Feedback on new Xfce install

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After installing Fedora-Xfce to my new laptop, I was asked to provide feedback - here it is:

In the past (about 10 years back) I had no problems with installing Fedora-Xfce on computers at work, but after some time away in Windowness I’m struggling now with this installation. First of all, the live USB version started with miniscule fonts and icons. To make any sense of the screen I almost needed a magnifying glass. After managing to make the screen readable (Applications - Settings - Appearance - Window Scaling - 2x), I proceeded with the install to the computer. The install screens reverted to the minuscule font again, making the process a real challenge for my ageing eyes.

On re-boot I was greeted again with the miniscule layout, but that was now fixed easily - although some windows / icons needed a reboot for this to take effect. Though, the login screen remains miniscule. Is there a way to increase the size of this? And now, for some unknown reason, I have to login twice???

Next, I was expecting some sort of final setup screens. I had seen these in descriptions for other Fedora spins, but obviously not for Xfce. Never mind, all the settings needed should be found somewhere. WiFi was set up in no time, but that was not enough to search the internet for answers. The clock was far out, although the correct time was entered during setup. And with the wrong time the browser wont work. I spent hours trying to find a way to set the clock. All answers I could find were for different Fedora spins that didn’t work for Xfce. When my mental fog lifted for a moment, I guessed that the system time was taken from the hardware and after changing the time in BIOS, this part looked good (still looking for a way to set a time server).

However, while looking for answers and going through the various settings windows the computer froze several times. Fearing I had unintentionally upset some settings in my explorations, I started from scratch again. It still keeps freezing, once even straight after login in from a timed-out screen . To recover I had to restart via a long-press of the power button as the computer did not react to any keys or clicks. Is there a better way to recover? Don’t know yet how to takle the freezing issue. Was hoping that updating the system wil fix it, but of course it froze in the middle of the update.

This my current state of affairs. To avoid making this post into a book I leave it at this. There are still a number of setting I need to find. such as third party repos, fingerprint reader, location service, etc. I guess I could install another Desktop (Gnome, KDE) for which I can find heaps of info for these settings, but where would be the fun in that (and would the settings transfer when I switch back to Xfce?). I’ll keep persisting for a bit longer before reconsidering my options.

System Info:
Framework Laptop 13 DIY Edition
AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 w/ Radeon 890M
DDR5-5600 - 64GB (2 x 32GB)
WD_BLACK™ SN850X NVMe™ - M.2 2280 - 4TB

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I have a Thinkpad with a Radeon 780M and these issues sound similar to what I was experiencing around a year ago - probably an issue of “too new hardware”. There are some kernel parameters one can play around such as amdgpu.freesync_enable and amdgpu.dcdebugmask, sometimes these seemed to help (until the next kernel update). Another thing that helped was to fix the amount of ram used for graphics in the bios (I’d try this first). Also maybe try rawhide for newer drivers.

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caveat lector: I’ve never personally used the Fedora XFCE spin.

the live USB version started with miniscule fonts and icons … The install screens reverted to the minuscule font again

This is an unfortunate reality on X11 as far as I know; display DPI is 96 by default according to this nearly 10 year old stack exchange thread and the Arch Wiki. The fact that it chooses this by default obviously doesn’t mean you can’t change it after the fact (as you have done), but it clearly doesn’t make for a great initial UX on modern displays. One tip here in case you haven’t found it yet: there are some built-in XFCE themes that have HiDPI versions that will make all the window handles and panels and so forth more usable on a high-res screen.

(still looking for a way to set a time server).

Again, I don’t know how exactly Fedora does this, but you absolutely can set your timezone by symlinking the appropriate timezone file to /etc/localtime. This page gives an overview of how to do it. I assume that Fedora XFCE has an NTP service configured; on my Silverblue system I can see that chronyd is running (I did not configure this, it was enabled out-of-the-box). If setting your localtime doesn’t result in the time automatically being synced, try running sudo systemctl enable --now chronyd.

To recover I had to restart via a long-press of the power button as the computer did not react to any keys or clicks. Is there a better way to recover?

This could be related to your AMD GPU (and if it is, be careful: the machine does react to your keypresses, you just can’t see it because the display stops refreshing). I have a similar AMD processor in one of my machines and it too is affected by freezes, pretty much exactly like you’re describing.

One sure way of unfreezing it (on my AMD machine anyway) is to change the screen brightness via the keyboard brightness controls. That’s really more of a bandaid though, so the real solution is more likely a kernel parameter that disables “Panel Self Refresh (PSR),” a power-saving feature for laptop displays.

As @marreitin noted, you can try adding amdgpu.dcdebugmask=10 to your kernel cmdline and rebooting. I would elaborate further on how exactly to do this but I’m running Silverblue (which handles kernel parameters differently) and have never really used non-atomic Fedora. Googling says that the tool for this on “normal” Fedora is grubby. I expect that on your system you can run man grubby to see how it’s supposed to be used.

