Mint as Gaming platform?? Looking to change to Linux OS.

[Snoopremacy]

I've used Mint, a tiny bit before (more to learn about what Linux really was, but now I'm considering fully switching to Mint or LMDE as a main OS. However, how hard would it be "transferring" games over to Mint, even if I used programs like Lutris or Crossover for Windows based games that have no Linux version? And how hard would it be to find all of the Linux versions of all of my drivers? Graphics card I see wouldn't be an issue, but I can't find any drivers for my Sound Blaster Z card anywhere. Also, would I still have no issues using programs like Unreal Engine and Visual Studios as I am also to classes for games design and what not. I'm still very new to Linux in general, and was originally recommended Manjaro distro and absolutely hate it. And since Ive briefly worked with Mint, I'm hoping that this will be a much better experience.

[Sereiya]

Hey Snoop,
Your Sound Blaster Z should technically work out of the box, since the Linux kernel mostly provides all the drivers (even though sometimes propritary drivers are the way to go, like with graphic cards). If not you can try to upgrade your kernel to 5.0 using this how-to.
As far as I know Unreal Engine got a native port for linux. Maybe this is helpful.

If it comes to Visual Studios I don't think there's much hope quite yet. In case you're talking about this, it doesn't really work in Wine at all, so I guess the only way to go is with a virtual windows machine right now. I'd recommend downloading virtualbox from the app center to try that out.
I'm actually in close contact to a very ambitious developer who's working on integrating the windows kernel into the linux kernel as a subsystem to deliver almost native support for windows applications (which is why I'm taking a deeper look into Linux as well right now ), and according to him Visual Studios is working as well as most games we tested incl. anti-cheat (f.e. PUBG, Hitman 2, FAF, Rocket League). But as long as this is just a prototype the general answer to Visual Studios is: no, not working so far.

To check if the games you're playing are working you should look into the Wine AppDB and, even more promising, the ProtonDB. If you can't find your game there, try installing Steam, unlock Proton for all games in settings (I think it's called "SteamPlay" or sth. like that) and just give it a shot!

Good luck! - Luna

[Snoopremacy]

Hey Luna,

Much appreciated on the response. Kind of a shame about Visual Sudios, but that's alright. I'm sure with enough research, maybe I will find a work around, or maybe I will keep the dreaded win/linux dual boot. I need to just figure out how to change it from manjaro to LMDE without screwing up my current windows install. As for proton, that definitely sounds like a way to go, however what about non steam games? I assume that is just standard Wine app then?

As for the prototype of windows integration, that sounds amazing, and will definitely be keeping an eye out for updates on that.

You have been most helpful.

Snoops

[gm10]

Also, would I still have no issues using programs like Unreal Engine and Visual Studios as I am also to classes for games design and what not.

Since you'll be designing Windows games it makes all the sense in the world to do this on Windows. Even with Unreal Engine working natively on Linux and Visual Studio having a native Linux version of their code editor at least (Visual Studio Code) and all the compilers being available on Linux as well, it's just simpler doing it on Windows directly, at least for your classes, so you can concentrate on what's being taught there. Also down the line you may be using middle-ware for a project that isn't compatible with Linux.

But if those drawbacks do not scare you, then sure, you can do it.

[Snoopremacy]

Well I would be designing both Windows and Linux games, but at least there is a Visual Studios program that will work with Linux. Even if it is a small version compared to the windows version. As long as it works, that would be good enough for me.

[gm10]

Well, if your coursework affords you that flexibility then by all means, try it out, it's free after all. Personally I actually like it better than the full Visual Studio IDE for many (non-pure Windows) tasks. With the available extensions (that you can easily modify to suit your needs where necessary) you have an extremely versatile tool at your hands.

[Fuzzy Penquin]

Regarding the gaming aspect of Linux, as mentioned above, do check out both the Wine and Proton databases for compatibility with your favorite games. Also check out Lutris (runs over Wine), Humble Bundle (has both Windows & Linux games), and GOG (older games, has Linux section). I use Steam for my gaming needs, which aren't very numerous, and so far the games I've installed have worked flawlessly for me and were literally plug 'n play (there is a whole Linux section in Steam's store). I have one modding toolset for one of my games that is a special flower, that I can't get to run on Linux via any method. So for that part I need Windows. But the game itself, that the modding toolset came with, is 100% Linux compatible. I've been very happy with my Linux gaming experience so far.

