Recommended/Tested Hardware for Linux (Kubuntu 15+)

VitrasSlade · Mar 11, 2016

I've been having a rough time with trying Linux on my desktop first with Linux Mint, now with Ubuntu). No matter which distro/flavor I install (USB/CD/DVD install media and guided/manual partitioning) I always end up getting error messages and weird glitches when it's completely vanilla. Although my biggest gripe is the screen tearing no matter what v-sync method/option/fix I try.

So I decided to try to make my next build Linux-friendly, while keeping it as powerful as I can. I'll be using a 240GB SSD and 2TB HDD for sure. I was thinking of having a Skylake mini-itx build with an i5 6500 and GTX 980ti. Though, I am not sure how well Skylake is supported as of right now in Ubuntu.

And my current build:
i5 4690k
MSI Gaming 5 Z97
2x GTX 970
16GB 1866MHz DDR3
750W PSU
Corsair K70 RGB keyboard
Corsair Saber RGB mouse

My reasoning for wanting to go on Linux is that I want as little to do with Windows as possible, as it's starting to get really mucky with glitches and losing control. Linux is like paradise, and I'm very hopeful with Vulkan coming along.

Knowing that SLI is buggy in the first place, I figure to go with a single card. Unless AMD cards do better with Linux? I will also be changing my mouse/keyboard to a non-RGB set and no software dependent/proprietary parts.

Thanks!

JMW22 · Mar 12, 2016

980ti - that's a powerful card right there. You're definitely right about SLI. It's *much* better just to go with the fastest single card you can afford. With SLI you only get to take advantage of the ram on one of the cards, not both - which is a horrible waste of money. GPU's also retain a *huge* amount of value, so rather than 'upgrade' by adding in another card in SLI (like when 8k becomes the standard, for example), you'd do better to just sell the old card and buy a new one that meets your needs. The 700 series cards are currently just as expensive as the 900 series, and I fully expect that trend to continue.

VitrasSlade · Mar 13, 2016

JMW22 :

My current build actually has two GTX 970s in SLI. I started out with a GTX 960 2GB, but was wanting more even though I didn't have enough cash at the moment. I ended up going on ebay, buying one 970 then buying another when I had enough to spare. I also wanted the experience of how SLI worked. They should really get rid of the bridge.

Do you by any chance know if the proprietary drivers in Linux with the 980 ti have any sever screen tearing? That's my biggest concern out of all this, since that is my biggest gripe with the OS right now.

spankmon · Mar 13, 2016

You should definitely be using the proprietary drivers for gaming. In my experience screen tearing is caused mainly by using the compositor (transparency, 3D effects for the desktop) in Linux. You can greatly reduce tearing, and maybe eliminate it completely by changing the desktop settings. In Kubuntu settings go to Display and Monitor > Compositor > and check the box to Suspend Compositing for Full Screen Windows. That should give you some improvement... assuming you play games in fullscreen.

VitrasSlade · Mar 13, 2016

spankmon :

I actually haven't played any games yet, because I have been having issues right at the desktop with the basics. I've tried basically every combination with compositor settings. The screen tearing would improve greatly for a bit, but it would then get worse even with the settings unchanged. Also, it would be bad right from booting up (whether it was selected to start at boot or not). It drives me crazy seeing so much screen tearing just scrolling down a page in my browser or moving a window.

spankmon · Mar 13, 2016

I should have mentioned that the browser seems unaffected by changes to the compositor... I get tearing in fullscreen youtube, netflix videos still. I have a few different Linux installs and prefer Mint XFCE or Mate because they exhibit the least severe tearing with the compositor turned off. Video tearing in VLC media player can be reduced by un-checking the video acceleration option in vlc settings.

Something you might try is to open the Nvidia settings and change the PowerMizer setting to "Prefer Maximum Performance" rather than Auto. It made a difference on my less-powerful gpu. That setting doesn't save through reboots, so you have to reset it every boot.

EDIT: Are you using the proprietary driver now? It will make a significant difference. But the pretty Kubuntu splash screen will become an ugly splash screen.

VitrasSlade · Mar 13, 2016

spankmon :

I have found it actually does affect the browser, though I did not try with youtube. I've tested it with www.vsynctester.com and when I was fiddling with the compositor it improved, but deteriorated like usual. I tested with both Firefox and Chromium.

