Jump to content

[GUIDE] Solving most common Linux issues - FAQ, general troubleshooting megathread reference, noob friendly

Guest

Intro

Why this?

Imo people will still ask the same questions again and again, because there is no general "gnu/linux" documentation and explanation somewhere, probably asking to some random dudes on the internet maybe also uncorrect and poorly made statements, so I would like to clarify everything that is possible here.
By that I don't mean I don't recommend asking on the internet, there are some valuable places like reddit, ubuntu forums, arch forums, level1techs, etc. but my purpose is to create a general troubleshooting help guide.

What is Linux?
Linux is commonly referred as an operating system, in reality Linux is just a kernel, the core part of it, which interfaces with the hardware and manages system resources.
Linux was made for educational purposes from an university student named Linus Torvalds as an Unix clone, a family of operating systems used mainly in workstations and servers, even today there are some of it alive today (MacOS is one of them)
Linux started getting popular because of the nature of it's source code, open source, everyone could modify and develop it freely, then became a single thing with the GNU project, a set of programs originally developed for the GNU operating system, which is also a clone of unix, which didn't have a kernel, leading to what we call GNU/Linux distros today, using the same open source license model. (GNU and Linux are acronyms, GNU is Not Unix, Linux is Not Uni X)
Today Linux is developed by hundreds of important companies around the world, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, AMD, and its present in mostly of the servers, supercomputers, , embedded computers (phones and TV's) and is part of the Google's Android operating system.

Do i need Linux?
It really depends, it's not that easy to answer this question, it has it's advantages but also has some things to consider at all.
There is not a very good support for the desktop usage because of the small quantity of people using it, while it excels on everything else, could be hard to newbies, but most of the times, for basic usage and if you don't have particular and specific demands it's fine.
Let's start with the main advantages.

Spoiler

 

  • It's free
  • Old systems are perfectly supported thanks to the variety of desktops
  • Most of the hardware doesn't need OEM drivers, everything will be mostly plug&play, they are included into the Linux kernel! And no need to worry about future driver updates as long you update the OS and the drivers will not break
  • Security, getting viruses is a lot harder than Windows, doesn't need antiviruses at all, most of the time just security updates
  • Stability, the Linux kernel is used on servers who have years of uptime!
  • Could be a very valid and better alternative for grandma and general purpose usage, especially on old computers
  • Easy to set up when everything is supported
  • It's not owned by anyone, the source code is free, that means you know what you are running on your computer
  • It's fast even on slow HDD's, no bloatware, spyware or telemetry and your data remains yours.


And the disadvantages

  • Has an higher learning curve especially when you need to solve issues
  • It's different than Windows
  • Vendors who don't include the drivers in the Linux kernel source code requires manual user install, even if it's not that hard since there are even GUI's (mainly WiFi chips, GPU drivers, etc)
  • Gaming performance isn't the best for poorly ported games
  • Mainstream programs could not be present, or if present the support would not be the best
  • You could encounter issues on new hardware or very specific niche products
  • A few times for very specific configurations, it requires the use of the CLI, hard if you never used one.

 

 


Best use cases/productivity vs worst
 

Spoiler

 

  • Linux distros are be perfectly suitable for: Basic general purpose usage (Web browsing, watching films, listen to music, taking notes, printing documents, editing documents) System administrators, developers, most of the artists with a graphic tablet, home servers, small PC companies for office work, virtual machines, network administration
  • Could be suitable for: Basic semi-professional multimedia editing, causal gaming, developing games, streaming, CAD designers, 3D designers
  • Could not be very suitable for: Professional multimedia (Video, audio, editing) especially if you are taught with the Adobe suite and you need it's specific functions and integration(please don't start a flame war on this) there is not adobe suite in Linux. Esports gaming(The programs used to make some games working are still in an alpha state, not very recommended for important playing, except some titles like CSGO, there are some issues with high refresh rate monitors and high polling rate mices), people who dislike linux

 

 


Which distro should I get?


