Microsoft announces vague changes to the default web browser setting for Windows Insider. Nothing but wishful thinking. Still force-opens web links in Edge.
I’m using an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 2021 as my personal laptop and have been contemplating switching it over to Linux for a while now.
It’s sporting an AMD Ryzen 5900HS and Nvidia RTX 3060 variant and very use steam for most of my games which I’m thinking wouldn’t pose too many issue based on what I read here often.
My core concerns are:
Gaming is the biggest worry as my last experience with Ubuntu a few years ago was extremely frustrating with poor drivers, okay performance, and frequently requiring game specific fixes
I sometimes require Microsoft Office (collaborative documents for freelance design work).
I would very much like the Logitech Options+ companion software to work well or an alternative with the ability to set custom actions for all the buttons on my MX Master 3
Besides those:
This machine’s reliance on its vendor software like Armory Crate etc. to perform well; an issue I’ve recently tackled by switching over to GHelper which unfortunately isn’t available for Linux
I see Opensuse and Fedora recommended as plug and play with this machine and other distros requiring compiling and troubleshooting to work well; most cases quote much worse battery life than Windows and the need for multiple tools and command line fixes to achieve processor boost disabling and graphic switching
I sometimes use trainers in single player mode for games that my friends play (which I couldn’t afford or didn’t have time for when they started) so I can catch up with their progress and play together with them; I haven’t seen anything specific about trainers like those from Fling working with Linux
Can anyone advise me regarding a good distro and whether I should go ahead with the switch considering the issues outlined above?
Thank you for your time and attention reading all that.
tl;dr: I want to switch to Linux but don’t know which distro or how stable it would be for my Asus G14 with gaming and portable battery life as the primary concerns.
I wouldn’t go with Opensuse or Fedora for gaming. Pop_OS! or maybe something like Endeavour/Manjaro for more advanced users seems like a better solution because they have built-in mechanisms for dealing with Nvidia’s bullshit.
I’ve set up a Gnome desktop shell extension for managing my CPU and ever since performance and battery life have been great. Effectiveness will differ between models, but in my experience Linux does a better job managing battery life than Windows.
I don’t know about specific trainers, I wouldn’t assume they work as well on Linux as they do on Windows. You have GameConqueror on Linux, which is like a basic Cheat Engine, but I can’t tell you much more.
My advice to you would be:
try a less Linux-y Linux distro like Pop_OS! which focuses on easy of use rather than technical superiority
if you get a choice, pick X11 over Wayland. Most likely, this won’t come up, but if it does, Wayland and Nvidia are not friends and should not be in the same room as each other.
Microsoft Office doesn’t work on Linux. However, you can set up a virtual machine running just Windows and Office. You can also try the free alternatives (LibreOffice, OnlyOffice) but those may not work for your use case.
Games launched through Steam usually work just fine. If Steam isn’t available, there are tools like Bottles and Lutris that apply the shitty fixes for you. Success not 100% guaranteed, but manually configuring stuff like Wine and Vulkan wrappers is too much of a pain.
Many multilayer games choose to exclude Linux. Many of them work fine on a technical level, their servers just don’t like Linux. You don’t get a choice other than to vote with your attention and pick another game.
For Logitech mice there are a few tools available. Special buttons can usually be remapped using any Linux button remapper tool and used to drive desktop shortcuts if you so wish, and Solaar can manage some Logitech hardware. Sadly, Logitech and most other gaming brands don’t bother writing Linux software so not all features will work.
There are alternative launchers for stores like Epic (I think Hero Launcher is the new hot fad) that will work a lot better than trying to force a Windows launcher to install through WINE.
If the state if modern Linux gaming is still not good enough for you, don’t force yourself through it. I almost exclusively play Steam games on my own, and gaming on Linux has worked fine so far. However, multiplayer gaming and non-Steam gaming is still a pain.
In a few years, when your laptop is no longer sufficient to play games, try to buy AMD graphics rather than Nvidia if you want to use Linux. Maybe Intel will have a good gaming GPU out by then. In the words of Linus Torvalds himself: “fuck you, Nvidia!”
Why not fedora? I use it with nvidia and everything works just fine. Sure you have to install nvidia drivers but that’s quite literally one line to command line and you’re set. Fedora nowadays let’s you get closed source repos on installation
“just one line to command line” is the problem in my opinion. The Linux experience is a thousand “just one command” solutions. This stuff should be integrated if it’s this common a problem.
If you’re fine with the command line then sure, Fedora will work great for you. In this case, the person I responded to sounded quite frustrated with their previous experience, so I thought Fedora may not be the best solution for them.
On Windows the driver installs itself through Windows Update. It’s already set up for you the moment you exit the installer, assuming you have an internet connection during setup. If not, it’ll install itself the moment you go online.
+1 for Pop_OS and their Nvidia support. I’ve been using Pop_OS as my gaming rig daily driver for about a year or year and a half at this point. It has pretty much worked flawlessly. Just about the only complaint I have with System76 is their app store GUI is laggy and has a tendency to bug out if you try doing anything with it before it refreshes when first being opened.
Why? I use openSUSE Tumbleweed for gaming and it’s been rock solid. Seriously, I’ve never really had any issues. It has its quirks, but they are easily “fixed” by adding Packman and the Nvidia repos… and running an update.
