm using the more stable Rocky Linux.  I'm not sure other people would classify it as a user's OS or not.  This OS is known for stability.  I believe it takes some tweaking, but upon review, it's good for gaming and content creation as well.

I've really been enjoying using it. It's more of an enterprise feel... but give it a shot. Why not?  Find out what you like and don't like. It's downstream from RHEL (Fedora based... etc).  You can use several different desktops with it - whether you want gnome, kde, mate... etc. A colleague at work ended up installing KDE... which is not my favorite, but I know many others like it. 

There are a couple I want to try... but time has been soaked up by work and life... life stages are interesting for sure.  However, I also want to dive into Kali and some of its uses for testing.  I've wanted to do this over the last 5 years, but work and studying has taken most of time there.  I'm just going to pull the trigger at some point.   Of course, I'm looking at a potential masters next year... tldr, just trying to prep for the next 15-25 years. 

Let me know if you get it and how you like it!

[CreepinDeth]

I'll look into Rocky Linux. Seems promising. I might just have Rocky on one PC and then Fedora on another.

I'm pretty excited about it. I think I'm going to purchase a Radeon RX 7600 for this rig so that I have all AMD hardware for Linux.

There are a couple I want to try... but time has been soaked up by work and life... life stages are interesting for sure.  However, I also want to dive into Kali and some of its uses for testing.  I've wanted to do this over the last 5 years, but work and studying has taken most of time there.  I'm just going to pull the trigger at some point.   Of course, I'm looking at a potential masters next year... tldr, just trying to prep for the next 15-25 years.

Wow, good luck on getting your masters. That sounds awesome!

[BLUEVOODU]

Thank you @CreepinDeth  - I'll let you know how it goes if I do.

Did you end up purchasing the RX 7600 and start using Rocky and/or Fedora?  If so... how's it going?

[CreepinDeth]

@BLUEVOODU Haven't jumped on the Fedora train yet. I did not pick up a 7600. I'm now contemplating if I should hold out for the new GPUs that are supposed to be coming out later this year/early next year.

I'm still undecided on which flavor of Fedora I'm going to install. A part of me is interested in the Atomic versions, so I'm thinking Fedora Silverblue. I just upgraded my wife's PC so I have an old Intel machine now that I might just use for testing each distro out.

[CreepinDeth]

Tomorrow is my last work day of the year. I'll have two weeks off and will be using this time to try out Fedora Workstation and probably one other distro. I have two old Dell XPS machines that can not be upgraded to Windows 11.

I'm going to see if I like them as well as try to do some very basic development. I've been wanting to teach myself to code again and I think this will be a good time and I hear good things about Linux being developer friendly.

I'm also going to bust out my Raspberry Pi that my wife got for me a few years ago and tinker with it.

[BLUEVOODU]

NICE @CreepinDeth 

I'm now on vacation as well. What a year ... it's been a busy one.  I hope you have a wonderful vacation time!

So it sounds like you're going to have a lot of fun!      What's in the agenda and what are you starting with 1st?

[CreepinDeth]

I hope you have a wonderful vacation time!

Thanks, you too!

So it sounds like you're going to have a lot of fun!    What's in the agenda and what are you starting with 1st?

First on the list is to install Fedora and then give it a proper test drive to see if I like it. If I do, I'll dive in fully and start using that machine to code a little bit. If I don't, then might try another Ubuntu distro for it. I've read that Ubuntu is actually the distro that is used by the Android Open Source Project so might even just use that.

After Christmas I'll be updating some of my laptops and might install Elementary OS on one of them or if I really like Fedora, install that on it as well.

I'm also thinking of trying an Arch distro but not sure yet. I think I'll keep it simple for now.

I was hoping to turn one of these old machines as a file server but Christmas has my wallet tapped at the moment. Will be buying some hard drives later and then installing a Linux server or TrueNAS. I picked up a COMPTIA Networking book for cheap and plan on teaching myself some of that as well. I was I had a whole month off, lol.