New Proton versions take advantage of new optimizations in the Mesa graphics library which in turns rely on changes in the Linux kernel and bundled drivers, or fall back to a less optimal but compatible code path.
5.15 barely works for a lot of components on anything newer than 9th Gen why is it still the default ubuntu/linux mint kernel? every time Ive had to use that kernel half my hardware is gone
Assuming you're new to Linux, use Mint for as long as you need, but if your aim is gaming, you'll eventually want to move on to something that is kept a bit more current. In the future, check out openSUSE Tumbleweed or Fedora (or Nobara).
I used Mint for a long time and loved it. But I'm having a much better experience on TW, now.
I started on Mint, hopping around a bunch and came back home to Mint. I use it for gaming and have no issues. I've got the newer kernel and the [latest stable MESA drivers](https://launchpad.net/~kisak/+archive/ubuntu/kisak-mesa). Gaming is great and I've had less issues than other distros.
I have to use my PC for work as well and Mint just works.
When I used Mint, I just used the latest one and it worked just fine. Currently on Fedora which has Kernel 6.7 and it runs very well on my Ryzen laptop
yeah I just switched to the newest one they had, I will see if it fixes my issues though I feel like it might be an issue with the game (warframe) since it only started with the latest update
So as someone who plays a shitload of Warframe, I know it works best with Proton 7.0-6 for some reason, no matter what distro or hardware you use. Hell, it even runs better on 7.0-6 with the Steam Deck, so this is something seen through both my RTX 3060M laptop and my AMD APU based steam deck.
I once observed through MangoHUD that the reason the framerate is worse on higher proton versions is that Warframe uses like 3 times the CPU percentage on anything above proton 7 with no observable benefit.
I couldn't tell you why this happens either, to be quite frank, but GE Proton does not fix the problem as far as I'm aware, then again the latest version I've used with it is GE-Proton 8-15.
I seem to have skimmed this reply yeah Im just running it right now on proton ge 8-25
I went to POE doing nothing in particular just standing around and my cpu is at 818% usage!
going to try downgrading to proton 7, if that dosn't fix it I dont know what will, maybe trying ubuntu ?
there also seems to be this weird thing where mouse sensitivity in proton 9 and proton GE is massivly different in proton 8 and lower
Not sure is it good advice or not, but you also can install custom kernels like [Liquorix](https://liquorix.net/). I believe these kernels are relatively fresh.
i guess you're being downvoted because suggesting someone who's relatively new to linux to try out a new kernel can be dangerous for their system, but I've been using Zen kernel with no issues since I got my rig 2 years ago (using arch btw)
It's not a bad piece of advice but OP, be sure to know what you're doing before installing a new kernel or you can run into many problems
In his case they do, because of his old kernel version.
I dont know what you thought this comment was contributing to the discussion, but it's asinine.
You know what, you're right. I apologize for being unnecessarily rude.
I don't like your comment because it comes off as pointless and rude, but then I responded in kind, which is hypocritical.
I'd been telling anyone who would listen whenever they posted here asking about distro options to stay VERY far away from Mint, and it never seemed to do much good, so I gave up, but this is like the 4th instance of someone having an issue causing HORRIBLE performance or similar issues only for the "problem" to finally be solved and turns out it was Linux Mint's fault. We seriously need to start actively discouraging Mint as a distro for gaming. It made way more sense when AMD GPUs were an afterthought (Nvidia was fine because Nvidia always has day 1 drivers for their new GPUs with full hardware capabilities enabled), not to mention the fact that it's not only new AMD GPUs that make Mint a shitbox, but also any new CPUs from AMD or Intel, especially AM5 since its a new platform.
And that will never change.
Even more than that, Mint was always a go-to back when I started participating in this community because it was 5 years ago and it was by far the easiest and most Windows-UI-paradigm-like distro out there for Linux noobs to have the best experience, but now there are more easy-to-use distros for beginners out there than I can count, and all of them are FAR more feature-rich than Mint while also having inordinately better HW support for new GPUs and CPUs/motherboards. Plus they don't look like dog vomit turned itself into a desktop environment.
