This is part one of our companion coverage with LTT on Gaming on Linux. First, let's talk about Native Gaming in Linux (and how far we've come. And how far we've got to go).
If people donât want to change the kernel, maybe they can use Fedora until Debian (and Debian based distros) get to 4.17?
Great video! I really wish there was a way to just automate kernel installs on Ubuntu in order to mimic the updates on Fedora. I love UKUU, but manual is just an extra step, you know?
BTW, I just read âLTTâ as Level Two Techs. sigh
On that LinusTechTip video, I noticed gaming on Linux natively wasnât really mentioned in the video. Like wouldnât this be the first option to choose before resorting to Lutris+Wine+DXVK? Unless you thought it didnât need to be mentioned at first or because of the fact itâs mentioned on this video which makes sense.
Great video other than that. Itâs just too bad Raven Ridge isnât ready for prime time on Linux. Cause my laptop crashes trying to play most games.
You would need to manually update the kernel once in a while (I do it every 2-3 weeks but thatâs just me) but can you do that without a CLI? I done it myself with one since the CLI is a powerful tool.
Oh, this reminds me, are you going to be covering how to mount additional drives and make sure they are automatically mounted on reboot? Seems like this step might take a bit of editing a certain configuration file (canât remember the name, think it was fdisk or fsck or fstab).
I do a few things for game performance and general use on Ubuntu after a fresh installs. First, I use the minimal installer in 18.04 LTS. These are just my preferences/suggestions for performance.
I prefer security only updates since I do need my desktop to remain reliable. You might want to select the fastest download server manually. Fedora has a DNF configuration command for fastest mirror. On Ubuntu, you do it in Software Center settings.
A standard apt-get update, security updates and kernel update are âusuallyâ good before the first reboot. Reboot and hope itâs still stable. This usually unveils if your installer downloaded correctly (md5 check to be sure).
Turn swappiness off with boot SSD:
sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=0;
Minimize mouse input latency:
touch ~/90-mouse.conf;
Edit: Indent formatting isnât showing on the forum. Pic is attached.
Donât forget to run âalsamixerâ from a terminal and double check your sound cardâs settings like mic boost on/off, output to front or front-panel, number of speakers, etc. before you start messing with the GUI modifiers.
Music Player: Integrates perfectly with Gnome 3, low memory use, and super fast library scans
Reboot again and install all of the software you prefer. I would say Web Browsers and Steam last (after all the tools, compilers and media stuff).
Great video! Thanks for being so informative, I use to watch you back in the early days of Tek Syndicate (with that podcast thing), and had no idea what happened. Just some videos about some sort of drama, and you disappeared. Rediscovered you thanks to Linus.
As a web developer IRL, who has to deal with the crazy windows development environment: Next PC ill probably switch to Linux full time. I gather it still wont be a plug-in-play experience, but at least itâs not a plug-in-code-4-custom-apis-download-twenty-programs-congrats-you-can-play-Tetris thing anymore.
Not to get offtopic but for webdev Linux is a godsend. Have an ultimate threadripper webdev build video I have been working on for months. Dm me your workflow (vagrant? Etc?) And if you do automated testing
I feel like I am missing something, but I donât see a DM button anywhere.
As far as my workflow, its entirely windows of right now. It sounds like a nightmare, and it is. I mostly do frontend work (although I prefer backend work), and all of our testings gets sent upstream to senior devs. Just a simple junior-dev grunt, a cog in the system, who they donât trust.
Great start to the series, looking forward to more 
If you click his picture there will be a âMessageâ option.
I understand your position, as Iâve been there. If you can, squeeze in some Jasmine. If you find a function is doing several things, even two different things, try and split the tasks up. Optimize loops and decisions, take refactoring seriously, try and at least shadow testing. I know youâve probably heard or read this somewhere, but as someone thatâs been in your shoes, it can pay to be very aggressive about it
@wendell Man, you guys did some nice editing on this once versus the draft. Itâs good!
Still love that intro. I got inspired to start jamming again lol.