When looking at various games stores, you will see icons for both Linux (a penguin) and/or Steam (round mechanical...arm? thingy). They are both Linux-compatible. SteamOS is Valve's Linux-based OS for gaming on (like a console). So anything that is Steam-compatible, is also general-Linux compatible. When looking at the required specs of a specific game, if it says that the required OS is Ubuntu version xx.xx, that is also Mint compatible. Mint is based on Ubuntu. Mint 19.x is based on Ubuntu 18.04, so you will meet the required OS specs if you see that. This also goes for installing Wine: follow the directions for installing onto Ubuntu 18.04. I'm sure you know this, but also remember to make sure that your actual hardware meets the minimum requirements of that specific game too.

A little research ahead of time will give you an idea of how well you can expect Linux gaming to work for you. If you absolutely must have the latest AAA game on Day One, you might want to reconsider. If you are patient enough to wait for it to come to Linux, then you might be fine. Sometimes the Linux version comes sooner, sometimes later, and sometimes not at all. So there's that. Steam's Proton is aiming to fix this problem, however. As I understand it, they are fighting against DRM, which makes it hard/impossible to port a Windows game to Linux, because some tinkering is required (and DRM prevents tinkering). So it's taking some effort for them to make all Windows-only games run in Proton, but they are making progress. A lot of older games have been ported and work great (they had little or no DRM at all back in the day), so the biggest problem is with the newer games from the big studios (lots of Indie games are Linux native right off the bat). So do some research. If you can, try it out on a spare experimental drive or spare computer with your current library and see how it goes.

My (uneducated and conservative) two cents on work/school computers: don't mess with it. The programs you need for your work/class, are the programs you need. You need maximum compatibility with your school classes and expected work environment. Especially if you are developing for a Windows environment, since you also need to be able to test your game for playability and bugs. The bugs won't necessarily be the same between Windows and Linux: one environment could be flawless and the other a buggy mess. I would keep the dual boot. You can use the Windows side for work and class, and the Linux side for everything else. There's nothing wrong with dual booting.

[pascal111]

I think this's an important point, Mint as gaming platform, I didn't test it yet, but maybe I've limited choices because I don't think my Lenovo ideapad 330 abilities can work with new high big games, but it's important to be satisfied in this point after we tried games working under Windows with attributes like flexibility, graphics, stories ... etc, it's another world there, but I think as I read that Mint supported this point fine, we can bring Windows games to work under Linux generally and of course Mint particularly.

[exiledrose]

Linux is great for gaming since there isn't as much bloatware running in the background as there is in windows & maybe even mac? I have a laptop that is just meant for web browsing & I can run games on it flawlessly as long as it's not to demanding of course.

It's all ready been recommended but I highly recommend proton DB which was already recommended. You don't have to do anything just need to enable it in steam & you can download windows games from steam. Steam does all the work for you unless a game doesn't work & if there is work arounds listed/mentioned to fix it but for the most part you just install the game & it works out of the box from my personal experience. Only issue is upon first booting up the game it will take awhile but after everything is all set up & the game runs once it will boot up instantly.

So I highly recommend steams protonDB it has actually made me fall in love with linux even more now truthfully. Since I can play the windows games I bought when I was on windows on linux.

[gm10]

So I highly recommend steams protonDB it has actually made me fall in love with linux even more now truthfully.

yes I agree protonDB is probably the best part of steam,

Not to be nitpicking, but since both of you got it wrong:

Valve's Wine fork + wrapper is called Proton: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/. You can also use it to run non-Steam Windows games or applications through the Steam client. Since it's a full-fledged Wine installation you can also use it without the Steam client running if you know how - I haven't had a separate Wine install for a very long time now.

protondb is a fan operated website inspired by Wine's appdb: https://www.protondb.com/. It can be quite useful if you take it with a huge grain of salt. For example, as you can see on the front page, the game with the most user reports is Dota 2 - 696k reports for a native Linux game that has got nothing to do with Proton and all those users apparently not realizing it.

