Asus E410 laptop: install report

My parents bought this cheap Asus laptop and asked me to install linux on it. They run linux on their desktop as well and they're fine with it: performance is better than Windows and it's virus free.

Their E410 model is a cheap passive cooled 14" FHD laptop with a N4020 Celeron CPU, 4GB of RAM end 64GB EMMC. It comes with Windows 10 in S mode, which is very limited but should be more secure than non-S mode.

I choose to add a 128GB nvme module and install linux there, leaving the original storage device untouched and available for dual booting. Adding the module is easy; just 10 screws to remove the bottom panel (no seals broken). There's a video on YT showing how to do that. UEFI detected the new drive and I just disabled secure boot.

I tried Xubuntu on a livecd but I ended choosing debian testing/bullseye as distro. It works just as fine with alomst no tuning at all. Moreover I trust debian and bullseye will become stable/LTS shortly. I'm a debian user myself and I've been running sid for more than a decade on my desktop. I choose XFCE as desktop manager. It's fast and has a proven boring interface suitable for my parents (I'm a gnome user BTW).

Install was fast and easy and everything worked except wireless. This laptop comes with a Realtek RTL8821CE nic. There's a firmware-realtek package in the repositories but support just entered mainline kernel and right now it's not working. The wirless card can be easily replaced but there's a simpler workaround installing tomaspinho/rtl8821cea driver from github and blacklisting the kernel bugged module.

Keybard, shortcut, audio, webcam, suspend all work fine. Battery life should be rather good while performance is as expected for a <300€ lightweight internet browsing kind of laptop. It's fine for its price.

That's it. Recommended? It's ok for its intended use. It's good looking and build quality is better than expected. Storage and wifi upgrade is easy. I guess it was a good choice for my parents who wanted a cheap lightweight small laptop with long battery life and didn't care for performance.

https://redd.it/mj8cvq
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Lenovo IdeaPad S340 14IIL

Works fine, except FN key must be set in BIOS "disable". Ubuntu 20.04.2 Gnome Wayland.
Some strange behaviour of Atheros Wi-Fi module,in XFCE signal strength was very low, but speedtest shows full 100mbit.

https://redd.it/mj8x7n
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Boy does this take long to compile... Its been building this mlt package for over 1.5 hours now. Doesn't seem like its going to finish any soon... Gentoo install...
https://redd.it/mh8vvg
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Raspberry Pi Arch Linux ARM no-systemd
https://gitlab.com/hvdkamer/raspaans

https://redd.it/mjbbun
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Primevideo HD playback workaround. It may work with Netflix as well.
https://redd.it/mjb5th
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Develop A Multi-threaded Kernel From Scratch Online Course! 27 hours

Easter is coming up so we have reduced all our courses by 90%. Buy now to get this fantastic offer, and start learning kernel development.

https://dragonzap.com/course/developing-a-multithreaded-kernel-from-scratch

https://redd.it/mjcjr0
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Installed Ubuntu but the username and password was already set. Help. Whats the default Login?
https://redd.it/mjez11
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ASK What got you guys started with linux?

What was your first real experience with it?

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I will start:

I was 12-13. I installed Kali Linux on a vm then on a USB stick with persistence. I was an absolute skid who knew nothing about linux. But I liked the terminal. It was actually pretty cool. So I watched some Linux content and found out that you can have other OS's based on Linux. I experimented with Ubuntu, and then here we are! I have my main PC with PopOS, multiple RPI's and router with OpenWRT.

https://redd.it/mjfumc
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A handy dandy screenshot uploader

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https://preview.redd.it/v19bmv1980r61.png?width=763&format=png&auto=webp&s=0543852fb6b320dc5b75ef1ea1ef1e49ac478806

Setup a webserver, upload screenshots too it. Would advise using a separate user account + ssh keypair!

Useful for IRC and other applications that don't support or badly support pasted images.

&#x200B;

Source: https://github.com/calebccff/dotfiles/blob/master/scap.sh

https://redd.it/mjen4r
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Fed up with the Mac, I spent six months with a Linux laptop. The grass is not greener on the other side
https://cfenollosa.com/blog/fed-up-with-the-mac-i-spent-six-months-with-a-linux-laptop-the-grass-is-not-greener-on-the-other-side.html

https://redd.it/mjat0k
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Goodbye Ubuntu and Gnome

Recently, I was testing out new distros to use as my daily driver, which was Ubuntu. Over the years I've been building Red Hat servers, several other distros, and then settled onto Ubuntu a few years ago. It is a good distro for sure. It is built well and always felt "complete", especially compared to many of the other distros (not naming any names). But, I was finally tired of the Ubuntu window freezing.

There are other people that have this problem too. Along with building machines, installing and operating Linux is something I am good at and I went through all kinds of troubleshooting and attempts to fix the issue ---yes, including running on other machines. Never found a solution.

