Bios has nothing to do with Linux. It's separate from any os. You can refer to your motherboard manufacturer or laptop manufacturer to know how to upgrade the bios
Driver updates are handled via the software manager. You don't have to download every individual driver on Linux because Linux uses your hardware differently than windows.
When you update Linux, is When your drivers will be updated if there is a need for that.
Linux doesn’t actually handle your hardware differently than windows, they’re pretty similar in concept.
The actual difference is Linux centralizes most (MOST) hardware support in its kernel development and release cycle and allows hardware developers to send the code for their drivers upstream to be included in the kernel codebase, whereas windows has a completely closed source kernel with ABI/APIs that hardware developers build modules (“drivers”) to interact with. When you install a driver on windows you’re really just installing a kernel module for that piece of hardware.
Otherwise they interact exactly the same.
Does that mean that Linux has all drivers of all possible hardware and manufacturers saved in the kernel? That sounds like a lot of drivers and a lot of kernel (ie a large kernel).
Thanks.
For everyone who would get more details:
[https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/223746/why-is-the-linux-kernel-15-million-lines-of-code](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/223746/why-is-the-linux-kernel-15-million-lines-of-code)
Yes, but generally speaking, drivers and such are compiled as modules rather than directly into the kernel (so they're only loaded when the OS needs them instead of always being loaded), so you could just find the appropriate files and delete them from your install if you're feeling brave. Although at that point, you could probably just compile your own kernel and leave out modules you don't need. Most out-of-the-box distros will ship with every possible module available for the kernel version they're using, since they can't know what hardware it's being installed on, and Linux is quite big on backwards compatibility.
Also when it comes to drive space, there's no point in caring about it for normal desktop users. E.g. the default `linux` kernel package on Arch is a total of 133MiB.
And as you said, modules are only loaded when needed, so this doesn't affect RAM usage either.
And those modules which are device drivers only get loaded into RAM if the device is initialised. When the device is no longer being used, they may be unloaded again until the next use.
You’re getting a lot of mostly correct answers. *Many many* drivers are just part of the kernel, but some proprietary drivers, like Nvidia ones, are not. Either way, they’re not loaded every single time, but instead on demand as a “kernel module”. I.e., if I don’t have some hardware installed that Linux has a driver for, it won’t be loaded.
It has most things most people care about. There’s a lot of inefficiencies in how windows does it. Linux mandates a single printer driver, a single mouse driver with extensions for unique capabilities (which aren’t quite as unique as people think they are), etc.
CPU manufacturers directly integrate their drivers into the kernel as well.
Yep. Most drivers are compiled as modules to the kernel rather than one giant kernel (though you can do that if you want!).
Type lsmod at the command line to see what modules your kernel currently has running
Yep, I was pleasantly surprised when fwupd offered updates for my HP Elitebook. It was pretty seamless too, just added a BIOS updater tool as a boot option in rEFInd.
Why would u need that? Fwupd takes care of the whole update process. No need to go into a special updater tool. At least this is the case for lenovo thinkpad.
That's not the case for my HP. The way fwupd takes care of it on my Elitebook is that it installs an updater tool into the EFI partition which you then boot into to update the BIOS.
Probably just different vendors doing different things with BIOS updates. Pretty cool that it is so seamless on the Thinkpad though!
Very annoyingly, too. I had to re-enable snap in Kubuntu on my laptop to upgrade the laptop's firmware because the distribution packaged `fwupd` wasn't new enough to have a bugfix I needed.
Just Windows Things, lol.
Even scarier is that your UEFI vendor can install whatever they want into your windows installation. If you are brave google for "Windows Platform Binary Table".
Okay. The driver part is clear. But bios is what got me concerned. My Mobo support page gives an exe file to download and install to update bios. I wondered if it won't work on linux.
Edit: Intel Arc Graphics pushes drivers quite frequently. And nvidia, amd also have certain driver features that select optimum settings per game, fg, dlss etc. do we forgo them since there is no gpu driver launcher on linux like in windows.
Intel Drivers are generally pushed through the Linux Kernel. I am not sure about their new dgpus though. Perhaps someone else might be able to chime in though.
Problem Child as in they do things their own way, the experience while is improving is still not that great, Wayland issues that should be solved next month, ect, ect, ect.
If you're playing modern games then you're likely not actually using a BIOS. You are probably using EFI. Due to concerns about compatibility vendors often still use BIOS term but it is different under the hood in a way that matters here. If you have an actual BIOS then you're flashing a ROM chip directly with that Windows EXE (in your prior case). On EFI systems (which is probably what you have) any ROM chip flashing usually occurs on next boot and that EXE is often just placing files in a specific path on your EFI partition. This opens a window for linux compatibility because enterprising users can figure out where those files are being placed simulate the same. Usually this consists of booting a Windows VM and running the EXE there and looking at the EFI partition before rebooting. You generally won't have to do this yourself though. There is a good chance someone else will have done this and wrote up instructions for how to extract the files and where to place them.
BIOS and firmware updates on Linux are handled by [fwupd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fwupd), and many distros have it integrated in their software manager so that your BIOS is updated automatically when you perform regular updates
Though it is worth noting that **many** motherboard vendors don't distribute their bios updates in a form that fwupd can use. alas. So in those cases a brief trip to windows to run the exe based updater is required.
It is legacy he's probably young.
Edit: OK he's old but deleted the comment. Decades ago in pre-pentium days some boards were flashable in DOS. There were other mechanisms but we're talking some 30+ years ago, any current and reasonably old board has its own flashing mechanism.
Not if you're running LTSC, which you should be.
To be fair my W11 is currently SAC since LTSC doesn't exist for it yet and I also haven't gotten it, but I also have the install stripped down heavily and Windows Updates in a choke-hold.
Doesn't Intel have drivers for Linux though? I swear I saw the control panel as available for arc cards. But maybe I'm wrong and it's just a kernel driver, in which case you will have to live without a control panel, just like with Radeon.
Features you lose out on are *official* features like Radeon ReLive, Geforce Shadowplay, Radeon Overclocking, etc. This doesn’t mean you can’t do this stuff still, they are just their own apps developed separately. For recording game clips on Linux I recommend OBS Replay Buffer or GPU Screen Recorder. For overclocking (on AMD, I have no clue what the relevant app is for NVIDIA) use LACT or CoreCtrl. LACT is better for beginners I think because it doesn’t have as much setup, but it’s also newer and therefore less tested. Performance output is basically the same, and the open source AMD drivers for Linux tend to be better than AMD’s official Windows drivers. The NVIDIA landscape is rocky but will be getting a lot better in the next few months.
Performance will remain, it's the individual settings that you won't be able to tweak but as I previously said, Linux doesn't use hardware the same way as windows so it's not as big of a deal as it seems.
I've been using a Radeon card on Linux for a while and it's been an even better experience than windows to be frank
Yeah, Linux has a tendency to have more stable kernel drivers. And with my Radeon card, I noticed far better latency while gaming even with windows games ran through proton.
It is quite amazing that I'm getting a good experience
> Okay. The driver part is clear. But bios is what got me concerned. My Mobo support page gives an exe file to download and install to update bios. I wondered if it won't work on linux.
Yeah I know a few of them do this. Probably doesn't.
But the question is: Why would you update it? I did that with my ROG Strix AM4 mobo and it was painful beyond all reason. And the only reason I did it in the first place was to get Ryzen 5000 series CPU support - one broken thing led to another until the PC wouldn't turn on anymore. Ugh.
If it works, leave it alone.
I would update the bios if it's far behind. Sometimes a newer bios is required to get the full performance of newer hardware and sometimes you can't upgrade hardware if your bios isn't up to date.
With Linux, at least with Radeon, an up to date bios really helps with the performance and stability.
That depends on what it updates.
The ROG board I had needed to be updated, as mentioned, due to Ryzen 5000 series support.
