Set up your Linux gaming pc, from start to finish

[Ashleyyyy]

Hi! This topic will cover all the basics that you need to know about Linux and more! i'll go over how to install it and dualboot with Windows, and more!

 

Guides that include a lot of terminal use or other complicated things will be marked with red text. 

 

DISCLAIMER: The makers of these guides are not responsible for any loss of data or other damage. Anything in the guides can be incorrect. 

 

The Basics, making bootable media and installing: 

How to make a bootable Linux USB:

Spoiler

Start with a flash drive that is 8gb of more in size and is empty, it will be erased by doing this. 

 

You'll need 2 things. a .iso file from the distro of your choosing and Rufus which you can download here: https://rufus.ie/

Once the downloads are complete open rufus and make sure your usb drive is selected:

 

 

 

Then, press the SELECT button and choose your .iso file:

 

 

Make sure it is selected correctly in Rufus, like so: 

 

You can then press START

 

 

The next thing might not happen to everyone, but it happened to me so i'll include it. If this dialog pops up, just click yes. 

 

 

Next, you will be prompted to write in ISO or DD mode. You must select DD or it won't work. NOTE: when you select DD and click OK your flash drive will be erased!!! make sure it's got no data on it!!!!

 

 

You'll be prompted one last time that your flash drive will be erased!!! If it's empty, click OK. Otherwise back up your data from the flash drive!!!!

 

This will start the writing process, Rufus will tell you when it's done, and if it's done you have a bootable Linux USB  

 

Choose one of these 2. if you are dualbooting, pick that guide. if you want to erase Windows and just run Linux, follow the second guide. 

How to dual-boot your PC with Windows and Ubuntu:

Spoiler

I am assuming you already have Windows 10 installed and a usb stick to install Ubuntu ready:

 

Boot up your computer and boot from the usb using the boot menu. The boot menu will look something like this, but it's different on every computer. 

 

Upon booting, you will be presented with this screen. Choose "Install Ubuntu" here. 

 

Next, you need to choose your keyboard layout. Pick the right one for your keyboard. 

 

Next you will be asked to select normal or minimal install. I recommend using the normal installation. 

Also make sure to select the "install third-party software ..." checkbox, since that will install some drivers and codecs that are very nice to have. 

 

Now, you need to select where you want to install. make sure you select "Install Ubuntu alongside Windows 10".

 

Here you can select how much space you want Ubuntu and Windows to use. It's a simple slider. Select how much space you want Linux and Windows to have. 

 

Next the installer asks you to confirm the changes. Click "continue" when you are sure you are happy with your selection. 

 

Now the installer gives you a summary of the partitions that will be made and edited. Click "continue". 

 

Next select your timezone. 

 

Now make your user account. Make sure to use a secure password.

 

After that, the system will install. 

 

After a while, the install is done. Click "restart".

 

When promted, remove your usb stick and press enter. The system will reboot. 

 

If everything went well you will see this screen when you boot your computer. 

From here you can boot either Ubuntu or Windows  

 

How to install Ubuntu and overwrite Windows:

Spoiler

Start by making an install USB. 

 

Once you've done that, plug in the drive, and boot from it. 

 

You will see this screen:

Click "Install Ubuntu"

 

It will then ask for your keyboard layout. Select the one for your keyboard. 

 

Then, it asks you to select what kind of install you want. I recommend the full install. Also be sure to check the "Install third-party software..." checkbox. 

 

Next up is partitioning. Select "erase disk and install Ubuntu". WARNING: THIS WILL REMOVE ALL DATA ON YOUR DRIVE!

 

Next it will ask you to confirm the deletion of the partitions already on the drive. Again, ONLY CLICK CONTINUE IF YOU WANT YOUR DRIVE TO BE ERASED!

 

Now, select the time zone. After you select it, click continue. 

 

Now you need to add your user account. Make sure to use a secure password. 

 

Ubuntu will now install. 

 

When it is done, it will ask to reboot. Click "restart now", wait until your pc restarts and remove the USB drive. 

 

Now, your pc will boot into Ubuntu. After it's booted, log in. 

 

After logging in you will be presented with this screen. you can add accounts if you want.

 

Next, it asks if you want to send system info to canonical (the company behind Ubuntu). I personally won't, but if you want to you can. 