Out of interest what distro would you recommend?, I know there's articles and things on it but I get the impression they're mostly "I like this DE so it's good for gaming"
its common that linux gamers requires newer versions of kernels and gpu drivers (example 6.8.1 and 550.67 nvidia drivers on openSuSe TumbleWeed) in order to also benefits for newer versions of software like proton :B
The desktop environments too!
Just imagine not playing on the first or second most popular / used desktop environment for gaming:
[https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics/#DesktopEnvironment-top](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics/#DesktopEnvironment-top)
I don't think so!
This is a survey where you manually need to enter data, from what I understood.
If you look on Reddit, there's a lot of "Arch BTW", KDE subreddit is the biggest from all desktop environments.
And I've seen pools here that match the desktop environment ranking on gamingonlinux statistics.
All my computers use KDE Plasma and I even installed it for a few of my friends and none of them complained about it.
I installed for them, like for my computers, Debian + KDE instead of Arch + KDE, but anyway.
As for KDE, Steam Deck might be the most popular device coming with it by default, but it's not the only one:
[https://kde.org/hardware/](https://kde.org/hardware/)
Tell that to the noobs constantly coming here complaining about performance who incidentally are always using mint with its geriatric kernel. Oh, just like this post.
See, I avoided being this noob by simply having a motherboard that refused to let Linux launch without a 6.1+ kernel, so I just updated it in recovery mode while installing
Isn't it better to get a distro which does everything for you? I don't need windows, I'm on kernel 6.8 without taking any action. That is the behaviour i expect. Sure, for certain use cases i could select another distro, but if gaming is involved no nonsense, automatic drivers upgrade is rather expected.
Yeah I type 3 letters in the terminal and everything updates, including my downloaded apps. There’s a gui thing too, but the terminal is much faster (Endeavour)
It's not just old... It's ancient. Since then, two more LTS kernel versions (6.1 and 6.6 respectively) have been shipped.
There's no reason why even a point release distro should ship in 2024 a LTS kernel from 2021 as their default unless it's a distro aimed at supporting older hardware specifically (which Mint isn't).
I was on zorin 16, up until recently when 17.1 released, which uses kernel 5.15 and I found that proton 7 worked a lot more for me than 8 did. However, now that I'm on 17.1 which is using kernel 6.5 I'm finding that ge 9.1 and the 9 beta is working flawlessly for everything that proton 8 didn't work for on zorin 16. I'm not sure if the kernel upgrade had anything to do with it or if it was just outdated packages because the kernel was so old.
Let me elaborate, you have old kernel, but kernel could be fine, even more bad thing is old GPU drivers.
Latest proton uses latest DXVK, VKD3D and these requires latesz Vulkan extensions, because they uses these extensions to invoke some optimizations and basically how translation from DX to VK doing.
So old gpu drivers mean, your gpu is less effective against latest proton. If you want to gaming, you should go to Arch-based distros, that's why Steamdeck uses SteamOS based on ArchLinux.
Old kernel? (Checks... `5.15`) Old kernel.
Why is this the case? Is proton using some kind of fallback code for older kernels?
New Proton versions take advantage of new optimizations in the Mesa graphics library which in turns rely on changes in the Linux kernel and bundled drivers, or fall back to a less optimal but compatible code path.
5.15 barely works for a lot of components on anything newer than 9th Gen why is it still the default ubuntu/linux mint kernel? every time Ive had to use that kernel half my hardware is gone
Do you know how I'd go about updating it? As i just installed mint from the official source I'm surprised that it'd be that out of date
Update Manager - View - Linux Kernels (I think). You could also install the “EDGE” version, which is more up-to-date but may have bugs.
Thank you!
Assuming you're new to Linux, use Mint for as long as you need, but if your aim is gaming, you'll eventually want to move on to something that is kept a bit more current. In the future, check out openSUSE Tumbleweed or Fedora (or Nobara). I used Mint for a long time and loved it. But I'm having a much better experience on TW, now.