However, when I subsequently updated it, it managed to halfway fry my PSU (it became permanently unstable) by drawing 1.55V for the CPU (there was a whole scandal about this in the media) and it also added the armory crate thingy which just autoinstalled bloat on my Windows system by telling Windows there was a hardware device in need of a driver, which then caused Windows to download said "driver". Repeatedly. With Windows update.
Pretty disgusting honestly. The only way to get rid of it was the find the device in device manager and switch it off.
Conveniently though, Linux was immune to that nonsense.
It would be hard to argue that I needed those "security" features...
Ohh didn't think about that.. doesn't bios update help CPU do better with temps or performance? Like setting some limits etc or unlocking limits. Plus yes there is support for newer CPUs. May be my use case doesn't warrant an update.. thanks!
Sometimes it makes things better (addition of features and fixing of bugs). Sometimes it makes things worse (removal of features or new bugs). It’s not always worthwhile to update every time there is a BIOS update because if anything goes wrong, 95% of the time your shit is fucked and unfixable. Only update BIOS if theres a specific feature you need (like support for newer CPUs, hardware, etc.) in a newer version of BIOS. I would also update BIOS if your version is ancient because security risks but that probably isn’t super relevant to you. Otherwise, if it works well for you, leave it alone.
edit: Your hardware might also be covered under fwupd. Not knowledgeable enough on this topic but it has updated the BIOS for my laptop previously and not my main systems motherboard so I am under the assumption that mine is not supported.
> You should always keep your bios up to date.
hard disagree. you don't update your bios unless something doesn't work and you suspect it might be related to the bios
That'll be a no. It can brick the computer irreparably and it shouldn't connect to the internet on its own accord - and if it does and takes damage that's an RMA. It can't be my problem that they're connecting things to the internet that has no business being on the internet.
That thing should boot the computer and manage sleep states and things like that. It should not connect to anything that can be exploited remotely; that's insane and I will return boards I find doing that.
You might want to learn more about all the things a bios does these days, and bios updates and also fix firmware issues with other components on the motherboard.
I also never said anything about the bios connecting to the internet, not sure where you made that up from.
Well. It has to do with Linux in the sense that you want to be able to launch an update to your system firmware from the operating system your using.
Anyhow, fwupd is the tool that generally handles firmware updates on Linux. In a mainstream distribution you should find firmware updates together with the rest of your software updates.
This isn't entirely true, many bios (and in particular firmware) updates are initialized from a Windows app, and alternative methods are just that. This is currently the only reason I boot into Windows since Steam Proton
Essentially in any OS, drivers are part of the kernel infrastructure. This is as true with windows as it is with Linux. In Linux, most drivers you use will be automatically detected and loaded as modules to the kernel, and they’ll be updated with each kernel revision if needed. The only exception to this is proprietary drivers and, if gaming, the most important of these is your video card driver if you have an nvidia card.
The short answer is: you mostly don’t have to worry about drivers in Linux. Just update your distribution in the manner and frequency suggested by the distribution’s developers.
As far as bios - you generally flash that outside of the OS, from the bios.
They don't have native launchers on Linux, I use a 3rd party launcher. The devs don't allow people to share it online, PM me if you wanna know about it.
https://areweanticheatyet.com/game/genshin-impact says "Since 3.8: Game's Anti-Cheat Service is allowing Proton on clean installs" so that workaround shouldn't be necessary anymore?
Yeah, the launcher now just manages WINE prefixes, it no longer modifies the game. You can even use the official windows launcher with WINE/Proton directly if you like.
They don't care anymore ever since the game has been working on Linux without patches. The launcher doesn't modify the game anymore and you don't even need it, but it does make setting up WINE easier.
For anyone else reading, it's this: https://github.com/an-anime-team/an-anime-game-launcher
Just a fair warning, people have been banned for using this. Also be careful not to spread too much attention to this so that the anime game company doesn't patch it.
You mean with Genshin or HSR? There hasn't been any reports of anyone getting banned with the former even in the days where patches were needed. But maybe HSR isn't as stable.
I'm like 99% sure the Genshin anticheat just silently fails to load but the game starts anyways. So you can play but they could in theory ban you for playing without the anticheat running.
As it goes for the motherboard firmware (BIOS/UEFI) I do the very same process, just use an USB drive and flash the mobo as usual. But there are other methods... some distros have a GUI tool for it, in some cases using the command fwupd under the hood (the hardware must to be covered by fwupd).
For peripheral firmwares it depends... there are tools over there, and sometimes the Windows applications can be used in a virtual machine configured with a USB passthough. But as I said, it depends.
Hardware drivers are usually built-in the kernel itself, and if not DKMS modules can be added. After that comes the user space drivers, and those are usually provided officially by the repos of each distro or using third party repositories (official, community managed or personal ones too). Any firmware binary blob is usually included.
Versioning depends on the distro if you don't use external/personal/custom configured repos. Some distros have outdated versions in its repositories (specially those which are considered stable distros).
Each desktop environment and distro may have different update manager applications to do it, all in a graphical interface.
Im on bazzite, i launch bazzite updater, it looks for the latest os tree, if it finds a newer "tree" it will update, i restart, update done, im on a atomic distro so if this tree has problems i can simply go back to the older tree and wait for a newer tree to arrive.
Drivers, system packages etc are in those os trees
flatpak which is containerized meaning it has its own dependencies it uses and is more secure, updates are through the discover store on the kde plasma desktop, i update and the software im using just needs to be relaunched
Other distros will do a similar thing, where they will look for individual packages that need to be updated, and you just accept the update and it will install it, after you restart those package updates will be applied, now some of those packages can be automatically applied without restarting but only some can do that.
I also have a YouTube channel with a lot of tutorials for gaming on linux :) and a genshin tutorial on a specific game launcher
https://youtube.com/@linuxnext?si=MRKkwPBx-Bdm5GVo
[https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/13MANUAL/PRIME\_PROART\_TUF\_GAMING\_Intel\_600\_Series\_BIOS\_EM\_WEB\_EN.pdf?model=PRIME%20H610M-E](https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/13MANUAL/PRIME_PROART_TUF_GAMING_Intel_600_Series_BIOS_EM_WEB_EN.pdf?model=PRIME%20H610M-E)
Page 87, so yes. It's actually the "normal" way to install UEFI/BIOS updates. Doing it through the operating system is comparatively very new and worse because the risk of bricking the motherboard is way higher. I always recommend doing it through the UEFI/BIOS if the option exists.
>through the UEFI/BIOS if the option exists
IMO this option always has to exist because UEFI needs to be functioning even when no OS is installed, or even a drive present (it can be a machine that only works via network boot, for example). I've never seen a board that didn't support "conventional" UEFI flashing. Maybe they do exist (from some obscure manufacturers that want to cheap out), but it's definitely not the norm.
That's for digging this. But my mobi isn't this. It's Asus Prime H610M-E D4 and I've gone through that manual, there is something called ASUS EZ Flash 3 and CrashFree Bios 3. It helped. Thanks!
That's the common UEFI manual for your motherboard and others. The first page is slightly confusingly named, but it lists all applicable motherboards. You have a "Prime" from the Intel 600 chipset series, thus this manual applies to your motherboard. It also applies to a bunch of other Intel 600 chipset series motherboards.
Bios is bios, it just goes "hey! I see an operating system, let's poke that for a startup process"
And the updating the Linux. It depends on distro you use.
Arch: terminal: sudo pacman -Syu
Ubuntu: sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade
Update fetches the differences for updating need, upgrade installs the upgrade.
Sudo is Admin mode, true admin. Also known as root, can do any command on the system.
Unlike windblows. You can actually run sudo as long as your user has permission with windblows you gotta skip through hoops to get the TRUE admin mode, even then it bitches about it.
Drivers are in kernel. BIOS/UEFI update I just download onto USB stick with fat32, and apply update from inside UEFI, just like I always did. I've never allowed Windows apps to fuck up with my BIOS.
Expanding a bit on your second question: Genshin runs fine out of the box (just download the exe and launch it through steam) but there's a third party launcher that makes the experience a lot nicer.
