But... I need the modules from the older kernels.

So, I'll follow those instructions, but in-between times I'll use something like, 

I found this helpful during BT firmware and module loading... and
for when changing /etc/modules, including /etc/modules.d/

update-initramfs -u -k all

Also, I've added tde to the apt/sources.d from the failed install, (it installed, but I had no sound, wifi, eth, and a few other things) and

thought I may be able to gradually upgrade to the current tde desktop but keeping the functionality of the older kernels.

ps, I was looking for that page... thanks.

Instead of Exe GNU/Linux, try another method
https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=46740#p46740

I have just completed a new install on my laptop, asus n550jv... with Devuan ascii. With a new battery, and a clean ssd (dos-mbr partitioned, finally)

I did this because the newer kernel with Daedalus did not load my sound chipset and quite a few other things although the screen and keyboard dimming was working.

I've just checked the sound operation with a .mp3 playing through vlc and it sounds ok.

I've put it aside for now, I still have the network devices (wifi and tethering to the iPhone) to set up... some research will be required.

I'm very happy with the laptop at the moment, although I'm not used to the apps with xfce4... I'll look into it.

The day before yesterday I had trinity setup on the laptop, and it looked good, but too many chipset errors like, keyboard characters Getting pound instead of hash and others..., eth (nic) wifi and sound in particular. WIP! But the graphics card was used by default which was a nice change to see it was actually working (with nouveau)

I endeavour to slowly migrate back to the recent kernel versions and trinity desktop, but keeping an eye on the modules required for that set up.

I had found a faulty re-purposed flashdrive (rarely used, parrot-live) that was giving some serious looking errors and freezing the system on this desktop box, a new kernel and clean install may help to resolve those.

As well as that I binned the faulty flashdrive. I have to draw the line somewhere.

@oui: I'm glad to see you are making progress.

also it was not the PC but the kernel and Devuan can handle again with some not so usual hardware ;-) !

The brightness keys were working on XFCE with the nouveau driver, but stopped when I installed the nvidia driver.

Absolutely the same!

In my case, perhaps this is a communication error between the Nvidia driver and DE (Trinity).

Oh, I've had this specific problem as well, and I think you're right. The brightness keys were working on XFCE with the nouveau driver, but stopped when I installed the nvidia driver. I think it's because the nvidia driver moves the brightness controls to a weird location. Most drivers have them under /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/, but nvidia puts them under /sys/class/backlight/nv_backlight/. Dedicated utilities such as brightnessctl and xbacklight have no trouble finding them there, but DEs don't seem to be coded as intelligently.

yes I have 4 rectangle speakers, but some of them must not be working like new.

Is it possible it has a setup like MacBooks, where the extra speakers are "bass speakers" on LFE channels? You could try running a surround speaker test, something like this works on my MacBooks to sound all speakers separately:

speaker-test -Dsurround21:PCH -c 4

If you get an error about the device name being wrong, check the output of `aplay -L`:

$ aplay -L | grep -i surround21
surround21:CARD=PCH,DEV=0

If you actually do have subwoofers, there may be a way to turn them on with regular output. The MacBook has a control called 'Bass Speaker Playback Switch' that, when turned on, routes regular output to all 4 speakers. You could try `amixer controls` and look for something similar. Here's how I would find the control on a MacBook, and then turn it on.

$ amixer controls | grep -i bass
numid=4,iface=MIXER,name='Bass Speaker Playback Switch'
numid=3,iface=MIXER,name='Bass Speaker Playback Volume'
$ amixer cset numid=4 on
numid=4,iface=MIXER,name='Bass Speaker Playback Switch'
  ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw------,values=2
  : values=on,on

Maybe there's something similar on your laptop.

aluma:
P.S. As far as I understand the description, your laptop has 4 speakers. That's why I asked.
But yes, in mine, too, only one remained alive.

Since my last post here, I have taken the back off again to replace the battery and had a quick look,

yes I have 4 rectangle speakers, but some of them must not be working like new.