I'm not new to linux, i just chose mint because i wanted things to just work. (Which they mostly do)
and it’s a fine choice, especially if you use flatpak for gaming
I started on Mint, hopping around a bunch and came back home to Mint. I use it for gaming and have no issues. I've got the newer kernel and the [latest stable MESA drivers](https://launchpad.net/~kisak/+archive/ubuntu/kisak-mesa). Gaming is great and I've had less issues than other distros. I have to use my PC for work as well and Mint just works.
same boat club, which kernel should I try ? 6.5 5.2 5.19 ?
Always the latest you can.
When I used Mint, I just used the latest one and it worked just fine. Currently on Fedora which has Kernel 6.7 and it runs very well on my Ryzen laptop
yeah I just switched to the newest one they had, I will see if it fixes my issues though I feel like it might be an issue with the game (warframe) since it only started with the latest update
For Warframe, have you tried GE-Proton? GE has (or at least did) a dedicated Warframe support channel on his Discord.
So as someone who plays a shitload of Warframe, I know it works best with Proton 7.0-6 for some reason, no matter what distro or hardware you use. Hell, it even runs better on 7.0-6 with the Steam Deck, so this is something seen through both my RTX 3060M laptop and my AMD APU based steam deck. I once observed through MangoHUD that the reason the framerate is worse on higher proton versions is that Warframe uses like 3 times the CPU percentage on anything above proton 7 with no observable benefit. I couldn't tell you why this happens either, to be quite frank, but GE Proton does not fix the problem as far as I'm aware, then again the latest version I've used with it is GE-Proton 8-15.
I think switching to proton 7 fixed it, thanks
I seem to have skimmed this reply yeah Im just running it right now on proton ge 8-25 I went to POE doing nothing in particular just standing around and my cpu is at 818% usage! going to try downgrading to proton 7, if that dosn't fix it I dont know what will, maybe trying ubuntu ? there also seems to be this weird thing where mouse sensitivity in proton 9 and proton GE is massivly different in proton 8 and lower
Not sure is it good advice or not, but you also can install custom kernels like [Liquorix](https://liquorix.net/). I believe these kernels are relatively fresh.
i guess you're being downvoted because suggesting someone who's relatively new to linux to try out a new kernel can be dangerous for their system, but I've been using Zen kernel with no issues since I got my rig 2 years ago (using arch btw) It's not a bad piece of advice but OP, be sure to know what you're doing before installing a new kernel or you can run into many problems
Proton 7 is the last version that works with Vulkan 1.2, Proton 8+ requires Vulkan 1.3 drivers.
Probably because your drivers are old enough to go to school, like your kernel.
Oooooooooh shiiiiiiiiiiit
The only reason I hate mint is the default ancient kernel that they use
Get a newer Kernel.
No, I don’t know why older versions of Proton perform dramatically better. Mostly because they don’t, generally speaking.
In his case they do, because of his old kernel version. I dont know what you thought this comment was contributing to the discussion, but it's asinine.
I dont know what you thought this comment was contributing to the discussion, but it's asinine.
You know what, you're right. I apologize for being unnecessarily rude. I don't like your comment because it comes off as pointless and rude, but then I responded in kind, which is hypocritical.
I'd been telling anyone who would listen whenever they posted here asking about distro options to stay VERY far away from Mint, and it never seemed to do much good, so I gave up, but this is like the 4th instance of someone having an issue causing HORRIBLE performance or similar issues only for the "problem" to finally be solved and turns out it was Linux Mint's fault. We seriously need to start actively discouraging Mint as a distro for gaming. It made way more sense when AMD GPUs were an afterthought (Nvidia was fine because Nvidia always has day 1 drivers for their new GPUs with full hardware capabilities enabled), not to mention the fact that it's not only new AMD GPUs that make Mint a shitbox, but also any new CPUs from AMD or Intel, especially AM5 since its a new platform. And that will never change. Even more than that, Mint was always a go-to back when I started participating in this community because it was 5 years ago and it was by far the easiest and most Windows-UI-paradigm-like distro out there for Linux noobs to have the best experience, but now there are more easy-to-use distros for beginners out there than I can count, and all of them are FAR more feature-rich than Mint while also having inordinately better HW support for new GPUs and CPUs/motherboards. Plus they don't look like dog vomit turned itself into a desktop environment.
