this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
30 points (69.7% liked)

Linux

56022 readers
881 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
nooter692@lemmy.ml
AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz
30
Change my Mind! - I like the linux,but some things keeps me staying on Windows. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by Harry_h0udini@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/linux@lemmy.ml
46 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Recently, I switched from Windows to Linux, tried many distros, and ended up with the Ubuntu rolling-release. Things went well for some days, but I started facing some issues like printer issues, gaming performance issues, and overall Ubuntu performance issues. So, I switched to where it all started, which is Windows 10. Now I'm on Windows, but the likeness and pleasure of using Linux are still with me. 

So, what I wanted was a faster, rolling-release, easy-to-use distro with easy installation of Nvidia proprietary drivers. 

What I have now planned is Fedora, because I like it. The issue with Fedora is that I can easily install the Nvidia driver, unlike Ubuntu. Can I search for the driver in the store or something else?

Or anything better than a fedora.

Graphics card: GT 730. I quit gaming, so gaming was not an issue anymore.

all 48 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 24 points 2 years ago (3 children)

So, what I wanted was a faster, rolling-release, easy-to-use with easy installation of Nvidia proprietary drivers

EndeavourOS. It's Arch-based, so it's a rolling release, the install Nvidea driver option is right on the boot menu when you first install, it's easy to use (and easy to install) and has a Wecome tool to help you navigate if you're not used to Arch. And, at least in my experience, it's fast

There's some drawbacks tho. It's on the lighter side: good if you wanna pick and choose what you wanna have on your system, not so good if you want something that's ready to go OOTB. Another thing is most of the action takes place in the Terminal, hence the "terminal-centric distro" thing. That's easily fixable tho, since you can either re-enable your Discover shop (KDE), the Gnome software center's already good to go, or just install Octopi or Pamac if you really don't wanna use the terminal for stuff.

Give it a go if you. It cured my distrohopping and basically ensured I'll never go back to Windows (long term anyways. Temporarily, well, sometimes you gotta).

[–] daredevil@kbin.social 8 points 2 years ago

Recently switched to #EndeavourOS after using #LinuxMint for 9 months. Love it.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 3 points 2 years ago

I scrolled to find this. EndeavourOS has done a great job at making Arch easy to install, and you get the best of both worlds.

I ran base Arch for years on a laptop, then went to Artix to lighten the load when systemd started misbehaving in odd ways. But I'm really liking the EndeavourOS experience.

Good choice!

[–] sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

He's looking for a distro with an easier install method when it comes to the nvidia drivers. EndeavorOS is arch based, and is the antithesis of easy. It's just a graphical arch installer.

I use arch myself, but it takes alot of manual interventions to keep working. Look at the grub issue causing black screens, the repo swap, or the linux kernal that caused laptops with intel chips to flash full brightness on their screens backlight, that could have broken the screen, requiring a downgrade until it was fixed. Arch is fantastic, but it's like a toddler you have to continuously keep from running head first into traffic at times. If they're ok with that I'd say go full send. Endeavor is a fantastic distro

I'd argue fedora, or nobara, are great options. Same with opensuse tumbleweed. No idea what the issue is on those systems with nvidia drivers though sadly, so I couldn't help

[–] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I wouldn't go as far as calling Arch the antithesis of easy (tho you are right that it's like a toddler you have to constantly babysit. Don't like that part, but I wanna say that's most rolling releases, no? Plus I haven't found a stable release that i jive with either, so nothing left but to tolerate it), but then again, that varies from person to person. After all, I struggled much more with Pop_Os! (in general) and Fedora (more growing pains than anything) than I ever did with Arch, and I'm an idiot when it comes to computers--pretty good at looking up answers to problems tho lol

Issues are pretty mixed IMO. There are ones beyond our control like the GRUB one and the backlight one, can't really do much about them (but I'm not gonna pretend it's only an Arch thing. Every distro messes up once in a while) except sit tight until there's a fix...or well, you could try and fix it yourself, but then we lead to the other thing, in my expierence, anyways: 90% of issues happen because the user messed with something. Not even something obvious, i mean mucking about within the systems guts for one reason or another without knowing what you're doing. I've since adopted a golden rule: you don't bother the PC, it doesn't bother you. Personally, haven't had problems besides the backlight one, and even that was fixed quickly.