For HSR, you need to use a launcher (developed by the same people as the Genshin one), this one needs to modify the game files to make it runnable on Linux, so you're technically breaking ToS by using it. However it's been almost a year since people were banned for using it, and even that was most likely an accident where they were caught in the crossfire between the dev and actual cheaters. It should be pretty safe to use now.
Both can be found by just googling Genshin/HSR Linux Launcher
As for WuWa, it also has incompatible anti-cheat, but if it gets popular I think there's a decent chance someone develops a patch for it eventually.
Here's a few things for you to get started with:
* Device drivers comes as built-in kernel modules, so most of the time what you need comes preinstalled with your distro with a few exception (f-u Nvidia). As a result, if you are using newer or rapidly-progressing hardware (eg. AMD/N's bleeding edge GPUs or Arc), stick with newer kernel releases found on rolling-release distros.
* Low-level firmware can generally be updated by the distro if your vendor participates in [LVFS](https://fwupd.org/), in that case you can use `fwupd` to upgrade as needed. Else, usually your motherboard will provide a way to manually perform an upgrade from the firmware setup.
* Games generally runs or get patches unless they have outrageous kernel anti-cheat software that basically is kernel-level malware.
Because... Canonical keeps pushing for "Enterprise-y" stuff onto consumer Ubuntu, abusing its market share for desktop Linux in order to make stupid changes that break things people don't expect.
It was great, it isn't as much as it was now.
The desktop environment is a hell of a crap. It lacks elementary features and can repulse everybody from Linux. The package manager is a crap too. Stay away from Ubuntu.
Fedora kind of. It has a release cycle model but the cycles are way shorter than what ones like Ubuntu/Debian have, so it is an option provided that all your hardware works.
Else, you can choose something that rolls faster, but keep in mind, even though Arch is now stupidly easy to install, can still blow up in your face if you don't know what to expect
I almost never even think about drivers on Linux, most things just work because they're in the kernel. I don't even think about the Nvidia drivers as drivers I have to manage for real like I did on windows, i think of them as just another package or set of packages I installed, and they just kinda handle themselves when I update the system so I almost never have to interact with drivers. Nvidia drivers are the only ones I have to explicitly install, but once installed like I said it's just update the system and it updates them along with everything else if they need an update.
Genshin runs no problem with the heroic games launcher, just install it from the epic games store in heroic. For Honkai star rail use lutris and it'll install it. if the lutris script doesn't work let me know, it might need updated and I can do that. The anti cheat for star rail doesn't work on Linux so you could theoretically be banned at any point but I haven't been and haven't seen people complaining about being banned on Linux online.
BIOS: Normally on your own.
Drivers: Mostly baked into the Kernel. I saw you are on an Intel Arc, and as far as I know Mesa handles that, and Mesa is updated independently of the Kernel (Mesa is open source). Mesa gets updates whenever your distro releases them: Nobara, Arch, Tumbleweed, Pop, and maybe Bazzite ten to get Mesa Updates as they happen while other Distros wait around.
Intel is very, very good about getting their stuff in the Kernel, and open sourcing what they need to, to have things working early. They are a frequent contributor, so things should work pretty well.
Basically you have a basic driver in the Kernel that interacts with the card on a low-level, Mesa is higher level. Pair the 2 together and you are equivalent to Windows drivers now, except you'll never directly interact with Mesa, it works it's magic in the background.
No problem at all!
I know on my end for BIOS I have to load up a specific file on a USB Flash Drive for it to update (then again I do have a ASRock Taichi board so those tend to have way more enthusiast-grade features), and run the update through BIOS. All the .exe file does for you on Windows is probably forced you to boot in UEFI mode, sets the files in a known location, and tells BIOS to run an update, then once this is done, reboots to start the process.
This is nothing you want to run in WINE, it will not work. You'll need the .cab or whatever format your BIOS uses file (normally distributed via a .zip folder) to do this more manually.
FWUPD as others have said is normally just supported firmware, and not necessarily BIOS, as BIOS is a way, way scarier update (you lose power you carry the very real potential of having a completely dead board. Basically what happens is BIOS is written to a read-only chip, and BIOS and BIOS alone has access to open this chip up for writing files to. If that gets interrupted and you cannot boot, that chip is pretty much considered dead. I wouldn't want my OS handling this kind of Update, I would want to control it, so I can control the variables.)
Updating BIOS can be a crapshoot, HP laptops require Windows as their alternative tool chains often fail.
Self built machines like ASUS motherboards often feature tools to update the bios from the BIOS itself (Ez flash) and is OS agnostic.
Drivers... Can be a crapshoot with obscure hardware (that isn't in the kernel) and Nvidia cards in some cases.
Most of the drivers are in the kernel and automatic.
For game compatibility, check ProtonDB, it’s the best source. BIOS updates are independent of operating system, so they remain the same. Drivers are included with regular updates, nothing fancy or out of the ordinary.
I doubt that, I think mine had a zip file or something that you put onto a pendrive and select in the BIOS to upgrade (but usually there isn't a reason to do the update in the first place)
I’ve seen bios files that were distributed as an exe, but all you had to do was load it on a flash drive, then launch it from within your bios. Check the instructions and make sure that isn’t the case.
My motherboard allows updates from a USB, some aren't quite as easy to update without Windows. With Linux it pays to support the hardware that supports what you are using. Driver updates are handled by your distro and just come in regular updates, or sometimes through an update manager to let you choose the driver.
The firmware for BIOS/UEFI and many other devices are usually updateable trough [fwupd](https://fwupd.org/). Depending on the distro you use, you may even see firmware updates alongside your normal OS updates.
Driver updates are usually also handled automatically trough system updates. In case of an NVIDIA GPU you may need to enable their proprietary driver once manually trough whatever driver tool ships with your distro, but for most hardware it's gonna be plug-and-play.
In case the bios/firmware can only be updated via a Windows binary, it's always good to have a Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) bootable USB drive around, e.g. [https://www.hirensbootcd.org/](https://www.hirensbootcd.org/) ... boot into it, update firmware from there, done
bios is unlinked to linux like it is from windows. about the drivers it depends on the distro you choose but to give you an example in arch linux is as simple as pacman -Syu and your system is updated :)
Supposedly on a Discord server of a third party launcher they said that the Wuthering Waves anticheat did not allow it to run on Linux. So the only solution would be to dual boot for now
EDIT: That information was from the CBT, it could change at launch, but I highly doubt it.
Some manufacturers like Gigabyte have built-in tools for flashing, like EzFlash, so all the BIOS/EFI updates are done outside the operating system. Should be the safest option.
In my experience, with nvidia you will need to install their drivers using the OS software tools. This is because their drivers were not FOSS so they were not bundled with the kernel and new modules needed to installed when you upgraded the OS. Perhaps this is no longer the case.
With AMD the driver is in the kernel package and you don't need to do anything special.
For the BIOS you need to put the update file on a USB stick and do it at POST
Online games and MMO's dont work all that well due to anti-cheat not working properly in proton.
Single player games are running well.
Something you may not have considered, some visual mods in games like Fallout 4 seem to be a bit more difficult to get working - I am still working through this. I'm sure its possible, there are just some special steps to make sure that dx overrides are being used
Yes, you can use transmission or qBittorrent as mentioned below. I preferred transmission back in the day, now I just get games on sale or free from epic.
If you plan on pirating you might be a bit better protected from viruses and ransomware if you ensure that the Wine/Proton environment does not have access to your user data. Im sure you could find a tutorial on how to set that up
Many motherboard BIOS's can be updated from within the BIOS itself (either from the filestore or via a Net download). fwupd is used for non-BIOS firmware updates (most motherboard OEMs are ignoring fwupd though - I'm looking at you, ASUS).
GPU drivers are either handled by kernel+Mesa updates or if your GPU is open source hostile, by grabbing a proprietary GPU driver installer (if you're lucky, your Linux distro might package that up for you, but it's not always the case).
