Ok first installation of LMDE 5 on System 76 Darter Pro

[MurphCID]

Well, it is going. Trackpad is moving like a stunned snail. Lost the WiFi connection, but we shall see. This is a Gen 1 Coreboot machine from System 76.

[MurphCID]

Ok, so far so good, not terrible, pretty smooth actually. The 5.10 kernel really helps. It does not like the version of Google Chrome I installed, and it is sending some error messages that it is out of date. No issue, I am updating now. Desktop configured, software loaded (Libre Office latest), and all my documents, plus HTOP, VLC, TLP, Numlockx installed. In FAR FAR less time than a Windows update. I love Linux.

[MurphCID]

Ok, issue found, it hung on shutdown, I had to manually press the power button to finish the shutdown process. I think Coreboot is the culprit but cannot prove that 100%. I will keep checking over the next several days to see if this is recurring issue. If it is, then I will re-install Manjaro with the 5.17 Kernel which seems to work amazingly well. I really do not want to install the System 76 PPA's since they do odd things, and I am not sure how they will interact with LMDE.

[MurphCID]

Hung again. Hmmm, it HAS to be a kernel issue.

[rene]

More specifically probably an ACPI one. A kernel parameter e.g. acpi=nopci has been known to work for the issue at times, although it's shooting in the dark (see viewtopic.php?f=42&t=349669 as to how to set a kernel parameter if needed).

Sticking that suggestion into google you'd find other related possibilities as well but specifically it's shooting in the dark due to the Coreboot thing. I'd quickly recommend to go with a System76-supplied kernel; for all I/we know it may be very specifically patched for their system.

[MurphCID]

Tried to boot, and it totally hung. Got the Mint logo, but it never loaded anything. Had to do a hard power shut down, and it finally started. So I am shutting it down, and it shut down ok. I am going to keep trying, and see if it becomes stable. UPDATE: It seems to be "learning" as odd as that sounds. It seems to shut down faster than 20.3 on my other laptops. It seems better, and more stable after 5-6 cycles of turn on and shut down.

[MurphCID]

More specifically probably an ACPI one. A kernel parameter e.g. acpi=nopci has been known to work for the issue at times, although it's shooting in the dark (see viewtopic.php?f=42&t=349669 as to how to set a kernel parameter if needed).

Sticking that suggestion into google you'd find other related possibilities as well but specifically it's shooting in the dark due to the Coreboot thing. I'd quickly recommend to go with a System76-supplied kernel; for all I/we know it may be very specifically patched for their system.

Will their kernel work with LMDE 5? That is what worries me, I am not tech savvy enough to deal with the anticipated issues.

[rene]

Will their kernel work with LMDE 5?

Probably. I've never been much of a Debian-side person but as far as I'm aware Debian uses largely vanilla kernel.org kernels (I believe https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/li ... an/patches is what would be to check in detail...) and moreover, Ubuntu and hence I suppose System 76 in turn supposedly at the very least look at Debian kernels and incorporate same/similar changes for their own kernel series.

Last time I looked seriously also in fact Ubuntu kernels didn't deviate as much from kernel.org as I thought they might. You'd probably be fine mixing & matching kernels there.

[MurphCID]

Will their kernel work with LMDE 5?

Probably. I've never been much of a Debian-side person but as far as I'm aware Debian uses largely vanilla kernel.org kernels (I believe https://salsa.debian.org/kernel-team/li ... an/patches is what would be to check in detail...) and moreover, Ubuntu and hence I suppose System 76 in turn supposedly at the very least look at Debian kernels and incorporate same/similar changes for their own kernel series.

Last time I looked seriously also in fact Ubuntu kernels didn't deviate as much from kernel.org as I thought they might. You'd probably be fine mixing & matching kernels there.

Thank you I might give it a try.

[MurphCID]

WiFi is now stable, boot time is a bit slower, but shut down is fast. I will keep playing with it and see how it goes.

[MurphCID]

So far it is working well, stable, no issues any more. Shut down is really fast. This one so far likes the 5.10 kernel. I can see using this regularly.

Update: updated the system as I usually do upon boot, Chrome was acting odd, but no real issues. Shut down it 1/2 the time of the regular Mint laptops. I am just really happy with LMDE5. LMDE 4 would not even load on the old Darter Pro (Coreboot issues) since it had a 4 series kernel. LMDE 5 is just a pleasure.

[MurphCID]

Well it is solid, no odd issues, start up and shut down are fast, really fast. The 5.10 Kernel seems to just hit the sweet spot with this older Gen 1 System 76 coreboot machine. I miss some of the features in Mint 20, but LMDE 5 has proven itself a great version.

[MurphCID]

This has been very pleasant, LMDE 5 has been running so well on this old Darter Pro, it is running better than plain Mint 20.3 or any other distro (except for POP!_OS) LMDE 5 has just been completely stable, looks decent, and with TLP installed has reasonable battery life.

[MurphCID]

Last update here, so far LMDE 5 has proven to be a keeper with the Darter Pro. Runs well, no issues, no slow shutdown, solid performance, and stable as all get out. With 32 gb of Ram on board, I never even come close to not having enough memory. I will be keeping LMDE 5 on this laptop.

