Install-Manjaro-Linux-on-Matebook-X-Pro-2021-Huawei

Description

This guide provides step-by-step instructions for installing Manjaro KDE on a Huawei Matebook X Pro 2021, configuring settings, and troubleshooting common issues that I have resolved on the way. You could use this guide as a reference to do the same in different Linux distributions. New suggestions would be welcome to improve this repo.

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Table of Contents

1. Prerequisites
2. Preparing a USB flash drive for installation
3. Installation Guide
4. Post-Installation Configuration
5. Troubleshooting

Prerequisites

• 💿 An empty USB drive with at least 8GB capacity.
• 🖱️ An external Mouse.
• ⏳ Time.

Preparing a USB flash drive for installation

1. Your USB needs to have GPT Partition table before start, you could use gparted (Instructions) on Linux or Mini Tool Partition Wizard (Instructions) on Windows.

2. Download ISO File from here: https://manjaro.org/download/

3. To create the USB booteable you have two options, GUI and CLI:

   1. Creating using GUI tool:

      Download the installer to make the USB bootable, or use CLI to install it (https://etcher-docs.balena.io/) and follow these instructions.

   2. Using CLI without an external tool (Only Linux):

      Note: Remember to change the sdX pointing to your USB device

      dd if=/path/to/your/file.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress

Installation Guide

Change your BIOS Configuration using F2 key multiple times when you are powering on and disable Secure Boot as you can see in the image below

Boot USB using F12 key multiple times when you are powering on until you get a menu to select your USB drive to be booted:

Then, you can change the language, timezone, and keyboard depending on your needs and select Boot with proprietary drivers.

❗If you select open source drivers, you will get more configuration issues at the end of the installation, such as a flickering screen, the touchpad not recognized, boot not working, etc.

On the desktop screen you will notice the launchpad is not working. That's why you need a mouse to continue the installation process (This issue you will have only for the installation, not once you have installed it). You could use the touch screen if your Matebook has it to replace the mouse but I do not recommend it.

Open "Install Manjaro Linux" and continue as normal until the Partitions section, and select Manual partitioning. And create 3 partitions:

1. Swap Partition (4 GB) -> Mount point: swap | File System: linuxswap | Flags: swap
2. Boot EFI (100 MB) -> Mount Point: /boot/efi | File System: fat32 | Flags: boot
3. Root (All free space) -> Mount Point: / | File System: ext4 | Flags: root

❗Swap size that I assigned was because I won't use Hibernation. You can visit this page for more info.

You can see a graphical example with dual boot.

When you have created all partitions, continue with the last part of the installation, making user, password, etc, to finish it. If you notice, the boot screen shows the Huawei Logo.

Once you have installed it for the first time, update it using

sudo pacman -Syu

And install YAY for dealing with AUR packages.

Post-Installation Configuration

We have chosen KDE as the Desktop Environment, so you could replicate my configurations on Gnome, XFCE, or whatever environment you choose.

Display

The Screen Resolution looks so high, and everything looks tiny. To fix it, go to:

System Settings > Display and Monitor > Display Configuration

In the Global Scale option, change it to 175% and apply changes.

If you install new terminals, normally, you can change the size using:

Ctrl + (+ key) or (- key)

(Optional) In case you have a cursor, dolphin directories, icons, and windows decoration buttons small, you need to change them:

Cursor: System Settings > Appearance > Cursors > Size to 36

WD: System Settings > Appearance > Windows Decorations > Pen Button > Button Size = Normal

Icons: System Settings > Appearance > Icons > Configure Icon Sizes > Main Toolbar and Secondary Toolbars > Size = 22

Dolphin: Open it > Configure > Configure Dolphin > View Modes > Icons > Default Icon Size = 32 pixels

Battery

You need these configurations, since it will avoid one bug that I explained in this section SDDM BUG. After fixing it or deciding on something, you can change for your own confs.

To apply them, go to:

System Settings > Power Management > Energy Saving

On AC Power, On Battery, On Low Battery Tabs:

Deactivate Suspend Session and change the When laptop lid closed to "Turn off screen".

