Something Happen to the Asus Image and Kernel?

Bluefin
1

Updated for the first time since F41 release(was running on the asus F41 image), and the kernel installed is now the bazzite kernel 6.11.10-301.bazzite.fc41

Previously it was 6.11.4-666.rog.fc41

additionally, bootc shows Current booted image: ghcr.io/ublue-os/bluefin-dx-asus-nvidia:latest

while fastfetch reports something not related to asus at all: bluefin-dx-hwe-nvidia:latest

with this, many features of my Asus laptop no longer work (such as Mini LED mode and Panel Overdrive)

Curious if anyone has any more info on this?

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We’re trying to combo the asus/surface patches in one hwe kernel in the latest branch that is carrying those patches already, which is basically bazzite’s kernel afaict. I’m confused too.

cc @m2Giles -

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Exactly what Jorge said. Trying to just have one hardware enablement image for bluefin.

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Aurora Surface users are hit even harder, Bazzite Kernel won’t even boot for some of us

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These devices are becoming more difficult for us to maintain as no one has stepped up to maintain them.

We’re looking at seeing if we can get this working but we’ll likely drop support for these in F42. Someone will likely need to make images with the surface/asus third party repos as opposed to trying to get them all working with a singular kernel. I’ve removed mentioning them on the website/docs to better reflect reality.

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Thanks for the response!

That makes sense, I was unaware of the issues with maintaining them.

I’ve been considering making an image with the Asus third party repo, would I run into an issue with secure boot or needing any type of keys if I do?

p.s. Thank you and the rest of the team for this amazing distro!

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I’m not sure on secureboot but with bootc and dnf it’s much easier to add dnf repos and do less of the workarounds that we’ve piled up over the years. Here’s how ultramarine does it: bootc/base/Containerfile at c8843a270186b8aedc6cba31f1a597e81446a49e · Ultramarine-Linux/bootc · GitHub

It wouldn’t be too hard for someone to set this up for both asus-linux and surface-linux.

Though it would be nice if we could get some help with people with expertise with these kernels, having to drop them mid cycle isn’t ideal.

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Can I ask for some more detail on where this complexity lives?

I would think it is just using the existing upstream kernels from the linux-surface and asus-kernel project?

Bazzite has a very gaming centric kernel and has a lot of changes that not everyone wants.

Bluefin and Aurora seemed like the saner less invasive option, especially for using in places where you aren’t gaming. I have Bluefin DX on my work laptop.

Using the bazzite kernel in general seems like a not great move for the focus of Bluefin. And reduces the difference between the 2 even further.

So this move away from using the proper kernel projects for the 2 platforms I see as a regression and seems to be causing more problems than solving.

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Yes the bazzite kernel carries the asus and surface patches, the intent was to share one kernel with bazzite so that we don’t need to do have 2 separate kernels and more builds. The issue is we can’t test those kernels and come with their own set of problems.

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Thanks for the information. Does this mean that as long as the normal kernel used by Bluefin F41 is not working on my Surface 7+ (currently it won’t boot), my best bet is to try to use the surface-linux kernel directly in Bluefin, using the instruction supplied for Silverblue (https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Installation-and-Setup#Fedora-Silverblue)? Or will this generally not work (my first attempts just now have not succeeded, and I am not that well versed in this matter)? Maybe someone has succeeded already and can share their fixes…

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I am not sure what will work and what will not work.

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I also have no luck installing surface-kernel on regular bluefin or aurora. Tried it the whole day. The aurora-surface image also has issues as the battery doesn’t get detected after updating to latest version on my SP7+. Seems like i have to look for alternative distros :frowning:

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Thank you for the information! I have not had any further success either. Does the latest aurora-surface boot for you though? And is the aurora-surface image you are using the old image with the surface kernel or the new image based on the bazzite kernel? Because when I try to update to the latest bluefin-surface, it does not boot at all; if I understand it correctly, that is already using the bazzite kernel.

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So I tried the aurora-dx-surface image and it did indeed boot for me. I’m not sure about the kernel, but I downloaded it two days ago, so it should be the latest one. Also devices were detected upon first install, as far as I can tell. But after updating the system at least the battery was not detected anymore.

Btw, I also tried plain Fedora Silverblue, but I couldn’t install the surface-kernel there either