Microsoft Should be VERY Afraid - Noob's Guide to Linux Gaming
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
2,932 words · ~14 min read
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hey what's up oh computer trouble man all i want to do is write scripts
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dank ass jokes for LTT but i've been stuck in an infinite bootloop for like a
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day what if i told you that there's a way
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out from under the iron grip of the bloated legacy
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of billy g why are you using that voice i can show
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you sure but i must warn you
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it's a rabbit hole that you may never want to climb back out of
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but you never explain the voice and if you do escape you should probably escape
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to our sponsor thanks to joan for sponsoring this video
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okay so you got me down here why don't you start by telling me
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why i should care about Linux well it's simple really i can say with confidence
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that it's the future of gaming that's a pretty bold claim yeah but
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there are huge companies backing it right now now you can play stream games in Linux
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using valve's proton and the number of games is growing by the day
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as a result of that NVIDIA has been focusing on Linux drivers almost as much
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as Windows and you want to know the most important thing hit me google's game
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streaming service stadia relies on Linux using vulkan native Linux versions of
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the most popular titles are all but certain at the very least Windows
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versions with vulkan support which makes proton's job that much easier what's
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more game developers see proton as a way to access a whole new audience of Linux
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users meaning the more popular proton becomes with gamers the more native
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Linux releases developers will make i see and you're going to talk me through
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this right i mean i've never used Linux before
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and i've heard that it's pretty complicated
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not necessarily do you remember how we had to jump through a lot of hoops in
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order to get our last video on ubuntu gaming up to date enough to
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run games properly well as it turns out there's actually a
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bunch of different distros available where that's not a problem
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wait hold on slow down a second i've heard about ubuntu before but what's a
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distro oh right it's short for distribution and ubuntu
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is just one of them okay uh you can think of it like Android some phones get
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updates faster than others or come with their own bundled apps and
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ui scans the same with Linux so you can think of ubuntu as being similar to say
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touchwiz on samsung galaxy phones or oxygen os and oneplus okay like those
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ubuntu is not always the most up to date but it's got a nice enough interface
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it's you know pretty popular
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some distros on the other hand are more elegant and some are more customizable
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some have more features other place emphasis on stability that kind of thing
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so what if i don't like one distro and i want to choose another one i'm gonna have to learn everything again from
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scratch no just like on Android where you can
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download a new launcher if you don't like the interface on a Linux distro
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you can just download a new desktop environment ubuntu itself is a distro
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and these days just uses a customized version of a desktop environment called
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gnome but if you want a more Windows like experience there's kde lxqt and
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xfce and if you want a more mac-like experience there's deepen pantheon and
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budgie all of which feature high levels of polish ubuntu even has a bunch of
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different flavors with that in mind like kubuntu
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zubuntu and ubuntu budgie i love these names
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and since you can run them all off of usb drive you can give it a test drive without
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even affecting your existing operating system so like if you have Windows
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it only takes a few minutes just download the iso and using balina etcher
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or rufus you just create a usb drive and off you
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go just one of these that's pretty sweet
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okay so as i said i have heard of ubuntu so since it's the most popular one
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that's got to be the best for gaming right um yes and no
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ubuntu has the advantage of being ridiculously popular so most guys will
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be written with it in mind the problem is that ubuntu ships with old versions
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of all the software we're going to need so there are some hoops to jump through
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in order to get the working gaming setup with that in mind though there are two
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distros i'd like to bring attention to today system 76 is pop os and manjaro
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pop os is based on ubuntu so it's able to take advantage of ubuntu's community
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support and it also has more up-to-date software than stock ubuntu does
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which makes it simpler to get up and running manjaro on the other hand is not
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based on ubuntu but something called arch which is really geared towards more
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advanced users and uses what's called a rolling release cycle which is similar
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in concept to stock Android release cycle this gives us access to even more
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recent software plus it even has steam pre-installed
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and like ubuntu manjaro comes in multiple flavors just in case you like
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one desktop environment over another okay so you're saying if i install
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manjaro i just have steam but if i go with pop os then i need to go to the
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website and download steam right uh no that's where the package manager comes
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in the huberty way well it's basically like an app store and it gives you a
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list of searchable software that is gathered from a list of centralized
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repositories that you can just download and install with a couple clicks and this gives you
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automatic updates as they become available on the repository and installs
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any prerequisites the app might need so on pop os you just open up the pop shop
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and search for steam is there a lot less overhead with this os uh compared to Windows yes
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just feels so fast and light okay but
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what if a software i want isn't even in the store uh in that case your next step
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is to turn to the community and on ubuntu-based distros that comes in the
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form of personal package archives or ppas which can be added in pop shop
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settings window under extra sources meanwhile on manjaro you'd use the arch
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user repository which is a little easier to set up just enable it in manjaro's
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preferred package manager pamac usually these will give you access to
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software that might not have package available for your distro for example
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things like discord teamviewer or obs okay but what if it's not on either of
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those then as a last resort you would turn to
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the author's website just like on Windows but that's not really a common
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problem to have which is fortunate because it's not as easy or as clean to
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install something you downloaded from the internet on Linux as it is on
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Windows or macOS you'd be at the mercy of the developer
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having good instructions and you'll probably need to use the terminal like
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shown here hold on a second you expect me to
