New to Linux Gaming, Nobara

[Niteme]

Hi, I'm new to Linux, I'm sure this is the first time you folks heard about such things. ;p

So, she keeps freezing and I'm trying to solve this without posting but I am at a loss, and I need to get this new PC to stop randomly locking up and freezing, even when it's doing nothing at all and sitting there, is the issue. Gaming or not, the PC will just randomly freeze and lock up.

I am trying to figure this out within the return window for this new PC. Some basic specs of my PC are:
AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 32GB of memory at 6000mhz Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB and it has a 1TB SSD.

I'm trying to unplug from the windows and google matrix and if there is something basic I can do on windows that is harder on Linux is changing the drivers, which might actually solve my problem. I just, again, am a new user to linux and many of the "fixes" I search out half of them are unable to be used.

I do notice, having a ray tracking GPU for the first time, it mostly works and looks nice, but sometimes I see these tiny white dots within the rays, which might be a driver issue. So there I am. It'll be nice if there was a post I failed to search our properly talking about solutions to forward me to, or feel free to chit-chat here.

Thanks so much everyone.


Additionally: And I've tried a bootable memory stress test with 5 passes and no issues. I would also like to be able to stress test the GPU which I haven't figured out yet. And I'm tried a few other things like adding to the command line in grub GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT='processor.max_cstate=1 quiet split_lock_detect=off' is my current line. I did have this added to it which I removed since it didn't fix the issue, amdgpu.ppfeaturemask=0xffffffff. And I've tried some other things I'm spacing out on, like LACK where I took it from 170watts to 160watts and still freezes. I am hopeful it's just a driver issue which I am just a newbie about with Linux here. Okay, pardon the addition.

 

[dos2unix]

I dont use Nobara, I tend to stick with Fedora (which Nobara is based on). Nobara has been a little problematic
for me. Fedora has been more stble. Besides the nvidia drivers are now included in the fedora repos.

Drivers on linux are just as easy as windows (sometmes easier).. it just takes some getting used to .
Nobara markets itself as having all the drivers you need pre-installed, so I'm not sure what drivers you need?

I have a Ryzen machine with a radeon, basically the same in most ways. However I'm really a gamer, and I don't use rayTracing much.

 

[f33dm3bits]

What desktop environment are you using, KDE Plasma or another?

There's some issues open with the RX 9060XT

Work items · drm / amd · GitLab

amd (amdgpu, amdkfd, radeon) drm project, currently for issues only.

gitlab.freedesktop.org

Are you for example able to press "ctrl+alt+f4" when your system freezes and login there?

 

[Niteme]

I dont use Nobara, I tend to stick with Fedora (which Nobara is based on). Nobara has been a little problematic
for me. Fedora has been more stble. Besides the nvidia drivers are now included in the fedora repos.

Drivers on linux are just as easy as windows (sometmes easier).. it just takes some getting used to .
Nobara markets itself as having all the drivers you need pre-installed, so I'm not sure what drivers you need?

I have a Ryzen machine with a radeon, basically the same in most ways. However I'm really a gamer, and I don't use rayTracing much.

Is it easy to install another OS like fedora ontop of Nobara, and I have Windows on here which I haven't used yet? I just installed Nobara and made the Windows partition 100GB while Linux can have 900GB. I'll totally check out Fedora, but I feel changing Linux OS's is a bit extreme. I'll browse that link to the 9060XT forum you sent when I have more time. Thank you very much.

 

[Niteme]

What desktop environment are you using, KDE Plasma or another?

There's some issues open with the RX 9060XT

Work items · drm / amd · GitLab

amd (amdgpu, amdkfd, radeon) drm project, currently for issues only.

gitlab.freedesktop.org

Are you for example able to press "ctrl+alt+f4"

I ran, echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
and it says, KDE

I will check this out next time she freezes, but one of the freezes occured when the PC when sitting, the monitor went into sleep mode and I wasn't able to do anything. So on the surface with what I know currently, it seemed like a full system lock up and freeze. Freezes occur maybe once or twice a day but sometimes it'll go a couple days before she locks up and freezes.

