I have been trying to connect an NSO SNES Switch controller to my PC but I have been having some issues. My Bluetooth device does recognize it as an SNES controller but the lights on the controller never go to the connected look. Furthermore, none of my steam games recognize the controller. Can anyone help me out here?

I'm posting this here because part of this story does involve Linux, since I use Mint as my daily driver for gaming and mention a handful of opensource tools. I also figured these findings might be worth it to other Linux gamers out there. Most of this can be seen as just for fun, but as usual it led me down a rabbit hole of solutions for both of these on Linux. It is ultimately a story of hardware > software solutions.

The Problem:

I used a tiny ortholinear for my day job and well a preonic wasn't really working well for decades of muscle memory of gaming on a staggered layout. So I looked around and ended up getting a Redragon K585 with red switches in it. The board is silly cheap for what you get. However to hit that price, the switches are garbage that come in the board. I'm definitely a harsh typer, I've killed many a mechanical key, but never as often as the Redragon's OEM switches. I was regularly having to replace them and I was running out. I yet again needed to replace one of WASD keys and somehow couldn't find any of the keycap pullers in the house and the funny part was I could get a Razer Tartarus V2 faster than I could a keycap puller. Being that I didn't want to miss out on any gaming nor go back to gaming on a Preonic, I ordered the Razer.

This presented a new hurdle because Razer, and I almost feel this is on purpose to get you to lean into using their software for remapping, made the Tartarus V2 cut off before the row with the G key on it. A key that most games use for grenades.

When comparing the two side by side the razer appears to have better ergos, but it has less keys and requires more remapping. Is it better to learn a new controller or use what works? Also that scroll wheel ended up being worthless

The Rabbit hole:
This is where I kind of went down a rabbit hole. I realized I now had a new problem and that was I was going to have to remap the Tartarus for a bunch of games. Thankfully input-remapper exists (Side not anyone else notice they posted an issue on github mentioning the project is basically in maintenance mode?) and can be used to remap the Tartarus. Well this had the issue of needing to be manually changed each time I loaded a game. This sent me down the path of writing a BASH script that did this by process id, which BTW led me down the rabbit hole of why we don't have great window tracking support on Linux. For fun I decided to use AI to see how well it would write it. Not bad, but it loved to randomly re-introduce bugs or just change the names of variables.

However this solution was also somewhat of an issue because input-remapper's cli requires you to have input group access and I didn't want to accidentally make a BASH script that ran in the background that could be used as a keylogger or other nefarious reasons on my machine. Which had me thinking of still fixing the Redragon. I also noticed that sometimes it would be real weird about remapping, sometimes working flawlessly while other times it would only apply the RGB changes.

I found out that the Redragon uses Otemu switches, which are similar to mx switches, but also don't appear to be. I can get an Outemu into an MX board, but not vice versa. When I've tried other mx switches they wouldn't seat properly and usually bend a pin. So I went ahead and bought a pack of Outemu Silent Yellow Jade switches as they should be compatible (I would later find out that they are five and not three pin switches, thankfully having gunpla modeling tools I already had nippers to make that mod).

I also decided that I wanted to get custom keycaps off of etsy, this is where everything really makes the upgrades more than the board. My custom keycaps were a little less than $100 USD. However I found that a lot of off the shelf set of replacement keycaps, which wouldn't completely fit the board due to oddly shaped T and G keys, were going to cost roughly the same. The cheapest I think I could find were ~$50, but I suspected they wouldn't have been an upgrade to what the K585 comes with stock.

At this point there's a serious argument for just buying a replacement RedragonK585, but I hated the idea of having duplicate boards when I can easily repair and upgrade it. I mean isn't that one of the pros of a mechanical board with hot swappable switches? Also there was the fun moment of trying to use this with OpenRGB only to find out that it is in fact a keyboard that is basically just sawed in half. OpenRGB legit shows this as a full sized keyboard with a weird layout. Which meant I had the very fun experience of mapping this keyboard for OpenRGB. If you ever need the RGB map, here you go.

Just a normal half sized keyboard layout /s LOL

Sorry for the glare, the only eights on the keyboard are on the last row. The numbers on the top you might struggle to read are threes

The End Result:

Ultimately I did opt for the upgraded Redragon over the Tartarus for multiple reasons:

1. I didn't like the ergos of the Razer. It looks ergonomic, and I'm sure it is for a bunch of people, but when you're used to lower profile boards, it can take some getting used to. I'd rather work up a tenting solution to the Redragon K585. Also I have sweaty palms, that little pad is gonna get be an issue long term.
2. While I think Redradgon's software is not great, it remaps at the hardware level. This is better than Razer which only allows software remaps. Input-remapper is great as a software remapper, but see above hurdles. This also means that worst case if input-remapper isn't doing the job for you, that Redragon's software should be easy to booted in a VM or a windows PC you have laying around.
3. I can repair this, I can't the Razer. I am pretty adamant about having things I can simply repair and the Redragon K585 fits this significantly better than the Razer. The Razer is a sturdy product, but it has membrane switches. I don't think I'd break one, but if I do its landfill while the Redragon isn't.

