My experiences with Arch Linux

pratik_narain · 2010-06-06 21:20:16

Hello Archers,

I'm going to describe my experiences with arch linux here and most importantly why I switched back to ubuntu.

I started using linux with ubuntu 9.04 when it was released. In the process of learning the new system(coming from win xp background), I was just amazed at the advantages that linux offered without any price(read cash). Having read about the ubuntu release cycle, I decided to switch every 6 months to stay with the latest in linux(atleast thats what I thought). But then I came to know about arch and its rollinng release model. I was very impressed, but I held back as I didn't have a decent broadband connection then. Five days back I finally decided to switch to arch linux so that I've to no longer reinstall my system every 6 months as I like customizing and hope my customizations to stay more than 6 months.
I installed arch with a minimal kde desktop on my DELL INSPIRON 1545 laptop(its got ATI Mobility Radeon graphics card). All was well with me and arch and I was thoroughly enjoying my new system, adding only software that I needed, the fast boot and shutdown times and my favorite customizations part:). I also accepted the fact(well already accepted in ubuntu 10.04 which I was previously using) that open source graphics drivers(radeon) is very good for my ATI card. Well it provided all the effects and acceleration enough to run games like neverball. But the power management is not good. My laptop's battery backup fell down to 2 hours from the 3 hours that I got in ubuntu 10.04. I'm certain it is a open source graphics driver issue as I got it in ubuntu also when using that driver. Also when using the system, the system temperature rose to unacceptably high levels(around 61 C). I tried laptop-mode-tools as described in the arch wiki(its the best documentation I've ever come across) but there was no improvement in both the situtations:(.
So, sadly I gave up on arch for now and switched back to ubuntu 10.04 and as I write this(from opera in ubuntu) the battery life is again around 3 hrs and the system temp(as conky reports) is 48 C. But I really want to use arch as my main OS and I'm looking forward to install arch again(I have a seperate /home, so I can do it now;)). I've only switched back to ubuntu as I've to keep my laptop on for atleast 7 hrs a day(on battery as much as possible) because I'm a student of biotechnology and I've to study from e-books and make notes using a word processor. So, I can't afford to fry my laptop.
Dear fellow archers, If you can help me with the above described problems, I'll be thankful and immediately install arch on my system.
Anyways, kudos to devs for producing such a magnificient system as arch(especially AUR and ABS). It just rocks.

Andi · 2010-06-06 21:32:38

Hi, sounds like your CPU was running with full speed. I'm not familiar with the laptop mode tools, but did you try to use the cpufrequtils <http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cpufrequtils>? A simple cat /proc/cpuinfo should also be ok to see if your CPU really is running with full speed. If it is throttled down, then it probably will show something around 800 MHz. I'm not sure if the laptop mode tools do handle the cpu frequency and even if they do, you'll probably will have to specify the corresponding kernel modules for your system.

pratik_narain · 2010-06-06 21:43:37

I tried cpufrequtils and laptop-mode-tools both as suggested on the laptop page of the arch wiki. The cpu got scaled to ondemand mode(I checked in KDE system settings) but It still was very hot. Also, the main problem remians the power management for the graphics card. I wanted to know that what version of catalyst driver is compatible with the latest xorg and where can I install it(the aur package is the latest catalyst), so that It doesn't cause segfault in xorg. The version in aur caused segfault in xorg when trying startx or even "X -configure" with error code 11. That way, once I get xorg working I can hopefully hold it from upgrading through pacman.conf.

pratik_narain · 2010-06-06 22:52:32

I'll highly appreciate the answer to my query so that I can again use arch linux and kde and never bother to reinstall.

wonder · 2010-06-06 22:55:22

just for my own curiosity, in ubuntu you are using the opensource video driver or fglrx/catalyst?

pratik_narain · 2010-06-06 23:03:35

catalyst 10.5 from the amd installer. xorg is 7.5. Just asking, can I possibly generate the xorg.conf file in ubuntu and copy it to arch. Will it conflict with something if I install arch and catalyst from aur. If it works, I can simply hold back xorg from upgrading.

[Edit] I generated the xorg.conf file in ubuntu. Is it supposed to work this way. Can I prevent the segfault error with xorg and catalyst 10.5

Last edited by pratik_narain (2010-06-06 23:06:02)

.:B:. · 2010-06-06 23:05:48

Arch has a newer Xorg, and I don't know if fglrx supports that version already. You'll also need to build fglrx from AUR, since it's not in the Arch repos.

wonder · 2010-06-06 23:07:40

.:B:. wrote:

Arch has a newer Xorg, and I don't know if fglrx supports that version already. You'll also need to build fglrx from AUR, since it's not in the Arch repos.

there is a catalyst xorg 18 repo somewhere.

pratik_narain · 2010-06-06 23:18:15

The ATI wiki page suggests the use of catalyst-test instead of catalyst. Is it more compatible with the latest xorg.

Inxsible · 2010-06-06 23:34:45

But why would you want to install xorg18 when it is still in testing. Given that you are having temp issues, maybe you should just use the xorg1.7.x which is in the standard repo.