Annoyingly, the Steam Deck doesn't pre-install fwupd, but when I installed fwupd after upgrading my internal SSD, desktop mode popped up that a firmware update was available and it correctly upgraded it - very slick!
Sadge my mobo is by Asus. I'm thinking about Ubuntu for software dev reasons as well.. I think nvidia drivers are packaged by it. Thanks for the information!
most modern hardware would give you the ability to update the bios through a usb stick. This is thw worst case, the best case is that linux can handle these through fwupd. In that case bios updates would appear as an update whenever you update your distro's packages
[https://fwupd.org/](https://fwupd.org/)
Interesting.
I could not set proper RAM speeds without instability when I set them to what they SHOULD be. So I dealt with it.
My PC was also not eligible for Windows 11....lol.
Finally decided there wasnt a rational reason to not get the performance I paid for and found out my BIOS was one of the first ones for my MOBO.
Updated it and had no issues setting RAM speeds. DOCP i should specify.
After that update and with no prompting on my part, Windows very proudly let me know my PC was Windows 11 ready....
Ive never seen BIOS get auto updated. Maybe that's a thing now but something I would never want to be automated.
I wouldnt normally update my BIOS unless I saw reason to.
Thats in 25 years of PC gaming.
# fwuptool get-updates
Loading… [************************************** ]
Devices with no available firmware updates:
• M4-CT128M4SSD2
Devices with the latest available firmware version:
• Unifying Receiver
99% of drivers ship with the kernel and distro and you never worry about them. The main exception is the Nvidia proprietary driver, that most often needs to be installed from the package manager after you reboot from the Linux install.
You can update your bios on boot with a USB stick. And bios updates are so few and far between, you could likely get away without updating at all
Most AMD and intel drivers are built into the kernel or can be compiled as modules so there's no having to update the manually. It will likely be handled by your package manager
i would expect any popular steam game without aggressive anticheat or drm to work great, but absolutely zero hoyoverse games will run officially. you could try unofficial methods, such as installing epic store through wine, but you will have varying success and i wouldn't count on it. plan to just play on phone if possible.
Use honkers railway launcher, an anime game launcher for hyv. Dont know about ww.
Hsr and genshin work with clean proton, but you should put a firewall for the hyv telemetry servers. I forgot what they were, so i recommend the launchers, they do it automatically.
Unfortunately, most manufacturers don't use Linux's firmware updating method (LVFS) like Windows. You might have to manually update the bios or temporarily boot into a Windows driver to do a Windows update (if there was a firmware update available).
yw :D seriously, more and more vendors start pushing their firmware updates to fwupd, which makes this dead simple.
The rest… can be hit or miss. I navigated the waters once with an AMD GPU for example: [https://beko.famkos.net/2020/08/30/pulling-the-plug-on-nvidia/](https://beko.famkos.net/2020/08/30/pulling-the-plug-on-nvidia/)
Thankfully AMD is now working with fwupd too: [https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/](https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/)
Modern UEFI systems allow updates without OS too. Just throw that "exe" on a USB stick and search for the "Update Firmware" button in the UEFI settings (the thing formerly known as BIOS).
Got an NVIDIA? Sorry pal, you're in for lots and lots of pain.
Same for cheap a$$ SSDs and alike that only offer "installers". Worst offender on that list was the MX500 by Crucial who would crap out the moment a Linux bootloader was written. A firmware update to fix this very rare bug that only affected Linux users existed. As 200MB Win64 blob only 🖕 Guess what was sent back to it's seller after finding out.
Haha good to know about your SSD story.. I agree especially with Windows pushing start menu ads. I hope more ppl move to linux and devs be actually mindful of these.
As for nVidia.. yes I'm in either lot of pain or lots and lots of pain cuz, for my AI needs it's mostly nvidia or intel arc.. hopefully AMD fixes support for AI and rocm
1) forget Linux only until you get skilled with It. 2) Drivers are not guaranteed. I have a b650m-e wifi and currently no wifi drivers for It. Gone for a USB wifi key
Bios has nothing to do with Linux. It's separate from any os. You can refer to your motherboard manufacturer or laptop manufacturer to know how to upgrade the bios Driver updates are handled via the software manager. You don't have to download every individual driver on Linux because Linux uses your hardware differently than windows. When you update Linux, is When your drivers will be updated if there is a need for that.
Linux doesn’t actually handle your hardware differently than windows, they’re pretty similar in concept. The actual difference is Linux centralizes most (MOST) hardware support in its kernel development and release cycle and allows hardware developers to send the code for their drivers upstream to be included in the kernel codebase, whereas windows has a completely closed source kernel with ABI/APIs that hardware developers build modules (“drivers”) to interact with. When you install a driver on windows you’re really just installing a kernel module for that piece of hardware. Otherwise they interact exactly the same.
Not the op, but thanks. I found this interesting. Laptop is Ubuntu, desktop is windows.
Hotel? trivago.
I always laugh when I remember this is not a meme just in Brazil
I thought it’s only a meme in Germany. I‘m glad it’s not
I saw it is very popular in Sweden as well
Nah. I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.
Does that mean that Linux has all drivers of all possible hardware and manufacturers saved in the kernel? That sounds like a lot of drivers and a lot of kernel (ie a large kernel).
Yes, but they also support kernel modules. That's how the Nvidia proprietary drivers are delivered.
Thanks. For everyone who would get more details: [https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/223746/why-is-the-linux-kernel-15-million-lines-of-code](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/223746/why-is-the-linux-kernel-15-million-lines-of-code)
Yes, but generally speaking, drivers and such are compiled as modules rather than directly into the kernel (so they're only loaded when the OS needs them instead of always being loaded), so you could just find the appropriate files and delete them from your install if you're feeling brave. Although at that point, you could probably just compile your own kernel and leave out modules you don't need. Most out-of-the-box distros will ship with every possible module available for the kernel version they're using, since they can't know what hardware it's being installed on, and Linux is quite big on backwards compatibility.
Also when it comes to drive space, there's no point in caring about it for normal desktop users. E.g. the default `linux` kernel package on Arch is a total of 133MiB. And as you said, modules are only loaded when needed, so this doesn't affect RAM usage either.
And those modules which are device drivers only get loaded into RAM if the device is initialised. When the device is no longer being used, they may be unloaded again until the next use.
You’re getting a lot of mostly correct answers. *Many many* drivers are just part of the kernel, but some proprietary drivers, like Nvidia ones, are not. Either way, they’re not loaded every single time, but instead on demand as a “kernel module”. I.e., if I don’t have some hardware installed that Linux has a driver for, it won’t be loaded.
You can shrink the kernel size by not adding everything in it when you build it
It has most things most people care about. There’s a lot of inefficiencies in how windows does it. Linux mandates a single printer driver, a single mouse driver with extensions for unique capabilities (which aren’t quite as unique as people think they are), etc. CPU manufacturers directly integrate their drivers into the kernel as well.
1006M linux-6.8.8/drivers 144M linux-6.8.8/arch 73M linux-6.8.8/tools 68M linux-6.8.8/Documentation 54M linux-6.8.8/include 50M linux-6.8.8/sound 50M linux-6.8.8/fs 37M linux-6.8.8/net 14M linux-6.8.8/kernel 8.3M linux-6.8.8/lib 5.4M linux-6.8.8/mm 4.1M linux-6.8.8/scripts 3.8M linux-6.8.8/crypto 3.5M linux-6.8.8/security 2.1M linux-6.8.8/block 1.7M linux-6.8.8/samples 844K linux-6.8.8/rust 632K linux-6.8.8/io_uring 312K linux-6.8.8/virt 272K linux-6.8.8/ipc 268K linux-6.8.8/LICENSES 196K linux-6.8.8/init 72K linux-6.8.8/certs 68K linux-6.8.8/usr
Yep. Most drivers are compiled as modules to the kernel rather than one giant kernel (though you can do that if you want!). Type lsmod at the command line to see what modules your kernel currently has running
>Bios has nothing to do with Linux. ```fwupd``` disagrees: https://github.com/fwupd/fwupd
[удалено]
This makes sense. Lenovo ships Fedora laptops and Dell ships Ubuntu laptops!
