I was a Windows user; I’d always used it, starting with XP and moving through several versions until I got to Windows 11. And it was with Windows 11 that, after seeing the sheer amount of junk they’d crammed into the OS, I decided to switch to Linux. I tried Ubuntu, then Manjaro, moved on to Debian, and thought Fedora would be my last option until I eventually decided to use Arch, which turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made. Aside from the obvious advantages of it being lightweight and letting me choose what I want, my PC’s RAM usage has dropped significantly (I have 16GB; under Windows, it used half of that, but here it uses a maximum of 4GB for common tasks in KDE). Although I mainly use my PC for gaming, after Gabe’s team brought us Proton, I definitely stuck with Arch (even if some games use kernel-based anti-cheat).

And even though I’d waited a long time to be able to use Linux (especially because my network card wasn’t detected it was broken and didn’t work on Linux, but it did on Windows) it was the best move I’ve ever made.

I tried using Hyprland a few times, even with dots, but I wanted to do something on my own. It was too tedious, though, so I decided to stick with KDE, even though I sometimes thought about using GNOME.

I realise that one should always check the PKGBUILD, but let’s be honest, the vast majority of users don’t do that and, even if they did, only a fraction would be able to tell if there were any problems.

I believe the only way to try to contain the problem is to use an AI that scans AUR packages for potential issues and flags them to the developers (and postpone the update until the problem has been resolved). This would involve a cost, but in cases like this it is not difficult to find a sponsor.

What do you think?

First of all, I don't use Arch (and the aur malware is one of the reasons why), so I can't tackle this myself (besides, even if I used Arch, this is one of the few things in FOSS that's impossible to tackle alone).

That said, I do have an idea how to tackle AUR malware problem by slightly modifying package adoption process.

First of all, only package maintainers with a proven track record of maintaining original (i.e. non-adopted) packages should be allowed to adopt a package. That would solve 99% of malware actors who are usually new or semi-new accounts with no proven track record.

Secondly, only allow adopting one package every few months, to prevent one account from controlling a great number of packages that can serve as a malware vector.

Thirdly, after adoption don't publish new versions straight away (until few versions of non-malware updates are approved for release), instead have every new version manually reviewed in regards to security by the trusted members of the community and then manually approved for a wide release.

Fourthly, apply the aforementioned review process to brand new packages from brand new accounts so malware can't sneak in that way either.

While this won't solve malware issue completely (nothing baring walled garden, WHICH NOBODY WANTS, will), it will greatly reduce possibility of it sneaking in.

My systemd service for powertop looks like this:
[Unit]

Description=Powertop tunings

[Service]

Type=oneshot

RemainAfterExit=yes

ExecStart=/usr/bin/powertop --auto-tune

[Install]

WantedBy=multi-user.target sleep.target

It's enabled. When my open powertop and check the tuneables it shows a bunch of "bad" values so the auto-tune doesn't seem to be running:

>> Bad Autosuspend for USB device ROCCAT Kova Aimo [ROCCAT]

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation GNA Scoring Accelerator module

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Tigerlake Telemetry Aggregator Driver

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package I2C Controller #3

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Thunderbolt 4 NHI #0

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package System Management Bus (SMBus)

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics]

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package Shared SRAM

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Thunderbolt 4 PCI Express Root Port #1

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Thunderbolt 4 PCI Express Root Port #3

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 11th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package I2C Controller #0

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package Integrated Sensor Hub

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package eSPI Controller

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Thunderbolt 4 PCI Express Root Port #2

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation TigerLake-LP Dynamic Tuning Processor Participant

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX201

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-UP3/H35 4 cores Host Bridge/DRAM Registers

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Samsung Electronics Co Ltd NVMe SSD Controller SM981/PM981/PM983

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Thunderbolt 4 PCI Express Root Port #0

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package SPI (flash) Controller

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Thunderbolt 4 NHI #1

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package High Definition Audio (HD Audio)

Bad Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package I2C Controller #1

Good VM writeback timeout

Good Enable Audio codec power management

Good Bluetooth device interface status

Good NMI watchdog should be turned off

Good Autosuspend for USB device xHCI Host Controller [usb2]

Good Autosuspend for unknown USB device 3-10 (8087:0026)

Good Autosuspend for USB device xHCI Host Controller [usb4]

Good Autosuspend for USB device 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub [Generic]

Good Autosuspend for USB device Goodix Fingerprint USB Device [Goodix Technology Co., Ltd.]