I’ve tried Ubuntu multiple times and it was always a shitshow disaster. Mint was OK-ish, but had Ubuntu-related silliness.
https://nobaraproject.org/
There is really no reason not to try. You can just try a bootable USB first to see if Linux works for you and your hardware config. It’s a great way to test things and determine what distro and desktop environment works for you.
I’m using an Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 2021 as my personal laptop and have been contemplating switching it over to Linux for a while now.
It’s sporting an AMD Ryzen 5900HS and Nvidia RTX 3060 variant and very use steam for most of my games which I’m thinking wouldn’t pose too many issue based on what I read here often.
My core concerns are:
Besides those:
Can anyone advise me regarding a good distro and whether I should go ahead with the switch considering the issues outlined above?
Thank you for your time and attention reading all that.
tl;dr: I want to switch to Linux but don’t know which distro or how stable it would be for my Asus G14 with gaming and portable battery life as the primary concerns.
Nvidia and Linux drivers are a bad combination.
I wouldn’t go with Opensuse or Fedora for gaming. Pop_OS! or maybe something like Endeavour/Manjaro for more advanced users seems like a better solution because they have built-in mechanisms for dealing with Nvidia’s bullshit.
I’ve set up a Gnome desktop shell extension for managing my CPU and ever since performance and battery life have been great. Effectiveness will differ between models, but in my experience Linux does a better job managing battery life than Windows.
I don’t know about specific trainers, I wouldn’t assume they work as well on Linux as they do on Windows. You have GameConqueror on Linux, which is like a basic Cheat Engine, but I can’t tell you much more.
My advice to you would be:
try a less Linux-y Linux distro like Pop_OS! which focuses on easy of use rather than technical superiority
if you get a choice, pick X11 over Wayland. Most likely, this won’t come up, but if it does, Wayland and Nvidia are not friends and should not be in the same room as each other.
Microsoft Office doesn’t work on Linux. However, you can set up a virtual machine running just Windows and Office. You can also try the free alternatives (LibreOffice, OnlyOffice) but those may not work for your use case.
Games launched through Steam usually work just fine. If Steam isn’t available, there are tools like Bottles and Lutris that apply the shitty fixes for you. Success not 100% guaranteed, but manually configuring stuff like Wine and Vulkan wrappers is too much of a pain.
Many multilayer games choose to exclude Linux. Many of them work fine on a technical level, their servers just don’t like Linux. You don’t get a choice other than to vote with your attention and pick another game.
For Logitech mice there are a few tools available. Special buttons can usually be remapped using any Linux button remapper tool and used to drive desktop shortcuts if you so wish, and Solaar can manage some Logitech hardware. Sadly, Logitech and most other gaming brands don’t bother writing Linux software so not all features will work.
There are alternative launchers for stores like Epic (I think Hero Launcher is the new hot fad) that will work a lot better than trying to force a Windows launcher to install through WINE.
If the state if modern Linux gaming is still not good enough for you, don’t force yourself through it. I almost exclusively play Steam games on my own, and gaming on Linux has worked fine so far. However, multiplayer gaming and non-Steam gaming is still a pain.
In a few years, when your laptop is no longer sufficient to play games, try to buy AMD graphics rather than Nvidia if you want to use Linux. Maybe Intel will have a good gaming GPU out by then. In the words of Linus Torvalds himself: “fuck you, Nvidia!”
Why not fedora? I use it with nvidia and everything works just fine. Sure you have to install nvidia drivers but that’s quite literally one line to command line and you’re set. Fedora nowadays let’s you get closed source repos on installation
“just one line to command line” is the problem in my opinion. The Linux experience is a thousand “just one command” solutions. This stuff should be integrated if it’s this common a problem.
If you’re fine with the command line then sure, Fedora will work great for you. In this case, the person I responded to sounded quite frustrated with their previous experience, so I thought Fedora may not be the best solution for them.
on windows you need to download the driver from the internet and install it manually. on linux you enter a command and it installs itself.
On Windows the driver installs itself through Windows Update. It’s already set up for you the moment you exit the installer, assuming you have an internet connection during setup. If not, it’ll install itself the moment you go online.
this doesn’t work most of the time, and if it works, it’s an ancient version of the driver.
Works just fine for me, it may have been one or two versions out of date last time I checked but it worked without any issues.
+1 for Pop_OS and their Nvidia support. I’ve been using Pop_OS as my gaming rig daily driver for about a year or year and a half at this point. It has pretty much worked flawlessly. Just about the only complaint I have with System76 is their app store GUI is laggy and has a tendency to bug out if you try doing anything with it before it refreshes when first being opened.
Why? I use openSUSE Tumbleweed for gaming and it’s been rock solid. Seriously, I’ve never really had any issues. It has its quirks, but they are easily “fixed” by adding Packman and the Nvidia repos… and running an update.
I’ve tried Ubuntu multiple times and it was always a shitshow disaster. Mint was OK-ish, but had Ubuntu-related silliness.
https://nobaraproject.org/ There is really no reason not to try. You can just try a bootable USB first to see if Linux works for you and your hardware config. It’s a great way to test things and determine what distro and desktop environment works for you.
I’ve been using Piper for my logitech mouse: https://flathub.org/apps/org.freedesktop.Piper