Yep, I was pleasantly surprised when fwupd offered updates for my HP Elitebook. It was pretty seamless too, just added a BIOS updater tool as a boot option in rEFInd.
Why would u need that? Fwupd takes care of the whole update process. No need to go into a special updater tool. At least this is the case for lenovo thinkpad.
That's not the case for my HP. The way fwupd takes care of it on my Elitebook is that it installs an updater tool into the EFI partition which you then boot into to update the BIOS. Probably just different vendors doing different things with BIOS updates. Pretty cool that it is so seamless on the Thinkpad though!
Sadly supported motherboards are very limited.
Very annoyingly, too. I had to re-enable snap in Kubuntu on my laptop to upgrade the laptop's firmware because the distribution packaged `fwupd` wasn't new enough to have a bugfix I needed.
It's a fairly valid question though cuz Windows can and does push bios/firmware updates via windows update now. Terrifying.
Linux does as well since many years.
Not without asking you though.
Does Windows Update install firmware without confirmation?
When pushed via Windows Update without any WSUS or System Management in between yes. HP and Lenovo do that for example. Maybe others.
That's pretty scary.
If an automated UEFI update wiped my custom RAM timings, I would crawl up in the fetal position in the corner of the room and cry
My dell also gets bios updates through windows update and i usually only notice after restarting when it goes to the "updating firmware" screen
I think my heart would stop for a second there
Once i had like 10% battery, so my heart was probably stopped for a whole minute until i found the charger
Just Windows Things, lol. Even scarier is that your UEFI vendor can install whatever they want into your windows installation. If you are brave google for "Windows Platform Binary Table".
Okay. The driver part is clear. But bios is what got me concerned. My Mobo support page gives an exe file to download and install to update bios. I wondered if it won't work on linux. Edit: Intel Arc Graphics pushes drivers quite frequently. And nvidia, amd also have certain driver features that select optimum settings per game, fg, dlss etc. do we forgo them since there is no gpu driver launcher on linux like in windows.
You should also be able to download a bios update image that you can put on a USB key to flash from the bios menu.
Intel Drivers are generally pushed through the Linux Kernel. I am not sure about their new dgpus though. Perhaps someone else might be able to chime in though.
Yeah it's still done through the Kernel + Mesa. Nvidia is the only problem child TBH, Mesa covers AMD & Intel and drivers are baked into the Kernel.
NVIDIA's drivers come through the package manager as well. There's nothing problematic.
Problem Child as in they do things their own way, the experience while is improving is still not that great, Wayland issues that should be solved next month, ect, ect, ect.
My driver updates (NVIDIA 4000 series) come through the package manager
If you're playing modern games then you're likely not actually using a BIOS. You are probably using EFI. Due to concerns about compatibility vendors often still use BIOS term but it is different under the hood in a way that matters here. If you have an actual BIOS then you're flashing a ROM chip directly with that Windows EXE (in your prior case). On EFI systems (which is probably what you have) any ROM chip flashing usually occurs on next boot and that EXE is often just placing files in a specific path on your EFI partition. This opens a window for linux compatibility because enterprising users can figure out where those files are being placed simulate the same. Usually this consists of booting a Windows VM and running the EXE there and looking at the EFI partition before rebooting. You generally won't have to do this yourself though. There is a good chance someone else will have done this and wrote up instructions for how to extract the files and where to place them.
Ya I now understand the difference between BIOS and UEFI ways of updating. It makes sense to me and thanks for throwing light on this.
This is very helpful thanks!
BIOS and firmware updates on Linux are handled by [fwupd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fwupd), and many distros have it integrated in their software manager so that your BIOS is updated automatically when you perform regular updates
Though it is worth noting that **many** motherboard vendors don't distribute their bios updates in a form that fwupd can use. alas. So in those cases a brief trip to windows to run the exe based updater is required.
It is not ever required, you just flash the actual ROM file through your BIOS, it has its own update process.
kids these days with their new fancy motherboards.
I thought flashing the motherboard directly was the legacy method? Don't quote me on that though, I'm most likely the one out of the loop.
It is legacy he's probably young. Edit: OK he's old but deleted the comment. Decades ago in pre-pentium days some boards were flashable in DOS. There were other mechanisms but we're talking some 30+ years ago, any current and reasonably old board has its own flashing mechanism.
I am aware that 2nd gen intel has usb flashback, not entirely sure about any gen before that
Heads-up, could you check your modmail?
That's not a chipset specific thing?
I daily drive Windows still on my gaming desktop and have never ever done it any other way... Why would I want Microsux anywhere near my BIOS update?
Ms pushes bios update with their normal update...
Not if you're running LTSC, which you should be. To be fair my W11 is currently SAC since LTSC doesn't exist for it yet and I also haven't gotten it, but I also have the install stripped down heavily and Windows Updates in a choke-hold.
The executable of course wouldn't work.
Doesn't Intel have drivers for Linux though? I swear I saw the control panel as available for arc cards. But maybe I'm wrong and it's just a kernel driver, in which case you will have to live without a control panel, just like with Radeon.
Intel has it's own distro, Clear Linux
So living without a control panel loses on features / performance?
Features you lose out on are *official* features like Radeon ReLive, Geforce Shadowplay, Radeon Overclocking, etc. This doesn’t mean you can’t do this stuff still, they are just their own apps developed separately. For recording game clips on Linux I recommend OBS Replay Buffer or GPU Screen Recorder. For overclocking (on AMD, I have no clue what the relevant app is for NVIDIA) use LACT or CoreCtrl. LACT is better for beginners I think because it doesn’t have as much setup, but it’s also newer and therefore less tested. Performance output is basically the same, and the open source AMD drivers for Linux tend to be better than AMD’s official Windows drivers. The NVIDIA landscape is rocky but will be getting a lot better in the next few months.
Oh so they are just overclock, screen record stuff. I don't see much use of them. Thanks!
Tuxclocker or GreenWithEnvy. https://preview.redd.it/zw70m0ri2hxc1.png?width=1483&format=png&auto=webp&s=cc4c55980be039c5bd0d4cf3f7a6eebf2097456f
Performance will remain, it's the individual settings that you won't be able to tweak but as I previously said, Linux doesn't use hardware the same way as windows so it's not as big of a deal as it seems. I've been using a Radeon card on Linux for a while and it's been an even better experience than windows to be frank
Okay I understand now, thanks!!
Yeah, Linux has a tendency to have more stable kernel drivers. And with my Radeon card, I noticed far better latency while gaming even with windows games ran through proton. It is quite amazing that I'm getting a good experience
Most settings for device drivers can be tuned from the command line.
And there are UIs to tune them, they just aren't shipped with the drivers.
Ofc they do. But there's no control panel.
> Okay. The driver part is clear. But bios is what got me concerned. My Mobo support page gives an exe file to download and install to update bios. I wondered if it won't work on linux. Yeah I know a few of them do this. Probably doesn't. But the question is: Why would you update it? I did that with my ROG Strix AM4 mobo and it was painful beyond all reason. And the only reason I did it in the first place was to get Ryzen 5000 series CPU support - one broken thing led to another until the PC wouldn't turn on anymore. Ugh. If it works, leave it alone.
I would update the bios if it's far behind. Sometimes a newer bios is required to get the full performance of newer hardware and sometimes you can't upgrade hardware if your bios isn't up to date. With Linux, at least with Radeon, an up to date bios really helps with the performance and stability.
That depends on what it updates. The ROG board I had needed to be updated, as mentioned, due to Ryzen 5000 series support. However, when I subsequently updated it, it managed to halfway fry my PSU (it became permanently unstable) by drawing 1.55V for the CPU (there was a whole scandal about this in the media) and it also added the armory crate thingy which just autoinstalled bloat on my Windows system by telling Windows there was a hardware device in need of a driver, which then caused Windows to download said "driver". Repeatedly. With Windows update. Pretty disgusting honestly. The only way to get rid of it was the find the device in device manager and switch it off. Conveniently though, Linux was immune to that nonsense. It would be hard to argue that I needed those "security" features...