There is no specific answer to this, linux distros are mostly all the same and they just differ but the set of programs which comes pre-installed, package manager, init, software branches and desktop environment

Spoiler

 

The most common linux distros are

 

  • Debian, which focuses on stability, but may be unsuitable for new hardware because of it's age, rarely drivers and functions get backported to it.
     
  • Ubuntu, based on debian testing, which focuses on newbies, this is probably the most common and supported one, and should have mostly the support to hardware, but it's not rolling-release.
     
  • Linux mint, based on Ubuntu, which is based on debian, which focuses even more on newbies by giving more tools and things pre-installed like a backup system, etc... Not that different from ubuntu though. It has it's own program store which supports snap, and flatpaks
     
  • Arch Linux, which focuses on OS simplicity, very minimal, no GUI preinstalled
     
  • Manjaro, based on Arch Linux which focuses on newbies, has cutting edge software which unless it's not supported for linux is suitable for new hardware, has a very-fast and rolling-release development, but it's still a bit harder to find software on it and has a slightly larger learning curve than Debian based distros.

 

Ubuntu derivatives like elementaryOS, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Manjaro flavours like XFCE, GNOME, KDE just have different desktop-environments pre installed, that means you could change them manually but they exist for not wasting your time

Desktop environments

Linux doesn't have typically a GUI, there are a lot of them out there. I will just list the common ones. They are all very-customizable.
 

Spoiler

GNOME: The desktop which comes pre-installed in Ubuntu, recommended for gaming but may not be very easy to use even though is configurable, uses GTK toolkits primarly, QT applications don't look that good in there, it's heavier compared to other DEs
KDE: Has a very windows-like feeling, with a set of eyecandy desktop elements, very good looking Kubuntu or Manjaro KDE, uses QT toolkits primarly but also supports GTK decently and it's very light compared to the past

Xfce: Suitable for old computers, you could try Xubuntu or Manjaro XFCE, not the best for gaming, but it's enought to get the work done, based on GTK
Cinnamon: Based on GNOME, doesn't have the same features though, sometimes is buggy I don't remember if you can play games smoothly with it

 

Recommended setup?
 

Spoiler

Not very cutting edge hardware in general.
Try the most stable Linux distro first, then move to the cutting edge ones. Just a suggestion

Desktop

CPU: All AMD or Intel chipset are just fine
GPU: AMD GPU, NVIDIA GPU have decent performance but some drivers bugs are still not solved since years (and they say open source sucks uh?)
Storage: nvME, SSD or HDD are totally fine. They will perform perfectly
Sound card: Integrated (not too new integrated ones) or USB sound cards are fine
RAM: No issues.
Wifi card: Newer wifi chips should be totally supported, atheros chipset are the best ones, old chips would require the install of non-free proprietary driver, which is an easy thing on ubuntu as long you have a working internet connection somehow

Laptop
The same but, a supported Linux laptop is recommended like the Dell XPS series, thinkpads in general, non-optimus dual-GPU, non-SLI laptops
Generally the old ones are the most likely to be supported

The Linux laptop compatibility is very difficult to tell because of vendor not supporting ACPI decently you could encounter a different kind of issues, I will explain later in this thread.


Will my potato PC run on it?

Spoiler

Yes, probably.
Most of the times old hardware is the best supported one, jjust don't except for games to run better on it


Is there a compatibility list somewhere?

Spoiler

Google, or the archwiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/



Troubleshooting

Very updated and recommended documentation, troubleshooting procedures, etc:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/
Also includes a list of supported laptops

Spoiler

The same solutions may apply on other distros as well, be sure that not every thing is perfectly the same

  • Like the initramfs generation method, which on ubuntu is /etc/initramfs-tools/modules instead
     

(More to add)

Useful links
https://pkgs.org/  Site where you can search for packages for every program from multiple distribution and format

Installation FAQ:


Help, I am sure I changed different USB drives/ports and re-downloaded the iso, and cheched the MD5 hash, reflashed the ISO but all I see is a blank screen!

Spoiler

Something is not working with your GPU, you either do not have the support for it for the distro you are booting, so it could not be supported, the best you can try is a very recent cutting edge distro like the development version of ubuntu or a distro based on arch like manjaro.