[Marie SWE]

what?... are you going to abandon Mint for LMDE
I did go Mint-->LMDE-->Debian... so be careful for going down the stable road.

[MurphCID]

It absolutely does not like being ignored for a couple of weeks at a time. LMDE 5 hung in start up, and I had to hard power down the system to get it to boot. Then updates were really slow. That being said, once I got it up and running, it ran well, and fast. I am charging it now, and might use it some today, but I have managed to get all the updates installed. It is completely solid, and other than this issue, there does not seem to be any real issue with LMDE 5 and this laptop. The Darter Pro (gen 1) is about the pickiest laptop I have ever used when it comes to distros. It has 32 gb of ram installed and I have never even gotten close to topping it out.

It does well enough that this is going to be the permanent distro on this laptop. I am looking forward to LMDE 6 later on down the road.

[Marie SWE]

I have not tried LMDE5.. i did like LMDE3 the only thing is it has to short lifespan for my taste.

[antikythera]

LMDE4 was the first release to have an upgrade route to LMDE5. So in theory now it's no different to regular Mint in the respect you could install it once and keep upgrading from LMDE5 onwards. Also, even if Mint components do not get any updates in a couple of years time when LMDE6 is released, the Debian base is covered for security updates until 2026 by the Debian LTS team when it expires from being supported by normal security and release teams.

[MurphCID]

This is working so solid right now. Here are the specs: Oh and it has 32 gb of RAM

Code: Select all

ystem:    Kernel: 5.10.0-17-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 
           Desktop: Cinnamon 5.4.10 tk: GTK 3.24.24 wm: Mutter dm: LightDM Distro: LMDE 5 Elsie 
           base: Debian 11.2 bullseye 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: System76 product: Darter Pro v: darp6 serial: <filter> Chassis: 
           type: 9 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: System76 model: Darter Pro v: darp6 serial: <filter> UEFI: coreboot 
           v: 2020-05-20_de5eab8 date: 05/13/2020 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 44.1 Wh condition: 50.0/53.2 Wh (94%) volts: 15.7/15.4 
           model: Notebook BAT serial: <filter> status: Discharging 
           Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse serial: <filter> 
           charge: 55% (should be ignored) status: Discharging 
CPU:       Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-10210U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Kaby Lake 
           note: check rev: C L2 cache: 6 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 33599 
           Speed: 801 MHz min/max: 400/4200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 801 2: 800 3: 800 4: 801 
           5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel CometLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics] driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:9b41 
           Device-2: Chicony Chicony USB2.0 Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-7:3 
           chip ID: 04f2:b685 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz s-dpi: 96 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics (CML GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.5 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Comet Lake PCH-LP cAVS driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
           chip ID: 8086:02c8 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.10.0-17-amd64 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Comet Lake PCH-LP CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 5000 
           bus ID: 00:14.3 chip ID: 8086:02f0 
           IF: wlp0s20f3 state: up mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK 
           driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 4000 bus ID: 26:00.1 chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: enp38s0f1 state: down mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Intel Bluetooth 9460/9560 Jefferson Peak (JfP) type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 
           bus ID: 1-10:4 chip ID: 8087:0aaa 
           Report: ID: hci0 state: down address: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 29.82 GiB (6.4%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB size: 465.76 GiB 
           speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> temp: 34.9 C 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 449.03 GiB used: 29.82 GiB (6.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
           ID-2: /boot/efi size: 285.4 MiB used: 3.4 MiB (1.2%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 
Swap:      ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 
           dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
USB:       Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 12 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s 
           chip ID: 1d6b:0002 
           Device-1: 1-1:2 info: Logitech Unifying Receiver type: Keyboard,Mouse,HID 
           driver: logitech-djreceiver,usbhid rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s chip ID: 046d:c52b 
           Device-2: 1-7:3 info: Chicony Chicony USB2.0 Camera type: Video driver: uvcvideo 
           rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s chip ID: 04f2:b685 
           Device-3: 1-10:4 info: Intel Bluetooth 9460/9560 Jefferson Peak (JfP) type: Bluetooth 
           driver: btusb rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s chip ID: 8087:0aaa 
           Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 6 rev: 3.1 speed: 10 Gb/s 
           chip ID: 1d6b:0003 
           Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s 
           chip ID: 1d6b:0002 
           Hub-4: 4-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 3.1 speed: 10 Gb/s 
           chip ID: 1d6b:0003 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 35.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:     Packages: 2130 apt: 2122 flatpak: 8 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64] http: //dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com elsie main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
           2: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib non-free
           3: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           4: deb http: //security.debian.org bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           5: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free
Info:      Processes: 237 Uptime: N/A Memory: 31.24 GiB used: 1.19 GiB (3.8%) Init: systemd v: 247 
           runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 10.2.1 alt: 10 Client: Unknown python3.9 client 
           inxi: 3.3.01 

[MurphCID]

Ok this is odd. I have started up the Darter Pro twice today and both times, I have to power it off then power it back on at least twice to get Mint to start. It is like it is hanging during boot. I left it and after three minutes, I had to push power off and power on to get it to boot into LMDE 5. I managed to get updates installed, and upon reboot same issue. Finally got it up again. Now granted it had been a month or two since I have started this laptop. So I am letting it run for a little while to see if that fixes the issue.