Gaming laptop with good Linux support?
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...
As others have already (somewhat) alluded to; it's best to buy a laptop from a company that offers devices on which Linux users are first-class citizens. Therefore, any device that specifically fits your needs (hardware-wise) from either NovaCustom, Star Labs, System76, Tuxedo etc should fit the bill. Furthermore, it's worth noting that Nvidia GPUs have a known bad track record on Linux. The possibility exists that you won't even notice it on any of the devices sold by any of the aforementioned vendors. However, I'd argue it's still mindful to be cautious.
AMD has been doing very good for some time and the fact that the Steam Deck is powered by AMD is very telling of what the current status quo is. However, I don't think it's a hard requirement. Sure, going full-AMD has it's merits, but you should be fine regardless.
Last year's Asus Zephyrus G14 is a full AMD computer and should work fine on Linux: https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-zephyrus/rog-zephyrus-g14-2022-series/
The upcoming Framework Laptop 16 has a replaceable Radeon graphics card. Looks very promising: https://frame.work/products/laptop16-diy-amd-7040
Don't touch ones with an NVidia GPU. Linux drivers from NVidia suck.
Which games exactly? Many popular multiplayer FPS games don't work on Linux, due to the anticheat software employed by them.
See: https://areweanticheatyet.com/?search=&sortOrder=desc&sortBy=status
Please don't laugh, this probably doesn't really fall into that category, but I wanted to keep it simple: Ark - Survival Evolved, Counter Strike but also games like Space Engineers. Ark causes relatively few problems. Space Engineers, on the other hand, does. Unlike Ark, it currently runs with very few FPS and often crashes or doesn't start at all. In general, I play more when I have time in the evening for 1 or 2 hours, comfortably on the sofa. So the laptop is more suitable.
I'm buying a Framework 16 without the GPU because I'm more in the market for a 7800M when that comes out
But I'll be doing integrated meanwhile, it's quite powerful
What does a GPU do ? Is graphics card same as GPU?
Basically. Graphics card theoretically is referring to the entire removable part on a desktop that has the GPU, power delivery, memory, cooling, etc, but in practice they're used interchangeably and mean the same thing.
In casual conversation, GPU and graphics card are interchangeable.
When being technical, the GPU is the chip itself, the only part that is made by Nvidia or AMD or Intel, while the graphics card is the entire circuit board/chip/components/heat sink/fan assembly. It's a bit like the CPU in the motherboard, they're just not sold separately.
That's in desktop computers. Laptops usually don't have a "graphics card." Laptops that have a dedicated GPU it's usually permanently attached to the motherboard. The Framework 16 mentioned above is a modular laptop, and will have removable GPU modules.
It's the same thing
they do very parallelized workloads like 3d rendering
System76 has laptops with Linux preinstalled, so they may be a good option to check. https://system76.com/laptops-powerful I have not personally owned one yet, but I've heard some good things about them. Other people may have more input though.
Kind of surprising they’re using nvidia over amd
I asked about this to a system76 employee and what he told me was that nvidia with CUDA is still much better for several professional use cases and because of that, they still prefer using nvidia
It does seem they lean pretty hard into the Intel/Nvidia combo, hopefully that will change in the future. I do appreciate the option of prepackaged Nvidia drivers for Pop though. Makes running my old laptop so easy!
PopOS has an Nvidia-specific version.
I have one, they are good but you can generally get better quality for less with Dell or Lenovo. Where System 76 shines is its customer support: they are responsive, helpful and knowledgeable. This, plus the fact that popOS is a damn fine Linux distro expressly tuned to their machines, largely makes up for the fact that it might be a bit more expensive than the alternatives. Regarding gaming, I can't really say... I've played a few steam games on it but they're not the type that require much firepower. Still, no problem there.
Good to know. Which model do you have? I've been eyeing up something along the lines of the Pangolin when I next upgrade. I've been a fan of Pop for some time, and I'm currently running it on my three main computers. It's great on my Dev One and I've also got it on an older Alienware laptop. Their customer support is pretty good, I contacted them about information on a keyboard a while back and it seemed they knew what they were doing.
It's a Ryzen 7 Pangolin, I bought it almost 2 years ago.
Thanks!
Friend of mine bought a Pangolin, anything to watch out for?
I had my cpu fan die after a year, so maybe that. They replaced it really fast though.
A few more details would go a long way in offering actually helpful recommendations.
I'm looking for a US deal under $3000. Most of what I've seen of this year's models is selling near MSRP still.
Tuxedo sells some gaming capable laptops with Linux preinstalled as well. I have an older one, always worked well.
I am very happy with my ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 GA402RJ. It's small, powerful, not too expensive, has a recent AMD GPU (RX6800S) / CPU (Ryzen 9 6900), upgradeable RAM, good resolution, and a gorgeous screen (great for photo development too).
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.
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.
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."
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.
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/amdgpu?h=v6.5
To quote you: "I can’t tell you anything about gaming."
"I can’t tell you anything about gaming."
Funny how you tell stories about completely different issues the post is about just to promote NVidia...
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."