[gm10]

Well I am not sure what I am wrong about,

Just the terminology (I said I was nitpicking ) - you both said protondb, which is a website, Valve's tool is named Proton (technically the feature is called SteamPlay even), and is being developed by them (with using Wine as a base).

The Proton DB version of TR

Really, protondb is just a website.

Yes it is true many players play DotA on Linux via proton even when DotA has native Linux client,

I doubt that for that would be very hard to accomplish - Steam won't let you install the Windows version when there's a Linux version available - at least I'm not aware of a way to make that happen.

I have a friend how is a DotA pro and has special equipment and he always trains on Linux using proton since that is the fastest response OS combo of alll windows, Mac etc.

I'm not pro enough to compare response times but it's quite possible that the Linux client is slightly faster/that the Vulkan API works better under Linux with certain graphics cards.

[gm10]

So 100% Forcing native windows version with proton over native linux works on Linux with Steam since January in the beta version.

Interesting, I had never noticed that they ended up adding that. Thanks much for the info, that explains a lot. So far I haven't had any trouble with any native Linux game I tried but that's an interesting alternative to try with titles having bad Linux ports.

[gm10]

It allows to choose the version for each games

I knew you could do that, I just didn't know you could force Proton onto games with native versions available, that's all. The "old" way was to run the Windows Steam client through Wine instead. Having this integrated so Proton can be used is of course much better.

I truly believe proton is best part of steam

Well, most would say the games are. But it's good to see Valve pushing Linux gaming a little, not just with their SteamOS but also for Linux at large. It's quite a gamble for them because Linux users are still only around 0.8% of their total users, even after the release of the Steam Play/Proton feature. So let's hope they keep funding the project even if the numbers don't shift dramatically.

[gm10]

Well it is a business decision, I guess their are a lot of Linux gamers like me that buy games from linux from steam,

With Linux gamers on Steam only being around 0.8% of the total users the average Linux user would have to spend exponentially more than the average Windows user for that to be relevant. It's not impossible but I doubt it (and I do not believe Valve ever publish statistics on that).

Nevertheless, Valve does, of course, want to grow the Linux/SteamOS market, so let's see what they can do.

[trytip]

Code: Select all

 mint03@mint03:~$ steam
tar: This does not look like a tar archive
xz: (stdin): File format not recognized
tar: Child returned status 1
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
find: ‘/home/mint03/.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime’: No such file or directory
mint03@mint03:~$ 

TESTING: ???
Here either it works and then have fun ! Or you have the following error message:

tar: This does not look like a tar archive
xz: (stdin): File format not recognized
tar: Child returned status 1
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
find: ‘/home/$USERNAME/.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime’: No such file or directory

If you do have this message, don't give up and run:

mkdir "/home/$USERNAME/.steam/ubuntu12_32/steam-runtime"
It should now works !

[trytip]

AHHH WHY is this such an issue with mint

Code: Select all

mint03@mint03:~$ find . ! -user $USER
./.local/share/flatpak/db
mint03@mint03:~$

almost every week i have to fix permissions not that i have any flatbread but annoying nonetheless
find . ! -user $USER <<< find files not belonging to user (most times i just delete the file with permission errors)
sudo chown -Rc $USER:$USER $HOME <<< fix ownership for HOME

[trytip]

well finally got steam to work, downloaded DOTA 2 and was able to play it with vulkan support, but alas this game is not something i see myself playing. all the free games are either retro low grade crap or first person shoot to kill everything. the games i'd like like tomb raider or talos principle or portal 2 are all still too expensive. $60 for a game?
i'll keep steam around since it doesn't take much room on root partition but i'm not satisfied with gaming in general makes no difference if windows or linux. and to think i spent the better part of last 2 months undoing and redoing everything to get vulkan working for testing steam.

