I finally got an opportunity to go for a second OS on my home PC for working purposes, so now I’m thinking what I will be facing in terms of hardware…
I have a Corsair K95 and Ironclaw. So iCue is the first culprit.
Secondly, it’s NZXT CAM, which I use to control fans.
Creative AE-5 soundcard is the next thing bothering me.
Since I have a 2080Ti, would like to have the nVidia Broadcast on board.
And maybe… just maybe, some alternative to Argus Monitor, which I use to control the pump, connected to the motherboard header.
So my question is - how fun will it be in terms of making it work properly? I’m currently thinking about going KDE Ubuntu/Kubuntu (or someone could suggest an alternative) just to Debian based package support (hoping to get more support by default).
There is an experimental driver available for fancy stuff on the corsair mouse/keyboards. Without the driver, they will work fine for basic things (pointing, clicking, typing, button bindings etc) and will remember whatever RGB you set them to earlier.
Sadly no Linux port exists for NZXT CAM but you should have some luck with Coolero:
Creative AE-5 soundcard seems to be supported since 2021 but you might want to dabble a bit with Pipewire to get everything working properly.
Nvidia Broadcast is Windows only, so a flat out no for now. If you want it for the noise suppression this might help though:
See above mentioned Coolero. Should support that too.
That card has one unique feature - switching from headset to speaker output, which is executed through the software but on hardware level (you literally hear a “click” when switching those). This is what I’m afraid will become my first headache.
Don’t remember if it was Coolero, but Google did bring my hopes up on this matter. Will be a second option.
I wish Linux would have as much support as Mac or Windows. Think I would switch to Linux as my home environment the same second.
Ah well, will have to configure the hardware profile then.
It’s not even the noise suppression - it’s the camera pack. Autofocus, background removal (I hate relying on cases where my browser is being blamed for not supporting XYZ feature that only THAT OTHER BETTER browser is supporting).
You’d be amazed what you can do with Pipewire these days. In Linux all inputs/outputs are routed to pipewire and then you can easily and on the fly switch inputs/outputs to whatever. Heck, it even allows for multiple Bluetooth headphones, imagine that. (Yes, this is impossible to do in Windows)
So, should be a lot easier than you think, as long as there is hardware support. I suspect the click you hear is simply firmware in the card that automatically detects data on the other port.
Linux likes to have one app for all brands instead of what is essentially the same app rebranded for every brand. And to be fair - why the heck shouldn’t there just be an RGB tab in the Windows control panel or Gnome Settings panel? Seems like a more sensible choice over time to me.
Sounds more like a transistor or something (I hear the same click with my beQuiet Darkpower platinum series, when I turn on the PC). So my fear is that it has some specific instruction. But yeah, that should be handled by hardware support.
This is my first deep dive into Linux on my home pc. Really looking forward (want to install it on a spare m2 drive for that “it’s over 9000!”).
Linux has been promising as hell from the moment I started learning it. But I always tripped when it came to “vendor support” stuff.
I hear ya!
Hum, wouldn’t it be an overkill? I just need it for slack/ms.teams(oh yeah, that will be fun) or other software, which either works with raw input from the cam or "In order to have the background blurred, you need to install Chrome -_-).
One other silly question to ask - can you recommend something as an alternative for Winamp/Aimp3? I know Wine helps to run those, but I can’t use hardware MEDIA_PLAY keys to control music (and my k95 macro keys are configured for that specific task).
Yeah, maybe… What should be possible, but I’m not sure if everything supports it yet, is to just route your video feed through Pipewire and apply intelligent filters there. This would in theory give the same control as Audio, but the professional Audio implementations are much more mature than professional Video implementations.
Well, what is it that you require from Winamp? These days I use Spotify, but when I did have an mp3 collection I had some good experiences with the default music player in Gnome. Otherwise I’ve heard good things about Kodi Media Center (Previously XBox Media Center),
Decent UI with playlists and stuff. Plus a decent level of processing the mp3’s and flac’s.
Nah, my playlist is a wildcard with my favorite things, collected throughout the years from different sources (some of which I downloaded “not really legally”… I am ashamed, yes!). Both flac and 320bps mp3s. I tried Spotify, but didn’t like the execution (and heard differences in sound quality, where Aimp is exchanging heavy punches with foobar when it comes to bringing the best listening experience).
