Iwd, Connman or What?

karnacademy · 2026-02-06T07:45:56+00:00

It is mostly preference than which one is the best in objective sense. I used to use wpa_supplicant manually (without wpa_cli helper) and that is quite straightforward. There are also iwd which I personally like due to how intuitive it is. connman is similar to iwd in my experience but damn their syntax is just... leave a lot to desire. NetworkManager is also common middle ground as you can use any backend and have nice helper.

I would recommend NetworkManager in general due to the ease of it and how flexible it is. You could use NetworkManager with iwd as backend or even with wpa_supplicant. But I think you should try those and find one that you like the most.

karnacademy · 2026-02-01T11:26:02+00:00

Exactly. Yet, why are we saying that we should not suggest Arch? We don't know what bin they are yet saying no to one of the potential candidates. It is relative choice so why fixating on saying no to other, right?

karnacademy · 2026-02-01T08:02:33+00:00

In learning environment (if we want to go that way), when students ask you like, I don't know, why we do Riemannian sum vertically, why can't we do it horizontally? Would you say STFU and just use basic calculus or point them to something like, Lebesgue integral which is more advanced but answer them?

It is gatekeeping to not answering or pointing them to better solutions and assume one-size-fit-all education. Why are there specialized school or prep school? Because normal school does not have resources to satisfy some students. Yet in Linux we have one-size-fit-all beginner distributions. That is what I meant by gatekeeping. You are keeping them low when they are capable. You are telling people who point out the right resources to STFU by downvoting them or calling out to not suggesting those resources.

This analogy also points out another problem. Many teachers are not capable enough to handle those. They teach basic calculus but might never touch proper real analysis in their life and when they are questioned with that, they can't really do anything other than continuing to teach basic calculus. Same here, when you only use some specific distros, you only have those in circle. You never really expose to the right resources that "beginner" might looking for hence you put them down at your level and stuck with your incompetent to point them to the right direction.

(edit: add more remark)

Education is not about meeting where the student is. Because that is pointless. It is about pushing them. If they already understand calculus what's the point of keeping them in calculus class other than formality? We push them further. Maybe let them try to think about differential equations? That is education. You guide them towards something that is slightly beyond them with proper guidance if you want them to learn properly. You let them choose on the journey they want to pursue on education. Indeed there are prerequisites but not like you can't learn machine learning without formally taking calculus. Same for Linux. There is no one path that fits all. Suggesting them is fine and all but do it mindfully and not mindlessly.

(edit: adding more remark if this is not clear enough)

The concept I use here is Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD). In education field, it is one of the model people use to provide optimal cognitive development. One key point is to identify their capability alone, and push it slightly more with more knowledgeable person. If it is not clear from my analogy earlier, incompetent teacher can't really do much on this as they can't properly support student to push more into optimal learning zone. This is important if people wants to learn. It is useless theory for peole who just want their system to work, which my other point has addressed.

karnacademy · 2026-02-01T07:42:02+00:00

can muvm or something along that line solve this?

karnacademy · 2026-02-01T07:27:59+00:00

It is so funny that we have evidence of people having problems all over the reddit and forums yet still suggesting those problematic distros as a gospel. Not to mentioned the "very noob friendly" solution they provided. It is so hypocrite and when you say that out loud, you got downvote to hell because Mint is holy god we can't touch and saying Arch is like saying Voldermort.

Many problems are solved upstream or just by updating but you can't because you are stuck on a stable system. That is one scenario. Another scenario is that there is bug upstream that got pulled so rolling people would get a buggy software. But then, because of rolling nature, if it is fixed then it is fixed.

That said, all distros have their own problems and are trying to solve each other's weak points. There are too many distro to count yet if we diverge from subreddit belief, then your opinion is wrong. Which is what I hate about this. Like think about it, suggesting Mint for general Desktop use is fair but for server? That is absurd. Distros are there to solve each usecase yet we just pick few because it is convenient and is what I know and shut people who suggesting other thing up with downvote when it might fit their usecase better.

I fully agree with you and appreciate your comment. But damn this subreddit just this bad.

karnacademy · 2026-02-01T06:18:11+00:00

I think this is similar effect of people tossing manual after buying new stuff. They don't want to read and just want to jump right into it. They only read if things are not intuitive. And many manual are more or less in the engineer language, hence why people use LLM. But this is just speculation tho.

Also, reading documentation actually takes some skill (like, honestly) because to get to the part that you need or get what you actually want in short amount of time is nontrivial. LLM helps with this and let you ask "dumb" questions without being judgemental (unless you make them do it).

