Need Input: Comparing my April Gnome install with latest Atlantis .iso

General system Newbie
1

Greetings lovely community,

I recently booted up the Atlantis .iso in a Boxes VM to see what is installed by default with the new .iso release when using the Gnome online install. I compared the list with my own system and got a few differences that I noticed. My own Gnome install is the April .iso from earlier this year, so a few differences are to be expected. I am simply wondering if the packages that I’ll list below that are missing from my current system setup, if it’s recommended I install some of them or not, please let me know. Appreciate any input and helpful feedback! I have a feeling I probably should install some of these, but I’m not sure exactly so any assistance is much apprecaited!

Note: I installed Gnome using Ext4, no encryption, on an Intel/Nvidia hybrid laptop if that helps, since I know I wouldn’t need any AMD/ATI packages for example.

Under the Desktop portion of the installer, if a checklist of the Base-devel + Common packages and within that list were certain sections that I had a few differences with my own system. I’m aware my system is working just fine, I’m just curious if it’s a good idea if I include some of the packages I’m missing below or not, so please let me know.

For a quick reference this is the selection settings I’m referring to:
Screenshot from 2021-12-12 17-23-36

Under GPU drivers, missing on my system are:

xf86-video-amdgpu
xf86-video-ati

*I assume since I selected the Nvidia setup at boot for my Intel/Nvidia hybrid, I can safely ignore these packages. Please feel free to correct me if my assumption is inaccurate.

Under Network, missing from my system are:

broadcom-wl-dkms
crda
nbd
nmap
sshfs

*No clue if I need or should have these installed, so please let me know.

Under Packages Management, missing from my system are:

pkgfile

Under Filesystem, missing from my system are:

efitools
haveged
nfs-utils
nilf-utils
ntp

Under Hardware, missing from my system are:

amd-ucode
dmidecode 
hwdetect
isscsi
sg3_utils

Under EndeavourOS Apps, missing from my system are:

eos-rankmirrors

Under EndeavourOS Applications Selection, missing from my system are:

duf
fsarchiver
nano-syntax-highlighting
pcurses
pv

Here’s my system info in case it helps determine if some of these packages should be installed on my system or not:

[scott@endeavourOS ~]$ inxi -Fxxxza --no-host
System:
  Kernel: 5.15.7-arch1-1 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux
  root=UUID=2c6a8f39-939c-47a4-9d95-dabf69e6f5c6 rw nvidia-drm.modeset=1
  quiet loglevel=3 nowatchdog
  Desktop: GNOME 41.2 tk: GTK 3.24.30 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM 41.0
  Distro: EndeavourOS base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Aspire E5-576G v: V1.32
  serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: KBL model: Ironman_SK v: V1.32 serial: <superuser required>
  UEFI: Insyde v: 1.32 date: 10/24/2017
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT1 charge: 15.4 Wh (100.0%) condition: 15.4/62.2 Wh (24.8%)
  volts: 12.7 min: 11.1 model: PANASONIC AS16B5J type: Li-ion
  serial: <filter> status: Full
CPU:
  Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-8250U bits: 64 type: MT MCP
  arch: Kaby Lake note: check family: 6 model-id: 8E (142) stepping: A (10)
  microcode: EA cache: L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB L3: 6 MiB
  flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  bogomips: 28808
  Speed: 3329 MHz min/max: 400/3400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 3329 2: 3377
  3: 3304 4: 3292 5: 3095 6: 3400 7: 3400 8: 3400
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
  Type: l1tf
  mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
  Type: spec_store_bypass
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp
  Type: spectre_v1
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional,
  IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: i915
  v: kernel bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:5917 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP108M [GeForce MX150] vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI
  driver: nvidia v: 495.44 alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm bus-ID: 01:00.0
  chip-ID: 10de:1d10 class-ID: 0302
  Device-3: Chicony HD WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-7:4
  chip-ID: 04f2:b571 class-ID: 0e02
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.21.1.1 compositor: gnome-shell driver:
  loaded: modesetting,nvidia display-ID: :1 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x286mm (20.0x11.3")
  s-diag: 583mm (23")
  Monitor-1: eDP-1-1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 142
  size: 344x194mm (13.5x7.6") diag: 395mm (15.5")
  OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce MX150/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 495.44
  direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_skl bus-ID: 00:1f.3
  chip-ID: 8086:9d71 class-ID: 0403
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.7-arch1-1 running: yes
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: no
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.40 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168NGW [Stone Peak] driver: iwlwifi
  v: kernel bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:24fb class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
  vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: r8168 v: 8.049.02-NAPI modules: r8169
  port: 3000 bus-ID: 04:00.1 chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp4s0f1 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless-AC 3168 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
  bus-ID: 1-5:3 chip-ID: 8087:0aa7 class-ID: e001
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 138.18 GiB (57.9%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: SK Hynix model: HFS256G39TND-N210A
  size: 238.47 GiB block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B
  speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 1P10 scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 237.97 GiB size: 233.17 GiB (97.99%)
  used: 138.18 GiB (59.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:2
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 512 MiB size: 511 MiB (99.80%)
  used: 296 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 10 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 512 MiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
  file: /swapfile
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 67.0 C pch: 61.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia
  temp: 59 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 292 Uptime: 1h 40m wakeups: 1 Memory: 15.51 GiB
  used: 4.55 GiB (29.3%) Init: systemd v: 249 tool: systemctl Compilers:
  gcc: 11.1.0 Packages: pacman: 1300 lib: 298 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash
  v: 5.1.12 running-in: tilix inxi: 3.3.09
[scott@endeavourOS ~]$
2

I guess the real question - do you want any of those? I’d go down them one by one on the Arch packages repo to find out what they do, and if they are extra, or replacements of what you have, and if there’s something missing from your system that these would fix.

