Troubleshooting

The stick doesn’t boot

Pick the UEFI entry for the stick in the boot menu (F12 on ThinkPads). Check that the stick was written raw and verified, and that the ISO checksum matches.

I need the boot menu (safe graphics)

Hold Esc (UEFI) or Shift (BIOS) while the computer starts. After a failed boot, the menu also shows by itself.

The screen never turns off / the laptop doesn’t suspend

That’s the default. Turn both on in Sov Settings › Power.

Bluetooth is off

It’s off on a fresh install for privacy. Turn it on from the panel or Sov Settings; your choice is remembered.

My dock or DHCP reservation needs my real MAC address

nmcli connection modify "<connection name>" wifi.cloned-mac-address permanent

(Use ethernet.cloned-mac-address for a wired connection.)

DNS fails behind a hotel or café login page

Encrypted DNS is opportunistic, so captive portals should work. If one doesn’t, reconnect to the network and open any plain http:// page to trigger the login.

Phone → laptop clipboard doesn’t work

Tap Send clipboard in KDE Connect’s notification or Quick Settings tile on the phone — Android blocks background clipboard reads.

Two VPNs, odd routing

Connect only one of Proton VPN or Mullvad VPN at a time.

A container port isn’t reachable from another machine

Docker binds published ports to 127.0.0.1 by default. Publish explicitly with -p 0.0.0.0:8080:80. For rootless Podman, allow the port: sudo ufw allow 8080/tcp.

The charge limit doesn’t do anything

Your laptop’s firmware may not support charge thresholds. arkyn-battery status will say so.