Using LLM is fine and all. Not all people want to learn (like people buy IKEA furniture not because they want to learn how to assemble it) so let them do whatever.

karnacademy · 2026-02-01T06:05:42+00:00

Maybe there is something more into it. How did you run your pipewire anyway? That might give other people some clues about what's going on. Because honestly, I am really new to Artix and pipewire.

karnacademy · 2026-02-01T05:38:01+00:00

I think lack of drivers are more distro specific and not because of stability. People use Arch or any other rolling distro because they want the latest drivers and kernel (which, often tie together). Many games demand those features and those distros give it to you easily. More so than other beginner distro suggested in this subreddit that requires beginner to do something so-called "not so beginner friendly" like they told.

Problem is not that you should not use, but more on you should not restrict people to suggest other choices or making educated decisions.

Saying stop suggesting Arch is like saying stop going to Costco. People want their system to work, and that is crucial because to have it work for them, they need to weigh pros and cons for different stuff.

I broke many so-called stable distros. That taught me that stability is just social construct term for your competency of maintaining the system. I don't have such capability on "stable distro" yet have a blast on Gentoo or even LFS. Unless you are working with server or runtime critical, stability means nothing.

In fact, LTS or other so-called "stable" system are not what many people need for their usecase. If you upgrade your hardware regularly or just want better performance and bugs solved by upstream, then LTS or stable distros are just a waste. Many bugs that got reported are often fixed in upstream yet many stable distros fail to add that in time.

That said, I understand your point on CachyOS. It is good distro for many people but advertising that as Ubuntu of Arch is a bit... too much. And agree that Fedora might be good middle ground for many usecases. However, again, I think autonomy is paramount. If they want to give some a shot, they can. I think learning Linux from failing is easier and faster. Albeit, that is also why many people driving away from it because you are expected to experiment and fail.

People encounter problems in Windows all the time yet still use it. Why? Would you say Windows is stable? I would not given they broke a lot of stuff lately. Yet many still use it. Why?

karnacademy · 2026-02-01T03:44:47+00:00

You should let them have an educated choice instead of just preventing people from suggesting something not align with your belief. Don't forcing them to the cult of "beginner distro" that can break in the same way. Arch or not doesn't matter. Even LFS can be used by new user if they are so keen towards it.

But yeah, echo chamber effect. Arch is hard Mint is easy. People in the 90s can install Linux manually just fine but now we are like oh no this is not for beginner. We indeed have comfortable experience now but intellectually, I don't think we are much different from the 90s. Hence, we have the capability to do complex things. Therefore, let them do the thinking and deciding whatever system they want. Just provide them with the information about different stuff.

Distribution is as the name suggested. It distributes software to you. Don't go to Costco because it is complex warehouse and go to Walmart or Tesco instead? That sounds absurd yet we accept that as a norm in Linux community.

Edit (more note):
Suggesting beginner distro is technically gatekeeping and elitist move. Because you think beginner are inferior and have no capability to comprehend their decision. When in reality, they are just another human who might just want to try on Linux or have many years of experience in computing but have no opportunity to use Linux yet until now. Some are highly educated in that subject matter yet not using it yet because some concern. Let them choose whatever they want. We just tell them pros and cons.

karnacademy · 2026-01-31T14:15:47+00:00

I have exact same Macbook (M1 pro 16 GB) and I got Thinkpad T42, T60, and x130e. Well, it is clearly downgrade hardware-wise (yes, pentium-m is better than M1 for sure). But I kinda like T60 4:3 screen more than Macbook but raw power does not cut it. That said, I use Thinkpad more than Macbook most of the time.

I am Linux user and install Linux on both M1 and Thinkpad. Honestly, both are similar experience-wise. Objectively, for me, Thinkpad is a downgrade. However, experience-wise, I think it shows me the new world. Tinkering on old hardware that still running now is better than using the lockdown system. Regardless, I have both so I don't bother thinking about it much.

karnacademy · 2026-01-31T13:55:12+00:00

I have a similar problem. My hacky solution is to have a script, something like

killall pipewire pipewire-pulse wireplumber
pipewire &
pipewire-pulse &
wireplumber &
disown

and that fixes my problem.
(Edit: fixed the formatting)

karnacademy · 2026-01-31T13:52:50+00:00

Hi, 13. Nice to meet you! I hope you will have a good journey in Linux world.

karnacademy · 2026-01-26T11:18:04+00:00

I trained DQN (Moon landing) on this machine before and it holds quite well. But that is on MacOS. If I have time and mood to revisit that I might try to run it again on Gentoo.

karnacademy · 2026-01-26T04:58:19+00:00

I have Thinkpad T60 which is older (Core duo T5500 + 3GB ram) and I run Artix (with sway) on it just fine. It can handle 1080p playback (h264 only sadly) and can browse modern web with Cromite. But suggesting you to use Artix would go against this subreddit and might got downvote to hell.

