All "which distro should I choose?" queries here.

[RumbaMon19]

I have ryzen 5 3500U APU on my laptop, I need a distro which has proper drivers, for the chipset, I tried elementary OS which lagged and didnt function smooth I moved to majaro, did function OK, but couldnt handle more than 2 apps, and the CPU temps were high always. Even when CPU usage was 10%, Fans were blowing loud, Here windows is more stable, as it can easily handle 3-4 apps, without that issue. Also linux consumed more battery power, giving me only 1 hour SOT compared to 4.5Hours on windows.

From what it seems it is an driver issue, So anyone knows any good distro which will be able to run properly, and not just eat resources?

Specs:-
Ryzen 3500U
8GB ram
1TB HDD

Thanks in Advance

 

[Desmond]

Weird. What other distros have you tried other than Elementary? Also, have you checked to see whether hardware accerleration was actually enabled? You can check this by seeing which driver is installed. If the `mesa` package is installed, it includes the `amdgpu` driver that should work.

 

[thetechfreak]

Weird. What other distros have you tried other than Elementary? Also, have you checked to see whether hardware accerleration was actually enabled? You can check this by seeing which driver is installed. If the `mesa` package is installed, it includes the `amdgpu` driver that should work.

I do belive the cpu underclocking is slightly worse in Linux distros compared to Windows. Don't have any hard data but my earlier laptops battery used to drain slightly quicker on *Nix

Sent from my vivo 1807 using Tapatalk

 

[RumbaMon19]

Weird. What other distros have you tried other than Elementary? Also, have you checked to see whether hardware accerleration was actually enabled? You can check this by seeing which driver is installed. If the `mesa` package is installed, it includes the `amdgpu` driver that should work.

I tried Manjaro, Even Ubuntu. But these were not able to do my work.

It does have that amdgpu thing, but it is consuming too much power. As i said before, the fan keeps blowing at high speed, even when nothing is open. cpu usage is around 10%, and the temps are in the range 55-65. It reaches 70 degrees with youtube.

On windows, the fan is silent, cpu usage around 20-25, and everything works flawlessly with battery life of about 4.5hrs.

 

[Desmond]

As per this: Ryzen - ArchWiki you may have to set power profile settings. Also, run `htop` and check which process is consuming the most CPU.

 

[sling-shot]

I used to have similar issues long back with PCLinuxOS. It was an issue of CPU governer or something. Basically CPU was always running at maximum speed. Setting it to balanced mode worked.

 

[Desmond]

It was an issue of CPU governer or something

Oh yeah, this is also possible. IIRC CPU governor is almost always set to balanced by default in most distros.

 

[TheSloth]

I have ryzen 5 3500U APU on my laptop, I need a distro which has proper drivers, for the chipset, I tried elementary OS which lagged and didnt function smooth I moved to majaro, did function OK, but couldnt handle more than 2 apps, and the CPU temps were high always. Even when CPU usage was 10%, Fans were blowing loud, Here windows is more stable, as it can easily handle 3-4 apps, without that issue. Also linux consumed more battery power, giving me only 1 hour SOT compared to 4.5Hours on windows.

From what it seems it is an driver issue, So anyone knows any good distro which will be able to run properly, and not just eat resources?

Specs:-
Ryzen 3500U
8GB ram
1TB HDD

Thanks in Advance

When I installed Ubuntu first time in my laptop with GT650M, I had to set to it use inbuilt Intel's GPU because it was using GT650M my default and causing more fan noise and high battery usage. Did you check if something similar is happening in your case too?

 

[RumbaMon19]

As per this: Ryzen - ArchWiki you may have to set power profile settings. Also, run `htop` and check which process is consuming the most CPU.

I will try it, as if now I am on windows, but will install linux in a day or two.

I used to have similar issues long back with PCLinuxOS. It was an issue of CPU governer or something. Basically CPU was always running at maximum speed. Setting it to balanced mode worked.

I do remember doing it, But still, the CPU usage was till 10% and it was heating like 75-85%.

When I installed Ubuntu first time in my laptop with GT650M, I had to set to it use inbuilt Intel's GPU because it was using GT650M my default and causing more fan noise and high battery usage. Did you check if something similar is happening in your case too?

It is probably not that, Because I dont have a dGPU, my iGPU seems to work fine.

 

[RumbaMon19]

I installed Enso,(Also featured in this month's digit) and the overheating problem has gone now. It is based on Ubuntu 20.04 and hence has latest drivers. The usage is 4-10% on idle and 50-60% while in meetings or browsing etc. Battery life also improved, So ultimately, it was a driver problem.

