popos What is keeping more people from Transitioning to Linux.

[Slyder67]

So This has been the past 4 hours just after finishing my install on PopOS and trying to get it setup for the first time, and i felt like it was important to share the experience to help show why Linux, at least PopOS, is not in a state that is ready for mass adoption. For some context, i would say im fairly tech literate, and i have done light work in Fedora for work just doing some basic file navigation, as well as i ran manjaro on my PC for about 3 months a couple of years ago and stopped because gaming capabilities where not at a level where i could justify moving over. Terminal doesnt immediately scare me if i have direction on where to go. so here we go.

also, i am installing this on a xps13 (the year right before they switched to 16x10). 

 

One i get the Drive partitions taken care of, i went into popshop to update and get started with some apps. The OS update failed due to some 404 error with the launchpad url they where trying to go to. After a couple of minutes googling, i decided i would come back to this, and instead get my mouse working. I decided to Install Piper, which i saw was a great way to get your mouse working, and when it installed from packman i tried to open it. Unable to find ratbagd. after trying to see if it was in packman (and searching libratbag and ratbagd) so i googled and found ratbagd on github. so now i had to install it with terminal, which again for me is fine, but the vast majority of users would immediately start putting windows back on their machine right then, and frankly rightly so. so i run the commands in github, but i need to install menson (Forgive my spelling i dont have the page up to reference). thats fine i was eventaully able to get that working (I think) but then i needed to like install ninja?? im not entirely sure what it is, but i basically ended up having to add an additional repository so i can get the right software to be able to run the installation for ratbagd to be able to run piper to be able to use my mouse on this machine. that is purely ridiculous. Period. like that is going to turn off at least 75% of computer users. so now, finally my mouse works. Now back to the update

 

I Follow PopOS's page of different troubleshooting commands for their Package manager, but when it came to the advanced ones where it was specifically running commands for the package, i couldent find any way to put operating system updates, so i just moved on. after digging around for about an hour, i finally found a page that referenced the issue close enough that i could get something from it. It was saying that its likely that the URL for the updates are incorrect and i would need to go into some files to adjust that. So, all ready knowing that i have no patience for dealing with file editing in terminal, i open file manager and navigate to the ect/apt/ files and open them in the text editor. Im trying to just make these changes, but every single file in every single directory, including the Download and Documents folder they give you to feel like windows, is all read only. I could not find a way to just open up a dam file in whatever bs sudo/root access to just make simple text document changes. i tried in terminal, but i just lost it when i had to google "How to close out of a file in bash terminal". 

 

now if you are a frequent linux user, you might be sitting there thinking "Well its not hard, you just need to know how to do it" and that right there is the problem. there is not a person in their right mind that would guess ctrl+z Q or Z Z to close a file in terminal either without or with saving, and the fact that i cant make any adjustment to any file on my computer at all in the file explorer is the most backwards useless design. There is no reason to have a file manager if you cant edit any files in it. to clarify, i couldent drag and drop files even between the windows like files they create for you, much less in any of the main dir's like ect. It doesnt matter how less secure, more bulky, and less privacy focused an OS is, if that is even roughly the experience that you get when just trying to do basic stuff, there will be no mass adoption of your platform. Ease of use is king. 

 

I know this experience is PoPOS focused, and im installing Ubuntu on that same computer right now to see if the experience is any better (Maybe it will come with the lib's needed to connect a simple wireless mouse!) but ive had ver similar experiences in Arch trying to just do things that should be incredibly straight forward on an OS, and i got tiered of waiting a couple of days to be condescended. 

 

Its also really important to call this out about PoPOS, since it is at the top of so many peoples list of easy user friendly OS's. Im glad that i know that this isnt what using Linux needs to be like, but the experience of this OS being the top of the list for ease of use and running into these kinds of issues would absolutely completely kill any chance i ever try a different linux distro again. This side needs to be talked about and understood more when we are pushing people to try linux. Im sure there are relatively easy fixes to these problems, but in the end those fixes are not findable by someone who doesnt know exactly what to look for. I know most devs get this, but if you never understood why people who tried linux complained that its not easy to use and is not beginner friendly, this is why. 

