Linux

My network randomly drops. A restart fixes but I can't even download Cyberpunk with my 1GB connection before it crashes. Klogs showed something about the network manager successfully shutting down but I can't find much else.

Share the output of sudo dmesg logs as well as sudo journalctl -u NetworkManager | cat. The first is the kernel logs about what's going on with your connection, and the second one is from the utility that manages networking on most systems (there's alternatives but pretty sure Manjaro uses NM). It should give us more info as to the reason of the disconnections.

No Radeon software. I sometimes need to record clips/ stream so relive is nice but the biggest problem is my second 1080p monitor I Super Resolution to fit more programs on it. I can't find a way to replicate that functionality. I also do not know how to control Radeon anti-lag, chill, Smart Memory Access, etc.

Most of these things are more deeply integrated on Linux, so you don't need to worry about them for the most part. Some of them are also buzzwords for marketing purposes for features that really should be default on, which on Linux, when it's reasonable, do default to on. For example, you don't turn Smart Memory Access on: if it can use it, it will use it. Same with VRR, at least on Wayland: just on by default on KDE.

• ReLive: you can use any screen recorder that will work on any GPU. Right now with the Wayland transition it's a bit weird and OBS is the better choice there, but on an Xorg session you can just use something like Simple Screen Recorder. On KDE, Spectacle, the default screenshot utility also has the ability to record short video clips but it can be a little buggy.

• Super Resolution: just set the monitor's scaling to less than 100% in the display settings. It's technically probably better than Super Resolution for apps that supports <100% scaling, because instead of making a fake 4K display for example, it'll render everything at 1080p still but instead cause apps to render smaller, achieving the same result but with the potential of remaining pixel perfect. It won't be doing any AI scaling though, so YMMB.

• Anti-lag: it's kind of a hack, and on Linux we're trying to get things right for the graphics stack with Wayland. But if you're running Wayland, KWin is already doing what it can to reduce lag on the desktop, and individual applications have to implement similar methods if they want to. Have you run into specific things where it's noticeable? Linux is generally pretty good when it comes to input lag already.

• Chill: you can run games in Valve's gamescope wrapper to limit framerate. That's exactly how they do it on the Steam Deck. You can also use CoreCtrl to underclock the GPU.

• Smart Memory Access: it's just marketing for Resizable BAR, and it's on by default. You can check with sudo dmesg | grep BAR=, if it's greater than 256M and equal to your GPU's memory size, it's working.

[    7.139260] [drm] Detected VRAM RAM=8176M, BAR=8192M
[    7.576782] [drm] Detected VRAM RAM=4096M, BAR=4096M

HDR controls. Nothing in the display settings so I'm lost

Yeah that one's still WIP unfortunately. It's technically possible on Xorg but you have to run everything HDR all the time and things break. It's coming along fairly well!

Alternative Software I haven't spent a lot of time looking but things like wallpaper engine, rainmeter, powertoys.

• Wallpaper Engine -> KDE's desktop backgrounds have a lot of options to do similar stuff including animated wallpapers. Go to change your wallpaper, there's a button to download new modules and new backgrounds. For example: https://store.kde.org/p/1413010
• rainmeter -> Conky, or KDE's desktop widgets. Right click on your desktop, add graphical component.
• powertoys -> A lot of those have built-in and better equivalents. Fancy zones: we've had that as standard for a good decade here. You can also fairly easily make your own or use other people's KWin scripts, which lets you manipulate the desktop however you want. Here's some examples: https://store.kde.org/browse?cat=210&amp;ord=latest

You can even download desktop effects, if you like your windows to burn down or have a glitch effect or whatever: https://store.kde.org/browse?cat=209&amp;ord=latest

It takes some time to adjust, but welcome abord! Depending on how much you customize, you may find it difficult to go back to Windows!

Hmm... Manjaro has a history is breakage/SSL issues.

Try a copy of Debian KDE

HDR seems to be experimental/in development for Linux for now. If you decide to tip your toes in there expect that you may find some rough edges. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDR_monitor_support

Manjaro should literally never be used, it's a terrible, terrible distro that just makes arch worse and provides little to no benefit.

If you don't want to use a TUI or touch a terminal, try endeavoros.

4. For wallpaper engine you could check out wallpaper engine for kde. That will allow you to select wallpapers directly from your wallpaper engine library.

If you have any additional software which you are looking for FOSS Linux alternatives for, feel free to list them. Your options are much greater than most people coming from Windows expect them to be, and many of us have already spent a lot of time deep down the rabbit hole of finding quality open-source software alternatives, so we can surely point you in the right directions.

You've probably figured this out by now but KDE has all the theming and rainmeter style widgets available. I just installed most of my desktop aesthetics direct from the System Settings on KDE, it's mostly Catppuccin Mocha. Had to search for the Github for it to find some cool basic wallpapers that matched the theme perfectly.

