What’s up, guys, gals, and non-binary pals? I switched from Windows 10 to Linux Mint back in December 2024, and I catalogued my experiences in these posts:
- Alright you nerds, I made the jump to Linux.
- Alright nerds, I installed Linux Mint on my MacBook Pro
Just wanted to let you nerds know that everything has been running flawlessly. I can play any game I have, and none of my productivity is blocked. Doesn’t matter whether it’s all my ROMs I archived, my Steam games, GOG games, whatever. Linux plays them, and performance is fantastic. I don’t play any anti-cheat games as the only one I do play periodically is Overwatch, and it runs perfect.
I can without a doubt now say that I will never go back to Windows. Should have switched years ago!
Build specs (the full list is in my first post linked above):
- CPU 9800x3d
- GPU RX 7900 XTX
Here are some issues I still can’t solve on Linux Mint:
- Can’t control my GPU fans
- Can’t control my case fans
- Can’t bind my case fans to ramp up with GPU load
I’ve tried CoreCTRL and so many other solutions I read online, and none of them work. Problem for another day! So all I’ve done for now is increase the count of intake fans I have and set it to a good speed to move plenty of air (but also set my exhaust fans higher to help counter and ensure proper positive pressure airflow. I have too many fans to get the ideal balance of neutral air flow). GPU runs with OEM fan speeds.
Edit: There’s a bug in pasting instance agnostic links, so I just added direct URLs to my instance posts.
My workaround for limited fan control via GPU temps was to just water cool my entire PC. I could have tied it to my water temp, but my components are rarely above 50C. I have two rads though, overkill for my 3080 and 3700X.
At least that’s my excuse, had to justify spending a dumb amount of money for cooling on top of the dumb amount of money already spent on the computer. Basically is spun up for a handful of Rocket League games and that’s about it.
Exciting stuff.
This triggered me though, lol:
One day I’ll pay to activate Linux Mint.
If you have an AMD GPU, look into LACT
Sure thing! I’ll take that… LACTion and get right on it.
…
Glad it works for you👍
Thank you!
Activate Linux 😂
Glad you liked it! :D
I’m fairly ignorant about Linux and what goes on under the hood, so the majority of the text doesn’t mean anything to me.
As someone planning to install Linux Mint who also doesn’t want to accidentally dox myself with a screenshot, could I get an explanation from someone on what is censored out and why?
Looks to me like they are just censoring any instance of their username, possibly because it contains their real name.
Edit: also device name
Haven’t really touched Mint myself, other than moving my dad’s computer to it. I don’t think it shows the user or device name over by the clock. Unless that XP skin adds it, I don’t think that’s it.
Given the “Overcast” bit, maybe it shows a zip code for the weather or something?
Again, I’m not settled on a particular distro yet for sure, but most of my experience is with PopOS so far, and there’s nothing identifying there, so I’m not positive.
I’ve installed Mint on 2 family member PCs, but I haven’t used it myself other than in passing.
Correct, you got it. I hid some particular identifiers that could pinpoint me, such as weather. The rest of the stuff exposed in the screenshot is not enough to triangulate enough information about me.
Correct, I’m just redacting anything personal from the images that could pinpoint me. And also of course removed EXIF data from the images before uploading to my Lemmy instance (Lemmy does remove it, but I like to be extra sure).
Sir you need to activate your linux XP system.
deleted by creator
Yeah it’s so weird. I tried using that Mass Grave thing I heard about but it won’t work. Tried running it in Proton-GE, too, and nothing. I guess I’ll live with it, since it doesn’t interrupt my workflow too much. The watermark on my desktop doesn’t bother too much and eventually I lose sight of it anyway.
Is that actually an overlay like unlicensed windows or is that just part of the wallpaper? I kinda want that as an actual overlay lol
This is the extension I installed for LM, which lets you put a custom overlay/watermark on your desktop - https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/extensions/view/82
I created the activation notice watermark in Krita, and styled it after what it looks like on Windows 10.
Edit: I really love this a lot and have kept it on my computer for months now. It’s just silly and makes me giggle when I get a dark wallpaper that makes the watermark really stand out.
I figured it was just the wallpaper. I’m impressed and giggling giddily.
Remember Lindows OS?
Oh yeah, now that rings a bell! If I remember correctly, it was built my Linus Torvaltine.
Can’t use PyKMS to active Linux, so VBSKeyDaemon.vb?
https://github.com/rozniak/xfce-winxp-tc
BTW, this exists.
Neat theme.
everything has been running flawlessly.
I have to ask though: Do these monitors not have HDR or VRR and run at the same refresh rate?
Those are the things why I usually wouldn’t recommend Mint for high-end gaming rig like yours right now: None of the supported DEs are really ready for Wayland and therefore stuck with those problems (for now).
KDE suports HDR just fine. I believe both Hyprland and Gnome do as well. Those seem to be the most modern DEs generally speaking. Gnome and KDE being the most popular as well.
