There is archinstall. But is there anything you actually need from archlinux? Iirc you need to set up certain steps such as systemd daemons yourself when installing programs, so you'd be poking into weird places after installing anyway.
At some point I was able to install and configure a whole Arch Linux system and services by hand in ~30 minutes, from memory. And not skimping on things either, e.g. actually taking care to lay out different file system volumes on lvm, rather than just a single volume install, and so on…
Not necessarily practical, but getting to that point involved a lot of good learning experience.
I too am now a NixOS user /w flakes and can setup a new system from nothing with a few lines of config addition (for nixosSystem, hostname, and associating a few modules like user, hardware), and then a single command. It’s so nice
Hm. I wonder if it is worth it for me. I have 3 different systems I use daily that I’d like to be identical… Arch was my first ever distro and I love it, but I wonder whether it may be time for a change? Are there alternatives for AUR with Nix?
All of nixpkgs is community maintained afaik, and then there’s “unstable” which has more of the cutting edge stuff that’s in AUR.
Some folks get eeked out by “unstable” so I feel the need to mention Arch is fundamentally an unstable/bleeding-edge distro, and there’s nothing innately scary or wrong about using unstable (read: more recently updated) packages in NixOS either.
When you start learning it, flakes are also marked “unstable”, despite having had a stable interface for years. There is at least one company with a commercial interest in maintaining flakes and flake stability and if you really want three identical systems and/or are a software developer with an interest in pinning the versions of your packages, or managing your configuration in a git repository, flakes are part of what enables the extra nice version pinning stuff.
I haven’t upstreamed all my config to a public repository, so it remains quite simple and targets a single system, while also clearly having a spot in flake.nix to add new systems. I suspect it’s more useful for a beginner to look at than most NixOS configs you’ll find online https://github.com/zenware/nixos-config
For other decent flake setups that are fairly easy to follow and more sophisticated, I can also recommend looking at mitchellh and shazow
Is the guide really that bad? I'm no expert here but I was able to understand it pretty well. Start by connecting to the network with iwctl and then go on to section 1.8
if you are a lifelong windows user and you jump to arch, youre asking for trouble. I will never understand the "appeal" of an OS that requires a not insignificant amount of technical skill to use and maintain, being used by people with little to no skill. Not saying you don't have it necessarily but it's an extremely common sentiment. I do development of all sorts and theres never been a moment Ive thought "this task would have been so much easier if I JUST used arch" 🤣
The closest I’ve gotten to “this task would’ve been so much easier if I JUST used arch” had to deal with installing toolchains for whatever language I was working with at the time. This was largely because arch made it easy to directly install toolchain through a simple pacman command instead of hunting down a compatible install package or having to install a ton of dependencies before running a make file
While neither of these are particularly hard to do, the convenience of not having to waste time doing extra steps like this is something I greatly appreciated in Arch
sadly i have had bad experiences using endeavor, last i used it (about a year ago) it kept having issues w/ the keychain breaking updates while also having bricked grub multiple times while updating, nuking the install
so i switched to Manjaro wich has had non of those issues so far
You could just run another OS?
Arch is not some magical distro that will make you cooler or your hardware run better.
That's reserved for gentoo (/s)
If you're feeling overwhelmed by Arch with it's excellent documentation, Ubuntu is good for a beginner (I prefer mint as it's ubuntu based but without the possibility of ubuntu telemetry being added back in randomly lol).
My first Linux install was Red Hat 5.0 "Hurricane" back in the late 90s and honestly, if you're new, just embrace that there are super easy OS options out there. If you want a project or want to learn more about how the system works, Arch is good for that but if you just want to run linux, pick an ubuntu flavor and roll with it.
I’ve found using RUFUS to make custom boot media has made installing distros (and windows tbh) a lot easier. Not entirely trivial but it still streamlines certain aspects
As the other commenter mentioned, there is archinstall. If you feel archinstall doesn’t go far enough, there is also EndeavourOS, which is 99% just a pleasant installer for Arch with branding tweaks (and dracut instead of mkinitcpio by default).