Well, when messing around trying to find a serious contender to take Ubuntu's place, I found out that Ubuntu/Gnome is planning something horrendous. They are merging their OS on phones, tablets and PCs. That means they are trying to make Ubuntu/Gnome Look and Operate the same across hardwares. There is a reason why I use my PC instead of my phone, or tablet and it isn't just screen size. This is a Huge Mistake in my opinion.

Even the simplest of things is gone. Can you imagine not having minimize buttons on the noscriptbars of your open apps and windows? Yeah, you can switch it back, but I don't want to have to customize my OS to work as a PC instead of a phone, because it is a Whole Lot More than just the minimize button missing. So, by default, even IF the window freezing is fixed, the latest Ubuntu with Gnome is out the window as a contender, probably forever.

It is not just the absence of the minimize button either. There is a whole slew of other changes that turn Ubuntu/Gnome PCs into giant phones. The purpose is not to rant here, people can read the changes online. I just want to throw this out there and see how others are reacting to these upcoming changes to Ubuntu and Gnome. For me, sadly, I am done. Besides the screen freeze, I really liked Ubuntu/Gnome and didn't have to modify, customize, or alter it in any way. It was pretty much turn-key for me.

Finally, after running about five other distros, I decided to do something I never do for a daily drive OS --I went to an OS still in testing. My selection was Debian 11. I have everything up and running smoothly. I am completely impressed with this OS and KDE Plasma 5.20.5. I went back to the stable Debian and Plasma and wow, what a downgrade that is.

Debian 11 with the new Plasma is F'ing Awesome. I never really liked KDE until now. I even started checking out some of the "K" apps, even though many apps I use tend to be from non-OS sources, like I use VSCode instead of Kate (not an entirely fair comparison, but you get the point). I don't think I have been this happy about an OS* before. LOL.

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So, hats off to the Debian and KDE Teams for this. Thoroughly Impressed.

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*I am using OS as a shorthand for you know exactly what I mean.

Here are some of the main Apps I got up and running:

APPARMOR - apparmor-profiles, apparmor-utils

HTOP

BPYTOP

DCONF-EDITOR

TASKSEL (to install PLASMA 5.20.5)

FIRETOOLS (JUNK. Uninstalled it because it is a fake, for-show only app. Too Bad.)

BRAVE BROWSERS (STABLE, BETA, NIGHTLY)

TOR - TOR Browser Bundle, TOR Browser launcher

VISUAL STUDIO CODE

ANDROID STUDIO

SCRCPY

ARDUINO IDE

VIRTUALBOX

VMWARE WORKSTATION PLAYER

ALACRITTY

OBS STUDIO

KATOOLIN3 - This allows the install of ANY and ALL of the APPS that come with Kali.

I installed many of them, no problems. I Will write a list some other time.

https://redd.it/mhb3er
@r_linux

Lenovo Flex 5 14ARE05 81x2 - Touchpad issues

Hey all, I'm having issues with my new laptop and I'd really appreciate some help.

I'm trying to get the touchpad to work, but nothing seems to help. It works under Windows 10, but I'd really prefer using Ubuntu, or any other linux distro.

I initially started with kernel 5.8, but I also tried 5.9 and now I'm on mainline 5.12rc5.

I'm guessing this is a kernel issue since it's not showing up under devices at all. Here's the devices:

heretic@pc:~$ cat /proc/bus/input/devices
I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0001 Version=0000
N: Name="Power Button"
P: Phys=PNP0C0C/button/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0C:00/input/input0
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event0
B: PROP=0
B: EV=3
B: KEY=10000000000000 0

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0005 Version=0000
N: Name="Lid Switch"
P: Phys=PNP0C0D/button/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0D:00/input/input1
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=event1
B: PROP=0
B: EV=21
B: SW=1

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0003 Version=0000
N: Name="Sleep Button"
P: Phys=PNP0C0E/button/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0E:00/input/input2
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event2
B: PROP=0
B: EV=3
B: KEY=4000 0 0

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0001 Version=0000
N: Name="Power Button"
P: Phys=LNXPWRBN/button/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXPWRBN:00/input/input3
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event3
B: PROP=0
B: EV=3
B: KEY=10000000000000 0

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0001 Product=0001 Version=ab41
N: Name="AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio0/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input4
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=sysrq kbd event4 leds
B: PROP=0
B: EV=120013
B: KEY=402000000 3803078f800d001 feffffdfffefffff fffffffffffffffe
B: MSC=10
B: LED=7

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0006 Version=0000
N: Name="Video Bus"
P: Phys=LNXVIDEO/video/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0A08:00/device:10/LNXVIDEO:00/input/input5
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event5
B: PROP=0
B: EV=3
B: KEY=3e000b00000000 0 0 0

I: Bus=0018 Vendor=056a Product=5218 Version=0100
N: Name="Wacom HID 5218 Pen"
P: Phys=i2c-WACF2200:00
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/AMDI0010:00/i2c-0/i2c-WACF2200:00/0018:056A:5218.0002/input/input11
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse0 event6
B: PROP=2
B: EV=1b
B: KEY=1e03 0 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=1000d000003
B: MSC=1

