Pamac update notification and Alienware

This concerns a Dell laptop as well as an Alienware laptop.

I run the XFCE desktop on both and that's what I'll be commenting on.

First, I noticed people asking about pamac and it not be accessible to them. When you first installed Garuda and on the first reboot, you should have had an update screen pop up. When your update finished, a screen asking if you wanted extras would have followed. If you noticed, there was a bar across the top of the window that had different categories where you could select different packages to be auto installed. Pamac was one of those options.

If you passed that point, don't download a new iso and reinstall to get that screen back. You still have that option.

There's a few things you can do to keep your system up to date. A search here in the forum will tell you that you can open a terminal and enter garuda-update. Another option is to open the garuda welcome screen, select garuda assistant and select garuda update. The third option is to open the welcome screen and you'll see a radio button about 2/3's of the way down the screen in the middle that says Setup Assistant. That will give you the option to auto add several toys as well as pamac. It's the exact same screen you would have had when you first installed your system.

On my Dell pc, I had noticed I no longer had pamac telling me updates were available. Again, this is with the XFCE desktop. I had scratched my head for a bit and was updating via the terminal. I had updated my kernel to the Xen kernel. Downgrading back to the LTS kernel allows pamac to notify me when updates were available.

Moving on to the Alienware pc. I don't know what model it is, I don't read Chinese or whatever Asian writing is on it. I just know it's heavy as heck. What I will note is, Garuda is the one and only Linux system that I was able to get to work properly on it. I won't name the other derivatives and well known systems I tried, just think of 4 days trying 2-3 systems a day to include a certain BSD system. Anyway, the problem is, even on live systems via a usb stick, I couldn't even connect to my wifi because not all the keys worked on the keyboard. They were the letter i, the letter E and the enter key to name a few. Garuda allowed me to use them if I sat and tapped the keys. For what it's worth, it was a challenge to format the HD back to NTFS for windows to see it, but then, windows flat refused to install. As an aside, if it had allowed me to install it, I would almost have paid someone to take the darned thing off my hands.

Personal recommendation at this time, If you're contemplating an Alienware and 'nix, contemplate something else. Garuda is great but the hardware Alienware uses hasn't caught up to Linux quite yet.

To fix that, I downgraded the kernel from LTS to 5-15-81-272. All the keys are working fine now and as far as I know, everything else does as well. If it doesn't I'll post back regardless of whether or not I was able to fix it.

As a courtesy, I'll not post the colorful words I was using to accomplish the feat.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.