Anyone tried Linux on an MSI laptop?

What to expect in terms of drivers? will it work?

I'm thinking of trying Linux Mint - Cinnamon

Is there a way to get the keyboard lights to work and control them? how about the FN keys and the dedicated keys on the right to switch GPU and whatnot

 

Your MSI light will not be controlled unless someone from MSI has a repo in github.
Did my checking and it should work. Considering Mint, I'd say it will install either 4.8 or 4.11 kernel.
Install all OS updates and app updates. After that, proceed to install nvidia drivers. I think its better to image this using MR because nvidia drivers may produce black screens so disable SLI, CPU OC etc in BIOS.
Don't install nvidia drivers from Mint instead use this link https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa
Some times Fn key might not work, so upgrade to 4.11 or 4,13 kernel for best performance. Use TLP, added tweaks for max battery life etc..
One more thing, disable RAID and use AHCI. So backup all drives just in case, if Linux messes them up. RAID install might give a black screen sometimes(Mine refuses to boot on RAID and prefers AHCI)
Disable Power savings on Killer Wifi, BT, add noatime to all SSDs. NVMe drives will not use a scheduler and SATA drives use cfq or deadline depending on Mint's preference.
There are lot of things I forgot to tell you. So, I'll update this thread once I remember them.

 

I don't understand how NVMe drives can get away without scheduling. Also, I remember back in the day on my Android phones whenever I rooted and ran a custom ROM that had a fully unlocked bootloader I could flash performance kernels that ripped tasks to shreds compared to the stock kernel/scheduler, albeit with more (or sometimes less) battery draw and in some cases stuttering of music or similar when heavy multitasking due to no prioritizing of media in such cases.

Are there various kernels that can be experimented with at the system level to gain more performance/battery life/etc depending on the install?

 

For music/video there's low latency kernel which is present in Ubuntu Studio. Battery life is very good on linux kernel 4.11 and 4.13, I get 8hrs+ on iGPU with TLP and powertop tuned for max battery life. No undervolt whatsoever.
EDIT: Whenever you use a scheduler NVMe simply bypasses them. You can check phoronix benchmarks on various disk schedulers. So far, default no scheduler gave best performance. Possibly blk_mq or CFQ is possible alternative.

 

well sounds like a lot of things won't work and no RAID. Not very enthusiastic about it. I'll try booting from a USB and see how it is

 

If you really use RAID then Intel says Linux does support RAID 01|10|5.
Use LiveCD and use synaptic pkg mgr to install latest mdadm and use this link I got on linux mint https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=129866
It seems you're lucky after all. One more thing I forgot to tell you was, before install prop. nvidia drivers disable secure boot in Linux only using

sudo mokutil --disable-validation

 

Hello there,

I have owned both a GT83 Titan and the previous generation MSI GS43VR 6RE Phantom Pro, and both units were used on a dual boot system with Linux and Windows 10 coexisting peacefully on the same NVMe SSD.

Now, for the keyboard backlight, you can either use the MSI keyboard GUI or if you prefer a command-line approach (recommended if you use wrappers around it). Another project combines the latter with a fully functional GUI.

With Linux, you may run into small issues with the HD Audio jack's Headphone output if you're on an older kernel with older ALSA libs.

Some WMI hotkeys, particularly the shift key, will not work at all.

The rest works as expected.

With NVIDIA Optimus, on Ubuntu-based distributions such as Mint, that should work out of the box for you. For troubleshooting, I'd highly recommend going through Arch Wiki's entry on that subject.

 

Try this alsa package for Creative SB, I am unsure what sound chip Sabre or Nahimic uses but its worth a try. https://code.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-audio-dev/+archive/ubuntu/alsa-daily/+packages
On linux kernel 4.11 and above most hotkeys on skylake and above works out of the box.
I couldn't get Optimus Prime to auto switch like Windows on proprietary driver. With nouveau, of course the switchable gfx worked but lacked Compute acceleration like OpenCL/CUDA.
Even bumblebee doesn't work correctly these days and often nvidia-prime must be used to switch between iGPU and dGPU which is followed by logging out of current session for switching to work.
Were you able to get Optimus prime to auto-switch using prop. nvidia and intel drivers? If so, please help me.

