Issues With Cachy Continue | maurerit@github

The last I reported, I was back in CachyOS and getting settled in. I was almost there when I posted my last post, and I had this sinking feeling. I just knew that the moment I declared myself settled in that I would see the crash again… and sure enough it happened. Not more than a few minutes after declaring I was settled, I saw the crash. I was gaining so much confidence too otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten all setup. But alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

So I get back into the EVE On Linux Discord community and report my issue. Someone jumps in with some help and suggests maybe I should update my bios, just to see. I thought, eh, couldn’t hurt. But it hurt, lol. It, for some reason, rendered my wireless card invisible to Debian 12. So now my efforts to get CachyOS working need to actually work because I don’t have a stable computing option anymore.

In my previous install I had tried several different things. I tried downgrading to an LTS kernel, compiling my own kernel using the same version as Debian 12 and changing my scheduler with Cachy’s kernel manager. Nothing seemed to work with Cachy so I look elsewhere. I try Fedora briefly and it works ok but it upsets me with its package names for the nvidia module. I’ve also just got some PTSD when it comes to RPMs so I find it hard to use these systems. But it works ok. I can’t remember why I jumped off of it but I kept looking and then on YouTube I saw a video about PikaOS.

PikaOS is a Debian Sid based distro with some cosmetic tweaks that are just cute. The cuteness is not something I particularly care about and in fact makes me take the distro less serious. Maybe that’s the goal though because it is quite unstable. So I give it a try and it works just fine. Bleeding edge kernel, drivers were still old but eh, they work for the hardware I’m on so I’m not complaining. So I stick with it since it’s a familiar .deb based system and being straight from Debian it uses all the conventions I’m come to be used to.

I start to get settled in and even chroot into my Debian 12 install to try and upgrade its kernel in an attempt to get my stable computing option back. When I notice that bookworm-backports has a 6.12 kernel in it, I get some hope. This is much more modern than the stable 6.1 kernel and might just be able to see my wireless card. So I reboot into the install but nothing changed. So it seems I need an even more modern kernel. I don’t know where the cutoff is but my BIOS firmware was released in June of this year. So do I need something newer than that? I continue to get settled into PikaOS since it’s now my only option.

I can’t even distrohop anymore without losing my means of getting online on the computer. I debate on getting a new laptop. This wasn’t in the cards until I could afford a framework laptop. But I would like to be able to have a digital life before 2027… So I get online and start to look. Having talked with all the linux heads in the EVE On Linux discord I find that AMD is much better supported on Linux. So I exclude anything Intel and Nvidia which really limits where I can go to get this thing but of course Amazon exists so I end up there.

I’m checking brands and labels and I narrow in on ASUS. I’m weary though as I have 2 people reporting to me that ASUS’s vivobook line has been giving them fits. One guy can’t get Linux to run on it without constant crashes, the other can’t get Windows to work on it without constant crashes. So which is it, lol? Their gaming lines have to be different right? RIGHT? So with this in the back of my mind I continue looking at ASUS machines and narrow in on their TUF line. This seems to be their ‘budget friendly’ lines of gaming computers and they have some good offerings. So I think I’m in a good spot and continue looking at TUF’s.

Not being an AMD guy… or even a hardware guy at all outside Nvidia cards… I was searching A LOT comparing hardware to reference points. The only Intel reference points I have are the CPU on the MSI laptop and my work laptop so I’m comparing all these Ryzen chips to those Intel chips to see how much better/worse it is. I do the same with the graphics card because AMD’s numbering schemes make NO SENSE AT ALL so I can’t easily and quickly make comparisons. After much deliberation and as much inspection of the body as I can with pictures I settle in on an ASUS TUF Gaming A16 from 2023. This is about the same generation as my MSI and the CPU bencharks a touch below the Intel while the GPU benchmarks far ABOVE the MSI which isn’t ideal. I would have much prefferred a like for like swap but I think it can work. The price is good and I can afford it so let’s go with it.

I was told that I’d have the hardware in 2 days but UPS took their time and got it to me in 3 days. Oh how Amazon has distorted our view of getting things shipped.