Intel cards should all be supported out the box

AMD should be supported out the box too, but try a recent distro just in case
NVIDIA cards may require nomodeset installation, then the nvidia proprietary install since the out-the-box driver is often crappy

You could try to boot through the vesa driver by adding nomodeset to the kernel parameters, but that won't solve the issue after the install you need to do that again

 

You can do that by pressing E at the grub boot manager menu after you boot the USB, and then adding after "quiet splash nomodeset" parameter


Help! How do I partition my HDD if I have Windows????? How much space do I need?

Spoiler

There are some tools included into a Linux USB live useful for that purpose.

Most of major linux distros are not taking more much than 8GB out the box, depending on the files you put and download on it, I would say 30GB is the minimum I recommend for one year of usage.

First of all, you could just use the installer partition manager, or GParted

If you are dual-booting, you would likely to shrink your main Windows partition with gparted, having something which looks like that at the end, you could just shrink the partition and let the installer use the free space

| Your 500GB Disk, GPT, EFI BIOS
|

100MB EFI PARTITION - - - - - /boot/efi  (Common for Windows and Linux)

|  XXXMB Windows recovery
|  XXXMB Windows nonsense partition

|  XXXGB Windows disk

|  XXXGB Linux main disk  ----- /

|  XXXGB Linux swap ----- swap

The windows bootloader will be replaced with grub


How much SWAP do I need? Do I need it at all?

Spoiler

Yes you do, unless you don't care about recovering from insane usage from certain bugged apps, SWAP should typically be at least big as half of the RAM, the installed should do that automatically btw


Help, how do I make an USB bootable drive from linux!!!!!!

Spoiler

There are some useful CLI and GUI programs for that

CLI
dd: usage is dd if=/path/to/.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=8M status=progress, where X is the drive letter you check with lsblk of your USB drive

GUI:

Etcher: For Linux/Other drives
WoEUSB: For making WIndows bootable drives

unetbootin: For linux drives



Input devices:

Is my X-brand gaming mouse supported for DPI changing, RGB, etc...? Unless it is a Zowie, which works plug&play...

Spoiler

It depends, if it is a common brand and model some people may have worked to get support for mostly of it, probably you won't get support from the software vendors itself since they do not care

You may check to github https://github.com/ 
your mouse brand and model

image.png.25da9c15222b05334b1aa0c943fba671.png


My touchpad is not working or I want to customize its setting

Spoiler

You could try updating the kernel, which automatically installs the most recent driver, using a GUI utility called Ukuu you can download on the internet

If you want to customize it's setting, you could just use the desktop environment mouse/touchpad setting

image.png.c9fa47e7e9b549c0ed2063bfbc476ed6.png


Desktop
How do I install programs?

Spoiler

On linux there are several ways to install software, each of them typically have a package manager with a GUI and a repository, which is a set of software which can be increased by manually installing packages downloaded from the internet or either using some thirdy-party repositories like in Arch Linux/Manjaro called AUR or PPA in Ubuntu
Package managers are not compatible between different linux distros, you can't install a .deb on ArchLinux even if the binaries on Linux are portable, like on Windows.

On ubuntu you use the Ubuntu Store which shows flatpak and snap packages and manually installs .deb downloaded from the internet
On ubuntu you could also install it through synaptic which is a GUI which shows only the deb packages present on your repositories
You can extend the software through adding PPA's and .deb packages downloaded from the internet

 

On manjaro you use pamac-manager, it also has support for the AUR
There are also on flatpak and snap support from the desktop store (GNOME store on GNOME, discover store on KDE) which typically don't support arch packages, but you can search for universal packages.

Flatpak and snaps are universal packages than can be installed in every linux distro


I have an HI-DPI monitor, how do I scale things?

Spoiler

Depending on your desktop, you can scale the DPI using GUI's and even different ways.

