Linux Life Episode 79
Hello ladies and gentlemen to my ongoing Linux journey. Well it has been a while since our last entry and I even declared that I was giving up on writing blogs but it seems I am back at it for the moment.
Well the reason I am back is I am now running my 17” Dell Precision M6800 i7 laptop (Mangelwurzel) on Garuda Linux (KDE Dr460nized Edition) to be precise. Which is an Arch Linux distribution.
Garuda Linux seems to have very stunning use of Graphical UI. Making it a very aesthetically pleasing thing to look at. However as it is an Arch distribution, it is a rolling release and regularly kept up to date.
You might think I am stating the obvious here but Garuda seem to have their own version of the AUR (Arch User Repository) known as Chaotic AUR which I assume is very similar to how Manjaro keep control of certain aspects of various programs to keep compatibility.
However it does seem to be very up to date so it may just be a slight name change to make it seem unique.
Garuda Linux seem to pride themselves on producing an operating system that as well as being fast can be optimised for gaming and even has its own Garuda Gamer app to help you get under way.
I would love to tell you more but as the laptop has an Nvidia Quadra K3100. I can’t take full advantage of the full Nvidia driver as this card is classed as among the legacy drivers not current configurations.
So it is running X Windows and KDE using the open Source Nouveau driver which will work with Open GL but will not allow access to certain things like Vulkan, so Lutris and VDXK can not be used or Proton from Steam.
However Steam can be used to play the various Linux ports and I managed to get Terraria running fine with no issues. Wine equally works fine provided you don’t need any Direct X graphics, so standard Windows apps still work.
Now previously when I have installed Linux on this machine the issue has always been with Wi-Fi and admittedly it is still patchy to say the least. If I run just using the Dell Wireless 1500 card it connects for about three minutes at best and fails then you have to disconnect and reconnect. Sometimes this reinitialises it sometimes it doesn’t.
At the moment I am using a strangely AD-Hoc solution in the form of a Vonets Wi-Fi bridge. However it is not working in its usual configuration. Normally you set up the Vonets bridge to your Wi-Fi and then the machine sees it as an Ethernet device thus allowing you access to Wi-Fi that way.
However that’s not which way it is being used by the Dell currently It is using the Vonets bridge like a Wi-Fi Extender. Using the USB power to extend and give access to the existing Wi-Fi allowing it to see the 5G band that the Dell Wi-Fi card can’t see.
Also the Ethernet although not claiming to be connected. If disconnected the signal drops out rapidly making it much the same as without it. So it is either using it as a further power drawing method to amplify the signal or it is using it as an antenna using the chassis of the laptop as a larger surface area.
All I know is it works in this strange configuration and it has no idea an Ethernet device is even been used if KDE is reporting as it should. Weird but I’m not going to question it as it works with Internet this way fine.
Only thing I discovered issues with was when I tried to install Scribus. It really doesn’t like dark themes and all the icons are impossible to see and the page went haywire if you minimised the app and reopened it.
Quirk with Scribus ? or issue with KDE I have no idea. All I know is I won’t be running it at this time.
However other than odd internet and strange moments with Scribus everything else seems to work fine.
Only strange item is the default browser they use is called FireDragon, which seems to be a spin off of Firefox with lots of strange extensions and branding. It seemed rather clunky in parts and interesting in others.
However you can just install Firefox and use that which is what I did.
One thing that I do like is Garuda Linux by default uses the BTRFS file system which much more stable and better at recovery than the ext4 system used by others.
Don’t like KDE ? Then Garuda Linux also has XFCE, Gnome, LxQt, Wayfire, Qtile, BSPWM, Sway and i3WM editions. If you want a pure Arch DIY approach they even have a bare bones edition for the hardcore among you.
There is even a community edition that runs MATE. However as it community driven I have no idea how its supported.
Would I recommend Garuda Linux ? Well so far it has been exceptionally good with only a few minor issues which are nothing to do with it as a Linux distro. It seems quite competent and fast so if you are looking for an Arch based distribution. Feel free to give it a look.
Well that’s enough for this episode, so until I return...Take care.
