The return of Gnome

Stephen M

Author Level
Just wondered if anyone has upgraded to Ubuntu 17.10, Artful Aardvark, and what they think about it. It was great for my Optimus VII as it worked out of the box but I am sorry to see them ditch Unity as that was one of the reasons I went with Ubuntu originally.
 

manioa

Member
Hi, I did...
Bought the Defiance XS recently and installed Ubuntu 17.04. Then upgraded to 17.10.
My sound stopped working.
Also , only the headphones worked under 17.04.
The rest works smoothly.
Currently seeking solutions to make audio work.
L.E You can install Unity and have the option to login to it.

My specs:

Chassis & Display
Defiance Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD 120Hz IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 7700HQ (2.8GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 - 6.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Hard Disk
1TB SEAGATE FIRECUDA 2.5" SSHD - UP TO 5X FASTER THAN HDD!
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG PM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2800MB/R, 1100MB/W)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 150W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf European Power Cable
Thermal Paste
EK-TIM ECTOTHERM THERMAL COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + MIC/Headphone + SoundBlaster X-Fi MB3
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8265 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) +BT 4.0
USB Options
3 x USB 3.1 Type A, 2 x USB 3.1 Type C AS STANDARD
Keyboard Language
RGB BACKLIT USA KEYBOARD
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
US International/USA - US English Language
DVD Recovery Media
NO DVD RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Google Chrome™
Laptop Cooling Stands
CoolerMaster MasterNotePal Laptop Cooler, upto 17.3 inch
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
 
Last edited:

mishra

Rising Star
Unity has no future tho... It never had it. Canonical has no resources to keep this project going for much longer. It is better this way.

Gnome has has been on the market for like +15 years, it's stable and very flexible. Latest Ubuntu is a perfect example of it. Since they made it to look like Unity anyway. I bet most people wouldn't even notice the difference (if not for all the fuss on the media). We will end up with better Desktop Environment in long run. It may not be with 17.10 but let's wait for next reiteration of it. IMO project Unity has cost Ubuntu 6 years of lost innovation into their Desktop Environment.
 

Mnemonic

Bronze Level Poster
Unity has no future tho... It never had it.

I would strongly disagree that Unity had no future. It had a larger footprint (usage) out there than all the other desktop environments combined. I find the metric people use for "successful" quite odd - "It's not successful because I don't like it". There's a reason why ALL the most successful desktop Linux OEMs chose Ubuntu (with Unity).

I bet most people wouldn't even notice the difference...

Until they have to do something like install an extension. Sure, "power users" who are familiar with Gnome won't have a problem, but for new Linux users - good luck!

Love 'em or hate 'em, Canonical did more for desktop Linux than anyone else.

Anyway, not trying to start a flame war, just disagree with your opinion about Unity.
 

Mnemonic

Bronze Level Poster
Hi, I did...
Bought the Defiance XS recently...

Hey Manioa - I currently have the Defiance II and love it so much I'm thinking about getting the Defiance XS within the next month. I have a couple of questions:

Does the 120Hz screen work at 120Hz (using the proprietary Nvidia driver)? Or does it drop to 60Hz?
Are you able to cut power to the Nvidia GPU and use the Intel GPU?
What kind of battery life are you getting?
On my Defiance II, I have a setting in the BIOS to switch between "DISCRETE" and "MSHYBRID" GPU. Is there something similar on the Defiance XS?

Any info would be much appreciated.
 

mishra

Rising Star
Discussions were always highly welcomed here :)

I'm totally in the camp of "love" for Canonical, they do amazing work and rarely disappoint. Dropping Unity was just a smart move as it will free up their resources. Since Gnome is backed by thousands of contributors (professionals, amateurs, companies) it's much easier for Canonical to use it. Rather than reinvent the wheel (like it was with Unity), in fact Unity itself is based on Gnome afaik.

Canonical tried to go bold with Unity. It was fresh and new when it came out, it took a year to really shine... but the dream of having phone and desktop environment just didn't work out and something had to be done. It's not only Unity that's being killed of by Canonical.

In the end it was a decision made by them. From now on, we will get Canonical take on Gnome and not Unity. We, users, can still choose whatever we like :)
 

Mnemonic

Bronze Level Poster
Just wondered if anyone has upgraded to Ubuntu 17.10, Artful Aardvark, and what they think about it. It was great for my Optimus VII as it worked out of the box but I am sorry to see them ditch Unity as that was one of the reasons I went with Ubuntu originally.

Hi Stephen - good to see you're still active in these forums.

In regards to Ubuntu 17.10, I "upgraded" to it, used it exclusively for a month on my desktop and laptop, then went back to Kubuntu 17.10. I tried to like Gnome, I really did, but just couldn't.

