Spend the next week sporadically troubleshooting when I get a free few minutes here and there.
After week 2, I finally decide for shits and giggles to download and install the “official” AMD driver from AMD’s website instead of using the built in kernel one like every goddamn reply on every forum post has been telling me to use, because the PC’s GPU is about ten years old at this point and the driver that came with the distro doesn’t work with it.
The new amdgpu kernel driver only launched in 2015 and it was buggy and unstable for a while. GPUs from around that era default to using the older radeon kernel driver which lacks Vulkan support.
Polaris (Radeon RX 400 series from 2016) and newer just work, older cards can take some prodding.
Linux gaming works (most of the time without any issues)
What you should know before you switch to Linux:
Not every Hardware is supported as well as on Windows. Old Hardware may work better or worse than on Windows. New hardware may not work at all. Don’t buy sth. that isn’t at least half a year on the market.
Check protondb if your games do run on linux. For some people even silver there isn’t an enjoyable status. Gold should be working as on windows with minor issues and platin is works just fine.
Be ready to learn a new operating System! Linux isn’t Windows and the terminal is key to fix issues.
Or Nvidia either according to all the people telling me my problems aren’t valid.
So if you want a good time with Linux you need and AMD GPU or integrated graphics, and it can’t be too new, and it can’t be too old.
I think linux’s image is pretty accurate
Also
“Be ready to learn a new operating System! Linux isn’t Windows and the terminal is key to fix issues.”
I agree. I think that’s not a good idea for a lot of people though. So I think posts like OP’s are kinda stupid. People shouldn’t try to push Linux on people who shouldn’t use it.
I’m a long-term Linux user living mostly on the terminal, knowing quite a lot about the operating system. And sometimes I enjoy tinkering to get a game running even more than playing it. But in the end for some games it just doesn’t work. Of course it depends on the game and hardware and what not, but in the end if I can’t play all my games on Linux I have to bite the bullet and check for alternatives. And for me this statement is hard as hell.
uhh brickrigs works perfectly for me?
on the built-in amdgpu kernel module (since my laptop is like 8 years old i had to force amdgpu instead of radeon drivers)
radeon is hilariously broken, even firefox breaks (won’t start sometimes) while it’s in use
To be fair, a friend of mine had blue screen playing LOL on windows for a month until he found the solution: rename a random .dll of the NVIDIA driver and than reinstall the driver.
Weird stuff happens with PC, with Win, Linux, Mac or anything but people always point to Linux. Yeah on Linux we see more of these things but PC gaming in general is not so user friendly like people think it is.
This literally happened to me:
Install Kubuntu 22.04 and Steam on my kid’s PC.
Download Brickrigs, his favorite game.
Crashes on title screen
Spend the next week sporadically troubleshooting when I get a free few minutes here and there.
After week 2, I finally decide for shits and giggles to download and install the “official” AMD driver from AMD’s website instead of using the built in kernel one like every goddamn reply on every forum post has been telling me to use, because the PC’s GPU is about ten years old at this point and the driver that came with the distro doesn’t work with it.
Lo and behold, Brickrigs works.
THIS is how Linux “works”, a LOT of the time.
The new
amdgpukernel driver only launched in 2015 and it was buggy and unstable for a while. GPUs from around that era default to using the olderradeonkernel driver which lacks Vulkan support.Polaris (Radeon RX 400 series from 2016) and newer just work, older cards can take some prodding.
I’ve seen this exact situation so many times.
I’ve been in this situation myself so many times. I like fiddling with my system but even I ended up dual-booting Windows just for gaming.
Let’s get this image then fixed.
Linux gaming works (most of the time without any issues)
What you should know before you switch to Linux:
Not every Hardware is supported as well as on Windows. Old Hardware may work better or worse than on Windows. New hardware may not work at all. Don’t buy sth. that isn’t at least half a year on the market.
Check protondb if your games do run on linux. For some people even silver there isn’t an enjoyable status. Gold should be working as on windows with minor issues and platin is works just fine.
Be ready to learn a new operating System! Linux isn’t Windows and the terminal is key to fix issues.
Or Nvidia either according to all the people telling me my problems aren’t valid.
So if you want a good time with Linux you need and AMD GPU or integrated graphics, and it can’t be too new, and it can’t be too old.
I think linux’s image is pretty accurate
Also “Be ready to learn a new operating System! Linux isn’t Windows and the terminal is key to fix issues.” I agree. I think that’s not a good idea for a lot of people though. So I think posts like OP’s are kinda stupid. People shouldn’t try to push Linux on people who shouldn’t use it.
I mean most people don’t have issues with their gpu. But if you do then get ready for day long trouble shooting.
But if you can’t fix problems that my arise don’t use Linux.
On the other hand if you only use Internet and occasionally a text Editor like libre writer you won’t notice the difference between Linux or Windows
But I thought tenant #1 of the cult of Linux was that Linux is always superior to Windows and everyone should be pushed to use it, no matter what?
Correct, but only as long as you are willing to fix things for them
I’m a long-term Linux user living mostly on the terminal, knowing quite a lot about the operating system. And sometimes I enjoy tinkering to get a game running even more than playing it. But in the end for some games it just doesn’t work. Of course it depends on the game and hardware and what not, but in the end if I can’t play all my games on Linux I have to bite the bullet and check for alternatives. And for me this statement is hard as hell.
yeah the radeon module is hilariously broken.
couldn’t even get Firefox to work until I forced amdgpu.
Firefox is probably looking for modern hardware acceleration for its rendering engine to work.
i mean it worked but only had 1/10 chance of starting (which basically made it unusable)
uhh brickrigs works perfectly for me?
on the built-in amdgpu kernel module (since my laptop is like 8 years old i had to force amdgpu instead of radeon drivers)
radeon is hilariously broken, even firefox breaks (won’t start sometimes) while it’s in use
To be fair, a friend of mine had blue screen playing LOL on windows for a month until he found the solution: rename a random .dll of the NVIDIA driver and than reinstall the driver.
Weird stuff happens with PC, with Win, Linux, Mac or anything but people always point to Linux. Yeah on Linux we see more of these things but PC gaming in general is not so user friendly like people think it is.
Reading this made me flinch and this hasn’t even happened to me
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