Also, I benchmarked my pc on both Linux and windows, this time it was much better. Windows scored 853 on single core and 2635 on multi core whereas Ubuntu gave me 869 on single core and 2790 on multi core. I used geekbench here.

 

[Desmond]

What's Enso?

 

[RumbaMon19]

What's Enso?

*enso-os.site/

It is a custom version of xubuntu, but has gala window manager from elementary os and is lighter on resources. Again as it is based in ubuntu, so most things work that way...

 

[msankadi]

I installed Enso,(Also featured in this month's digit) and the overheating problem has gone now. It is based on Ubuntu 20.04 and hence has latest drivers. The usage is 4-10% on idle and 50-60% while in meetings or browsing etc. Battery life also improved, So ultimately, it was a driver problem.

Also, I benchmarked my pc on both Linux and windows, this time it was much better. Windows scored 853 on single core and 2635 on multi core whereas Ubuntu gave me 869 on single core and 2790 on multi core. I used geekbench here.

Hi

Can you share the ideal ram usage? Would it be good for a very old laptop I think 3rd gen i3

Sent from my RMX2081 using Tapatalk

 

[thetechfreak]

Hi

Can you share the ideal ram usage? Would it be good for a very old laptop I think 3rd gen i3

Sent from my RMX2081 using Tapatalk

Shouldn't be more than 1.5GB when on idle/not doing anything.

Sent from my vivo 1807 using Tapatalk

 

[msankadi]

Shouldn't be more than 1.5GB when on idle/not doing anything.

Sent from my vivo 1807 using Tapatalk

Thanks quite heavy then might not work well on my laptop ... Pop!_os which itself is quite heavy is consuming about 800-1000 mb on idle

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[RumbaMon19]

Hi

Can you share the ideal ram usage? Would it be good for a very old laptop I think 3rd gen i3

Sent from my RMX2081 using Tapatalk

on bootup, with nothing running, 980mb
While browsing and meeting it is 1.6GB

You can use gentoo(600mb on idle) or slax(450mb) or q4os as these have lowest footprint.

 

[msankadi]

Thanks have never tried q4os that sounds interesting... Wil give it a try after pop

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[thetechfreak]

Thanks quite heavy then might not work well on my laptop ... Pop!_os which itself is quite heavy is consuming about 800-1000 mb on idle

Sent from my RMX2081 using Tapatalk

Yeah, Operating systems using Gnome are notoriously heavy these days. Even Ubuntu and others.

Sent from my vivo 1807 using Tapatalk

 

[RumbaMon19]

*enso-os.site/

It is a custom version of xubuntu, but has gala window manager from elementary os and is lighter on resources. Again as it is based in ubuntu, so most things work that way...

Here is an update,

I installed macOS High Sierra on QEMU KVM. I allocated it 4GB ram and 4cores. Ran geekbench on it, and found that it scored more than Ubuntu running as host.
I used geekbench 4 as Geekbench 5 aint compatible with High Sierra.
Ubuntu scored 2676 Single core and 8484 on multi core, while macOS scored 3763 single-core and 9341 on multi core.

I am surprised how it, being virtualised, was able to beat a normal machine, even though what I assigned to guest OS was half of host.

Here is the Ubuntu score ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. VivoBook_ASUSLaptop X509DA_M509DA - Geekbench Browser
and here is the macos score iMac10,1 - Geekbench Browser

But there are a few limitations like the video memory cant be extended beyond 3MB. The internet speed is slow on it due to lack of proper adapter. But still, that score is really high.

 

[skeletor]

Here is an update,

I installed macOS High Sierra on QEMU KVM. I allocated it 4GB ram and 4cores. Ran geekbench on it, and found that it scored more than Ubuntu running as host.
I used geekbench 4 as Geekbench 5 aint compatible with High Sierra.
Ubuntu scored 2676 Single core and 8484 on multi core, while macOS scored 3763 single-core and 9341 on multi core.

I am surprised how it, being virtualised, was able to beat a normal machine, even though what I assigned to guest OS was half of host.

Here is the Ubuntu score ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. VivoBook_ASUSLaptop X509DA_M509DA - Geekbench Browser
and here is the macos score iMac10,1 - Geekbench Browser

But there are a few limitations like the video memory cant be extended beyond 3MB. The internet speed is slow on it due to lack of proper adapter. But still, that score is really high.

Can you run something like Cinebench??