4 Likes
3

You don’t need AMD drivers if you’re not using AMD graphics.

You don’t need amd ucode for an Intel processor.

You don’t need Broadcom drivers for a RealTek card.

Most of what you list are things for you to decide if you want on your system. Look them up. Do you need dmidecode? Look it up and see if it’s something you would find useful.

haveged? It’s considered obsolete.

Do you want expanded nano syntax highlighting? Then you might want the nano-syntax-highlighting package.

Finally, does your current system work? Yes? Then don’t you think you’re probably all set?

2 Likes
4

One of my favorite things about helping/keeping up here is that I’m constantly trying things that I may eventually add to my Arch install. With the latest update to pipewire - (and some coersion from friends), I’m actually going to trry the nano highlighting because I think it might be interesting and it’s something I’d have never even looked at before this. My everyday Arch copmuter gets a little more refined everyday.

I love having my test computer here and trying all DE’s, all WM, random things people recommend. I always try all packages on a “test EOS” install before anything ever gets installed on my everyday computer. It’s how we learn. It’s how we break things, and create “your” distro. The great thing about Arch is that arguably every single person who runs Arch, has a different install. There’s no Arch Linux per se. It’s your linux built your way, and that’s what really makes it Arch Linux.

2 Likes
5

BTW i use EndeavourOS and i installed it my way! :sweat_smile:

1 Like
6

This is what I did before posting. There were a few that I was considering installing like pkgfile, eos-rankmirrors, and nano-syntax-highlighting, but for the rest of them I was either thinking that I wouldn’t need them or was unsure exactly how useful they’d be. I only bring this topic up since these are the system defaults, and it’s what the devs have intended, that at the very least I consider including some of them if they are relevant to me.

@Stagger_Lee Thanks for the input and your assessment! I don’t think I need dmidecode, inxi is enough for me I think. I don’t need haveged either, but according to their github “The mainline Linux Kernel has now HAVEGED algorithm build in internally” so it makes me wonder why haveged was included in the newest .iso release, any thoughts on that?

Not really sure what this means, I’ll have to look more into it, but it’s probably something that could benefit me.

I probably should’ve specified better, there is nothing wrong with my current system, I was just “feeling out a need” for being in sync with the latest release, but I realize that’s not always relevant for every single user.

I’ll join you on this endeavour as well and install it too! :wink:

I started out testing in a VM before I would do it on my main machine in case of any issues. But as time went on, any issues were rare that came across, so now I don’t run with a VM first unless it’s just testing out some customization options that I know might make things get a little wonky. Other than that, I just roll with my main machine and hope for the best!

Welcome fellow Gnome user! :wink:

7

Yes, but I think it’s better if I keep them to myself :grin:.

1 Like
8

:wink:

Screenshot from 2021-12-12 15-59-54
Screenshot from 2021-12-12 15-59-541920×1080 254 KB

1 Like
9

I prefer micro over nano :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
10

I’ve been using nano so long I just don’t know I could break the habit any more lol.

I’ll give it a go on this though. My test PC doesn’t go much more than A week or two without an install

1 Like
11

nano file size 2.6MB
micro file size 13.9MB

Hmmmmm :thinking: :wink:

12

Yeah, it comes with a few more features built into it. That may or may not be useful. But it’s not like a couple of MB are going to matter to me with a 1TB drive :smiley:

1 Like
13

** Cries in 256GB SSD **

14

I guess we’ll see:

Screenshot from 2021-12-12 16-06-22

1 Like
15

Feel free to spill the beans :wink:

16

You need 1TB on Gnome with all those extensions and Gnome extras! :rofl:

2 Likes
17

Yeah, looks like the new python update from unstable finally hit us. Probably gonna have to rebuild a few of my AUR packages when I update that!

18

That’s cute. My second nvne is 256. After my 1tb. . . Yes I’m using a laptop.

Edit. I’m screwed,I just realized my test PC is only 240gb. . .

1 Like
19

Just a quick update, I went ahead and installed

eos-rankmirrors
nano-syntax-highlighting

And left the rest alone since I don’t think I’d end up needing or using most of the other packages. Nice to see the difference between releases though, perhaps this may help others consider something they didn’t know they might need :wink:

** goes off to figure out this nano-syntax-highlighting thing **

20

nano-syntax-highlighting

This is already installed with the new ISO. :wink:

1 Like