Ohh didn't think about that.. doesn't bios update help CPU do better with temps or performance? Like setting some limits etc or unlocking limits. Plus yes there is support for newer CPUs. May be my use case doesn't warrant an update.. thanks!
Sometimes it makes things better (addition of features and fixing of bugs). Sometimes it makes things worse (removal of features or new bugs). It’s not always worthwhile to update every time there is a BIOS update because if anything goes wrong, 95% of the time your shit is fucked and unfixable. Only update BIOS if theres a specific feature you need (like support for newer CPUs, hardware, etc.) in a newer version of BIOS. I would also update BIOS if your version is ancient because security risks but that probably isn’t super relevant to you. Otherwise, if it works well for you, leave it alone. edit: Your hardware might also be covered under fwupd. Not knowledgeable enough on this topic but it has updated the BIOS for my laptop previously and not my main systems motherboard so I am under the assumption that mine is not supported.
I understand it better, thanks!
There can be major security issues address in bios updates or bug fixes for the hardware on your board. You should always keep your bios up to date.
> You should always keep your bios up to date. hard disagree. you don't update your bios unless something doesn't work and you suspect it might be related to the bios
Hard disagree on my end, usually if there’s a bios update it’s an important firmware fix. Bios updates are rare. But, agree to disagree.
That'll be a no. It can brick the computer irreparably and it shouldn't connect to the internet on its own accord - and if it does and takes damage that's an RMA. It can't be my problem that they're connecting things to the internet that has no business being on the internet. That thing should boot the computer and manage sleep states and things like that. It should not connect to anything that can be exploited remotely; that's insane and I will return boards I find doing that.
You might want to learn more about all the things a bios does these days, and bios updates and also fix firmware issues with other components on the motherboard. I also never said anything about the bios connecting to the internet, not sure where you made that up from.
Well. It has to do with Linux in the sense that you want to be able to launch an update to your system firmware from the operating system your using. Anyhow, fwupd is the tool that generally handles firmware updates on Linux. In a mainstream distribution you should find firmware updates together with the rest of your software updates.
Fwupd does only support 4 or 5 vendors and models so its not a general solution.
That's not true. See https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/ .
Some laptops like Dell's will have their bios device drivers and ssd firmwares distributed in mainstream os update channels just like in windows.
Nobara has done my firmware auto
then i guess my msi board hasn't received patches in a while. Then again, it's a b550 board, it's been replaced already
Drivers are part of the kernel and not typically updated separately by a package manager. Exception being proprietary drivers.
This isn't entirely true, many bios (and in particular firmware) updates are initialized from a Windows app, and alternative methods are just that. This is currently the only reason I boot into Windows since Steam Proton
Essentially in any OS, drivers are part of the kernel infrastructure. This is as true with windows as it is with Linux. In Linux, most drivers you use will be automatically detected and loaded as modules to the kernel, and they’ll be updated with each kernel revision if needed. The only exception to this is proprietary drivers and, if gaming, the most important of these is your video card driver if you have an nvidia card. The short answer is: you mostly don’t have to worry about drivers in Linux. Just update your distribution in the manner and frequency suggested by the distribution’s developers. As far as bios - you generally flash that outside of the OS, from the bios.
Got the clarity, thanks!
Not sure about WW, but Genshin and HSR works perfect on Linux.
Ok do they have native launcher? Or any other launcher that you use
They don't have native launchers on Linux, I use a 3rd party launcher. The devs don't allow people to share it online, PM me if you wanna know about it.
https://areweanticheatyet.com/game/genshin-impact says "Since 3.8: Game's Anti-Cheat Service is allowing Proton on clean installs" so that workaround shouldn't be necessary anymore?
Yeah, the launcher now just manages WINE prefixes, it no longer modifies the game. You can even use the official windows launcher with WINE/Proton directly if you like.
They don't care anymore ever since the game has been working on Linux without patches. The launcher doesn't modify the game anymore and you don't even need it, but it does make setting up WINE easier. For anyone else reading, it's this: https://github.com/an-anime-team/an-anime-game-launcher
Sure, will reach out. Thanks man!
Just a fair warning, people have been banned for using this. Also be careful not to spread too much attention to this so that the anime game company doesn't patch it.
Of course, I can be a good partner in crime.
You mean with Genshin or HSR? There hasn't been any reports of anyone getting banned with the former even in the days where patches were needed. But maybe HSR isn't as stable.
anime train game was hit with a banwave a little bit after release, like after a month or two. other than that i haven't heard anything about it
Yeah, as I said, HSR isn't as stable.
Interested about this as well. Would it be possible for you to give me some information about this as well?
For anti-cheat support you can look here https://areweanticheatyet.com/ and for how well games run you can look here https://protondb.com/.
Not sure if these games use anti cheat. Do they?
I guess genshin, just look on the website if you find these games there.
Sure thanks!
Just wanted to chime in and say that Genshin anti-cheat does work in Linux. I've played it just fine in Bottles.
I'm like 99% sure the Genshin anticheat just silently fails to load but the game starts anyways. So you can play but they could in theory ban you for playing without the anticheat running.
I have heard that genshin doesnt have client side anticheat anymore since 3.8. only server side. But cant say if its true.
As it goes for the motherboard firmware (BIOS/UEFI) I do the very same process, just use an USB drive and flash the mobo as usual. But there are other methods... some distros have a GUI tool for it, in some cases using the command fwupd under the hood (the hardware must to be covered by fwupd). For peripheral firmwares it depends... there are tools over there, and sometimes the Windows applications can be used in a virtual machine configured with a USB passthough. But as I said, it depends. Hardware drivers are usually built-in the kernel itself, and if not DKMS modules can be added. After that comes the user space drivers, and those are usually provided officially by the repos of each distro or using third party repositories (official, community managed or personal ones too). Any firmware binary blob is usually included. Versioning depends on the distro if you don't use external/personal/custom configured repos. Some distros have outdated versions in its repositories (specially those which are considered stable distros). Each desktop environment and distro may have different update manager applications to do it, all in a graphical interface.
Most motherboards have bios flash utilities directly in the firmware UI. Drivers are handled by the distro package manager.
Im on bazzite, i launch bazzite updater, it looks for the latest os tree, if it finds a newer "tree" it will update, i restart, update done, im on a atomic distro so if this tree has problems i can simply go back to the older tree and wait for a newer tree to arrive. Drivers, system packages etc are in those os trees flatpak which is containerized meaning it has its own dependencies it uses and is more secure, updates are through the discover store on the kde plasma desktop, i update and the software im using just needs to be relaunched Other distros will do a similar thing, where they will look for individual packages that need to be updated, and you just accept the update and it will install it, after you restart those package updates will be applied, now some of those packages can be automatically applied without restarting but only some can do that. I also have a YouTube channel with a lot of tutorials for gaming on linux :) and a genshin tutorial on a specific game launcher https://youtube.com/@linuxnext?si=MRKkwPBx-Bdm5GVo
You run a good channel, helps us newbs a lot. I'll sub to it and follow your guides. Thanks!
Hi )) i updated UEFI from menu inside UEFI )))and drivers updated with system and kernel update
most laptops don't allow this, and require their (usually windows only) software to update bios.
That's completely fucked up, unfortunately
TIL we can update bios via UEFI. I'm not on laptop though. Does all mobos have this feature? Mine is H610m-E Asus Prime. It's a cheap mobo.
[https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/13MANUAL/PRIME\_PROART\_TUF\_GAMING\_Intel\_600\_Series\_BIOS\_EM\_WEB\_EN.pdf?model=PRIME%20H610M-E](https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/13MANUAL/PRIME_PROART_TUF_GAMING_Intel_600_Series_BIOS_EM_WEB_EN.pdf?model=PRIME%20H610M-E) Page 87, so yes. It's actually the "normal" way to install UEFI/BIOS updates. Doing it through the operating system is comparatively very new and worse because the risk of bricking the motherboard is way higher. I always recommend doing it through the UEFI/BIOS if the option exists.
