Linux Tips and Tweaks and Other Help

was looking more into the laptop to see how it would transition from windows and saw its factory calibrated (x rite pantone). if i copied the icc file from the the gigabyte recovery partition, what software could i use in linux to install the profile? and is that limited to certain distros?

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ICC_profiles#Loading_ICC_profiles
Or maybe the screen will look fine with no calibration? *crosses fingers*
The exact method will depend on which distro or Desktop Environment you choose. Linux seems to universally support ICC profiles though (just Google "linux icc profile").

Have you ever used Linux before? Starting off with Linux on a laptop will be a tougher journey than starting on a desktop. The Arch Wiki I linked is a top-notch source for solving many of your future Linux questions.


The quirkiest thing my current Linux laptop installation suffers from is that if I touch any key after the BIOS loads and before the Linux logon screen shows, the keyboard is completely non-functioning. How the fsck are you supposed to trouble-shoot that?

Additionally, the fingerprint sensor will probably never be supported. System 76 even sells/sold a laptop with the exact same Synaptics device that my Clevo PB50DF2 has, but Pop OS (and everyone else, since System 76 mostly uses already existing drivers...) doesn't recognize it.


Regardless... Linux is great.

 

it probably would look okay haha but im buying it specifically for the screen/calibration.

i tried Ubuntu on my last laptop, seemed fine. I'll be using POP as it works best for gaming.

that reminds of what i read about somebody trying linux on a newer ryzen laptop, it was reading button pressed as a power button press i'll stick with intel for now haha

 

The Cupertino Clown Possee and the Redmond Reprobates, with their bottom-kissing laptop OEM partners, do not want consumers to be able to install and run anything other than the latest Windoze OS X dung-eater abortion OS (or sMac OS X in the case of the CCP). Linux developers are really smart and talented, but they cannot build drivers for proprietary laptop garbage that they have no access to. So, it can sometimes be a vicious circle in that respect.

 

Interesting... NVIDIA DLSS on Linux is straight-up witchcraft and pulls ever closer to Windows

 

"Windows 11 could send gamers looking elsewhere, and as each day passes Linux becomes a more and more viable alternative."

Could?

 

Should, will, and has...

So did W8.X and W10 garbage. Although, I expect the numbers to increase now since Windoze 11 is shaping up to be the biggest abortion of them all.

 

More like prep-work for FSR which is cross-platform. I don't expect major perf. with DLSS on Linux with jokebooks anyway. Optimus is still a hit or miss on linux.

 

FSR (at least currently) is a terrible mess that improves performance at a noticeable cost in terms of graphics quality degradation. I hope they do not implement FSR widely even though it is cross-platform because it is only good for gaming with a weak GPU. That might improve in time, but right now I don't see it as useful. But, I do not have a weak GPU.

 

Yes initial version is not that great. Weak GPU, I didn't get it.
With consoles adopting FSR it will eventually come to PCs in almost all games along with DLSS. I think it might be merged into Vulkan or DX12 natively like AMD Mantle API if MSFT/Sony decides.

 

There is a wide misunderstanding that it is AMD's substitute for DLSS, but they are not the same thing.



Improved framerate is easy to identify, but I have a very difficult time spotting differences in graphics quality when gaming. It has to be an extreme decline or improvement before it makes any difference to me. I have to pause, stop, and carefully study... even then sometimes I find it difficult to tell or care.

 

I think you may be referring to legacy Bumblebee implementation of Optimus, which incurred overhead. The current implementation is via Nvidia drivers and should be OK? Anyway, you can switch to Nvidia mode in this case performance is basically on par with Windows, at least in Heaven benchmark

 

I am going to have to backtrack and see if I can figure out what happened on my turdbook so I can get it back how it used to be. I used to have no functionality of the Intel GPU and I could use NVIDIA X Control and Green with Envy to overclock the 2060. Somewhere along the way, something got updated and now NVIDIA X Control launches Prime instead of NVIDIA Control Panel and the hybrid graphics are re-enabled again instead of exclusive discrete GPU functionality. With Prime working, Green with Envy no longer works.

I tried to TimeShift back to before it got updated borked and that didn't help. I also tried removing Prime and NVIDIA proprietary drivers and reinstalling the drivers. Unfortunately, reinstalling the NVIDIA drivers reinstalls Prime, and Prime is still working as expected. I preferred it being broken with only the 2060 being functional. I really loathe hybrid graphics. (No, I do not care about how long I can run on battery.)

 

Based on my very limited experience this stuff is extremely fragile. In Ubuntu I just needed to install CUDA, to blow away all Ubuntu Additional Driver options for Nvidia (fortunately uninstalling brought them back). By the looks of it, Pop is the best Ubuntu-based distro for Optimus laptops - there is a custom Gnome widget which allows you to choose between Nvidia, Intel and Hybrid. Basically a wrapprler over Prime I guess, but still a nice touch.