[Mark Kaine]

we actually discussed this a lot here - and FYI, i plan to test this very soon (simply to verify if what i already "know" is true or not) it kinda actually boils down to, Linux isnt actually better than windows, the things people dont like in windows (inherent UI design, redundancies, updates…) Linux takes it all and doubles tripples down on it…

 

Great for server usage, clunky and impractical for everyday usuage, or more clearer:  for most humans (who arent servers…)

 

 

7 minutes ago, Slyder67 said:

fixes

i think that is the real problem, there are no fixes, this is by design and the Linux community embraces this design "if you cant use the command  line then Linux isnt for you…" 

 

Well, not for me and 99% of the population, true that. 

 

 

 

 

[Slyder67]

2 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

we actually discussed this a lot here - and FYI, i plan to test this very soon...

 

 

Honestly, This makes me feel so much better. Ive been trying to get into it because i can see the benefits of it, but the amount of crap ive gotten when bringing up the lack of ease of use has been staggering. Im not much of a forum guy so i figured i could at least come here and vent i guess, but thank you for your response.

[Eigenvektor]

2 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Linux isnt actually better than windows…

Whether it's better or not depends on your perspective and needs. I'm a developer, and many of my workflows are a lot easier on Linux thanks to a good console and the ability to install a ton of software from the repository, without having to hunt it down on various websites. If you go into Linux thinking it is better at everything, then yeah you've set yourself up for disappointment.

 

Quote

…, the things people dont like in windows (inherent UI design, redundancies, updates…) Linux takes it all and doubles tripples down on

What do you mean by inherent design and redundancies?

 

As far as updates go, I'm using a rolling release which means I'm always on cutting edge software, which is good for me as a developer. But at the same time I've never been forced to update, nor have I ever been interrupted in my work by sudden reboots caused by automatic updates. So I'm not sure how Linux is doubling down on that?

[RageTester]

It's true there are system folders that you can't just mess with from file explorer. 

Sudo nano and full file directory + file name isn't a hard way to edit text files though...

Why is downloads folder read-only I don't know... Doesn't sound right.

[SorryBella]

9 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Linux isnt actually better than windows

Yes, because no OS is really a one size fits all, period. But the uniqueness of Linux is the fact that youre not at the mercy of anyone if you dont like a factor of Linux distro, go on and get a new theme or a completely new distros. On windows and mac all you can say is "ah, fuckin bummer." And if you have killer apps that you know the linux alt is horrible, then either encourage the developers to make a port of that app to Linux, or just dont force yourself. Live boot and dual boot is still always an option.

9 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

if you cant use the command line then Linux isnt for you

This is very stereotypical when MANY linux app installation already have a copy pastable line that you can just ya know, copy paste. Would i love to see an executables to make this all automatic? Sure, but all things considered its a moot point when its basically the same "follow the damn installation instruction" as the usual in install wizard. Youre just using your keyboard instead of your mouse.

[KaitouX]

I don't get why this is somehow limited to Linux. When Windows have issues you might need to do similar things to solve, there's a reason why often the troubleshooting to people that don't know what they are doing is to just reinstall it, particularly when issues show up shortly after installing it.

Most of the issues mentioned are not supposed to happen, for example the mouse issue would be similar to Windows not recognizing the mouse and requiring the person to go directly in the device manager to try to fix it. The mouse is supposed to just work without having to do anything in both Windows and Linux.

[Slyder67]

1 minute ago, RageTester said:

Sudo nano and full file directory + file name isn't a hard way to edit text files though...

 

I think thats kind of my point though. Nano isnt hard to use, but there is no possible way to know nano exists unless you all ready know it does, also i now have to type in the file path ever time that i need to do any edits to system files. In windows, i can navigate to my file by clicking the folders. its intuitive. i click the file and i can generally do what i want with it. right clicking it will give you all of the options that you would need to do basic things with any file, including running it as an admin. being essentially forced into terminal is not user friendly, unless you all ready know how it works. its not intuitive, and that ease of use and inherent intuition plays a large part in why Linux has not taken more market share from Windows. 

