this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024

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2024 Is the year I will commit to ditching windows (lemm.ee)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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2024 will be the year I finally be the year I ditch windows.

I am not exactly new to linux, yet I am far from an expert. I made my journey over the years form trying Ubuntu (many many major revisions ago) and have found myself down the rabbit hole of going Arch. I run Arch with KDE on my laptop. I want to fully ditch Windows on my desktop, however I feel this will be a much bigger hurdle to overcome.

Build Specs: i7-12700KF Copper Modded EVGA RTX 3090 64gb of 3600mhz DDR4 ASUS Tuf Z690 Wifi D4

I could go into more detail about my specs, but the specs aren't what has made this journey a bit tougher. I use a Line 6 Helix and a Line 6 PowerCab 112+ and both have usb connections to my computer for integration with, you guessed it; windows or mac software only. Now I don't have a problem running wine, and a number of other solutions to run windows programs, I do however have a gap in knowledge in order to try to use these specific programs with specific USB peripherals.

Now, I am not sure if this is the best way, but I had heard the idea of USB passthrough. And I have no clue where to begin with that. Would this be the direction I should be going for programs such as those?

The only other software that I am going to struggle replacing is the RGB lighting software for all of my hardware. Most of it is corsair (Fans, RAM, Water Cooler, and plugins for the asus motherboard.) And my Steeleseries keyboard which uses GG.

I have looked into using OpenRGB but I was unable to figure out how to get those setup as it wasn't as plug and play as the manufacturer software, but understandably of course.

The absolute biggest hurdles is my Nvidia problem. I have always had issues with Nvidia on Arch. I would gladly take an suggestion. For reference, I would be using this mainly for my gaming. I occasionally dabble in Stable Diffusion.

I will be running Arch with KDE preferably, but every single time I have had issues.

I suppose any feedback anyone may have would be helpful.

Checklist of things I need to get working on in Arch, any help would be welcomed:

Helix Guitar pedal and PowerCab 112+ (USB Passthrough or any other alternatives people may suggest)
RGB for SteeleSeries Apex Pro (GG software on windows, open to alternatives)
RGB for Corsair (iQue on windows, open to alternatives)
Nvidia Drivers

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Use VirtualBox to make a Windows VM and you pick the USB devices from the menu to connect them on the fly, or you can configure the VM to pass them in by default.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

That might be the route I go.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I believe that both VirtualBox and KVM (QEMU) can do USB passthrough. With either one you can have the full Windows OS running on your Linux desktop, which could be more comfortable than going for WINE. Here's an example with KVM and Arch Linux.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Thank you for the suggestion! I will look into this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

KVM has been my go-to for many years of running servers because it is extremely lightweight. Like for example, last year I finally ditched the old poweredge 860 servers (very early 2000's machines which topped out with a dual-core CPU and 8GB of memory), however from these servers I was running half a dozen virtual linux boxes handling websites and email. Of course running a Windows vm is going to take a lot more resources but any desktop computer that is less than a decade old would easily handle it while still managing your regular linux desktop.

One caveat about KVM, however, is that there's not really a great GUI interface for it. There IS a monitor to manage the VMs you have up and running, but I always launch new VMs from the command line, which is pretty much just a matter of setting the name and memory, pointing it to an existing image file or ISO, and then using the GUI monitor to launch a VNC remote connection to handle getting a new OS installed or make changes to an existing image to get it on the network. I don't consider this a burden, but then again I grew up on the command line.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

You can passthrough your Rtx 3090 into Qemu to achieve hardware acceleration. With software called 'Looking Glass' you'll get a hardware accelerated Qemu/kvm window instead of sacrificing your second monitor or using a kvm switch.

Level1Linux has made a brilliant videos about Looking Glass.

You should also passthrough a ssd/nvme disk into your Qemu.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Year of the Linux desktop LFG!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Been using Arch with KDE on my Lenovo Yoga, both Wayland and X11 depending 9n what I want to accomplish. Though it lead me down the rabbit hole of Weston so that I could run Waydroid from within X11. Ultimately I just decided Wayland basically when I am not using my touchpad or when I want to run Waydroid.

