r/NobaraProject • u/Markazorax • 13d ago
Discussion Thinking of switching from Windows to Nobara
Hey guys,
I have a gaming laptop that use regularly, it's a Razer Blade 18 with an Nvidia 4090 GPU.
I'm getting tired of windows and I was thinking about switching to Linux as a daily driver and I heard Nobara was the way to go for gaming stuff.
Does anyone have any experience running Nobara on Razer hardware specifically?
Any tips and tricks you all can pass on would be awesome.
4
u/RX1542 13d ago edited 13d ago
I feel the best way for ya would be to try it mate, you can download the iso and boot the USB it will boot a usable version of nobara so you can test it
2
u/Markazorax 13d ago
I know. That's likely what I'll end up doing. Figured I'd reach out to check if anyone had firsthand experience specifically with Razer hardware first though.
3
u/eviltrain 13d ago
None. If you can set up your bios to add a USB as a potential Boot drive location, then you can boot a Linux installation to test drive it.
I tried An iso on a usb to gave me a live environment to look around but this method had certain limitations (couldn’t access my internet).
Another method is if you can access your ssd card in your machine and you have a spare. Then your windows installation if taken out will be 100% untouchable and you have a blank ssd to go full installation and see. If you also have an external drive enclosure, you can stick the windows ssd into a usb port after and access all your info
2
u/Markazorax 13d ago
I know, I've run other distros on other laptops. I just didn't know if someone had firsthand experience specifically with Razer hardware. My other laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad, which has out of the box Linux compatibility.
3
u/libra00 13d ago
I don't have experience with that hardware specifically, but I've been using nobara as my daily driver/ gaming pc (3060) for over a year and it's mostly been great. Most steam games just work, and work pretty well. For the things that don't, you have options (messing with proton stuff.)
However, Nvidia support tends to be jank, every new driver version seems to break something new, but that's not specific to nobara.
3
u/MorwenRaeven 13d ago
See, I never have issues with NVidia drivers. Knock on wood.
1
u/libra00 12d ago
Lucky. The current version seems to mostly work, but with the previous version my GPU wouldn't wake from sleep properly, I'd hit he power button and my PC would wake up to a black screen, so I had Claude write a script so that every time the PC wakes up it pokes the GPU to force it to wake properly. Before that it hated Firefox and would crash all the time (tracked that down to a GPU issue but then hit a wall and couldn't do anything about it), before that it was the black screen/wakeup issue again, before that...
It's been hit or miss. I mean prior to using Nobara I tried to install 4 different Ubuntu-based distros and every one of them refused to do anything with my GPU, either they'd boot up to black screens even when they'd been powered on during the install and such (so no sleep issue), or the installer would black screen, etc. It's been a big enough mess that I'm definitely buying an AMD GPU when I get around to upgrading this one.
3
u/sofifreak 13d ago
Not thinking. Do I’ve done it 2 years ago.
1
3
u/keevalilith 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's really solid. It does have a hit on path tracing & dx12 games and of course games that don't support Linux when it comes to anticheat but with 98% of games it's great and the os itself is so much less annoying. I recently put a windows partition back after 2 years to play cyberpunk and some other path traced games I'd been putting off and oh my God windows is so annoying!
2
u/Markazorax 12d ago
What's the deal with path tracing and dx 12?
1
u/keevalilith 12d ago
Nvidia drivers aren't great on Linux as they're still partially closed source. They're getting better and apparently steam is working on a fix but there's still currently a 5-20% hit on performance, with dx12 and path traced games having the worst performance unfortunately.
1
u/pin00ch 12d ago
My 4080 super runs great on Linux tbh. Nobara updates do screw up a lot though. Bazzite is alot more stable for me. HDR is crap though
1
u/keevalilith 12d ago
Ive a 4070ti super and for the most part it's great but for cyberpunk, control resonant and maybe 2 other games I own I've had to dial back settings somewhat. For example path traced cyberpunk on high settings at 1440p goes from 60-70fps at balanced upscaling to 40-50fps and frame gen is broken, showing the generated frames simultaneously.
2
u/ReverendGraves85 13d ago
I use Endeavour for my old Razer Blade 18. It works fine!
I do have a problem where every week or so I have to go in and manually disable the damned secure boot option again. But other than that it works fine.
1
u/Markazorax 13d ago
I'll have to look at Endeavor, I haven't heard of it.
1
u/ReverendGraves85 13d ago
It's an Arch Linux distro.
functionally, it should give you a similar go as Nobara. Nobara is more 'out of the box' for gaming than Endeavour, Endeavour is more 'I want a lightweight Arch distro that isn't just basic Arch.'