Regarding Tumbleweed and Fedora, they're good options, but installing nvidea drivers isn't super straightforward. Would have still recommended Fedora, or even better, Mint if they hadn't said they were looking for a Rolling Release, actually. Nobora should be easier, or so I've heard. Never actually tried it myself.

[–] sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I can understand your point of view, and I'll admit "the antithesis of easy is an over-exaggeration. I'd like to argue against the isldea of arch being too similar to other rolling releases, or semi-rolling like fedora. Though you're right, they can all be road wanderers at times

As for the things out of our control like grub and the kernal screen bug, they didn't hit fedora, tumbleweed, or many other semi-rolling or rolling releases. This is, of course, due to the fact that arch is here to find these problems first. Also, the others don't have as many manual interventions like the repo migration, or the package migrations that happen a few times yearly. This is entirely within the control of arch, though I do like how it's handled

That last one is a philosophical idea which I agree with, don't mess with what could be configured for a reason, but if you don't follow the mailing list you may find your system breaking more often than the others.

Though arch is fantastic, and no matter what I try out I seem to always find my way back to it, It is a uniquely challanging toddler to babysit

[–] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

That Arch basically tanks a lot of those problems so that other rolling distros don't deal with them is something that i hadn't considered till now, tho you are right there.

Yeah, I've tried going to Tumbleweed or other distros, and I just keep coming back to my XFCE + Arch combo. Dunno, it just speaks to me ig.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What is a Ubuntu rolling release? You mean Rhino Linux? Thats unofficial AF, not recommended at all.

Rolling: Opensuse Tumbleweed, Fedora, EndeavorOS, etc.

[–] krash@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Fedora isn't rolling release.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 1 points 2 years ago

Semi rolling something

[–] simple@lemm.ee 20 points 2 years ago

Check out Nobara, it's basically Fedora with tweaks and automatically installs the Nvidia drivers for you.

[–] selokichtli@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 years ago

I don't know what is Ubuntu rolling-release and I've been using Linux for twenty years.

If you're a beginner, just stick to Linux Mint. If you really need a rolling-release distro, use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and learn how to install, whatever your choice, the Nvidia drivers from your distro wiki/forums.

[–] Gryzor@lemmyfly.org 11 points 2 years ago

Maybe give Pop_OS a try. It's Debian/Ubuntu based and works well. It's tiling extension makes gnome usable for me (and it's optional/off by default).

Nvidia is a breeze (included with the image iirc).

[–] Qu4ndo@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 2 years ago

Simple Fedora, never had a better Linux Expirience ! Theres a new Video from Fedora Flock about State of Gaming on Fedora. It shows how easy it is to use the drivers and get steam up and running (--> activate Non-free Repos in softwarecenter settings and search for nvidia).

[–] flashgnash@lemm.ee 7 points 2 years ago

Pop!os and mint are the usual go-tos for easy windows-like experiences

I am however physically incapable of not recommending NixOS at any chance I get, it is by far the best experience I've had on Linux so far having tried a good number of distros (provided you have some knowledge of how config files work and don't mind installing software through one)

[–] danielfgom@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

For Nvidia popos is best

https://pop.system76.com/

[–] Presi300@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Yes, you can easily install the Nvidia driver on fedora, if you check the "enable third party repos" checkmark in the 1st time setup.

Honestly, if you don't wanna screw around at all, or use the terminal, then fedora is pretty hard to beat. Now 1 issue you might have is that older Nvidia cards tend to not work well with something called Wayland, that fedora uses out of the box for it's desktop, though you can change it easily at the login prompt, just click on the gear icon and select "gnome on Xorg"... if you're having issues that is

[–] Rustmilian@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The Nvidia drivers aren't in the official repos do to legal issues, however they're in the rpmfusion repo.