The easiest case is using a 2x scale factor.
On GNOME you can choose the 200% scale from the display settings, or use gnome-tweaks and setting the font scaling manually from 1.0 to something like 1.2 depending on your screen
On XFCE there is the DPI setting somewhere in the settings near the font one
On KDE plasma from the font settings you can choose any DPI you want, or use the 2x screen scale method from the screen setting page

Firefox for some reason doesn't scale correctly, you need to go into "about:flags" page and set layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to a decimal value between 1.0 and 2.0


Can I run Windows exe? I heard so

Spoiler

Yes, using wine, which is not an emulator, but a system-wide wine is not recommended, you could try Lutris and install it (has some apps too other than games) PlayonLinux (even if outdated since Lutris exist) and Wine

Check compatibility in https://www.winehq.org/


 

How about windows games? I heard about DXVK, how to I install it?

Spoiler

Yes, you could have your games supported, just check thorugh https://lutris.net/
Which automatically grabs the optimized Wine version and tweaks for the game you are trying to run, you could even decide to swap wine versions in Lutris and check if it runs better, like changing the DXVK or wine version to an updated one, just remember to check for scripts updates also

Note: DXVK, the alpha-state transition layer capable of running DirectX games through Vulkan in Linux with similar Windows performance, requires vulkan drivers to be installed
If you are on NVIDIA, uninstall mesa-vulkan-drivers package
If you are on AMD or Intel, install the mesa-vulkan-drivers package

(called vulkan-icd-loader, vulkan-radeon, vulkan-intel on Arch based distros)


You could even check for Steam Play/Proton which gives you everything you need including the optimized wine version, almost the 50% or Windows games run on Steam Play on Linux!
Check https://www.protondb.com/


Is there even some maintenance required? Cleaning old logs, program settings, etc

Spoiler

All the user-logs and programs configuration are located in /home/*user*/.hiddenfolders
Hidden folders in your file managers would not appear, they have a dot . before the name

 

System logs are present in /var/logs folder
You can safely delete them, they will compress to save disk space in the future and delete themself automatically until they reach a specific size

There is also a GUI program called BleachBit for that purpose

However, you will rarely need to do some maintenance on a Linux distro


Is there a low-blue night mode?

Spoiler

Yes, for GNOME X.org and Wayland sessions there is a builtin tool which works even on the lockscreen and login

For X.org KDE you can install redshift and run it manually or with redshift-gtk, or just installing redshift and then downloading a plasma extension called "redshift control"
Wayland KDE has this tool builtin in the settings

 


What is a wayland session and an Xorg one? What should I use?

Spoiler

X.org is an ancient and old display server for Unix-like systems, which lacks on modern features and functionality, it relies on unix sockets. It's stable, but also choppy and old but it could be still a valid choice today

Wayland is the new-generation display server for Linux, which would be able in the future to replace X.org and work better and be capable of everything X.org can't do. It could have issues, if you prefer to have a stable system, just use X.org

Note: NVIDIA proprietary drivers do not support Wayland. Thanks again nvidia. Would you at east release it's source code?


Are there any system monitoring features and apps?

Spoiler

Yes, mostly.

Depending on your desktop, you could install GNOME extensions for it's desktop, or KDE plasma applets showing temperature, or xfce4 goodies.

For nvidia proprietary GPU's there is the nvidia-smi CLI utility


Is there any print to PDF utility and PDF viewer?

Spoiler

Absolutely, every user friendly linux distro has everything you need for that pre-installed.

Also there are other free and open source PDF viewers in the distro repository you may want to try


I use KDE and an NVIDIA GPU and proprietary drivers, why is there corruption when I play games?

Spoiler

Ask NVIDIA, it's a 3 years old driver bug they seem just to not care about


I use GNOME and the desktop is choppy and laggy

Spoiler

You are not the only one, it's like that since GNOME 3, especially with NVIDIA drivers.

They seem to fix this in the future.

Also, if you are using a 144Hz monitor, it will be locked at 60


I have a 144Hz monitor and browsers are scrolling at 60fps

Spoiler

Again, tell browser developers, it's their fault.

No workaround is avaiable for that



Multimedia devices (Sound card, GPU's):

Help, my 3d GPU performance is crap! And/or I have issues with my graphic drivers (updating GPU drivers)

Spoiler

There could be some reason for that.