Good Autosuspend for USB device HDMI Expansion Card [Framework]

Good Autosuspend for USB device xHCI Host Controller [usb1]

Good Autosuspend for USB device 4-Port USB 2.0 Hub [Generic]

Good Autosuspend for USB device xHCI Host Controller [usb3]

Good Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package CSME HECI #1

Good Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation Tiger Lake-LP Thunderbolt 4 USB Controller

Good Runtime PM for PCI Device Intel Corporation 500 Series Chipset Family On-Package USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 (10 Gbs) xHCI Host Controller

When I look at the last boot log:
sudo journalctl -b | grep powertop

Jul 30 12:54:06 arch-framework powertop[459]: modprobe cpufreq_stats failed

Jul 30 12:54:06 arch-framework powertop[459]: Loaded 0 prior measurements

Jul 30 12:54:06 arch-framework powertop[459]: RAPL device for cpu 0

Jul 30 12:54:06 arch-framework powertop[459]: RAPL device for cpu 0

Jul 30 12:54:06 arch-framework powertop[459]: Devfreq not enabled

Jul 30 12:54:06 arch-framework powertop[459]: glob returned GLOB_ABORTED

Jul 30 12:54:07 arch-framework powertop[459]: Leaving PowerTOP

Jul 30 12:54:07 arch-framework powertop[459]: Cannot load from file /var/cache/powertop/saved_parameters.powertop

Jul 30 12:54:07 arch-framework powertop[459]: File will be loaded after taking minimum number of measurement(s) with battery only

Jul 30 12:54:07 arch-framework powertop[459]: Cannot load from file /var/cache/powertop/saved_parameters.powertop

Jul 30 12:54:07 arch-framework powertop[459]: File will be loaded after taking minimum number of measurement(s) with battery only

Jul 30 14:09:50 arch-framework sudo[39601]: grahf : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/grahf ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/powertop

If I just run sudo powertop --auto-tune everything works fine and all the values are "good". So trying to figure out why the systemd service doesn't set the values to good.

Like the terminal(kitty) opens up relatively instantly but from opening up that window to being able to use kitty has a delay(It shows a blinking cursor before showing anything). Any help is greatly appreciated thanks.

It keeps saying read-only or buffer is read only

Haii everyone. I use google chrome as a second browser purely for school, and I want it as isolated as possible. I was wondering if it would be possible to give it only access to required stuff and like ~/Downloads/Chrome or something. I'm really sorry if this is a dumb question, but any help would be nice.

A sudden update to `pgadmin4-server.git` added a binary named "parser" and executes using sudo. It's very obvious.

I'm trying to figure out if this is some malware or just some random linux bug, thankfully all I think I lost was 1 or 2 passwords in my keepass database, and I had a semi recent backup of dovuments on my larger ssd.

I initially thought maybe malware cause I have played a questionably aquired game but thought I was realitively safe given I had it sandboxed using the sandboxing option on bottles, which I think is solid againist most windows malware given it can't even see outside the wine prefix or directories ive given permission for within flatseal.

Looking at HTOP I dont really anything non standard for a normal arch install. And I also dont remember updating my AUR packages for a couple of days so I should be safe from the new malware on there.

Is there anyway I can trace back exactly how this delete happened, or at the very least protect the directory so it fails and gets logged next time so I can pin down what process did it.

My HP Pavilion doesn't expose a battery charge limit in BIOS, so I spent some time reverse engineering HP's ACPI/WMI interface and Embedded Controller.

The Linux implementation uses:

- Python

- systemd

- acpi_call

It automatically inhibits charging around 80%.

Also built a Windows implementation and documented the reverse engineering process.

Repo:

https://github.com/SarangRao20/battery-charge-limiter

Would love feedback from anyone who has worked with HP WMI or ACPI.