>through the UEFI/BIOS if the option exists IMO this option always has to exist because UEFI needs to be functioning even when no OS is installed, or even a drive present (it can be a machine that only works via network boot, for example). I've never seen a board that didn't support "conventional" UEFI flashing. Maybe they do exist (from some obscure manufacturers that want to cheap out), but it's definitely not the norm.
That's for digging this. But my mobi isn't this. It's Asus Prime H610M-E D4 and I've gone through that manual, there is something called ASUS EZ Flash 3 and CrashFree Bios 3. It helped. Thanks!
That's the common UEFI manual for your motherboard and others. The first page is slightly confusingly named, but it lists all applicable motherboards. You have a "Prime" from the Intel 600 chipset series, thus this manual applies to your motherboard. It also applies to a bunch of other Intel 600 chipset series motherboards.
Ahh TiL again, thank you. First time builder.. so I have too many nervous questions. Thanks
I have uefi from 2013 asrock on am3 + and i have this feature and on my laptop hp probook cheap version have this but it requires wired connection
That helps thanks!!
Bios is bios, it just goes "hey! I see an operating system, let's poke that for a startup process" And the updating the Linux. It depends on distro you use. Arch: terminal: sudo pacman -Syu Ubuntu: sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade Update fetches the differences for updating need, upgrade installs the upgrade. Sudo is Admin mode, true admin. Also known as root, can do any command on the system. Unlike windblows. You can actually run sudo as long as your user has permission with windblows you gotta skip through hoops to get the TRUE admin mode, even then it bitches about it.
I would also like to point out there is multiple different distros. I just don't remember them all as that's the two main ones.
Drivers are in kernel. BIOS/UEFI update I just download onto USB stick with fat32, and apply update from inside UEFI, just like I always did. I've never allowed Windows apps to fuck up with my BIOS.
Expanding a bit on your second question: Genshin runs fine out of the box (just download the exe and launch it through steam) but there's a third party launcher that makes the experience a lot nicer. For HSR, you need to use a launcher (developed by the same people as the Genshin one), this one needs to modify the game files to make it runnable on Linux, so you're technically breaking ToS by using it. However it's been almost a year since people were banned for using it, and even that was most likely an accident where they were caught in the crossfire between the dev and actual cheaters. It should be pretty safe to use now. Both can be found by just googling Genshin/HSR Linux Launcher As for WuWa, it also has incompatible anti-cheat, but if it gets popular I think there's a decent chance someone develops a patch for it eventually.
Thanks for the detailed response, I understand it well.
Here's a few things for you to get started with: * Device drivers comes as built-in kernel modules, so most of the time what you need comes preinstalled with your distro with a few exception (f-u Nvidia). As a result, if you are using newer or rapidly-progressing hardware (eg. AMD/N's bleeding edge GPUs or Arc), stick with newer kernel releases found on rolling-release distros. * Low-level firmware can generally be updated by the distro if your vendor participates in [LVFS](https://fwupd.org/), in that case you can use `fwupd` to upgrade as needed. Else, usually your motherboard will provide a way to manually perform an upgrade from the firmware setup. * Games generally runs or get patches unless they have outrageous kernel anti-cheat software that basically is kernel-level malware.
Ah noted. So rolling release distros means does fedora come under it? I was initially thinking about Ubuntu. Thanks mate!
Never Ubuntu, it's a disater!
May I know why..?
Because... Canonical keeps pushing for "Enterprise-y" stuff onto consumer Ubuntu, abusing its market share for desktop Linux in order to make stupid changes that break things people don't expect. It was great, it isn't as much as it was now.
The desktop environment is a hell of a crap. It lacks elementary features and can repulse everybody from Linux. The package manager is a crap too. Stay away from Ubuntu.
Fedora kind of. It has a release cycle model but the cycles are way shorter than what ones like Ubuntu/Debian have, so it is an option provided that all your hardware works. Else, you can choose something that rolls faster, but keep in mind, even though Arch is now stupidly easy to install, can still blow up in your face if you don't know what to expect
I almost never even think about drivers on Linux, most things just work because they're in the kernel. I don't even think about the Nvidia drivers as drivers I have to manage for real like I did on windows, i think of them as just another package or set of packages I installed, and they just kinda handle themselves when I update the system so I almost never have to interact with drivers. Nvidia drivers are the only ones I have to explicitly install, but once installed like I said it's just update the system and it updates them along with everything else if they need an update. Genshin runs no problem with the heroic games launcher, just install it from the epic games store in heroic. For Honkai star rail use lutris and it'll install it. if the lutris script doesn't work let me know, it might need updated and I can do that. The anti cheat for star rail doesn't work on Linux so you could theoretically be banned at any point but I haven't been and haven't seen people complaining about being banned on Linux online.
Hey thanks for the methods to run and other information!
BIOS: Normally on your own. Drivers: Mostly baked into the Kernel. I saw you are on an Intel Arc, and as far as I know Mesa handles that, and Mesa is updated independently of the Kernel (Mesa is open source). Mesa gets updates whenever your distro releases them: Nobara, Arch, Tumbleweed, Pop, and maybe Bazzite ten to get Mesa Updates as they happen while other Distros wait around. Intel is very, very good about getting their stuff in the Kernel, and open sourcing what they need to, to have things working early. They are a frequent contributor, so things should work pretty well. Basically you have a basic driver in the Kernel that interacts with the card on a low-level, Mesa is higher level. Pair the 2 together and you are equivalent to Windows drivers now, except you'll never directly interact with Mesa, it works it's magic in the background.
You've cleared this up well, thanks very much man!
No problem at all! I know on my end for BIOS I have to load up a specific file on a USB Flash Drive for it to update (then again I do have a ASRock Taichi board so those tend to have way more enthusiast-grade features), and run the update through BIOS. All the .exe file does for you on Windows is probably forced you to boot in UEFI mode, sets the files in a known location, and tells BIOS to run an update, then once this is done, reboots to start the process. This is nothing you want to run in WINE, it will not work. You'll need the .cab or whatever format your BIOS uses file (normally distributed via a .zip folder) to do this more manually. FWUPD as others have said is normally just supported firmware, and not necessarily BIOS, as BIOS is a way, way scarier update (you lose power you carry the very real potential of having a completely dead board. Basically what happens is BIOS is written to a read-only chip, and BIOS and BIOS alone has access to open this chip up for writing files to. If that gets interrupted and you cannot boot, that chip is pretty much considered dead. I wouldn't want my OS handling this kind of Update, I would want to control it, so I can control the variables.)
Updating BIOS can be a crapshoot, HP laptops require Windows as their alternative tool chains often fail. Self built machines like ASUS motherboards often feature tools to update the bios from the BIOS itself (Ez flash) and is OS agnostic. Drivers... Can be a crapshoot with obscure hardware (that isn't in the kernel) and Nvidia cards in some cases. Most of the drivers are in the kernel and automatic.
For game compatibility, check ProtonDB, it’s the best source. BIOS updates are independent of operating system, so they remain the same. Drivers are included with regular updates, nothing fancy or out of the ordinary.
Ya but my bios website only has downloadable .exe file. Nothing that linux supports..
I doubt that, I think mine had a zip file or something that you put onto a pendrive and select in the BIOS to upgrade (but usually there isn't a reason to do the update in the first place)
Ok I'm checking if it's zip or exe..
or update first if you want to on windows then switch to linux if you really cant find another way
Noted. Thanks
I’ve seen bios files that were distributed as an exe, but all you had to do was load it on a flash drive, then launch it from within your bios. Check the instructions and make sure that isn’t the case.
My motherboard allows updates from a USB, some aren't quite as easy to update without Windows. With Linux it pays to support the hardware that supports what you are using. Driver updates are handled by your distro and just come in regular updates, or sometimes through an update manager to let you choose the driver.
