My journey to successfully game under Linux (and overcome Microsoft's Stranglehold)

[Zepp]

@igor_kavinski and @Zepp

Can you please confirm 1 thing with me.. in discovery update app's settings.. your checked repository's are:

Firmware updates:

vendor directory - vendor automatic
lvfs - linux vendor firmware service

Flatpak (default)

Fedora 42 openh264 (from Cisco) -x86_64
Fedora 42 - x86_64 - Updates
Fedora 42 - x86_64

Terra 42 (Extras)
Terra 42 (Mesa)
Terra 42 (Mesa) - Source
Terra 42
google-chrome

Ultramarine Linux 42
Ultramarine Linux 42 - Source

Those are all that should be checked right or do I need any different ones? I clicked off quite a few of the NVIDIA ones and RPM Fusion ones

I have all those except the 'vendor directory'

out of curiosity why did you uncheck the RPM Fusion repos?

 

[Indus]

I have all those except the 'vendor directory'

out of curiosity why did you uncheck the RPM Fusion repos?

I wasn't sure what they were..

Which ones do you have on? Any RPM ones?

 

[Zepp]

I wasn't sure what they were..

Which ones do you have on? Any RPM ones?

As far as I understand it they are like unofficial community built extra repos with software that Fedora can't legally include by default. They're even available for RHEL and CentOS.

but to be honest Im not sure what common apps you wouldn't find available without them.

I have the free and nonfree (and updates) enabled which is the Ultramarine default

 

[Indus]

As far as I understand it they are like unofficial community built extra repos with software that Fedora can't legally include by default. They're even available for RHEL and CentOS.

but to be honest Im not sure what common apps you wouldn't find available without them.

I have the free and nonfree (and updates) enabled which is the Ultramarine default

Ahhh I made Flathub the default.. mostly because I was a bit tired of rebooting for system upgrades.

So I try to install the flathub software rather than the ultramarine version of it.

 

[manly]

An old article, but Deja Dup is still one of the standard GUI backup tools.

Easy backups with Déjà Dup - Fedora Magazine

Déjà Dup is a graphical front-end to Duplicity. Déjà Dup handles GPG encryption, scheduling and file inclusion, presenting a clean and simple back-up tool.

fedoramagazine.org

 

[Indus]

An old article, but Deja Dup is still one of the standard GUI backup tools.

Easy backups with Déjà Dup - Fedora Magazine

Déjà Dup is a graphical front-end to Duplicity. Déjà Dup handles GPG encryption, scheduling and file inclusion, presenting a clean and simple back-up tool.

fedoramagazine.org

Tried it out.. yep it's really simple and easy to use like Timeshift is for Debian.

Thanks!

 

[Indus]

Come across a very strange problem.

I was gaming playing Overwatch 2.. enjoying 144 fps all of a sudden game is choppy and I'm getting like 35-57 fps.

I restart game.. same.

I reboot.. same.

Think maybe my video card is a dud but want to confirm it in windows.. windows everything is fine.

WTH just happened?? clearly not a hardware issue but something really borked it and it's in all games.. not just overwatch.

 

[Indus]

jyaku on Earth ~
❯ lsmod | grep amdgpu
amdgpu 20635648 60
amdxcp 12288 1 amdgpu
gpu_sched 65536 1 amdgpu
drm_panel_backlight_quirks 12288 1 amdgpu
drm_buddy 32768 1 amdgpu
drm_ttm_helper 16384 2 amdgpu
ttm 135168 2 amdgpu,drm_ttm_helper
drm_exec 12288 1 amdgpu
i2c_algo_bit 20480 1 amdgpu
drm_suballoc_helper 20480 1 amdgpu
drm_display_helper 315392 1 amdgpu
cec 102400 2 drm_display_helper,amdgpu
video 81920 1 amdgpu

jyaku on Earth ~
❯ journalctl -b -p 3
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.SADX], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.SADS], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14._DSM], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.BTRT], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14._PRR], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.BRDY], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.BGAP], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.BRDS], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.ECKY], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.ECKV], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.GPCX], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.GPC], AE_ALREADY_EX>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.GLAX], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.GLAI], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.BTLY], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI BIOS Error (bug): Failure creating named object [\_SB.PC00.XHCI.RHUB.HS14.BTLC], AE_ALREADY_E>
Aug 15 20:59:19 ultramarine kernel: ACPI Error: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20240827/psobject-220)
Aug 16 00:59:24 Earth kernel: exFAT-fs (sdc1): bogus allocation bitmap size(need : 5722989, cur : 5722990)
Aug 16 00:59:24 Earth kernel: exFAT-fs (sda1): bogus allocation bitmap size(need : 7630617, cur : 7630618)
Aug 16 00:59:26 Earth bluetoothd[1436]: Failed to set mode: Failed (0x03)
lines 1-35

 

[Indus]

Ok so one of the Ultramarine updates has really messed with things obviously.

