Slimbook Executive report 13 - Reasonable, can be awesomer
Updated: April 10, 2026
Four months ago, I gave you the previous long-term report of this machine. Not my finest hour. Indeed, in the last two articles, I had my fair share of complaints about the firmware, about the operating system, about all sorts of unnecessary problems and regressions that beplagued my lovely, poor laptop. Not only that, probably the worst part of the whole story is that this Linux-flavored system used to work superbly, until it didn't.
Three years of brief happiness and slightly less brief tribulations are all detailed nicely in the dozen reports I've provided so far. Start reading, click your way back to the beginning, and then work your way to the present once more. This will give you a good indication of the modern Linux desktop usage. Sure, if you choose a different vendor, or a different distro (doubtful), you might get a much better, smoother experience that I had. Unlikely, though. Considering "bad luck" has haunted me over 20 years of use and about as many platforms and chasses, well ... You get the idea. Let's not be despondent, though. Not more than the expected usual quota from a curmudgeony dinosaur. Let's have us a review. Follow me.
Kernel 6.17 is here!
Let's start with the big news, so to speak. Since I use the Hardware Enablement (HWE) package on this laptop, an adventure which I explained in rich detail in the previous reports, this means I ought to look forward to the latest and greatest in the kernel stack and the drivers every few months. My primary motivation is to see if the laptop's random-sleep bug is ever going to be truly and fully fixed. This is my one outstanding issue with the Executive experience. The machine was golden and worked flawlessly until a firmware update borked its stability. Since, every once in a while, the machine will go to sleep on its own, sometimes several times in a row, without any input from me. It eventually recovers from this state, but this can be quite tricky if you're doing something important or time-sensitive.
Now, kernel 6.14 did not fix the issue. So, how about 6.17?
Nope. The issue is still there, I'm afraid.
But, there are some big pluses to the new kernel. First, the performance. The operating system runs faster than before. It's snappier, more responsive. There's less heating, less fan noise. Consequently, the battery charge lasts longer, similar to the numbers I've observed early in the laptop's life. Most commendable.
The kernel NTFS driver borked an external USB filesystem
Here's another piece of funny news. I've mentioned this in the 12th report. The ntfs3 driver does not seem to work that well. I've also seen this on the Titan when using TrueCrypt and VeraCrypt, and I had to run these programs without relying on the kernel module to be able to copy files without system freezes. Another solution is to blacklist this driver, and use the FUSE-based, userspace ntfs-3g, which is slower but far more reliable. More on this separately.
However, on the Executive, I had not yet done this, and so when I connected the NTFS-formatted external device, for a few brief seconds, everything was fine. Then, both Dolphin and Konsole started getting stuck, I saw a bunch of I/O errors, and the disk disappeared. When I connected this disk to a Windows box, it told me the filesystem was corrupt and needed repair. I did that, but then I discovered the filesystem contents were gone, roughly 300 GB worth of data. It's a backup disk, so no biggie, but still. What if that wasn't the case?
Package management
I decided to stick to apt on the command line, after seeing a whole bunch of Discover and PackageKit issues in the recent months. I can say I've not encountered any fresh issues. The Ubuntu pro setup is also working quite all right.
232 upgraded, 10 newly installed, 5 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
105 standard LTS security updates and 26 esm-apps security updates
Need to get 1.087 MB/1.671 MB of archives.
After this operation, 346 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Other things
Not much else to report. Things mostly work. I did encounter a few Ubuntu-related issues elsewhere, which I've then had the wisdom of avoiding on the Slimbook. I don't know if many of you know, but for a brief while, Ubuntu had a brokenlibexiv2 package, which made it impossible to open any image file in any program. This also affected Kubuntu, of course. I encountered this in a virtual machine, and reverted the package back, which helped, so I held the update until it was properly fixed.
My setup is okayish. I didn't find new woes, which isn't exactly a happiness-seeking strategy, but that's what the modern software experience mostly comes down to, it seems. Pain mitigation. But we will talk about Kubuntu stuff in a separate article.
Conclusion
The Slimbook Executive is a lovely machine. Even three years later, the case feels amazing, the screen colors, the sound quality, the keyboard. Top notch stuff. Kernel 6.17 brings in tons of goodies, and in a way, it truly refreshes the performance of the 24.04 LTS line. If not for the suspend issue, I might actually be rather content, a rare software-related emotion nowadays. But here we are.
I still hope that one day the pointless sleep-wake nonsense will be gone. Then again, manufacturers often like to focus on the new and shiny, and few care about maintaining firmware for older models, let alone releasing new, updated, patched bundles. I don't know if there's even going to be a fix for the Executive. Because it is really held back by something that should never have happened.
It also unfairly creates an unnecessary stain on Linux. People reading this report won't necessarily see much distinction between Slimbook, Ubuntu, and the chassis company. Or care. I mean, if it's sold as one piece, it is sort of one piece. Who knows. At least the recent improvements give me a bit more energy to endure the odd problems for a while longer. Shame, because the Executive is one of the prettiest, comfiest machines I've ever used, and Kubuntu 24.04 does a reasonable job at the end of the day. The damage seems to be entirely self-inflicted. Sigh. Take care, Tuxians.
Cheers.