 

I tried setting up PRIME on Ubuntu via the bumblebee project and never got it to work on the MSI.

Outstanding bugs with switchable graphics on Linux is HDMI Audio from the NVIDIA GPU, it doesn't work at all.

 

Bumblebee is obsolete. Only option is nvidia-prime package. You need to switch explicitly for the audio to work. If you use iGPU and connect to HDMI port then it might not work. So, you need nvidia chip to be in active state to achieve this.

 

By the way, I was never able to install the alsa dkms package.

Time to try a live boot of Fedora 28.

 

Might wanna open synaptic and click mark all upgrades to solve dependencies issues.

 

Still, no dice.

The package refuses to build the dkms module due to a kernel version mismatch. It recommends a downgrade to Linux 4.4 series which, for Kabylake processors, is too old.

A real dilemma.

 

Did you manually remove old kernel 4.4 and 4.8? You need latest GCC and other stuffs too.

 

I tried booting off the USB of Linux Mint Cinnamon and this is what I got:

 

Hello there,

You'll need to edit the kernel boot options (press 'E' on the highlighted boot entry) and add the option nouveau.modeset=0 to the linux line. This entry details the needed workaround.

For Pascal hardware, booting the stock kernel with modesetting enabled for the nouveau driver will result in a panic.

When you're done installing the proprietary driver (which also blacklists nouveau in the process), you can safely boot without this option.

You can find a good explanation for that and other useful kernel options on this forum thread.

Someday, when nouveau's feature parity for Pascal matures to the same level as that of older GPUs such as Kepler, you won't need that option anymore. But for now, this is a necessary evil.

 

you see, this is why I never tried Linux before, this *** doesn't work out of the box. For a version 18.3, I expect it to at least freakin' let me boot the normal way without having to do anything.

Not saying that I can't do what you said but this is not something that makes me enthusiastic about ever switching to Linux

 

As a daily Linux user, I understand your sentiments.

As far as hardware enablement on Linux is concerned, it will always be an uphill battle for the foreseeable future.

Sure, things are getting better and better by the day. However, this is the kind of inconvenience that keeps potential users away from Linux.

 

Can you adjust SLI settings in BIOS. Disable that.
Mr. @Phoenix Was RAID disabled or not? I enabled nomodeset for both nvidia and AMD GPU for installation to proceed.
Re you sure mint 18 was built on linux kernel 4.8 or higher version. I haven't a slightest clue regarding Mint. I always used Xubuntu.

 

Here is what I get when trying to install that package:

DKMS make.log for oem-audio-hda-daily-0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1 for kernel 4.10.0-40-generic (x86_64)
Wed Dec 13 21:08:14 EAT 2017
make -C /lib/modules/4.10.0-40-generic/build M=/var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build modules
make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-4.10.0-40-generic'
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/hda_bind.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/hda_codec.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/hda_jack.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/hda_auto_parser.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/hda_sysfs.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/hda_controller.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/hda_proc.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/hda_hwdep.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/hda_beep.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/hda_generic.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-generic.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_realtek.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-realtek.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_cmedia.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-cmedia.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_analog.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-analog.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_sigmatel.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-idt.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_si3054.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-si3054.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_cirrus.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-cirrus.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_ca0110.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-ca0110.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_ca0132.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-ca0132.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_conexant.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-conexant.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_via.o
LD [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/snd-hda-codec-via.o
CC [M] /var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_hdmi.o
/var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_hdmi.c: In function ‘register_i915_notifier’:
/var/lib/dkms/oem-audio-hda-daily/0.201712130801~ubuntu16.04.1/build/patch_hdmi.c:2513:38: error: assignment from incompatible pointer type [-Werror=incompatible-pointer-types]
spec->i915_audio_ops.pin_eld_notify = intel_pin_eld_notify;​

 

According to me error looks like you're already using Realtek codec. Did you install linux firmware 1.164.x from lauchpad.net?
The above codec pkg works on Conexant, Sound Blaster, Cirrus Logic(Apple).
I'll check my PC what dependencies the pkg needs. I'll answer you tomorrow.

