GPD Win Mini testing

[al12gamer]

Opening this issue to remind me to test these scripts on the upcoming GPD Win Mini. If and when I get one, after it releases, I'll try these on the 7840U version, and also might modify scripts to allow easier control of clocks for better battery life.

[al12gamer]

Looking at the pricing for the GPD Win Mini, it looks like testing these and updating them for it won't be too hard when/if I get my hands on one. There's no official news on whether the screen is native horizontal or portrait, which will be the main crux of these scripts. On the official website GPD currently has for it, it looks that the Ryzen 7 edition will have Hall Sensor joysticks, an Oculink port and USB4 so it looks that this will be a good everything handheld.

[al12gamer]

Might be waiting for a while for the funds to buy a Win Mini, but I will definitely be testing these when it's officially released and when I can afford one. I intend on using that and a FW16 as my daily drivers for everything.

[al12gamer]

GPD Win Mini has been pre-ordered. Hopefully they get the cooling figured out. Will begin testing when I receive it.

[al12gamer]

Distro testing list thus far:

1. Nobara Linux (instead of vanilla Fedora)
2. ChimeraOS
3. SerpentOS (replacing Solus script)
4. Ubuntu
5. Arch
6. BazziteOS
7. Ultramarine Linux

[al12gamer]

Shipping for these handhelds starts in November

[al12gamer]

hyprland would be interesting too, with dotfiles tailored towards this handheld

[al12gamer]

Nobara Linux has all keyboard keys and graphics running flawlessly. Controller works fine, wifi works fine, touchscreen, everything. I'll test other distros on here after New Year's.

The only issue is the screen needs rotating but Eggy can likely add that to the next ISO with fbcon rotate.

[al12gamer]

Will likely test SerpentOS next. Looks like Solus takes from that project these days.

[JoleneJoleneJolene]

Hey, I have been testing this on my 7840/64gb/2tb gpd win mini.

It seems like everything works great with the exception of a weird video output issue after installing the scripts.

I'm on a fresh install of Fedora 39, and after install, the display gets all torn garbled like it's trying to display in portrait and landscape at the same time.

I tried adjusting the output rotation in the BIOS and that didn't help. I ended up doing another fresh install and it went away, but even with the output rotation set correctly in the BIOS, GRUB still displays everything in the wrong orientation until getting to the desktop.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[al12gamer]

I'm currently on holiday in another part of the country, but yeah that's an EDID value. I can change it so grub adds that to kernel parameters in the future. I'll do that come January.

[JoleneJoleneJolene]

I'm currently on holiday in another part of the country, but yeah that's an EDID value. I can change it so grub adds that to kernel parameters in the future. I'll do that come January.

Awesome! Thanks!

[al12gamer]

I will be back in my home state at some point tomorrow evening, assuming airline industry incompetence is resolved, and I'll resume testing other distros. Right now all I can verifiably say is that Nobara Linux runs out of the box perfectly fine with this native-portrait display.

[JoleneJoleneJolene]

I'm running the Nobara 39 steamdeck optimized edition, everything works and runs ok, BIOS is the correct orientation, but after BIOS, GRUB and and everything show up as the wrong rotation until I load into the desktop environment. It probably wouldn't be noticeable except i run disk encryption so putting in my key is in portrait, and then the kernel selection menu. I saw someone had fixed this with the EDID value like you had mentioned, but if I use the winmax script i get the garbled output. so I'm assuming I can get that value from somewhere and use that instead of the winmax script value?

[al12gamer]

For the record, Nobara GNOME runs flawlessly on the GPD Win Mini, you don't need to run the Steam Deck edition. It seems both Fedora and Nobara have the BIOS image in the correct orientation but not the GRUB screen. Kernel parameters would probably be required to fix that.

As mentioned previously, I'll need to likely swap back to the default Windows NVMe SSD and extract the EDID information from the screen, then store it somewhere and add it to the script. Then you should be able to run it and the screen will be the correct orientation.

[JoleneJoleneJolene]

Oh, Yeah, I tested a bunch of different flavors before settling on the Steam Deck edition. I got my sister a Steam Deck for Christmas and wanted to have the same exact setup in case i needed to help her with anything. It works really really well now that I have some Decky plugins for power management.