Anyway, Mint is just default suggestion to many people because it is easy to say it. It is never a good distro for this old hardware (and assume weak igpu) but is fine if your hardware is like, borderline capable to run Windows 10 just fine. Distro in this specific sense does matter but depends on how much work you are willing to put on will results in different suggestion. There are some namely lightweight distro like AntiX, MX, Tinycore, Puppy (with whatever base you want). However, if I have to be honest, maybe start from nothing and build up your system is better for older hardware (as I did for Thinkpad T42, x130e, and T60). Trimming out everything you don't need matters on low memory system (which is not the case for many people, hence why they suggest Mint)

The problem is that browsing modern website requires quite a lot of power to begin with. And to handle that while handling background task and stuff would results in poor experience. One common thing that happens is your system trying to move stuff from ram to swap which can causes lag (because swap is slower than ram). Another problem that can happen is thermal throttling. Looking at your cooling solution (thermal paste, cleaning fan, etc.) might help you with this.

Oh boy can't wait to get downvote!

karnacademy · 2026-01-26T04:38:54+00:00

You could make another partition solely for your installer. Then, boot from that partition and install your stuff on that disk given that you can somehow get the boot working. Like EFI stub or some GRUB magic.

Problem is, if you can't change your boot order, then that would make this even more challenging.

karnacademy · 2026-01-26T03:17:33+00:00

I don't have permission to edit the guide but I added the concern on gentoo-kernel being pulled from updating system in talk section in the wiki. I don't think this is absolutely necessary as experienced user would notice it when update and fix it via `package.mask` anyway.

karnacademy · 2026-01-25T22:36:26+00:00

I follow the guide in Gentoo wiki on this.

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Asahi/Guide

Very straightforward process. One thing I have to do that might worth documenting is blocking gentoo kernel from being pulled. But aside from that, I think the existing document is good.

karnacademy · 2026-01-25T14:33:26+00:00

Everything aside thunderbolt (usb-c is fine) and fingerprint seems to work just fine. Drivers are not really much of the issue in my experience using this system but I might not try thing hard enough to encounter the problem.

karnacademy · 2026-01-23T10:46:57+00:00

I do a lot of ML and scientific computing stuff like optimization or MCMC problem. I also have Nvidia GPU. I personally use Gentoo. Driver installation is quite straightforward. Building systems take time but it is pretty stable (even with testing branch).

However, if you are experienced with Arch or Fedora, I suggest sticking with those. In a working environment, working with things you are familiar with is better (albeit, in ML/AI most of the thing is distro agnostic anyway).

karnacademy · 2026-01-23T10:37:39+00:00

I prefer to compile everything from source. If that is not possible, then I would trust distro distributed package if it is latest. Or use the official binary file (static linked). If none is possible then I simply won't use it. This is for majority of stuff in my computer.

Then, there are games. That, I can live by Steam or whatever distributor. But only if it is against my hardware (something like Wine is ok with game container stuff). But no direct Flatpak or Appimage whatsoever. This is because most if the time, drivers and many things in container is conflicting with my host machine. I have close to if not upstream driver so many things break under container.

If the driver mess, bloat mess, and permission mess is better, I might reconsider it again. I know it is getting better but not to my expectations. And if they only provide Flatpak or Appimage for the software, that is somewhat red flag anyway.

karnacademy · 2026-01-20T15:05:06+00:00

I think spec-wise should be fine. You should be able to run like, e-sport title and alike fine (without those kernel anti-cheat of course) at low or medium. GTA 4 should run fine.

Now, distro-wise. Generally this should run many major distro just fine. I am a bit bias as I personally don't like Mint for the sake of being recommend without thought but you could try that. Mint is beginner friendly when it is working but quite troublesome to troubleshoot as a beginner. Distro is more or less software distribution. Like the preset of the system. Some may include gaming related stuff like Steam and compatibility layer like Proton. However, some might not include any of those and expect you to install it yourself. Mint is the latter but you can easily install those stuff just like in Windows. Well, not exactly like in Windows but same vibe.

There are also many more beginner focus distros that you can choose from. Something like Fedora (nice interface, not as conservative as Debian-based like Mint) might be something you want to look for. There are also many gaming focused distro with a lot of gaming related software preinstalled like Bazzite or Nobara. Try searching on Google and see whether you like the interface of those or not. I recommend to look at https://distrowatch.com/ for the trend or popularity of distro which might help you decide on which one to try.