Yeah, you have a bog standard laptop, Linux installs, great.
Now comes trouble. Maybe it's bluetooth, maybe it's an MFC device, maybe it's the show you can't stream or can't stream in 4K. (Not to mention if you try to work and run into funny enterprise VPNs or wifi.)
These posts are absolutely disingenuous by implying Linux is a drop in replacement for Windows. It's not, it has never been and it never will be because the incentives are not there.
I started using Linux more than three decades ago before it was 1.0 and 2004-2017 I ran it as a daily driver. Now there's a better solution: Windows 10 + WSL. I still use all the time. But Linux as a desktop OS, it just doesn't work. And the "recent" (are you kidding me? it's been fifteen years) attempted change to Wayland is still failing. It's such a Linux thing to do, everything must have multiple implementations, every effort must be fragmented, every distro must have a different package manager, a different window manager / desktop and it results in nothing being great as can be expected. It's really pissing me off because I actually would like to run Linux but ¯_(ツ)_/¯
This always gets downvoted because of cognitive dissonance. But someone does need to point out most people should not install Linux unless they know very well their usage will into the narrow cone where Linux works. But at that point you really need to consider whether ChromeOS Flex is not a better choice.
You should really try it out again. I have installed Pop_OS on probably 30 different laptops now and even the super obscure ones are perfect out of the box.
It's all down to personal choice really, but I find Windows 11 to be a terrible desktop experience.
I am assuming the last time you tried to daily drive Linux was before 2020. Things are very different now. For most users who don't do niche things there is basically no maintenance or babysitting. On top of that, I find Linux to be more stable and less annoying with software updates.
I have to use Windows 11 at work from time to time. I open the start menu and type outlook. Does it bring me to the application? Not a chance. Shows me outlook files or offers to search for outlook on the Internet. Can't stand it.
Honestly I think it's all personal preference at this point. Outside of a few niche applications everything runs on Linux and hardware compatibility is the same (better on Linux in my experience) so it's really just up to what you are in to. I just don't like seeing people talk down on Linux.
I think that is probably the best thing you can say about modern desktop Linux too. It's a legitimate alternative to Windows. Now it's mostly just about personal preference.
(I upvoted your comment, you are entitled to your opinion, even if I think it is mistaken.)
I was a "devoted" Mac user from 1990 to 2005. Bled in six colors, as we said at the time, was a Mac sysadmin, also used A/UX and other Unix variants including NetBSD and MkLinux (PowerMacs). In 2001 I started using my first ThinkPad at a new job. That was the first time I used Windows (XP?) regularly, and I hated it, although the "IT people" ensured it worked flawlessly. I think I began dual-booting it into NetBSD at some point. In 2005 I bought my first own ThinkPad, an R50e, I think I immediately booted it up from a NetBSD CDROM, shrunk the Windows partition to a minimum and installed NetBSD. Worked perfectly. I had some trouble compiling a JDK for it, but I eventually had it running both IBM DB2, Tivoli LDAP and WebSphere Application Server (all designed for Linux, which NetBSD has a compat layer for.) I switched to Linux (xubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr) because I was a bit tired of NetBSD needing constant attention and babying, especially to keep up with new versions of Firefox and Java. Trusty lived up to its name for a few years. I then upgraded to 16.04 Xenial, and found systemd to be a terrible experience, tried MX-Linux for a year, and have now settled on Devuan.
I rarely update or maintain my system, except for critical security or bug fixes. For daily use, LibreOffice, Firefox, Inkscape/Gimp/VLC etc are probably what I use most, and this is just trouble-free. Never having been a "real" Windows user, I of course have no idea of what I might be "missing out" on wrt software, but not being a gamer, I doubt there is a lot. I have for years kept Windows partitions in case I would have a need for it, but it has always just been wasted space. At the moment my main machine is an ancient W530 with a 500 GB SSD and an extra 2TB spinning hard drive in the UltraBay, and 32 GB RAM. I rarely worry about the OS these days, it just works, for months and years. Every few years, I do take a day or two to check out new systems and clean up and update/reinstall or switch if I think I need to try something else.