  • You are using the vesa modeset driver for some reason, you are in a virtual machine for example
  • First of all, if you are using an NVIDIA GPU you should defintely be using the proprietary nvidia driver instead of nouveau, use the driver manager on ubuntu
  • You have an AMD gpu with the Sea island or Southern island era, see the other FAQ about it
  • You should just update the graphics drivers, on ubuntu there is an always-updated repository

 

  1. For updating nouveau, Intel and AMD graphic drivers (Mesa) you use this repository, add it with the CLI
    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates
    You should also update the kernel, use this GUI utility called Ukuu
    sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:teejee2008/ppa
    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install ukuu

    Then sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
  2. For updating NVIDIA proprietary drivers, use this
    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
    sudo apt-get update
    then open the driver manager and choose the most recent driver


image.png.8ed909c3c0b94669e4c7b1ff54a8f933.png


Help, I have GPU artifacts! And I have an AMD 7xxx series or a 200 series, and my performance is poor!

Spoiler

Those GPU's support two drivers in Linux, which by default is using the old, not longer maintained radeon driver, we would like to use the amdgpu one which at this current state reached great stability and performance.

 

You can check the current loaded drivers with lsmod, and search by lsmod | grep radeon if it's loaded or not.
The procedure consists in modifying the kernel boot arguments.
Detailed explanation at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AMDGPU#Enable_Southern_Islands_(SI)_and_Sea_Islands_(CIK)_support

We can do that by editing /etc/default/grub, then at GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash", add GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1" if you have a Southern Island video card, or radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.cik_support=1 instead if you have a sea island video card.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units

Then just save the file, then do "sudo update-grub"
If you have the radeon driver still loaded, follow the other procedures as listed on the arch wiki.

If you still have issues, make sure you got xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu installed on Ubuntu, and xf86-video-amdgpu on arch-based distros


Help, my X model soundcard is not working!

Spoiler

Well, there is not easy answer to that. The driver could just not be available or could be workarounded somehow, and there is no specific and generic solution. Google is the best method for searching info.

If the driver is present on the kernel, you could just make sure to have the latest driver installed by using a newer linux distro or again, just updating the kernel through Ukuu

You could try again searching in github.com or even google. Just make sure to pick a recent documentation


Why are my games full of input lag?

Spoiler

First of all, you should know that not all desktop environments handle games very well.

The one I recommend for gaming are KDE and GNOME, just because they are capable of detecting games and disabling the desktop compositor even if in different ways.
Xfce just doesn't, ask it's developers

For GNOME, every fullscreen game will disable the desktop compositor, and you will have decent performance.
For KDE, every game, even if it's not fullscreen, you open that tells the compositor to stop running, will have decent performance, if the game is not detected, press MAIUSC+ALT+F12 to disable the desktop compositor manually (Examples, half life, portal 1, portal 2)
For Cinnamon if I don't remember wrong, it's the same as KDE but you can't disable the effects manually so you are screwed up for some games.

Lutris can be told to disable desktop effects manually for everything, especially useful for KDE, wine games would need proper patching and specific wine version, steam proton will do that just fine so you don't have to worry about.

Note that this also happens on windows when you play a borderless game or a windowed game. At least on KDE you can play borderless-ly without losing performance.




For NVIDIA laptop GPU, check power section

Storage:

Do I need to defrag my Linux partition?

Spoiler

No, you shouldn't defrag your linux partitions.

ext4, btrfs all put files in an intelligent way it wont' fragment your HDD more than 5% unlike NTFS

If for some reason you need to defrag your partition, you can try for ext4 sudo e4defrag / or sudo e4defrag /mnt/rootofsomeext4mountedpartition

Be careful to not do that on SSD's and unmount them before doing this!


How do I send TRIM to my SSD's?

Spoiler

In all user-friendly linux distros, there is a service which automatically detects if there are any SDD's in your system, and weekly send a TRIM to it.

You can check that by systemctl status fstrim if it's loaded


Help, my NTFS partition is mounted as read only!