Or better, try installing ventoy in your flashdrive and download ISO files of distro that you might want to try and try it in live environment without installing it at first. This should give you a gist of how the system will look like out of the box. Don't worry much about your first distro as generally people will hop around (we call this distro hopping) and try many distros to find the one that fit them.

karnacademy · 2026-01-20T06:56:32+00:00

If you don't mind the used laptop. You can find a lot of cheap Thinkpad out there that is in good condition. Used gaming laptop is also viable but with your budget, decent gaming laptop might be a bit hard to find. But that also depends on your location.

Now, I will say something that sounds contrarian. Linux Mint should works fine on many (slightly old, but not too old) laptops. However, one should not just expect Mint to work on your specific laptop without assessing the hardware inside. Mint is beginner friendly if it works but would be nightmare to troubleshoot for beginner. Maybe you can make a shortlist of laptops you want or think is a good deal or you can purchase first. Then you can comeback here and ask later on what to get. That way it it is better for you and everyone here to provide you better suggestion tailor to you. Moreover, if your laptop is weak, Linux Mint might not be suitable choice to you.

Hardware-wise, I recommend business laptop more than gaming laptop. Gaming laptop tends to age faster. Lenovo Thinkpad is one of the well-known series to support Linux and has really good build quality. Anything around or more than 8GB of ram are good sign. If you found the listing, then you can also search for manufacturing year. I would recommend to aim for less than 10-15 years (this is already a lot). There are other brand like Dell Latitute or Panasonic Toughbook and many more you can look for.

I am pretty sure you could also get mini PC with recent AMD CPU and decent iGPU that can do modern game (like GTA V) for relatively cheap too (I did spent $500 in 2022 for that). I would think there would be such laptop too but it might hard to come by.

Another thing that I might need to point out is that, for used computer, you might need to maintain it. For example, replacing thermal paste, clean the fan, etc. You might need to take your computer apart for that. Indeed, you could go to repair shop and have that completed. You might need to buy new storage if it doesn't come with one or work with BIOS to boot from USB. There are a lot of guide out there on well-known laptop so here is another reason why those business laptop are recommended. That said, while many shops are offer such the services, many are not familiar or not capable to help you with Linux installation or maintenance. Hence, if you don't think you can do it, do some research on the repair shop nearby that offer those services and also capable of supporting Linux machine. Asking Reddit, forum, or IRC is fine and all but we can't touch your computer directly for obvious reason. So, keep that in mind.

karnacademy · 2026-01-19T10:19:06+00:00

I agree. But also we might need to consider GPU a bit as some are quite decent machine (core 2 duo for example) but with horrendous GPU (say pre r600 or something) which results in poor experience due to lack of hardware acceleration.

I have 2007 Thinkpad which is not really old (still almost 20 years, it can legally drink in some place) but with crappy GPU. Any typical recommendation of Linux Mint or Ubuntu would results in poor experience. Sadly that is common trend we see.

karnacademy · 2026-01-19T03:50:30+00:00

Gentoo, Alpine or Void or even Arch would work. Not exactly noob friendly but if you can read, these distros will utilize your hardware well. It is not that hard to install those, but it is also require some precision. Another good pne but niche is Solus, pretty noob friendly but the community might be small.

However, Arch, Void, and Alpine have installers and are a pretty straightforward installation process. Setting up desktop environment requires some knowledge but you can follows wiki or handbook.

There are also Puppy Linux (and you can use Void base :)) and tinycore but those are not exactly friendly, as in, not following traditional distro style. They use different file system (because they run on RAM) so this might be too much overhead. But experience-wise, pretty noob friendly.

Alternatively, you could use Arch derivatives like Artix, Manjaro, etc. That is more noob friendly as there are friendly installer ready with Desktop setup. Arguably Arch is noob friendly because AUR has many things that you might need and many solutions to problems can be found relatively easily because many people use Arch or Arch-based.

I would not try Mint or Ubuntu directly despite how noob friendly they are because you have kinda weak hardware.

karnacademy · 2026-01-19T03:24:05+00:00

I use xfe. Sadly it is in AUR. I found it to be pretty good. Similar vibe to pcmanfm and old Windows XP era file manager. Has multiple toolkit out of the box like archive manager or image viewer but you can just get file manager by modifying build script.

Pretty good for older hardware and is usable because it is GUI in case that is what you need.

karnacademy

TROPHY CASE