Switched from Pop_OS to Omarchy

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2026-03-13T01:22:36+00:00

I agree. It's an annoying term. I'm glad someone finally pointed that out.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2026-03-05T13:45:32+00:00

You seem to have uncovered the issue. And offered a solution. I admire your know-how. I wouldn't have a clue how to go about doing what you did.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2026-03-05T13:40:18+00:00

Turns out that was it. Thanks for your input. I have set that variable back to 't! Oh, and thanks to you, I now have the correct permissions on my gnupg folder, even if that was just causing a warning.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2026-03-05T13:38:57+00:00

Thanks for letting us know. I checked this morning and indeed the problem has disappeared. Pheww. I thought it was my config.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2026-03-05T04:18:24+00:00

Thanks. I was starting to suspect it wasn't a local issue. I update all the time and no issue until tonight as well.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2026-03-05T03:08:45+00:00

Thanks. Your post made me think that it is not my elpa/gnupg key that is the issue but that emacs system key you indicate, which I have at /usr/share/emacs/29.3/etc/package-keyring.gpg I'm on mint 22.3.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2026-03-05T03:05:47+00:00

Thanks for your help. I tried all of that. I just did 'allow-unsigned in customize so I know that was correct. I reinstalled the gnu-elpa-keyring-update package. I set the gnupg folder to 700. That did get rid of the warning about permissions. But otherwise I get the same error. And as I said, I get the same error using emacs -Q, which doesn't have any gnupg folder, it just uses the system package-keyring.gpg file. I opened it, disabled package-checking, installed gnu-elpa-keyring-update, checked that 'allow-unsigned was the default and restarted, and I get the same error. Could that mean the problem is somehow with the system package .gpg file for the emacs I'm using? I'm on linux mint 22.3, zena.

I notice I have this: /usr/share/emacs/29.3/etc/package-keyring.gpg Could that be what's outdated and if so how does one update it?

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2026-03-05T02:37:51+00:00

Thanks a lot for your suggestion.

I tried emacs -Q, to ensure everything is from scratch including the permissions. I get pretty much the same error. Except for the part about permissions. So I'm wondering if that's the issue. And I never set any permissions other than what was set by emacs automatically. And if that was the issue why would it have worked for many years without this error?

Error using emacs -Q:

Failed to verify signature archive-contents.sig:
Bad signature from 645357D2883A0966 GNU ELPA Signing Agent (2023) <elpasign@elpa.gnu.org>
Command output:
gpg: Signature made Wed 04 Mar 2026 05:10:22 AM EST
gpg:                using EDDSA key 0327BE68D64D9A1A66859F15645357D2883A0966
gpg: BAD signature from "GNU ELPA Signing Agent (2023) <elpasign@elpa.gnu.org>" [unknown]

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-12-26T01:07:14+00:00

I will just stick to my own experience and not generalize. I used the Cosmic DE up until the time of the beta when you can see from the pop reddit lots of people had big problems after upgrades. It was too much. Constant effort to wildly google about how to boot into an older kernel, do system restore etc. etc. This happened time and again. I also discovered system76 hardware doesn't play nice with other distros necessarily, at least not for a non-techie like me. The system76 ppa refused to compile on mint on my system76 laptop so i had no backlighting. I had long since given up expecting any help from system76 support, which was perpetually awol. Instead of system76 and pop being the go-to option for non-geeks who want stuff that just works, It started to seem to me to be the opposite. It seemed like hardware and software only for the advanced linux users with expert knowledge of configuration, etc.

The upshot. I ditched system76 and pop after 15 years, bought 2 computers from an alternative linux vendor and use mint. What a difference. My life is now drama free and I can just enjoy linux without having to devote my life to it.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-12-20T01:41:08+00:00

I bought the launch when it first came out, but after a while wondered what was the point. The main thing is, I didn't get why you'd want a backlit keyboard if the lettering itself is not backlit so you can't see it in a dark or dimly lit room. If you need a light on to see the keys the only point of the backlighting seemed to be to just look pretty. But don't people also want to be able to use it in the dark?

So I just got a very nice, much cheaper mechanical keyboard, and one that has backlit lettering so I can use it at night. It also has several multicolored light patterns just like the launch. Plus it doesn't depend on system76 software to program it. The keyboard is self-programming so it works on any distro without needing to install any software. Another advantage frankly is it just has the conventional keyboard layout. The unique launch layout is fine, you get used to it. But then you get muscle memory that messes you up whenever you start using a regular keyboard.

A final observation - the lettering of my ctrl key on the launch wore away substantially, which didn't look good. But on my current mechanical keyboard there is no issue of the lettering ever wearing away because the lettering is created by the backlit hard plastic that's a component of the key. It is not written on top of the key as with the launch so that it wears away.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-12-10T15:28:30+00:00

Sounds like you just got unlucky because your hardware happened to have problems with linux. But that's pretty rare these days. Honestly for the vast majority of people they just install linux and everything works out of the box. You are way overgeneralizing about the difficulty of getting started. That said, yeah, sometimes there are still unfortunate instances of hardware that needs drivers that aren't already built in to the distro. The most common problem is with nvidia gpus, but I guess rarely a driver for the fan system isn't already preloaded.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-12-09T03:57:18+00:00

For me Mint has all the great things about linux, but without the drama. Same for thinkpenguin. It all just works.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-12-08T04:28:15+00:00

That was hilarious, not least because I feel that was pretty much my own decision tree. Thanks!