anyway, does anyone have vulkan sdk installed and know what the issue can be here with 32 bit support?? is there an issue? i see steam is only 32 bit and amdvlk is only 64 bit?
what i have is:
1.1.114 release of the LunarG Vulkan SDK from >>> https://www.lunarg.com/vulkan-sdk/
mesa drivers >>> https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/u ... cs-drivers
amdvlk_2019.Q3.5_amd64.deb from >>> https://github.com/GPUOpen-Drivers/AMDVLK/releases

mint03@mint03:~$ vkvia
VIA_INFO: SDK Found! - Will attempt to run tests
VIA_INFO: Attempting to run vkcube in
VIA_INFO: Command-line: vkcube --c 100 --suppress_popups
/usr/bin/vkcube
VIA_INFO: Command-line: vkcube --c 100 --suppress_popups --validate
/usr/bin/vkcube
ERROR : GENERAL - Message Id Number: 0 | Message Id Name: Loader Message
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/amdvlk32.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

Objects - 1
Object[0] - VK_OBJECT_TYPE_INSTANCE, Handle 0x5633be501e60

SUCCESS: Vulkan analysis completed properly using Vulkan 1.1
mint03@mint03:~$

i also hacked vulkan-smoketest from another package and seems to run fine:

mint03@mint03:~$ vulkan-smoketest
3703 presents in 5.00084 seconds (FPS: 740.476)
3941 presents in 5.00124 seconds (FPS: 788.005)
3410 presents in 5.00013 seconds (FPS: 681.983)
3937 presents in 5.00101 seconds (FPS: 787.241)
3929 presents in 5.00106 seconds (FPS: 785.633)
3896 presents in 5.00058 seconds (FPS: 779.109)
3513 presents in 5.00065 seconds (FPS: 702.509)
3835 presents in 5.00053 seconds (FPS: 766.918)
4063 presents in 5.00108 seconds (FPS: 812.424)
4212 presents in 5.00088 seconds (FPS: 842.251)
3934 presents in 5.0004 seconds (FPS: 786.737)
4065 presents in 5.00011 seconds (FPS: 812.983)
frames:48868, elapsedms:63569
mint03@mint03:~$

[trytip]

tomb raider for ps4 is $60 , you get a disk a case and a booklet and a printed cover.
tomb raider on steam is $60 software only and you have to use your own internet connection to download it which costs money, i don't see the logic in that.
the only new game i'm looking forward to playing in a long time is the Final Fantasy VII remake and hopefully they will remake FFVIII and FFX

[gm10]

i spent the better part of last 2 months undoing and redoing everything to get vulkan working for testing steam.

anyway, does anyone have vulkan sdk installed and know what the issue can be here with 32 bit support?? is there an issue? i see steam is only 32 bit and amdvlk is only 64 bit?
what i have is:
1.1.114 release of the LunarG Vulkan SDK from >>> https://www.lunarg.com/vulkan-sdk/
mesa drivers >>> https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/u ... cs-drivers
amdvlk_2019.Q3.5_amd64.deb from >>> https://github.com/GPUOpen-Drivers/AMDVLK/releases

I only have the mesa-vulkan-driver package from the official repositories and Vulkan worked out of the box, never had to do anything. So cannot help you there...

[trytip]

i spent the better part of last 2 months undoing and redoing everything to get vulkan working for testing steam.

anyway, does anyone have vulkan sdk installed and know what the issue can be here with 32 bit support?? is there an issue? i see steam is only 32 bit and amdvlk is only 64 bit?
what i have is:
1.1.114 release of the LunarG Vulkan SDK from >>> https://www.lunarg.com/vulkan-sdk/
mesa drivers >>> https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/u ... cs-drivers
amdvlk_2019.Q3.5_amd64.deb from >>> https://github.com/GPUOpen-Drivers/AMDVLK/releases

I only have the mesa-vulkan-driver package from the official repositories and Vulkan worked out of the box, never had to do anything. So cannot help you there...

i see that now. i was thinking i need to be running the amdgpu-pro proprietary drivers to benefit everything, but they lag way behind on development and crash quite often. seen too many threads asking about the pro drivers my edgy nerd self wanted to see what the fuss was about. meh, time well spent and NOT

i did find out that vulkan-sdk will only work kernel 4.15 default ubuntu kernel. it's the only one patched to run it. if you try to run vkconfig or vkcube (just a small terminal like glxgears) on different kernel the system will freeze and in need of hard boot. there are a few kernels supported but no clue
you know what they say "if you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space"