Kubuntu is fine. But for gaming, having old packages is very good for stability, but bad for gaming. In the latter use case, having access to the latest drivers and compositors, will grant you a better gaming experience.
A humble question: have you considered switching to another distro with newer packages?
Yeah I’ve looked into other distributions. So far Kubuntu fits the bill just fine for me.
I don’t have enough spare time to mess around with troubleshooting issues, so stability is what I’m looking for and the Ubuntu flavors provide just that without being too outdated. And they provide 3rd party drivers out of the box.
I hear Fedora might be a good alternative, but I heard it’s a bit more difficult to find 3rd party support for hardware.
Adjacently, Nobara is based on Fedora for gaming, uses KDE, and has a lot of packages pre-installed for a nicer end user experience. I used to use Kubuntu as my first foray into Linux desktop but I ran into a few issues. Nobara has been overall more stable and more reliable for my daily use.
Oh yeah! I haven’t tried it out yet. I’ve been testing some distros on VMs (I know, not the best way to test but that’s the best I can do.) It has a patched kernel for gaming and everything. That’s nice.
I’ve given it some thought and I think I’ll stay with Kubuntu. I think it’s best if I stick to a standard generic distro and simply report any problems I can come by to help developers know what challenges users face and how they can improve their software for general distribution. Nobara seems to do a lot of customizations which I think might lead to specific cases for that distro alone.
I’ve been playing Enderal (a Skyrim total conversion) with some added QoL mods on my Deck
Got MO2 working with Enderal on wine by using this. The script (and MO2 itself) is a bit janky but it does function. The only thing I couldn’t get working was the nexus mods URL integration thingie, had to download mod packages and add them manually.
The game itself runs like a charm on the Deck (after setting up a control profile anyway).
But there is the catch that being a Total Conversion mod that is available on Steam… Enderal itself points steam to SKSE on launch. Don’t know how it’d work if your starting point is Vanilla Skyrim.
I think there’s a “SKSE for Linux” you can download so that you get it in a separate launcher, but renaming the executable to whatever the original one is will result in that newly renamed executable getting run when you press the play button. This approach works for Skyrim and Starfield but probably others as well.
SKSE works in Linux. I manually install each mod. It’s a pain in the ass but I imagine still less of a pain in the ass than dealing with mod managers. I don’t know who’s teaching new programmers to make their side projects in such a way that it only works on windows but it’s stupid and lame. It’s not as bad as it used to be but there’s always outliers that pop up such as Starfield xedit. You can put your ui in an opengl window. You can use python with wxwidgets. Java has good gui stuff. There are a multitude of ways to do ui besides Microsoft’s bloated toolchain.
Allow me to piggyback on this a bit, s’il vous plait.
Is there a Linux distribution that will run Adobe CC out of the box, games from Steam, and VR headsets? I need a new desktop badly, but I need to be able to use Adobe products as part of my job. (No, I can’t switch to GNU products, because I get files from clients, and I have to be able to work to industry standards.) I’ve used Tails before, which is not a user-friendly product, and it doesn’t play nicely with any other software.
Pretty much any major distro is going to have similar support for all of that. And for Adobe CC, that’s going to be limited at best. You didn’t specify which part of CC you need, but here’s an option for installing Photoshop 2022 on Linux. Trying to get the latest is likely going to be painful, since WINE would probably lag with supporting all the new updates.
Steam works pretty well pretty much everywhere. I’ve used it on Fedora, Arch, and openSUSE, and I’m sure it works fine on any Debian-based distro. VR support is similar, you’re going to have a much better time with SteamVR headsets. That said, here’s a guide to VR on Linux, stick to “confirmed working” sections for minimal tinkering.
Tails
Yeah, don’t use that for regular work, that’s an uber-paranoid distro that’s intentionally locked down, which means things are likely going to be more difficult to get working.
Try Linux Mint or Fedora (or Bazzite if you want gamer flavor), they’re both solid and tend to work pretty well out of the box. Software and hardware support doesn’t vary much between distros, so if it you can’t get it working with one of those and it’s not “officially supported” (i.e. instructions aren’t in one of my links), distro hopping probably won’t help.
I have to use Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro every day for my day job. I have to keep up-to-date with my versions, because clients send me files that use features in the latest releases, and not being up-to-date means that things don’t render correctly. (I’m super-pissed that I have to update since Adobe dropped all support for Pantone colors abut a year (?) ago.)
I use Corel Painter 2022 and a Wacom pen display for fun. My guess is that a pen display might get a little weird in Linux, but the one I have is not cutting edge at least.
Yeah, don’t use that for regular work, that’s an uber-paranoid distro that’s intentionally locked down, which means things are likely going to be more difficult to get working.
I know, I know, but I liked being functionally untrackable online, and not getting ads shoved down my throat (…despite working in advertising…) all the time. It’s neat, but almost everything online seems to have privacy-invading features so deeply embedded that the browser built into Tails just can’t use them at all.
Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro every day for my day job
Probably easier to run a VM or dual-boot then. Trying to keep those up-to-date is going to be a nightmare.
Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably get an Apple device. Adobe works great, and macOS isn’t as bad as Windows IMO.
I liked being functionally untrackable online, and not getting ads shoved down my throat
There are a lot of ways to get around that, such as:
uBlock Origin - blocks ads
use a VPN and switch locations periodically - limits efficacy of tracking
try Mullvad Browser - basically Tor Browser (i.e. the browser included w/ Tails), but without Tor, so fewer breakages
But honestly, the first two are really easy to do and solve 80% of the problem with a very small amount of breakage, and Firefox is installed by default in most Linux distros, and is available in the repositories on those where it’s not the default.
Honestly, if I were in your shoes, I’d probably get an Apple device.
Sadly, I also don’t like spending money. :P You used to be able to make Hackintoshes, but Apple tends to break them with every software update.
I had been thinking about getting an IoT Enterprise LTSC release of Windows and manually adding the components that I needed. Might still do that with dual boot.
There are a lot of ways to get around that, such as:
I’m doing all of that except the last one already. As has been noted in many other places, Windows itself is now in the business of serving ads directly, and it looks like that’s getting harder and harder to disable. I managed to mostly lock down the Pro release of Win 10 that I’m on right now, but Win 11 will make that much, much harder. If it weren’t for security issues surrounding end of product life, I wouldn’t switch versions at all.
C’est la mort.
But yeah, I’ll def. look for a user-friendly version of Linux when I build my next system in a few months.
Good luck! I also don’t like spending money, so I don’t blame you. Definitely consider a dual-boot w/ Linux though, it can at least help you separate work from play. :)
No, but it can be the one who packages an issue that has already been fixed. But if you are on Nobara chances are you’ll face almost the same ones on Bazzite.
I use the steelseries arctis 7 (I think, it’s the non-pro version). It works great in Endeavor and is very simple. I don’t think I can tell how much charge the battery has but I charge it every night so that’s not an issue. Highly recommend buying a magnetic USB cord for it.
I was looking into these but it mentions software a lot in the reviews as in you must use the software to ensure good audio quality. Is this true? How long have you had them?
I’ve had mine for at least 5 years, probably more. You don’t need any software on Linux, it’s picked up as a normal USB audio device: SteelSeries ApS SteelSeries Arctis 7I’m no audiophile, but audio quality is great. I had the Logitech G930 before and I like this better. The one USB device actually presents 2 audio devices to the computer because it has this neat dial that lets you mix your game sound and chat sounds right on the headset.
I have the Arctis 7 as well and the default EQ sounds just fine, although I do prefer the Bass Boost. You can run the software inside a Windows VM, passthrough the USB dongle and configure all your settings as well. They get saved into the headset and work just fine in Linux without Linux native software.
I have invested lots of effort and research and sadly money over the years into this specific question. And nowadays my recommendation would be: keep it simple.
That means: get a headset that is well reviewed and uses a wireless connection. Do not use Bluetooth. Bluetooth has good quality now, but no matter what perfect settings you use, you will have a noticeable delay, which is especially noticable during hectic gaming voice comms. Some headsets with a dedicated wireless receiver ( usually a small USB dongle) offer BT as an extra option, which can be great if you want to use it for listening to music or doing occasional calls while moving outside while linked to your phone.
Second tip: don’t get a combined all-in-one gaming headset. They can be good, but are always overpriced für what they offer. Marketing ftw. Instead get a good headset and get a simple separate mic. Modmic or any derivative works.
Overall, you’ll get tremendously better quality for significantly less price. The sheer amount of options for good “generic” headphones is immense. Added bonus: because the two are separate, you can swap one out when it breaks. Especially the addon microphones have a tendency to last decades, unlike the headsets themselves, which suffer more immediate wear and tear.
Antlion itself an official wireless modmic, but it’s a staggering 150 bucks, was cheaper a could years ago… On the upside, it’s pretty much a lifetime purchase and really good quality. But it’s definitely overpriced.
If your budget is lower, you can look at lavalier mics or wire mics. Those are the kind that TV/ video guys usually wear. Lavaliers are simply tacked to the top of your shirt, while the wire mics are super thin wires that you wear under your actual headset. Both are light, have good audio quality and nur importantly are available at much wider and fairer price ranges, as they are less of a nice. Lav mics can be as cheap as ten bucks.
I was able to acquire a Jabra Evolve2 85 through my last employer and it’s absolute shit. The sound quality drops to telephone/ AM radio quality when the microphone turns on. Otherwise it’s okay.
You might want to consider VoIP headsets, too. They often have better sound and build quality than many “gaming headsets”.
As for compatibility, I would expect any headset to work as long as it connects as a USB audio device or with analog plugs. Just make sure that any nonstandard controls are on the device itself instead of requiring special software.
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