Gaming

The package repository maintained by TUXEDO Computers contains Lutris [5] and the Heroic Games Launcher [6]. Lutris lets you access your game libraries on Steam, Humble Bundle, Epic Games, and GOG in a common interface. Lutris also integrates various emulators. The package description does not tell you about the steps needed to set it up; however, a post on the Lutris forum [7] can help.

You won't be able to download Steam games on Lutris until you set up the Steam client. To access the Steam client directly, set up the Steam installer package in Discover and then running Games | Steam. An installer downloads the latest Steam version and launches the interface, letting you log in and download games. As soon as this is working, games can also be launched via the game overview in Lutris. Further notes on gaming can be found in an article on the TUXEDO website [8].

TUXEDO Tools

The start menu contains a TUXEDO category with two programs, TUXEDO Control Center and TUXEDO WebFAI Creator. These applications are accompanied by a command line tool named TUXEDO Tomte. However, the use of these applications only makes sense when TUXEDO OS is used for the original purpose, i.e., when it is run on a computer made by TUXEDO.

The Control Center displays hardware information such as the CPU and GPU temperatures, as well as the fan speed (Figure 4). Profiles let you define settings for different scenarios (fan, power consumption, or computer performance). In the System monitor area you can define, for example, how many CPU cores the system uses and at what minimum and maximum clock frequencies. This also worked on our lab computer.

Figure 4: The TUXEDO Control Center is intended for systems running on TUXEDO hardware.

Two of these profiles can be enabled automatically when you switch to mains or battery operation on a laptop. Owners of TUXEDO hardware with external water cooling (TUXEDO Aquaris) can also control the fan speed and color LEDs of the device connected via Bluetooth in a separate tab [9].

The WebFAI Creator creates a USB stick that fully automates the process of installing TUXEDO OS and other distributions, along with different desktop variants of Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Manjaro, and elementary OS (with an encrypted or unencrypted file system in each case) on a computer. WebFAI downloads the files required for the installation from the web after you choose a system. You cannot change the configuration with this kind of installation. WebFAI is available in the boot menu of a TUXEDO OS installation so that, for example, you can reinstall a crashed system even without a USB boot stick.

TUXEDO tomte is a driver update tool for computers from TUXEDO Computers; it automatically searches for new driver versions for the device when booting the computer and automatically installs them.

If you are running TUXEDO OS on an unsupported machine, you can remove these components with the command from Listing 2. However, the menu entries in the separate TUXEDO submenus are retained, and calling these entries will cause error messages. To get rid of the menu items, launch the Menu Editor, select the TUXEDO entry, and press Delete. Confirming and then saving alleviates these worries.

Conclusions

TUXEDO OS cut a fine figure on our lab computer, booting faster than either Ubuntu or Windows on our test device. KDE and the standard applications run smoothly, and the interface looks well thought-out and preconfigured.

Some extras such as the TUXEDO Control Center cannot be used meaningfully on third-party devices but this was only to be expected. And you can uninstall the additional programs without any problems. We had no objections to the choice of pre-installed programs. If you don't like Ubuntu's Snap containers, you will be happy about their absence.

The Lutris gaming platform requires the presence of the Steam client to be fully functional. The steps required to integrate Steam into your game collection require some extended searching on the web.

Apart from this, the preview version of the latest Tuxedo operating system is already very usable, even without a Tuxedo laptop or PC. If you like to experiment with alternative Linux distributions, Tuxedo OS is an interesting option.