Linux

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/39456265

For those of you like me who are fed up with Microsoft’s BS but invested too heavily in hardware that Linux distros have yet to support well, I finally figured out a way to get HDR games to run well on my Nvidia GPU. This will be a brief description of more or less what I did to get this working. I’m very much a Linux noob so I don’t fully understand the way everything here works but I’m happy to try to answer questions if you have any.

OS: Bazzite –Desktop Nvidia KDE edition (BDNK) Bazzite was developed as a capable alternative to SteamOS on handhelds like the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, so the website is full of references to HDR, however from my attempts to get this working my understanding is that it’s easier to get that working in Gaming mode which is unsupported on Nvidia GPUs. Nevertheless, this version of Bazzite, while only for desktops, comes with KDE Plasma v6 installed by default meaning it technically supports HDR and you will likely see a difference if you install this version and flip the HDR switch from the display settings. I had tried installing Ubuntu on my desktop before and since it didn’t support HDR all the colors on my monitor were almost obnoxiously saturated; I see the same effect in BDNK when I disable HDR.

Drivers: I didn’t fiddle with my drivers. BDNK comes with up-to-date Nvidia drivers bundled and installs them when you install the OS.

Software: SteamTinkerLaunch (installed using ProtonUp-Qt) SteamTinkerLaunch (STL) is a user interface for making it easy to configure your launch options for any given game in your Steam library. If you don’t know what a compatibility tool is, it’s functionally a layer of software between the game you want to play and the OS you’re using which can tell the game to do certain things that your OS is not configured to do. STL can be added to the list of compatibility tools you have to use in your installation of Steam, though it is not technically a compatibility tool itself. STL is used to configure other compatibility tools that Steam already has at its disposal, like Proton which is the primary compatibility tool SteamOS uses to make Windows games run on Linux.

Follow the instructions in the SteamTinkerLaunch GitHub ReadMe to install the tool and add it as a compatibility tool in your installation of Steam. Once you’ve done that, I recommend rebooting. I have yet to get STL working as the * default * compatibility tool, so for the time being I have been manually editing the properties of each game I have installed (Steam Game Library > right click on a game > click properties > go to the compatibility tab) to set the compatibility tool to STL. From here, whenever you launch the game in Steam, it should bring up STL’s menu before launching the game.

Within STL, the key settings to mark are as follows: Gamescope: Use gamescope and mark HDR as enabled for gamescope. I also recommend setting gamescope to fullscreen with your desired resolution, and then also locking your cursor to the gamescope window so that you don’t end up with weird double mouse cursors that aren’t aligned on the screen. Proton: since you told Steam to use STL instead of Proton as the compatibility tool, you need to tell STL to tell Steam to launch the game with Proton.

And that’s pretty much it. Or at least, that’s all that I did. From there, you should be able to configure HDR settings within each game’s menus.

TL;DR – install Bazzite Desktop Nvidia KDE, then install and configure SteamTinkerLaunch for your games.

What games will this work with? No idea. So far I have tested it with Cyberpunk 2077, DOOM Eternal, and Elden Ring and HDR is looking to me as good as it does in my Windows installation.

Will the Gnome version of Bazzite work for HDR on an Nvidia GPU, or for that matter any other OS as long as I’m using gamescope to run the game with HDR enabled? Good question! I don’t know, please give it a try if you’re curious and respond back with your results.

I have another question that you didn’t list here, what’s your answer? Probably “I don’t know” since what I wrote here is more or less what I know, but by all means ask away and I’ll try to answer it!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ndlug.org/post/965376

The ext-image-capture-source-v1 and ext-image-copy-capture-v1 screen copy protocols build upon wlroots' wlr-screencopy-unstable-v1 with various improvements for better screen capture support under Wayland. These new protocols should allow for better performance and window capturing support for use-cases around RDP/VNC remote desktop, screen sharing, and more.

Merge Request: Create ext-image-capture-source-v1 and ext-image-copy-capture-v1

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ndlug.org/post/956608

COSMIC Desktop debuts with insane customization options with Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ndlug.org/post/956230

Canonical’s announced a major shift in its kernel selection process for future Ubuntu releases. An “aggressive kernel version commitment policy” pivot will see it ship the latest upstream kernel code in development at the time of a new Ubuntu release.

Original announcement: Kernel Version Selection for Ubuntu Releases

The developer wants to continue the project from the codebase before they used the AMD ROCM code.

Previously, it allowed to run CUDA apps on Intel GPUs (integrated I think) and beat OpenCL in performance.

https://github.com/vosen/ZLUDA

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/18891730

While Cinnamon is great for many users, KDE Plasma provides a flexible and powerful alternative, particularly for those who desire a more dynamic and configurable desktop environment.

In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know to successfully install KDE Plasma on your Linux Mint 22 system.

Back in February of this year you may recall the interesting news that was announced on Phoronix that AMD Quietly Funded A Drop-In CUDA Implementation Built On ROCm: It's Now Open-Source. That open-source ZLUDA code for AMD GPUs has been available since AMD quit funding the developer earlier this year. But now the code has been retracted. It's not from NVIDIA legal challenges but rather AMD reversing course on allowing it to be open-source.