Sorry to hear TimeShift didn't work... That's a bit disappointing.

 

Yes, POP_OS! is hands down the best for people that want Optimus to work as intended. It is a flawless execution on that. I install Cinnamon desktop to get the look and feel I want from POP_OS! and I am good to go. However, I intentionally installed Linux Mint so that Optimus would not work and it would default to the 2060 (ignoring the Intel GPU). That worked perfectly for me until recently. I am not sure when it healed itself, but I wish it had not. I dropped back over a month ago, so I am not sure when the change occurred. I seldom use the laptop so it may have happened a long time ago and I am just now noticing. I may just roll it back to like November of 2020 with TimeShift to see if that does the trick.

 

Not legacy optimus. In benching its OK but for daily usage its bad.

I had the same issue. It was either OS kernel upgrade or nvidia driver upgrade completely nuking the display and worst thing is advertised switchable GPU which is garbage on Linux. And worst of all was weird frame skipping on desktop even with max perf. enabled on nvidia X server settings panel.

Pop OS is based off Ubuntu distro anyway and the same switchable wrapper is being used Mate Nvidia control panel which default to Optimised or demand based switching.
Nvidia and Linux on a jokebook aren't recommended. Its best to go with either Intel iGPU or Radeon iGPU which works on par with Windows 10/11.

I know. DLSS can't be matched by another non-ML based techniques since DLSS performs much better as time progresses and can even surpass game developer's uncompressed texture or image assets.
At the end of the day, we want FPS anyway.

 

I think it may be a kernel upgrade. I may downgrade to a kernel that is 6 months older and see if that fixes it. Not a high priority since I avoid using the turdbook for anything other than occasional web browsing in my recliner... maybe 10 hours a month, perhaps less.

 

I don't see a point downgrading a kernel with nvidia, it breaks most of the time. I almost got pissed off a before my master degree thesis presentation when nvidia driver started acting weird and laptop was hot as hell!

 

I may try it anyway to see if that breaks it or fixes it. If it breaks it I can just restore the drive with Macrium Reflect. But, it would be ideal to identify what screwed it up so I can avoid it in the future. Technically, I think it is working exactly as intended, but I would prefer that it was not, LOL. I liked it better when it was what most people would consider broken with no Intel GPU, no Optimus, and only the 2060 functional.

 

I always have MR images in hand.

 

MR has saved my bacon more times than I can count. The more you tinker, the more you need it. It's almost a necessity, like having an SPI programmer for firmware.

 

POP_OS! with Cinnamon desktop. Lutris works nice for running Cinebench R20 and R23 on Linux. I have to run a CPU-X benchmark in the background to get the Turboboost clocks to show for screenshots.

 

So I mentioned earlier that I wasn't able to upgrade my Ubunto 20.04 that came preinstalled on my XPS 13 to Ubuntu 20.1. When I hit upgrade, I choose upgrade now but nothing happens.

I just tried using Dell's Recovery tool to have it download a fresh new image on my laptop and everything was fine until I Upgraded. This time, the upgrade did work but the moment the machine rebooted and I was on the desktop, it upgraded but no drivers were there, even WiFi and Bluetooth were not working! With all due respect to this community and people who love Linux, not only it is very annoying to install an application having to use Sudo commands but such basic thingssuch as a minor OS upgrade causing such issues is just not acceptable at this day and age. This OS is lightyears behind Windows despite all its telemetry, tracking, etc. At least it just works without having the person to reinvent the wheel.
@kojack @killkenny1

 

Why didn't you just install Pop! _OS?

The reality is that Linux is not for everyone, and Linux on a laptop can be extra tricky, unless you are using a super user-friendly distro such as Pop. Most Windows users probably never had to use the command line, never mind powershell.
With Linux the bar is definitely higher. Whether it makes sense to use it depends. Completely non-technical people should generally stay away unless they are prepared to learn quite a bit about POSIX and GNU. Benefits include much improved privacy and security, lower system requirements, improved performance in some use cases, access to native Linux tools and software without any emulation layers, unparalled flexibility of customisation, cost reduction etc. Remember Android is just a Linux overlay, MacOS is based on closely related BSD.

Put another way, Linux can be friendly, it's just a bit picky about its friends

 

Because of the drivers I guess? I bought this "Developers Edition" XPS laptop to finally be able to try Linux on a laptop without having to worry about drivers.

When I did upgrade to Ubuntu 20.1 from 20.04, it did say that it needs to remove some packages and there was no other option so I hit remove I think that was the problem then again, I am not happy that I am not able to update to just on .X version of an OS and run into such basic issues such as no drivers; heck, the most important driver which is the WiFi so no access to the net to do or fix anything.

