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Comment by robotmay | Hacker News Reader

Great application. There’s a lot of good open-source tools for gaming PC devices on Linux (such as OpenRGB) that put the official tools on Windows to shame. And they universally have boring, practical GUIs that aren’t branded for rad gamerz, which is such a breath of fresh air.

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Yeah in general every single HW specific tool that has a full support on Linux will have a better UX design on Linux rather than the original Windows version from the HW vendor, because those are usually pestered with custom UIs, custom concepts etc etc

Dont forget the advertisements for games and the usual privacy policy you have to accept to allow them to take whatever data they want.

I didn't check Logitech tools for Linux but on Windows their software was not only pain to use, but it made my UX with their otherwise excellent hardware WORSE. If I remember correctly the software broke mouse scroll wheel click in some game.

On the other hand, Ubuntu 20.04 reports mouse and keyboard battery levels quite reliably and that's all I need software-wise.

I got a Logitech G915 keyboard about a year ago. Its default backlight pattern without official Logitech (Win/OS X only) drivers installed is a hideous RGB wave pattern with varying brightness. Only reason the keyboard has been usable for me is because someone was generous enough to make and share a program for custom backlighting control on Linux (g810-led on Github IIRC).

Like you say, it completely beats out the official Windows drivers in terms of flexibility, not to mention it worked right out of the box and doesn’t force telemetry on the user.

MSI afterburner is the worst offender of rad gamerz UI for me. Not be ause it is the most crazy looking, it's really relatively typical, but because it ships with tons of themes but they couldn't be bothered to make a single one look normal.

Also it's a 32 bit app even though the drivers for the house it supports don't have 32 bit versions anymore. And it doesn't have a "apply OC and close" ability built in... Actually anyone know of an Nvidia OC tool for Windows these days that isn't so crap?

Checking the latest version it comes with 19 themes these days...

EVGA precision is okay.

TBH I like UIs that are built for rad gamerz. I don't like UIs that are built for rad gamerz that barely work because it was all the UI team could do to pull off the visual aesthetic and making the program actually work took a back-seat.

I buy alienware hardware but avoid their software when I can, it looks cool but barely functions.

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