In all the years of using Linux on various laptops and computers I’ve never been confronted with such a headache as trying to make Linux run stable on an Acer Aspire 3 A315-41G-R5U3 AMD Ryzen 3 2200U with the AMD Radeon 535 GPU in the years 2019 through 2021.
ARCH LINUX: I was previously running Arch Linux, but Arch ran into some booting or stability issues that hung up my system without rhyme or reason. Perhaps issues with systemd and the existing kernel of the time. I read that Arch is so bleeding edge that people who fix their machines one time, two times, and three times eventually get sick of their systems becoming unstable the moment any number of updates hose their system. For that reason I switched to Fedora.
FEDORA: I installed Fedora 33 and everything seemed fresh and stable until I closed the laptop lid and discovered that the machine either wouldn’t suspend completely, or wouldn’t resume, and would have to be manually hold the power button until the machine would physically power off. Upgrading to newer kernels caused the system to lock up within a minute or two of loading the KDE Plasma DE.
As a parallel Windows 10 user I had the habit of closing the lid when I’m done for the night and opening it back up the next morning to resume whatever it was I was working on. With Fedora 33, closing resulted in accidental disasters; something no casual computer user would know how to deal with. Even the next level of computer user wouldn’t be able to solve these problems because there’s so much information out there with these Acer laptops on all the various kernel versions and their issues that practically finding any working solution is like finding a needle in a haystack. Only a younger person with nothing practical to do, so tunnel visioned to make Linux operate on this machine, might discover a working pattern.
I’ve tried the following Linux Kernels in an attempt to get some Windows 10 comparative performance out of this machine:
# sudo rpm -qa kernel
kernel-5.11.12-200.fc33.x86_64
kernel-5.11.7-200.fc33.x86_64
kernel-5.11.3-50.fc33.x86_64
kernel-5.10.19-200.fc33.x86_64
kernel-5.10.18-200.fc33.x86_64
kernel-5.10.16-200.fc33.x86_64
kernel-5.8.16-300.fc33.x86_64
kernel-5.6.7-300.fc32.x86_64
kernel-5.6.6-300.fc32.x86_64
kernel-5.6.2-300.fc32.x86_64
kernel-5.5.19-100.fc30.x86_64
kernel-5.4.10-200.fc31.x86_64
kernel-5.3.16-200.fc30.x86_64
(Kernels downloaded from https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=8)
I noticed that in the 5.10 kernels on upward into 5.11 and 5.12.rc8, booting into KDE Plasma and launching a browser would lock up the system every time. The 5.8 and lower Linux kernels seemed stable without locking up running browsers and what not, but wouldn’t make it through a suspend and resume operation without crashing.
What I’ve been dealing with as a somewhat seasoned Linux and tech guy is not acceptable for the casual computer user looking to switch from Windows to Linux. I therefore must warn the casual computer user that until the Linux kernel and stable Linux distributions settle down enough to find more stability, Linux is probably not for you.
GOOD NEWS: As of today, 2021-04-15 and totally updated Fedora Core 33, I was able to run the 5.8.15-301.fc33.x86_64 kernel and two suspend resume operations without failure. My boot options include resume=UUID=[your device ID], resume_offset=[swap file offset], as well as “ivrs_ioapic[4]=00:14.0 ivrs_ioapic[5]=00:00.2”. It will take some more time to determine if the system is stable enough not to lock up. This is the most progress I’ve made on this machine running Linux in a long time. There may have been some systemd updates that affected suspend and resume. I will then try some newer kernels and see if any of them would run any different than before.
BAD NEWS: Unfortunately the above good news was only a fluke. The machine suspended and resumed twice in a row, something however I could not managed to repeat again with the same boot arguments and kernel. I got the same fluke results running Kubuntu 20.04.2 with the 5.8.0-43-generic kernel.
My original thoughts were that the COMPOSITOR being on may have had something to do with suspend and resume breaking. In KDE Plasma to disable hit ALT+SHIFT+F12. I then closed the lid and suspend. Only every 25th time or so would suspend/resume actually work.
The main reason I need Linux to run is in the event Microsoft starts tracking and controlling us like Facebook or Google. I will want another system to go to. Since Bill Gates is pro population reduction, I figured it’d be fairly soon they’d start using Microsoft to push the agenda. I will be very bummed when that day comes since I have some favorite apps I use like Affinity Designer, and maybe that day is already upon us, but I didn’t want to deal with setting up an alternative on a moment’s notice. It’s been almost two years of dealing with Linux issues – imagine doing this over night. lol
I hope something here may help you, or maybe you can help me!