Gaming or not, she just freezes. If I can install a 3rd OS on this machine, I'll consider Fedora as the other commenter suggested.

When it happens again, with the monitor still on which is most freezes, I'll try this out and reply to you again. With the Ctrl Alt F4. I tend to not leave my PC on when I'm not using it, but I was leaving it on to check out to see if she'll freeze while doing nothing at all. Well, I was downloading a Steam game when she last froze with the monitor off.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I will check this out next time she freezes,

If are able to get to a login screen when your graphical session freezes and then pressing "ctrl+alt+f4". Then login in with your username and password there and you can try restarting your graphical session from there

I ran, echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
and it says, KDE

Then you could run the following to restart your graphical session.

sudo systemctl restart sddm

Then you will get a login screen again and you can login into your system again. When you can do then is the following. Open a terminal and then run this.

sudo dmesg | grep amdgpu

And what you can also do is run this.

sudo dmesg | less

Then scroll through and see if you any error messages like "timeout", "ring", etc. Then you can search in the issue list I mentioned earlier if people have mentioned work arounds or fixes for it.

For example this issue someone has freezes sometimes as well.

[RDNA4/Navi44 RX 9060 XT] Repeated Pageflip timed out freezes on KDE Wayland at 200Hz, mitigated by gpu_recovery=1 + dcdebugmask=0x10 (#4899) · Issues · drm / amd · GitLab

Problem: Screen freezes (monitor stuck, mouse/keyboard sometimes responsive) during desktop usage (dragging windows, browser fullscreen, gaming) at 200 Hz. Occurred multiple times per day, e.g. around 09:47 on...

gitlab.freedesktop.org

They did the following.

Mitigation: Added kernel parameters: amdgpu.gpu_recovery=1 amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x10 amdgpu.dc=1 After adding these, no freezes observed in recent boots. Current dmesg and KWin logs are clean (no pageflip/commit errors).

And after that they didn't have anymore freezes.

Also what you can also try is seeing if anyone in the Nobara discord has similar experiences to yours and if anyone there knows any fixes or workarounds.

Join the Nobara/Proton-GE Discord Server!

Check out the Nobara/Proton-GE community on Discord - hang out with 35839 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.com

 

[Niteme]

I dont use Nobara, I tend to stick with Fedora (which Nobara is based on). Nobara has been a little problematic
for me. Fedora has been more stble. Besides the nvidia drivers are now included in the fedora repos.

Drivers on linux are just as easy as windows (sometmes easier).. it just takes some getting used to .
Nobara markets itself as having all the drivers you need pre-installed, so I'm not sure what drivers you need?

I have a Ryzen machine with a radeon, basically the same in most ways. However I'm really a gamer, and I don't use rayTracing much.

Hey, which version of Fedora might you recommend?

There's two I'm stuck on, the For Intel and AMD x86_64 systems, and the For Power ppc64le systems?

 

[f33dm3bits]

Hey, which version of Fedora might you recommend?

If you like the graphical environment you will want this one.

Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop

We're so glad you've decided to give Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop a try. We know you'll love it.

fedoraproject.org

But you are likely to still run into the same issue you are running into with Nobara since it's most likely a kernel issue you are running into.

There's two I'm stuck on, the For Intel and AMD x86_64 systems, and the For Power ppc64le systems?

You're most likely using the first as most people do, you would know if you are using ppc64le system.

 

[kc1di]

Hello @Niteme
Welcome to the forum, enjoy!
You would want the amd64 or x84_64 system Fedora also has KDE if your use to that. I haven't used Nobara either so can't speak to that one.