I use xorg 18 and nvidia on my older machine which is a test machine, and i use xorg 17 with ati (open source xf86-video-ati) without any problems

stryder · 2010-06-07 00:44:43

You might want to try out sidux (sidux.com) which is also a rolling release but based on debian unstable. That would be closest to your ubuntu system.

parintachin · 2010-06-07 04:50:41

in sidux fglrx/catalyst isn't suported because of some kernel-settings and the devs don't care for users who need it
but you can install the debian/sid kernel in sidux which supports fglrx/catalyst.
my girlfirend has also got a laptop with ATI mobility graphics and is devinitly more happy with the open-source driver in terms of stability

chpln · 2010-06-07 08:32:40

Catalyst-test from AUR also solved this for me with an ATI mobility HD3650. 'Idle' GPU temperature dropped by 15-20°C, and battery life almost tripled.

Misfit138 · 2010-06-08 01:00:23

When you get your bearings, this article may help point you to a solution.

schen · 2010-06-08 01:13:13

Also, you may want to try switching DEs. KDE is a huge battery hog, so using a lighter DE/WM, such as XFCE, LXDE, or Openbox will help with the battery consumption.

ralvez · 2010-06-08 01:51:47

With regards to the temperature problem, did you try adding `nolapic` to the kernel line.
I had a similar problem with my laptop and it seems that it was not reading the thermistor's information properly ... after I added the `nolapic` thing it works just fine.

In the process I also learned that different laptops may respond different, so they also suggested to try `noapic` and or `noacpi` if the one above does not work.

Hope this helps.

Ricardo

pratik_narain · 2010-06-08 12:26:18

@chpln: catalyst-test isn't working with current xorg version

I'm experiencing slow desktop effects in kdemod with xrender compositing(opengl is not working) with ati radeon open source driver. Any workaround for this.

pratik_narain · 2010-06-08 21:21:47

I'm bumping this thread to report that there must be some problem with radeon driver and compositing as I've manually enabled compositing by editing xorg.conf as described in the compositing wiki page. Now, I can enable desktop effects(using xrender, not opengl), but the effects' speed is very slow for eg in minimizing a window, it goes slowly to the taskbar. Is there any fix or solution to that.

BTW, I'm using kde from [extra] after uninstalling kdemod and cleaning my /home from kde configs

Last edited by pratik_narain (2010-06-08 21:56:26)

schen · 2010-06-08 23:59:12

I think that the radeon driver only supports an outdated version of opengl. Have a look at this thread.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=79509

pratik_narain · 2010-06-09 05:21:29

believe me or not, last time when I installed arch(about 4 days ago), opengl compositing and desktop effects were working good(look at my first post). But when I reinstalled yesterday, its not working with opengl and with xrender its very slow and some desktop effects can't even be activated. Glxgears is working fine and "glxinfo | grep -i opengl" reports:

OpenGL vendor string: Mesa Project
OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 7.7.1
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20
OpenGL extensions:

why is it using software rasterizer. Can I use the git version of ati driver to resolve this issue.

Repeat: any success using catalyst driver with xorg 1.7.6-3(latest from the official repos)

trusktr · 2010-06-09 08:23:29

I hope you get it fixed! Arch rocks!

toad · 2010-06-09 08:38:40

schen wrote:

Also, you may want to try switching DEs. KDE is a huge battery hog, so using a lighter DE/WM, such as XFCE, LXDE, or Openbox will help with the battery consumption.

Where did you get that info from? Could you let us have the sources or is it just plain old prejudice?

I've tried it myself with vanilla KDE and Openbox and there is absolutely no difference in the wattage displayed by powertop - go figure.

EDIT:

Forgot to say, I tried LXDE, XFCE and Gnome as well to see which would use less power - the result was always the same or within the range of less than a single watt. Makes sense really...

Last edited by toad (2010-06-09 09:07:41)

pratik_narain · 2010-06-09 12:34:10

there are updates to libxrender, libxcomposite, and libxdamage available. since there is no news update on archlinux homepage, i'm updating. lets hope the desktop effects come back.

Soumyadeep · 2010-06-09 15:02:34

@toad, I dont know why but for some reason kde in my system is very laggy, window management(with compositing enabled) is very crappy and it also takes a hefty amount of cpu power just for resizing, moving, minimizing windows. My machine is a desktop but if it was a laptog i guess it would have hampered the battery life if this problem persists.

Julius2 · 2010-06-09 15:15:55

pratik_narain: I'd just like to recommend one thing. Before switching away to other distros, always make sure to read the wiki, google for solutions ("xf86-video-ati battery life" ?) and, if you feel that you've run out of options, ask on IRC (#archlinux on Freenode). There is a lot of information out there and people who are happy to help.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-06-06 21:20:16

My experiences with Arch Linux

#2 2010-06-06 21:32:38

Re: My experiences with Arch Linux

#3 2010-06-06 21:43:37

Re: My experiences with Arch Linux

#4 2010-06-06 22:52:32

Re: My experiences with Arch Linux

#5 2010-06-06 22:55:22

Re: My experiences with Arch Linux

#6 2010-06-06 23:03:35

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#7 2010-06-06 23:05:48

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#8 2010-06-06 23:07:40

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Re: My experiences with Arch Linux

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