How to configure Winesap as main/exclusive OS?

[xtasy-games]

Hi,
I took Winesap seriously and tried to install it as main os on my new laptop. I added a new 64GB NVME to the included 1TB and followed the installation process and 1st configuration. Eveerything ok.

But now I'm having some issues:

In the booting process it appears a lot of options and I don't know which one I should choose and also I don't know how to make the right one as default (remove the menu).

It is showing many errorsduring booting. Also don't know the reason cause they show since the 2nd boot

It does not allow me to update the system. It seems like the drive is full, but don't know why cause I only used it for the winesap, nothing more.

Almost all the hardware is supported, with the exception of the screen bright, which does not seem to lower by any control.

How to install Nvidia driver? in desktop mode I mean.

(I added 2 videos showing the boot process and the errors in the update process, sorry for the poor quality but my camera keep changing autofocus all the time)

document_5805167755363619792.mp4

document_5805167755363619793.mp4

[LukeShortCloud]

Hey @xtasy-games , thanks for reaching out! I will try to help out with these problems.

• Storage full.
  • If your storage is full, this will cause lots of random issues so we should fix that first.
  • If you open up Terminator, run df -h to view your available storage space. See if / is reported as using 100%.
  • Here are some hints on how to view and delete old Btrfs/Snapper backups (a common cause for storage space being low - something that will be addressed in the upcoming stable winesapOS 4.1.0 release):
    • https://github.com/LukeShortCloud/winesapOS/tree/4.0.0?tab=readme-ov-file#getting-started
    • https://github.com/LukeShortCloud/winesapOS/tree/4.0.0?tab=readme-ov-file#btrfs-backups
• Default kernel.
  • I recommend selecting "Arch Linux, with Linux linux-t2 (fallback initramfs)" during boot. It provides the most amount of features and stability. winesapOS will then default to this for future boots.
  • This might also remove the LightDM error message that you see before the login page. It can safely be ignored.
  • After you have your desired kernel selected and booted, you can hide the GRUB menu by changing these two configuration settings.

    $ sudo nano /etc/default/grub
    GRUB_TIMEOUT=0
    GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
    $ sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
    

• NVIDIA drivers.
  • You can run the "winesapOS First-Time Setup" desktop shortcut. It will walk you through installing the graphics drivers. I see you have a modern ASUS ROG gaming laptop. You most likely need to select "NVIDIA (New, Maxwell and newer)" when asked what driver to install.
• Discover not working.
  • The error is "unable to lock database". The fix is to run this command: sudo rm -f var/lib/pacman/db.lck
• Brightness control.
  • What exact laptop model do you have? Are you using the keyboard shortcut to control brightness or the controls in the OS? I will see if I can add full support for it in the next update.

One important thing to note is that I see you are using winesapOS 3.4.0. You may want to try a fresh installation of winesapOS 4.0.0 or you can try upgrading with these commands:

export WINESAPOS_UPGRADE_VERSION_CHECK=false
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LukeShortCloud/winesapOS/4.1.0-alpha.0/scripts/winesapos-upgrade.sh | sudo -E bash

Hopefully that helps! Let me know how everything goes.

[xtasy-games]

Hi again,

Sorry for the late response, I was waiting for the 4.1 release, but as it seem it is not coming out soon, I will answer according to the results with 4.0:

Thanks a lot for your kind and helpfull respone. I followed your instructions and fixed some of the problems, but sadly new ones arised.

First i updated to Winesap 4.0

Then I selected "Arch Linux, with Linux linux-t2 (fallback initramfs)" and hide GRUB menu editing the config, but now I get this when I boot up:

If I use terminator to try to delete backups, this is what I see

So I don't know what is / and what folders or files could I delete

And the third biggest problem is trying to update apps, cause I get this

My laptop model is ASUS ROG GV601RW-M5041W, an interesting model because even it is lightweight and can be used as a tablet (even drawing tablet) it has a Nvidia 3070TI with 8GB (some models even 12GB) so it is a gaming beast. It would be awesome if you could support the brightness issue and also suspension, cause it does not go to sleep and eats up all battery.

The main problem is that it only supports windows 11 and I would like to get rid of it, so your distro seemed to me like the best bet for a linux newbie cause I have a Steam Deck and love Steam OS (because of its simplicity), but all the projects out there trying to replicate it for desktop computers, don't support Nvidia. So you mean with the first time setup, I get a full install of Nvidia drivers? with full acceleration for games? cause I didn't see the Nvidia control panel. Does it work only in desktop mode, or also (althought not garanteed) in game mode?