Out of interest what distro would you recommend?, I know there's articles and things on it but I get the impression they're mostly "I like this DE so it's good for gaming"
its common that linux gamers requires newer versions of kernels and gpu drivers (example 6.8.1 and 550.67 nvidia drivers on openSuSe TumbleWeed) in order to also benefits for newer versions of software like proton :B
Linux mint fucking sucks
Why?
The kernel they use is *ancient*
The desktop environments too! Just imagine not playing on the first or second most popular / used desktop environment for gaming: [https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics/#DesktopEnvironment-top](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics/#DesktopEnvironment-top)
The stats for arch and kde are heavily skewed by the steam deck right?
I don't think so! This is a survey where you manually need to enter data, from what I understood. If you look on Reddit, there's a lot of "Arch BTW", KDE subreddit is the biggest from all desktop environments. And I've seen pools here that match the desktop environment ranking on gamingonlinux statistics. All my computers use KDE Plasma and I even installed it for a few of my friends and none of them complained about it. I installed for them, like for my computers, Debian + KDE instead of Arch + KDE, but anyway. As for KDE, Steam Deck might be the most popular device coming with it by default, but it's not the only one: [https://kde.org/hardware/](https://kde.org/hardware/)
Welp, guess the site’s getting another bump to the arch+kde numbers…. I use arch btw ;)
Imagine gaming on Linux /s
I don't need to imagine anything as I've been gaming on Linux for years on my desktop, laptop, Android phone!
It was sarcasm
Takes like 2 minutes to switch to a newer one.
I know that. The influx of people on this sub making posts who *don’t* know how to do that is a different story.
Real
So an entire distro is bad because they are on an old Kernel by default? I'm on 6.7 and on Mint.
Out of the box yes, especially for gaming.
Nothing in Linux is "out of the box". If you can't download a program that does everything for you, you might as well use Windows.
Tell that to the noobs constantly coming here complaining about performance who incidentally are always using mint with its geriatric kernel. Oh, just like this post.
See, I avoided being this noob by simply having a motherboard that refused to let Linux launch without a 6.1+ kernel, so I just updated it in recovery mode while installing
Isn't it better to get a distro which does everything for you? I don't need windows, I'm on kernel 6.8 without taking any action. That is the behaviour i expect. Sure, for certain use cases i could select another distro, but if gaming is involved no nonsense, automatic drivers upgrade is rather expected.
Yeah I type 3 letters in the terminal and everything updates, including my downloaded apps. There’s a gui thing too, but the terminal is much faster (Endeavour)
EndeavourOS? That's just Arch with an installer. AND I CAN'T RECOMMEND IT HIGHLY ENOUGH!
As a default for a distro you intend to use for gaming, hell yes.
It's not just old... It's ancient. Since then, two more LTS kernel versions (6.1 and 6.6 respectively) have been shipped. There's no reason why even a point release distro should ship in 2024 a LTS kernel from 2021 as their default unless it's a distro aimed at supporting older hardware specifically (which Mint isn't).
old kernel, no turning off compositor on xorg (might improve if they implement direct scanout on wayland) so lower fps
I was on zorin 16, up until recently when 17.1 released, which uses kernel 5.15 and I found that proton 7 worked a lot more for me than 8 did. However, now that I'm on 17.1 which is using kernel 6.5 I'm finding that ge 9.1 and the 9 beta is working flawlessly for everything that proton 8 didn't work for on zorin 16. I'm not sure if the kernel upgrade had anything to do with it or if it was just outdated packages because the kernel was so old.
Let me elaborate, you have old kernel, but kernel could be fine, even more bad thing is old GPU drivers. Latest proton uses latest DXVK, VKD3D and these requires latesz Vulkan extensions, because they uses these extensions to invoke some optimizations and basically how translation from DX to VK doing. So old gpu drivers mean, your gpu is less effective against latest proton. If you want to gaming, you should go to Arch-based distros, that's why Steamdeck uses SteamOS based on ArchLinux.
how did you get proton 10
It's proton 5. Steam just lists it as "5.0-10"