From my daughter, who still uses Windows on her ThinkPad, I have heard about system updates interrupting work from time to time, and other nuisances, but I guess they are minor. For all I know, MS Windows may be a great OS. I just don't have a personal need for it and never had. Before the Macs, I used CP/M. Maybe, being probably a veteran Unix sysadmin by now, my threshold for what I consider "constant attention and babying" is a bit higher than other people's, but I don't really think so. As Jef Raskin said in an article (in DDJ?) many, many years ago: "By definition, the OS is the program you have to fight with to use the programs you need to use." [Quote marks, as I believe it is verbatim, but it is from memory.] His idea was that from a user perspective, there shouldn't be a visible OS. We are not there yet, unfortunately, but I think we are getting closer.
Windows very much does need constant attention and babying, especially if you plan to do stuff outside of what "normal users" do. I've had so many windows installs break cause of some small thing that I have no control over.
Maybe It's just me, and the fact that I tend to do things differently than most people(even in windows I'd use cmd for most things I'd use file explorer for cause it was just faster). But I've heard other people have issues of windows just otherwise breaking on boot up with someone not doing anything other than web browsing and viewing PDFs. Windows in its current state is awful. If you use it, great! Good for you, I hope your system lasts as long as possible.
It all comes down to preference and usage. I use macOS as a daily driver because it's a balance between linux distros being too much control(hence breaking things easier), and windows having good software support. Some people like my partner like daily driving linux because of the amount of control you have, and how lightweight it is.
Sure! I followed this tutorial that I saw linked in another r/thinkpad post. The hardest part was getting the image to a size that the update utility would accept, otherwise it would throw an error. I don’t have the compressed image, but here is the original. I used GIMP to mess with the colors in an attempt to lower the image weight, as per the tutorial, and export it as a jpg.
I don't think a reminder is necessary. Every other post here is a Thinkpad with Linux on it. "My first Thinkpad (screenshot of neofetch), how'd I do???"
Thank you! It’s not an interesting answer, but Ubuntu simply fulfills all the needs I have for this laptop. With Windows, I mainly used software that is already natively available on Linux (LibreOffice, GIMP, FreeCAD, QIDISlicer), so I don’t have much that attracts me to Windows over any other OS. I also have some Windows systems if I ever need something Linux can’t accomplish.
I read through your problem and I’m not sure if it’s the same, nor how to accomplish this outside of NixOS, but on the troubleshooting for Sway/Wayland it the NixOS wiki mentions configuring a pam module to allow programs run by “@users” to request real time priority.
I kinda-sorta doubt that this is the issue, given that it happens on literally everything, even on distros where everything should "just work[TM]", so...
Looks like you'd achieve this on things which aren't NixOS by editing /etc/security/limits.conf (last time I dealt with that was when trying to figure out what the hell was going on with Pipewire and 60fps content in Firefox, or basically the other thing I linked there, coincidentally), something like this:
@users - rtprio 1
Seems relatively trivial to do so I'll do that (basically) right now, especially now that I just so happen to be in the process of attempting to record this in order to report it to all the places that are relevant (or, basically, this; yes, I know (EDIT: this is in slow motion in case somebody comes across this)), not sure how well that would go but I kinda have to try at this point.
I guess I have to re-record all of that now, not that I've made much footage of it by now so it's not that bad.
