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authorSteph Enders <steph@senders.io>2024-03-07 15:17:29 -0500
committerSteph Enders <steph@senders.io>2024-03-07 15:17:29 -0500
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+--post-date: 2020-12-17
+--updated-at: 2020-12-19
+--type: blog
+ <article>
+ <h1>Manjaro Experiment</h1>
+ <p>After years on Debian, running i3, I decided to try out a more
+ traditional Linux setup, and take a stab at gaming on Linux. I chose
+ Manjaro for a few reasons:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>It&#39;s not Debian based (it&#39;s arch btw /s)</li>
+ <li>It&#39;s still on Systemd so I won&#39;t lose that familiarity</li>
+ <li>For gaming it comes with pretty up to date drivers and setup for
+ running Steam games</li>
+ <li>It has a KDE installation which is what I wanted to run</li>
+ </ul>
+ <h2>Why &quot;not Debian&quot;</h2>
+ <p>Debian is home for me. I have used it for years on both work machines,
+ servers, personal desktop. But it comes with its own quirks. Starters - I
+ am running base Debian, not a Debian based system, which generally means
+ some packages are out of date. To get around this I run Sid/Unstable.
+ This hasn&#39;t been a particular issue, but sometimes there are version
+ conflicts and other just nuisances and no real <i>easy</i> way to get
+ every package in the proper version configuration. This was a particular
+ pain-point with getting Steam (nonfree too which adds another layer of
+ configurations) Wine and a few other packages all set up. Plus
+ 32-bit!</p>
+ <h3>i3</h3>
+ <p>I have been using i3 as my window manager and without really any other
+ desktop environment programs. My login is the typical tty debian login.
+ But running i3 and then having windows appear, especially game windows
+ which can be tempermental, getting tiled to have to break it out again is
+ just a hassle. While I could&#39;ve gone with another Debian base running
+ a proper desktop environment + window manager I figured that&#39;d be
+ boring and I&#39;d just be trying out the programs and not the Linux,
+ which is half the fun.</p>
+ <p>That being said. i3 <i>is</i> Linux for me. Being able to just move
+ between windows with a macro and every bit of it just being intutive
+ (after you&#39;ve learned!) is a productivity booster. Which is why I
+ still use it on my work machine, and can&#39;t see myself ever switching
+ off.</p>
+ <h2>KDE</h2>
+ <p>I&#39;ve used Gnome and XFCE as desktop environments before, and
+ they&#39;re fine, but I&#39;ve always like the customability,
+ flexibility, and polished look of KDE.</p>
+ <h3>Setting up KDE for an i3 addict</h3>
+ <p>By default KDE isn&#39;t really too hard to &quot;get used to&quot;
+ since it feels like any other OS, especially a windows setup. But the
+ main thing I needed to change is the <code class=
+ 'inline'>meta+&lt;key&gt;</code> commands.</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Remapping the Virtual Desktop changes</li>
+ <li>Remapping the KWin window focuses</li>
+ <li>Remapping the KWin move to desktop</li>
+ <li>Installing DMenu</li>
+ <li>Shrinking the &quot;start bar&quot; panel</li>
+ <li>Removing Pager</li>
+ <li>Changing Task Manger to Window List</li>
+ <li>Configuring Desktop Layout to &quot;Desktop&quot; (this removes the
+ icons)</li>
+ </ul>Doing this helped make me feel at home so far, and not have to
+ retrain my brain.
