Linux HATES Me – Daily Driver CHALLENGE Series (Linus Tech Tips)

brent

I didn't watch your video but agree in spirit. Went from W7 to Solus with a brutal learning curve.
While I never thought "linux hates me" I accepted I knew nothing about Linux.
But I parachuted in anyway, it was that important.
I don't understand the Linux users that want Linux to be as seamless as Windows OOTB.
I'm grateful I had no context when fleeing MS because I'm so much better for the learning.
Wouldn't everyone want that? (rhetorical; I know the answer)

Brucehankins

brent I don't remember the jump being so bad when I moved the second time around from W10. When I switched from Vista or XP to Ubuntu 12.04, it was a bit rough. The Wubi installer was....interesting, and I really liked the Unity DE, but software issues kept me from switching to it full time. Since then, and the change to Office365, we moved to all FOSS software on Windows anyway, maybe that's part of the reason the jump didn't seem like a big deal this time. I know I drove my wife crazy having her demo different distros from distrotest and having her use my little Budgie machine before she finally let me change over all the hardware.

alfisya

Harvey sane defaults

This is what distro should achieve

Girtablulu

Well my First experience was with Ubuntu 6 or 7 I think? So yea as a total novice and was totally expecting that everything works as Windows XP you can guess how long it took I reinstalled XP and was like F* Linux ^^

To the video, one issue is a bit of the rules they set - do not ask anyone for help, try to figure it out by yourself.
This is a bit flawed because normally a beginner would have ask by the steam issue Linus had (which got fixed nearly instant after several user reported it to POP OS devs) and not try to force stuff through. Linus has an understanding enough of the Linus system, to massivily to shoot into his food but not enough the see the concequenses of your doing. But learning from your mistakes right?

Over the rest they will highlight issues where distros should be working on but we cannot give them the "Windows experience" he is/was most likely expecting.

As you could see in till steam everything was working on POP (even his sound stuff) while having issues on manjaro with it, so I totally exepct to continue it this way. Having issues because he wants to do it the Windows way, I mean alone they way he went that using a software to figure out what drivers needs to be installed shows we need to do a better information for beginners this this isn't monstly the case on Linux and most drivers are shipped with the kernel.

[deleted]

Installing Steam through the software center / apt uninstalls the entire desktop environment ...

With all the trouble, weirdness and quirks i experience so far after switching to Linux, this is not something I ever expected to see ...

When I tried Pop it seemd to be very polished trouble free, how can this still be happening ...

Harvey

[deleted]
Mistakes / bugs happen. I mean Microsoft a company with an estimated value of $2 trillion dollars, only taking into account Windows 10 bugs they have pushed out updates that deleted peoples personal files, "accidentally" resets privacy settings to defaults, nukes peoples EFI partition, etc etc. Holding System76 to a higher standard than Windows or any other Linux distro is insane.

[deleted]

Harvey
Well I would certainly hold them to a higher standard compared to a community based distro since they are a company and are based on a company backed distro.

And apparantly they fixed this way before this video was made already but did not upgrade the image so it still can happen on new installs.

Microsoft is a lost cause anyway ...

Brucehankins

[deleted] I think there's a big difference here. Microsoft has always been a software first for profit company, hardware was always a secondary revenue stream. System76 is a hardware company first. Their revenue stream is majority dependant on hardware sales, they give away the software for free to anyone. Also as Harvey said, Microsoft is the most valuable company in the world right now, and there are entire marketplaces driven off exploiting zero days in their software, and updates regularly break machines.

jppelt

[deleted] Full disclosure: I have a few System76 machines, my Thelio R2 being my daily Solus Budgie Desktop driver.

I love Sys76. Support second to none. I think Pop began as a labor of love and, to a large extent, remains something of a 'project' as evidenced by their growing pains w/ Gnome, development of Cosmic and now heading down the path of Rust a la Soler Redox. It is a pretty smooth DE. To say it is a company distro is valid but I think stretching it a little. Some of the existing communities are much bigger (e.g. OpenSuse). Sys76 remains a relatively small enterprise.