The switches are tactile and so far it doesn't seem like they wear my fingers out faster than the linear switches I had on it previously. They also are significantly quieter. The keycaps are resin printed and feel fantastic. You can see that they are 3D printed when you're really close to them, but it feels like nitpicking as we all know the cons of 3D printing. Overall the keycaps are stellar and I'm very happy with them. Significant upgrade over stock.

While it was fun to write a BASH script and do some coding for personal use, I'm glad I'm back to a simpler solution that doesn't require a script. Best part is I still have the script and can alter it to work with OpenRGB for color presets depending on game if I need some sort of visual indicators.

Overall I think the upgrades cost me around $130USD with shipping and taxes, twice that of the Razer's cost, almost $100 more than the Redragon stock. Also comparing this cost overall to say a Sofle or Lilly58, both of which would also do really well as a one handed gaming keyboard, are either going to require a lot of soldering (no thanks not great at it) or spending 3-4X what I spent on the upgrades and K585 in total.

I do think it is worth it and if you want a board that basically "just works", is one handed, hot swappable, and doesn't require a large upfront cost to get a great experience with, the Redragon K585 is well worth the pickup.

I went with translucent keycaps so that I could use RGB if I wanted to for specific keys depending on game.

WASD arrow keys make sure that I don't get off by a row like I used to with the stock keycaps. I've played a handful of various games and haven't had any moments of \"oh crap where is that key\" due to this

Heya, so i have attempted to give Linux another go, everything is great so far except one pretty big issue.

I am on a custom loop and have a gigabyte b650 mobo, my cooling is set up as to monitor the liquid temp via a temp sensor plugged into one of the temp sensor ports on my mobo and adjust fans accordingly. This works perfectly fine in windows with no fan control software installed, perfect.

In EndevourOS it all falls apart pretty quick. The fans remain at a minimum level and all bios settings for fan control are straight up ignored. i wasn't really paying attention to it until i put my hand on my case and it was hot... rebooted into the bios and my fans immediately ramped way up and my liquid temp was at 44c.

Even in windows nothing see's the stupid fucking sensor port (except gigabytes own mobo software) on this mobo but at least it honors the bios setting for fan control.

anyone know if im just screwing something up big time?

i would like to keep my cooling based on the liquid temp and not just hardware temps to avoid fans ramping up and down constantly.

any external fan controllers that i could buy (not corsair commander) that would accept a temp probe and be able to be seen under linux?

I installed Epic Games Launcher using Lutris, but when clicking a way to log in (e.g. Xbox acc) it says "Complete your login in your browser" and does not open the browser. Now it always opens a crash report saying that chrome crashed, but the main chrome app (the one I am currently typing in) is not closing.

Am I right in making a sweeping assumption that trying to benchmark different Linux distros would be a fools errand?

I'd say so.

Having said that, is there any reliable database of results that could shed any light on the matter?

With Windows, it's possible to benchmark hardware quite reliably.

With Linux? Not so much.

All we have right now - and please do correct me if I'm wrong - is little more than hearsay.

Things like "Arch is the best gaming distro hands down, but only for the hardcore!"

Well, sure, if you want to install Arch on your PC you just damn well go for it - reminds me of installing Linux in 1996. Screw that.

It feels like a case of:

"I got 5fps more in my game with XYZ distro"

I'd love it if someone could tell me, reliably, that going through the pain barrier of installing Arch Linux would give me 20% more performance. They may say "Install Manjaro, it's easier!"

Fair play, but will it be worth it?

If it means a few percent more performance over Mint, I'd rather just use Mint.

So where are we at folks?

Can someone link me to some reliable stats as to which Linux distro provides the best gaming performance?

Anyone?

Thought not.

I was wondering if this was possible. My laptop isn't very powerful but my desktop is not too bad. Both devices are running on Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS and on a quick local network. Thanks!

After exiting I'm getting a long black screen and then a form to fill out the bug report. Have you encountered something like that?

It exits fine on X11. But I'm interested in Wayland to check out the HDR: looks like Overwatch 2 is the only free game on Steam with HDR. But to enable HDR it has to exit cleanly to save the settings.

Manjaro, Plasma 6.

Nvidia RTX 40 Series. 550.90.07

I'm currently testing out VR in Pop!_OS 22.04 via ALVR and games that run via Proton (specifically 9.0-2) run somewhat poorly when compared to Windows. Is there any specific version that's good for VR or specifically made for it or do they perform mostly equally?