Sorry wasn't trying to rush you on the EDID deal, was just making sure I was understanding everything correctly and was thinking about taking a crack at it myself for fun.

Thanks Dude!

[al12gamer]

Am back in town. Moving the steam library and testing other distros today, seeing if the EDID information is needed for all of them or if I can just try the same fixes Nobara Linux is using. Will start with ChimeraOS

[al12gamer]

ChimeraOS has the screen properly rotated on install by default it looks like. Video of it booting up after initial install: https://jottacloud.com/share/qvtgmeh3m1ug

[al12gamer]

Was going to test Arch Linux, but I'm lazy and the archinstall script is currently messed up, so moving on to installing and testing Fedora 39

[al12gamer]

As of this writing, the following distros do not require this script or really any tweaking for them to run properly, just changing the display to Portrait Left at desktop:

• Nobara Linux
• Fedora

The ChimeraOS distro also is properly oriented from the get-go and doesn't require any of the tweaks in my script.

[al12gamer]

Testing BazziteOS now, without usage of this script

[al12gamer]

Stuck at deploying image. Might not work.

[al12gamer]

BazziteOS wouldn't install properly on mine and it seems Arch Linux is having some reflector issues with the current install ISO so I might test both again at the beginning of next month. Nobara Linux, Fedora and ChimeraOS are working perfectly fine on the GPD Win Mini without any aspect of these scripts being needed to be run. Though Ubuntu seems to be going in a direction towards snaps which will make gaming difficult, I will try Rolling Rhino on my GPD Win Mini this weekend.

[al12gamer]

May need to work on some detection ability in here with code guru @Batcastle

[al12gamer]

Trying Arch Linux again soon, will probably install with KDE

[al12gamer]

Looks like Arch is working better on this now, without any additions required

[al12gamer]

For prospective users of this script on the GPD Win Mini: Do not run this at this time, as it is only setup to work with the GPD Win Max OG currently.

[ryanwwest]

Interested if you got Bazzite and Arch working on the Win Mini a few months later?

[al12gamer]

Bazzite still shows horrendous performance in games, but the ChimeraOS distro is slightly similar and I would recommend that over Bazzite on this handheld. Nobara Linux (fedora spin) and Arch also work perfectly fine on here.

[ryanwwest]

Darn, thanks. I keep hearing people now recommending Bazzite over Nobara and the immutable part means you have to use e.g. Nix package manager instead (which I think is actually a good thing longer-term - https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/15gcwse/a_rationale_for_immutable_desktop_linux_warning/ might be related). But maybe Nobara will be fine, nice since it works well, I'm hoping the Deck edition could work with hyprland in desktop mode.

[al12gamer]

Bazzite didn't work well on all-AMD desktop hardware I built in the past, and as of a week ago didn't seem to be very hardware optimized for the 7840U or board in the GPD Win Mini. That said, they might improve in the future per this github issue. I'll open a new github issue in the future with them if I test it again.

Nobara KDE runs fine, although I haven't checked with Eggy (he lives nearby) on which ISO of Nobara would be best recommended for the GPD Win Mini, as I mainly tried the KDE desktop install the last time I tested it.

[al12gamer]

I'll try bazzite again if the Arch install on my Win Mini breaks after an update. That could be tomorrow or in a month, we'll see.

[al12gamer]

Made more notes here recently on Bazzite running on the GPD Win Mini as it seems some grub configuration in Arch finally broke. Recent images of the deck-stable bazzite image are running perfectly fine on Bazzite with all buttons mapped. Previously, it barely worked. Good to see improvements!

[al12gamer]

Due to bazzite functioning fine here, I think these scripts aren't as required.

[al12gamer]

Distros I have tested so far that have perfect support for the GPD Win Mini 2023 (7840U+32gb+1tb) and GPD Win Max 2019:

• Bazzite
• ChimeraOS
• Nobara Linux
• Arch Linux
• Fedora Linux
• Manjaro

If anyone wants to comment on this issue, and you're running a distro that isn't one of the above, let me know if you would like support via these scripts.