I: Bus=0018 Vendor=056a Product=5218 Version=0100
N: Name="Wacom HID 5218 Finger"
P: Phys=i2c-WACF2200:00
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/AMDI0010:00/i2c-0/i2c-WACF2200:00/0018:056A:5218.0002/input/input12
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse1 event7
B: PROP=2
B: EV=b
B: KEY=400 0 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=260800000000003

I: Bus=0019 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0000
N: Name="Ideapad extra buttons"
P: Phys=ideapad/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.3/PNP0C09:00/VPC2004:00/input/input14
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=rfkill kbd event8
B: PROP=0
B: EV=13
B: KEY=81000800100c03 4400000000300000 0 2
B: MSC=10

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=5986 Product=212a Version=5614
N: Name="Integrated Camera: Integrated C"
P: Phys=usb-0000:04:00.3-4/button
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.1/0000:04:00.3/usb1/1-4/1-4:1.0/input/input15
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=kbd event9
B: PROP=0
B: EV=3
B: KEY=100000 0 0 0

I: Bus=0000 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0000
N: Name="HD-Audio Generic HDMI/DP,pcm=3"
P: Phys=ALSA
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.1/0000:04:00.1/sound/card0/input16
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=event10
B: PROP=0
B: EV=21
B: SW=140

I: Bus=0000 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0000
N: Name="HD-Audio Generic Mic"
P: Phys=ALSA
S:

Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.1/0000:04:00.6/sound/card1/input17
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=event11
B: PROP=0
B: EV=21
B: SW=10

I: Bus=0000 Vendor=0000 Product=0000 Version=0000
N: Name="HD-Audio Generic Headphone"
P: Phys=ALSA
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.1/0000:04:00.6/sound/card1/input18
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=event12
B: PROP=0
B: EV=21
B: SW=4


$ uname -r
5.12.0-051200rc5-generic

xinput also doesn't show it.

&#x200B;

It looks like the device is i2c-MSFT0001:00.

I'm getting this in dmesg:


0.004766 ACPI: SSDT 0x00000000C968F000 007216 (v02 LENOVO AmdTable 00000002 MSFT 04000000)
0.651373 i2chidacpi i2c-MSFT0001:00: hiddescrcmd failed
0.651396 i2chidacpi i2c-MSFT0001:00: Failed to fetch the HID Denoscriptor

https://redd.it/mjkybl
@r_linux

If Win 10 can offer a reboot from USB stick (and advanced reboot setting) is there a Linux command to do the same?

I'm having trouble getting my machine's UEFI to boot from USB even though it's at the top of the boot options. However it does boot to the Linux command line. I'm wondering if there's a command to force a reboot from USB.

https://redd.it/mjlo1f
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Real-time video frame interpolation with SVP 4 for Linux is still easy and free!
https://www.svp-team.com/wiki/SVP:Linux

https://redd.it/mjmi3d
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Portable Linux SYNTH

https://redd.it/mjnktk
@r_linux

How does the Unix Philosophy matter in modern times?

The Unix philosophy states that a program 'should do one thing and do it well'. This may have worked in the 1970s and 1980s, but in the modern era, where even the hardware does multiple jobs at a time, how does this matter? People want multi-tasking in their machines, and according to them it increases the efficiency. Why shouldn't software be able to multiple tasks?

Wouldn't it be better that a piece of software can do many operations, rather than one, while doing them all well?

Or, am I getting the whole idea of the Unix philosophy wrong?

https://redd.it/mjmfd1
@r_linux

We LOVE BUNSENLABS! do you?
https://redd.it/mjnefu
@r_linux

Windows 10 and Linux Mint 20.1 dual boot menu missing

I am fairly new to Linux and I recently installed Linux Mint Cinnamon on my HDD and I already have Windows 10 on SSD for my day to day purposes. My problem is that I am not seeing the dual boot menu on startup and it is automatically booting into Windows 10 now if I am manually selecting Linux from F9 boot option it is booting normally into Linux, now from here things get trickier for me I went into my BIOS setting and manually changed boot order and for some weird reason it is showing my Linux bootloader in my SSD despite the fact that I installed on my HDD and upon making it first priority when I boot into my Laptop now I am seeing a black screen in my GRUB menu with something like Grub and press TAB to see available commands. My Laptop specs are HP Pavilion Power Gaming Series 15-cb with i7 7700 HQ as my processor. Kindly help me as I really wanna stick to Linux in future but for now I can't use it without Windows. Also sorry for my English mistakes as it is not my first language.

https://redd.it/mjqleo
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The modern packager's security nightmare
https://blogs.gentoo.org/mgorny/2021/02/19/the-modern-packagers-security-nightmare/

https://redd.it/mjs8bj
@r_linux

How I learned to stop worrying and love the hamburger menu
https://pointieststick.com/2021/04/03/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-hamburger-menu/

https://redd.it/mjtoc0
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