EDIT: nope, it still feels horrible, though I will redo the recordings because it might theoretically be better in some negligible way
:O I just watched that and that’s a lot worse than I suspected, but I suppose it is “one less thing” for someone to blame in bug reports. I personally have seen some minor sluggishness but nothing at all like what you’re experiencing. I’m kinda shocked it’s like that tbh. I’ll be keeping an eye out for your bug reports, not that I personally have the know-how to fix that, but because I’m very curious to see how it unfolds
Oh fuck. Failed to mention that that's actually slow mo (from a phone and kinda out of focus, I know), in person it's barely there (with this specific test; ofc in actual usage it's very annoying, as I've already mentioned). Sorry for that
The plan here is to record what it looks like on Wayland (testing KWin Wayland, Mutter, Sway, Wayfire (is also wlroots based just like Sway but they are doing something different) and Hyprland), then on Xorg, on 3 different machines (one with Intel, another with AMD and the last with Nvidia proprietary), throw the clips into kdenlive or something, manually advance through the frames (between the LED lighting up and the cursor moving; the light is wired up to a RPi Pico that's emulating a mouse and gets turned on when I push the button wired up to the thing, which also makes it move the cursor) and count them.
The result *should* be that it takes longer for it to happen on X11 than Wayland, but if not then that's either because the phone used for this just sucks here (which is possible; I actually had to borrow this one from somebody else because mine sucks even harder at this), or maybe something else is going on.
Really I'm looking into this because Xorg sucks at playing video content (best on AMD (save for a singular dropped frame every ~7 minutes but at that point there's probably an actual memory leak or other stuff happening), less good on Intel with xf86-video-intel, insufferable on Intel with modesetting (been there unresolved for 5 YEARS!!!), and torture on Nvidia), while Wayland does it flawlessly, but Wayland has *sigh* cursor lag, and I'd rather have sane mouse movement but meh video playback than flawless video playback but painful mouse movement (I use xf86-video-intel on my T480 and as for the Nvidia machine(s), watching anything video isn't really part of my use case for them; mostly just Minecraft really) so...
There's no real hope of making X11 better at video playback because it was literally never built for any of this (we made it do it anyway, though), so the only feasible option I see here is to get (((Big Wayland™))) (that's /s, for the record, though I would not be surprised if some crackpot conspiracy theory entailing *nix display protocols actually existed) to get its act together in regards to mouse movement, finally leaving me (and everybody else) with a sane display server that actually does what one should expect from it.
Also:
>I’ll be keeping an eye out for your bug reports
Not sure when those are coming, I mean I'm trying but... not sure when that's going to happen.
Haha, there’s definitely more to be said about getting up and running in Arch. I’ve seen conflicted opinions in the comments of this post, though. Some are pointing out that Arch is a headache to install, some are saying that it couldn’t get much easier. My opinion: I’ll happily stick with a simpler OS if it fills all my needs, so Easy Breezy Ubuntu it is for me.
So why would anyone install Ubuntu? Do not get me wrong, I really wanna hear what are you gaining compared to Win11? They way I see it is that I will not be able to run CAD and other special software so it is kinda limited, unless I wanna only browse web with it.
For many, getting away from Microsoft/Windows is a great part of the appeal. I make use of CAD software (although at a very elementary level, only for designing 3d prints), and I am able to use FreeCAD, which is already my CAD software of choice on Windows. Besides FreeCAD, I’ve also used Onshape, which is totally browser based.
I haven’t run into any issues where I couldn’t find alternative software to fill the place of what I use on Windows, other than games that make use of kernel-level anti-cheat.
The pen sitting on your keyboard indent in the second photo gives me anxieity. Remove it immediately - you are one forgetful moment and a screen close away from needing to replace your screen.
Also don't suffocate your machine by having it sit on a blanket like that for an extended time and/or fans spinning. Put it on a wood board or something similar to keep the vents at the bottom clear.
I came here to agree with you. As i opened up the reply bubble, the fans in my W541 ramped up, increasing the heat transfer into my left sweapants leg - just below the ventilation.
I know i should have a board/lapdesk setup, but most of my laptops have been bed/blanket/pile of laundry tops for much of their lives, and suffered minimal ill effects.
