EDIT: Do I really need a “gaming kernel” like Zen to get the most performance out of my Linux rig and enjoy my games?
I have recently decided to make the switch from Windows 10 to go full Linux for gaming. Long time Ubuntu user, I’ve recently decided I don’t like Ubuntu and that I want a more up-to-date distro. I have a brand new AMD-only gaming PC and I really want to squeeze as much performance as I can out of my hardware as possible. I played around with Manjaro for a while. I really liked the Ubuntu-like convenience that Manjaro provided, but appreciated the latest & greatest software that came with Manjaro.
However, during my research for the best gaming tweaks for my distro, I found out about the Zen kernel and the AMDVLK project (https://github.com/GPUOpen-Drivers/AMDVLK).
Alas, I found Manjaro doesn’t have any “gaming kernels” available in the repos. Furthermore, when I tried to install the Zen kernel from the AUR, it failed and I couldn’t get pacman to install it. Upon further research, I found out the AUR package is for Arch users and not Manjaro. So now I’m looking for an Arch/Manjaro-like distro that will give me the gaming performance that I want.
I really want a system that’s up-to-date, quickly tweaked for high performance gaming, KDE desktop, but a system that is stable and that I don’t have to babysit too much. I work a lot, and my weekends are valuable to me. Can you help me?
How much more tweaking/configuring will I have to do to get Endeavour OS to be as “feature-rich” (not entirely sure myself what I mean by that) as Manjaro?
My advice would be to try it in a virtual machine and see what you think. I don’t really know what you mean by feature-rich either so it is hard to say. It is possible it will be good for you out of the box.
Given your description of your needs, you might also check out Garuda Linux. It is closer to Manjaro out of the box and pre-customized which can good or bad depending on your perspective.
It is a hard question to answer because all Arch-based distros are somewhat similar to each other since they are all based on Arch. At the same time, they certainly aren’t identical and without knowing your preferences more specifically it is tricky to say which might be right for you. That is why trying them out for yourself in a VM which doesn’t require all that much time is often the best bet.
If you’re still running Manjaro I would switch to unstable branch and see what you think. It’s much closer to Arch/Endeavour.
But if you like the Arch ecosystem of Linux, I would think Endeavour would be for you. But I agree with @dalto , give it a go in a VM. Like all things Linux,I think the best thing is that you can try anything and if it sucks, do something else.
How can I help give my post more clarity? When you say, “preferences,” what do you mean by that? Do you mean choice of DE+WM and how I want xorg.conf to look like? Or do you mean whether LibreOffice comes pre-installed? I can install that myself.
I think I could get what I want with Endeavour. Arch distro + KDE + Steam + Zen Kernel/AMDVLK-Git = sit down and play video games. Is that correct?
Like, is that all there is to it? Is it as easy or simple as I want it to be? Or is there more to configure than beyond that?
Welcome
Try it, only you can tell if it’s for you, i think it’s best platform for gaming
Should be simple enough, pretty much what @dalto said!
Keep in mind, that not all suggestions or guides on Linux gaming are equally safe / sane, for example personally i wouldn’t go with anything from AUR -git as it will sure as hell break one day and you may get frustrated…
But hey, it’s your choice and you can go full cutting edge mode and switch back to something else later if having a problem
Longer answer: My own benchmarks show very little performance differences between the various kernels. If only one job/application is running the performance difference I found are within 1-2 %.
There is more difference between the various kernels if background jobs are taking away CPU time from the foreground job. In that case the kernels with alternative CPU schedulers have an advantage. In my benchmarks the best in this area is xanmod kernel with cacULE scheduler. But the difference to the other kernels with bmq, pds or what-not-scheduler is not big.
You could also try the kernel coming with Garuda Linux. I tested the gardu linux-tkg-bmq kernel which is not bad.
But I am not a big gamer. So I am back to linux-zen which has the vanilla CPU scheduler (CFS). I picked the linux-zen kernel as my primary not for performance reasons but for the addtl. bug fix and fucntionality patches.
Well, main benefit of zen for gamers is not shcedulers or other stuff per-se, but Fsync patch (you need to have Wine with Fsync support, like TKG as well to enable it in Lutris or Steam proton)
If you really have a good high end system, windows will be the best for your gaming needs no doubt about that.
If you have a mediocre system or low end old system, there’s only so much you can squeeze out from it.
All those “gaming performance distro” is all just to let gamer fanboy fantasize about the “myth” of whatever kernel or softwares that people claim to be using.
Because in the end of the day you just have to ask yourself a question what is your ultimate goal now.
Do you want to waste all your time researching and looking for all these “mythical” believes or you can start playing right away in windows?
Nonsense. I have zero problems gaming on linux. Since I also use AMD hardware the performance is often better then it was on windowz then again it has been three years since I used windows…
Welcome. EndeavourOS, just like vanilla Arch is probably the best non-windoze platform for gaming (with the possible exception of Gentoo, configured by someone knowledgeable). Just don’t expect everything to work out of the box. If you have a technical mindset, and you are willing to invest time and effort into learning things, and are not easily frustrated when things do not work, but rather see it as an interesting puzzle to solve, then Arch, as well as EndeavourOS, is most certainly for you.
If you want a well preconfigured system for gaming, look at Garuda Linux.
I know you think Steam is malware but for the sake of the OP…
Whether it be on arch or EndeavourOS the only three packages I have to add to get things working are:
steam (NOT steam-native-runtime)
vulkan-radeon
lib32-vulkan-radeon #2 and 3 will be prompted by the steam package itself as options.
After that enable proton and go!
Every once in a while with a newer title you might need to install a glorious eggroll version of proton until the steam proton version catches up but that takes all of three minutes. The only thing you won’t be able to play (easily) are online multiplayer FPS’s like call of duty as the anti cheat software bugs on linux.
Yeah, one can say whatever about Steam, but it cannot be denied that Steam is comfortable and easy to use. But if comfort and ease of use is one’s priority, one may as well use windoze.
I would say that the zen kernel doesn’t add that much, for me at least on my all amd build.
I found that my video encoding took slightly longer on the zen kernel than the standard kernel. And I could not multitask as well on the zen, like doing an encode and also watch YouTube or browse reddit, the whole system was stuttering but that doesn’t happen on the standard kernel.
I don’t have those issues using the zen kernel,. Your issues when encoding, watching videos, all sounds like a graphic’s card thing, maybe driver issue, not sure.
I’m using CPU encoding not GPU, and am using mesa drivers.
Not that it couldn’t still be a setup issue, I just know that the standard kernel worked better for me than zen. I also use BTRFS, so it could be that not playing well with zen with the very high CPU load.