Spoiler

You either have an hibernated (or fast boot) Windows on a dual boot, or a corrupted NTFS filesystem you should definitely fix with chkdsk on Windows

You could try mounting it as read/write with this set of commands


lsblk for checking the disk name of your ntfs partition
sudo umount /dev/sdXy where sdXy is your ntfs partition

sudo ntfsfix -d /dev/sdXy

sudo ntfsfix -b /dev/sdXy

sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdXy
sudo ntfs-3g -o remove_hiberfile /dev/sdXy /mnt
sudo umount /mnt


You could try mounting it again with your file manager




Power:
Help, my battery doesn't last a single hour! (Optimus laptops driver, and generic laptops, dual GPU laptops)

 

Spoiler
  • You are either using a laptop with an optimus nvidia GPU
    You should know that officially nvidia supports only ubuntu, and you need to install the proprietary driver through the driver manager note that you could try updating using the repository but there are some bugs in their packages, you would need to copy the old nvidia-settings binaries and libraries from the ubuntu repository to make them working!

    You should install the default ubuntu nvidia proprietary driver first, then save the /usr/bin/nvidia-setting binary somewhere then /usr/lib/libnvidia-gtk2.so.3xx and /usr/lib/libnvidia-gtk3.so.3xx and replace them once you install the updated nvidia drivers


    You could control the discrete GPU from the nvidia-setting GUI app

    There are some bugs with nvidia-prime and Gnome GDM vulkan-releated! Use Kubuntu or another display manager
    Vulkan only works on Ubuntu through the nvidia proprietary driver support, primus_vk is experimental with bumblebee and not present in repositories

    On all other distros, you may use bumblebee like on Manjaro, there is the driver manager GUI for that
     
  • You just need some tweaks by using TLP, sudo apt-get install tlp and reboot, check if the service is running by systemctl status tlp
     
  • There is no hardware decoding of video through browser in Linux, except experimental support from chromium (I'm not covering that, search google) which means more CPU usage during videos
    However, there is when watching videos through any desktop player, just be sure to have va api and vdpau packages installed in your distro!
     
  • For AMD dual GPU laptops, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PRIME I don't know how to manage it though, never had one, you should use PRIME=1 before loading a program and you should run apps through the CLI


Will thunderbolt 3 work? With a eGPU maybe?

Spoiler

It should, there is a TB3 driver on the kernel and on major distros, and Ubuntu GNOME/GNOME has even a GUI setting for it

The same applies as for installing drivers, there are also some guides somewhere in reddit

It should require the same install method as it is a dual-gpu like on laptops using the nvidia driver on ubuntu, bumblebee on other distros (with nvidia gpu's)
(Note that bumblebee shouldn't be required on Ubuntu when you can just use nvidia-prime + nvidia proprietary driver like on optimus laptops)
and PRIME method for other gpu vendors.

Check
https://egpu.io/forums/thunderbolt-linux-setup/egpu-in-blender-18-04-works-flawlessly/
http://pocketnix.org/posts/eGPUs under Linux%3A an advanced guide
 


Do i need the AMD proprietary AMDGPUPRO driver?

Spoiler

Short answer: No, the amdgpu driver is enough for everything

 

It's meant only for specific server workloads and will perform worse in some cases

And only supports ubuntu
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amdgpu-pro-1830&num=2



General driver install (Wifi for example, or generic):

Spoiler

Installing drivers is a different concept than Windows, first of all the Linux kernel is mostly made by drivers so everything should be plug&play unless the vendor or some guy didn't released the GPL open source driver into the linux mainline source tree, they are not included even on distros for licenses reasons, even if Manjaro should have it installed anyway (if i don't remember wrong even ubuntu has, if you choose to install thirdy party non-free components during the installation)

Binary drivers are not compatible between different kernels like on Windows (some WinXP drivers are compatible in Win10, not always the case but whatever)
DKMS is required for ensuring compatibility between different kernels for proprietary drivers, check for dkms drivers (Nvidia proprietary drivers in Ubuntu use this method already)

There are some ways to install drivers in linux, they are called modules, located in /lib/modules

  • The plain source-code install consists in using the make commands and make install through the CLI when you have the code in hand, you will probably need to reinstall them for every kernel update, just compiles the drivers and put them in /lib/modules, you may need to load it manually through the CLI by using "sudo modprobe *modulename*" or sudo insmod *modulename* if your module isn't in the /lib/modules folder
    A linux kernel service called udev should automatically load the driver automatically, but some times for some poorly made drivers you may need to force the loading by putting the module name in /etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf
    Check
    http://github.com/ again, you could find some drivers in there to try.
     