 

even looking at Chrome OS, which absolutely has its own pitfalls, they nailed the ease of use. they nailed the intuitive design. 

[Eigenvektor]

4 minutes ago, Slyder67 said:

I think thats kind of my point though. Nano isnt hard to use, but there is no possible way to know nano exists unless you all ready know it does, also i now have to type in the file path ever time that i need to do any edits to system files.

I can go into Files, navigate to /etc, right click on a system file and select "Edit as Administrator". Which is what I'd need to do for system files on Windows as well, isn't it?

[Slyder67]

 

2 minutes ago, KaitouX said:

...for example the mouse issue would be similar to Windows not recognizing the mouse and requiring the person to go directly in the device manager to try to fix it.

Thats not really true. In windows if your mouse isnt connecting to your computer, you just go to the companies website and most people know the word Driver is important to get stuff to work. google product and driver and that solves about 99% of your problems. Now, in windows, If i have an advanced mouse issue and something isnt installing properly at all, then there absolutely is fiddling, but fiddling with a bunch of commands in Terminal is significantly less intuitive then following steps to navigate settings in a Gui. in a gui you can look at the different menus and even if the steps that you have dont quite solve your problem, they often get you to a menu that can and all you have to do is just read the gui. there is nothing that tells you what -a does in a command unless you specifically lookup the syntax for that specific command, and that most likely will get you absolutely no where closer to fixing your problem unless you had enough knowledge of bash all ready to not need to google that command yourself. there is a significance difference there in the time it takes to solve a problem. Trouble shooting isnt linux specific, but the lack of intuitive design makes troubleshooting with a limited knowledge of your specific architecture almost impossible. if you dont all ready know a good amount of bash and you dont all ready know how the unintuitively named file structure works then you can either google an answer, post on a forum and wait, or just uninstall the OS and try something differently. you dont have any other options. at least in Windows, you can pretty much stumble onto almost everything you need, even if you dont know what exactly you are looking for. Sure, you wont hit Diskprat or regedit, but control panel has the solutions to A LOT of problems.

 

[Slyder67]

1 minute ago, Eigenvektor said:

I can go into Files, navigate to /etc, right click on a system file and select "Edit as Administrator". Which is what I'd need to do for system files on Windows as well, isn't it?

What file manager are you using? because i tried that exact thing in the popos file manager and that wasnt there. i saw something about nautilus being able to do that, but it simply didnt exist as an option on my install of PopOS

[Bananasplit_00]

I mean.. I've been on Manjaro since the start of 2019, I have almost never HAD to use the terminal for anything essential and definitely nothing difficult.

 

Anyway what you're describing seems absolutely ridiculous and like nothing you should have to go through(unless you're on Arch or something), something seems very borked from the get go tbh

[Slyder67]

19 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

This is very stereotypical when MANY linux app installation already have a copy pastable line that you can just ya know, copy paste. Would i love to see an executables to make this all automatic? Sure, but all things considered its a moot point when its basically the same "follow the damn installation instruction" as the usual in install wizard. Youre just using your keyboard instead of your mouse.

So while a lot of websites have the commands on their page in a copy and paste format, there are still many instances where that is not the case. if its in a packman its easy, if a company lists the get command on their website its not too bad, but if you dont all ready know what you are doing on Github for example then you are pretty much screwed on trying to install anything without some assistance on where to look. the green button that says get or clone gives you a command that terminal doesnt recognize "gh isnt a recognized command". You can usually find a readme that gives you the full command, which is super helpful, but if you dont know how to get that gh whatever working, then you are just stuck there trying to figure out how to install this lib that you need to run this program that you downloaded from the packman. that isnt user friendly if you dont all ready know what you need to do, and even with the limited time i spent on manjaro a couple years ago, i frequently ran in to problems just trying to get a lib installed to get something from packman working. thats a bad experience. 

