System76 Pangolin pang12

Hardware	PCI/USB ID	Working?
GPU	`1002:1681`	Yes
Wireless	`14c3:0608`	Yes
Audio	`1002:1640`	Yes
Touchpad	`0911:5288`	Yes
Webcam	`0c45:6809`	Yes
Fingerprint reader	`2808:9348`	No
Bluetooth	`0e8d:0608`	Yes

This article covers the installation and configuration of Arch Linux on a System76 Pangolin model name "pang12", manufactured in 2023. Specific specifications can be found at the manufacturer's website^{[dead link 2024-11-06 ⓘ]}.

Unlike many previous System76 laptops which were manufactured by Clevo, this model was made by Emdoor.

For a general overview of laptop-related articles and recommendations, see Laptop.

Installation

System76 develops a special distribution (Pop!_OS) for their computers, and it comes with many tweaks and tools to ensure a seamless end-user experience. Arch does not have these out of the box, but can be installed if desired. They are not necessary for a good user experience with this particular laptop.

Recovery partition

If you are replacing Pop!_OS on the NVMe that came with your laptop, it is recommended to leave the recovery partition intact. The BIOS is hard-coded to attempt to boot this on Space, and this recovery partition can be a handy way to get out of a tight spot if something should happen that renders your Arch install unbootable.

System76 automatically updates this recovery partition from within Pop!_OS; at present, it is not known how to update it from within Arch Linux.

It may be possible to replace the contents of this recovery partition with any LiveCD you want, but as of now it is not known if anyone has tried.

Packages

All System76 specific packages can be found in the AUR.

Modules

system76-dkms-git^AUR

Daemons

Note: As stated above, these are not required for use of this laptop. System76 support has confirmed that these are the relevant packages to use for this specific laptop, and potentially offer small optimizations in areas such as fan curves and power usage.

Activation

Once you have installed the above, you will need to tell your computer to use them.

Services

Enable the following services:

system76
system76-firmware-daemon
system76-power

Modules

To make sure all drivers are being loaded correctly, run system76-driver-cli; this will automatically add necessary rules to /etc/modprobe.d, and execute mkinitcpio.

Accessibility

Laptop comes with Pop!_OS installed by default, but is ready out of the box to be installed with Arch Linux install media.
BIOS is fully navigable via keyboard and is simple (blue and light grey with some white), so it may work well with OCR software.
External hardware guide and LED key
The BIOS is accessed with the Esc key. Del may work too.

Firmware

Install the following:

firmware-manager^AUR (optional if you want to know when there is a BIOS update available)
system76-firmware (required if you want to update your BIOS)

To check your current BIOS version and whether there is a new version available, run firmware-manager as root. Keep in-mind that this is a GTK application, so you need to be running X or Wayland for it to run. (It has no CLI -- it does not even respond to --help.)

To update your system to the latest firmware on the next boot, run system76-firmware-cli schedule.

Graphics

This system comes complete with integrated (AMD) graphics. It is suggested to follow the instructions there, including support for Vulkan and hardware acceleration.

Touchpad

Some Pangolin models have touchpad issues that can surface later. The touchpad registers mouse events when idle (interrupting sleep and suspend to RAM and consuming battery). In extreme case, the laptop mouse being unusable with multiple unintended mouse events (movement/clicks).

System76 and users suggest the following Kernel parameters:

modprobe.blacklist=psmouse
i8042.noaux

Sometimes the issue does not get fixed, you might have to contact support and send it for repair.

Function keys

Keys can be changed between serving as an F key or a Function in bios. By default, (aka on new firmware updates), it will work as the following:

Key	Visible?¹	Marked?²	Effect
`Fn+Esc`	Yes	Yes	Vanilla Escape Key
`Fn+F1`	Yes	Yes	`XF86AudioMute`
`Fn+F2`	Yes	Yes	`XF86AudioLowerVolume`
`Fn+F3`	Yes	Yes	`XF86AudioRaiseVolume`
`Fn+F4`	No	No	No function
`Fn+F5`	No	No	No function
`Fn+F6`	Yes	Yes	`XF86TouchpadToggle`
`Fn+F7`	No	Yes	Keyboard Backlight
`Fn+F8`	No	No	No function
`Fn+F9`	Yes	Yes	`XF86RFKill`
`Fn+F10`	Yes	Yes	Multiple, brings up display manager
`Fn+F11`	Yes	Yes	`XF86MonBrightnessDown`
`Fn+F12`	Yes	Yes	`XF86MonBrightnessUp`

The key is visible to xev and similar tools.
The physical key has a symbol on it, which describes its function.