 

Then you get a screen advertising some of the apps you can install. Click "done". 

 

Ubuntu is now installed. You should be at the desktop:

 

After a minute or so a dialog box will appear asking to install updates. Click "install now". 

 

You will be asked to put in your password. Enter it and click "authenticate".

 

The updates will now install. 

 

After install, the system will ask to reboot. Click "restart now" 

 

 

And you're done. Ubuntu is now installed and fully up to date. 

Useful software for your Linux install:

Spoiler

Libreoffice - Office suite

VLC - Media player 

Glimpse - Image editor

Steam - Game store by valve

Virtualbox - Software for running virtual machines

Spotify - Music streaming service

Discord - Chat app

 

All these programs are available in Ubuntu software. 

 

Guides for the more tech savvy:

Open neofetch on terminal launch:

Spoiler

Neofetch is a really cool program that shows your system specs in the terminal every time you run it. This guide will show how to start it everytime the terminal launches, so you are greeted with this everytime you open the terminal :

 

Start by opening the terminal:

 

Type "sudo su", and then press enter. Enter your password and press enter again. You are now root, otherwise known as an administrator. This allows you to install software and edit system files. 

 

Type "apt install neofetch" to install neofetch. It will install, and you will be returned to the prompt:

 

Next, type "nano .bashrc" and use the down arrow to scroll down to the bottom. at the bottom, press enter and then type "neofetch":

 

Then, press Control+X, press Y and press enter. You will be returned to the prompt. Type exit and press enter. Then close the terminal. 

 

Re-open the terminal and now neofetch should run  

Needs Modernizing:

These guides may not be current, so certain steps may not align with what you see on the screen perfectly. I am working to keep the guides as up to date as possible. If you run into anything like this, please comment in the thread to call attention and speed up the process.

 

How to install Linux Mint: (made by Twilight)

Spoiler

Make an install USB and boot from it. 

 

after booting from the USB you will see this screen:

 

double-click "install linux mint":

 

the installer will open. select your language and click continue:

 

next, select your keyboard layout and click continue:

 

make sure to check the box, and then click continue:

 

next up is partitioning. if you want Linux Mint as the only OS select "erase disk and install Linux Mint". WARNING: THIS WILL REMOVE ALL DATA ON YOUR DRIVE!!!!! dual-boot will be added to the guide in the future. if you want to keep your Windows install DO NOT DO THIS!!!

 

next it will ask you to confirm the deletion of the partitions already on the drive. again, ONLY CLICK CONTINUE IF YOU WANT YOUR DRIVE TO BE ERASED!!!!!!!

 

now, select your time zone and click continue:

 

now you need to set up your user account:

 

now, Linux Mint will install:

 

when it is done it will ask to reboot. click "restart now" and when your pc reboots remove the USB and boot from your boot drive. 

 

upon reboot you will be presented with he login screen:

 

log in, and done. Linux Mint is now installed  

 

How to backup & restore: (made by Wasab)

Spoiler

I will go over two of the ways to back up and restore, I will start with the easy way first. 

 

Timeshift

This is the default backup and restore application for Linux Mint and has been integrated with the Linux Mint distro since Linux Mint 18. We can use it on Ubuntu or any other distros as well. This is about the closest thing to Windows backup and restores out there. 

 

Setup:

Unfortuanlty, Timeshift isn't on the ubuntu software repo so we have to use the third party ppa. that way not only we get the packages, we will also receive all the updates for the software from the repo maintainer.  

 

First, open up your software sources app and then go to other softwares and click on add and then type in ppa:teejee2008/ppa for the repository address.

Next click on add.

. 

 

 

Next, install synaptic software manager so we have a GUI to get software outside the ubuntu software center without a command line. 

Go to ubuntu software and search and install synaptic software manager. 

 

 

Next, open up synaptic software manager and install timeshift. Go to the origin, then go to the teejee repository, tick the checkbox for timeshift and then click on apply in the top toolbar. 

 

Finally, open up timeshift, and then select RSYNC. Or if you use BTRFS  file system, choose BTRFS. If you don't know what that is, BTRFS is a new journaling system that allows the system to keep track of file changes and roll them back. To use BTRFS, you need to tell the Ubuntu installer to use BTRFS

during the Ubuntu installation.

