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Gaming laptop with good Linux support? (feddit.de)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A similar question was raised some day's ago from a other person, but with different background. In this case, I would like to buy a nice gaming laptop. Of course I would use it for office and coding to, but primary I'm searching recommendations for gaming. I would like to play Wine/Proton game's and also native Linux games. As OS, I like to use Manjaro Gnome.

Should I better buy all of AMD (if yes, which CPI, GPU) or Intel/Nvidia? Or Intel CPU and AMD GPU? Which combination is the right one with best performance for a casual gamer? I prefer FPS games, if that's important...

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[–] j4k3 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The big issue is the distro you run and how it deals with secure boot. I can't tell you anything about gaming. I can tell you a lot about the kernel side because I play with AI, got a machine recently, and did a bunch of research.

The unfortunate side of AMD in laptops is that we are on a major point of deprecation and change. AMD is trying to spar with Nvidia by developing HIPS. HIPS is the API bridge between ROCm and CUDA. The target generation for HIPS is the 7k series. Behind the scenes the 7k series API is now managed by the same team as the AMD enterprise stuff. This means that 7k is a totally different product lineage. It doesn't have a massive impact for gamers because most of what is happening in gaming is done in user space with software that interfaces with the kernel module. The average gamer doesn't really interact much with this stuff. The only things they experience are issues with the kernel module as it relates to secure boot and UEFI.

However, when it comes to long term support (mostly proprietary related/but that is most gaming), anything prior to the 7k series is likely to get dropped sooner rather than later simply because HIPS is a bridge layer that makes API calls work the same for AMD and Nvidia; it is a path of least resistance thing.

The best deal IMO is still Nvidia when it comes to laptop hardware. I really wish this was not the case, but this is what a few weeks of research seemed to indicate. The main issue with secure boot is if the UEFI bios supports user generated custom keys, and if you are capable of the task of generating your own keys. If you do this, you can secure your own Nvidia kernel driver. This can be their binary blob driver or the one built from the open source code they provide for the kernel side module only.

If you do not want to make your own keys or if you buy a machine that does not support user generated custom keys (likely), you need to run Fedora. Fedora has a system that uses a special key signed by Microsoft that keeps secure boot enabled. Fedora now has an automated system that rebuilds the Nvidia driver from source code every time there is a kernel update. This system is practically invisible to the user and it makes Nvidia easy even for someone that doesn't know what is going on under the hood. Do not buy anything, or follow any guide that tells you to just disable secure boot. Linux does not manage the UEFI firmware layers. This is a vulnerability for every computer that runs UEFI and it is one of the largest targets now.

The biggest laptop GPU from AMD is rather obscure and didn't seem very popular. It is the 6850XT which has 12GBV. The best GPU that is readily accessible from Nvidia is the 3080Ti at 16GBV. Be aware that the "Ti" is very important here, the "3080" is just an 8GBV GPU.

The UEFI standard for secure boot specifies a way to generate custom keys, but there is no requirement for manufacturers to enable this functionality. There is still a way to boot into UEFI and use KeyTool to make keys, but this gets even more complicated.

If I were buying something again right now, I would look really hard for any possible option that has unofficial but proven AVX512 support, with a 3080Ti, and support for at least 96GB of DDR5 at the maximum frequency. AI actually uses all of this (and more) if you have it and want to play with the best offline models. The Asus Rog stuff looked like it had the highest specs for 2022.

[–] woelkchen 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The unfortunate side of AMD in laptops is that we are on a major point of deprecation and change. [...] it doesn’t have a massive impact for gamers [...] The average gamer doesn’t really interact much with this stuff.

Quite a long bit of anti-AMD FUD and NVidia promo for what is completely unrelated to OP's question, as you outright say with two sentences. OP asked about gaming notebooks and not CUDA.

you need to run Fedora.

OP said to wish to use Manjaro Gnome. Basically you're like "I'm throwing a bunch of mud against AMD for a use case you're not interested in and then go ahead and tell you that your choice of OS is wrong."

[–] j4k3 -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Quite a bit of under the hood and real issues at a deeper level, along with a proven path of least resistance.

I don't care how it makes you, me, or anyone else feel. The hardware support at the kernel level is the most important factor in overall experience. I do not like Nvidia at all. I wanted to buy AMD and tried really hard to make that happen, but it simply isn't competitive in the laptop space. The first decent options will be announced in the next few months as 7k hardware makes it into laptops. The 6k stuff is generations behind Nvidia.

I have two computers running libre boot. One is fully compiled from the bootloader up and running Gentoo. I would only run this if it could handle the workload. I am not a fanboi fool. I will call out shit for what it is. Maybe you can get by with deprecated stuff. Maybe you don't mind if it is not supported in a couple of years. I'm just telling you why the writing is on the wall and what to look for. If that motivates your emotional nonsense response, whatever.

[–] woelkchen 6 points 1 year ago

The hardware support at the kernel level is the most important factor in overall experience.

https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu?h=v6.5

it simply isn’t competitive in the laptop space.

To quote you: "I can’t tell you anything about gaming."

I will call out shit for what it is.

"I can’t tell you anything about gaming."

I am not a fanboi fool.

Funny how you tell stories about completely different issues the post is about just to promote NVidia...

Maybe you can get by with deprecated stuff. Maybe you don’t mind if it is not supported in a couple of years.

The only company outright deprecating older GPUs is NVidia who don't support anything before Turing for Wayland. AMD drivers are fully open source and are also being worked on by Valve and Collabora for the Steam Deck. If anything, AMD hardware is more likely to be supported in quite some time because of Steam Deck but you wouldn't know this because you "can’t tell anything about gaming."