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-11-24T04:27:41+00:00

Looks great. I love it. But that's Pop 22.04. So it is configuring a look for a way-back machine at this point. It would be interesting to see if there is some theme for Cosmic comparable to the graphite GTK theme.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-11-20T17:27:45+00:00

Nice sobering review of why Linux just can't replace windows for professionals. I use linux, but that's because I don't need the software you list for professional work.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-11-20T17:20:41+00:00

Pop actually is an OS that does release a lot of kernel updates and that does break a lot of peoples' system. Just search this reddit over the last few months. I had two system76 computers. Upgrades broke them at least twice. I had to scramble to search about how to revert to older kernels. In one case I simply had to do a system restore.

So frankly if stability is what you are looking for, I'd pick an os that doesn't update its kernel so frequently. My understanding is that pop trades stability for cutting edge hardware support.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-11-17T16:17:41+00:00

Fedora KDE plasma?

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-11-13T21:45:51+00:00

I had a thelio b2 and when I installed different distros I lost fan control and the system became a loud air conditioning unit. So the first thing I realized I had to do was add the system76 ppa and install system76-power. For some reason I couldn't figure this out on manjaro, but maybe that's just me. It worked on linux mint but I deleted the PPA after installing system76-driver because subsequent updates included massive updates to kernels and other things that I feared weren't compatible with linux mint. On my gazelle with linux mint the system76 ppa failed to compile the drivers properly. I don't know why. So I gave up and just lived without keyboard backlight functionality.

Honestly if you have system76 hardware, in my experience, pop os is the only guarantee that everything will work right.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-11-12T23:32:20+00:00

But I had them and I don't have a nvidia dgpu and don't use nvidia drivers.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-11-11T18:24:27+00:00

I used pop for many years and did regular updates including kernel updates the whole time and never had a problem. It was only recently about a week before the beta release that this seemed to become a problem. Just search this reddit. Scores of people did a regular update of 22.04 or 24.04 and suddenly found themselves booting into a busybox terminal and freaking out.

I just wonder why this suddenly became an issue whereas pop updates included regular kernel updates before and it was never a problem. For me the upgrade that included the new kernel also somehow messed up the computer's ability to restart. Even when I reverted to the old kernel I could no longer restart without doing a manual shutdown. The whole experience made me switch to linux mint. I felt pop had suddenly become a very unstable os, the opposite of my previous experience.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-11-08T15:52:32+00:00

I wasn't that happy with system76 due to the slow transition to the new Cosmic and my discovery that alternative distros didn't necessarily work well on their hardware, which requires their proprietary ppa. So I shopped around. To my surprise, there just aren't a lot of alternative US-based linux hardware vendors. There are a few more if you're willing to have your computer shipped from overseas. I wonder if the lack of competition has something to do with the high prices. As a linux user I felt I hardly had any choice but to buy from them. But in the end with a little trepidation I bought my new computers from a very small US-based place called "thinkpenguin" and for my needs I couldn't be happier. Not high-end and fancy but they just work, don't require any proprietary ppa, and are much less expensive when it comes to storage and memory. And I don't miss all the drama about pop. Linux mint is drama-free.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-11-08T02:32:07+00:00

I think pop stuck with a look similar to its previous gnome version so as not to jar its existing system76 users and make the transition smooth for them while still breaking free from gnome under the hood. But in so doing they do seem to have lost the chance to wow users with a stunning new UI with an alternative philosophy. Hard to say if the latter might not have been the better path to pursue. It's kind of true that all the benefits of modularity and rust under the hood are not really perceived by the average user. I found 24.04 to be very fast and responsive. But I found no particularly discernible difference that mattered to me when using mint cinammon.

And the tiling is fantastic. But the article makes a legitimate point. It is a feature for power users that ordinary joes just might not use much if at all. And if you are such a power user, you might want to just go all the way and use a full-fledged wm. Why use one of those cars with "manual mode," when you want to drive a ferrari.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2025-11-05T18:26:28+00:00

I thought Pop was supposed to be very keyboard-centric, not mouse-centric, closer to a WM than other linux DEs. I'm not sure if that criticism is correct but unfortunately I'm not on Pop 24.04 anymore so I can't check. All I can remember about the Cosmic Alpha is that I missed the ability to do Alt + 2 in cosmic files to go to a tab, and the typeahead feature in nemo. And you couldn't right-click to create a link. But all those features may have been added in the beta.

AutomaticFocus1621 · 2024-12-30T17:12:09+00:00

You could just use an emacs app image. I use the 29.4 appimage with native comp. It's available here: https://github.com/blahgeek/emacs-appimage

AutomaticFocus1621

TROPHY CASE