I'm having issues with my PC freezing up after I alt-tab from games to my browser and back, especially since I'm playing older titles through Steam's flatpak. My PC isn't the most powerful and often handles games that are 10+ years old, but this issue is really frustrating. The only way to get it responsive again seems to be holding the power button to force it off, and I've heard that's not good for the hardware. Is there a way to address this problem without having to shut down my PC like that? I've tried using KDE Connect to restart it, but that didn't work either.
3 Answers
You might want to try using the native Steam package instead of the Flatpak version. Sometimes the sandboxing in Flatpak can cause issues with performance and responsiveness, especially with games.
To help with the freezing, make sure to check your RAM usage as desktop environments can be resource-heavy. Consider using a lighter window manager like IceWM to save on RAM. Also, you might want to disable unnecessary services and try using a more lightweight distro that doesn't rely on Flatpak or Snap packages, as they add extra overhead.
When your desktop locks up, try using Ctrl + Alt + a Function key. This could bring up a terminal so you can kill the game process instead of restarting your PC.
I'm on Fedora Atomic too, and they say to avoid layering with Steam. Have you thought about running Steam in a container? It might improve performance.