[–] PaulDevonUK@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Dual boot at least until you settle on a distro and get comfy with it.

[–] Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You don't have to switch, you can dualboot if you have some disk space to spare.

Unfortunately the only rolling-release distro I've ever used for more than 10 minutes is Arch Linux, which is not "easy to use"; it's not hard, but you have to tinker with it every now and then (especially in the beginning, since you have to set everything up) - if you run pacman updates without looking at the archlinux.org frontpage beforehand you might find yourself with a malfunctioning bootloader or something on that nature.

AL updates are known for breaking things a few times, but in my opinion it offers a good compromise between DIY and ... y'know, Ubuntu.

[–] madthumbs@lemmy.world -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Block the bootloader from updating, use LTS kernel for stability. Checking Arch's page didn't work for me, btw. I ended up switching to Fedora because I was hit by every breakage (4 in a row), LTS kernel didn't work with my ethernet, and ethernet broke after an update. -Some people have great luck and some don't.

[–] Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 years ago

I'm personally not too scared of random things breaking, I've always managed to fix them. At some point I will consider replacing GRUB with something else.

Anyway Arch's stability being a matter of luck checks out - I haven't been able to install the damn thing on my ancient laptop for some BIOS related reason.

[–] OpenStars@kbin.social 4 points 2 years ago

It is good to start with something other than a daily driver, so that such problems don't hold you back as much - e.g. an older machine, or as others mentioned dual booting.

[–] Spectacle8011@lemmy.comfysnug.space 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The gaming performance issues you were facing might be related to Vulkan support for the card, if it works better on Windows, as apparently Kepler cards don't have great support for Vulkan: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=273935

I see Vulkan 1.2 is actually the latest version of Vulkan that supported Kepler architecture GPUs like the GT 730, which stopped receiving non-security updates after October 2021: https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5202/~/support-plan-for-kepler-series-geforce-gpus-for-desktop

On Windows, games probably used OpenGL. If you were playing games with Proton, it prefers DXVK because it offers better compatibility and performance than wined3d's OpenGL translation layer. DXVK 2.0 and onwards have used Vulkan 1.3, which requires a GPU newer than yours. I don't know whether Steam (and Proton 8+) falls back to using DXVK 1.10 or falls back to OpenGL/wined3d.

Either way, that means you haven't been getting the latest performance improvement updates in DXVK since late 2022. So force-enabling wined3d's OpenGL translation layer with PROTON_USE_WINED3D might help, if it's not doing that already? I don't know if OpenGL would actually perform better, so this is kind of a long shot...

If you were playing Native GNU/Linux games, it might be different.

I second the openSUSE recommendation. My brief experience with it was really nice.

Edit: Ah, I see you've quit gaming, lol. Well, either way, if you use Wine with DXVK, maybe the above will help.

[–] UnPassive@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Pretty big fan of manjaro

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

Yah, Manjaro's monkey scripts seem to keep nVidia cards happy on upgrades.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

If you only need a basic graphics card, why not replace that NVIDIA one with something by another manufacturer that's better supported driver-wise? Or maybe your CPU has onboard graphics? A basic card won't need to cost much, and it could remove the headaches with NVIDIA drivers and give you more distro options.

[–] megane_kun@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I have the same graphics card as the OP, due to circumstances beyond my control, and I can see where you're coming from (looking to replace this video card sooner than later with an AMD one--seeing how troublesome NVIDIA is with Linux, I just don't want to support them). However, this "just buy better hardware, lol!" line of reasoning is counter-productive to convincing someone to make the jump to Linux.

One of the things that convinced me to make the jump is the argument that Linux can run on any junk machine destined for e-waste. Seeing the argument about buying better hardware, or buying the right brand of hardware just pains me (despite being true to some extent).