  • Your distribution could have the drivers in your package repository, which gets updated for every kernel update change so you don't need to worry that much, just search it on your repository by the module name, you can find this info on google pretty easily
    You could get the driver in form of dkms or not from your package manager repository, or by adding a ppa, or even from the AUR in manjaro
     
  • You could also try using the Ubuntu driver manager or the Manjaro one mostly for common chipset drivers, you would require internet access somehow though

Note1: For broadcom the wl driver is recommended where b43 doesn't work

Note 2: here is a list of wifi chips with it's respective driver modules  https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Main_Page
Also check https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers

Note 3:

Remember lsmod is for showing current running drivers, check for the installed one in /lib/modules
find /lib/modules | grep *modulename*

to checking if some driver module is installed


Note 4:
Try to check for the driver module name first from the system repository of your distro though (if it doesn't show on the driver manager)



Output devices:

Will my 144Hz screen work?

Spoiler

Yes, you can set the refresh rate through the monitor setting on your desktop, and your games will run just fine

Desktop compositors on most linux desktops don't support the 144Hz refresh rate currently so they will run at 60fps, but there are some people working on GNOME for that, don't know when the patches will become avaiable for all distros


Will my 2nd monitor work fine?

Spoiler

Yes and no, they will definitely show output, but especially if you are using X.org instead of wayland (If you are using the NVIDIA proprietary driver you are using X.org) you will encounter in v-sync breakages when running games on a single monitor and watching a video on the other, for example.

It's easy to set up through the monitor GUI setting of any desktop environment
Using xrandr is not required

If you have different refresh rate monitor, the vsync will break even in this case, unless you have Wayland, the NVIDIA proprietary driver doesn't support it, now you may understand why Linus put the middle finger at them for not supporting the open source driver

Playing games in this setup could cause strange focus issues, I warned you, especially on GNOME, try to alt-tab to workaround


Can I apply an icc color profile to my monitor?

Spoiler

Yes, you have different ways to do that depending on the desktop.

On GNOME there is a builtin color correction tool from the settings

On KDE you can install colord-kde and use it from the settings

DisplayCAL works on every desktop
https://displaycal.net/


Will G-SYNC and FreeSYNC work?

Spoiler

FreeSync support is planned for X.org amdgpu mesa drivers.
Not out yet. Maybe will come in Linux 5.0

The same applies on G-SYNC monitor, it seems that the upcoming NVIDIA 418 linux drivers, will support it as well.


Will my printer/scanner work?

Spoiler

If it works on MacOS, then it will on Linux too, they share the same printing system and drivers, called CUPS which support a large variety of printers, you do not need to worry about that

Any desktop distro should have it installed by default, so you would just need to use your desktop printing setting to set it up, it should automatically get the driver, there also is some direct support from HP for example in the ubuntu repo, an app called HPLIP

Scanners should work fine too, there are some programs in the distro repository about it.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SANE For scanners
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CUPS For Printers


My laptop backlight is not working properly

Spoiler

This has something to do with some buggy ACPI implementation from vendors, you could try the solution listed in there

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backlight#Kernel_command-line_options

Remember the kernel parameters should be added into /etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="...quiet splash ... here" and save the file
Just remember to do sudo update-grub after this

Also check the section below about ACPI issues


My laptop has ACPI-related issues (function buttons, etc)

Spoiler

Check

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ACPI_modules#Troubleshooting
AND
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DSDT

Again, you need to blame ACPI vendors which make buggy ACPI implementations and make drivers workarounds just for windows

Kernel parameters should be added like the "My laptop backlight is not working properly" section




Programs list:
 

Photo editing

Spoiler

Krita, photo editing program which also is very suitable for drawings, easier to use than GIMP
GIMP,  photo editing program, doesn't have all the feature photoshop has but you could get the work done anyway
Pinta, a .NET paint clone with some added features


Video editing

Spoiler

Kdenlive, free, open source, complete and open editing suite
Openshot, free, open source
Davinci Resolve Free edition, free, closed source

...


