Hey guys,
after a few months back on Windows 11 (mostly because of my CPU) i want to migrate again to Linux. With my old setup i used Linux Mint, but i know that some packages are really old and i needed to tinker a lot of things. I liked it a lot but im just thinking about to try out OpenSuse Tumbleweed. Because of a lot of things - KDE, Wayland etc. Do you have any experience with Tumbleweed and Gaming and is there maybe a recent recommendation how-to to set this up? What would be also great is Secure Boot - i read a few things that it is possible with OpenSuse Tumbleweed but do you guys have experience with it? I’m also open for other OS recommandations :) My CPU is a R9 7950X3D and my GPU is a Radeon RX 6950 XT And i have a AIO with a LCD Display (NZXT Kraken 280 RGB).
Thank you for your help :)
Secure Boot is definitely possible with oS TW. You can select to enable it on install.
With AMD you will be using the open-source drivers for gaming which means openSUSE will give you the benefit of the latest and greatest drivers for best performance.
Honestly just install it with your DE of choice and install Steam. Even for non-Steam games I find that loading them through Steam to use Proton is typically better than setting up Wine independently.
Install proton-up flatpak, install steam,lutris/heroic, whatever you want to use for the other stores. That has worked for me on any distro.
Try open-RGB for RGB control.
Your hardware isn’t bleeding edge, so older packages aren’t really that much of an issue unless you suffer from FOMO or just have to have that 1.1.2 feature, which case I found Flatpak delivers a fair amount of up-to-date apps.
The LCD display might need a Windows VM just to jump into when you want to manage that or look into opencorsairlink: https://github.com/audiohacked/OpenCorsairLink
Gkraken: https://gitlab.com/leinardi/gkraken/blob/master/README.md
I have been using TW (and its predecessors) for around 17 years and have no major complaints at all! KDE Plasma is my preferred desktop and TW comes with that option as a default. Wayland is available but still has a few niggles with KDE Plasma in my experience.
TW will play both indie and mainstream games with no problem and comes with many repos of up-to-date packages. CoolerControl is a good app for setting up your Kraken if necessary. Your GPU should work out-of-the-box.
TW supports Secure Boot and should detect it when setting up. My advice for installation is to create a bootable USB stick with the network install version of TW and go from there. The GUI allows you to select a default installation or set things up just how you like them.
Let me know if you have any questions!
I’ve been on TW for 3-4 years now (something like my 4th distro? Been on Linux for 15-ish years), and it’s great. I used KDE for the first 2-3 years until I replaced my NVIDIA card with an AMD card, and now I’m on GNOME because it has much better Wayland support.
I have no complaints about TW whatsoever. My main complaint is that openSUSE seems adamant about eliminating Leap, so I’ll have to figure out MicroOS sometime in the next year or so to migrate my servers. But that has nothing to do with TW or gaming, so it should be irrelevant for OP.
How is Wayland better on GNOME? You mean stable, more features? I just moved to KDE to get VRR & HDR.
More stable. As in, it works pretty much as I expect vs the X11 version, whereas KDE on Wayland crashes for me (or is just glitchy).
If it works, great, but it was pretty much unusable for me so I switched to GNOME for VRR and whatnot.
GNOME now supports VRR? Damn, you’re tempting me to go back. I love GNOME’s UX/UI and it’s gazillion of libadwaita apps.
It has for ages, even on X11 IIRC. I happen to have two monitors, one with VRR and the other without, and I needed Wayland to get that to work properly.
This is on AMD, YMMV with NVIDIA.
Is vsync still being forced?
Idk, I don’t play competitive games, and I don’t particularly value high FPS gaming (my monitor only goes to 95hz, which is plenty for the games I play).
I have seen that KDE supposedly allows turning it off now, so it’s possible GNOME also does since GNOME seems to generally have better Wayland support. But I’m really not sure, I just generally leave vsync on in games.
Thank you very much! All you guys!
I tried the network installer but it keeps failing (i think because of maintenance --> https://status.opensuse.org/#scheduled-36 ) First of all, i do like the first few hours on TW (installed it on my notebook because cant boot my main machine right now and so i can try to tinker a bit with it).
And yes i do have a few question :)
But first of all i need to know if there is an app which can create WebApps like the WebApp application from mint. I know that i can create such things with chrome but is there an extra app for that available for TW? I searched the web but didn’t find a good solution.
The other things i want to try out first before asking, but i’m realy shure, that there will be a few other things i need to ask :)
Been using TW for a while now, also never had any issues with gaming. Following the instructions already given in other comments.
I like OpenSuse TW. It’s up to date, and I’ve not had many issues with gaming. I did have an issue with a dodgy texture in No Man’s Sky, but it runs stuff like Valheim (Steam), Project Zomboid (Steam), Minecraft, Rimworld (Lutris) good for me. I don’t really do any AAA, so cannot really comment on those.
I would say, when playing games, if you get audio crackling, try a different kernel such as Liquorix (https://software.opensuse.org//download.html?project=home%3Ahwsnemo%3Akernels&package=kernel-liquorix). I’ve had that issue on my hardware across multiple distros, and this kernel solves it.
I believe it’s something with a kernel parameter regarding scheduling, specifically as noted in this features list (https://liquorix.net/#features)
High Resolution Scheduling: 1000hz tick rate for precise low jitter task scheduling.
You may or may not get this issue with your hardware, but if you do, then this is something you could try.
Otherwise, great distro, I’m currently on it.
I used to have problems with audio crackling. I’d restart pulseaudio, and it would resolve. I haven’t had that problem for a long time now though. I think it’s been resolved.