For software there is this, preinstalled for best OOTB gaming compatibility https://universal-blue.org/images/bazzite/
I'm seeing others recommend the G14 2022 all-AMD one. I have owned this model since it released and use it nearly every day. Despite the performance being pretty okay, it does have its share of deal-breakers which, if I knew them at the time, I would not have bought it:
The laptop itself would be the best Linux experience I've had if not for these issues. The trackpad is excellent and great for Wayland 1:1 gestures, the display and speakers are great, and the battery lasts a good 2-3h with light web browsing.
Indeed. The laptop is great exception for QA issues. I have some of those issues but not some others.
An extremely annoying thing that happens to me you didn't mention is when I'm using the integrated GPU sometimes the screen flickers.
And if it matters my unit at least doesn't overheat at all. It's actually quite impressive.
yeah. Own an Asus with Nvidia. Can confirm having the same experience.
I had no problems with Tuxedo but I would recommend a work laptop and a gaming desktop
Laptops age incredibly fast due to heat
AMD has the better graphics cards, CPU wise Intel has caught up so look for the cheaper equivalent
List the games you want and we can tell you compatibility, if you just want FPS games then I get my fix from Plutonium (older COD games)
As someone who uses a fairly cheap gaming laptop with an NVIDIA GPU: I would advise against NVIDIA. I've successfully gotten mine to work, but it's been a hassle. If you can avoid it, do so.
I just want to comment on the Nvidia thing, since they are so common on gaming machines. And I have no opinion / data on the performance of nvidia vs other to gpus with linux.
With nvidia on linux you will be fine if you just do a couple of things: hang back a little on applying updates (specifically kernel and Nvidia driver updates) and watch the relevant forums / lists for problems from nvidia users. Only update after a few days have gone by without such reports or, if reports have surfaced, after they get fixed.
openSUSE Tumbleweed user here, and I've actually had very few problems, and they were specifically caused by prime. I may have dodged a problem or two with the above strategy though.
Don't know where you live, but check https://linuxpreloaded.com/ , https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/?refID=dwsp, and https://starlabs.systems/ for linux laptops.
If those don't suite you, find a laptop then have a look at https://linux-hardware.org/ to check if it's supported.
Dell gaming laptops are decent for the price and might get a discount if you have the preinstall Ubuntu (since you're not buying Windows)
You could do a steam deck with a portable monitor and keyboard.
I picked up a 2022 G14 RX6700s about a week ago from Beat Buy for $750. I added a 32GB memory stick to bring it up to 40GB. I also replaced the SSD with a 2TB 980 Pro. Since it's all AMD it works without any futzing. I'm running openSUSE Tumbleweed and so far it all just works. Sleep, dual GPU's, everything. I did add the AMD P-State flag which helped battery life tremendously. Even sleep just worked out of the box which is the first time I've ever had that experience.
My normal workload runs MS SQL Server in a docker container, two distroboxes for specific software, Outlook and Teams PWA apps, VSCode, Azure Data Studio, Firefox, and a couple of terminals windows, and it sits at about 8.5GB of memory idle. With Bluetooth connected and streaming YouTube Music and doing development I'm able to get about 7-8 hours of battery life.
I only play D3, D4, World of Warships, and Guild Wars 2. It plays those games without any issue even at 4K. I do recognize those games aren't Starfield, so keep that in mind. For me, it works great and it been the easiest experience with Linux I've had.
At least with Tumbleweed. I tried Pop_OS! first and it worked great, until launching games on Steam froze X11 and required me jumping to a TTY screen to kill everything. So far Tumbleweed with Distrobox is giving me the best of everything and I'm loving it.
That sounds like a very good deal. (For context to other readers: It's the Asus notebook I recommended in my reply as well.)
An Intel WiFi card is apparently also a good investment.
I was looking for a smaller (14" and not bulky) gaming Laptop, and ended up with the Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X. And I'm very happy with it; feels fairly future proof with 32GB of Ram and runs NixOS like a champ.
Only has a GTX 3050 though, so it's not for the highest end gaming, but that's never been my priority anyway, it runs BG3 quite well and that's the beefiest thing I've thrown at it.
Looking for the ultimate gaming laptop that's also Linux-friendly? Consider this tailored advice for enthusiasts seeking top-notch gaming performance on a Linux platform. When exploring options, keep an eye out for configurations that boast excellent compatibility with Linux distributions like Manjaro Gnome.
For a seamless gaming experience, ponder over an all-AMD setup - a Ryzen CPU (Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7) coupled with a Radeon RX GPU offers a harmonious blend of performance and compatibility for gaming on Linux. Alternatively, an Intel CPU paired with an AMD GPU could also serve well for gaming enthusiasts.
For those diving into FPS games, prioritize a robust GPU. Models housing Nvidia's GTX or RTX series or AMD's Radeon RX series promise smoother gameplay.
When scouting the best gaming laptops, prioritize models with reliable driver support and compatibility with Linux gaming. Brands such as ASUS, Lenovo Legion, and select MSI models often cater well to Linux users.
In summary, a strong GPU-CPU combination alongside Linux compatibility is key for an immersive gaming experience. Cheers to finding the perfect gaming companion that suits your Linux adventure! Here is guide to chose a best gaming laptop under 500$
That doesn't suddenly die after 2 years.
The word 'gaming' together with laptop in the same sentence will never work.
The steam deck has sold a couple million units as a dedicated gaming device with significantly less power than most gaming laptops, and plenty of us use it as their primary gaming device perfectly happily.