Posting this here since most new hardware is more gaming related than not. I'm trying to decide on what distro to install on repurposed new mining rig hardware. My laptop just took a dump on me, which dual boot Fedora and Kubuntu. Since I really didn't travel with it, I elected to take one of my new mining rigs and turn it into my personal desktop PC. I assume to go with a rolling release like TW, not really an 'oh btw I run arch' kind of guy, simply because I'm more savvy with deb and rpm when it comes to getting things done. Not that I'm opposed to arch, as long as it doesn't break on me. I was also considering taking the nvme drive out of my laptop and installing it on the mobo, since it is also AMD, then I wouldn't have to format it, I wouldn't think. Would that work, are both Fedora and Kubuntu up-to-date enough to continue where they left off, or will grub be screwed anyway? Also. I like KDE as my desktop, but I'm open to suggestions with KDE distros, as long as they keep with the traditional format of the desktop, not a fan of sidebars or even topbars. Going from Ryzen 5000 series laptop to; X670E GAMING PLUS WIFI (MS-7E16) Micro-Star International, AMD 7900xtx, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, w/32gb ram. I don't really game, so something like Nobara isn't really the first OS that comes to mind, plus I hate waiting for updates. I typically use my PC's as a workstation, surfing, and even mining when not in use.

Screenshot

I actually already had Kingdom Hearts on EGS, but I got it on Steam hoping they'd have smoothed out some of the issues. I'm using SteamDeck=1 gamemoderun %command% as custom launch options, which at least prevents the cutscenes from being black screens, but now it's just that iconic test pattern instead. And based on context and the specific visual glitch, I'm almost wondering if it's some library that isn't installed on my laptop.

And this is a fresh install of Kubuntu 23.10, Wayland KDE, an RTX 3060 Mobile for a GPU, and nouveau instead of the proprietary driver

It's not the most critical thing, since I still have a Windows partition, but Kingdom Hearts is also the only thing I still frequently use it for

So before I replace my 4GB VRAM Nvidia GPU for an AMD one, Does it truly makes a difference with Xenia? I currently played Hydro Thunder Hurricane on Xenia right now with my old Nvidia GPU on Proton with the DX12 setting, It worked but lagged a little but Red Dead really lags this way.

So guys I have been having this problem with proton and wine that any game would run fine for some time and then the graphics will freeze in a single frame while the audio continues to play. Its been a problem for a while but can't find a fix. Linux native games run just fine(played through portal 2, no issues with celeste, half-life2 episode 1).

Device info:
Lenovo ideapad 330S-15IKB
OS: Kubuntu 22.04.2 LTS x86_64
CPU: Intel i5-8250U (8) @ 3.400GHz
Graphics: AMD Radeon 535M
Kernel:5.15.0-69-generic
RAM:8GB
Logs of entire steam session when playing Journey: Steam Logs

Also yakuza 0 ran fine with proton 7 except once at the end cutscene and games like bloodstained curse of the moon and gta vice city run fine.

I want to get the same performance as on CachyOs on Arch, but I don't know anything about security and privacy in this distribution. And I know that there are russians among the developers. And I don't want to deal with russians. Who knows, maybe they want to plant spyware or malware on everyone and we won't even know. So for my privacy and security, I'd rather set up Arch myself. So I want to know if it is possible for me to do this or not. Because I don't know if CachyOs uses its own set of tools or just some of its own packages. And not the ones that are freely available!

[19:26:40] WAYLAND_DISPLAY is not set, defaulting to "wayland-0"

[19:26:40] Wayland socket '/run/user/1000/wayland-0' doesn't exist; are you running a Wayland compositor?

Error, I guess it is related to wayland-0. Any solutions

I tried playing Minecraft, and got that flickering bug which apperantly many NVidia user has. Until it gets fixed, what do you think, what would be the best course of action?

Since 2 days, Ubisoft Connect suddenly updated to the new beta version of their launcher (can't change it back) and I can't login, the window appears but is unresponsive, tried it with a couple of different Proton versions, but only experimental even loads the window. I tried both using Lutris and adding Ubisoft Connect as a non-Steam shortcut. It worked fine 3 days ago. Anyone else experience this and knows a solution?

For now I switched back to Windows, but I'd rather game on Linux...

I do apologize if this is asked often and if this is a real dumbass question. I've never used Linux before and just got my Steam Deck few days ago. My friend gave me a short crash course on certain things and I'm slowly getting hang of things, but still goof up on silly stuff... like this.

Like title says, I accidentally changed the requester timeout to 0 in Steam Tinker Launch Game Settings on a certain game. At first it didn't bother me and I didn't even realize I had done so, but then I realized I needed to change some other settings there and couldn't access the Steam Tinker Launch settings anymore cause the requester timeout was, well, zero.

I tried reinstalling the game, but that did absolutely nothing and is clearly still using the old Steam Tinker Launch Game Settings I had set for it.

So tldr; how do I change the requester timeout back to 2 or reset Steam Tinker Launch settings altogether for a specific game?

I did see a comment in reddit that had some command for something called Shell (?) I think, but I probably didn't understand the comment properly cause I couldn't make it work.