Edit: Just realized you said mint specifically. Mint are behind the times sadly.
Yeah, that’s why I’m currently only recommending Mint to people who don’t do any gaming. It’s kind of a shame that Mint doesn’t have a KDE spin. It would be my unconditional beginner distro otherwise.
Personally I run CachyOS + KDE with native Wayland and HDR enabled system-wide. It’s kind of amazing how I don’t even need to clog the launch parameters of every game with a bunch of variables and tools like gamescope anymore. I just have to hit launch and all the fancy features just work.
Thank you!
The monitors have HDR, but I disabled them. I have photosensitivity and lights can trigger migraines (not to be confused with headaches). Driving at night for example is impossible for me now with laser headlights.
As for VRR I don’t think I’m using it. I just set the refresh rate for each monitor, and when I game, I either set the game for VSYNC or adjust the max FPS accordingly.
I see.
HDR depends a lot on the monitor I guess. Mine isn’t really brighter in HDR mode than normal because it’s an OLED, so the big difference is that the darks can get darker and more detailed as opposed to the brighter brights on HDR LCD/LED panels.
As for VRR, I’m a huge fan of it and I can’t recommend it enough. Particularly on high refresh rate monitors and demanding game it’s a big win not having to tweak your settings so that the framerate always stays above the monitors specified refresh rate. No tearing. No penalty from not reaching the required framerate. Just a smooth presentation.
You can actually use VRR on X11, but only on for single monitor and it will introduce tearing on the others.
Got you on the HDR facts. I’m on LED monitors so I can’t take advantage of that for now. But when OLED monitors get cheaper and I’m ready to upgrade (I’m on 1440p QD-LED i think is what the tech is called), I’ll look into OLED. For now, my only oled device is my smart phone. And wow is OLED so nice to look at.
Good looking out on VRR! I’ll do some researching into figuring out how to properly set it up on my build.
I can only second that, I made the switch early this year and it’s made me love my PC again.
I don’t think I could’ve done it “years ago” though, Proton in its current form with a user friendly distro like bazzite haven’t been around for too long.
“made me love my PC again.”
I know, right?! That was the best part. It felt so liberating, as if I was transported back to the early 2000s when the OS was a tool, not an ad-infused spyware machine. The best thing is that I have control and - surprisingly - confidence. I was worried I’d only have control and over time I’d get confidence. But essentially, I had confidence day one.
I’m still a nascent Linux user, but using this OS is so refreshing. I love my PC so much.
This is exactly how I felt when I made the switch a couple of years back. Like this is what using a personal computer was always meant to feel like, and this is what Microsoft has taken from us.
I started using Linux most of the time in 1998 because my parents had installed RedHat 5.2 to dual boot with Windows and I didn’t like what Microsoft was doing back then, so I decided to use Linux whenever I’m not playing games. (And then moved on to SuSe 7 in 2001, then to Debian, and later, when Ubuntu was invented, moved to Ubuntu, and when Linux Mint came around, started using that one. (wait, no, actually I moved only when I got pissed off by Unity, which was horrible in its first forms!) Starting from Debian, things were already quite easy, although configuring the graphical environment, X, was super tedious…)
It’s a bit weird feeling reading about how people write about how bad Windows has gone, and not really having experience of it since Windows 7, that I did have for a while in between. That was probably in 2011 or so. Then I soon got a new computer and kind of forgot to install Windows on it, because things worked well enough anyway.
In any case, already when Ubuntu came out, I already felt that every time I had to resolve my friends’ issues on their Windows computers that it was a very good thing that I was running Linux at home, because it meant there was so much less hassle! It felt like “damn, if people only knew how well this works these days, they’d never want to use Windows. And then there would be more software as well!”
I’ve used “Linux for work” and “Windows for gaming” for a long time, about twenty years now. Got fed up with Windows shitting itself on a regular basis, and made myself a new year’s resolution to try Linux-only gaming for a bit, see if it would work for me, and I never went back. That was in 2021, and it’s just been getting better and better.
Linux Mint has always been an easy install, and putting Steam on top to get Proton is pretty trivial. A few things have made an amazing difference:
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installing the official NVidia drivers used to be a pain in the arse. Download them, stop your display manager, blacklist Nouveau, install them from the command line, restart and hope for the best. Awful. I’ve gone fully AMD, but I understand they’re pretty much a non-issue now.
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Proton keeps getting better and better. Seriously, they fix compatibility with about 99% of the games that were broken every year, basically everything runs now. Maybe leave off buying anything with a tech-demo engine for a week, and accept that you won’t be playing stuff with certain anti-cheat, and it’s all good.
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DXVK gets overlooked, but it’s amazing. Basically frame-for-frame with Windows on every game, and on some it’s better as it fixes intrusive stutter by precompiling. Can’t argue with that.
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Have you tried CoolerControl? It’s the only one that really worked with my system. It doesn’t detect my CPU fan for some reason but it works well with the GPU. I assume it has something to do with my hardware.