[Eigenvektor]

4 minutes ago, Slyder67 said:

What file manager are you using?

The file manager from Gnome called "Files", previously also known as nautilus. I didn't actually know this was there until I tried it out right now, since I usually just do "sudo vim <path>" or "sudo code <path>" or "sudo gedit <path>". Though I'd say I have to edit system files on my desktop extremely rarely. Most of the time when I have to do so, it happens on a remote server, so command line tools it is.

 

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Whether it's better or not depends on your perspective and needs

well, yes, i see this from the average user perspective, most people just want things to work, ease of use, *click, click* windows actually got that down pretty well - sure there are annoyances, but simple things, are, well simple and its mostly GUI driven apps, that are generally , very easy to use.

I think this is probably very different from the needs (and abilities) of a developer…

 

10 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

So I'm not sure how Linux is doubling down on that?

If updates arent forced, thats a plus, but from my impression you're still expected to update, and naturally, things might break, and support might be flakey.

 

12 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

What do you mean by inherent* design and redundancies?

i meant incoherent… (weird typo, using a japanese keyboard •̀.̫•́✧) and i dont think i need to explain *that*?

Redundancies: this is something i see *a lot* so totally arbitrary example, someone asks "how do I do "XX thing" in Linux?"

 

And then they get like 5 different answers usually  starting with " or you could…" , "or…" " you could also…"

 

This is exactly  what windows does, there is not one clear way to do things, there are several ways and places to do things, that all have the same outcome, this is called redundancy, and its annoying and irritating as heck!

 

(with the added "bonus" in Linux you usually need to use the "console" and look up and remember commands… thats just really cumbersome and tiring for most people, even if you personally may not mind this…)

 

 

The upsides of Linux though seems to be privacy (hey microsoft isnt going to spy on you at least…?) and also more freedom supposedly, while windows isnt locked down completely "yet",  its clear its going into that direction, the problem is, as has been mentioned, the hurdles to easily use and utilize Linux are too big for a lot of people , so this is a kind of freedom, that simple isnt accessible to them, and thats a shame!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Slyder67]

4 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

I mean.. I've been on Manjaro since the start of 2019, I have almost never HAD to use the terminal for anything essential and definitely nothing difficult.

 

Anyway what you're describing seems absolutely ridiculous and like nothing you should have to go through(unless you're on Arch or something), something seems very borked from the get go tbh

I ran Manjaro a couple of years ago on my main desktop, and while i didnt have many bad experiences (Other than proton wasnt at a point where i felt like i could switch yet) i had a lot of frustrating situations trying to get a lib or some other weird like system file installed to fix error codes that i was getting from software installed from packman. its definitely not impossible to run manjaro without touching terminal, but if you run into any weird compatibility issues the gui, at least when i tried in 2018, didnt really have a way to fix the problem, or if it did, every solution i could find online just used terminal.

[Mark Kaine]

39 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

I have almost never HAD to use the terminal for anything essential and definitely nothing difficult.

I mean, you get people  saying that in every Linux discussion , but its really not the majority saying that, most are actually embracing the "console / command line thing" saying this would make things *easier* for them… now its not like i think that isnt true for them, there just seems to be this weird disconnect that they apparently think something along the lines of "if you want to use a computer you need to know a lot of commands, its just how a computer needs to be operated…"  

 

No, its not, its the 21st century, using what is basically a typewriter to operate what is basically a slightly improved turing machine, should be a thing of the past, its not modern at all, and we *do* have better options, its just implementation is *really* slow, windows is definitely trying to incorporate these things, and "ease of use" is "the reason" why windows is so successful, its not because  they have a monopoly, its how they got there (B. Gates understood this very well in 1983 while "inventing" windows in his "garage"…) 

[Slyder67]

If anyone else sees this, in Ubuntu and PopOS do you have to do something to set your account to like be able to run things as sudo? idk how else to describe it, but after just messing around with Ubuntu im able to use sudo commands in Terminal but i have no options to open things in admin in file explorer and when trying to setup the live update it failed because the user account isnt in like sudousers or something like that. Im testing Manjaro just to see if its an issue im having with Debian or if its just my laptop, but seeing the same kind of issues in PopOS and Debian got me thinking

[Eigenvektor]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

well, yes, i see this from the average user perspective, most people just want things to work, ease of use, *click, click* windows actually got that down pretty well - sure there are annoyances, but simple things, are, well simple and its mostly GUI driven apps, that are generally , very easy to use.

