Hey all,

Currently running Arch linux with the latest kernel and mesa drivers and playing Doom DA.

Here's my specs:

Display (VG249QL3A): 1920x1080 @ 180 Hz in 24" [External]
DE: KDE Plasma 6.3.5
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D (32) @ 5.76 GHz
GPU 1: AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE [Discrete]
GPU 2: AMD Raphael [Integrated]
Memory: 32GB

Temps are hot but berable (it's a mini ATX tower so cooling is limited) being around 80/85C for the CPU and 70/78 for the GPU.

After I've been playing for a while, the screen starts glitching, like random lines flickering on my display.

This keeps going for a little while, even after stopping the game, and even if the temps go down substantially.

What could be causing this?

Thank you!

I have been enjoying KDE Plasma 6 and my Lenovo Yoga, which has a fairly nice touchscreen. I've been playing more lightweight titles, such as point and click adventure games, to clean up my library. While I can play most games with the trackpad and nub, I'd really like to get the touchscreen working, which seems to be hit and miss.

While most of my games are on Steam, I have a handful of others from GOG and what not. Again, it seems to be mixed when the touchscreen works on a game or not, and I have confirmed that if I use the stylus, this works in almost all cases. Is there a parameter for Proton to send the touchscreen inputs as a mouse for titles that do not want to cooperate?

What is coming? More trolling, vitriol, and toxicity is coming to Linux focused subreddits and the community overall.

The release and success of the Steam Deck created a massive newb vortex. The newb vortex is expanding and drawing in more newbies. The coming Win 10 EoL, the Win 11 spyware and other goofiness, and PewDeiPie are causing the vortex to expand. In response to the newbie influx, the trolling, vitriol, and raw overflow of toxic sewage is coming. There are drips of this in the comments spread across many threads. I see the subtle trolling happending. Its only going to get worse. The trolling, vitriol, and toxicity mostly stem from the thining patience of the community members, and has been lurking below the surface for a long time. This is NOT to blame or point fingers. I understand where the thining patience comes from. The community might not become more overtly toxic, but instead become more rigid in how it responds to newbies looking for help/guidance. Increased rigidity, like that of the official Arch forums, will be viewed by newbies as the community being cold, unhelpful, elitist, and toxic. The days of the "RTFM" and "go back to Windows" responses could easily make a come back. Some might say that the response, in the form of thining patience, to the newb influx, is justified. I'm not arguing for or against that POV. The influx of newbies can be considered a gift and a curse. I created this post as an effort to curb the toxic progression and keep the community healthy.

For the Linux Vets:

Below are some links to common useful information that addresses many the common questions such as "what distro is best for gaming". Any time you encounter a common newbie question, you can direct them here to this post. Tell them to check the links listed here first. * my newbie Linux user/gamer guide ==> https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/189rian/newbies_looking_for_distro_advice_andor_gaming/ * Free Linux+ certification course ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNxuTRCRjoQ * Free Linux Beginner's Crash course ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgGeGVqgt0s

The AMD RX 9070XT And Other Bleeding Edge Hardware:

If anyone has or is considering a purchase of an AMD RX 9070XT GPU, know that: * the GPU is bleeding edge (released March, 2025) * the drivers are young * there could be bugs and some driver features may be sub-optimal * driver performance and feature support will improve over time * there is no set time table for reaching a specific level of performance * the time to reach some arbitrate level of acceptable performance could be days, weeks, or months.

The low level AMD GPU drivers are in the kernel. The high level AMD GPU drivers are in the Mesa components. It would be wise to ask for guidance in the official forums for the distros listed below and/or the corresponding subreddits.

Recommended general purpose distros for the RX 9070XT (or other bleeding edge hardware): * Manjaro * Endeavour OS * Fedora * OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

Gaming focused distros (I don't recommend any): * Nobara * Bazzite * Cachy OS * Chimera OS * Garuda

Focusing And Directing Newbies At The Start Of Their Linux Journey:

The most important thing at the start of a newbie's Linux journey is to gain experience with using, managing, customizing, and maintaining a Linux system. This of course includes using the apps. they want/need. This focus is to build Linux proficiency and knowledge, foster a mind set of resourcefulness, and cultivate a degree of self sufficiency. This is commonly known as enablement. It is unhealthy for the community to preserve/cultivate newbie ignorance. The safest and strongest mind set to adopt is "Assume nothing. Test everything."

The Commonly Recommended Starting Distros And Why:

The 3 starting distros that I recommend are: Linux Mint, Pop_OS, Tuxedo OS. Mint has a desktop UI with a familiar Windows look and feel. Pop_OS has a Gnome like UI that mimics Mac OS. Tuxedo OS uses KDE which also has a Windows look and feel. Pop_OS and Tuxedo OS are maintained by companies who make and sell Linx hardware. I recommend newbies avoid raw Ubuntu and any Ubuntu derivative that employs the Snap architecture. Snap adds yet another thing to have to learn, manage, maintain, and contend with (especially when any troubleshooting is involved).