 

Linux is so complicated that you simply don't get how it managed to break 2 times already when all you had done were browsing and setting it up on only 10% for personal look and installed base preference.

It really takes you few tries to get used to it. I tried twice but I dropped it for such stupid bugs like "you can increase volume for up to 200 but as soon as you go out of advanced menu you again can't scroll above 100" on Mint Cinnamon. Which in combination with lower system volume than in Windows is enough to say fk it and fk those pricks who vote against feature enhancements even those which wouldn't change default look-feel but only give missing options to set as you need.

 

I had to clean install Linux 4-5 times to get a brief idea which drivers and apps works best.Takes 5 mins to install Linux but takes hell lot of time to configure/setup Linux.

 

Spoiler

I must say that Win10 nailed it from both worlds: It gets installed and updated longer than Windows 7 and gets messed up as easy as Linux. Win-Win as MS developers probably would say.

 

Sli, nvme, rgb, optical drive, wont work!! Also *IF* playing games you would get sudden drips on fps!!

 

I'm going to correct you on some things you stated above:

1. For SLI, that depends on your desktop environment. Stick to Gnome Desktop and the Gnome Display Manager (GDM) for best results. Unity's default compositor, LightDM, has been known for having multiple issues in the past with SLI, and this is not an Ubuntu-specific issue.

2. NVMe drives are fully supported on Linux since Linux kernel 3.3, and it keeps getting better. This includes full support for self encrypting drives (SEDs) through user space facilities such as sedutil and in-kernel support since Linux 4.14.

3. RGB for Steel Series keyboards works on Linux with a third party driver.

4. All optical drives work out of the box on any modern Linux distribution.

 

Okay,
1. I was talking sli for games, nvidia drivers for linux seem to have issue on sli.
2. Mine nvme ssd worked after i tweaked like 4 hours on diffrent sofwares and drives. Still linux cant even boot from nvme.
3. Msi gt83vr has a mechanical keyB with cherry mx switches, it aint a steel series keyB
4. I installed 2 softwares then my optical drive was just detected, blu ray drives seem to have problems with linux,
Anyways thanks man!!

 

Have you installed restricted addons package? I use Xubuntu so the package will Xubuntu restricted addons. It will be around 50-70 megs.

 

I'm very interested in knowing the make of your MSI laptop.

Being unable to boot from an NVMe drive on Linux with a machine whose hardware supports it is an anomaly.

 

NVMe drives boot perfectly as long as you use AHCI.

 

Exactly!

 

which I don't want. I like my laptop in RAID 0 not only for the performance but to combine my 2TB m.2 NVMe SSDs into a 4TB large partition

speaking of drives. I have my 1TB m.2 SATA and 2.5 inch SATA SSDs setup as a 5TB spanned drive. Will linux be able to see them and write to them or it doesn't support spanned drives?

 

Yes, depending on your RAID controller.

What's the make of your system?

Some newer Intel IMSM RAID controllers are not supported (yet). Follow this thread.

 

it's in my sig but in case you were on a mobile device, it's an MSI GT73VR Titan Pro

 

At the moment, no.

Your RAID controller is the affected model mentioned in the thread above.

 

Sigs and rep show up on mobile if you have your auto rotate on and turn your phone 90 degrees

 

Hi. I have an MSI GT70 updated with a 980m and i7 4910mq. I use it with 3xmsata ssds in RAID0. I have it with windows 10 and ubuntu 16.04 in dual boot (via grub, both OS's on the RAID).

It works flawlessly good. For me, ubuntu feels better than windows (I have always preferred it). I feel that the colors look better and also the performance is much better. Also, I prefer the Ubuntu audio from the W10 audio (not when I was in W8.1, where the soundblaster drivers worked properly, a shame for MSI such a downgrade in audio experience).

I can turn on the keyboard backlight with lights in white just pressing the hardware dedicated button to it. Time ago, I used a nodejs script for selecting the rgb colors, but I am not actually interested in it, so at some time I have lost it.