I think this is probably very different from the needs (and abilities) of a developer…

On the one hand, I agree, on the other hand… my mother has been on Ubuntu for 10+ years now. It does everything she needs (web, email, banking, ebay). I think there was one major breakage after a system update that I had to fix in all that time. Browser and email etc. work exactly the same way they would on Windows and she doesn't need to mess with system files, ever.

 

My father is on Windows, due to some software he needs. Guess whose system I've had to free from viruses and malware and reinstall multiple times

 

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

If updates arent forced, thats a plus, but from my impression you're still expected to update, and naturally, things might break, and support might be flakey.

Updates are completely voluntary. If you want to report bugs then you should typically be on the latest version of that package, but otherwise no one is required or expected to update. Though it's usually a good idea (same as on Windows), because of bug and security fixes. But I'm free to do them when I want and the system isn't nagging me about it.

 

I generally have no problem with updates (and frankly, I've rarely had issues on Windows either) the only thing that bothers me is forced updates when I really don't have time for updates right now.

 

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

i meant incoherent… (weird typo, using a japanese keyboard •̀.̫•́✧) and i dont think i need to explain *that*?

Yeah, incoherent makes more sense I'd say it depends. Gnome is pretty consistent with itself, but of course there's no overarching design philosophy or guidelines for other software like there is for Windows. If you install packages from KDE that use Qt rather than Gtk things can start to look weird. Especially if some software decides it is on light mode, so it uses dark fonts while the OS decides it is on dark mode, so it uses a dark background Not an issue for the large majority of apps I use though.

 

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Redundancies: this is something i see *a lot* so totally arbitrary example, someone asks "how do I do "XX thing" in Linux?"

Yeah, I see your point. It really depends on what you're doing though. As I said, my mother is happy to use Ubuntu and she doesn't really do anything outside of using desktop software like a browser and email client.

 

I don't see choice as bad, the problem is being given a choice when you don't know the pros and cons for each option.

 

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

The upsides of Linux though seems to be privacy (hey microsoft isnt going to spy on you at least…?) and also more freedom supposedly, while windows isnt locked down completely "yet",  its clear its going into that direction, the problem is, as has been mentioned, the hurdles to easily use and utilize Linux are too big for a lot of people , so this is a kind of freedom, that simple isnt accessible to them, and thats a shame!

I guess freedom and accessible are somewhat mutually exclusive in that context, because developers are also free to do whatever they please. There is no common goal dictated by some corporate overlord in the name of more profits.

 

4 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

No, its not, its the 21st century, using what is basically a typewriter to tell what is basically a slightly improved turing machine, should be a thing of the past, its not modern at all, and we *do* have better options, its just implementation is *really* slow,

I have to disagree with you there. In some cases typing a command on the command line is far more efficient and less error prone than doing stuff in a GUI. Go into the console, type "sudo whatever", done.

 

On Windows on the other hand it's like open this, right click here, navigate there. In most cases you need to accompany that with a ton of screenshots so people don't get lost halfway through.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Eigenvektor said:

Go into the console, type "sudo whatever", done.

1. Install the lm-sensors and fancontrol packages.

2. Configure lm-sensors as follows:

   1. In terminal type sudo sensors-detect and answer YES to all YES/no questions.
      (Potentially, this can damage your system or cause system crash. For a lot of systems, it is safe. There is no guarantee that this process will not damage your system permanently, I just think that chance of such critical failure is really really low. Saving all your work for eventual crashes/freezes/restarts before handling system configuration is always good idea. If you feel unsure, read the comments and try to search a web and get some high-level overview before YES-ing everything, maybe being selective with your YES-es will still be enough)

   2. At the end of sensors-detect, a list of modules that need to be loaded will be displayed. Type "yes" to have sensors-detect insert those modules into /etc/modules, or edit /etc/modules yourself.