A couple more links in case you’re interested:

third party repos,

You probably want to set up rpm-fusion for multimedia, but as far as other third-party repos are concerned, I don’t have enough Fedora experience to comment any further.

I could install another Desktop (Gnome, KDE) for which I can find heaps of info for these settings, but where would be the fun in that

Indeed! :wink:

would the settings transfer when I switch back to Xfce?

For some things, maybe. For many things, probably not, and you would also end up with a bunch of problems with frankensteined app settings, strange or missing icons, etc. Switching DEs without creating a new user is a guaranteed headache in my experience, and only worth it if you are in this for the tinkering and not to actually get work done on your machine. That’s just my opinion of course. :slight_smile:

Best of luck!

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To fix this, I create the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-mode-1280x720.conf with the following contents

# Set default screen resolution.

Section "Screen"
    Identifier    "Default Screen"
    SubSection    "Display"
        Modes    "1280x720"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

This may not work for your hardware, though.

Obviously, this settings won’t work on Wayland, and Wayland seems not to have anything similar to globally setting the screen resolution.

To set the time zone, you can run timedatectl set-timezone timezonename for example timedatectl set-timezone America/Indianapolis. Also note that the BIOS time should normally set to UTC time.

1 Like
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Thanks @marreitin, I guess you are right about the “too new hardware”. Amongst the Framework documentations and links I found one about the freezing problem that seems to have solved my it for me:

sudo grubby --update-kernel=ALL --args=“amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x610”

It’s very much along your suggestions.
Thanks again!

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Wow, lots of useful info in your post @skyler544, thanks heaps. I will follow your links up up after the weekend when I can find more quiet time to dig into this new install.

As replied to @marreitin , the freezing problem seems to be solved now. In the meantime I could also do a complete update and also get the latest drivers from Framework.

As you assumed, Fedora came configured with an NTP service as confirmed with timedatectl.

Thanks for warning me about the pitfalls of installing another DE. Had half-heartedly considered installing KDE as I prefer some of K-based programs over others. Will definitely reconsider this.

Thanks again for your extensive reply.

1 Like
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Great little script @vekruse , thanks. However I’m wondring if it changes the resolution of the login screen only, or of my working desktop? My current issue is the miniscule login screen. The desktop after login is fine now. Will give your script a go when I have some time again and report back how it goes.

Also thanks for pointing out that the BIOS time should be in UTC, will attend to that as well.

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If you set the resolution of the XFCE desktop, it will override the default setting. You could just try it out, and if it doesn’t work, undo it.

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Welcome to Fedora @joatman

Fedora-Xfce-Live-44-20260306 - not beta yet … but close to.

You can test this.

Have you checked if you can update some firmware:

fwupdmgr get-devices

Because of your newer hardware ?

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I will follow your links up
As you assumed, Fedora came configured with an NTP service as confirmed with timedatectl.

timedatectl is new to me, and after looking at it I wonder how many of the pages on the Void Linux docs site I linked to are just writeups of how to manually accomplish things that systemd has a builtin tool for (Void is one of few distros that doesn’t use systemd, for some reason). :sweat_smile: I’ll have to stop linking to their docs; it’s habit because I spent about two years there and most of my system administration knowledge comes from that experience.

Anyways, glad that I could be of help. :slight_smile:

Thanks for warning me about the pitfalls of installing another DE.

It’s “probably” safe to do if you create another user, i.e. you have dedicated users for Xfce and KDE and don’t mix them. I think most of the problems with using multiple DEs come from how they each use slightly incompatible ways of applying settings.

Another note about KDE: you might just give it a try in a VM. People have been very excited about Plasma 6 from what I’ve seen. :person_shrugging: KDE definitely isn’t stable the way Xfce is though.

12

Thanks all for your input.

My system is now at a point where I can start installing all the apps I need. I managed to get the fingerprint reader working which helps with the miniscule login. The biggest challenge (up-to-now) was to get my 15 year network printer working, got there in the end.

vekruse thanks again for your script, but with the login issue gone, I decided against it; I rather keep the high resolution for image work. However, it might become useful when I explore VMs. That is a project for a bit later, as I still need to run a few Windows programs and I want to stay clear of WINE.

skyler544, thanks for pointing me towards VMs to run KDE apps instead of installing another DE. Planning to use a VM for Win-prods, then it also makes complete sense to use it for KDE apps.

ilikelinux Thanks for the link to the latest Fedora-Xfce version, but I’m not yet that adventurous to try out a “not_beta_yet” version and deal with all sorts of other problems. I’ve checked and updated firmwares as part of my post-install activities.

Thanks again, I very much appreciate you collective wisdom and helpfulness!

PS: As a new member I was not allowed to mention you all with @…

1 Like
13 
Trust Level TL0: new to discussion

This will change very soon. The system is gradually giving you more options to communicate with the community.

14

I am currently trying to activate amdgpu on a XFCE pc with a R7 240 (4gb DDR3).