Steam has some weird issues and I had it set to launch in terminal so the progress and errors get posted in there. Then I could search the web with the error codes. I don't know the command though.

For games try ProtonDB.com, and then sort by "Tweaks" or whatever to see what people did to make the game run correctly.

Network: I constantly have problems with ipv6 connections to steam on Linux, try disabling ipv6. It's counterintuitive to have ipv4 run faster and more stable than 6 but for whatever reason that's a thing.

Rainmeter: try conky.

Manjaro and Antergos are just asking for trouble. If you want Arch, use Arch. Otherwise Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, and Fedora are popular.

I don't think the full Radeon suite is on Linux but there are tools for screen recording like simple screen recorder and OBS.

There is lots of 3rd party software available on all of these distros in their respective package managers, but Ubuntu has the advantage with PPAs allowing for more 3rd party repos to be easily added to the package manager.

HDR support is still very early/basic right now: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDR_monitor_support

For all those people saying to not use Manjaro if you want an alternative that just works try Mint or Fedora. Arch is great but requires a lot more work that you might not be interested in.

For super resolution you can use gamescope. Smart Memory Access should be called resizable BAR in your bios options.

Just adding to the chorus of users who had issues with Manjaro. It’s a great distro, but sometimes quite frustrating, especially if you’re new.

I switched to Fedora, which is really nice. It’s Gnome, but there’s probably a KDE spin too. No big issues so far, and it’s been almost a year. One small issue is getting video codecs installed. Be sure to select third party repos at install, then look for “gstreamer” in the software app and install all the plugin packages.

Manjaro was my choice as well when I jumped ship a bit over a year ago. I do not plan on sticking with it. If you do, learn how to recover an unbootable system using timeshift. And set up timeshift, so if the worst happens, you can recover.

1. I'd be looking at journalctl logs for the networking.

2. I use OBS, as well as Spectacle and SimpleScreenRecorder. To fit more on a screen, you are likely looking for the desktop scaling setting in KDE. As for actually messing with the display resolution and such, I know how to do that on Nvidia, but not AMD. I know freesync should work easily, if you are running under wayland.

3. HDR on linux is currently not a thing, AFAIK. There is work happening, but all the things that would be needed for it to work, weren't complete last I checked.

4. KDE has powerful wallpaper plugins, everything from shaders to some kind of wallpaper engine support. I just use a folder slideshow, with wallpaper blur when a window is focused. For rainmeter type stuff, look into KDE widgets.

My network randomly drops. A restart fixes but I can’t even download Cyberpunk with my 1GB connection before it crashes. Klogs showed something about the network manager successfully shutting down but I can’t find much else.

Are you using Wi-Fi or Ethernet? What's the output of inxi -Nx when you run it in a terminal? (it's a cool system information tool, you can install it with a sudo pacman -S inxi)

For Radeon Software I found https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/amdgpu-installation on AMD's site but I would heavily recommend that you first try to find if your distro has already repackaged it somewhere.

I can’t help you with your issues but I’m interested to see what the recommendations are for alternative applications. I’m planning a switch to Linux soon

I don't know what "super resolution" actually means but if you're on Xorg / X11 then you can set arbitrary scales for your monitors if you want a 1080p monitor to have 2 times as many virtual pixels than its native resolution then you can run xrandr --fb $((1920*2))x$((1080*2)) --output --pos 0x0 --mode 1920x1080 --scale 2x2 fb is the whole desktop size, increase it if you have multiple monitors. For finding out what ID you need to give for --output run xrandr without any arguments and try to recognize your monitors, or trial and error. Pos is position, if you have several monitors then your 2nd monitor should not be at 0x0 but somewhere like 1920x0 for example. Mode is the unscaled resolution you want to give the monitor, with scale 2x2 an actual 1920x1080 will be 3840x2160 virtually, your fb parameter needs to be configured WITH the SCALED size, not unscaled.

First of all: https://manjarno.pages.dev/

3. HDR controls. Nothing in the display settings so I’m lost

HDR is still WIP.

4. Alternative Software I haven’t spent a lot of time looking but things like wallpaper engine, rainmeter, powertoys.

Wallpaper Engine: Not a perfect replacement, but you can set a gif as a Wallpaper in Plasma. If that isn't enough, there are alternatives (I don't know what they can do).

Rainmeter: Also not a perfect replacement, but Plasma Widgets should at least provide the functionality.

PowerToys: Always on Top, Awake, Color Picker, & Run already have equivalent features in Plasma. File Explorer add-ons, File Locksmith, Hosts file editor, & Registry Preview aren't needed because Linux. The others have replacements on a case-by-case basis, check the "Get More (whatever)" in the settings of relevant KDE apps.