- Death to Microsoft.
The open source community is ready
to send you to your grave.
You tyrannical reign over PC gamers is on the end.
Freedom!
(button clicks)
Is what I would say if I lived
with Linus Wallace III over here in fantasy land
where any of that was true.
So far, the one-month Linux gaming challenge has been
as advertised, a challenge.
And in part two, Luke and I are gonna be taking it
to the next level by not just gaming on Linux,
but by recording and streaming our gameplay
to viewers on Twitch.
Now, I'd be lying
if I said I'm not expecting some speed bumps,
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With our desktop environment set up,
Luke and I have a deceptively short pre-flight checklist
of tasks to complete, to be streaming ready.
We'll need comms to chat and collaborate
with our fellow creators,
and software that's capable of capturing
our gameplay, audio, and face cams.
- And obviously, we'll need
the aforementioned audio interfaces
and cameras both working.
- We both use Elgato Key Lights,
which we've always controlled using Windows software.
So we'll both need to find a work around for that.
- And no points will be awarded
for having an ugly or bad-sounding stream.
It's got to look every bit as legit
from a viewer perspective as it did on Windows.
- Immediately, I started overthinking things..
Sometimes that's the problem
with knowing just enough to be dangerous.
I tried to apt-get OBS,
the industry standard for desktop capture
and streaming in the terminal,
only to discover that Manjaro,
the Linux distribution that I'm using,
doesn't come with apt because apt is
for managing packages on Debian and related OS's.
Oops.
Making life more difficult,
the message that comes up when you try
to execute the command doesn't say,
"Hey, you should probably be using pacman, you dunce."
It tries to install some kind of dependency for apt,
then just quietly fails and prompts you
to do the same thing again when you try to use it.
Infinite loop, baby.
Speaking of which, I had a panic moment
when I checked OBS compatibility
and found out that it is actually unsupported
in Arch by the way and its derivatives.
But the good news is that upon launch,
I was immediately relieved to find
that it works exactly as expected with some exceptions.
For example, the NVENC new encoder doesn't show up
as an option, which appears to be down
to NVIDIA's pooptastic drivers on Linux.
Side note here, I always kind of assumed
that the Linux community was grousing about Nvidia primarily
for their locked-down, proprietary approach to things,
and that it had less to do
with the actual quality of the product.
Now, I properly understand that it is definitely both.
As mentioned, core product functionality
from like a couple of years ago is missing,
the control panel looks like it's from 10 years ago,
and the interface is kind of confusing.
Thankfully, I was able to enable G-Sync on my display,
but for whatever reason,
you allow it in order to actually turn it on,
which you then verify in a completely different tab.
And this kind of confusion is not a deal-breaker,
it's just obvious that the Linux software
has never gotten the kind of TLC from the UX team
that the Windows software does.
- For me, acquiring OBS was no problem.
I just got it from the package manager and it was all okay.
Once installed though, we noticed something.
Window capture on Linux can be a little problematic.
We couldn't seem to get it working at all at the start.
I had an option for it, but it didn't work,
and Linus didn't even have that.
But a few days later I tried it again
for a different project and it worked just fine.
I checked in with Linus and his did too.
Neither of us know what might've fixed it,
but that's cool, I guess.
- The bigger issue for me ended up being the software
that just doesn't exist.
There are third-party tools, for example,
that allow key remapping.
Keyboarding Master is evidently a popular one.
But if your peripherals have a manufacturer-provided tool
that is used to reconfigure RGB lighting,
or the liftoff distance of your mouse,
or the sensitivity steps of your DPI button,
then get ready to install Windows in a virtual machine,
pass those devices through, configure them,
and then hand them back over to Linux.
It's extremely tedious
and doesn't even remotely restore full functionality.
For example, don't expect to get a low-battery warning
for your G Pro wireless mouse.
And it's even worse for my audio interface.
The GoXLR has a handful of unique features,
including decent preamps, reprogrammable screen labels,
a built-in soundboard function, and the infamous beep button
that I am so fond of using during my livestreams.