I can't think of any distro I've ever used from Slack to #! to Debian to Suse to Arch to you name it with the exception of Gentoo (which I've never used) that hasn't borked from time to time. Actually, scratch that, in my 13 months with Solus, not one distro related bork. Plenty of user imposed pain...but I digress.

I also agree with plenty of others that rule #1 of jumping into Linux is lean on the community, the docs, etc. I think Linus sensationalized the entire ordeal. It is silly. He needs views. I wish Anthony had moderated his reaction a little. Long view - a blip and Pop will continue to gain users because in its entirety, it is a very successful distro. I personally wish it wasn't riding Ubuntu, in turn riding Debian, but hey...I'm just a happy user and am happy to have devs that care - even when I do not agree with the direction....the beauty of linux: freedom and choice.

brent

jppelt As far as Sys76 I love their beefy desktop line (someday!), pop was always cute to me--and functional. But my hat's off to Sys76 for their commitment to open source hardware--they seem to be out in front of it.

jppelt

brent I can vouch for the Thelio. I have the AMD version. They've come a long long way. I remember having bought one of those super basic laptops that were the rage 10 years ago and the build quality is nowhere close to where they are today. Yes, they still rely a lot on Clevo but they are increasingly manufacturing in-house and putting personal touches. I have their launch keyboard for my home desktop and it is REALLY nice - 100% customizable and up to 4 layers with software they provide for MS, Mac and Linux.

I digress from the thread and will stop with this: I've come to the realization that I will only buy from small/local/Linux community vendors even if it costs a little more. I also happen to live in CO so S76 😄 although there are a lot of other great indie vendors out there - mostly in Europe it seems.

[deleted]

I guess my comments came off as more negative than intended.

I Like what System76 is doing, even tho I find their hardware to be overpriced especially since they still mostly use standard OEM designs from the usual manufacturers (at least for the notebooks).
But IIRC they plan to design their own at some point.

And I usually perceived Pop to be very polished and hassle free (much better than stock Ubuntu) when I trried it.
That's why I was suprised to see such a screw up linked to the simple task of just installing Steam.

I think they could make a pretty good distro if they stop relying on Ubuntu and go independant.

jppelt

[deleted] Yes, Pop is where I would go if Solus wasn't around but I might end up going RebornOS because I really really do not like to ride Ubuntu. To be clear, I have a lot of respect for what they've done to help make Linux accessible to a wider audience. I hear they are hard to beat on servers but am 100% a desktop, and occasional laptop, user.

xjdwc

Pt.2

Luke and Linus continue their challenge to use Linux on their home PCs. Today's challenge? Game streaming, complete with team comms and a camera setup.

George

The main issues and hurdles they encounter and if/how it relates to the Solus Experience

When u installing Solus if u choose Russian language and Russian keyboard late u entered password on a Russian keyboard layout. For choose another (English keyboard layout) u need open Gnome Settings (section Region & Language), and add English keyboard. But when u restarted, u entered password in Russian Keyboard (apparently LightDM was unable to parse the settings correctly). I got out of this situation quite simply but not obvious: open the on-screen keyboard and press the win key so you change the language. To be fair, I must say that a similar problem occurs on manjaro lxqt, but the on-screen keyboard is simply not available there.
Some of my friends find it difficult to set up switching layouts (this only works through gconf)
Difficulty in installation: for correct installation, you need to partition the disk through gparted (I'm really looking forward to the new installer). The absence of xfs for greater reliability of the root partition (strictly speaking, my desire is not a serious mistake)
Wi-Fi drivers by Realtek. The problem is all Linux, but Solus is the closest to solving it (compilation and installation with doflicky)

When i started trying linux (2018) the first one was xubuntu lubuntu and some others. They simply were not translated into Russian or partially translated, they looked terrible and consumed about the same as windows 10. A few months later, already in 2019, I tried Solus and it was the best user experience. Then I began to try other distributions, but I always returned to the harbor of solus and with each new one I tried, I was convinced that solus is the best for today. Only a few distributions look as pretty as solus. I really hope that switching to efl will not complicate customization, because all the themes that are available for enlightenment look like android froyo from 2010.