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understand all this gibberish no in many cases it's just a universal way
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to provide an easier installation experience for people until the software's available in their package
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manager how is this easier don't be intimidated you can just copy
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and paste if it's a reputable piece of software there's a little harm in it
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even if you don't understand what's happening the terminal isn't something
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that needs to be scary it's just old-fashioned feeling but think of it
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this way how often have you been digging through settings trying to figure out where that
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one button is true if you know exactly what you want your
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computer to do and that includes copying these lines
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it's the fastest and simplest way to go and by the way this even applies to
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Windows and macOS 2. okay so now with pop os i normally go to
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the pop shop and if it's not there i'd add a ppa but if it's not there then i
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just copy this stuff and it'll install how much more do i have to know to play
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games actually surprisingly little while it's
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not strictly necessary to get everything working we're primarily focused on
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making sure your drivers are up to date thankfully manjaro has the ability to
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install them for you in just a few clicks using the manjaro settings
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manager followed by a quick reboot but pop os has dedicated versions for AMD
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Intel and NVIDIA users with the drivers already pre-installed no fuss
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all that's left for you to do is install a piece of software called wine via the
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package manager that will let us run Windows programs and ensure all the prerequisites are
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installed for our next important item lutrus which is a game manager for Linux
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that can handle games not supported by steam what is this logo trying to be
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like an egg it's a little guy it's a little otter yeah okay so
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is it ready now can i play some games sure
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games like rocket league team fortress 2 and the most newer indie games actually
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are straight up available on steam for Linux without needing any compatibility
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layers or special setup so it just knows that i'm on a Linux pc and it's going to
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install the right one yeah sweet yep it's what valve calls steam play and i
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think you'll be surprised at just how many games are jumping to Linux there's
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over 5 000 native Linux games as of today including many aaa titles thanks
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to porting studios like feral interactive and that's not even including the growing support for proton
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just check out the excellent community run proton db site
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and what's more you can even enable proton for any game on steam by going to
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steam play in settings and checking a box
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but if you want to install games like starcraft 2 overwatch league of legends
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or if you're big on good old games or humble store you'll want to use lutrus
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which makes the process dead simple just grab one of the community-made
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installers from lucas.net and it does all the work for you configuring wine
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setting all the right variables installing all the support software all
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that stuff you used to have to do manually so why don't you just take for a spin
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all right so i got activities um
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you can go to that or you can go to lucrez.net
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either way click on the button where it says search lutras.net
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and click install do i have to install this directx 9
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yeah so this is going to launch battle.net you might need to still install starcraft but it says play it's
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playable uh i think you can launch multiplayer or something
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balls a wrath oh look at all the achievements i get
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just for logging in it's so great cool so it just looks like
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the game am i going to play do i get paid to play right now how many actions per minute do
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you have like 40. this is probably enough
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i got a gateway or i'm about to
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need to construct more pylons i have not enough minerals
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wait what my life for iron i'm out of here go oh this guy's gonna
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die for sure i'm not doing anything let's just let's let's end this now okay
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i played a game on Linux your first game on Linux i did it
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you said that there were some hoops that had to be jumped through but to be clear
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you don't have any of that on popos or manjaro it's just it just all works like
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we saw yeah so ubuntu is due for an update like
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now which might fix some of that but for popos and manjaro and actually for a
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number of other distros we didn't cover today the steps basically boil down to install
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the os install steam or lutrus and start playing
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that's what makes these distros especially enticing for gamers but
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while manjaro is set up well to cater the gamers out of the box it's not going
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to be as stable as a distro like ubuntu and that's why popos and others like it
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try to bridge that gap with updated drivers while still retaining excellent
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community support and stable packages which makes them a good choice for
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getting your feet wet okay so what games am i
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least likely to be able to play and
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are there any gotchas there are a couple of caveats when it
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comes to gaming on Linux uh the biggest ones uh are problems with anti-cheat
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software and intrusive drm schemes and with switchable graphics like NVIDIA
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optimus thankfully with valve and talks with easy anti-sheet there's some hope for
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resolution on anti-cheat sometime soon but for switchable graphics right now
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ubuntu-based distros are the only ones that provide any real support out of the
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box like popolis and the workarounds for other distros
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aren't pretty to say nothing of Linux is HDR support right now which is zero
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you'll also lose access to most if not all of your dedicated RGB lighting
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controls hold up hey come on get back here
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yeah hold up there are some stand-ins for
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configuring peripherals like ckb next piper and anti-micro okay
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i'm listening just be prepared for limited support for external peripherals
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that rely on custom software especially for headsets and less
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mainstream brands in general but aside from that you know we keep saying it but
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it keeps turning out to be true getting into Linux is easier than ever and the
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rapid pace at which features are equal in Windows is only going to accelerate
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now that google stadia again a Linux based platform using vulcan
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is coming and because proton and stadia
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and videos working overtime to match AMD's already excellent open source
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drivers and wikis for arch and ubuntu are excellent resources for learning and
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troubleshooting plus the Linux gaming subreddit is huge
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thanks for your contributions you guys you rock
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and if you take all that together i mean it looks like we're in the middle of a
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volta 2.0 features four bold colors red black silver and blue and they've got
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feet we've got the amazon links in the video description
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