 

Finally, go to the settings and hit which files to back up.  Thi that backs up your user data. If you select home and root, that backs up everything. I personally do not include the home because that directory is very large with my music, videos, and porn... ahem, so I usually manually drag and drop my Home folder to an usb drive and then drag and drop back in if I want to restore the home folder. You can include this if you want a comprehensive backups. 

Note that many user and app settings like system themes and settings/saves for applications if that particular user is kept in 

their home folder so you need to back them up if you want to restore them.

 

Edit: I misread the labels. /root is NOT the system files. It is the home folder for the root user. Unless you are a sysmadmin and actually keep files there, You can just tick exclude all for that folder. System files aka "/" is already included by default in the filters tab so you can leave that be. You just need to tick the home folder for your user here. E.g. if your user name is xgao like me, tick /home/xgao. If there are other users on this system, tick their home also to back up their user datas. 

 

 

Scheduling the interval time for backups are quite straight forward. I usually tell my system to back up weekly and keep backups 2-3 weeks ago as well as one monthly backup.

 

Then choose the location where the timeshift is to keep your snapshots. I personally tell it to back up to my 2nd HDD which I mounted in my home folder. Note, You NEED to exclude that backup folder for an obvious reason. You can set what files/folders to include and exclude in the filters tab. 

 

Finally, to restore from backups, just hit restore and select a backup snapshot you want to restore it from. Note, you don't have to schedule regular backups if you don't want to. you can hit the create button to do one time back up instead if you prefer. 

 

Drawbacks of time shift:

Timeshift is rolling back changes. It is not copying and saving data which is why it is fast and completely unnoticed and won't slow down your system while it works to back up your system. The downside is because of this, if you damage you corrupt your partition and damage your drive, your data is lost.

 

I am going to tell you the 2nd way of backing up, the hard way, later which will completely clone your drive and save them to an image file. You can restore from these images even if your partition got corrupted. 

 

 

 

More guides to come!

 

If you have any request for a guide make sure to reply here and let me know  

Or, if you don't understand something in a guide and want additional help, please reply here!

[Bananasplit_00]

Might chime in on how to make Magic The Gathering: Arena work after it sudokus because there was an update. This is going to be a great resource, glad someones making it

[wasab]

Request:

Make a guide on how to back up and restore. I think people need to be aware of how to do properly back and restore in case they break something. 

[Ashleyyyy]

8 hours ago, wasab said:

Request:

Make a guide on how to back up and restore. I think people need to be aware of how to do properly back and restore in case they break something. 

i don't know how to do that either. i never back up.. i have all my important stuff in the cloud. if my machine bricks i just reinstall.... so i can't make a guide on that because i don't know  

[wasab]

11 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

i don't know how to do that either. i never back up.. i have all my important stuff in the cloud. if my machine bricks i just reinstall.... so i can't make a guide on that because i don't know  

No worries. I will write the guide.

[Ashleyyyy]

Just now, wasab said:

No worries. I will write the guide.

join the discord to discuss with some others who are making guides  

[wasab]

7 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

join the discord to discuss with some others who are making guides  

Just did. 

[Ashleyyyy]

Just now, wasab said:

Just did. 

i know, look in it, you have access to the channel we use to discuss the guides  

[Mo5]

Since this is a basic guide I think showing how to install steam and discord (and some of software on useful list) should be up there. A lot of people use them afterall. And show both the package and through terminal ways

[Ashleyyyy]

9 minutes ago, Mo5 said:

Since this is a basic guide I think showing how to install steam and discord

all the software in the useful software list is available in Ubuntu Software. it says so. Discord is in there too. i will edit it to put Discord in the list  

[Mo5]

35 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

all the software in the useful software list is available in Ubuntu Software. it says so. Discord is in there too. i will edit it to put Discord in the list  

Is it? Cool. Don't think it was last time I checked 

[Ashleyyyy]

23 minutes ago, Mo5 said:

Is it? Cool. Don't think it was last time I checked 

yeah it was a recent addition. the reason is that Discord is now available via snap, and that was implemented into Ubuntu Software, so everything from snap, including spotify and discord shows up now  

[Koeshi]

I like this idea and have some information that I think would be helpful to include for a Linux gaming setup guide:

Something about Lutris (game manager for all that you have installed from different sources), it should be available in most distribution default repositories, though I believe Ubuntu and Debian have extra steps that the likes of Arch, Solus and Fedora can skip: https://lutris.net/

Also useful is adding your GOG account to Lutris so that it can handle the download and install for you rather than doing it manually: open Lutris, select the "+" icon in the top-left>select "Import Games...">click on the GOG.com tab>"Connect your account", this will open a login screen for your GOG account.  Once you have added it you can then import either some or all of your games into Lutris for it to handle future downloads and installs.