Gonna leave updates if I get anywhere, both here and on this post:

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Small update:

Evil Linux gnomes aside, I managed to get amdgpu working on that XFCE PC. It just works.

Here’s proof:

[    0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=(hd0,gpt2)/vmlinuz-6.19.8-200.fc43.x86_64 root=UUID=ec512d12-59f9-4bf4-8d24-08b19b670e89 ro rootflags=subvol=root rhgb quiet amgdpu.si_support=0 radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1 radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.cik_support=1

Pe5700@Host-005:~$ inxi -Fzxx
System:
  Kernel: 6.19.8-200.fc43.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 15.2.1
  Desktop: Xfce v: 4.20.1 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.49 wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM
    Distro: Fedora Linux 43 (Xfce)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Acer product: Veriton X480 v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 3 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Acer model: FG43D serial: <superuser required> Firmware: BIOS
    vendor: Acer v: P01-A3 date: 09/05/2009
Battery:
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Touch Keyboard K400
    serial: <filter> charge: 55% (should be ignored) status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Pentium E5400 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Penryn rev: A
    cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 2 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1203 min/max: 1203/2700 cores: 1: 1203 2: 1203
    bogomips: 10799
  Flags-basic: ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Oland PRO [Radeon R7 240/340 /
    Radeon 520] vendor: ASUSTeK driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: GCN-1 pcie:
    speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 8 ports: active: HDMI-A-1 empty: DVI-D-1,VGA-1
    bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:6613 temp: 52.0 C
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.21 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.9
    compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.20.0 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu unloaded: modesetting
    alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0.0
    screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1360x768 s-dpi: 96
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-A-0 model: LG (GoldStar) TV res: 1360x768
    hz: 60 dpi: 22 diag: 1836mm (72.3")
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 vendor: amd mesa v: 25.3.6 glx-v: 1.4 es-v: 3.2
    direct-render: yes renderer: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi oland ACO DRM
    3.64 6.19.8-200.fc43.x86_64) device-ID: 1002:6613
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.341 surfaces: N/A device: 0 type: discrete-gpu
    driver: mesa radv device-ID: 1002:6613 device: 1 type: cpu
    driver: mesa llvmpipe device-ID: 10005:0000
  API: EGL Message: EGL data requires eglinfo. Check --recommends.
  Info: Tools: api: glxinfo,vulkaninfo de: xfce4-display-settings
    x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 82801JI HD Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:3a3e
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Oland/Hainan/Cape
    Verde/Pitcairn HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 7000 Series] vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 8
    bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:aab0
  API: ALSA v: k6.19.8-200.fc43.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.11 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    4: pw-jack type: plugin
Network:
  Device-1: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5764M Gigabit Ethernet PCIe
    vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: tg3 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: N/A bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:1684
  IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 261.54 GiB used: 57.43 GiB (22.0%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST3250318AS size: 232.89 GiB
    speed: 3.0 Gb/s serial: <filter>
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: SanDisk model: Cruzer Glide size: 28.65 GiB
    type: USB rev: 2.0 spd: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 37.25 GiB used: 21.94 GiB (58.9%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda3
  ID-2: /boot size: 1.8 GiB used: 561.5 MiB (30.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-3: /home size: 37.25 GiB used: 21.94 GiB (58.9%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sda3
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 7.74 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100
    dev: /dev/zram0
  ID-2: swap-2 type: partition size: 4.71 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
    priority: -1 dev: /dev/sda5
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 38.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 52.0 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
  Memory: total: 8 GiB available: 7.74 GiB used: 1.25 GiB (16.1%)
  Processes: 265 Power: uptime: 12m wakeups: 0 Init: systemd v: 258
    default: graphical
  Packages: pm: rpm pkgs: N/A note: see --rpm pm: flatpak pkgs: 19
    Compilers: gcc: 15.2.1 Shell: Bash v: 5.3.0 running-in: xfce4-terminal
    inxi: 3.3.40

Onli thing I haven’t tried is if the VGA output works, because I didn’t have time up until now.
IF I keep working on PCs today I’ll post the (possible) update today, because I still have to check my Legacy project[1] now:

  1. I am chronically ill, I do stuff I like when I can actually afford the time and strength for. If after months that NVK “came out” the GPU isn’t able to use it then I’ll consider this somewhat of a failure… if they don’t support it afterwards. ↩︎

1 Like
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Typo in this kernel parameter. Won’t make any difference, as you try to set it to 0 and also set it to 1 in the same boot, but you may want to clean it up to prevent future confusion.

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Typos are typos.
It won’t explode my computer and it has no negative effect except maybe occupying a couple of bytes more than if it weren’t there.

Just follow the instructions in the linked post to a t and the typo won’t be there.

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Update:
The R7 240 (4gb DDR3) using the amdgpu driver IS CAPABLE OF USING the VGA output, period.
If anyone is desperate enough, or finds a good deal for grandpa’s PC, you can use this GPU to run Fedora KDE and even run Vulkan games.