Linux on the MSI Delta 15

(The first attempt) Escape, Mute, Vol Down, Vol Up, Toggle Touchpad, Mic Mute, Webcam Toggle MSI User[?], Keys Backlight, Dim Display, Brighter Display, Multi-Displays, Rotate Screen, Print Screen Out of the box, when I installed Manjaro and made no changes, many but not all of these keys worked.  Escape, Volume control, Brightness all worked fine.  PRTSC brings up a screen capture utility.  The Multi-Displays key brings up a menu to control attached displays.  But the rest of the keys were a problem.  The Short Answer Let's jump straight to making them work.  Create the file /etc/udev/hwdb.d/60-keyboard.hwdb: evdev:atkbd:dmi:bvn*:bvr*:bd*:svnMicro-Star*:pn*Delta*:*  KEYBOARD_KEY_76=f21  KEYBOARD_KEY_8e=kbdillumtoggle  KEYBOARD_KEY_f2=rotate_display  KEYBOARD_KEY_f1=micmute  KEYBOARD_KEY_91=screenlock Note that the single space at the beginning of each "KEYBOARD_..." line is critical. Now run "systemd-hwdb update" (may require a "sudo", my notes don

Why this laptop? I wanted a laptop with a GPU.  Because of gaming, and because of 3D development software like Blender.  I did seriously consider that I may be better off with a thin-and-light with no GPU, since I'm more likely to do heavier work on my desktop.  But I wanted the option on the laptop.  And it turned out, since I got this on sale, it wasn't much more expensive than any of the thin-and-lights that I would have seriously considered.  Sure it's a pound heavier than some of those thin-and-lights, but it is also a pound lighter than the aging HP Probook 4540s it replaced.  And smaller in all dimensions despite having the same screen. And since I knew I wanted to run Linux, I wanted one with an AMD GPU.  AMD contributes drivers to the linux community that are free and open source.  And they seem to be doing so aggressively, not merely as an afterthought.  None of the drama of Nvidia proprietary stuff.  I wanted to reward that effort from AMD.  This basically meant

The purpose of this blog is to create a home and community for anyone out there also running Linux on the MSI Delta 15, and to talk about issues that have come up, and how to get things working. I'll gather links and references, and things work I've done. I'm willing to add authors if others want to write full posts here, as opposed to just participating in the comments sections. Prior to this I ran hackintoshes for years, starting with the Dell Insprion Mini 10v, then the HP Probook 4540s, and most recently a homebuilt desktop featuring an i9-9900k and a Radeon VII GPU. Frustration with Apple's increasingly closed approach to computing, along with a desire to use the my desktop GPU in Blender and other things on the mac where support seemed inconsistent, led me to move over to Linux on my newest laptop. A badge I got on etsy for about ten bucks. I'm running Manjaro (though hopefully this blog will be a clearinghouse for all people running all flavors on this lapto