❗The hibernation option after fixing the bug is only used if you have a good swap size.

Touchpad

Moving the pointer is slow, and you need to increase the acceleration and invert the scroll direction if you want it as Windows does, in:

System Settings > Input Devices > Touchpad

Increase Pointer acceleration to 0.20 and activate invert scroll direction (Natural Scrolling)

Troubleshooting

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SDDM BUG (Black screen and Password Fail)

This bug happens when the computer enters to sleep, or it is inactive; the first time works, but multiple times, SDDM does not recognized the password, and you cannot log in again. When the computer is inactive for a long time, a black screen shows up, and you cannot do anything. To avoid them, you need to make the changes I do in the battery section, but to fix it, you have two options:

1. Fix the error

   I don't like SDDM, so in my case, it wasn't my solution, but I put references that could help you to fix it if you want it link1 link2.

2. Change the Display Manager

   I love to use LightDM since the login screens are so beautiful. You can replace it by following these instructions:

   • Install LightDM packages.

     sudo pacman -S lightdm lightdm-webkit2-greeter

   • Add webkit2 in the LightDM config file.

     nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

     -- in the [Seat:*] section comment or add this line:

     greeter-session=lightdm-webkit2-greeter

   • Download whatever of these themes, I'll use litarvan for this example, and extract the tar file:

     mkdir litarvan && tar -xzvf lightdm-webkit-theme-litarvan-3.2.0.tar.gz -C litarvan/ && sudo mv litarvan /usr/share/lightdm-webkit/themes/

   • Go to the webkit2 config file and change the variable to webkit_theme = litarvan

     nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm-webkit2-greeter.conf

   • Now comment the lines in the [KSplash] section and copy these ones:

     [KSplash] Engine=none Theme=None

   • And change the service by deactivating SDDM and activating LightDM.

     sudo systemctl disable sddm sudo systemctl enable lightdm

   Now, you need to reboot, and you will see the good themes that LightDM has.

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Bad Sound / Not Sound

The audio quality is so bad when I reduce the volume to less than 50% because the speakers change to other speakers and the quality is horrible. It isn't straightforward to find solutions on the web about it. To fix this error, firstly, you need to know what driver and audio information you have:

inxi -Aa

There are key points to notice in the Output:

1. Name Device: Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio

2. Driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl

3. Alternate: snd_had_intel and snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl

4. Chip-ID: 8086:a0c8

According to the Linux Driver Database, my driver exists only in the following kernel versions:

• 5.12 to 5.19
• 6.0 to 6.6
• 6.7-rc+HEAD

So, if you don't have a kernel in these versions you probably don't have sound because the driver does not exist in the kernel, so you need to update it to one from the list. You can check the version with this command:

uname -a

In case your kernel version is correct, it's important to know that your computer is "relatively new", and many sof-firmwares are in the new packages, probably between 2021 until now. This firmware is in the sof-firmware package, as you can see. You can install or reinstall the package and reboot using:

• Manjaro/Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S sof-firmware

• Ubuntu

sudo apt update && sudo apt install firmware-sof-signed

You can see these firmwares in your computer with this:

ls /lib/firmware/intel/sof-tplg/sof-tgl*

These firmwares are provided by Sound Open Firmware. I'm not going to deep into this section because, reviewing the firmwares for Matebook-X Pro 2021, it uses v2.1 sof-bin versions that actually installed, so you don't need to install the sof-bin AUR Package.

❗Probably, if you have a different architecture or your firmware is missing, you would be interested in this sof-bin repo and get more info here.

It's expected that the problem persists with bad sound with low volume. Try to run this:

ls /usr/share/alsa/

And you will find the configurations that ALSA takes for your driver in the "ucm" directory. The configurations inside are not working for this computer, so we have two options, "remove them" or "find a new configuration". In my case, I removed them, and it works, but I will explain both situations.

