Dark Artistry

With the last major updates, one being yesterday, somethings got broke on my System 76 Oryx Pro. Be sure you’re running a similar version, not sure if this will work for all systems, DEs, or OS versions. You can check your version like so:

[mohawke@Phobos ~]$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=ManjaroLinux
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.1
DISTRIB_CODENAME=Mikah
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=”Manjaro Linux”

UPDATE:
DISTRIB_RELEASE=21.1.0
DISTRIB_CODENAME=Pahvo

Kernel 5.13.1 breaks System 76 driver. To get keyboard back-light working again download the code from https://github.com/pop-os/system76-dkms.

Uninstall the system6-dkms and any other System 76 stuff from you might have if installed.

Type: sudo modprobe -r system76

Unzip the downloaded contents and cd into that directory and type: sudo make

Then type: sudo insmod system76.ko

This update did not cause issues with Akonadi or anything else. 🙂

UPDATE:
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.2.1
DISTRIB_CODENAME=Nibia

You can get other details in Settings or by installing and running neofetch.

[mohawke@Phobos ~]$ sudo pacman -Syu

[mohawke@Phobos ~]$ sudo pacman -S neofetch

[mohawke@Phobos ~]$ neofetch

Here’s the import parts from my system returned by neofetch.

Kernel: 5.8.3-2-MANJARO  
Shell: bash 5.0.18  
DE: Plasma 5.19.4  
CPU: Intel i7-8750H (12) @ 4.100GHz  
GPU: Intel UHD Graphics 630  
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile

Hybrid Intel NVIDIA 450xx-prime Driver 

When the NVIDIA 450 driver came out – I have a hybrid Intel UHD Graphics 630\NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile ‘prime’ setup – I got an error when trying to run the ‘Auto Install Proprietary Driver’. To get around the Y/N question that halts the install, right click on modesetting for Intel and update or reinstall then you should be able to Auto install.

Akonadi

Yesterday’s update broke Kontact (Kmail, Claendar, PIM). If you cannot run Akonadi then you need to fix it. Exit Kontact then open a terminal and ttpye the following:

[mohawke@Phobos ~]$ sudo aa-complain /usr/bin/akonadiserver

Then start the akonadi server:

[mohawke@Phobos ~]$ akonadictl start

You should be able to open Kontact at this point. You can also revert back to the old DB, if you prefer waiting for Kontact to be fixed. To do that type:

sudo pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/mariadb-10.4.14-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst /var/cache/pacman/pkg/mariadb-clients-10.4.14-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst /var/cache/pacman/pkg/mariadb-libs-10.4.14-1-x86_64.pkg.tar
.zst

Then open Kontact.

UPDATE: A more recent update broke this again and the above no longer worked. I actually backed up and created an empty db_data folder: /home/YOUR_USERNAME/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/

So this sucks as you will need to do some account setup again but it works.

System 76 Keyboard Back-Light Control

My keyboard back-light broke so I was stuck with blue, not the end of the world, I know but it irritated me. To fix that, partially at least, I had to update grub:

UPDATE: You do not need to alter grub. The last system update made this approach not work. For better solution try installing the following from AUR. Just enable AUR in Add/Remove Software tool.

system76-acpi-dkms 1.0.2-1
system76-dkms 1.0.11-1

[mohawke@Phobos ~]$ sudo nano /etc/default/grub

I removed all acpi entries from the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line and added the following (in bold) to the empty GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line. Do not alter or remove any other entries or you may not be able to boot:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”acpi_osi= acpi_backlight=native“

Ctrl + o and Enter will save it. Now update grub with:

[mohawke@Phobos ~]$ sudo update-grub

I was not able to get the Fn + F8/F9 to control brightness but all other function keys worked out of the box.

The System 76 Drivers from AUR did nothing for me. To review various ACPI Grub settings check this.

UPDATE Feb. 28, 2021: The latest big update, I moved to kernel 5.11.1-1 today also, broke my System 76 drivers. Uninstall all those System 76 drivers after you update you system and move to the 5.11 kernel. Install the following in the image:

[mohawke@Phobos ~]$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=ManjaroLinux
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.2.1
DISTRIB_CODENAME=Nibia
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=”Manjaro Linux”

Games

All my games run great, except one. Oblivion now freezes and nothing I have done, including reinstalling, has fixed this issue. I have NVIDIA and Intel (VA-API) hardware support in Obs and KDEnlive running smooth so do I revert back for one game that I have beaten years ago? Hell no! Diablo Hellfire works so I might play through that again.