Gaming laptop with good Linux support? - eviltoast

A similar question was raised some day’s ago from a other person, but with different background. In this case, I would like to buy a nice gaming laptop. Of course I would use it for office and coding to, but primary I’m searching recommendations for gaming. I would like to play Wine/Proton game’s and also native Linux games. As OS, I like to use Manjaro Gnome.

Should I better buy all of AMD (if yes, which CPI, GPU) or Intel/Nvidia? Or Intel CPU and AMD GPU? Which combination is the right one with best performance for a casual gamer? I prefer FPS games, if that’s important…

  • mat@linux.communityEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    I’m seeing others recommend the G14 2022 all-AMD one. I have owned this model since it released and use it nearly every day. Despite the performance being pretty okay, it does have its share of deal-breakers which, if I knew them at the time, I would not have bought it:

    • random freezing, this affects some units most zen3 amd laptops and it seems I got unlucky. ASUS has been ignoring the issue for a year despite the crashes being reproducible on Windows (Windows recovers from it while Linux just freezes)
    • short stutters due to fTPM. Hopefully once Arch updates the kernel to include the recent patch that blacklists all AMD fTPMs fixes this, for now you have to email ASUS to get a secret BIOS that allows disabling it
    • nonfunctional vfio (code 43) without patching BIOS variables with a sketchy script (have to disable rebar), rebinding after shutting down the vm still does not work at all for me
    • overheating while gaming, even with fans forced to max
    • wifi constantly disconnects. I mostly fixed it by buying a AX210 card from Intel
    • bottom shell is super brittle and cracked when unscrewing it

    The laptop itself would be the best Linux experience I’ve had if not for these issues. The trackpad is excellent and great for Wayland 1:1 gestures, the display and speakers are great, and the battery lasts a good 2-3h with light web browsing.

    • shapis@lemmy.ml
      3·
      1 year ago

      Indeed. The laptop is great exception for QA issues. I have some of those issues but not some others.

      An extremely annoying thing that happens to me you didn’t mention is when I’m using the integrated GPU sometimes the screen flickers.

      And if it matters my unit at least doesn’t overheat at all. It’s actually quite impressive.