 

[Niteme]

If are able to get to a login screen when your graphical session freezes and then pressing "ctrl+alt+f4". Then login in with your username and password there and you can try restarting your graphical session from there

Then you could run the following to restart your graphical session.

sudo systemctl restart sddm

Then you will get a login screen again and you can login into your system again. When you can do then is the following. Open a terminal and then run this.

sudo dmesg | grep amdgpu

And what you can also do is run this.

sudo dmesg | less

Then scroll through and see if you any error messages like "timeout", "ring", etc. Then you can search in the issue list I mentioned earlier if people have mentioned work arounds or fixes for it.

For example this issue someone has freezes sometimes as well.

[RDNA4/Navi44 RX 9060 XT] Repeated Pageflip timed out freezes on KDE Wayland at 200Hz, mitigated by gpu_recovery=1 + dcdebugmask=0x10 (#4899) · Issues · drm / amd · GitLab

Problem: Screen freezes (monitor stuck, mouse/keyboard sometimes responsive) during desktop usage (dragging windows, browser fullscreen, gaming) at 200 Hz. Occurred multiple times per day, e.g. around 09:47 on...

gitlab.freedesktop.org

They did the following.

And after that they didn't have anymore freezes.

Also what you can also try is seeing if anyone in the Nobara discord has similar experiences to yours and if anyone there knows any fixes or workarounds.

Join the Nobara/Proton-GE Discord Server!

Check out the Nobara/Proton-GE community on Discord - hang out with 35839 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.com

Ya know what, I had that line all by it's self in my grub when I was first messing around with fixes, amdgpu.gpu_recovery=1, I didn't add it to the command line section. So I'll try this, and see how she goes. Thank you so very much. I'll keep y'all posted if it fixed it or not but it could take a few days to tell if it does fix it.

So this is what my GRUB looks like now...

 

[Niteme]

Something is failing at startup, I see a red line for like .1 seconds. So I ran sudo journalctl -b -p err, and see this...

 

[f33dm3bits]

Ya know what, I had that line all by it's self in my grub when I was first messing around with fixes, amdgpu.gpu_recovery=1, I didn't add it to the command line section. So I'll try this, and see how she goes. Thank you so very much. I'll keep y'all posted if it fixed it or not but it could take a few days to tell if it does fix it.

I didn't post that to use that fix, it was an example. Better to remove it and then when you system freezes again do the following.

If are able to get to a login screen when your graphical session freezes and then pressing "ctrl+alt+f4". Then login in with your username and password there and you can try restarting your graphical session from there

Then you could run the following to restart your graphical session.
sudo systemctl restart sddm

Then you will get a login screen again and you can login into your system again. When you can do then is the following. Open a terminal and then run this.
sudo dmesg | grep amdgpuAnd what you can also do is run this.
sudo dmesg | lessThen scroll through and see if you any error messages like "timeout", "ring", etc. Then you can search in the issue list I mentioned earlier if people have mentioned work arounds or fixes for it.

Based on that you can search the amdgpu gitlab for similar issues and try applying those.
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/...state=opened&search=9060 &first_page_size=100
So when searching through "dmesg" output there's usually something happening to the amdgpu driver that stands out, for example something to do with "amdgpu", "timeout", "trace" , flip_done, etc.

If you are not sure just dump your dmesg to a file and then share it here.

sudo dmesg > dmesg.txt

Then share the file here.

 

[Niteme]

If are able to get to a login screen when your graphical session freezes and then pressing "ctrl+alt+f4". Then login in with your username and password there and you can try restarting your graphical session from there

Then you could run the following to restart your graphical session.

sudo systemctl restart sddm

Then you will get a login screen again and you can login into your system again. When you can do then is the following. Open a terminal and then run this.

sudo dmesg | grep amdgpu

And what you can also do is run this.

sudo dmesg | less

Then scroll through and see if you any error messages like "timeout", "ring", etc. Then you can search in the issue list I mentioned earlier if people have mentioned work arounds or fixes for it.

For example this issue someone has freezes sometimes as well.