How to enable SteamPlay for all games rather than just those that have been officially approved, basically goes like this: select Steam>Settings>Steam Play and make sure that the following boxes are ticked: "Enable Steam Play for supported titles" and "Enable Steam Play for all titles"

 

If you have any questions or issues with how I have phrased things let me know, good luck with what you are doing here

[The King of the Undead]

how to set up proton maybe? certanly something I could use!

[Koeshi]

Proton is the technology that Steam Play uses, so if you follow the steps I gave above for enabling Steam Play and then restart Steam it should be available.  You may have to wait for individual Proton version downloads as different games work better with different versions.

[wasab]

Proton, aka steam play by its marketed name, can be found in the steam settings. 

[Humbug]

You seem to have skipped the initial part

-where to download the distro ISOs

-how to create a live USB using programs like Universal USB installler or Unetbootin

-how to select USB boot media as your PC restarts

[Ashleyyyy]

6 minutes ago, Humbug said:

You seem to have skipped the initial part

-where to download the distro ISOs

it's unfinished, i will definitely add that if i have time. i'm very busy at the moment. 

 

7 minutes ago, Humbug said:

-how to create a live USB using programs like Universal USB installler or Unetbootin

again, if i have time. 

 

7 minutes ago, Humbug said:

-how to select USB boot media as your PC restarts

that's almost impossible as every pc's bios is different. 

 

 

regarding the top 2, you can make those too. that's the whole point of this. i just don't have enough time at the moment. 

[Koeshi]

6 hours ago, Humbug said:

-where to download the distro ISOs

Well it really isn't practical to link to all the download pages, but here are some of the more newbie-friendly ones:

https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

https://linuxmint.com/download.php

https://getsol.us/download/

https://manjaro.org/get-manjaro/

https://getfedora.org/en_GB/workstation/download/

 

6 hours ago, Humbug said:

-how to create a live USB using programs like Universal USB installler or Unetbootin

This really isn't needed.  Much simpler to download something like Etcher or Rufus:

https://www.balena.io/etcher/

https://rufus.ie/

From there they simply need to run the program, select the destination USB drive and the ISO file that they want copied to it, then run it.  No need for the unnecessary complication of the other programs and most ISOs support a live mode for testing anyway

[MEC-777]

When creating detailed step by step instructions like this, you have to decide on several assumptions as to where to begin. Otherwise, how simplified do you make it? For the absolute noob, who's barely ever used a PC before? or for the average user, who knows how to do most basic things on a PC? or for the average enthusiast who would know (or can figure out) where to download an ISO and how to create a bootable USB? 

 

Since GPU passthrough is mentioned in the OP, that would assume this is for more advanced users - who should already know how to find an ISO of a distro of their choice and make a bootable USB.   

[Ashleyyyy]

@MEC-777 i want the end result of this to be a collection of everything. from the absolute basics to complicated things like GPU passthrough. i will add the downloading iso's and making of bootable usb's to the install guides but i just haven't had much time to work on this. 

[LukeSavenije]

@MEC-777 any reason this isn't pinned yet btw?

[wasab]

I mentioned I will create a guide for a second backup method that clones the drive and partition to an image file. Well, I did not forget. I will post it now. 

[MEC-777]

On 4/4/2019 at 4:27 PM, firelighter487 said:

@MEC-777 i want the end result of this to be a collection of everything. from the absolute basics to complicated things like GPU passthrough. i will add the downloading iso's and making of bootable usb's to the install guides but i just haven't had much time to work on this. 

Cool. Check out Level1tech forums. Lots of knowledgeable folks over there with regards to many things Linux and gaming related. 

7 hours ago, LukeSavenije said:

@MEC-777 any reason this isn't pinned yet btw?

Let's get some more gaming-related content added first and then we'll pin it.  

[MEC-777]

I may work on a tutorial for installing Manjaro, including how to check and install the proper graphics drivers. Just give me a couple weeks to put it together.