I tried Deja Dup to restore but having problems with it saying no permission to change files in home drive.

So I have 5 options and none of them are good.

1. post on Ultramarine discord and hope for a fix (done already.. still waiting on a response)

2. try to uninstall recent stuff.. but it's not easy to do as I don't remember which exact thing it was and if it was a system update.

3. Try booting up with one of the previous kernels - Tried but did not work.. same problem remains.

4. Clean install again

5. Clean install and go with Debian 13 this time since updates are few and far between and usually verified.



In the mean time.. has anyone ever done a clean install but managed to save their /home data?? How do you do it?

I'm also going to see if this is a wayland problem and try booting up with x11.. see if that fixes stuff.

 

[Zepp]

Ok so one of the Ultramarine updates has really messed with things obviously.

I tried Deja Dup to restore but having problems with it saying no permission to change files in home drive.

So I have 5 options and none of them are good.

1. post on Ultramarine discord and hope for a fix (done already.. still waiting on a response)

I would also post on Fedora forums and subreddit. not sure if they have a discord but probably do

 

[Indus]

testing this out:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1m8oz8z/wayland_screen_tearing_stopped_working_in_linux

 

[Indus]

Ok I made a video of what exactly is going on..

bear with me for 33 seconds:

But do you see the lag/ tearing? That's what started happening but didn't happen before

 

[igor_kavinski]

Try removing the drivers completely to something like a basic 2D VGA driver if there is such a thing in Linux. Then install an older Radeon driver from January 2025 or something.

 

[Indus]

Ok I reformatted and did a clean install.

I still don't know the problem but maybe switching from NVidia to AMD always called for a clean install.

Anyways this is the route I went:

1. Install Fedora 42
2. use terminal command to migrate to ultramarine.

And it seems stable and I'm back to where I was gaming wise.

Where I'm back to square one again is Samba..

The stuff I did before doesn't seem to work.. infact windows can't even see the folders now.

 

[Indus]

Found out what the problem was and I can't get my head around this..

How come my old Ultramarine install had a different MAC address for my computer than my current Ultramarine install.

I thought it was hardware bound and unchangeable unless you change the network card/ wifi adapter??

And I'm talking about actual mac id like AB:12:CD:34:EF:56 changing from linux install to linux install. I thought that was impossble.

 

[manly]

In the mean time.. has anyone ever done a clean install but managed to save their /home data?? How do you do it?

You can always restore your user data onto a clean install. You do backup your data, don't you? That's what Deja Dup is for; it's not for a "system restore" or rollback type of scenario. Maybe there's value for you to install Timeshift this go around?

It can get a little tricky with app preferences and whatever else is stashed in ~/.local . But I don't really mind losing prefs. The ~/Documents directory is what's important to me.
(I don't even keep a full backup of ~/Downloads .)
Looks like Steam games live under ~/.steam

Found out what the problem was and I can't get my head around this..

How come my old Ultramarine install had a different MAC address for my computer than my current Ultramarine install.

I thought it was hardware bound and unchangeable unless you change the network card/ wifi adapter??

And I'm talking about actual mac id like AB:12:CD:34:EF:56 changing from linux install to linux install. I thought that was impossble.

Why does it matter? A MAC address is assigned to a specific NIC (port), not the entire PC. It can be spoofed (IIRC Apple thinks spoofing it is a security enhancement). The true hardware MAC for a port is assigned during manufacturing, so it will never change.

The MAC address is so far removed from Samba or any other application that uses the network that it shouldn't be a factor in any file sharing scenario.

 

[Indus]

Why does it matter? A MAC address is assigned to a specific NIC (port), not the entire PC. It can be spoofed (IIRC Apple thinks spoofing it is a security enhancement). The true hardware MAC for a port is assigned during manufacturing, so it will never change.

The MAC address is so far removed from Samba or any other application that uses the network that it shouldn't be a factor in any file sharing scenario.

I gave it 192.168.1.235 as a specific dhcp ip address on my router and nothing was coming up when trying to look for it.

Then I noticed the mac change.. and had to change it in the router and do a few reboots.

I mean I fixed it but I was not expecting this to be the problem. Caught me by surprise especially as I've had windows networks keep their mac ids forever. They only ever change if I change the network card or wifi adapter. Always thought it was hardware locked.