The next time I am booted into Kubuntu I will try those settings. And yes, I am currently using the recommended proprietary drivers.

spankmon · Mar 13, 2016

Kubuntu 15.10 is running fairly well on my hardware, screen tearing is minimal and the whole system has become more stable since first installing it. The only problem I have is with the mechanical keyboard... frequent key-repeats or keystrokes not registering. Network manager seems to have been sorted out... at first some webpages would never finish loading. I'm looking forward to the next release in April. I'll probably install Kubu 16.04 on my next build this summer (Skylake) although with a lesser gpu than yours, unless 4k monitors become more affordable by then.

VitrasSlade · Mar 13, 2016

spankmon :

Aside from my keyboard and mouse sometimes not working on start up, I haven't had any troubles with them during use. And actually never any errors with my network stuff (I have an ethernet cable plugged into a killer nik and a Tplink wireless card).

Another problem that's kinda stood out, is after I get Chromium set up by enabling updates from Ubuntu's partners to install the flash player plugin I will often get a message from the Kubuntu software center saying there are updates for Firefox. The updates always result in a failure at 50% and will come back about every ten minutes or so, even after disabling the updates from partners. I wanted flash player so I could use Pandora.

VitrasSlade · Mar 13, 2016

spankmon :

I tried the settings and it didn't seem to make any difference. Compositor seems to be the only thing that can temporarily improve it from what I've tried.

spankmon · Mar 13, 2016

It's odd that you'll get an improvement for a while then it deteriorates. Have you tried using just one gpu?

ex_bubblehead · Mar 13, 2016

I've been running nothing but NVidia cards with Linux (Gentoo) for well over 10 years and have never encountered any of your reported tearing. I'm running a dual boot setup with one running KDE 4 and the other Plasma/KDE 5. Compositing is enabled on both with no problems whatsoever. You have a configuration issue somewhere.

Current running hardware:

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97-SOC Force
CPU: i7 4790k (not overclocked at present)
RAM: Generic Crucial 4x4G
GPU: EVGA GTX 970 ssc

Currently running NVidia proprietary drivers v361.28

First thing is to double check that you are not in fact running the default open source Nuveau driver. The performance of that driver, while improving with each iteration, is nowhere near that of the proprietary driver.

VitrasSlade · Mar 13, 2016

spankmon :

I completely removed my second card and everything performs the same. Looks like it doesn't deteriorate anymore, before and after I took out the second card. And I apologize for forgetting to mention I use a 1080p 21:9 monitor with HDMI, if that factors into anything.

ex_bubblehead :

Are those beta drivers? Or do you have to change your update sources? Mine is only v352.65 (recommended).

ex_bubblehead · Mar 13, 2016

VitrasSlade :

I run Gentoo. I also run the testing branch (formerly called "unstable"). Your distro prefers to stay with nice safe (read: older) versions. You may not see 361.xx for months, if not a year. Either way, if you have verified that you are in fact running NVidia's proprietary drivers and are still experiencing jitter/tearing then there's something wonky with your configuration. What happens if you play a DVD with VLC or mplayer?

VitrasSlade · Mar 13, 2016

ex_bubblehead :

All right, new problem, haha. Can't play DVDs with VLC or the default dragon player. I am guess it's because it doesn't come with the codecs? I select open disk, click on the DVD that shows up on the side of the directory, and the time "--:--" changes for a second to time "00:00", but then goes back again. No error messages, just doesn't work. Sigh.

VitrasSlade · Mar 14, 2016

spankmon :

Okay, so my theory is that the compositor may not actually initialize on startup, even though it is enabled to... Is there anyway I can check to see if it starts correctly or maybe a script to force it to run on startup?

ex_bubblehead · Mar 14, 2016

VitrasSlade :

ex_bubblehead :

All right, new problem, haha. Can't play DVDs with VLC or the default dragon player. I am guess it's because it doesn't come with the codecs? I select open disk, click on the DVD that shows up on the side of the directory, and the time "--:--" changes for a second to time "00:00", but then goes back again. No error messages, just doesn't work. Sigh.

VLC includes everything it needs to play DVD's. This is looking more and more like a failed/incomplete installation.

VitrasSlade · Mar 14, 2016

ex_bubblehead :

I've reinstalled it about 8 times now... I've also been redoing the process of making my bootable USB. Every time I run the check process it always says it's missing two files, even though I've redownloaded the image, too.

Edit: Should I maybe try installing vanilla Ubuntu and install KDE afterwards if it works?

spankmon · Mar 14, 2016

I don't think anything will be fixed by installing regular Ubuntu. If you like KDE, keep it and try to get it working correctly.

Have you looked at the Nvidia settings to make sure the resolution is set to the native res of your ultrawide monitor?

