Shadowing Practice: I tried gaming on Linux... - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Last week, I built this Linux gaming PC on a livestream.
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I decided it was time to upgrade from my HP desktop with its integrated graphics and dumb proprietary motherboard.
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That desktop is rated W for the wrath of gamers nexus.
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The HP couldn't even play Halo 3 at 60fps, so I decided that this upgrade would be a success if I could achieve that on Linux with Steam and Proton.
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I was encouraged after I watched Linus' series on gaming on Linux, because last time I'd tried was in 2020 on a Kubuntu Focus laptop,
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and my experience back then wasn't that great.
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I decided to install Ubuntu Linux, and that resulted in over two hours trying to get graphics drivers installed on this thing, instead of playing games.
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Of course, that was disappointing, but I learned a lot from that experience and from further testing the rest of last week, and I wanted to share what I learned in this video.
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And TLDR, before you start commenting mid-video about my decisions, the main problem was the version of Ubuntu I installed was too old to have the right driver pre-installed,
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and yes, the best answer would be to use a more bleeding-edge Linux distro, but that's not the most important thing I learned.
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First of all, a lot of people have already asked, why didn't I just install Windows?
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I mean, if you're gonna install Windows-only games like Halo, doesn't Windows make more sense?
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Well, as I mentioned last week, I'm a Mac user for my workstation, and I run Linux on all my servers.
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I hate the idea of licensing for an operating system, and Windows just doesn't do it for me.
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Plus, I really wanted to test gaming on Linux, especially after Valve started building the Steam Deck and SteamOS, so Linux it is.
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But why Ubuntu?
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Well, that's a more complicated decision.
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Searching on the internet, you'll find a thousand lists of top Linux distros for gaming, and every one of them is different.
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Everyone has their own opinion.
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This is probably the main reason I don't know if there will ever be a year of the Linux desktop, Because there are so many options, and because many of them are good,
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and because so many people have their favorite distro and will die on a hill defending it, new users are faced with analysis paralysis.
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Heck, the best illustration of someone getting burned by that is in Linus' first video on gaming on Linux.
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He installed Pop!
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OS because so many users are nuts over it, but then when he encountered a problem with the installation, he pasted in a random command and he eventually nuked the entire install.
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I don't blame Linus.
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Heck, on my livestream, I ended up trying some random dumb things people were commenting in live chat.
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But there are too many foot guns in Linux, and the biggest problem in my mind is the fact
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that half the internet has bad information that might solve a problem in one case, but causes ten others for anyone else.
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And those distros, I mean, all stream long, I had people telling me that Ubuntu was the best option.
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Or the worst.
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Or I was smart for choosing the LTS release. Or dumb.
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Or that I should have chosen Fedora, Manjaro, Pop!OS, Mint, Arch, or one of another dozen or so other distros.
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But I stuck with Ubuntu LTS for three reasons.
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First, I'm familiar with Debian-based distros, so Ubuntu is comfortable for me.
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And I know from past experiences that Ubuntu's default desktop environment is pretty stable
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and is about as simple to use as macOS macOS.
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Second, almost all the most popular distros seem to be based on Ubuntu anyway, so why not choose the parent distro directly?
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Third, I chose the LTS because it's listed first, it seems like it has better support according to the Ubuntu download page,
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and Andy's own driver release notes mention Ubuntu 2004 and not 2110.
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So, what could go wrong?
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Well, a lot, apparently.
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After assembling the computer and figuring out I had to mash the F12 key to boot into the USB installer, I installed Ubuntu 20.04 and then Pharonix TestSuite.
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Pharonix is a great tool for running any kind of benchmarking on Linux, and I chose to run the Heaven benchmark to see how fast the RX 6700 XT would be.
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And that's when I realized I'd need to do some more work.
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The rendering was crawling at literally one frame per second.
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So I googled RX 6700 XT Ubuntu driver and clicked on the first result.
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That was my first mistake.
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I downloaded the 2050 driver using the the link on AMD's website, because that was the first search result that came up.
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What I didn't realize at the time was the 2050 driver was a couple years old, and I should have downloaded the 2150 driver instead.
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But I plunged forward anyways, and ended up breaking that install completely.
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I spent some time running other benchmarks, and was happy to see that this Ryzen 5 5600X was beating the average scores on benchmarking.org,
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at least for video encoding and kernel compiles.
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But eventually, I tried to do an in-place upgrade from Ubuntu 2004 to 2110, using Ubuntu's Do Release upgrade tool,
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and that kind of upgrade is always risky, and in this case it actually made things worse.
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I was getting 1080p initially, but now the monitor was stuck on a blurry 1024x768.
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So later in the stream, after people in chat were saying to mess around with Mesa and Wayland, two things I know I'd blow up even more during the livestream,
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I decided to wrap it up and dig in without everyone watching over my shoulder.
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I saw some commenters point out my mistake downloading the wrong driver version, so I erased the drive completely and installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu 2004,
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then tried installing the latest driver version from AMD's website.
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This time, I took the time to do everything exactly like their website says, and I still ran into an installation problem.
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At this point, I had two choices.
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Spend potentially hours futzing around with packages and desktop environments, or just try the latest OS release.
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So I went with the more bleeding edge Ubuntu 2110.
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After I installed it, I opened up the screen settings
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and could tell the driver was working right away since I could set my monitor's refresh rate to 144Hz.
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And running heaven was a much more heavenly experience with an average of 242 frames per second.
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A few people I trust also recommended Fedora, so I installed Fedora 35.
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Besides the background image being different, the desktop environment was nearly identical to Ubuntu's, and it also worked with my graphics card right out of the box.
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To finish my gaming tests on both Ubuntu and Fedora, I installed Steam, which was easy enough to do either by downloading from Steam's website on Ubuntu
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or installing from the software app on Fedora.