Year of the Linux desktop, LFG!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

For some reason, when I switch to X11 (also on Arch with KDE), it bugs out, so I've been using Wayland with xwayland bridge installed.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It's okay to dual-boot, or have independent systems. Just a suggestion, to consider.

I have 3 daily driven rigs. A MacBook for work, a Linux laptop for most things personal, and a Windows PC for gaming. Everything serves a purpose and specific use case.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Funny enough, last time I tried to do the whole 2 systems, I had Arch (with GRUB) on one nvme, and windows 11 on another nvme. At some point, all drives were unbootable. I am lucky I had my important data backed up, and on a separate drive anyways.

I had thought about it, but I really want to ditch anything windows.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

A man after my own heart.

I had a whole bunch of machines and I just realised I haven’t booted Windows on any of them for a couple of weeks. I daily drive Tumbleweed when I don’t need any advanced Adobe features or play games that run on Windows only.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say I will ditch Windows completely, but it is nice to have options.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Check out OpenRGB to see if it meets your lighting needs. I use it with Corsair Commander Pro, keyboard, mousepad, RAM, QL fans and the ASUS RGB header and attached lighting. It's been working great on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed for me.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Totally agree. OpenRGB works for me.

Granted, I just turn the "GeForce" light on the GPU off, along with all the other RGB stuff inside the case, but it works. 😁

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

That's what I might end up doing. I don't care as much about the RGB on it as I do functionality. As long as they can go off, I have zero issue with that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

OpenRGB seems to be consensus on how to handle this.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

I feel that Nvidia drivers in Linux will always be a pain and it's straight up Nvidias fault.

I love the remarks Linus made about Nvidia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcxKINWMD8M

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Hopefully the recent Nouveau work and NVK can allow us to just get rid of the need for the proprietary driver.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

One can only hope. That is the route I would prefer. But we shall see if it is practical for me!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=BcxKINWMD8M

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

With Linux, Nvidia wasn't always bad as far as support goes. Now though, yes, I would agree this is an Nvidia issus for me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

They were a pain 20 years ago and they're a pain now.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I have an ASUS m/b, Corsair fans (via a Commander Pro), and Razer mouse/keyboard and all the RGB is controlled with OpenRGB. It works okay but if my computer goes to sleep the RGB settings need to be reapplied... there might be a workaround for this, it's one of those minor problems that I will get around to one day. OpenRGB recognised all the devices without any help and it was really easy to set up.

All the best for the switch!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

I've also had pretty good luck with OpenRGB and some SteelSeries stuff (though my needs are simple).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If I happen to find a fix, or work around for that issue mentioned I will reach out. I did have Arch running on this machine once, but I didn't tinker with OpenRGB for my lighting at that point.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I have (finally, and thanks to this little chat) finally got around to researching this! I couldn't find any plugins, although, there are many great ones people have made: https://openrgb.org/plugins.html But it does look like the solution is going to be running a cron (job scheduler) script: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Cron

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

For Corsair - I've been very happy with ckb-next. https://github.com/ckb-next/ckb-next

It is pretty robust, allows remapping of key/button bindings, changing of RGB, DPI, etc. Their goal is to replace iCUE. Very robust for mice and keyboards, but they also list other hardware that it is known to work with in their wiki. Might be worth a look.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Thank you, I will chexk this out

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I have to keep a Windows install around for the sole purpose of pushing firmware updates to my Headrush pedal board. The installer will run on Linux with Wine, but it cannot detect the pedalboard through the USB connection.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Try giving this a try. I found it suggested in the Arch wiki to update the bios. It's basically a bootable Windows environment from a USB. You can then try running your firmware updates through it. It worked to update my bios so I assume it should easily work with updating firmware for other devices.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

That's an interesting idea. I will give that a shot next time!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I didn't try it (because I didn't have the need for it yet) but maybe https://wiki.winehq.org/Hardware#USB could help.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

RGB for Corsair (iQue on windows, open to alternatives)

What I do with my Commander is to use the onboard lighting and fan curves. Set it up on a VM or when you still have Windows.