 

Everything on my m15 with Ax210 WiFi 6E works out of the box on the latest PopOs, Ubuntu 20.1 was close, but less smooth with Nvidia drivers. Pop! just seems to be regarded as the easiest distro to use on a laptop. I quite like the default Gnome, but if you don't you can install KDE Plasma, Cinnamon etc.

The other question is: was your issue a vanilla Ubuntu problem or something Dell-specific?

Normally the fallback is to plug in the Ethernet to sort out the WiFi driver or install it from a USB stick.

 

Some people love cars, but their "maintenance" capabilities go as far as pumping their own gas, changing wiper blades and using a drive-through car wash. They can do a few more things like changing a blown fuse or burned out bulb as long as it does not require a lot of fuss accessing those things or time figuring out what they need to do. They enjoy driving it.

There are lots of people that love computers, but have a similar appetite for anything that is inconvenient of challenging. Linux is not for this type of computer user. They will go back to Windows or Mac OS simply because it requires less effort. They enjoy using it.

Linux is actually very easy most of the time. Considering the fact that it is used by such a tiny percentage of the overall computer market, it is surprisingly good. Poor documentation can be frustrating, even for those that enjoy getting their hands dirty.

 

Right. Apparently, Linux runs on about 2% of desktops and laptops (not including ChromeOS) which actually trebled over the last decade. I guess it's fair to say that anyone using a Linux desktop/laptop is part of the 2% elite in a good way

However, it has dominated the server-side enterprise, and other commercial applications. The result has been an investment in Linux development which does spill into the desktop experience.

 

Reps for getting Wine to run CB20 and CB23 - I only managed CB15 lol

Did you run installers? I think I tied CB20 portable and failed.

 

You don't have to upgrade from Long Term Service version to lower 9 months supported distro point release, the reason why LTS is released is prevent constant upgrades and frustrations.
In case you like you have bleeding edge kernel and always have system backups I'd suggest installing hwe kernel which will keep you on upgraded kernels used in 20.10.
Usually Linux install on a Dell jokebook needs a Master Degree in IT since their BIOS complicates things and works best with Windows most of the times. I usually had great out of the box experience on Lenovo, HP and Acer PCs.

 

Exactly. Distros like Mint, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. are really easy to work with. And they actually require less tinkering than an average Windows 10 install. Although if I remember it right at some point Ubuntu did come with some Amazon telemetry enabled out of the box some years ago, and that was the last time I tried it.

Frankly, if it wasn't for gaming, particular software and hardware I require, I would be perfectly fine with something like Fedora or Mint. But as of now only Windows ticks all my boxes. So for now I my Linux uses are limited to firing up a live image once in a while to check out things.

 

I had a difficult time getting R20 and R23 to work on Linux and, until recently, always failing because there are apparently some Visual Studio / C++ dependencies. Trying to configure Wine was not working for me so I gave up and used Lutris as the front end for Wine configuration and then it was very simple. (Simple after I figured out how to use Lutris.) I do not have Cinebench applications installed on Windows either. I use portable folders that are accessible for Windows and Linux on the same drive.

Yes, I agree about 99%. Windows software is the only reason I use Windows. Windows is easier, but it sucks because Micro$oft suck and they have a sucky way of doing things. Linux is much better, but it leaves a lot to be desired in the way of software. That is not Linux' fault, it is merely a symptom of software development being focused almost exclusively on Windows. I hate that, but I also understand being a software dev is a career, and doing things for free is not a career; it's a hobby. The whole point of a career is to make money. There isn't enough money to be made on Linux because not enough people use it, and most of those that do can't or won't pay for anything. They expect everything to be free.

Linux can do anything Windows can do, and do it better, when the application is compatible.

 

Thank you all for the tips and tricks with them hints as well

 

@Papusan @Mr. Fox @Spartan@HIDevolution
Today I uninstalled Ubuntu budgie on my AW BGA since I was tired of buggy nvidia optimus. I am pretty sure my next BGA jokebook will not be a gaming jokebook instead it will be Thinkpad w/o dGPU.
After 5 years, my drives were populated in correct slots in BIOS after removing Linux which tells me that Dell actually makes the Linux experience worse on gaming laptops with crippled sleep states, broken fan curves etc...

 

Have you had a chance to try Pop!_Os?

 

Tried 18 and 20 in livecd mode but installer always force closes with unexpected errors. I searched reddit posts and tried all things to no avail! Gave up and tried Ubuntu budgie which installed w/o any fuss!

 

Sad to hear that!

 

Opposite to my experience with Pop: live cd worked flawlessly, while Ubuntu was acting up.

 

I do have Linux and Windows 10 running on a decade old laptop that I still use w/o hitch. It was nvidia optimus and driver mess that made me nuke the OS. Even with iGPU only mode it ran hot.