@wendell You mentioned in one of these most recent videos in this series that there are people who will ask why someone isnât using a certain distro and immediately berate or disqualify whatever is said because they donât agree with them. How about a Level 1 Gaming distro designed and preconfigured to just run games out of the box? If normal folks could download and install a distro specifically designed to play games on Linux then it wouldnât really be a question about why your not using a particular flavor of Linux. Allow me for a second to imagine a distro thatâs prepackaged with all of the tools, scripts, drivers, game engines, current kernels, setup/helper scripts for GPU passthrough, etc that are tested and known to work. I could also envision an update repository for keeping the distro up to date with the latest game scripts that would help you load games through wine (or whatever else comes along.) Sorry for rambling, but I really think this could go a long way to helping everyone migrate to Linux. What do you think?
This isnât necessary. At worst I could see a wiki with step-by-step configuration commands (I can think of: lower mouse input latency, make sure monitor refresh is good, maybe use a DE that doesnât require a 1-frame framebuffer to do its compositing step, etc).
Clear Linux is pre-tuned for a lot of this stuff, but there are costs/tradeoffs. Also, if memcpy() is not what some steam games expect, they crash.
I have thought about it. For now, energies are best spent elsewhere. I am hoping that, soon, someone like Linus Torvalds emerges with a singular vision of what Linux on the desktop can be and that they are able to inspire an army of developers to help implement their vision. The problem with this approach is that the Desktop Czar will probably have such zeal and specific ideas for the ideal UX they would be abrasive. A lot of the work needed for linux on the desktop, at this point, is janitorial in nature. Not fun.
I really think Solus is a good recommendation for new people to linux and want to play games. Probably better than Ubuntu. Solus is much more up to date package wise and has Linux Steam Integration which is pretty much just built in workarounds for common issues youâll encounter on steam. I guess because there arenât too many packages available as of now, it makes it harder to recommend but I still think itâs worth note.
If the different distroâs and game devâs would agree on a few common things, like using directX or Vulkan and/or a standardized api and make the integration of that into the kernel/distro easy for the user (a few mouseclicks on install) Gaming on linux may take off for real.
The easyer the installation process is, the bigger the group of people you can tempt onto the linux platform.
gaming on linux for a âpower userâ is possible today, so we have to work on making the initial step to linux easy for the starters.
Itâ a fulltime job but possible
Great video that i will use to show the muggles that gaming on a Linux platform is a thing.
First time i have used Ubuntu for gaming normally a Manjaro man myself, but because i would like to improve gaming on steam i will follow along using Ubuntu. I have never liked âplay-on-linuxâ always been a pain in the arse to install and run a game. Native gaming always made more sense to me, makes the platform more user friendly. 1, install Linux ⌠2, install steam ⌠3, game away.
One question about your video. @2:48 it shows your steam library with Arma 2 operations arrowhead (beta) that he can install to steam and play on Linux, I have this game also BUT it does not allow me to play on linux. What am I missing here ??
Is Vulkan active by default on 18.04 kernels for AMD cards? Cause in Mint 18.3 with the 4.15 through uuku i had to get the latest oibaf PPA to make it work.
I am not sure if this is what we are supposed to talk about with how the previous replies have been but Iâll do it anyway
for native gaming most of the time everything works fine with the little gaming i have done,
but you have outliers like Duke Nukem 3D megaton edition which on kernel 4.17 (i think is the new one) and i3 as wm (on arch) doesnât work properly, sometimes the game doesnât render the correct layers or the mouse buttons wonât work. I have seen similar behavior with Slain Back from Hell but there i didnât get into the game because the text would just be stacked on top of each other and never actually disappear.
But GZdoom (doom source port) works fine, same with Spearmint (quake 3 source port) and DXX rebirth (Descent 1/2 source port) all open source projects.
As with closed games Grim Fandango, Freedom Planet and Baldurâs Gate works fine.
I donât think i have done much more native gaming than that so far as i donât do that a lot anymore
[edit]
I am using nvidia proprietary driver
Just as a sidenote, went through some of the steps mentioned in the video(s) and upped the kernel to 4.17.9 and added the mesa ppa (miguel-cortez or whatever) so now my my boot hangs at Gnome Display Manager - guess something was too bleeding edge for RX580s in there
Didnât have time to look into any solution yet, but any other RX580 users might want to double check before updating 
There is a Padoka stable Mesa PPA (https://launchpad.net/~paulo-miguel-dias/+archive/ubuntu/pkppa?field.series_filter=bionic) and another PPA offering stable Mesa at https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/ubuntu/updates).
Theyâre at 18.1.4 and 18.1.3 for Bionic, respectively.
