Full time Linux user and gamer?

[lexluthermiester]

No, not performance wise if you put the time in. Nothing beats compiling from source to the target hardware. But it takes so damn long.

While a valid point, very few people go to that much trouble. Have never done so myself, no desire to either. Standard distro installers are excellent these days.

 

[R-T-B]

While a valid point, very few people go to that much trouble.

You literally have to if you load gentoo. There is no choice, nor installer.

It's not what you'd call a "normal" distro lol.

 

[lexluthermiester]

You literally have to if you load gentoo. There is no choice, nor installer.

It's not what you'd call a "normal" distro lol.

That could be why I've never used it.. Only read about it in passing.

 

[R-T-B]

That could be why I've never used it.. Only read about it in passing.

It's sort of a "build your own distro" toolkit. Hard to beat in performance but also hard to actually get working.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It's sort of a "build your own distro" toolkit. Hard to beat in performance but also hard to actually get working.

Are you sure? Went looking to refresh my memory and...

Downloads – Gentoo Linux

News and information from Gentoo Linux

www.gentoo.org

 

[Aquinus]

It's sort of a "build your own distro" toolkit. Hard to beat in performance but also hard to actually get working.

The payoff is also usually pretty minimal. I live in Linux and I'd be the first to tell you that it's not worth it. If you really need performance, just use Clear Linux. If you want something that is going to be on a server, us something like Ubuntu, but I don't think that you really need to compile everything from source. It's a lot of time for minimal gain (in my opinion.) Particularly when you have distros already tuned for performance (like Clear.)

 

[lexluthermiester]

If you really need performance, just use Clear Linux.

Haven't heard of that one before. Looks interesting. Thanks for mentioning it.

 

[DrCR]

Clear Linux is a new one for me as well. Interesting that Intel decided they wanted their own distro.

For those interested:

Linux distro review: Intel’s own Clear Linux OS

Clear Linux OS is the best benchmarking distro. But what’s it like to live with?

arstechnica.com

Making The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X Run Even Faster - By Loading Up Intel's Clear Linux - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

 

[R-T-B]

Are you sure? Went looking to refresh my memory and...

Downloads – Gentoo Linux

News and information from Gentoo Linux

www.gentoo.org

Yep, that's just boot media. It only gets you to a live command line to start the install on your own. The process is basically extracting a stage tarball yourself into a disk that you partitioned yourself, and then editing a plethora of config files by hand just to get the thing to boot to a package manager-enabled command line.

They have a GUI download too, but it doesn't have an installer either. Just enables you to read help docs while you work.

Here, have a looksie at the handbook:

Gentoo AMD64 Handbook - Gentoo wiki

wiki.gentoo.org

The payoff is also usually pretty minimal. I live in Linux and I'd be the first to tell you that it's not worth it.

If you mean from compile flags, I'd agree.
You get more from picking and choosing what goes into it and what features are on/off, what versions are used, etc. Which is precisely why I don't have time for it, that's time consuming shit that you can get lost in.

But at any rate, at the end of the day I've reached the point where I just have to USE my computer, lol. So yeah, what good is optimizing the heck out of it for an even (theoretical, not likely) 10% increase if you never get to use it?

So yeah, I agree completely from the point of view of compile flags, and mostly alltogether agree unless you have excess time and nothing better to do.

 

[Solaris17]

No, not performance wise if you put the time in. Nothing beats compiling from source to the target hardware. But it takes so damn long.

I miss gentoo performance, but man that install time like bruh.

 

[R-T-B]

I miss gentoo performance, but man that install time like bruh.

It doesn't help that you are the installer, so you can't walk away either.

Yeah I miss Gentoo but I don't miss Gentoo, if you catch my meaning...

 

[Solaris17]

It doesn't help that you are the installer, so you can't walk away either.

Yeah I miss Gentoo but I don't miss Gentoo, if you catch my meaning...

Yeah like I’ve mentioned earlier I’m a suse guy, and to be clear as I’m sure a bunch of people will itch to tear apart my previous comment.

I was agreeing to enforce the idea of gentoo performance, the reality is that in my opinion unless a specific application is needed (scientific) then another distro is more or less totally fine. as the performance differences in any user scenario would likely be negligible.

gentoo is an OS for purpose I wouldn’t say it’s a stretch of the imagination to think most of the username was lost during the install process.

 

[R-T-B]

Yeah like I’ve mentioned earlier I’m a suse guy, and to be clear as I’m sure a bunch of people will itch to tear apart my previous comment.

I was agreeing to enforce the idea of gentoo performance, the reality is that in my opinion unless a specific application is needed (scientific) then another distro is more or less totally fine. as the performance differences in any user scenario would likely be negligible.

gentoo is an OS for purpose I wouldn’t say it’s a stretch of the imagination to think most of the username was lost during the install process.

Fun fact, Suse was actually my first linux I ever tried. Because it was my first and I was coming from windows XP (this was like circa 2003-2004), I hated it. Fortunately I got over that nearly 10 years later, and find it pretty nice today.