About the kind of bull (beep) that Nvidia puts them through.
I'll have it in the affiliate link down below, by the way.
The bad news about it is that, as far as I can tell,
TC Helicon has given exactly zero thought
to Linux whatsoever.
But wait, there's a solution.
All I have to do is follow these simple instructions
to download a random script off GitHub
and run it with no indication given whatsoever
for how exactly to run a script.
Even the process of downloading it was unintuitive.
And I know GitHub is for developers and not for end users,
but it's really hard to hide behind
that shield when it took me less
than two days to run into a situation
where I had to use it.
I mean, at that point, if GitHub is only for developers,
then desktop Linux is only for developers.
You can't have it both ways.
Unlike on LTT Store, where you can find great merch
at fair prices.
Our mouse mats are rated five stars
with literally thousands of reviews.
Go see what all the fuss is about at the link below.
Anyway, I found a guide on how to run a script.
I'm grateful for that,
but I'm frustrated by the condescending tone.
I mean, my assumption that a file
with a .sh extension would behave
as I would expect it to and launch in some kind
of script-running application doesn't seem
that unreasonable.
News flash, random contributor,
you can also change a file extension in Windows,
and it will attempt to launch in the default program
for that file type.
It actually serves exactly the same fundamental purpose,
hinting at the contents of the file.
The only difference is that these hints
for the user are also used as hints
for the operating system.
It's actually a lot more convenient than digging
into the properties of the file to find out what it does.
Anyway, pompous tone aside,
that contributor did help me figure out my GitHub download.
So it turns out that right click,
save target as gets you an HTML file in .sh clothing
because, I don't know,
some borderline arbitrary reason probably.
And in order to get it to be an actual .sh file,
I had to copy it into a text editor, Kate,
and then save that as a script
and execute it in the terminal.
It spat out a bunch of errors and,
as I expected, most of the buttons don't work,
but all of the inputs and outputs
that I had already configured in Windows did show up.
My faders work.
I even have my (beep) button,
until my GoXLR loses power for any reason.
At which point I will have to pass it through to Windows,
reconfigure it in Windows,
and then pass it back over to Linux without losing power.
Compared to that, all the other stuff is minor, I hope.
- The most notable issue I had was
that my audio devices were just kind of screwy in OBS.
My voice came across a very unnaturally deep,
and it sounded like my mic input had been duplicated.
My voice just feels deeper now.
I don't know if I've got something lodged or what.
- [Man] Man.
- Yeah.
Chat was pretty convinced
that I had set something up incorrectly.
And if I was a viewer of my stream,
I probably would have said the same thing.
But I've been using OBS for like six or seven years now,
so I had my doubts.
I even streamed my OBS settings panel to prove it,
but eventually, feeling out of options,
I just restarted OBS and yeah,
that solved pretty much everything.
Which was kind of frustrating
because I've heard time and time again
that you don't have to turn things off
and on again to get them working in Linux.
But hey, maybe that's just
'cause I'm not really great at Linux yet.
Maybe there's something else I could have done.
Not sure
On the good side of things though,
my mixers worked flawlessly from the start,
though it is pretty simple as far as mixers go.
I didn't have to change any settings.
I didn't have to install anything for it.
I just set it as my default input device and was good to go.
- Once I got Pamac figured out,
getting comms going was surprisingly simple.
Pamac is a program with a graphical user interface
that functions similarly to the pacman package manager
that you operate in the terminal.
At least it does once you find the hidden button
in Pamac to search Snap, Flatpak,
and Arch User Repository entries.
It's basically like the Pop Shop from Pop!_OS,
except it didn't try
to break my system the first time I used it. (chuckles)
The only really difficult thing was choosing
the right package to install for Discord.
There's regular Discord
and then there's Canary Discord, whatever that is.
I chose the most official looking package,
and I was up and running almost immediately
once I found the super convenient
per application volume mixer in the bottom right corner.
The interface is kind of kludgy.
Like scrolling with your mouse wheel scrolls
through both the audio devices
and the levels of the individual devices,
which is not great.