If a newbie does NOT have bleeding edge hardware then I recommend Mint, Pop, or Tuxedo OS. All 3 have large install bases and newbie friendly user communities, newbie friendly forums, and are quite polished. Mint is the most mature of the 3, with the largest user community and install base of the 3. Because the above 3 are familiar and safe they are recommended. Mint sits in the sweet spot of not being bleeding edge, having newer packages than Debian, fixed point release, more polished than Ubuntu, based on Ubuntu, but without Snap dependency. This makes for a very stable distro that doesn't break very much.

Why General Purpose Distros Are Recommneded Over Gaming Focused/Specialty Distros:

There is no best distro for gaming. General purpose and gaming focused distros will have performance that is very close to each other. Gaming focus distros, save the user a few minutes by pre-installing and pre-configuring convenience packages and "bling-ware" aka eyecandy. Some of the convenience packages may be unwanted, but removing some of them might be difficult.

Gaming focused distros shield and remove the user from learning how to manage, maintain, and customize a Linux system. It does NOT block them from learning Linux in a hard and fixed manner. It teaches the newbie that they don't need to learn much about Linux, thus preserving the newbie's ignorance. Some gaming focused distros turn one's desktop into a gaming console. The experience becomes just click here play your games and turn off your device when you are done. This leads to no time spent building Linux proficiency and knowledge. Newbies still gets to choose what distro they want to use. While they get to make that choice, they don't get to escape the consequence of their choice.

The Desire To Game on Linux And The Lack of Care:

There are some newbies who come to the Linux community with the attitude of "I don't care about learning Linux, I'm not here to tinker, I just want to enjoy my games". So be it. If one does not put in the time to develop Linux proficiency and knowledge, the consequence of that choice is coming. The prior sentence comes from experience. It is unwise to assume that the community will save an individual who will put in ZERO effort. The lack of care comes at a cost. Payment is made through reading, research, time at the keyboard, and practice.

Spyware/Telemetry Data Collection, You, Me, and the Linux Community:

I do NOT want any spyware or telemetry in any distro. Distro maintainers can choose to incorporate those components into their distros. The users get to choose to use or not use a distro. IMO, if a distro is going to collect any user data, it should be disclosed plainly on the distro's website. Ideally it would be on a site's front page or the download page(s). Some folks may carry the "I don't care" attitude. 1a. This is Linux NOT Windows 1b. The rule of "don't shyt where you eat" applies 2. Its NOT about you or me, its about the health and stability of the community (this also applies to streamers and influencers) 3. No distro maintainer/developer, corporate or government entity, or other non-profit, needs to know or have access to Linux user data, install counts, or the size of community 4. User data, install counts, and/or the community size are NOT needed for the development of Linux software 5. Linux user data, install counts, and community member counts only serve to benefit corporate interest and those trying to build wealth on the kindness and efforts of the community members 6. Corporate eyeballs > corporate investment(s) > corporate desire for a return on investment > corporate influence > corporate domination/control > advertisements > malware > influencers saying and doing some of the most retarded things to generate engagement/eyeballs to satisfy corporate greed

The ">" symbol means "leads to". Read item #6 again slowly.

I say hell no and no thank you items 1-6. If one is willing to allow data collection to run on their system then they may as well just stay on Windows (or Mac). Not caring is a Windows user community thing and is antithetical to concept of cultivating and preserving a healthy Linux community. The Linux community is NOT a market. For profit corporations are always looking for a market to exploit. Linux will survive without massive commercialization. Could this be considered anti-capitalist? Absolutely. Linux started out as anti-capitalist. The vast majority of distros are NOT moving toward capitalist model. If anyone wants spyware, malware, ads, and bloat, Windows is that way =====>

Newbies Starting Their Linux Journey with Arch:

Arch is meant for advanced Linux users, who know what they want, what they want to install, and how they want to configure it. Newbies have no idea what they want. Lacking preparation to take on Arch is asking for trouble. No, don't do it unless you accept the consequence of that choice. Could this be used as a learning experience. Sure it can. Just don't expect hand holding. Don't expect the community to rescue you if/when your system won't boot. You are expected to do the research, do the prep work, to educate yourself, and learn from your screw-ups and mistakes. If a newbie does not put in the work, they might find the Arch official forum to be radioactive. There is way more to Arch than just installing it and some software packages. If you really, really want to start with raw Arch, don't! Start with: * the Arch wiki ==> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Main_page * Endeavour OS (Arch with a GUI installer) ==> https://endeavouros.com/

You are still required to put in the work or suffer the pain. Don't step into the cock pit or sit in the pilot's seat, if you can't fly and land the plane. Good luck and proceed at your own risk.