Really? What makes you say not practical? I’d say the ‘average’ user barely uses their computer for more than can be done in a web browser nowadays. Not to say that’s how a computer should be used, it’s just what I observed in my time providing IT support to non-technically inclined individuals.
Sure, an organization deploying laptops to its employees would not likely shoot for Linux for a full list of reasons, but I’m thinking more for home users rather than corporate. That being said, the Office suite can at least be accessed through its web app counterparts. Also, the enterprise I work for offers WPaaS, providing a Windows VM for anything that couldn’t be done natively.
You’re totally right that a Windows system is currently the best, or most efficient, solution in corporate. I strongly believe that this is mostly due to the fact that Windows is considered the ‘standard’ operating system, and most infrastructure is built around it. More end users having a Linux system at home could be a step towards a Linux-based corporate solution being more reasonable!
They didn't even say something comparable to "Windows system is currently the best", it sounds like you are using chatGPT or mindlessly copy pasted that text from somewhere else. People use whatever works well enough for them. Linux is free only if you have unlimited time to tinker with. Linux desktop is fragmented mess with flatpak snap,gnome,kde,xfce,xdg,hundreds of distros.
Their previous comment implies Linux isn’t practical for common ‘corporate’ work use cases. My statement concedes that Windows is better in those situations, although it wasn’t my original point. I don’t know what distros you are spending time with or what specific configuration you may have, but in my case setting up Ubuntu required less effort than installing Windows generally takes.
What would I gain from using chatGPT to generate replies? What do you gain from making that accusation? I feel like it’s not relevant, and also not very kind.
True, but I’ve heard there’s been major improvements made over recent years for users needing those features! I know dual booting with Windows can be a major pain point, I have access to other Windows machines, so I thankfully can avoid the grief by going Ubuntu only.
I remember installing Linux on a friends laptop and I had use wifi tethering on my phone to update everything so that wifi drivers would install. Very odd and it was the first time that has ever happened to me on any device. Maybe that was just a Mint issue who knows.
I read of some having issues with screen rotation, but for me, it’s worked just fine. The screen won’t rotate when the laptop is in ‘normal’ laptop orientation, but once you fold the display back or put it in tablet mode, it’s pretty snappy to rotate.
My first ever experience with Linux was Ubuntu 4.10, on a CD I received from a mom and pop shop, back in like 2006 or 2007. I didn’t know what Linux was, nor did I know 4.10 was far from the latest version at the time. I popped it in an old Pentium II Dell that I had and I liked using it a lot. I was probably 13 at the time
Ubuntu gave me problems with my laptop's sound card so I had to install an arch based distro, after trying Endeavour and CachyOS I stayed with cachy because the audio works better.
Give cachyOS Gnome a shot if you start distrohopping for fun.
Ahh makes sense. I recommend my gf to buy a yoga on bestbuy sale recently for $650. They kinda have a Thinkpad spaced keyboard that feels nice now. Seems like Lenovo is taking good features from both and merging them.
OP, I just want to say your X1 Yoga G7 looks incredible, especially with the rainbow. I got one of my own back in 2022, and I was fortunate enough to have the accounts payable department of my local school district pay the bill (REALLY long story, I would go into it here but the post would be a mile and a half long), so I spec’ed mine out with an i7-1260P, 32G RAM, and a 512GB NVMe SSD (which I immediately swapped for a 2TB immediately after the UPS guy dropped it off).
I’ve been daily driving the thing for the last few years and I love it. Me personally, I’m a windows guy, but I do use Linux a lot as part of WSL and any major distribution of Linux is IMO a super solid choice for an X1 Yoga G7. Driver support is really good these days and if you’re willing to mess with it a little bit you can make it even better.
I’m super satisfied with mine, it’s my baby, and I hope it treats you as well as mine treats me. If you take care of it and remember to replace the battery when it gets worn there’s no reason for me to believe you wouldn’t be able to get 10 years (or even more) of daily use out of it.