But other than that, it works really well
and my first voice called
to Luke went completely without a hitch,
or it would've if I'd known that it was starting.
Unfortunately, I actually still have not figured out
how to get desktop notifications working.
I found a guide,
but the instructions fell apart almost immediately
when my Discord package didn't show up
in the list where it's supposed to be for me to fix it.
I think that's probably a project for another day.
- Discord was an easy install for me.
Again, it was just automatically available
in package manager.
That being said, there was certain missing features.
Screen-sharing across Slack teams
and Discord are kind of sketchy at best.
They feel less stable
or they're even missing some features here or there.
Outside of that,
there's even really simple stuff missing every now and then.
Like if I download a file in Slack
and then try to click the Open Containing Folder button,
just nothing happens.
And speaking of missing features,
I use the phone app
for the Elgato Control Center just like Linus did.
I had found another solution through a script on GitHub,
but I thought that way would potentially be problematic
in the longterm, so I just avoided it.
Unfortunately for my camera, however,
Canon EOS utilities doesn't work on Linux.
I'd been using that software on Windows
for quite a while now to get a live feed
from my Canon 70D over USB to my computer.
It was flawless and didn't require a capture card.
I do have an AV.io 4K capture card
which does work on Linux,
but I don't have the Micro HDMI cable
that it would need to connect to my camera.
I could pick one up, but just for this challenge,
I decided to go with my old Logitech C920,
which while it doesn't remotely look as good,
it works just fine.
And when you make the window for it really small,
no one can really tell.
- I think overall the easiest part
for me was getting my Cam Link 4K up and running.
It was garbled when I selected one
of the duplicate sources in OBS,
but immediately after trying the second one,
it cleared up and has been picture perfect ever since.
So it works, but there's a much larger upfront investment
in getting it working.
The question is just whether it feels worth it.
- In the end, it worked.
If you connected to the stream
after we were done about 15 minutes of troubleshooting
while we were just in the thick of trying not to starve,
I'm sure any random viewer wouldn't have been able
to tell a difference between one
of my old Windows streams and this one.
Audio was good, capture was good.
That's where the good ends, however.
Literally everything I use past this point was
a lesser experience compared to its Windows counterpart.
Almost everything was missing at least one feature,
and some, I'd say most notably OBS and Teams,
were just buggy, requiring restarts for simple settings
to actually apply and had other various problems.
It definitely wasn't impossible,
and it was actually easier than I expected,
but due to various bugs,
missing features, and incompatible software,
it wasn't as simple or clean as doing it on Windows.
But I wouldn't say that was enough
for it to be a deal-breaker.
- For me, the bottom line is what you're looking
to get out of it.
If you're daily driving Linux for games streaming
out of a genuine passion for learning more about it,
then have at it.
Have fun. But just know what you're getting into.
PC gaming already requires a certain amount of tinkering.
I mean, there's a reason that more people game on consoles.
You know, whether it's trying to track down save files
in some Vista-era folder
or forcing an aspect ratio in an INI file.
But a Linux gaming PC, it requires all of that crap
and then another mountain of crap on top of it.
Like when something doesn't work, you can tell, you know,
"Well, I never wanted to use that functionality"
or "I never wanted to play that game anyway."
But honestly it just comes across as sour grapes.
It is not that easy to use.
The good news though,
is that a shocking number of experiences don't start
and end with, sorry, you can't do this.
So stay tuned for part three,
where Luke and I are gonna be trying to get
as many games up and running as possible,
starting with Twitch's top 20
and then expanding into some of our personal favorites.
It's gonna be a really good one.
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It's sponsors like that
that are gonna put him through college.
Wanna say hi to YouTube?
- Hi.
- All right. Do you wanna be in the video?
Okay. Off you go.
- Yay.
- If you guys are looking for another video to watch,
check out part one of the series,
so you don't miss any of the action.
Or if you've already watched that,
maybe check out my iSwitched to Mac series
from a little while back.
Okay, it was quite a while back,
but it was definitely interesting.