[RDNA4/Navi44 RX 9060 XT] Repeated Pageflip timed out freezes on KDE Wayland at 200Hz, mitigated by gpu_recovery=1 + dcdebugmask=0x10 (#4899) · Issues · drm / amd · GitLab

Problem: Screen freezes (monitor stuck, mouse/keyboard sometimes responsive) during desktop usage (dragging windows, browser fullscreen, gaming) at 200 Hz. Occurred multiple times per day, e.g. around 09:47 on...

gitlab.freedesktop.org

They did the following.

And after that they didn't have anymore freezes.

Also what you can also try is seeing if anyone in the Nobara discord has similar experiences to yours and if anyone there knows any fixes or workarounds.

Join the Nobara/Proton-GE Discord Server!

Check out the Nobara/Proton-GE community on Discord - hang out with 35839 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.com

Ya know, it's been a bit more than a day, and not to jump the gun, but doing this "amdgpu.gpu_recovery=1 amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x10 amdgpu.dc=1" as I did, and I haven't had any crashes yet and I should've had one, although once I made it past a day without it freezing before it froze again. But it's looking very hopeful.

I wanna make sure she goes 72 hours without crashing to know for sure. I'll post once more to verify this once the 72 hours mark is passed on Friday.

Thank you so much. Changing OSes was a bit extreme, this seemed to do this and had I known how to properly add these into the grub the first time, I likely could've solved this myself but thank you for your great advice. I literally added them at the end of the Grub file on their own blank lines last week, those commands. But redoing it now I added it to that command line section, which is the proper way to do it.

Hey, I'm a newb, and I'm sticking with this legit reason for doing something so foolish the first time around. Second time around seems to be what I needed. Which you gave, so again, thank you for this kick in my but about trying this again but doing it properly.

 

[Niteme]

If are able to get to a login screen when your graphical session freezes and then pressing "ctrl+alt+f4". Then login in with your username and password there and you can try restarting your graphical session from there

Then you could run the following to restart your graphical session.

sudo systemctl restart sddm

Then you will get a login screen again and you can login into your system again. When you can do then is the following. Open a terminal and then run this.

sudo dmesg | grep amdgpu

And what you can also do is run this.

sudo dmesg | less

Then scroll through and see if you any error messages like "timeout", "ring", etc. Then you can search in the issue list I mentioned earlier if people have mentioned work arounds or fixes for it.

For example this issue someone has freezes sometimes as well.

[RDNA4/Navi44 RX 9060 XT] Repeated Pageflip timed out freezes on KDE Wayland at 200Hz, mitigated by gpu_recovery=1 + dcdebugmask=0x10 (#4899) · Issues · drm / amd · GitLab

Problem: Screen freezes (monitor stuck, mouse/keyboard sometimes responsive) during desktop usage (dragging windows, browser fullscreen, gaming) at 200 Hz. Occurred multiple times per day, e.g. around 09:47 on...

gitlab.freedesktop.org

They did the following.

And after that they didn't have anymore freezes.

Also what you can also try is seeing if anyone in the Nobara discord has similar experiences to yours and if anyone there knows any fixes or workarounds.

Join the Nobara/Proton-GE Discord Server!

Check out the Nobara/Proton-GE community on Discord - hang out with 35839 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.com

Well, I of course, spoke too soon, as the PC froze up just a few minutes ago and the ctrl atl F4 didn't work at all, total freeze and I noticed the LED lights on the USB keyboard I have shut off. I'll check more into that post you linked you.

I just feel changing OSes away from Nobara is too drastic at this point in time.

 

[Niteme]

If you like the graphical environment you will want this one.

Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop

We're so glad you've decided to give Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop a try. We know you'll love it.

fedoraproject.org

But you are likely to still run into the same issue you are running into with Nobara since it's most likely a kernel issue you are running into.


You're most likely using the first as most people do, you would know if you are using ppc64le system.