AI Chat Bots:

Do not trust them. They have an error rate that is higher than regular search engine results. Many times the answers chat bots provide are narrow, lack nuance, omit critical details, and frequently lead the user into a ditch. The responses do NOT take into account the end user's skill level. AIs can be used but always check/verify with alternative, reliable sources (ex: the Linux community, google searches). My guide at the top of this post, has links to reliable sources of info. If a newbie thinks, "I can just use ChatGPT, to help me install [fill in the blank distro]", consider this as a warning.

The Following Is Directed At The Newbies:

I honor the work of community members/developers, distro maintainers, and those that offered me good guidance. I do this by writing guides such as this one, and contributing help/guidance in support requests. I, like countless others, do not get paid to this. I value a healthy Linux community so my contribution comes as a small time investment. It is expected that newbies will pay forward the help that they've received. Helping others is a real thing on the Linux side. Again, this is NOT the Windows user community where no one cares. Newbies should tread carefully. Some folks care enough to troll them as a reward for foolish endeavors. This is NOT an opportunity to leech off of the community. Let's leave the Windows user habits behind on the Windows platform.

The massive influx of new users can be a massive benefit. It is up to the community members and their interaction, to determine the outcome. Linux is awesome, but the Linux community is the secret sauce. The Linux community is undefeated. Let's keep it at undefeated.

i have a crome OS linux and i have only figerd out how to use flathub. i wanna downlouad CS 1.6 to play and idk why but files cant run on this thing. EVRYTHING has to be done thurgh teminal.

Hi all,
I was curious if my 9070xt with -30% PD / -100mV will perform similar on Linux with LACT enabled instead of AMD Adrenaline for Windows. I run these settings to keep my build mostly silent.

System: AMD 9800X3D, Asrock 9070xt Taichi, CachyOS with Cosmic DE (Wayland) & Win 11 Pro
GPU Settings: -30% PD and -100mV (brought me down to 238W and core clock around 2.850-2.900mhz)
Game tested: Cyberpunk 2077 (the only game I own which is benchmark worthy)

FPS results when running the ingame benchmark test (1440p, ultra settings, frame gen etc. disabled).124 FPS on CachyOS
131 FPS on WinPro

Doesn't mean a lot probably, but if someone is also targeting efficiency and wondering if you get the similar results when undervolting the CPU, that seems to work quite well.

Hi fellow gamers,
I want to know if there is a distro for linux which has the best performance for games and the most compatibility with them because I'm sick with Windows.

When I start the game I get this error message: "Your video card doesn't meet game requirements. Pixel shader v1.1 or higher required" with rtx 3070 ti. I tried all Proton version(9.0.4, experimental, GE and Cachyos Proton). Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl works without any issues

Hi guys, so I've been playing Genshin Impact on my gaming laptop with Arch linux for weeks now, but a few days ago, only the Hoyo app starts, and the game won't start at all. What causes this problem? Some new update or something?

Hi,

I recently noticed some weird behavior on windowed games. If i run the game on full screen then there is 0 problem. I even 100% happy gaming on linux, from VR to simracing etc.. But sometimes I want to make game windowed to check browser/discord quickly on floating window which works but game starts stuttering/ghosting on windowed mode. It looks like same game renders multiple time. It's not a performance problem, fps is still locked to 165fps, in game UI mouse movement feels and looks great but the game itself has this issue. I even don't know what to check for more detailed information about it

I'm on arch linux (wayland and amd gpu) with everything up to date

Thanks

I've got an RTX 2080 running on proprietary NVIDIA drivers and I'm on Fedora. I've noticed game performance is just fine but I'm getting some obnoxiously-loud coil whine and fan noise compared to on Windows.

Is this something I'm just going to have to deal with?

I'm running the latest version of Linux Mint Cinnamon with a Ryzen 5600x and RX 6600. Everything worked literally just a couple days ago, but then I reinstalled the distro and now it suddenly doesn't. I have my games on a separate hard drive which I did not reset. It's ext4 formatted.

Steam was installed using Mints own software manager which I think just uses apt.

Getting this in the proton logs

wine: failed to open "c:\\windows\\system32\\steam.exe": c0000135

pid 8801 != 8800, skipping destruction (fork without exec?)

Looking for a USB soundcard with optical out which will run well under linux. Any recommendations?

Essentially, I want to set, on steam input, the touchpad to be L3 on the left side and R3 on the right side on retroarch via steam input by launching it on steam, but it only cares about mouse input unless it supports it by default (like ANIMAL WELL).