I just went with Kubuntu because I want a mostly bug free experience and let's face it, they got manpower. It was that or redhat really and I can't stand redhat since a guy I hated back in highschool wouldn't shut up about it, so admitedly biased there.

 

[Solaris17]

Fun fact, Suse was actually my first linux I ever tried. Because it was my first and I was coming from windows XP (this was like circa 2003-2004), I hated it. Fortunately I got over that nearly 10 years later, and find it pretty nice today.

I just went with Kubuntu because I want a mostly bug free experience and let's face it, they got manpower. It was that or redhat really and I can't stand redhat since a guy I hated back in highschool wouldn't shut up about it, so admitedly biased there.

I can’t blame you I’m a KDE fanboi and conical has hella money to throw at consumer OS development, suse likes to play around in ent like rhel.

you take a look at budgie? That environment I honestly stumbled on by accident earlier this year. Gorgeous.

Ubuntu Budgie

Ubuntu Budgie is a community developed distribution, integrating the Budgie Desktop Environment with Ubuntu at its core

ubuntubudgie.org

 

[johnspack]

Heh, many years ago opensuse was my first taste of linux. I did like it, but it wasn't enough to wean me off windows. It wasn't until windows 10, and kubuntu arrived, when I
knew I had to change.....

 

[lexluthermiester]

Heh, many years ago opensuse was my first taste of linux. I did like it, but it wasn't enough to wean me off windows. It wasn't until windows 10, and kubuntu arrived, when I
knew I had to change.....

You really should give a look at Mint;

Home - Linux Mint

Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up to date and comfortable desktop operating system.

linuxmint.com

My personal fav is XFCE. Lean, clean and performs like Windows wishes it could.

 

[R-T-B]

I thought I should check in. I'm using Xubuntu at present to reduce the CPU load on my Kerbal Space Program game. It works great. I haven't used windows for gaming in months and have not missed anything much really either.

The only thing I feel Linux needs in the gaming department is HDR support, even though it's hit and miss in practice. I still would like to see them attempt to do it. But otherwise, one very happy froggy.

 

[remixedcat]

You really should give a look at Mint;

Home - Linux Mint

Linux Mint is an elegant, easy to use, up to date and comfortable desktop operating system.

linuxmint.com

My personal fav is XFCE. Lean, clean and performs like Windows wishes it could.

Brought new life to my t430 Lenovo.

 

[R-T-B]

Brought new life to my t430 Lenovo.

XFCE is my new fave Desktop. Not that KDE is bad, but XFCE has no business being that functional and fast. It's like having your cake and eating it too.

 

[DrCR]

I found Mint's QC to be slightly lacking. Ran it on a family computer for many years. Quirks like the random disabling a network printer persisted from release to release. Switched to straight Ubuntu this spring. All good now, as inconvenient as it was for the family to get a acclimated to the GUI change.

Using a XFCE Slackware-based distro for my personal daily driver. It's like a good Japanese car, gloriously boringly reliable. Ubuntu on a second distro for Steam and GOG gaming.

 

[FinneousPJ]

I found Mint's QC to be slightly lacking. Ran it on a family computer for many years. Quirks like the random disabling a network printer persisted from release to release. Switched to straight Ubuntu this year. So far so good, as inconvenient as it was for the family to get a acclimated to the GUI change.

Using a XFCE Slackware-based distro for my personal daily driver. It's like a good Japanese car, gloriously boringly reliable. Ubuntu on a second distro for Steam and GOG gaming.

You can get cinnamon on ubuntu if they only care about the gui

 

[remixedcat]

XFCE is my new fave Desktop. Not that KDE is bad, but XFCE has no business being that functional and fast. It's like having your cake and eating it too.

Eeyup. Very stable too

 

[Aquinus]

HDR support

The 5.3 kernel added the kernel bits to support HDR in AMDGPU, but I don't know if there has been any movement in userspace code to support it. I don't think nVidia supports it at all though.

 

[Sandbo]

I tried to be one, but there are many things that just won't work:
-Ray tracing games, in particular, I play minecraft a lot and am really looking forward to the upgrade
-Amazon. This company hates Linux and its HD audio and Prime Video HD will only work on Windows/mac. On linux you are stuck with SD.

I use ubuntu wherever I could (my office computer, my Proxmox VM workstation all runs ubuntu), but my home desktop which I rely on for entertainment unfortunately has to be goddamn windows.

 

[R-T-B]

Ray tracing games, in particular, I play minecraft a lot and am really looking forward to the upgrade

That's missing a functional API for it mostly. Vulkan is really the only hope there. You'll never get minecraft though, the ray tracing one is a Windows Store exclusive.

Amazon. This company hates Linux and its HD audio and Prime Video HD will only work on Windows/mac. On linux you are stuck with SD.

Amazon actually loves linux, at least on their sever end. The DRM is the issue there. No one likes a platform they can't control, DRM wise. Linux is just that.