Okay, I try to figure stuff out on my own, but the commands the internet suggests I use don't work at all, which is like 75% of my issue, you don't have permission. WTH, I'm running this PC as the admin and need to type the password in everytime any big system change occurs.

So whenever I seek out a solution to not ask people in forums, it'll be permission denied, or command not found.

I even tried checking the logs, 1st screenshot.

Then I searched out how to check the logs for the crashes to figure out on my own, the internet suggesting I check some files that start with the word 'system' and 'kernel' in the /root/var/log section and these files just don't exist. So again, found a troubleshooting solution that I can't do anything, and around and around I go. INTERNET: "Here try this" then I try it out to find, 'no permission' or 'command not valid' or the files don't exist. This is like what occurs most of the time, which is why I hit up a forum as a newbie linux user. I grew up on PCs in the 80s DOS to MSDOS to Windows 3.1, so I'm not stupid about stuff, not a programmer either, but like wow. So then I need to hit up forums because most of the stuff that the internet tells me to check out doesn't work at all. Even the memtest86+ I tried for a first troubleshoot, wasn't on my version of linux. I later read it was removed out of later versions of Nobara linux. So then I got a bootable USB mem stress test just to rule that out.

So whenever I seek out a solution to not pester forum users and figure it out on my own, this doesn't work, that command isn't valid or somehow I don't have permission as the PC admin and on and on.

 

[Niteme]

I'm just trying to see the logs from when she crashed simply. I'm too newbie to figure this out on my own. I've tried more than this but here's a screen from an attempt. So I figure check the logs from when she crashed, something I knew how to do in windows but lost in linux.

 

[f33dm3bits]

I even tried checking the logs, 1st screenshot.

I'm too newbie to figure this out on my own. I've tried more than this but here's a screen from an attempt.

Search for "amdgpu" as its most likely that driver that crashed or froze. And when using "dmesg" you need to put "sudo" in front of it.

 

[Niteme]

Search for "amdgpu" as its most likely that driver that crashed or froze. And when using "dmesg" you need to put "sudo" in front of it.

I did just changed the driver from the latest git version of mesa vulkan to the latest stable version of mesa vulkan, in Nobara Driver Manager. Sad thing is, is that it takes so long for me to experience the crashing issue, I now don't know until it happens again, and it rarely freezes up quickly, I think once it took 2 hours to freeze up, and only once. It takes many hours, like a whole day to a bit longer for her to freeze and lock up. So now, about 20-72 hours away from seeing if that driver change to the stable version did the trick.

Thank you for the sudo kick in my but. That sounds like some martial arts move, lol.

I would really love to check out any error logs and get working on that if you're able to help. I had those few errors in the startup.

 

[dos2unix]

Differentr distro's put different logs in different places.

You can try..
"dmesg"

or

"less /var/log/messages"

should also work.
(use up and down arrow keys to scroll thru the logs)

 

[Niteme]

Okay, she's still freezing and locking up. I mean thankfully, the freeze occurred sooner so I could tell if those changes fixed anything. The keyboard light was still on, and the ctrl alt f4 did nothing at all.

Is there something I can check out next time I boot the PC up again?

Wait! I was getting ubuntu-24.04.2-desktop-amd64.iso as it runs on kernel 6.11 and see how things work out, and I'll check out that SysRq key, but if my keyboard literally disconnects during some of these hangups/freezes.

AND! I did that, got an older version of Ubuntu 24.04.2 instead of 24.04.3 or 4 because it's kernel was older 6.11 and I was going to try to make it into 6.12 once I got her up, but the USB install I have of it, I boot from it and it freezes up and I'm very certain secure boot is disabled, and I even went in the BIOS and and deleted all the secure boot keys because I don't have a striaght up disable options (it's something and custom) for secure boot in the BIOS options, and still freezes at the start up screen, the ASUS logo with Buntu added now because I keep trying to install it, the loading circle just locks up. Never make it past that.

I just want something that works so I'm not using the OS of some major evil. Please and thanks!