VitrasSlade · Mar 14, 2016

spankmon :

I may try installing Linux Mint KDE and the new desktop, as Plasma was the only reason I am trying to use Kubuntu.

Yes, I have it set to 2560x1080. At first the resolution isn't available, but after applying the proprietary driver it's there. I'll test using a 1080p widescreen tonight and see if the screen tearing persists.

JMW22 · Mar 14, 2016

It's probably safe to assume for right now that the DVD problem is a separate issue. You might want to see if you're able to copy files (VOBs etc) from the dvd to your hard drive, and then see if those vobs will play. If not then it's the codec. If they do, then check to see if you can rip an iso from the DVD player, mount the iso as a loopback device and see if you can play that device. VLC might also have support for playing the iso directly, but I'm not sure about this (no video DVD iso's available I can easily check with). Lots of things could be causing this issue, including permissions problems.

As far as the tearing goes, I've never experienced tearing on my GTX 970 running on Gentoo with the proprietary drivers - currently at version 358.16-r1. I've never gone above 1080p though, and I also don't use KDE. Resolutions above 1080p are still somewhat new territory. I'm sure nvidia will get on this as quickly as they can. The 900 series is definitely capable of doing 4k without a problem, but any number of things can go wrong, depending on setup. I would definitely try turning off the compositor entirely at resolutions higher than 1080p (and definitely not just trusting that it will turn itself off), and if that didn't work I would even try to reproduce the tearing issues on a plain window manager like openbox with no compositor running, and I would try using MPV instead of VLC as well. MPV has no KDE dependencies and should be more reliable than VLC.

Edit: Another thing you should do is make sure chromium is playing youtube videos in HTML5 mode. I have found that firefox doesn't have proper support for this yet. Try disabling flash in chromium entirely before playing youtube videos. Flash is a definite wildcard that should be taken out of the equation when troubleshooting web based video.

VitrasSlade · Mar 14, 2016

I will investigate the DVD problem and window manager tonight.

Just now I plugged in my regular 1920x1080 monitor and booted. Screen tearing issue was there, and applying changes to the compositor (I just check and uncheck an option, then hit apply) still fixes it. I rebooted, just in case it would go away after leaving a regular 1080p desktop, but the same thing still happened.

So if turning off the compositor and having a lighter window manager like openbox doesn't solve the problem, would that mean it could be my hardware? If I recall correctly, I had screen tearing in Linux Mint, both in Cinnamon and KDE edition. Although, in Windows I have had none of these problems.

And I am currently using regular Chrome as a stand in, since I've been reinstalling so often. As I had mentioned earlier, the only way I know to get flash player on Chromium is to enable the partner sources for updates, then enable the add-on in the software center. Though doing this results in there being a pop-up message saying there is an update for Firefox, and it always crashes half way through.

A reliable tutorial for Linux distro installations that go beyond the very basic "plug in your boot usb, install Linux, click next a few times, restart, and voilla!" would be much appreciated. The pasted command lines do confuse me sometimes, though, as I try to understand everything I read before I do it, and with Linux that's kinda hard to do.

spankmon · Mar 15, 2016

applying changes to the compositor (I just check and uncheck an option, then hit apply) still fixes it.

You are saying that turning off the compositor eliminates screen tearing in your browser? But when you reboot the screen tearing returns, even though the compositor is still turned off?

VitrasSlade · Mar 15, 2016

spankmon :

My screen tearing is not only in my browser, it tears everywhere, including just moving a window on the desktop. And no, I meant that there is screen tearing until I make it apply changes without actually changing anything.

And after tinkering a bit with the compositor and window manager I learned a couple of things... Compositor does in fact run at start up, and has no screen tearing for about 10 seconds. The way I've been testing this, as I have been for all other times, is by opening my file manager and move it side to side until it tears as soon as I start up. Having the compositor disabled for startup actually worsened the screen tears, making it happen in multiple locations rather than just one tear.

As for the window manager, I installed openbox, changed it to my default, ended the session, logged back in to find interesting results... With the compositor on (since I found it actually does help), the screen tearing was just as bad with the compositor off previously with the default Kwin manager. So it is neither the compositor nor the window manager... Is it maybe Xserver throwing things off?

I have a new theory that a process that starts a few seconds after log in overrides the compositor settings, resulting in messy vsync. Then applying any changes to the compositor overrides the other process, thus solving the tears. Any ideas?

spankmon · Mar 15, 2016

What happens if you turn off vsync in Nvidia settings?

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