An old computer enthusiast REALLY looking at Linux, after decades

Hello all, I'm my name is Miika Suominen. I'm a 48 years old computer fossil/enthusiast.
I would even say professional, but NOT on Linux...

I had a time, about something like 15 - 20 years ago, when I took a look at Linux distros every second year. Then I lost the interest. I was mainly a gamer then and still am. Though not so much anymore.

I like tinkering more. I use more time to get an old game (or newer) to run perfectly... And then I don't play it ;D

So, I kinda like more the tinkering, than "playing".

For some reason (which I don't know why). I started to look more and more Linux community videos lately (my main feeling from the "old days", was that they're mainly toxic). And I found out, that it mainly has stayed that way...

Now, I have watched and read HOURS AND HOURS worth of Linux stuff now. And I kinda know, why the Linux community is like it is. And I get it. That's why I mainly have tried to learn things, through different things like Arch Wiki etc.

Still, I'm a novice.

But, let's get to Garuda. It's the main reason, I'm back at Linux. Saw a couple of videos and fell in love with it. Put it to my old T61 laptop, with kinda bad results...

Bought an 500GB NVME drive to my comp and installed Dragonized to it. Installed Mint to that T61... Though, now I found the post about how to put Garuda to older laptop and yes, now there are Win10 and Garuda Xfcew on it also!

It took about 24 hours and my main installation of Garuda was ruined. Because of the bug (SDDM) and actually my stupidity. But, that was an VERY good thing to teach me something about Linux and Arch.

I still have problems with T61 mainly. Can't get the "normal" Kernel to load automatically. It always starts with the LTS-version. But that's no biggie.

Mainly the main machine's Garuda Dragonized works about perfectly. I have solved almost every problem with it (but not Freesync, 2 displays and so on)...

I solved getting the Xbox One controller to work with it, as well as OC'ing my Vega64 and so on...

I find it, that I want to tinker more with Garuda than W10 novadays. And I'm almost booting more to Garuda than W10! And that's something I would have never estimated...

So, keep it up! Great work. I will support it. And I really want to be part of the community. I try to be careful, not to ask too easy question and so on :wink:

Community still being what it is :smiley:

P.S. And yes, that TRULY is my real face, with Halloween mask painted by my sister. It's King Diamond paint, from the past :smiley:

6 Likes

If you want the normal kernel just do

pamac install linux

otherwise if you want the zen kernel
pamac install linux-zen

of course for LTS it would be
pamac install linux-lts

On the T61 I have the normal and LTS-kernel installed. That is not the problem.
The problem is, that it always boots to LTS-kernel (when I choose the Garuda Linux boot option). If I do not choose different Kernel on Advanced setting on GRUB. This seems to be some bug. But it really doesn't matter. Old laptop, no gaming.
Just very occasional email reading and web surfing. Works a treat as it is...

1 Like

Nice!
Almost my age :slight_smile: (I'm 52 in June and using only Linux since 2nd half of 1992)
I hope you enjoy Linux the most.

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Welcome to Garuda.

I think toxic is a harsh word, what we do have is high expectations of our users. We expect them to do their research and if they get stuck, then feel free to ask for support. If you do that, I think you'll find yourself roundly welcomed here.

Besides, you're still a spring chicken. A lot of our forum members and some of our devs are older than you, so no worries there.

With regards to your kernel you want to boot, you can try this:

Setting a default kernel does not currently work properly with grub and btrfs.

What you can do instead is enable the last booted kernel to be used. This is not perfect but it is an adequate workaround to setting a permanent default kernel. To get this working is a bit of a pain, but unless you follow this procedure you will not be able to alter the kernel which is normally booted.

Before editing important root configuration files be sure to make a backup first. Backup /etc/default/grub before editing grub's configuration fie:

sudo cp /etc/default/grub /etc/default/grub.bak

In the file /etc/default/grub change GRUB_DEFAULT="0" to GRUB_DEFAULT="2" as below:

GRUB_DEFAULT="2"

Comment out GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT="false" or GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT="true" as below:

#GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT="true" 

Then run:

sudo update-grub

Then reboot into the kernel you wish to use normally.

Then remove all the kernels you don't want to boot into normally with the command below:

sudo mhwd-kernel -r linux-zen

Substitute whichever other kernels you want to remove instead of linux-zen into the command above.

Remove all the kernels you don't want to boot normally, leaving only the kernel you want to boot into on a regular basis, (such as linux-lts, or another)

Then reboot, and then reinstall the other kernels youd like to have as extras using mhwd with the command below:

sudo mhwd-kernel -i linux-zen

Substitute whichever other kernels you want to install instead of linux-zen into the command above and repeat for each spare kernel you wish installed.

To make this work you must delete all kernels except the one you want to boot into, then restart. After that you can add the extra kernels you wish and your originally installed kernel should continue to boot every time now.

Hope that helps, and welcome to the forum @MSuomi .

6 Likes

A lot there. Let's try this :wink:

Spänks! (That's a finnish thanks... Well, not as an ACTUAL finnish, but anyway...)

Yeah, toxic is a harsh word. And partly that was a joke, but... Well partly not...
I have a proper knowledge, of how Linux community is wanting for people to try and learn themselves. First and foremost.

And they might still sound kinda harsh, when they just want to say: "RTFM" :wink:

Most people who get offended, are those who don't have ANY knowledge of computers, let alone about Linux OS computers...

And any of the Arch-distros MAY be too much for them. But then again, I started again with your Distro... And though I have already made my mistakes, I (hope) I learned from it :slight_smile:

I'll go and try those things you posted... Later (much too drunk now at 06AM). I'll get back and tell, what happened and how.

After one has an solution, it's imperative to tell how its done :smiley: I think...

P.S. OR how badly you failed! One never learns, if one doesn't tell what happened...

4 Likes

It’s very nice to read that. Don’t give up because Linux can offer you so many things, if you have the right attitude (and I bet you have, reading your posts).

Reading about new users that fell in love with Linux thanks to Garuda, is like nerd porn for me :nerd_face:

Welcome to the Garuda Linux forum!

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Howdy, youngster.

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