Hi
I am a relatively new user, with a little collection of issues. I would really like to ask for help, but I also don’t know what, if anything, I might be doing wrong. I would love to be guided if so, like if this potentially belongs in KDE discuss instead.
I installed Fedora 42 KDE plasma last summer, and although I have had some hiccups, I eventually went full-time with Fedora on my desktop, over my windows 10 install. In January I upgraded to Fedora 43, which from what i heard about it, is really exciting, but also has introduced new issues it seems.
I use my desktop for watching streamable video, playing games, writing, and am happy to tinker a little bit, however I’ve had some issues that to me seem could be connected to each other, and I have no idea where to start, or if I might have a completely borked install.
Since the start there are certain games that could lock up my computer seemingly when they filled my RAM and SWAP-memory. When this happened Steam and Discord would freeze, even if I managed to close enough apps to not be forced to use the power button to turn the computer off. Discord would still seemingly work a little bit under the frozen appearance, because restarting it would show whatever chat i clicked on while it was frozen, but I don’t remember being able to type anything. It also would sometimes crash KDE entirely (I think?) where I had no Desktop Environment to interact with even if I got out of the RAM-lock.
I upgraded my system since, including RAM despite the insane prices, and the whole computer doesn’t lock anymore, but Steam and Discord can still lock up, especially with Paradox games.
That is one of the issues, and one that has been pervasive since i installed Fedora 42. I am particularly confused because as far as I know Steam and Discord have few similarities, and other apps that run more similarly to discord do not freeze up.
…And to me it feels like KDE should have priority over games so as to not break from running a demanding game.
Then there’s the Task Manager of KDE. Frequently when I close a game the task manager stops being able to show the “start menu” (is it called application launcher?). This most often happens to one task manager on one monitor, however sometimes it happens to all of them, and sometimes it gradually becomes all of them. Sometimes the task manager completely stops showing up, both when i move my mouse to the bottom of the screen, and when pressing the meta-key on my keyboard.
This issue started a little over a week after upgrading to Fedora 43. It’s worth noting that when I upgraded it told me it failed, but after a reboot, it was running Fedora 43 anyway. I upgraded sometime in January, I believe. (To me) it would be tempting to think that this may be related to Proton/Wine, however it also sometimes happens after a bit of time, both while using the computer, but also sometimes while away from the computer. It means that I still occasionally have to use the power button to shut down the computer since i don’t know how to turn it off without the “start menu”.
I think something that may be related is that lately a lot of apps seem to crash instead of just shut down. It feels like it happens most often after crashes, but given that it also happens while AFK, I don’t know if that’s true.
Lastly around the same timeframe as the crashing apps, there seems to be issues with my GPU after i one time removed it and put it back, without turning it on in between. (I needed to test something in another system)
These issues also seem to have connections to crashing games and apps, as it occasionally goes away, and then comes back after a game crashes. Then the system warns me that sofware renderer is in use. The gpu still seems to be used when i launch games just fine, but it breaks a bunch of stuff, like graphs in system monitor. I initially thought that i just had to wait it out for an update to fix it, but it has returned regularly for weeks now.
I could be wrong, and everything is just being impressively handled by my CPU that doesn’t have an iGPU. Back when i had initially installed F42, it did manage to run Street Fighter 6 at 60 fps without GPU drivers I didn’t know I had to manually install. And the fans do seem to be aggressive, but the GPU does show up as if it’s working as far as I can tell.
Here’s the details from “About this System”:
Operating System: Fedora Linux 43
KDE Plasma Version: 6.6.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.23.0
Qt Version: 6.10.1
Kernel Version: 6.19.6-200.fc43.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 9700X 8-Core Processor
Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (30.5 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor 1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
Graphics Processor 2: AMD Ryzen 7 9700X 8-Core Processor
Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Product Name: B850M GAMING X WIFI6E
System Version: Default string-CF-WCP-ADO
I don’t know how to share everything y’all might want to see, please let me know how to find additional information if there’s more needed.
I’ve really enjoyed using Fedora, it reminds me of the ease and smoothness of windows 7, however these issues are starting to wear down my excitement. When trying to find solutions i run into language barriers as I simply don’t know the jargon people use in threads with slightly similar issues. A lot of searching also ends me up on many years old threads that I don’t know if are relevant, with fedora <40 systems and stuff. A little part of me has started blaming “instability” from daily updates, but that likely isn’t the issue given how persistent the issues have been.
I am not shy of tinkering, as long as it leads to mostly permanent solutions, but i have found the learning curve to be quite steep.
Thank you in advance to anyone willing to try to help.