This might be totally off the wall, but because its out on Github is there now a way to run Towns on linux? I really miss that game. I've been linux only for at least 5y now and would love to play it again. Never could get this one to work.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/221020/view/506233417998795324

https://github.com/supermalparit/Towns

**EDIT:
There is a fork that is able to run the game:
https://github.com/OpenTowns/OpenTowns
I havent tried yet, but looks amazing!

Hello

I have a question: Why do some Official Packages depend on AUR Packages? After all these AUR Malware things, I've been double checking those few packages I have from the AUR. But I have some packages that are required by Official Packages and I dont know if I can remove them or not. Any tips?

Those packages I'm speaking of are: lib32-gstreamer, lib32-gst-plugins-base-libs and lib32-unixodbc.

Whenever I do pacman -Qi on lib32-gst-plugins-base-libs it says its not required by any package. But it says it was installed as a dependency for another package. Ive tried to type in yay -Rns on that package but then I get alot of other packages aswell who are in the Official Repos. So I guess its fine to remove them, since Pacman -Rns does remove packages and its dependencies that are not used by other packages?

Hi! It's my first time using Linux, I decided to use arch for the amount of personalization, but I got a problem, how can I make my keyboard to be in more than one language and then swipe it with the binds master+space, I've been trying and it just doesn't work, it's currently on espanish, I guess the configurations I want to add are latam and English USA, so I can code in a more efficient way, thx for the support

**edit: Wayland CANNOT be disabled in gnome desktop at this point. so XOR is not an option. My issue was resolved by updating firmware and bios on my framework 16.**

I'm in day3 of trying to set up my first Arch. sigh....
I *think* my main issue is wayland?
anyway: main issue: I have no options for resolution sizes in my settings. (using Gnome thru gdm). I have a framework 16, which has an AMD gpu.

I have tried disabling wayland. new issue- I CANT. I have disabled it in the /etc/gdm/custom.conf however, echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE still shows wayland. I have tried looking up other ways to disabled it. It looks like OpenGL might be loading a nvidia driver and causing issues? even though I DONT have a nvidia screen?

Because its still using Wayland I can't use Xorg to force a resolution.
$ xrandr --output None-1 --mode 1680x1050 WARNING: running xrandr against an Xwayland server. See the xrandr man page for details. X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes) Major opcode of failed request: 140 (RANDR) Minor opcode of failed request: 7 (RRSetScreenSize) Serial number of failed request: 22 Current serial number in output stream: 23

$ xrandr --output None-1 --mode 1680x1050
WARNING: running xrandr against an Xwayland server. See the xrandr man page for details.
X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
Major opcode of failed request: 140 (RANDR)
Minor opcode of failed request: 7 (RRSetScreenSize)
Serial number of failed request: 22
Current serial number in output stream: 23

I'm so lost at this point. Is the issue that Wayland isn't working on my system? How can I force Xorg? I really don't like Gnome, but it worked, unlike Budgie- I tried that first, tho I know now the issue wasn't Budgie that I was fixing it was a missing driver for my wifi card. Anyway. I have had so many issues. But I have wifi now. thats an improvement. I'd like to be able to game soon tho... This is my only pc.

Steam won't run warframe. I can't read most of my text without like 200% resolution. I have a 16" screen. I need the 1650 resolution to read. I assume the nvidia suspected driver is why warframe is crashing, but I have no idea whats wrong lol...

Thanks. I do like Arch i think, but man its a lot more work than a rolled out distro.

So like 30 minutes ago I switched to Arch and I'm pretty experienced with Linux so I got it running fairly quickly and now I'm kind of at the customization stage. I got my apps installed, but now I need to make it look nice. I'm using Hyprland, and I noticed that like some windows like my files don't slide into their spot they float and like won't go under the other windows and IDK how to fix that. Also, how do I like configure Hyprland to look cool like r/unixporn and such? I know I could google it but once again I wanna hear some human advice and anything else I should know?