You can also look into Liquidctl

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If all you need is to control RGB, I've been satisfied with OpenRGB. OP is saying he's running Arch, and OpenRGB was quite recently moved from the AUR to the extra repos. The relevant package is openrgb.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

When I get Arch up and running I will be checking this out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I may do a VM as I have to find a way to utilize my specialized music gear. I do have to say thank you for pointing me in the direction of Liquidctl though, I want to consider that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I would wait for the cold months to pass. You’ll be paying more for heating, but if you play it right you can save on air conditioning this summer.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Use whatever you are comfortable with and works for you. At the moment it sounds like Windows might be the path of least resistance. Fine, go with that.

For me, I finally ditched Windows altogether around 15 years ago. Well, I say ditched - my customers and staff ... haven't.

The list of stuff you have problems with might be tricky on Linux simply because the vendors of music gear are unlikely to give a shit. Nvidia should be fine. I have a VMware VM at home which runs Zoneminder on Ubuntu, with a passed through Nvidia GPU. Surely it should be easier on physical hardware. I wrote this: https://wiki.zoneminder.com/GPU_passthrough_in_VMWare

You mention gaming so you'll probably not be bothered with CUDA. You'll need https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA If that doesn't do it for you, hit the Arch forums ...

The forums can be a bit intimidating but if you keep your query concise and show some evidence of effort, someone will probably get you over the line.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I definitely appreciate your response. I truly want to ditch windows, it would be easy without my music hardware though a VM with USB passthrough may be the ticket. The issues I had with Arch and my 3090 were really with trying to go the wayland route. Though that was over a year ago I gave that a shot. I could try again, but since then I have gotten more familiarized with running arch on other systems. I have tried many other distros, and none quite catch me quite like arch.

For my server I have already ditched windows, and went with a ubuntu server. Though I will be changing distros to something else due to differences in opinion with the way Ubuntu and Canonical conduct themselves. I would still rather see people use Ubuntu over windows, but that's not much of a bar to pass.

I may eventually check the forums if this time doesn't pan out with using arch on my main rig.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

On the Nvidia drivers issue, I'm using an RTX 30 series card and have no problems at all, I'm running AAA games on Linux just as well as on Windows on the same system. I'm running EndeavourOS which is an Arch based distro. Everything was set up by EndeavourOS during the install and everything has just been working right from the start. Anyway, my point is: it can be done. Even the non-proprietary drivers for Nvidia have been coming along really well, I can't remember the name of the project right now though.

I did some searching and did come across this GitHub guide on installing Nvidia drivers on an Arch system, you may have seen it already though...

https://github.com/korvahannu/arch-nvidia-drivers-installation-guide

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I will for sure check out this link.

I do have to ask though, are you using X11 or Wayland?

My issue had to due with multi monitor support with wayland with KDE. It could be very specific to my preferences, in which case I have few options. Change preference, or stick to what I am doing. I vote, I will try something different.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

The default for EndeavourOS is X11 but 'cause I love shiny things I have tried out Wayland (last time during the holiday season) but I had a few problems - especially with one game I love - and now plan to try it out again when Plasma 6 is released in a few weeks. As I'm primarily a gamer I just have one big screen that I sit far too close to. I have read about Wayland and multi-monitors, I guess that's something that will become better over time... I guess the question is: how much time?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

The absolute biggest hurdles is my Nvidia problem. I have always had issues with Nvidia on Arch. I would gladly take an suggestion.

Ouch. Buy Radeon.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Hopefully it’s all a relatively painless & bug-free experience for ya.

Does your gear work with Guitarix?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

U til you mentioned Guitarix I wasn't even familiar with that software. Unfortunately I don't believe there is any connectivity between PowerCab or my Helix with guitarix. But Guitarix could still be handy to me. Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I was genuinely confused as to why you'd want to sit in the dark.

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