The nvidia drivers work good and I get the expected performance from my 980m. Buuut, and this is the only but, when prime is selected (rendering via the nvidia card) I get an annoying tearing. I tried some things to eliminate it but I never achieved any improvement. This tearing implies a very bad gaming experience... So, for gaming I just switch to Windows and I use Ubuntu in Intel mode most of the time. I used to train NNs in it and then I worked with prime mode and well, you can work with it just fine even having the GPU at 100% usage. It adds a little more tearing but it's OK to work with it.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

How did you manage to get it working on RAID? Did you use dmraid or similar? Linux never worked for me on RAID.

 

It works out of the box. But, in order to make the computer boot with GRUB, I needed to use boot repair disk ( https://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/). Maybe I'm a lucky one for what I see here.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

RAID on linux livecd never detected the disks in the first place.

 

For me it was not a problem. Detected and I could also make partitions.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

Lucky person in the world.

 

Yap... The raid drive was shown duplicated and with strange names but I could go ahead with that. The grub did not installed properly but after working it with the boot repair disk I got it working.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

That sucks, I had the same thing but chose to switch to AHCI and never looked back. Clean installed Linux almost 5-10 times because nvidia driver refused to work every time.

 

He can, because this is Haswell. IMSM RAID for that chipset works out of the box, in both BIOS and UEFI boot modes.

 

Is this still the case ? And what Linux distro do you belive will be most stable dualboot on a MSI GT73VR-7RF Titan Pro ?
I have tried Ubunto 17.10 as LiveCD(usb) and it seems to work, but I am so far not convinced weather or not I should try to do a dual-boot installation. I don´t care which Linux distro I get, as long as it works and I still have my windows as my a dualboot option.

 

Hello, the matter on RAID support is still the case.

When it comes to recommending Linux distributions especially on laptops, pick a distribution that puts effort into hardware enablement. Ubuntu, and its' variants (such as Manjaro) are a good bet, and the LTS versions are recommended over their latest builds as they do contain backporting work for hardware enablement and security patchwork from upstream too.

Fedora is also strongly recommended, in part, due to ease of installation and maintenance. I find Anaconda (their installer) and DNF (the package manager) to be faster at both deployment and maintainability. If you're more inclined to adventure, Arch Linux is there for you.

You should definitely care about which version of Linux you're planning to use especially if:

(a). Hardware support.

(b). Skill level

Are considerations.

 

+1.
I am using Alienware 15 r2 and installed Xubuntu 16 which had kernel 4.4 as stock and it was really worse & had to enable HWE mode like @Dennismungai said to upgrade to 4.8->4.10->4.13 to get performance on par with W10.

 

Regarding skill level in Linux.... I am a total noob With that in mind, I learned myself to program at the age of 9. At the age of 13 I made websites etc. for semi-huge firms. Knowledge sticks with me and I dont mind to get stuck in trial/error scenarios regarding Linux as an OS. I do however don´t like to start off with having serious hardware problems or thrashing my $4000 laptop in the process :O
I have without any luck tried to get a usefull reply from MSI, they stick to the words in the original first message in this thread with phrases like: "our systems are only tested on Windows" - "we DONT recommend that you try to install any Linux distros"...
I am well aware that I can easily run any Linux distro in virtual box, but for the purpose I have in mind and for the courses / self-tutoring way I have set as goals, I really just need a Linux distro that will work with my system.
I dont mind if a Linux distro won´t give me the same amount of juice available as my windows (due to fact this system was built for it), but I will require it to be able to utilize my m2 SSDs, my 32 GB RAM and my kabylake processor. If the graphics aren´t there for any gaming in Linux, thats fine with me. I will only use the Linux for learning the Linux way of life, and so my courses ment for Linux OS, will be more easy to follow. (I am trying to get back to my old hobbies, with a focus on pentesting with Kali Linux run in Virtual Box.. On a Linux OS). So I guess the virtualization technology from this laptop should also be running without any caveats in whatever Linux distro I end up with.
Sorry for the novelle, and thx in advance for any usefull answers

 

Even I tried programming under VM and experience was worse really much worse. All it took was 2 mins to install Linux and took me 3 months to tweak/setup all IDEs working w/o any issues. Just download Ubuntu or Xubuntu or Linux Mint. I personally have Xubuntu 16 with all latest and greatest kernels, firmware and tweaked for max battery life and max performance w/o any interference from AVs.