Video players

Spoiler

mpv, very small and minimal video player, uses the same VLC library, supports all the video formats in the world while being incredibly small

vlc, the usual VLC video player, works on everything


Music players

Spoiler

Spotify, free, closed

Amarok free, open

Lollypop free, open, eyecandy GTK3 based music player, supports last.fm

 

Other
 

Spoiler

Whatsdesk, a WhatsappDesktop client




WORK IN PROGRESS, I'm writing since 3 hours I will start finishing most of the things I wrote on my google keep later tomorrow...

TODO:

  • Better thread formatting
  • A lot of better content
  • finish the writing
  • Other common issues I should add
  • General program list, I want to hear from you guys too I will post the one I know

As usual please make suggestions, of course I will continue editing and improving this in the future, and please tell me if you see any uncorrect information or errors.
Please do not troll or hate randomly or I will immediately contact the moderators, if you have something to tell I will listen

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Spoiler

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

In all seriousness, good guide, should be helpful to point people to that are interested in linux.

 

Not sure I would recommend Arch for noobs though.

Current LTT F@H Rank: 90    Score: 2,503,680,659    Stats

Yes, I have 9 monitors.

My main PC (Hybrid Windows 10/Arch Linux):

OS: Arch Linux w/ XFCE DE (VFIO-Patched Kernel) as host OS, windows 10 as guest

CPU: Ryzen 9 3900X w/PBO on (6c 12t for host, 6c 12t for guest)

Cooler: Noctua NH-D15

Mobo: Asus X470-F Gaming

RAM: 32GB G-Skill Ripjaws V @ 3200MHz (12GB for host, 20GB for guest)

GPU: Guest: EVGA RTX 3070 FTW3 ULTRA Host: 2x Radeon HD 8470

PSU: EVGA G2 650W

SSDs: Guest: Samsung 850 evo 120 GB, Samsung 860 evo 1TB Host: Samsung 970 evo 500GB NVME

HDD: Guest: WD Caviar Blue 1 TB

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Black w/ Tempered Glass Side Panel Upgrade

Other: White LED strip to illuminate the interior. Extra fractal intake fan for positive pressure.

 

unRAID server (Plex, Windows 10 VM, NAS, Duplicati, game servers):

OS: unRAID 6.11.2

CPU: Ryzen R7 2700x @ Stock

Cooler: Noctua NH-U9S

Mobo: Asus Prime X470-Pro

RAM: 16GB G-Skill Ripjaws V + 16GB Hyperx Fury Black @ stock

GPU: EVGA GTX 1080 FTW2

PSU: EVGA G3 850W

SSD: Samsung 970 evo NVME 250GB, Samsung 860 evo SATA 1TB 

HDDs: 4x HGST Dekstar NAS 4TB @ 7200RPM (3 data, 1 parity)

Case: Sillverstone GD08B

Other: Added 3x Noctua NF-F12 intake, 2x Noctua NF-A8 exhaust, Inatek 5 port USB 3.0 expansion card with usb 3.0 front panel header

Details: 12GB ram, GTX 1080, USB card passed through to windows 10 VM. VM's OS drive is the SATA SSD. Rest of resources are for Plex, Duplicati, Spaghettidetective, Nextcloud, and game servers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, sazrocks said:
  Reveal hidden contents

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

In all seriousness, good guide, should be helpful to point people to that are interested in linux.

 

Not sure I would recommend Arch for noobs though.

Alpine Linux does not have any GNU software pre-installed though

ArchLinux is just there for explanation because I put Manjaro in the list, I've written in there it doesn't come with a GUI though, that was a generic list anyway

Also because the ArchWiki is the most complete for everything and I posted it as recommended documentation for troubleshooting, maybe people would definitely know what is arch tho


I updated some things in the list right now

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×