 

[biostud]

An old article, but Deja Dup is still one of the standard GUI backup tools.

Easy backups with Déjà Dup - Fedora Magazine

Déjà Dup is a graphical front-end to Duplicity. Déjà Dup handles GPG encryption, scheduling and file inclusion, presenting a clean and simple back-up tool.

fedoramagazine.org

Thx just installed it and did my first backup as my UM42 setup is going really well

 

[Indus]

Thx just installed it and did my first backup as my UM42 setup is going really well

I had a problem with it.. I couldn't restore with it which made the backup pointless.

Have to find another way.

 

[biostud]

I had a problem with it.. I couldn't restore with it which made the backup pointless.

Have to find another way.

Yeah, I thought I had to try a restore to see if it actually worked.

Why didn't it work for you?

Did you find another way?

 

[Indus]

Yeah, I thought I had to try a restore to see if it actually worked.

Why didn't it work for you?

Did you find another way?

No I had to end up reformatting and put a new install.

My problem as I referred to earlier was somehow the AMD driver just stopped working.. games were giving me 35-55 fps when I had a new card that can give me 200+.

I wanted to restore for that but couldn't.

Things are better now but I still haven't found a good backup/ restore software yet.. Manly suggested I just copy the folders and reformat and copy them back. Not a bad idea but was hoping for something better like timeshift!

 

[biostud]

No I had to end up reformatting and put a new install.

My problem as I referred to earlier was somehow the AMD driver just stopped working.. games were giving me 35-55 fps when I had a new card that can give me 200+.

I wanted to restore for that but couldn't.

Things are better now but I still haven't found a good backup/ restore software yet.. Manly suggested I just copy the folders and reformat and copy them back. Not a bad idea but was hoping for something better like timeshift!

I'm starting to write down all the custom things I have to do to get my hardware and software working properly, so if I ever need to reinstall, it should be easier.

 

[Indus]

I'm starting to write down all the custom things I have to do to get my hardware and software working properly, so if I ever need to reinstall, it should be easier.

Yeah I did that..

made a list of what programs I need.
what commands I put in terminal
made a fonts folder
copied over my saved games/ add ons folder

But apparently I should copy my whole steam library folder?? I haven't quite figured that one out. And I'd need to do the same for Lutris as not all of my games are Steam.

But I honestly haven't used Windows in about 6 weeks now other than to test my video card isn't broken.

If anything I'm liking linux more and more.. what most impresses me is you know how windows can feel laggy if you leave it running for a few days.. well no such lag there with Ultramarine.. but I knew that from my wife's debian too.. she leaves the computer on for months at a time.

Both of us are not updating to latest and greatest as I feel that breaks the system.. or at least it did for me when I updated and then GPU driver stopped working.

 

[Indus]

Long list of updates today showing up but I'm not executing them yet.. If it's working, don't fix it!

kernel​

Upgrade to new version 6.15.10-200.fc42
Release notes:

The 6.15.10 stable kernel update contains a number of important fixes across the tree.

kernel-core​

Upgrade to new version 6.15.10-200.fc42
Release notes:

The 6.15.10 stable kernel update contains a number of important fixes across the tree.

kernel-devel​

Upgrade to new version 6.15.10-200.fc42
Release notes:

The 6.15.10 stable kernel update contains a number of important fixes across the tree.

kernel-modules​

Upgrade to new version 6.15.10-200.fc42
Release notes:

The 6.15.10 stable kernel update contains a number of important fixes across the tree.

kernel-modules-core​

Upgrade to new version 6.15.10-200.fc42
Release notes:

The 6.15.10 stable kernel update contains a number of important fixes across the tree.

kernel-modules-extra​

Upgrade to new version 6.15.10-200.fc42
Release notes:

The 6.15.10 stable kernel update contains a number of important fixes across the tree.

kernel-tools​

Upgrade to new version 6.15.10-200.fc42
Release notes:

The 6.15.10 stable kernel update contains a number of important fixes across the tree.

kernel-tools-libs​

Upgrade to new version 6.15.10-200.fc42
Release notes:

The 6.15.10 stable kernel update contains a number of important fixes across the tree.

 

[Indus]

It's also a good idea to check reddit for how kernel updates go as there's a few complaining about problems:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/1msk5fi/horizontal_artifacts_on_144hz_on_wayland

What's most alarming is this comment:

I had this issue, but it went away after I had changed the colors option from “prefer accuracy” back to the default of “prefer efficiency”. May also want to try a clean install if nothing else works