• Remove them

  Make a backup of your configurations and leave the ucm directory empty.

  mkdir backup_alsa_ucm && cd backup_alsa_ucm && sudo mv /usr/share/alsa/ucm2/* .

  In case your directory is called ucm2 renamed to ucm.

  mv /usr/share/alsa/ucm2/ /usr/share/alsa/ucm/

  Reboot the computer and check the volume sound; if you notice the speakers and quality change when you reduce the volume, you must find the new configurations. Otherwise, you have fixed the error and we only need to increase the sound quality in this section: increase sound quality section.

  ❗ Remember, I mean bad quality because it's not the best, but when you reduce the volume, the quality is extremely horrible

• Find new configuration

  Check this ucm repository, and you will find configurations for many computers; clone it.

  git clone https://github.com/thesofproject/alsa-ucm-conf.git --branch master

  As you can see, this repository contains ucm empty and ucm2 dirs with many configurations; you need to replace the content of ucm2 with these new ones and reboot every time.

  Firstly, backup your ucm content:

  mkdir backup_alsa_ucm && cd backup_alsa_ucm && sudo mv /usr/share/alsa/ucm2/ .

  Then you copy ucm configurations from repo to your local ucm2 and reboot:

  sudo cp -R ucm2/* /usr/share/alsa/ucm2/

  To be sincere, none configuration works for me from this master branch, but I noticed the repo contains different branches with different configurations. Try and check them out if one of them works. I haven't tried to copy one directory to see how ALSA takes the configurations instead of all of them at the same time.

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Increase Sound Quality

Now you can notice your audio is not changing with the volume, but it doesn't sound like Windows does, so to replicate a similar quality, we need to install EasyEffects and their dependencies:

sudo pacman -S pipewire pipewire-alsa pipewire-pulse wireplumber gst-plugin-pipewire easyeffects calf lsp-plugins zam-plugins-lv2 mda.lv2 yelp

I remember that you could have conflict dependencies or you cannot install because of many packages, you need to uninstall them.

Then you have to enable EasyEffects to start with system, open EasyEffects and click on the button next to minimize the window, select preferences, and activate.

Select the Output tab and Effects tab at the bottom, then in the Presets button next to Output, put a name and click on the + button to create a new preset. After that add these 5 effects in this order, then disable all with the power button next to the effect but "limiter":

1. Filter
2. Bass Enhancer
3. Multiband Compressor
4. Stereo Tools
5. Limiter

For every effect configuration you do, you need to go to the Presets button, look at your new preset, and next to Load, there is a button to save it.

• Copy these configurations in Limiter:

• After that, enable and configure Filter:

• Now enable and configure Bass Enhancer.

• Enable and Configure Multiband Compressor. In this section, you have to select Band1 since the image below shows the configuration for Band1, but you need to have different configurations for each band until Band4.

  Copy the same configurations per band as follows:

Band 1 Attack Time: 150 ms, Release Time: 300 ms, Attack Threshold: -16 dB, Ratio: 5Knee: -12 dB, Makeup: 4 dB

Band 2 Attack Time: 150 ms, Release Time: 200 ms, Attack Threshold: -24 dB, Ratio: 3Knee: -9 dBMakeup: 4 dB

Band 3, Attack Time: 100 ms, Release Time: 150 ms, Attack Threshold: -24 dB, Ratio: 3Knee: -9 dBMakeup: 4 dB

Band 4, Attack Time: 80 ms, Release Time: 120 ms, Attack Threshold: -24 dB, Ratio: 4Knee: -9 dBMakeup: 4 dB

Now select the bands as the following image and save it.

• For the last effect, enable and configure Stereo Tools.

Save it again, and now go to the PipeWire tab, in the General option, you will see our Driver Name Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound, and you need to activate it as default input and output. Then go to Presets Autoloading and select our Driver Tiger, select the Preset you have created, and click on the + button

❗You can do the same for new devices that have the similar problems and create new presets for them

You can try your new configurations and close EasyEffects, in case you don't get the new quality, visit this article for more info.