Tried that, but it’s not the same. Has a long way to go.
Oh yeah, know that one. The first time in years I had to use RESET because my 9900k was caught up on some unknown task (which disappeared after I removed Kodi), for which I couldn’t even get to task manager.
Yep, Pipewire is actually just a layer that allows you to hook generic datastreams from sources to sinks. Audio, Video, Networking, Sensor data, USB connected joysticks, bluetooth devices… List is endless.
Of course since everyone is just using it for Audio right now, the tools are most mature on the Audio side. But there is no reason the stream cannot be something other than Audio.
Sounds like you might want to try out Audacious then.
The issue here is not the Linux Developers so much as Vendors either not directly supporting the Linux Kernel or user space. At the very least, if the vendors would publish specifications or design around open hardware standards then it would be much easier for the F/LOSS community to support the products. After all most of the community are just volunteers that try to support things out of necessity or because it is fun. The vast majority of contributors are not paid.
I would second this if you “like” Winamp. There are other players that you can download. I used to use Winamp on GNU/Linux until they stopped supporting it. I went to there winamp clones and eventually settled on Audacious. Eventually I was fine with the default gnome music player (totem?) as it did mostly what I needed to do. Interface could be a little better but it works and I got tired of trying to maintain Audacious on my own until its transition happened that settled its dependency hell (on Debian back in ~2015).
At least for Windows, there is Aimp3. Have gotten used to it over the years and don’t see an alternative in terms of quality and UI. I think it started off as Winamp alternative, but the level of polish and features are quite good (like PowerAmp for android).
Firstly I’d wean yourself of of Windows specific things like controlling the fan speed. Set it in the BIOS.
I would also buy a 2nd drive to boot Linux, don’t try and dual boot from the same drive. Select the boot drive at boot time.
Then set up a shared area for transferring files. Ideally this would be a file server on your network but could be a partition that both Windows and Linux can access.
Keep Windows as your main computer and don’t get wedded to a particular Linux, you want to try as many as possible.
To get yourself off Windows change to programs in Windows that also work well in Linux like LibreOffice, Thunderbird and Brave Browser. No one misses Windows, they just miss the programs that only work in Windows.
Sadly, but things aren’t that simple. I have a custom loop with 5 fans, which I configured to react to GPU/CPU temps. All this is managed through “NZXT CAM” (had a controller lying around), and the sad part is that the controller doesn’t have built-in memory - fan profiles are loaded with the app.
I did find a Linux alternative, which supports NZXT. Hope it will work.
Have a separate m2 drive, where I plan to install Linux. Will use the dualboot/grub option, but gonna set the m2 drive as first boot order so the win10 bootloader won’t get overwritten (an easy way to change all back if I somehow screw up).
Not the first time with Linux But a first time with Linux on my home pc, which contains “specific parts”, bound to Windows support (which is the problem).
For starters, will go for Ubuntu, since Debian has most out-of-the-box support in my experience. Manjaro, OpenSuse and stuff will be for “when I figure everything out”
If you wanted to commit to Linux but like most people still need Windows for some things then Chris Titus has a good solution;
Yeah I know it’s a VM but you give it it’s own SSD which makes it fast. You could even give it it’s own GPU and even a 2nd monitor dedicated to Windows.
This means you can have both OS running at the same time which will save lots of rebooting when you realise the thing you need is on the other system.
Mine has a bit different scenario - I generally need two “desks” - one for home use (where I can have “non-licensed” software and don’t overthink too much about security), the second is fully for work.
Going fully Linux is maybe a good idea for the future, but today I’ll stick to win10 as my “home desk”, since I need that “out-of-the-box”, where I simply “plug-and-play” with zero worry about support (it took me a few hours of googling to realize that you cannot replace Razer’s software on a Linux environment… or play the game of “building blocks” - one for rgb, one for hotkeys and so on).
You could go further build two full computers in one case. Build on top of ProxMox with two GPUs. Both Windows and Linux would be VMs but you would not know. You can pass specific bits of hardware to specific VMs, like individual USB.
I’m not sure what you mean about licenced software and why that would not work in a VM.
Sounds interesting. But, if I understand correctly, this is still based on Linux and still would end up being an additional layer of communication between the endpoint OS and hardware, right?