+ <h3>Some of the key remappings</h3>
+ <p>Setting up the KWin window keymapping was really what made me feel at
+ home. For the first few hours with it, I felt as limited in my
+ productivity as with Windows. KDE and Windows share by default a lot of
+ the same keymappings around window manipulation and virtual desktop
+ changes. <b>Switch to desktop N</b> setting this as <code class=
+ 'inline'>meta+&lt;N&gt;</code> where N is the dekstop 1-10 (0). <b>Switch
+ to Window to the Left/Right/Up/Down</b> This was one I was nervous
+ wouldn&#39;t exist as a keybind. But What was <code class=
+ 'inline'>meta+alt+&lt;dir&gt;</code> was mapped to without the alt. This
+ allowed for the very annoying lack of ability to just jump between
+ browser and terminal, or especially two separate terminals. <b>Quit
+ Window</b> with <code class='inline'>meta+shift+Q</code>, <b>Tile
+ Window</b> command to use the Shift key rather, especially as
+ <code class='inline'>meta+&lt;dir&gt;</code> was overwritten by the focus
+ switching.</p>
+ <h2>Manjaro</h2>
+ <p>So I went with KDE Manjaro. Manjaro aims for the gaming desktop
+ experience. Arch is new for me, so I feel that would be something to
+ adjust to and learn.</p>
+ <h2>Gaming</h2>
+ <p>It has only been a day with it as I am writing. But I was able to get
+ a fair amount of the fighting games I wanted to play work.</p>
+ <h2>Proton + Steam</h2>
+ <p>So far my main focus has been running the fighting games I noodle
+ around on in Steam. To do this I launched Steam and installed the proton
+ and setup to run all games, regardless of compatibility. None of the
+ games I hoped to run had worked this way. I then opt&#39;d into the beta
+ for Proton running the experimental builds, which should generally have
+ the more up-to-date tunings for games. With this setup I was able to get
+ Soulcalibur VI to work. Battle for the Grid and Dragon Ball FighterZ both
+ had launching issues. So I looked around and found <a href=
+ "https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/">Proton Ge
+ Custom</a> which is a custom fork of Proton that contains custom settings
+ and tweeks for various games. One of which is Battle For the Grid which
+ is how I found it. Using this I was able to play every game except Dragon
+ Ball FighterZ! A callout for Dead or Alive 6 which is performing
+ questionably. It can run and isn&#39;t actually too bad, but in windowed
+ or borderless it stutters and drops frames.</p>
+ <h3>Other issues</h3>
+ <p>Even on Windows there are issues with some games and your standard
+ configurations. Disabling Steam Overlay and adjusting the Steam Input
+ Setting on some games helped get some games working.</p>
+ <h2>Conclusion</h2>
+ <p>Gaming on Linux is still not great. Its MILES ahead of where it was
+ even a few years ago when I setup this PC. And I think it will take some
+ adjustment getting a feel for an i3less workflow.</p>
+ <h2>Update!</h2>
+ <h2>NTFS mounting</h2>
+ <p>Update! I got DOA and a few other games to run a bit smoother by
+ remounting my NTFS drives properly. I ended up using the following for my
+ /etc/fstab configuraiton for my NTFS drives: <code>UUID=&lt;drive-id&gt;
+ /mount/path ntfs
+ uid=1000,gid=1000,rw,user,exec,async,locale=en_US.utf8,umask=000 0
+ 0</code> I had noticed that both steam and mount.ntfs was running at
+ 20-40% CPU while not really doing anything. And then upwards of 80%
+ during gameplay.</p>
+ <h2>i3 Compatibility</h2>
+ <p>As I spend more time using the OS I made a few more adjustments:</p>
+ <ul>
+ <li>Removed everything except the Clock and System Tray.</li>
+ <li>I added KRunner to <code class='inline'>meta+space</code> to ease
+ running KDE specific programs that I can&#39;t be bothered to memorize
+ the name of</li>
+ <li>Back and forth on forcing &quot;No border&quot; on all windows.
+ Part of the reason I moved away from i3 was so that I had better
+ floating window management. And doing this would basically put me in an
+ equally hard to manage system for floating game windows. So until I
+ find a plugin that makes small taskbar/borders for the windows I&#39;ll
+ be sticking with the default.</li>
+ <li>On Manjaro at least: UNINSTALL mesa-demos! <code class=
+ 'inline'>sudo pacman -R lib32mesa-demos mesa-demos</code> This package
+ had the annoying &quot;fire&quot; demo which made dmenu opening firefox
+ a pain in the ass.</li>
+ </ul>The biggest difference was removing the Application Launcher from
+ the main panel. Having it there really felt like a crutch for running
+ programs. It is equal I would say to running apps as dmenu via
+ <code class='inline'>meta+d</code> vs just <code class=
+ 'inline'>meta</code> to launch the Application Launcher. However, the
+ bulky UI of it, even using just Window List, took away from the look/feel
+ I was going for.
+ </article>
+