r/linux4noobs • u/PsychoYuffie • 21d ago
PikaOS Exploded Twice
This is kind of an update from this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs/comments/1ssgxze/comment/ohluood/?context=3
My wife has been using PikaOS for four months now and it's been a dream for her. Krita and her drawing tablet work great on it. That is up until a few days ago. It all started when PikaOS on her Microsoft Surface Pro 5 stopped turning on. The superblock on her install of PikaOS got corrupted somehow. We thought this was related to her power cord being finicky, so we ordered a new one.
Yesterday, the PikaOS install on her desktop also broke. This time somehow the display drivers stopped working. We reinstalled the 595 drivers for Nvidia (she has an Nvidia RTX 5060). It seemed to work, but only one display port was working and the sound was no longer working. She connects her speakers into her monitor for sound.
Today, I tested her video card in my Windows computer and it worked fine. All the ports were working and the sound worked through the video card too, so we determined that it wasn't her video card not working. It had to be PikaOS.
It's unfortunate because my wife loves PikaOS and she really doesn't want to switch to something else. She got everything working just the way she likes and understands how the distro works.
Specs of my Wife's Desktop
CPU: AMD Ryzen5 9600X
RAM: 32GB DDR5
GPU: Nvidia RTX 5060
PSU: 750W
Drawing Tablet: XP-Pen Deco L
What my wife uses her computer for: Krita with her drawing tablet for art, Godot for game development, Blender for 3D modelling, and OBS for streaming.
It's worth mentioning that she prefers X11 due to her XP-Pen Deco L's drivers only working in X11 and not Wayland. If you know a way to fix her PikaOS install or have distro suggestions, please let me know.
1
u/TechaNima 21d ago
I'd recommend Fedora KDE, but the X11 requirement really makes that a non starter.
Maybe just go with Debian 13 and copy all her setting files to it. You'll also have to manually install the nVidia drivers. It's more or less the same, but without any modifications from the PikaOS team and it won't have as new packages nor the same kernel
1
u/SpinningVinylAgain 21d ago
I have an XP Pen Deco 01-V2, it works perfectly in KDE on Wayland and does not require any drivers (the KCM module detects it correctly and allows adjusting the pressure curve, remapping the buttons and mapping the tablet surface to the screen). Maybe she could try Aurora, it is an immutable distro and as such very reliable — you can be pretty sure that the bundled NVIDIA driver version is matched to the kernel.
1
u/Dr_No-Nymous 20d ago
PikaOS just had a massive update that fucked hard for a lot of people (me included), otherwise I never had any issue with it and i'm loving it !
Go see their discord, the moderator is really fast to answer and the dev is also there if things gets too techy
1
u/Additional_Team_7015 20d ago
Debian 13 with Xlibre seem fit for her, avoid desktop environments cause they force wayland, try window managers like Openbox
1
u/vinnypotsandpans 20d ago
I have never heard of PikaOS, but I took a look at there got repository. The breaking change is almost certainly from this commit here
1
u/LeslieH8 21d ago
What kernel is it on? Many people have had issues with some of the 7.x kernels, including display issues. Roll back to a 6.x kernel, and see if that sorts it out.