Terrible experience using Debian/Sway | Arch Linux Community | Page 1

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 3:51 PM

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Hi everyone,

I'm having a terrible experience using Debian with Sway.

I recently purchased a brand new Thinkpad Z13 Gen 2 with 64GB of RAM. I thought it would handle Debian and Sway seamlessly, but I'm experiencing severe responsiveness issues. It feels like it's using all the RAM, though it clearly isn't.

Here are the specific problems I'm facing:

Browsing in Firefox has a slight delay in scrolling.
YouTube videos slow down my entire PC, but the performance improves when I switch to fullscreen.
The cursor movement is very "smooth" instead of "instant," suggesting a small input delay.

Does anyone know what might be causing these issues? Alternatively, can anyone recommend another distro with a compatible tiling window manager that might work better?

Thanks in advance!

karmic spire Jul 2, 2024, 3:57 PM

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The easiest way to fix it is switching to Arch, Trust

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 4:00 PM

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Not sure about that one

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last time I tried arch on my last computer, it randomly after 2 weeks couldn't detect the disk

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and I had to reinstall with another os

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I'm after an OS that's fast and responsive and supports some tiling window manager, preferebly Sway

karmic spire Jul 2, 2024, 4:01 PM

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I have been using Arch for almost 3 years now, I did have some problems, but I also know 99% were my fault, Id never use any other distro instead of arch

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 4:07 PM

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But what about setting up all the basic functions such as sounds, brightness, etc. I'd have to do all of that manually right? Debian does it all for me.

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Isn't there something similar to Debian but much faster?

last elbow Jul 2, 2024, 4:12 PM

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if you would like to try arch without having to set everything up check out endeavorOS. Its just arch with a gui installer generally.

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https://endeavouros.com/

EndeavourOS

A terminal-centric distro with a vibrant and friendly community at its core

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 4:13 PM

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I could try this but do you both genuinly think this will solve the responsiveness issues that I've been having?

last elbow Jul 2, 2024, 4:16 PM

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im honestly not sure from my end - your laptop is very powerful and should not be having performance issues as a result clearly

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makes it a software issue

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something is happening in your current sway configuration and I am no sway expert

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potentially worth trying a dual boot with endeavor to test things out (newer kernel would help with your very new laptop compared to debian)

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but I cannot say for certain where the issue is with the provided info

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 4:18 PM

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does endeavor have a newer kernal than debian?

last elbow Jul 2, 2024, 4:18 PM

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everything has a newer kernel than debian

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 4:18 PM

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alrighty, good to know

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you said sway config, should I try backing up my current one and testing the default sway config maybe

last elbow Jul 2, 2024, 4:20 PM

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vapid stone alrighty, good to know

yeah just part of the stableness of debian it generally has outdated libraries

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testing out a default sway config is defs worth a shot

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 4:27 PM

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that didn't work unfortunately, but now I'm trying to figure out what newer kernel I can get but isn't my current one the latest?

last elbow Jul 2, 2024, 4:28 PM

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latest kernel is 6.9.7

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 4:28 PM

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oh

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lmao

last elbow Jul 2, 2024, 4:28 PM

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also do you have gpu drivers installed propperly?

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 4:28 PM

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that's a good question, I know I have the latest gpu drivers for windows (since I'm dualbooting), but not sure how to check on debian

last elbow Jul 2, 2024, 4:29 PM

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you have an amd cpu/gpu right?

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 4:29 PM

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yea

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last elbow Jul 2, 2024, 4:34 PM

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you have an amd cpu/gpu right? https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo

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that goes over how to install/update it all to latest

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only issue outside of these is probably kernel cause that is some VERY new hardware for 6.1. Especially on laptops the latest kernel helps a lot

vapid stone Jul 2, 2024, 4:38 PM

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I believe I installed the packages as mentioned on that website, how I can ensure whether I have the newest drivers, no clue.

Also how do I update my kernel to the latest one you mentioned?

According to this link here: https://wiki.debian.org/HowToUpgradeKernel, after typing "apt-cache search linux-image", the latest ones I see is the one I have installed currently.

How do I retrieve the 6.9 version?

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Okay so I added:
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian sid main

into my sources.list and now I'm updatin a bunch of things and going to try the 6.9.7 kernel

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I'll update here if it fixes it

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Question: When it generates the /boot/initrd, will that interfere with my grub boot loader which is currently configured to load into debian or windows?

#Terrible experience using Debian/Sway