Thanks again for your support and hope yo keep improving this project, cause I am in various Deck groups and forums and they are looking forward to replicate the same experience for their laptops and desktops, but as non technical users/gamers, they cannot mess around with linux complex configurations, so I really hope you achieve a "shell free" release :D

[LukeShortCloud]

Glad to hear back from you, @xtasy-games ! No need to apologize. I hope I am not overwhelming you with information. I want to be transparent and help give as many details as possible to help you out!

• Snapper backups.
  • / is the equivalent of the Windows C:\ drive. It is the top-level folder.
  • You have 58 backups so you can delete them all by running sudo snapper delete 1-58.
  • There are also backups for the /home directory. The equivalent to C:\Users\ in Windows.
    • You can view these by running sudo snapper -c home list.
  • Because you have a very small drive, I recommend disabling automatic backups entirely: sudo systemctl disable --now snapper-timeline.timer snapper-cleanup-hourly.timer
  • One of the winesapOS developers is working on optimizing the backups to use less space in the next release of winesapOS.
    • Snapper default config = me out of disk space  #794
• RAM.
  • Once you free up some more storage space, I believe this error message will disappear.
  • We added a ZRAM option in winesapOS 3.4.0 to help with folks who have small storage devices. However, it was not very clear on how to enable it. Starting with winesapOS 4.0.0, you can more clearly select between a swap file which takes up storage space or ZRAM which uses CPU processing instead.
  • Delete your swap file by running sudo swapoff /swap/swapfile, sudo rm -f /swap/swapfile, and then edit this file (sudo nano /etc/fstab) to remove the swapfile line. Then reboot.
    • Go through the first-time setup again but this time say no to RAM. It will then ask if you want to use ZRAM instead. Select yes.
• Image type.
  • It looks like you are using the performance image. Is that right? I highly recommend using the minimal image instead. The performance and secure images have a 16 GB partition for sharing files between Linux and Windows. For you, that is probably a waste of space.
    • If you do not want to re-install, you can use GParted to delete the "WOS-DRIVE" partition and expand the "winesapos-root" partition.
• Discover timed out.
  • I can tell that the winesapOS upgrade failed because the KDE Plasma theme has not been updated to the latest version.
    • Most likely because of the lack of storage space. From one of your screenshots I see that you have 4 GiB free which is not enough for the upgrade to work.
      • That 4 GiB is also very likely to be inaccurate as it does not account for your file system backups.
  • As part of the upgrade, it removes and then tries to install an updated dependency for the Discover package manager.
    • That dependency is PackageKit and actually has a lot of issues because the project was abandoned many years ago. It will be removed in the next release. Use "bauh" for installing packages instead. It is much more reliable.
• Upgrades.
  • The upgrade being marked as an alpha is somewhat misleading. It is actually more stable and accounts for the major KDE Plasma 5 to 6 upgrade. I highly recommend trying that out when you have more space available. I have been testing it extensively and the results are good so far.
    • Later this year, we will have rolling upgrades so you can upgrade at any time and have a smooth experience.
    • Lots of other major upgrade improvements are coming in the next couple of winesapOS releases.
• ASUS ROG GV601RW-M5041W.
  • Thanks for providing your model number. That sounds like a really sweet laptop! Gaming with a NVIDIA RTX 3070 TI must be great!
    • Yes, NVIDIA graphics drivers are fully supported in winesapOS. You can run sudo nvidia-settings to access the NVIDIA Control Panel.
  • We will be adding much more improved ASUS ROG laptop support which should help to fix your brightness and suspension issues.
    • [install][upgrade] Add ASUS ROG laptop support #814

If you do not care about desktop mode, I am working on PlaytronOS which will allow you to play your Epic Games Store, Good Old Games, and Steam all in one unified game console interface. Our pre-alpha will be launching in a few months. winesapOS is here to stay and will always cater to a gaming crowd that wants a desktop mode and to tinker with their system. Thank you for all of your feedback so far! All of this is helping to improve the project for everyone. :-)

Happy gaming!

[xtasy-games]

Thanks a lot for the support @LukeShortCloud !

It is not too many info, on the contrary: I appreciate when I can understand what's happening. Even I'm (kind of) new to linux, I'm used to Amiga OS, so I like to understand a bit about the OS structure and logic, and control it as much as I can.

• Yes I chose the performance version. If 64 is too small, I could install it in the internal 1TB but would like to keep a dual boot with windows (for a while) but I don't know how to do it. What's the difference between performance and minimal? just the preinstalled apps?

• I will follow your instructions regarding the backups, try the "alpha" version (where is it located?), and test Bauh. WIll tell you how is it going

• Great to know you got also an Asus laptop (which model?) that will help with the support (yes, I also have to manually activate the keyboard LEDS sometimes)

• OK: let's try PlaytronOS, where is it? :)

And really thanks again for being so supportive. It is much appreciated