Hello and welcome back to the Casual Gamer. Many of you have shown great interest in Nobara,
so in this video, I'll be sharing my experience with it. However, before I dive in, I want to address
the sound issue that some of you have been experiencing when installing Nobara after
the bios update. By the way, installations can be a lot easier
when done on a big screen. So if you are looking for a dock, maybe the
6-1 dockingstation from Ivanky is for you! Play your games on the big screen, and experience
gaming in a whole new dimension! Experience silky smooth gaming on the big
screen! Thanks to 30W turbo mode support, for the
ROG Ally. the Dock also has PORTS! so you can attach your, PERIPHERALS and an ETHERNET cable for WIRED LIGHTNING
FAST INTERNET SO what are you waiting for ?! BUY IT NOWWW! When I created the guide, my ROG ALLY was
running on BIOS 323, which was the latest version at the time. In the past few weeks, two new BIOS updates
were released, 330 and 331. Unfortunately, those who installed Nobara
after updating to the latest BIOS have been encountering problems with both face button
controls and audio. I personally tested this and can confirm that
upgrading to 331 led to the loss of audio and face button controls. Updating Nobara didn't resolve the issue,
at least not at the time I made this video. It appears that the Nobara-fixes custom Kernel
may address the audio problem, but I had issues when running the commands. As I mentioned in a previous video, I'm not
a Linux expert and may be missing something here. So, I found it simpler to roll back my BIOS
from 331 to 323. You can find the links in the video description. To do this, simply download Winflash and the
323 BIOS file from the Asus website. Install Winflash and extract the BIOS archive. Once installed, open File Explorer and locate
Winflash. Copy the path and open Command Prompt, type
"cd," and paste the copied path. Then, type "winflash /nodate." Winflash will open, select the extracted BIOS
file, click "Update," and then exit. Restart your Ally, and it will boot into the
BIOS and flash your device with the 323 BIOS. Proceed as usual, and once done, it will boot
back into Windows. Now that we've tackled this, let me share
my experience with Nobara and answer some of your questions. Why install Linux in the first place? Just open Task Manager, and that should provide
you with the answer. Windows consumes 40% or more of available
resources upfront. If you have a 32GB device, this might not
be a big concern, but with 16GB shared memory, every resource counts. The more programs you have running in the
background, the worse it gets. Exactly why I recommend treating these devices
as gaming machines. If you intend to do more than browsing the
internet, consider getting a laptop or desktop instead, at least those can be upgraded to
some extent. I read a Reddit comment suggesting that those
seeking a PC experience should use Windows, while those desiring a console experience
should use SteamOS. Let me tell you that making these devices
fully functional often requires more than just downloading a driver or installer and
running it. While most Distros like ChimeraOS and Nobara
offer a good out-of-the-box experience, as you've seen in my Nobara video, it can be
challenging to get everything working. This is one of the major downsides. If you're not willing to spend time on GitHub
or Discord, and deal with command lines, Linux may not be for you. The out-of-the-box SteamOS experience on a
Steam Deck is not here yet, at least not on the ROG Ally. Just getting the TDP controls to work can
be a challenge, if you have no Linux knowledge. I personally attempted to install Nobara three
times. I gave up twice, when I couldn't get the face
buttons to work. On the third attempt, I dedicated an entire
weekend to gather information to make it work. Unfortunately, there are a few things that
don't work on the Ally, at least not yet. For instance, putting the device into sleep
mode messes up the buttons. It seems that Asus isn't very supportive when
it comes to making things work on Linux. Hats off to the individuals that spent their
valuable time reverse engineering the system, to get Ally functionality in Linux, to its
current state. I have not tested gyro controls, but read
that it’s functional in some limited way. If you watched my last video you saw that
we can install a flat package for fan controls, which includes some other features. We also have a slider to set the charging
limit, just like Battery care on Windows. Someone in the comments mentioned that the
fan profiles won’t stick, but I tested the function with custom fan curves, and can say
that they are still functional after restarting the device. Just make sure you tap on apply. Maybe the mentioned issue was fixed in a recent
update. But Now to the question that’s probably
burning in everyones mind: What about battery life and performance? Well, whether you use 20W in Windows or Linux
doesn't make a difference. Energy consumption is the same, so expect
similar results in terms of battery life. Regarding game performance compared to Windows,
Nobara offers similar or near-identical performance. Some games even run better on Nobara. For example, Lords of the Fallen looks completely
flat on Windows, and there's no word on a fix. Another example is Metal Gear Revengeance,
which won't even start on Windows 11. But then there are games that don’t run
on Nobara but run fine on ChimeraOS, and most of the time this seems to be because the distros
are using different versions of the MESA drivers. But if you know how, you can always roll back
your mesa drivers to an earlier version. That sums up my thoughts on Nobara. If you have an extra SSD lying around, go
ahead and test drive it. For those who need to wipe their Windows installation,
I understand that the lack of certain features can be a drawback. While it's said that Nobara and ChimeraOS
are close to resolving the sleep issue, it's uncertain how long it will take. Just know that I'm keeping an eye on both
the Nobara and ChimeraOS Discords, so I'll give you a heads up when the time comes. For now, I'm playing Lords of the Fallen on
ChimeraOS on my AyaNeo 2. Unfortunately, the Mesa driver version that
comes with Nobara has a regression that causes Lords of the Fallen to crash in certain situations. I've been playing for more than 50 hours on
my AyaNeo2 without a single crash, although at a lower frame rate. However, the Neo2 can achieve 30-50fps at
900p, having capped the device at 20W. I'm really enjoying the larger battery on
the device. Anyway, that's enough about Nobara. Before I end this video, I want to express
my gratitude to all my subscribers. I was floating at around 100 subs a month
ago, and I'm happy to say that the channel has now crossed 200. So, thank you all for your support! That wraps up today's video. If you enjoyed it, please like and subscribe. Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see
you in the next one!