As explained in that article earlier in the year, AMD had quietly funded the ZLUDA developer Andrzej Janik to bring his CUDA-compatible implementation to AMD GPUs and atop the ROCm software stack. ZLUDA start off originally as an open-source CUDA implementation for Intel graphics built atop the Level Zero (hence the ZLUDA name) software stack. While working on ZLUDA, he got it working out rather nicely and various CUDA applications running seamlessly on AMD GPUs as shown and benchmarked in my prior article. But then AMD decided to quit funding the project.

The agreement was reportedly that if/when the contract ended, the ZLUDA code could be open-sourced. That's what happened back in February. But now that code has been retracted from the official public GitHub repository. It's not from legal threats from NVIDIA as one might imagine given its working to support CUDA on non-NVIDIA hardware, but rather from AMD itself.

Janik also noted in his announcement that he had a NVIDIA GameWorks implementation working on AMD GPUs but sadly that code will now never be open-sourced.

Andrzej Janik notes he wants to "rebuild ZLUDA" moving forward and is working on project funding. What wasn't clear from his message whether this means a new ZLUDA focused on the original Intel GPU plans or a new clean sheet design for AMD GPUs. When I asked Janik about it, he's still exploring options.

It will be very interesting to see where ZLUDA goes from here but disappointing that the prior open-source code has been retracted. The GitHub repository is at vosen/ZLUDA while we are eager to see its future direction.

Well this was a fun way to start my day. I was trying to install Davinci Resolve on my Mint PC (since Mint 22 broke some of Resolves dependencies), and it was still giving the warning of missing dependencies.

One of the dependencies libasound2 couldn't install but apt recommended 2 others. Tried both and non worked. So I decided to uninstall both, and then Cinnamon Setting disappeared. I tried to fix it by reinstalling Cinnamon itself, but yeah... on reboot it would crash on the Mint file check.

However after trying the Recovery mode to get access to the terminal. I was able to access Timeshift, get the backup from yesterday and I'm back up and running.

So happy I enabled Timeshift. Hurray for safety nets actually working to protect me from myself.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/25358117

The second beta of Inkscape 1.4 has been released last week. If you use the application, consider checking out the beta and report any bugs you encounter on GitLab (Guide on reporting Inkscape bugs).

This is the second beta release of Inkscape 1.4, featuring:

• Filter Gallery: it has never been so easy to find the best filter for your needs! This new dialog features previews, categories and search.
• Modular grids & improved axonometric grids: set the grid angle by ratio for isometric designs and use modular grids to plan layouts and make icons!
• Swatches dialog and palette file handling improved: quick access to dialog layout controls, search for colors, and open different palette file formats!
• Unified font browser preview: when activated in the preferences, use it to quickly browse through your font collection. Try it out and give your feedback!
• Customizable handles: Power users with CSS knowledge can now customize the styling and basic shape of all the handles!
• Fast image clipping with the Shape Builder: raster graphics can now be clipped into multiple sections using the Shape Builder.
• There's even more: new templates for folding booklets, a new icon theme, additional options in Ruler and Taper Stroke LPE, preview in Spray tool, many new command line options, updated translations and many bug fixes.

The release of System76’s COSMIC desktop environment, which is still in development, is expected to be one of the most important 2024 events in the Open-Source ecosystem.

The expectations are huge and not without reason. First, we’re talking about a desktop environment written from scratch—something that hasn’t happened in a very, very long time, making it truly one of a kind.

Secondly, this is not a hobby project but one with a company behind it that has invested enough resources, blood, and sweat into it. This gives every reason to believe that COSMIC is here to stay and thrive.

So, it is no surprise to anyone that the leading Linux distributions are expected to quickly adopt the new desktop environment, adding COSMIC to their official flavors list to meet user expectations. This is exactly the case with one of them, Fedora.

In an informal discussion at X, following a question from a user, Carl Richell, the CEO and Founder of System76 hinted that Fedora 42, slated for release in late April 2025, might officially include a COSMIC Spin.

However, we want to clarify that this information is very preliminary. So far, neither side has made any official moves or announcements about this matter. But the most logical thing is to happen.

For the leading rolling release distros like Arch, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Void, and others, we expect the new COSMIC desktop environment to be available in their repositories shortly after its first stable release. In fact, you can already install pre-release versions right now.

Finally, here’s something you won’t want to miss! Just a reminder that the first official alpha version of COSMIC is set to be released to mass public on August 8th, only a week away.

Edit:
oh whoops didn't realize this was an old vid (Jan 5 2024)

Hey gang,

So Ubuntu has Ubuntu Core as an immutable distro option. You can customize it to create you own image. I was thinking of just using that and adding Kubuntu-desktop and any proprietary codecs and drivers such as Nvidia. Everything else would be installed as flatpak or Snap.

Has anyone tried something similar?