Great moment to thank the development and maintenance team for the best experience in the world of Linux

Staudey

Finally got around to watching these videos. So far their complains seem reasonable enough, and watching Linus lose his DE by installing Steam was hilarious. Though that is exactly the one point where his criticism wasn't warranted in my opinion. If you take the effort to get into the command line and specifically instruct the system to "Yes, do as I say!" without knowing what you're making it do, that's on you. But I can see how a user could be tempted to act like that (hell, I know I have done similar dumb things in the past).

Thaeris

Well, I need to finish watching or skimming these videos myself. However, I did want to ask something right off-the-bat:

@Harvey,

What would NOT make Solus a ready suggestion to a new user? I happen to be a new user (after all this time, even!), but after a good deal of research (or at least an attempt thereof), it was Solus that was my first pick, and it's what I've stuck with. I've had my share of complaints or questions (as you may or may not remember), most of those were probably unresolved, yet those issues were not of great importance regardless - else, I'd not be here! In general, I found Solus just worked and operated in a manner I expected and was used to in the long run. Regarding technical issues questions, a lot of that just comes down to doing the reading, research, and practice that is required to make Linux do for you what you want it to, and any other distro is going to have that issue as well.

...I have to agree with the sentiments Linus had about looking for a version of Linux to install. I think most people want to pick one, and pick one that works. Choices are good, but offer enough choices and you're bound to confound the uninitiated!

WetGeek

Thaeris it's what I've stuck with.

There's a lot of that going around. I had tried more than 30 other distros before finding Solus, and I haven't even looked at another one in several years since then.

Harvey

Thaeris @Harvey,

What would NOT make Solus a ready suggestion to a new user?

Not what I said.

Harvey Reality is if you are new to Linux the only distros you should even think about in my opinion are: Debian, Ubuntu, Pop_OS, fedora, linuxmint and opensuse. I would not recommend Solus for Linus or Luke but I would in general.

I like Linus I am not trying to be toxic but in my opinion the average new user to Linux is better at dealing with issues than him. Linus has absolutely no patience and has done little to no research / googling / asking questions to try and present a novice use case that is unrealistic.

It is a deeply flawed methodology; I have been using Linux since 1998 and I have seen thousands of people who can barely turn their PC on that have asked for help over the years. For me this stance has ruined the series.

While the issue with pop_os and steam should not have occurred in the first place thus avoiding Linus taking action that removed the DE. If he actually read what it was doing it warned him. While you might not understand what the packages are, with how it was phrased I do not understand how anyone would think it was a good idea to proceed. But pop_os have now made it even harder to break your system and from memory debian was going to adopt the changes so it will make all debian/ubuntu based distros harder to break, so it is a net positive.

Solus does many things differently from other distros such as not using grub on UEFI installs to not supporting some things he will probably want such as running inside a type 1 hypervisor (https://dev.getsol.us/T8274)

He would probably want some out-of-tree drivers for his niche setup that Solus would likely not be willing to patch into the kernel (They should be upstreamed so they are part of the kernel not patched by distros) and Solus not supporting DKMS makes this more of a PITA for him to maintain himself.

They will expect everything including the kitchen sink to be in the repository and Solus will never be a distro that does that. I could go on and on, it is very clear to me that it is a bad fit for them which is why I do not recommend it to them but I do in general.

Thaeris

Thanks Harvey.

...And, to be honest, there's items in your post I don't understand, either. But, I suppose I'll get there. And again, thanks!