fishbone

fishbone , 19 days ago

I moved to towers for the same reason years ago, but I basically never do major component swaps like I thought I would.

I've since realized that having a tower is really nice for other things though, namely maintenance and cleaning/airflow. My rtx 2060 seemed like it was on its way out a year ago (thermal throttling, even on way lower settings than it used to be able to run just fine), so I took it apart and replaced the thermal paste. Runs better than when I first got it. Got some new case fans recently as well and the whole thing runs cooler, quieter, and they use less power than my stock ones, which is nice.

Obviously the thermal paste thing applies to laptops as well, but laptops can be very tough to get open and dig around in.

fishbone , 22 days ago

I figure this is a halfway decent place to ask, and it's on my mind. If there's a better place to ask, I'd love a point in the right direction, cause navigating lemmy well still eludes me.

Looking to test out linux for the first time and I know fuck-all about the basics, and I have a couple of questions:

spoiler

gaming is my main use for my pc, and I've seen Bazzite and Pop_OS as recommendations, are these good starting points? Relevant system specs (I assume):

• CPU: Intel i5-9600K (overclocked in BIOS)
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2060 (overclocked with MSI afterburner)
• 2 monitors setup, with my main setup for gsync ('adaptive-sync/freesync'). Both are ASUS monitors
• I almost universally don't play games with anticheat, so I'm not concerned on that front (I've heard that's a big wall for linux gaming)

spoiler

I plan on using an SSD for testing linux because I have a spare available, but I'd like to eventually use my NVME that my current windows install is on for linux (after swapping windows to a different drive of course). Could I expect any issues by doing that, or should I set up NVME for linux before starting the dive?

spoiler

I'd like to be able to boot into windows or linux regularly (at least until I get my bearings and settle into it), but I've heard windows like to fuck with boot processes in some way? Any tips for avoiding boot issues?

Again, if there's a better place to ask (I'm sure there is lol), I'd appreciate a mention for that too.

Edit: collapsible spoilers are a damn godsend.

fishbone , 22 days ago

Hell yeah, thanks. I'll likely not use bazzite then (I'm less concerned with breakage if it means I have more options). Is there any other distros that you might recommend? I don't know what's out there, and it seems like a lot.

Also, thanks for the links! I'll check around there too.

fishbone , 19 days ago

Could you expand on that a bit? What do you mean by 'work better'?

For context, my main monitor is the one I want working well (any gaming is exclusively on my main). My second monitor is only used for more screen space, and occasionally playing videos (I don't care if it's high quality if it's on my second).

fishbone , 19 days ago

Thanks for the recommendations, and another thanks for giving a quick rundown on them too! These comments have been wildly helpful for essentially laying down some framework in my head about it.

fishbone , 19 days ago

Noted about the USB drive, I'll definitely have that available, thanks!

fishbone , 19 days ago

Awesome, thanks!

I'm definitely not short on drives, so I'm not gonna bother with any partition shenanigans. The trouble is I only have one NVME drive, so it's just a question of which OS gets my best drive, but that's pretty minor honestly.

You mentioned Fallout 4, do you have experience in playing with mods on linux? That's another unknown for me, as I like modding and have no idea how that might transfer over.

fishbone , 19 days ago

Noted. both my monitors are 75hz and capable of variable refresh rate, so in theory they don't need to have different refresh rates for my setup, but I imagine playing games and watching a video might throw a slight wrench in that. Just out of curiosity for my options, would plugging my second monitor directly into my Mother board help mitigate any issues on that front (instead of having both plugged into my GPU)?

fishbone , 19 days ago

Ah, makes sense. I kinda figured it wouldn't be that easy to solve, but I had hope that it might have a 'cheap' workaround.

fishbone , 19 days ago

I looked it up a bit ago because I was curious, and apparently Mod Organizer 2 works well on linux.

Also, not to shill too hard, but I like MO2 way more than Vortex (official successor to Nexus Mod Manager). I feel like MO2's got a slight learning curve up front, but after that, it's way more capable and easier to use than Vortex, especially as number of mods increases.