Ubuntu and Mint issues on Cosmos VIII laptop

[Erisceres]

Hi all,

Here are the specs of my new laptop:

Chassis & Display	Cosmos Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD IPS 60Hz 72% NTSC LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)	Intel® Core™ i7 Six Core Processor 9750H (2.6GHz, 4.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)	32GB Corsair 2666MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card	NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 - 3.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1st Storage Drive	500GB Samsung 860 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
Memory Card Reader	Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
Sound Card	2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema
Bluetooth & Wireless	GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 M.2 GAMING + BLUETOOTH 5.0
Webcam	INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM

I've been trying to install Linux on this laptop for 2 days now, but keep coming across problems I haven't been able to solve.

I've tried both Ubuntu 18.04.3 and Mint Cinnamon 19.2.

So far I've been able to install both OS's from a bootable USB. For both, after installation, I've had to boot into recovery mode, enable the network and download and install Nvidia driver 430. Installing this driver helps me get past certain graphical issues (such as not freezing upon entering the encrypted disk password) with both OS's except for a black screen issue before reaching the login screen on Mint. At this point I have not progressed further with Mint as I can't figure out the best solution for getting past this black screen.

On Ubuntu, after installing the Nvidia driver, I can use most of the OS except for the network. Ubuntu does not detect my wifi adaptor and also has issues with the wired connection. I've noticed that I can get a wired connection after booting into the OS from recovery mode. Though, a normal boot into the OS fails to provide a functioning wired connection.

Note that I've checked in my BIOS and secure boot seems to be disabled. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Oussebon]

Check this:

Linux Laptop Compatibility

The questions "Will X laptop run Linux?" or "What issues does X laptop have with Linux?" come up quite a lot, so I thought I'd make a list of a few posts with info about people's experiences on Linux with PCS laptops. Although PCS don't officially support Linux on these, most chassis seem to...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

esp. the bits on the Cosmos VII and the Misc Issues. There seems to be a thing with the newer Intel wireless cards

 

[Erisceres]

Thanks! I'll see if anyone has manage to solve this with similar hardware.

Otherwise, I may just make this a Windows machine for now and see if the situation with drivers and kernels improve in the future for more recent hardware.

I've been trying for hours now. Mostly just trying to get the wired connection working first. I've managed to get the kernel using the r8168 driver and blacklisted the r8169 driver which seemed to have helped most people, along with disabling secure boot. Though none of this was helped getting the wired connection working so far. I wonder why I'm able to get a network connection in recovery mode though?

 

[astiak]

The issue with Ubuntu is most likely the older kernel and firmware it uses by default on 18.04. Kernel 5.0 was release in March 2019 whereas your WiFi card in April 2019.

Killer provide some instructions on their site for getting it working:
https://support.killernetworking.com/knowledge-base/killer-ax1650-in-debian-ubuntu-16-04/

I started off myself on debian back in 2005 as that's what I used on my servers. Hardware compatibility and software versions were always a pain in the backside in these LTS distros requiring backports or compiling stuff. After struggling for 5 years, I decided to move to a rolling distro and have had a lot less hardware issues (although occasionally other things break!). I do recommend a rolling distro, it can be a dramatic change from the norm however and tends to be more hands-on in terms of updates.

You could try backporting the latest kernel and firmware versions and see if that helps with the compatibility of the card, however it’s a good idea to wait for your distribution to rebase, update and integrate any later kernel releases which will include any distro-specific patches.

You may fare better on Ubuntu 19.10 as it does include kernel 5.3, but bear in mind the short support cycle thus requring a dist-upgrade later on down the line (more opportunities for things to break!).

As I said though, I would lean towards a rolling distro, depending on your level of experience. Manjaro or Arch linux are well supported distros with arch supposedly being difficult, though as long as you can follow the documentation it's not that bad. Manjaro is based on Arch but has a much easier installer, or so I've read. openSUSE Tumbleweed is another good option. All of these use different package managers than what you're used to on Ubuntu/mint. Deepin is a debian based one, but I've read some pretty bad things about it. Debian sid (unstable) is another option, but things will most likely break there.

Hope this points you in the right direction.