Parts are hard to come by... The wifi and bt work well. as with the dvd/cd player, flawless.

And great for ripping my new audio cd's to my music collection via usb flash-drives.

After all this time I still prefer to setup this way instead of using local networking. (mainly because I break my system so often hacking to customise the OS)

Just last night I removed some stubborn pulseaudio *.so for KDE/Plasma files and borked it again, but used my ubuntu studio install to copy the files back, lol)

A couple of reboots and it's back up and running without a complete reinstall of the OS. ;-) (I'm glad I took notes)

I haven't tried to use the screen brightness or most of the 'Fn' keys. But I will when the new battery arrives later this week.

I was fortunate enough to study and work at an Audio Engineering school and learned about acoustics and speaker design, x-overs before I got married and had children and then started to build a rehearsal/listening studio come 'home theatre' and got divorced. My maths skills were not up to it, but I did learn a lot along the way.  How to make do on a low budget.

Back on topic... I found studying the IBM tuorials for sed, grep, vi and awk really helped me when I was living on the bleeding edge, using Mandriva, Magiea and pclinux... for about 10 years. It was a great adventure, but I have found using 2nd or 3rd gen hardware the kernel is sufficent to not have to use 'make' to customise my setup. (for graphics cards, wifi cards, and usb sound modules, and speed)

This link may help...
https://www.ubuntupit.com/simple-and-us … d-in-unix/

All the best

In my case, perhaps this is a communication error between the Nvidia driver and DE (Trinity).

The DE buttons are visible, level icons appear, but the brightness does not change. At the same time, the xbacklight command works and I use it.

Regards.

I have and use the Wacom tablet, mouse and pen 2d generation (after the one 1. generation I had connected with the Pentium) and it is a lot of years ago no problem at all!

USB tablets should still work, even if very old. Only tablets with a serial interface were deprecated, and only in post-2022 version of X11.

I've had similar problems on several different laptops. The keyboard backlight keys dodn't work, and evtest doesn't even show them emitting scancodes in the console. I suspect it might have something to do with the brightness_switch_enabled kernel setting, but I've never been able to figure it out. I always end up just binding my own custom hotkeys to scripts that set the backlight via brightnessctl. I find my own key bindings more convenient anyway!

And by backlight I meant the brightness of the screen itself. The Fn+arrow keys do not work with nvidia drivers.

P.S. As far as I understand the description, your laptop has 4 speakers. That's why I asked.
But yes, in mine, too, only one remained alive.

Regards.

I am not satisfied with the sound, headphone socket broken.

But if I use my USB sound device the sound is good.

Mine also has a nVidia 750m graphics, but haven't got it working as far as I can remember it defaults to the intel ....

Congrats with the tube amp, I have an el84 18w marshal clone on the shelf waiting for me to get organised. I really love this stuff! :-)

I only use the laptop when travelling and when I have broken my main desktop system.

But the keyboard lights work as expected, dimming, full on and off. and it's quite fast, even for 10yo.

I have no secrets, just privacy issues from advertisers. (mostly to save on bandwidth)

He has two identical NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M video cards, driver support has ended, the old ones work, but I couldn’t get the keyboard buttons that control brightness to work.
And Debian seems to have stopped supporting older Nvidia drivers.

P.S. Pure curiosity of a former audiophile (homemade tube Hi-End, etc.), if it’s not a secret, do your speakers r552jv really reproduce what the manufacturer promised?

Regards.

aluma
"P.S.  Google and DDG do not know ASUS RJ552 touch-screen laptop."

sorry, My mistake, it's an r552jv from ~2013

Still working quite well.

glenn@devuan:~$ inxi
CPU: quad core Intel Core i7-4700HQ (-MT MCP-)
speed/min/max: 1012/800/3400 MHz Kernel: 6.1.0-13-amd64 x86_64 Up: 4m
Mem: 1108.1/7383.4 MiB (15.0%) Storage: 238.47 GiB (9.1% used) Procs: 215
Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.26
glenn@devuan:~$