I'm really enjoying KDE Plasma 5 and can't see myself switching to something else any time in the near future. I've found Kubuntu to be rock solid on my systems - even while it was still in alpha! ->

https://youtu.be/4vjQiZAKZW8?t=887

A thing of beauty :)
 

Stephen M

Author Level
Thanks Mnemonic, I am still on 16.04 on my main work computer and have not used 17.10 that much but struggling to like Gnome and KDE looks like being my best option now. Initially Yunit (https://yunit.io/) looked interesting but it seems slow to progress and I wonder whether it will really get going.
 

manioa

Member
Hey Manioa - I currently have the Defiance II and love it so much I'm thinking about getting the Defiance XS within the next month. I have a couple of questions:

Does the 120Hz screen work at 120Hz (using the proprietary Nvidia driver)? Or does it drop to 60Hz?
Are you able to cut power to the Nvidia GPU and use the Intel GPU?
What kind of battery life are you getting?
On my Defiance II, I have a setting in the BIOS to switch between "DISCRETE" and "MSHYBRID" GPU. Is there something similar on the Defiance XS?

Any info would be much appreciated.


Hi,
The 120 Hz refresh rate works perfectly.
Don't know how to do that switch between Nvidia and Intel GPU's.
Battery lasts about 3 hours.
The only GPU setting in the BIOS is enable or disable GPU performance scaling.
Attaching a pic.
I first installed Ubuntu 17.04. Everything worked fine, except I could only use the headphones to have sound.
So I upgraded to 17.10.
I did whatever I could possibly do, upgraded the kernel etc, played with Pavucontrol, Alsamixer, nothing works.
Also I can't figure out how to switch off the keyboard leds...
Other than that it works smooth. Absolutely love it.

IMG_20171104_132212.jpg
 
Last edited:

Mnemonic

Bronze Level Poster
Thanks so much for the info - really appreciated!

Just a stab in the dark, but perhaps you could try setting your acpi_osi to "Windows 2015" to help out with your keyboard backlighting issue?

Edit your /etc/default/grub file and add the acpi_osi setting to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, so it's something like this:

Code:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=\"!Windows 2015\""

Then run:

Code:
sudo update-grub

and reboot. Then try to use your key combinations to dim/brighten keyboard backlight.
 

manioa

Member
Tried that, not working in my case. Also changed the Xml file org.freedesktop.UPower.conf in /etc/dbus-1/system.d. from allow to deny in
<allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.UPower"
send_interface="org.freedesktop.UPower.KbdBacklight"/>
Nothing worked. Anyway , the most annoying thing is I have no sound , except for my HDMI monitor.
How did you deal with that? You have a Realtek codec, right?
How did you make it work?
 

Mnemonic

Bronze Level Poster
Sorry for the really late reply. Did you manage to get your backlighting or sound working?

In regards to the sound hardware/drive on the Defiance II - I didn't have to do anything (never have, from Ubuntu 15.04 to Kubuntu 17.10):

Code:
  *-multimedia
       description: Audio device
       product: Sunrise Point-H HD Audio
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 1f.3
       bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.3
       version: 31
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=32
       resources: irq:130 memory:df320000-df323fff memory:df300000-df30ffff

In regards to switching between the Nvidia and Intel GPUs, you use:

Code:
$ sudo prime-select intel
$sudo prime-select nvidia

The Nvidia drivers (PRIME, in particular) seem to have improved on Linux, so I no longer have to go in tot he BIOS to switch - just use the `prime-select` commands mentioned above (and then log out/log in).

To avoid tearing, create a file called something like "zz-nvidia-tearing.conf" in /etc/modprobe.d with a single line (obviously changing "384" to whatever driver version you have installed):

Code:
options nvidia_384_drm modeset=1

Then run:

Code:
sudo update-initramfs -u

This enables "PRIME Synchronization" - something now used instead of "pipeline composition" to get rid of the tearing.

I decided not to go for the Defiance XS in the end, as I'm still very happy with my Defiance II, and I'm going to wait for these new 8th gen Intel CPU laptops.
 

manioa

Member
Lol, just saw this today :-D
Hey, did you upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04?
I got a login loop, solved it.
Now I only have the external monitor detected :-D
 

Stephen M

Author Level
Just got a new Octane V so thought it worth going with latest Ubuntu, still getting used to Gnome and doubt will ever like it as much as Unity but generally I like Ubuntu for my main machine, although am running Debian 9 on my small 14" portable machine. Good thing about 18.04.1 was that it installed in ten minutes or less and everything that I wanted to work worked straight off. If I can ever be bothered I may try to sort the keyboard backlights and fingerprint scanner but not worried about them.
 
Top