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If you’re using Arch you’re in good shape with the Radeon VII but with Ubuntu the kernel and Mesa versions are too far behind. Here is how I got my card to work in Ubuntu. Please do proper backups before attempting this. I only tested on my own machine.

Update to kernel 4.20 in Ubuntu

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:paulo-miguel-dias/pkppa
• sudo apt update
• sudo apt upgrade
• reboot
• sudo apt-get install ukuu
• Open it via GUI or command line (I did it via GUI)
• Select kernel 4.20
• Reboot when done
• uname -a to validate

Due to some unexpected issues with the hosting service I was using the server has been migrated to a Digital Ocean droplet. Due to this migration some of the images were lost. I will be working on updating this over the next few weeks.

Thanks for your patience and fill your brains!

Happy New Year! In 2019 I’m looking to bring lots of new content for you to fill your brains with. One of the projects I’m most excited about continuing is the Mozilla IoT home automation setup. I’ve recently ordered a new toy to integrate which is a Trane Thermostat that runs on ZWave technology. In addition, home security (cameras and locks) will be added in the future as funds are available. Thank you to the Patrons for supporting the channel and helping me to show off this tech.

You can also expect more Linux, more open source, and more tech reviews. We will also be diving into some of the controversies surrounding certain platforms that are attempting to censor the public and creating content on privacy and security.

I look forward to hearing your comments and getting your feedback. Here is to another year of brain filling fun.

• While Blizzard continues to snub Linux with their MMO WoW, we have a newer MMO available to us called Albion Online
• Albion Online is about to receive a major update this November and adds the following functionality:
  • Change your guilds logo
  • Mark a player or NPC as a target during battles
  • See party combat roles
  • New daily combat arena for Guilds and PVP battles
  • Party finder is a huge addition that allows new players or players without a guild to find random strangers to go on quests with.
  • New random dungeons (random in location and what’s inside)
• So if you want a decent MMO with native Linux support. Check out Albion Online. 

To get it working in Arch:

– Download Albion from website
– Make app executable and open it to start install
– After install the game won’t launch until you put in this command:

1, Install this package: $ sudo pacman -S sndio

2,Create sym link: $ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libsndio.so /usr/lib/libsndio.so.6.1

As most of you probably know I am one of the hosts of the absolutely amazing Destination Linux podcast. Episode 95 is going to be a game changer. You do not want to miss it!

The countdown has begun at https://destinationlinux.org/

Note that all links are affiliate links so by purchasing through these links it sends a little support my way. Thank you for considering support.

Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 USB Gateway

Rasberry Pi 3

GE Z-Wave Wireless Smart Lighting Control

GoControl Z-Wave Dimmable LED Light Bulb

Better Power Adapter For Rasberry Pi 3

SD Card

Check out the Steam Play compatibility tool found here: https://spcr.netlify.com/

This tool utilizes the community to rank the games that are working with Steam Proton currently. The games are ranked with the following parameters:

• Platinum (runs perfectly out of the box)
• Gold (runs perfectly after tweaks)
• Silver (runs with minor issues, but generally is playable)
• Bronze (runs, but often crashes or has issues preventing from playing comfortably)
• Borked (either won’t start or is crucially unplayable)

I’ve had many laptops from Alienware, Dell, HP, ASUS, Lenovo, Apple, Acer, and just about everything in between. Generally you have to make sacrifices when buying a laptop whether build quality, lack of ports, screen resolution, etc. Some laptops game well but are incredibly heavy. Laptops that are portable generally are under-powered.  The 2016 Dell XPS is an exception to the rule. It’s ultra portable, beautifully constructed and has all the features I look for when considering the perfect laptop. Here is what I personally think makes an incredible laptop solution:

The Perfect Laptop
– Durable material like aluminum frame
– Lightweight
– Beautiful screen
– Backlit keyboard
– Firm responsive keyboard w/ no weird configurations
– Large trackpad
– minimum 8GB ram minimum
– SSD or NVme drive
– Long battery life
– Doesn’t overheat when gaming

The 2016 Dell XPS has all these features and more. If Dell can continue to make laptops of this quality then I will keep buying them. Dude I’ve got a Dell.

So I recently found a deal on a Western Digital Black NVMe PCIe Gen3. I was excited to see what this card could do as the current NVMe I have is a Plextor and while it’s been an amazing drive – newer is always better right?

Well, I’m sad to report. The WD NVMe is a poor performer. Below are screenshots from both Windows and Fedora 28 speed tests. I tried the card in both PCIe 3.0 and 2.0 slots. I set the bios to x4 x4 x4 x4. I tried every setting I could find to improve the performance but the write speeds never got better. The read speeds are ok but ultimately slower than the Plextor.

However, interestingly the Samsung NVMe from a friends machine also shows poor write speeds in comparison. Now these speeds are obviously better than most spinning drives and the read times are better than most SSD’s but I expected more.

It is interesting to see such a vast difference between Windows and Linux with NVMe. Perhaps it is Gnome benchmarks tool that is running different tests or perhaps isn’t geared towards NVMe drives. As stated the Plextor seems to run with expected results.

Troubleshooting Steps:

– Updated PCIe x4 x4 x4 x4
– Tried both 2.0 and 3.0 M.2 slots on MB
– Updated BIOS on motherboard MSI x470 Pro Carbon Gaming
– Added heat sinks to WD card to see if throttling was an issue

Samsung Speed Results:

Windows speed test PCIe 2.0

Fedora speed test PCIe 2.0

Recently, there has been some work from individuals like Martin Wimpress and Alan Pope to bring games to Linux via snap packages. We’ve seen some really great classics make their way into this package format recently but one I’m really enjoying is Xonotic.

This reminds me of the game Unreal which I played a lot of back in the day. It’s very fast paced and runs on minimal requirements. You can also install it via a snap which is equally as awesome.

$ snap install xonotic