hardware support issues - fix or switch distro?

alef · 2016-02-15 16:15:51

Hi,

I am running BunsenLabs on a Thinkpad x1 Carbon 3rd Gen, and have some issues with linux support for that hardware, as well as some software issues too.

I'm wondering whether it's better at this stage to switch to another base than Debian (still keeping openBox), and I'd like to have your opinion on this situation.

Problems:

* (very annoying) No way to install skype: dependency hell, prompts to uninstall a huge set of core system packages (including X) in order to allow the install of Skype (following these instructions and some other forums')

* (annoying) poor graphics performance, hardly plays 1080p videos (apparently also affecting battery life)
* (show-stopper) installing newer xserver-xorg-video from backports results in unusable system whenever resuming from suspend (no display)

* (minor) Jessie's default kernel (3.16) does not support Brightness and Volume Fn keys
* (show-stopper) upgrading to 4.x linux kernels from testing/backports broke networking and added other regressions
* (show-stopper) noob-compiling 3.19 kernel (which works great on ubuntu) gave the same result as previous point

I'm running crunchbang since 2008, and am afraid to leave debian as a base for my setup. I like the stability / reliability of debian, and the fact that I don't need to reinstall/reconfigure the OS frequently.

* (minor) trackpoint scrolling not supported when I plug external usb keyboard with trackpoint.

Question:

Which action would you recommend (I hope enough information is provided):
1. leave the situation as is, it's not that bad
2. switch to another base distro, install and configure openBox to obtain a crunchbang-like experience
3. spend time fixing the issues, this can be achieved while keeping the current system installed

nobody · 2016-02-15 16:35:10

Re Skype: I'd bootstrap a Ubuntu 12.04 (old as my hat but seems still to be supported by MS) using debootstrap into a directory and use systemd-nspawn to run the application from in there while using the X display and pulseaudio server from the main install.

Re graphics performance: For Broadwell graphics, I'd go with the latest Mesa library, X server, and kernel. It doesn't help very much to upgrade X and/or the kernel and leave the rest of the graphics stack as it is. In general, I think that Broadwell is old enough to have decend support in Linux. Even after changing to an all-new graphics stack, you should definitely look into hardware video decoding via vaapi, which is very well supported by the mpv video player, for example (VLC maybe too - IDK).

* (show-stopper) upgrading to 4.x linux kernels from testing/backports broke networking and added other regressions

Broke networking how? Wireless or wired? Almost definitely there's a fix.

Which action would you recommend (I hope enough information is provided):
  1. leave the situation as is, it's not that bad
  2. switch to another base distro, install and configure openBox to obtain a crunchbang-like experience
  3. spend time fixing the issues, this can be achieved while keeping the current system installed

Personally, I'd upgrade straight to Debian Sid -- a complete dist-upgrade -- and see to any remaining issues from there. You can just move BL to sid. It's rolling-release, so you'd get eventually beneficial updates fast. Should you choose Ubuntu – you can also install BL packages there, no problem – go straight to the beta Xenial (16.04) release. Every other Ubuntu release short of 14.04 or 12.04 (both too old for Broadwell I think) is going to be EOL within a relatively short period of time and isn't worth it. Any othe distro which stays current should be OK too – like Siduction, Aptosid, ArchLinux, ...

ohnonot · 2016-02-15 18:12:42

if nobody says that your problem is too new hardware, then i'll jump right in and recommend archlinux.
i'm not an uber-nerd, but i've been really happy with it for... don't know, close to 2 years now.
it also has skype 4.3.0.37-6 in [community].
and always a yummy fresh version of mpv.
look at the archwiki, maybe it even says something about your hardware...

spacex · 2016-02-15 19:42:47

Agree with nobody. Upgrade you Bunsen install to Sid, and take it from there. If you don't get it to work properly with Sid, you won't make it work any better with any other linux-release. So it's either that, or Windows. Your choice

hhh · 2016-02-15 23:25:40

BL is based on stable, so the recommended way to dist-upgrade is first to testing and then to sid. Right now you can probably go straight to sid as it's almost the same as testing still. Be aware that Wifi network naming has changed in sid (wlan0 gets identified as iwl3945 on my system under sid, udev renames it due to my Intel driver or something), and maybe there are other issues.

tknomanzr · 2016-02-16 01:25:45

^ It does? Hmmm. Must be something in these 27 pending updates that's gonna muck up my systemd unit files. I think I will hold off on the dist-upgrade til I have time to fix it.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-02-16 21:26:01

@alef:

Please understand that Debian testing/unstable is a *development release* and it will break on you at some point.

The paradigm is completely different from Debian stable, testing/unstable is *not* simply "Debian stable with newer packages".

This excellent post by a long-time Debian user over at forums.debian.net explains this far better than I could:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? … 32#p604432

IMO, you should take advantage of the jessie-backports repository and work through any problems.

alef · 2016-02-20 11:41:49

Thanks for all the replies, guys! (just discovering them now as I wasn't receiving email notifications).

nobody wrote:

Broke networking how? Wireless or wired? Almost definitely there's a fix.

Wireless, actually. I guess that I should have upgraded firmware-iwlwifi to the backports version at the same time as the linux image, I'll try again.

I'll try the following and keep you posted:

* install skype by "bootstraping a Ubuntu 12.04" using debootstrap
* upgrade kernel, graphics, firmware-iwlwifi all together to backports version
* keep fingers crossed hoping I won't have to switch to testing or sid...

Thanks again, great to see that the crunchbang community's values are surviving here

KrunchTime · 2016-02-24 16:22:29

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

This excellent post by a long-time Debian user over at forums.debian.net explains this far better than I could:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? … 32#p604432

Good reference, HoaS. Thank you for the link.

I'll chime in and say even using apt-listbugs is no guarantee that something will not slip in that could cause headaches. You might be the first unlucky soul to upgrade a package only to find out that it hoses things. So far, I've been fortunate.

I'll also state that I've been tracking unstable under BL on two different machines and so far, no issues. I installed BL via the net install method, changed the repos, and then dist-upgraded.

Last edited by KrunchTime (2016-02-24 16:25:44)

#1 2016-02-15 16:15:51

hardware support issues - fix or switch distro?

#2 2016-02-15 16:35:10

Re: hardware support issues - fix or switch distro?

#3 2016-02-15 18:12:42

Re: hardware support issues - fix or switch distro?

#4 2016-02-15 19:42:47

Re: hardware support issues - fix or switch distro?

#5 2016-02-15 23:25:40

Re: hardware support issues - fix or switch distro?

#6 2016-02-16 01:25:45

Re: hardware support issues - fix or switch distro?

#7 2016-02-16 21:26:01

Re: hardware support issues - fix or switch distro?

#8 2016-02-20 11:41:49

Re: hardware support issues - fix or switch distro?

#9 2016-02-24 16:22:29

Re: hardware support issues - fix or switch distro?

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