Ha! You activated my trap card, nerd! Now I’m getting lots of advice from these Lemming nerdy losers on how to solve my problems!
I tried CoolerControl back in Dec/Jan but couldn’t get it to work. If I recall correctly, I think only CPU fan was detected but it didn’t see case fans or GPU fans. I see some other comments from others so I’ll check those out.
(More seriously though - thank you for the help!)
I mentioned it in a top-level comment, but if your GPU is AMD (didn’t see if you said either way), LACT might be able to help you do what you need.
Not detecting case fans sounds like it would be not communicating with the motherboard properly. Unfortunately every specific motherboard is going to have it’s own unique set of constraints. But generally this is all handled through “it87” i believe? But it87 can sometimes take some nonstandard params.
Here’s an example gist of instructions for getting things working on one specific motherboard. https://gist.github.com/bakman2/e801f342aaa7cade62d7bd54fd3eabd8
The wifi7 on my motherboard causes kernel panics pretty regularly, and the RGB isn’t properly exposed so I cant control(/turn off) any of the lights. Usually these things work themselves out with time as drivers for the new/nonstandard chips make their way into the kernel/libraries.
Lemming nerdy loser, reporting for duty. Personally I’m struggling with a Bluetooth controller on my Asrock B850 Riptide that used to work perfectly in Linux at first, then one day decided it was no longer detected and has never worked since. Fortunately it’s not critical, and if it doesn’t fix itself eventually I’ll probably just buy a cheap USB one and use that.
For case fans, with an msi mobo, I had to install some nct drivers from a githib repo.
So if you can’t still control them with CoolerControl, try to lookup for “linux {motherboard name} sensors”.
No way dude! I also have a MSI board and I did just that and the first result was to run
modprobe nct6683 force=1and it actually worked. I can now see all the fans in CoolerControl. That was a godsend, I don’t know how I didn’t come across it earlier. I would give you Lemmy Gold if I could :DI’m on an MSI main board, too. I hadn’t heard about fetching nct drivers, so I’ll check that out. Almost a year ago when I was setting up this computer, I just installed lm-sensors and CoolerControl, then CoreCTRl, etc. But I’ll see if there are other sensors that might be helpful here.
Lm-sensors and CoolerControl need sensors and controllers to be exposed. Nct drivers exposes them thru sysfs.
I had to install NCT6687D for my mobo.
I second CoolerControl. It is able to control fan speed depending on the temperature of your CPU!
Do you know if this works with Lianli TL case fans?
I don’t see why it wouldn’t as long as they are controlled by the mainboard itself.
Ah, no, that’s the issue lol. I suppose I should have been more specific in that I need something that works with Lianli’s controller.
I’d just try it out in that case, looks like people got it working from a quick google search.
I can’t find the results you’re finding it seems. Everything I try to find for TL series hub leads to dead ends.
I’ve been using Linux for 20 years. It’s cool that some games are working on it. Again. It wasn’t a problem for me in the Quake 3 days.
I had a package bug with Mesa on Sid today, which got me reading the changelogs.
libd3dadapter9 / GalliumNine was removed. It’s been long coming, since Gallium3D is deprecated, but it did get me a little nostalgic.
GalliumNine is almost the progenitor of the current linux gaming movment, wined3d had been uh… terrible for quite some time and then out of almost nowhere - ‘native’ D3D9 on Linux. Right on the coattails of the Radeon driver starting to seriously not suck (well before amdgpu) - everything sort of came together for real linux gaming experience.
Ave GalliumNine.
How old is the Linux mint kernal and and driver? Have you tried a live dvd of a more current distro just to see if those problems aren’t solved? Fedora would be a decent example, it is really current. Or an arch derivative.
Not sure. I just use the embedded software updated whenever there is a new update to the kernel. I’m on latest GA kernel per fastfetch screenshot.
Unfortunately I’m only ~9 months in as a Linux user, so not sure the best methods to get all these things working.
Thankfully, many other persons also commented some helpful advice, so I’ll include your question as part of my research. Just gotta sit down and try troubleshooting it again when I have some spare time.
You can find the kernel version by writing “uname -r” in the terminal.
In my case it prints “6.8.0-79-generic”, which would be the answer if NewNewAugustEast had asked me about how old my kernel is. Yours is probably something else than that precise version. Except that I’m running Ubuntu and Mint is also kind of Ubuntu.
If you want, you can also paste the output of: “lsb_release -d”, NNAE might be curious to know that, as well.
For your personal use, you can use uname -a and lsb_release -a, but I had the feeling some of the output of those would be things you wouldn’t want to say publicly but might not understand to redact.
The bliss theme, complete with activation notice, is very nifty, LOL.
I love sneaking memes into serious posts. :)
Try LACT for GPU control
This works great for me and does all the things you mentioned above.
so… starting hrt when?
As soon as I unzip my tar balls.