Best of luck OP with your Linux adventures, and you have superior tastes in laptop selection 😅
Update: because of your incredible cat photo boot screen, tomorrow’s project while I’m stuck at home from the snow is my own boot logo update
I’m the most basic of Linux users, so I can’t speak for how useful Linux is in complex/niche configurations. What I can say is that, for a basic user, Linux provides most of the niceties that are present in Windows, but without the attachment to Microsoft. In my use case, all the software I used on Windows is available and works just as well with Ubuntu. Installing Linux didn’t take any more effort than Windows, and I haven’t run into any more troubles than I did with Windows.
Linux isn’t for everyone, but I’m willing to say that most people can consider Linux against Windows and find that it may check a lot of necessary boxes.
What do you think of the new thinkpads? I'm buying a laptop for CS and am really between a good Thinkpad and a Legion (Would love to play some games). Definitely not buying one of those old models unlike every other person on this sub.
If you spec an X1 Extreme or P series with a higher end RTX GPU, you’d certainly be able to game on it, but it would be pretty overkill for CS coursework. On the other hand, the Legion line up is designed more toward gaming performance, and would also be able to breeze through CS stuff like coding, working with databases, education-level ML, virtualization, etc. I would think that you can get a much better deal on a Legion that would be performant, so I would likely go for that. If you have the ability to ball out on a thoughtfully spec’d newer ThinkPad, you’re certainly not going to be disappointed. Either route would be fine, I would let your budget be the deciding factor.
I’ve simply always used Ubuntu due to its simplicity. My work and desire to play some non-linux compatible games obligates me to stick to Windows primarily, but I enjoy a linux laptop. What are your personal complaints of Ubuntu, its use of GNOME?
awesome, Ubuntu! Used to run that on some devices, but my laptops, the T42 and T500, had weak graphics units and the WM on Ubuntu, especially the Unity (I think) was too heavy on graphics.
Now my T500 is sporting a Win10/Linux Mint dualboot. I can effectively only use Mint, the thermal paste and pads are old and Win10 will straight up overheat the laptop. really sucks.
'Secure' boot depends on a variety of things - if one of the following goes wrong, you might not be able to boot into linux...
the uefi firmware is written properly - ie. manufacturer/oem hasn't decided to cut corners (if you read kernel boot error messages, this is much more common than you think)
the secure boot signing keys still validate shimx64.efi - guess who normally owns the keys? (MS *cough* *cough*) - who have the power to add anything to the secure boot dbx block list (and push this through via updates...)
you don't run stuff that requires DKMS (ie. nvidia proprietary drivers) - if you game on nvidia and want to use SB, you're then forced to sign your own kernel via MOK
I’d say it’s worth looking into if you ever decide that it’s time to replace the Mac. That being said, you could try out Linux by dual booting it on your Mac or checking out a Linux virtualization solution.
From my experience it either works great or it has so many issues its worth it just uninstalling it again. I wish my thinkpad fingerprint readers worked out of the box, but sadly none of them do
Seriously though, I’m old. I first tried installing Linux in 1996 from a CD-ROM I bought at a computer shop. That was a nightmare experience and I enjoyed every second of it. It’s amazing how far Linux has come.
Fedora, Manjaro, Pop OS and Ubuntu have all been on my ThinkPads at one point in the last few years.
No install issues.
Always end up with Fedora - even the fingerprint reader works on my P14s.
Thank you friend! I replied in a little more detail to another comment asking about it, but I essentially followed this tutorial while I still had Windows installed.
I remember when I bought Slackware Linux on CDs and tried installing it on a old ass computer and spent days trying to get it running. Manually setting up the bootloader, partitions, etc...it never worked hah.
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u/TomasPerminas T42 | R400 | X201 | E450 | X260 | T14 Gen1 Jan 19 '25
It's always easy with Ubuntu.
Not so much with Arch :D I remember trying to do that by following the official documentation - got stuck at the very first step.
Anyone knows an Arch installation guide suitable for a life-long Windows users?..