Weird, volume keys don’t work on SSD install of Manjaro, possibly some update or other. edit: Hmm, reboot solved. edit2: it’s a sleep thing, Fn keys stop working after a sleep.
Bummer on the function keys. Sleep issues have been around on linux since forever.
I poked around on a few forums, and it sounds like this might be a fn key lock issue. But I don’t see a means for toggling fn lock on the Tuf.
Interesting to me. Maybe a week ago, my girlfriend was sitting at the other end of the couch while I had some text on the screen of my old thinkpad. She said that it looked like the text was vibrating. I’ll be damned if I could see it. She made the comment the other day when seeing some text on the screen of the Tuf, that the text didn’t look like it is moving like on the other laptop. Of course I grilled her on it and made her look from multiple positions and distances. She was definitely seeing in on the thinkpad but not on the Tuf. I keep the thinkpad on full brightness (not that bright still) to avoid it’s PWM dimming. And the Tuf doesn’t have PWM. So it wasn’t that.
Getting somewhat used to the touchpad on the Tuf. It’s not a proper touchpad with buttons. But I can get by with tap to touch. The old thinkpad has a small touchpad but pretty good buttons, which I miss.
Same opinion on the screen. It’s kind of crap really, but it has been reasonably comfy for reading from. And looking back at my old thinkpad, a 17.3" screen is a little nicer (not this screen in particular though). Still on the fence here, but I could get buy with it ok. It is nice to be able to dim the display without having to suffer PWM, which is the case on my old thinkpad.
Speakers are still crap, but I can bluetooth or 1/8" connect to something nicer when needed. Speakers on my thinkpad are crap too. The irony here is that I previsouly owned a lowly Ideapad that had really good JBL speakers (for a laptop).
The power supply IEC thing is due to the shape of the included IEC plug. It has rounded off shoulders which leave it loose in the power supply socket. A proper IEC cable can take care of that.
No Linux testing yet.
Edit: Another con with this machine is that it momentarily blackscreens when connecting/disconnecting the power supply. Minor annoyance, but it is annoying and seems unnecessary.
I’m not really nostalgic for buttons on trackpads. Tapping is better imo if possible, less hand movement = more efficient.
I think it’s Windows that blackscreens, just did it on Manjaro and it didn’t but it did do that on Windows. I think it’s adjusting the power plan shenanigans.
Tap to click just feels slower to me compared to buttons. I think that is main annoyance with it. Also, inadvertently clicking and selecting things that I wouldn’t have with buttons. But this is all assuming that the buttons are good. Many laptops have stiff buttons, which is really bad, much worse than tap to click.
Interesting on the blackscreening.
Different strokes for different folks I suppose and it’s what we get used to at the end of the day.
I ran Kingdom Come Deliverance (Windows) a bit tonight on the Tuf at the default settings (looked like mostly medium), and the frame rate was pegged the whole time at 144hz. Fans were fairly loud but smooth sounding without any sorts of resonance, like white noise. Heat seemed like it was under good control too.
@Snookoda Any luck with the fn button? I’ll probably be dealing with the same soon.
When considering OLED alternatives, I noticed that pretty much every option with an OLED display uses PWM, so that’s out. That seems nuts since many OLED tv’s are PWM free these days.
The washed out look on the Tuf 17 is quite a bit more tolerable when setting Windows night light to about 35. I didn’t realize how blue this display is, which is a big part of why it looks bad. Something similar should be possible with Redshift or a similar app in Linux. Warming the display definitely helps a lot, but colors are still faded.
On touchpad and speakers, I have been looking at a bunch of reviews of other laptops, and lack of touchpad buttons seems the norm these days as well as crappy speakers in gaming laptops. So I’m probably not going to do better here.
I think I can live with the Tuf 17, unless I see better option very soon.
I booted tonight from a Gnome Manjaro live usb. I’m seeing the same loss of fn key functions after suspend. Also, power plug/unplug isn’t showing after suspend. And night light in Gnome behaves abnormal after suspend (it may be a firmware function). I found this from the Arch forum and will look more later, but it sounds like someone has found the problem and there is a kernel patch:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=216101
I never applied any kernel patch myself, so I don’t know how hairy this might be yet. Looks like it will be there in kernel 5.18. Last I looked, Manjaro was on 5.15. Back on Windows at the moment so I can’t ‘uname’.
Nice find, I hadn’t looked into that myself! uname -a:
Linux devtuf 5.15.78-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Nov 10 20:50:09 UTC 2022 x86_64 GNU/Linux
It’s an Asus BIOS bug so I might wait for a fix there, it’s the laziest and therefore the best solution. 
Definitely. I might have a poke at it after some sleep. Either way, at least it’s in the pipeline for a fix.
I saw a mention in a Jarod’s Tech video that the reason for blackscreening when plugging/unplugging power is an Asus display battery saver thing that is on by default. It can be disabled in Armory Crate > System Configuration > toggle Panel Power Saver.
It’s only a minor annoyance but good to know that it isn’t anything janky going on and can be toggled if needed.
I read today that 6.1 will be the next LTS kernel for Manjaro. One mention of that is here: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/what-will-be-the-next-lts-kernel/127932
So yea, probably best to wait for that to get the fn key fix.
Thanks for doing the Sherlock on this! Do the other kernels get patched retroactively?
I think not. There is those preliminary patches for 5.18 (to help the guy in that linux kernel thread), and pushed for inclusion in 6.1. And it sounds like 6.1 should be available before long in Manjaro and will end up being the next linux LTS kernel.
I remember some version, maybe 5.18 or 5.19, having an issue that was breaking displays (as in electronically). Supposedly it was fixed, but I don’t want to go there. 6.1 shouldn’t be too far away. I don’t typically use a mute button, I leave the keyboard lighting at a static color and brightness, and I can use the Gnome brightness slider until the Asus fn buttons are working. I can definitely wait.
Ah, it would be nice if hotfixes like this were patched into point releases for older versions but it is what it is. As you say, it’s just a matter of using UI controls until the fix is in.
Getting some pretty fatigued eyes today. Reading a bit on that (the irony), I came across this passage:
That is exactly what happens to the eyes (difficulty focusing). It’s a struggle of the eyes going in and out of focus + tightness and pain of the muscles directly around the eyes. I think this difficulty in focusing is why displays tend to feel unsettling to read from, although the focus issue is very mild before fatigue sets in.
Funny thing here is that OLED displays put out vastly less blue light, but I haven’t found an OLED laptop that doesn’t use PWM for dimming. And PWM is an eye fatiguer too.