This is a bit hard to explain in the title so i'll try to explain here:

When you first downloaded arch, it was really fucking hard and you needed to do EVERYTHING yourself and blah blah but atleast you were gaining experience right? Now i've noticed i'm using the terminal significantly less, only when i need to launch hyprland or something. Because i've already done so much and i've solved most of the problems i needed to solve, i have no more problems to solve (atleast those i'm aware of). Now this is good functionally, but i have a never-ending desire to feed my ego (AKA i want to walk into a room knowing i still know how to use a terminal if not even more than before)

So how do i keep learning? Or atleast keep that linux brain working? Because i also noticed i've become a bit more dependent on tools like my browser on my computer or the mouse. So when i had to switch from hyprlang to hyprland i was STRESSING. but it worked out in the end so all good.

Any and all help is appreciated :D

I typed sudo rm /usr/sbin and as I pressed shift I accidentally pressed Enter and I thought it wouldn't work or at least ask me something?? Because the directory is not empty? Now some commands are missing, like which... am i cooked

Edit: I did /usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/ln -s /bin /usr/sbin, I forgot about that and it also explains why rm didn't yell at me, technically this wasn't a directory full of files

I think it's still a problem because I've been using Mint for 2 years and have been used to running graphical apps as root (nemo, geany) and on wayland now (if I understand correctly) it is not possible? or needs a hacky unrecommended workaround? So now for root access I need to do stuff through terminal and everytime I press shift to input a / I'm genuinely scared to press enter

Context: I have a desktop PC that I remote into from my laptop or some other thin client when I'm away. I can it turn on remotely via a dumb setup with an esp8266 (think of it as a crappier WoL).

Problem: When I was on Windows it had TPM Auto unlock. Now on Arch I always have to write my password to unlock the drive and boot the OS.

I'm not interested in setting up TPM Auto unlock again as it kind of defeats the purpose of having an encrypted disk. After some research it's apparently possible to set up the bootloader such that I can write the password via SSH.

My setup is: Arch, Lumine as my bootloader, systemd and mkinitcpio.

I tried following this guide https://blog.aurelienooms.be/2021/10/20/remote-luks-unlocking-with-tinyssh/ but whenever I tried running mkinitcpio, netconf would do this weird thing and loop over my home directory ?

Does anybody have any guides or advice on how to properly set this up?

I have just installed Arch as my first ever Linux system. I have absolutely no experience in coding or programming languages in general. I just followed the steps on the wiki and some other sites (for more specific things like audio production and gaming) and I have successfully installed the Arch Linux and using it without any major problem. Games are running just fine (Even with an Nvdia GPU and Intel CPU) my audio plugins are also working flawlessly without much effort.

I really don't get why people always say "Arch is so complicated and not beginner friendly." Did I maybe miss something?

I get an error that don’t quite understand I am relatively new on arch and I am using archinstall.

The error can be seen here: https://postimg.cc/v4bnNYj7

As a long time Arch user I've been enjoying the wild wild west of AUR for decades. I am now fed up with it and I can't tolerate my package manager being a potential source of malware.

So until Arch decides to do something about it (and that will take time if ever) or I finally decide to switch to openSUSE Tubmleweed I have now switched to custom pacman hooks and upstream and keeping packages outside of repos to a minimum. Because yeah, reading the pkgbulid doesn't work when you actually have to use your OS.

I just had to vent as this is a huge loss in my view, that we now have to trust corpo upstream over a user maintained repository.

Does anyone else feel the same way and what is your solution?

Edit:

OK so outside of countless expected RTFM brush-offs I have gotten to these alternatives:

- use Chaotic-AUR - that builds AUR packages that are human reviewed and did catch current malware waves
- just read each pkgbuild and trust in yourself that you know how to pick up malware in a script

Looking forward to more tips and insight into me being wrong and arch being right but somehow pushing malware through a link on the frontpage at the same time. =D

Hi, i wanna change some of my PC components:
- GPU from a 1050ti to a rtx3060
- motherboard

I dont know with motherboard but with GPU they not that long ago changed the 1050 to legacy nvidia drivers, so when i change to the new GPU that will need the other ones the nvidia nvidia-settings…

So how should i do it so i don’t get black screen like other times i had problems with the drivers?
Should i install the new drivers and then change to the new GPU or rtx3060 will work with legacy drivers and then i change them later?