I have read through the faq but admit a lot of it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, probably because there are so many names and with no experience except my steam deck I'm probably mixing stuff up.

The laptop is an ASUS gl702vm ds74

I7 7700HQ, 16gb ram, gtx 1060 6gb

What I want is a gaming build specifically good at running older stuff from dos to windows xp, windows 7 if possible. I already have a great PC and laptop for modern gaming, what I want is something to bring with me for playing older and what I consider better games, and something I can install GoG to. A bonus would be a windows 98 or XP look and feel.

Are there any obvious suggestions someone can make? And is there a good video or creator I can check out that will make all this easier for me? I am experienced in building and setting up windows, but have had mixed responses as to how similar it is and would rather ask now that after I muck something up and need to untangle a mess that could have been avoided lol.

I recently made the switch to Linux and overall, I'm really happy with it. In most cases, games run better than they did on Windows, especially with my full AMD setup — which I know tends to play nicely with Linux drivers.

However, the one major exception — and ironically, the game I play the most — is Warthunder. It's practically unplayable on Linux. I regularly get 30–50 FPS during matches, and occasionally it’ll spike up to 300 FPS for one game… only to tank right back down after. It feels completely inconsistent and unstable.

I genuinely appreciate that Gaijin provides a native Linux client — that alone puts them ahead of many developers. But at the same time, it seems like the Linux version is more of a token effort. There doesn't appear to be any real optimization or support, and the performance gap is massive compared to Windows.

I even tried running the game through Proton, and surprisingly, the performance was better than on Windows. But that’s not really an option, because the anti-cheat is disabled when using Proton, which locks us out of regular multiplayer. This has apparently been a known issue for a long time, based on what I’ve seen on the forums, yet nothing's been done to fix it.

It’s frustrating to see this level of neglect, especially when Linux gaming is clearly growing. I’d love to keep supporting native clients, but experiences like this make it really difficult. Anyone else in the same boat?

Hey folks, I’m building a story-driven sci-fi RPG called The Last Ring. The setup? Two childhood friends—once inseparable—are now on opposite sides of a violent, unraveling Dyson Sphere society.

You play as both:

Kade, a low-tier salvager from the Outer Ring. His family, part of a criminal network, gets wiped out in a military raid—he survives barely, presumed dead, left behind in a broken exo-suit.

Ray, his former best friend. Now a special ops soldier, tasked with cleaning up lawless zones. He unknowingly leads the purge that kills Kade’s family.

No supernatural powers, no chosen ones—just pure sci-fi grounded in tech, politics, betrayal, and survival. As the player, you switch between both POVs. Your actions as Ray might make life harder for Kade… or vice versa.

We’re toying with mechanics like memory fragments (earned through missions), factions with evolving alliances, and a robot ally salvaged by Kade. There’s moral grey in every direction.

The story’s personal. Brutal. And the Sphere is falling apart.

I’m looking for advice from you all:

Would this kind of dual-protagonist structure work for you?

Does playing both characters add depth or kill the mystery?

Any story-driven games you love that handled this well?

All feedback—praise, critique, spicy takes—super welcome. I want this to hit hard emotionally and mechanically.

So, this is a post by the request of a friend. I personally do not have a SteamDeck, but I do daily drive Arch Linux, by the way.

Okay so he has games installed via Steam, and those work fine.

So he is trying to install games on Lutris, from what I could see looking at his screen, he had everything in tact. But he faced severe issues, the likes of which I had never seen. Games launch for a split second and then crash to the desktop (desktop mode).

I was quick to tell him to show the startup logs. I checked if the prefix was a 32bit one and if he was running a 64 bit version of wine, but that was not the case.

I then to told him to follow this guide: https://www.gloriouseggroll.tv/how-to-get-out-of-wine-dependency-hell/

That did not go well, as this this is what it brought up.

I quickly fixed that with the sudo steamos-readonly disable command, but that also did not fix the issue.

After that I was thinking of going forward into the rabbit hole. But then I paused for a second, I realised that this should not be this hard. I thought to myself, I must be doing something really wrong.

So here I am, has anyone encountered stuff like this happening? I have never had a SteamDeck, so I cannot relate to this issue. Could you please tell me how to install Lutris on this thing?

Thanks for reading!

Comparison between Legion GO S Windows, Steamdeck and Legion GO S SteamOS version.

SteamOS can sometimes double or triple your battery life.

Finally, some apples to apples comparison (for the most part).

Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJXp3UYj50Q

Dave2D also notes that the experience on SteamOS is just so much smoother, particularly pointing out that Windows still can't reliably sleep, especially when in-game, while SteamOS is perfect every time.