Getting set up

[clust3rfck]

Hi all.
Sorry if this has been asked a million times.
I am just getting Mint set up. I am trying to figure out how to get everything set up.
Everything like:
Changing which screen is my main display. Interestingly Mint recognizes I have two displays and I didn't have to down load the drivers for my graphics card. But I would like to still download them. They don't make a linux version it appears.
Same with the utilities for my motherboard.
I would love a program to monitor temps and speeds like hwinfo64 or something similar.
So far I don't see what the fuss is about Linux except the manufacturers don't make anything for it... Is that the point? If I want something in Linux do I have to create it?
Honestly I was expecting something more like a DOS set up. This is incredibly cool the way it is, I just don't know what to do with it.
I have tried to create a signature line with my computer specs, lets see if it worked...

 

[f33dm3bits]

Looking at your specs I see that you have a Radeon GPU in your system. AMD has open-sourced it's drivers which made it possible to add the drivers to the kernel, so your system is using the drivers in the Linux kernel, so no need to download them and they will be updated automatically when you install a kernel update. For fan control and such you already had some suggestions on your other topic.

 

[Jared.]

There are alternatives to hwinfo64 such as lm-sensors, ksysdata and netdata, if you want a graphical user interface. For terminal user interfaces, there's hwinfo, lshw, more, hardinfo and kinfocenter. I, personally use netdata, lshw and hwinfo.

As for drivers for your graphics cards, as listed above. AMD provides open source drivers. They are usually preloaded in most Linux distributions with the exception being those that have minimal installations such as Arch or Gentoo.

 

[clust3rfck]

Looking at your specs I see that you have a Radeon GPU in your system. AMD has open-sourced it's drivers which made it possible to add the drivers to the kernel, so your system is using the drivers in the Linux kernel, so no need to download them and they will be updated automatically when you install a kernel update. For fan control and such you already had some suggestions on your other topic.

Crap! I forgot I made that post. If a moderator wants to close this post I can work off of the other one. I did not mean to double post.

 

[clust3rfck]

There are alternatives to hwinfo64 such as lm-sensors, ksysdata and netdata, if you want a graphical user interface. For terminal user interfaces, there's hwinfo, lshw, more, hardinfo and kinfocenter. I, personally use netdata, lshw and hwinfo.

As for drivers for your graphics cards, as listed above. AMD provides open source drivers. They are usually preloaded in most Linux distributions with the exception being those that have minimal installations such as Arch or Gentoo.

What about the drivers for my MOBO? Are they available or included? I tried to check out armory crate to see if it would work better on Linux than on windows, but there doesn't seem to be a version for me.

 

[Jared.]

What about the drivers for my MOBO? Are they available or included? I tried to check out armory crate to see if it would work better on Linux than on windows, but there doesn't seem to be a version for me.

That's a bit harder for me to critique, as I don't really own prebuilt desktops. But for my custom built one, I was able to download the drivers from the manufacturer's website into a usb stick and flash it onto my motherboard through the BIOS. If everything is working, you should not be worried about the drivers. I am unsure if ASUS uses their own motherboards or an OEM variant but if the former is the case, then you can just doenload the dirvers from their sites (if you are able to locate the prticular motherboard in question).

 

[clust3rfck]

That's a bit harder for me to critique, as I don't really own prebuilt desktops. But for my custom built one, I was able to download the drivers from the manufacturer's website into a usb stick and flash it onto my motherboard through the BIOS. If everything is working, you should not be worried about the drivers. I am unsure if ASUS uses their own motherboards or an OEM variant but if the former is the case, then you can just doenload the dirvers from their sites (if you are able to locate the prticular motherboard in question).

Not BIOS update, drivers for my RGB and other utilities that came with the motherboard. My computer definitely isn't prebuilt. That is one of the reasons I switched to Linux hoping my utilities would actually work. I still don't know if I have to somehow create these utilities or if I can just download them.

 

[clust3rfck]

Having issues with sound. pretty badly. After just a few minutes of anything with sound it starts to fuzz out. Almost like static. If I switch my output it gets worse.
Restarting it fixed it last time. For exactly 2 minutes 15 seconds...
Thoughts? I don't see any updates available in my notification center.

 

[Condobloke]

make sure that PAVC (puls audio volume control) is installed

It is available in the Software Manager