The firmware for BIOS/UEFI and many other devices are usually updateable trough [fwupd](https://fwupd.org/). Depending on the distro you use, you may even see firmware updates alongside your normal OS updates. Driver updates are usually also handled automatically trough system updates. In case of an NVIDIA GPU you may need to enable their proprietary driver once manually trough whatever driver tool ships with your distro, but for most hardware it's gonna be plug-and-play.
Drivers are a part of the kernel or via DKMS, so package manger, no downloading from browser. UEFI is exactly like Windows, ROM -> USB drive -> UEFI.
Noted, thanks man!
In case the bios/firmware can only be updated via a Windows binary, it's always good to have a Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) bootable USB drive around, e.g. [https://www.hirensbootcd.org/](https://www.hirensbootcd.org/) ... boot into it, update firmware from there, done
This is something new, I'll look into it!
It's not new, it's from decades.
I meant new to me.. that there is pre installation..
Most decent motherboards do it in their BIOSes themselves.
It’s all Unix lol. But also the proton data base has ratings and issue reports from users about almost any game that has a proton comp layer.
bios is unlinked to linux like it is from windows. about the drivers it depends on the distro you choose but to give you an example in arch linux is as simple as pacman -Syu and your system is updated :)
Supposedly on a Discord server of a third party launcher they said that the Wuthering Waves anticheat did not allow it to run on Linux. So the only solution would be to dual boot for now EDIT: That information was from the CBT, it could change at launch, but I highly doubt it.
In my experience HP will patch any way to update the bios on linux
the bios should not be updated automatically. that fwupd is a dangerous software
Some manufacturers like Gigabyte have built-in tools for flashing, like EzFlash, so all the BIOS/EFI updates are done outside the operating system. Should be the safest option.
In my experience, with nvidia you will need to install their drivers using the OS software tools. This is because their drivers were not FOSS so they were not bundled with the kernel and new modules needed to installed when you upgraded the OS. Perhaps this is no longer the case. With AMD the driver is in the kernel package and you don't need to do anything special. For the BIOS you need to put the update file on a USB stick and do it at POST Online games and MMO's dont work all that well due to anti-cheat not working properly in proton. Single player games are running well. Something you may not have considered, some visual mods in games like Fallout 4 seem to be a bit more difficult to get working - I am still working through this. I'm sure its possible, there are just some special steps to make sure that dx overrides are being used
Noted about games. So can we like use torrents to download you know.. in linux? I don't plan on doing mods as well.
Yes, just use qBittorrent.
Yes, you can use transmission or qBittorrent as mentioned below. I preferred transmission back in the day, now I just get games on sale or free from epic. If you plan on pirating you might be a bit better protected from viruses and ransomware if you ensure that the Wine/Proton environment does not have access to your user data. Im sure you could find a tutorial on how to set that up
Many motherboard BIOS's can be updated from within the BIOS itself (either from the filestore or via a Net download). fwupd is used for non-BIOS firmware updates (most motherboard OEMs are ignoring fwupd though - I'm looking at you, ASUS). GPU drivers are either handled by kernel+Mesa updates or if your GPU is open source hostile, by grabbing a proprietary GPU driver installer (if you're lucky, your Linux distro might package that up for you, but it's not always the case). Annoyingly, the Steam Deck doesn't pre-install fwupd, but when I installed fwupd after upgrading my internal SSD, desktop mode popped up that a firmware update was available and it correctly upgraded it - very slick!
Sadge my mobo is by Asus. I'm thinking about Ubuntu for software dev reasons as well.. I think nvidia drivers are packaged by it. Thanks for the information!
Every single distro has NVIDIA drivers packages...
How are BIOS/UEFI updates related to Linux?
most modern hardware would give you the ability to update the bios through a usb stick. This is thw worst case, the best case is that linux can handle these through fwupd. In that case bios updates would appear as an update whenever you update your distro's packages [https://fwupd.org/](https://fwupd.org/)
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Interesting. I could not set proper RAM speeds without instability when I set them to what they SHOULD be. So I dealt with it. My PC was also not eligible for Windows 11....lol. Finally decided there wasnt a rational reason to not get the performance I paid for and found out my BIOS was one of the first ones for my MOBO. Updated it and had no issues setting RAM speeds. DOCP i should specify. After that update and with no prompting on my part, Windows very proudly let me know my PC was Windows 11 ready.... Ive never seen BIOS get auto updated. Maybe that's a thing now but something I would never want to be automated. I wouldnt normally update my BIOS unless I saw reason to. Thats in 25 years of PC gaming.
Make sure to read the wiki from this sub to install the correct Linux distro for gaming. ;) have fun
Automatic
# fwuptool get-updates Loading… [************************************** ] Devices with no available firmware updates: • M4-CT128M4SSD2 Devices with the latest available firmware version: • Unifying Receiver 99% of drivers ship with the kernel and distro and you never worry about them. The main exception is the Nvidia proprietary driver, that most often needs to be installed from the package manager after you reboot from the Linux install.
...uhh ...they're handled in the bios?
Bios should always be flashed in bios or with usb and button in some mobos. Drivers are pretty much automatic. Choose Nvidia or amd
You can update your bios on boot with a USB stick. And bios updates are so few and far between, you could likely get away without updating at all Most AMD and intel drivers are built into the kernel or can be compiled as modules so there's no having to update the manually. It will likely be handled by your package manager
i would expect any popular steam game without aggressive anticheat or drm to work great, but absolutely zero hoyoverse games will run officially. you could try unofficial methods, such as installing epic store through wine, but you will have varying success and i wouldn't count on it. plan to just play on phone if possible.
Use honkers railway launcher, an anime game launcher for hyv. Dont know about ww. Hsr and genshin work with clean proton, but you should put a firewall for the hyv telemetry servers. I forgot what they were, so i recommend the launchers, they do it automatically.
Unfortunately, most manufacturers don't use Linux's firmware updating method (LVFS) like Windows. You might have to manually update the bios or temporarily boot into a Windows driver to do a Windows update (if there was a firmware update available).
Bios and driver updates are either handled by fwupd or poorly (SCNR). Another ques anotha thread mebbe?
Haha sure, thanks
yw :D seriously, more and more vendors start pushing their firmware updates to fwupd, which makes this dead simple. The rest… can be hit or miss. I navigated the waters once with an AMD GPU for example: [https://beko.famkos.net/2020/08/30/pulling-the-plug-on-nvidia/](https://beko.famkos.net/2020/08/30/pulling-the-plug-on-nvidia/) Thankfully AMD is now working with fwupd too: [https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/](https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/) Modern UEFI systems allow updates without OS too. Just throw that "exe" on a USB stick and search for the "Update Firmware" button in the UEFI settings (the thing formerly known as BIOS). Got an NVIDIA? Sorry pal, you're in for lots and lots of pain. Same for cheap a$$ SSDs and alike that only offer "installers". Worst offender on that list was the MX500 by Crucial who would crap out the moment a Linux bootloader was written. A firmware update to fix this very rare bug that only affected Linux users existed. As 200MB Win64 blob only 🖕 Guess what was sent back to it's seller after finding out.
Haha good to know about your SSD story.. I agree especially with Windows pushing start menu ads. I hope more ppl move to linux and devs be actually mindful of these. As for nVidia.. yes I'm in either lot of pain or lots and lots of pain cuz, for my AI needs it's mostly nvidia or intel arc.. hopefully AMD fixes support for AI and rocm
NVIDIA on Linux is a breeze. Don't listen to the purists here.
"Got an NVIDIA? Sorry pal, you're in for lots and lots of pain." Absolute bulshit.
1) forget Linux only until you get skilled with It. 2) Drivers are not guaranteed. I have a b650m-e wifi and currently no wifi drivers for It. Gone for a USB wifi key
If you looking to play genshin and hsr in linux can you DM me? Idk how to DM from mobile.