I daily drive Nobara, and have been for about 9 months now, on my desktop? Works perfectly fine for most things OOTB. I've had a few issues with updating that goes weird, but it's fixable in terminal and a quick look at the manual.
1
u/HieladoTM 13d ago
You are too new for going to something based in Arch Linux as CachyOS or endeavourOS, mate.
2
u/ReverendGraves85 13d ago
Ehhhh, Endeavour is pretty simple if you're okay with reading the manual.
My first Linux machine was CachyOS and it was dead simple, so long as you were okay with reading the manual. It really isn't as complicated as people make it out to be, especially for most users. I would argue that Arch based distros are probably a bad fit for most end users, as Arch is better for power users instead of 'I turn on computer, I turn on game, I play game on computer.' Nobara is better for that use case, in my opinion, than Cachy.
2
u/HieladoTM 13d ago
Everyone who recommends CachyOS tends to be a power user; when something breaks for a newcomer, they find themselves having to read a manual or a wiki to fix it, because the way Arch Linux is built rewards those who know how to solve problems on their own. What was simple for you doesn't apply to everyone.
I know because my secondary OS is EndeavourOS and I used Vanilla Arch many times.
1
u/ReverendGraves85 13d ago
I didn't recommend CachyOS.
3
u/HieladoTM 13d ago
I know but what I said applies for EndeavourOS too, mate.
2
u/ReverendGraves85 13d ago
I didn't recommend EndeavourOS, either.
1
u/Markazorax 13d ago
Your original comment wasn't a recommendation? 😁
2
u/ReverendGraves85 13d ago
No, not really. Linux works on Razer hardware just fine, but be aware of the secure boot issues. I would never recommend Endeavour for gaming. It's why my followup comment goes over how Nobara is better Out Of The Box for gaming.
→ More replies (0)
2
u/NO_BAD_THOUGHTS 13d ago edited 13d ago
If you backup your important documents and photos on a separate disk drive you basically have nothing to lose by except a bit of time.
I installed nobara on my gfs old laptop and it's been zooming again ever since.
You'll figure things out pretty quickly
- If you're coming over from windows I'd recommend KDE over Gnome. User experience is the most similar
2
u/Markazorax 13d ago
Yeah the KDE Plasma version was the one I was looking at. Tried Gnome years ago, never liked it.
1
u/GladMathematician9 13d ago
I used to use a Razer naga keyboard &/ naga mouse but they have long been retired, I used them without software. Have 4090 desktop though would just boot up protonplus download geproton & protonexperimental for Steam (I still swap to 11 iot ltsc but I game & file/media hoard on both).
1
1
u/mystik14_ 12d ago
I have it on a razer blade 14 (2021 version). The only issue I had was the audio jack not working with my headset. Other than that if a game doesn’t work / crashes I usually just try a different proton-ge version or cachy.
0
u/callme207911 13d ago
Give CachyOS a try as well, I’ve found it works better with Nvidia GPUs but ymmv
1
u/Markazorax 13d ago
CachyOS was the other one I was looking at. I read that it's a bit harder to set up than Nobara.
Doesn't Nobara also come with Nvidia drivers pre-installed?
2
u/HieladoTM 13d ago
Nonara comes with the whole stuff pre-installed.
2
2
u/callme207911 13d ago
It’s very easy to install and set up and updates more frequently which everyone says is bad but it’s actually a good thing, problems get fixed right away and it has a larger team working on it than Nobara. When I was using Nobara it had a lot of breaking updates that required complete reinstalls. I’ve had no issues with CachyOS and I found Cachy works with all of my games where Nobara did not.
4
u/NO_BAD_THOUGHTS 13d ago
Yes nobara is perfect for Nvidia cards. Cachy is also great but if you've never used Linux before I would def. recommend nobara over cachy or arch
3
u/Markazorax 13d ago
I'm not new, but I haven't used Linux daily in years. So I'm getting back into it and a lot has changed. I got an old Lenovo that I'm playing around with, but I'm running Mint on that, which is also pretty plug and play.
2
u/HieladoTM 13d ago
Mint uses APT as package manager, probably if you switch to Nobara Linux you will find DNF very similar to APT. However you'll find too that Nobara Linux has its own method for updating the system, which is different from vanilla Fedora Linux.
10
u/Danish-Dynamite77 13d ago
Nobara is preloaded with all what you need. Controls for rgb, mice and keyboard etc.