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I signed in, enabled Proton and Steam settings, then waited for Halo's MCC to download.
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I launched it with Easy Anti-Cheat enabled, hoping I could play multiplayer, and waited for the Halo 3 campaign to download.
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The campaign ran fine, and I even uncapped the frame rate limit in quality settings, and it still played great.
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But if I tried online multiplayer, I got this anti-cheat incident warning, and it said that easy anti-cheat wasn't enabled, even though it technically was.
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So it looks like Microsoft still needs to update MCC to get multiplayer working with Linux.
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Well, at least the campaign is still fun.
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But in the end, the problem was my fault.
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But like many things in Linux, because I chose the wrong path starting out, it took me a while to find the problem.
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And for people new to Linux, especially if they don't come with years of experience running Linux headless on servers like I did, it's not easy to know the right path,
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and it's especially difficult because of the responses you get when you ask for help.
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Throughout the livestream, everyone would question my distro choice, and everyone seemed to offer a different opinion about which one I should have installed.
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Use Arch!
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Use Mint!
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Ubuntu's terrible!
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Ubuntu's awesome!
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I'm used to that level of noise, and I have a pretty thick skin, so when people question my intelligence, I read past that and still figure out the problem.
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But for someone who might be getting to their first Linux build, it's maddening, and can quickly turn someone off from Linux forever.
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Over in the Windows world, the hardest OS decision is whether to install Windows 10, or suck it up and install Windows Vista.
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I mean, Windows 11.
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And on macOS, nobody cares because nobody actually games on Macs.
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So I would like to see how far we could take Linux once Asahi gets stable.
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I did want to highlight a few encouraging things though.
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First, when I did install the write distro, everything just worked.
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You might not think that's much, but 5 or 10 years ago, that was not the experience you'd get with Linux.
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Unlike my experience using random hardware on the Raspberry Pi, I don't have to compile kernels or custom modules anymore.
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I just installed the OS, and things like this 10 gigabit ethernet card just worked.
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RGB lighting was even easy to control with open RGB, though I haven't figured out how to control the RAM's lighting yet.
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It's just stuck in that rainbow loop.
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And things like PWM fan control, energy saving, all that stuff just worked.
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I was able to start using the computer right away.
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The last time I seriously gave it a try was on Kubuntu a few years ago, and at that time I still encountered a few growing pains.
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So it's gotten a lot better.
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But if there's anything I hope you take away from this video, it's be kind.
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If someone posts something that seems boneheaded and stupid, don't waste your breath pointing that out.
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We were all noobs at some point, and we all made those same mistakes.
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Instead, give a gentle suggestion about how to do it the right way, or maybe just don't say anything at all.
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The problem of first-time users being barraged with borderline toxic responses probably won't ever go away completely.
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But we can all do our part welcoming new members into the Linux community, especially as the Steam Deck is going to bring in a new generation of users.
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Until next time, I'm Jeff Geerling.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 109 sentences and 1774 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:09. The speaker talks fast, about 194 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 76% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- installed /ɪnˈstɔːld/ (verb) — readied for use
- install /ɪnˈstɔl/ (verb) — To connect, set up or prepare something for use
- desktop /ˈdɛsktɒp/ (noun) — The top surface of a desk.
- upgrade /əpˈɡɹeɪd/ (verb) — To improve, usually applied to technology, generally by complete replacement of one or more components.
- benchmark /ˈbɛn(t)ʃmɑːk/ (noun) — A standard by which something is evaluated or measured.
- enable /ɪˈneɪ.bəl/ (verb) — To make somebody able (to do, or to be, something); to give sufficient ability or power to do or to be; to give strength or ability to.
- graphics /ˈɡɹæfɪks/ (noun) — The making of architectural or design drawings.
- cheat /ˈt͡ʃiːt/ (verb) — To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation.
- multiplayer /ˌmʌl.tiˈpleɪ.əɹ/ (adjective) — Requiring or allowing multiple (or more than the usual two) players to play simultaneously.
- stable /ˈsteɪ.bəl/ (noun) — A building, wing or dependency set apart and adapted for lodging and feeding (and training) ungulates, especially horses.
- server /ˈsɝvɚ/ (noun) — A program that provides services to other programs or devices, either in the same computer or over a computer network.
- encourage /ɪnˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/ (verb) — To mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit.
- encounter /ɪnˈkaʊntɚ/ (verb) — To meet (someone) or find (something), especially unexpectedly.
- installation /ˌɪn.stəˈleɪ.ʃən/ (noun) — An act of installing.
- heck /hɛk/ — Hell.
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- figure out (verb) — To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
- end up (verb) — To bring to a conclusion.
- wait for (verb) — To wait until the specified event occurs.
- ask for (verb) — To request; to order.
- blow up (verb) — To explode or be destroyed by explosion.
- bring in (verb) — To move something indoors, or into an area.
- come up (verb) — To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly.
- come with (verb) — To join and come along.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 26 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, I'd. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thick /θɪk/, breathe /bɹiːð/, wrath /ɹæθ/, motherboard /ˈmʌðɚˌbɔɹd/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: benchmark /ˈbɛn(t)ʃmɑːk/, installation /ˌɪn.stəˈleɪ.ʃən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, suggestion /səˈd͡ʒɛst.ʃən/, illustration /ˌɪləsˈtɹeɪ̯ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: multiplayer /ˌmʌl.tiˈpleɪ.əɹ/, installation /ˌɪn.stəˈleɪ.ʃən/, complicated /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, technically /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkəl.i/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like installed, install, desktop.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is rated · was encouraged · are faced |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have already asked · haven't figured |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | Steam, which was · someone who might |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.