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Yes, I didn't think OP needed convincing, or I might have been more careful about that. Rather, I was thinking about OP's particular search for a good rolling release with NVIDIA support. You do make a good point.

[–] megane_kun@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

You know what, yeah, that makes sense (that OP didn't really need convincing, but was just looking for a good rolling release distro with NVIDIA support). I was thinking that some of the replies were kinda harsh on OP too, hahaha.

[–] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I agree with you but Linux or any OS won't make miracles. Some older hardware is so bad(even when was new) that is not suited for something like games. We need to be realistic too.

[–] megane_kun@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

Agreed. Though in the context of trying to convince someone to commit to Linux, suggesting that they buy new hardware would make them have second thoughts (about Linux, given that their stuff works okay with Windows).

Sure, it's better for them to have a better idea of what they're getting into (NVIDIA and Linux mixes like oil and water), but that might be better off stated as "If you're intending to upgrade your hardware, better stay away from NVIDIA." (Or something along those lines.)

I'm now way more willing to switch to hardware that'd play nice with Linux now that I've made the jump. In fact, if I have the money, I would have already ditched my graphics card for something better (looking at getting an RX 6650 XT).

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 2 years ago

Just go for Pop_OS!

[–] Discover5164@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

i have a manjaro install that has been going for 2+ years. with a Nvidia card.

just read the wiki on every update, and follow instructions.

on install select btrfs as the filesystem and than use timeshift to do backups.

[–] neo@lemmy.comfysnug.space 2 points 2 years ago

It doesn't look super complex to add nvidia drivers on OpenSUSE, either Tumbleweed or Leap.

https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers

[–] igorlogius@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

maybe "OpenSuse tumbleweed" ?

refs.

[–] ReverseModule@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 years ago

Have you tried Garuda? Best one for gaming. :)

[–] SGHFan@lemdro.id 1 points 2 years ago

Get an AMD card. Or maybe try Nobara or Pop OS.

[–] Banthex@feddit.de 0 points 2 years ago

I Like Mabox Linux its super fast for gaming

[–] drwankingstein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 years ago

No.

[–] BaconIsAVeg@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You never really said what you like about linux or why you even want to use it. You want an 'easy-to-use' distro, but I've never really run into a 'difficult-to-use' distro, and that's going back to the Slackware/RedHat 4.2 days. PopOS!, Ubuntu, EndeavourOS, Slack, Debian, they're all 'easy-to-use' when you don't specify a use case.

Personally I love the challenge, and that nothing is forced on me. It took me a good 30 minutes yesterday researching and trying to figure out how to get spell checking working in qutebrowser, and I got a little dopamine hit when I was finished.

Windows doesn't make me excited to use a computer. Linux does, because it's challenging.

[–] NateNate60@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Some people don't want their computer to be a challenge. They don't want to be able to notice the operating system at all. For most people, the operating system is a means to an end.

[–] BaconIsAVeg@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 years ago

I completely agree, though in that case I can't see what the advantage would be if you already have Windows, to switch to Linux. It's a challenge, you're going to be constantly looking for alternatives to software you've used for years. Let's face it, the software world is still primarily focused on Windows, and while there are a lot of developer and server packages that Just Work Better(tm) on Linux, but if you're an end user who's only interested in gaming, why bother?

[–] cooopsspace@infosec.pub -2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Your graphics card is literally ewaste at this point. So unless you get something else you might just use integrated graphics by Intel or buy an AMD ryzen G processor with graphics on board.

Anyway, now that NVIDIA isn't a requirement anymore - use whatever you want.

I'm not going to force you to use Linux, but I'll never go back to Windows.

Fedora is good, EndeavourOS is great. I think the AUR (ARCH based) repos really adds to the ease of use.

[–] kariboka@bolha.forum 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

23:59 linux gives life to old hardware.

00:00 your hardware is trash.

[–] cooopsspace@infosec.pub 3 points 2 years ago

No but seriously, the 730 was ewaste at the time it was manufactured. Yet someone still put it in a PC???