   3. Run sudo service kmod start This will read the changes you made to /etc/modules in step 3, and insert the new modules into the kernel.

      • Note: If you're running Ubuntu 12.04 or lower, this 3rd step command should be replaced by sudo service module-init-tools restart

3. Configure fancontrol

   1. In terminal type sudo pwmconfig . This script will stop each fan for 5 seconds to find out which fans can be controlled by which PWM handle. After script loops through all fans, you can configure which fan corresponds to which temperature.
   2. You will have to specify what sensors to use. This is a bit tricky. If you have just one fan, make sure to use a temperature sensor for your core to base the fancontrol speed on.
   3. Run through the prompts and save the changes to the default location.
   4. Make adjustments to fine-tune /etc/fancontrol and use sudo service fancontrol restart to apply your changes. (In my case I set interval to 2 seconds.)

4. Set up fancontrol service

   1. Run sudo service fancontrol start. This will also make the fancontrol service run automatically at system startup.

In my case /etc/fancontrol for CPU I used:

Settings for hwmon0/device/pwm2:
(Depends on hwmon0/device/temp2_input) (Controls hwmon0/device/fan2_input)

  INTERVAL=2
  MINTEMP=40  
  MAXTEMP=60  
  MINSTART=150  
  MINSTOP=0  
  MINPWM=0  
  MAXPWM=255 

and on a different system it is:

  INTERVAL=10
  DEVPATH=hwmon1=devices/platform/coretemp.0 hwmon2=devices/platform/nct6775.2608
  DEVNAME=hwmon1=coretemp hwmon2=nct6779
  FCTEMPS=hwmon2/pwm2=hwmon1/temp2_input
  FCFANS=hwmon2/pwm2=hwmon2/fan2_input
  MINTEMP=hwmon2/pwm2=49
  MAXTEMP=hwmon2/pwm2=83
  MINSTART=hwmon2/pwm2=150
  MINSTOP=hwmon2/pwm2=15
  MINPWM=hwmon2/pwm2=14
  MAXPWM=hwmon2/pwm2=255

...

IF ONLY!

(｡>﹏<｡)

 

Yeah, i get it, there are probably simpler ways to do this (setting this in BIOS isnt one of them, because sometimes you have a mobo that simply doesnt do this… had one like that for over two years …)

 

But stuff like this is what a Linux "newbie" gets confronted with when they want to try their new "freedom" and frankly, i think that often is the end of it, too.

 

 

1 hour ago, Eigenvektor said:

On Windows on the other hand it's like open this, right click here, navigate there. In most cases you need to accompany that with a ton of screenshots so people don't get lost halfway through.

Yeah, this is true, but it was an example of something that windows *and* Linux do wrong (in my impression) it works differently, the problem is the same, its confusing, its not intuitive, and you usually have to "look it up…"

 

 

1 hour ago, Eigenvektor said:

On the one hand, I agree, on the other hand… my mother has been on Ubuntu for 10+ years now. It does everything she needs (web, email, banking, ebay). I think there was one major breakage after a system update that I had to fix in all that time. Browser and email etc. work exactly the same way they would on Windows and she doesn't need to mess with system files, ever.

I can see this working, yeah, if you have a simple set of tasks, yes, sure, why not! Good alternative for such use cases - especially if you have someone  who fixes it should something break. ; - ) 

 

Me, Im a gamer, and im often tasked with things that simply dont work, or dont work how i want them to work…

 

Im playing a lot ps2 and ps3 games, i actually dont know how that would work under Linux, but i kinda fear it wouldnt be as easy…

 

I also mod every game i play otherwise (except those emulated ones, doesnt look like there are a lot of mods, and if then its really complicated, usually  unfinished stuff…) 

And using mods I learned a lot, how it works in different engines, how to "rewrite them" without having to use tools like blender, photoshop, etc… its limited, but usually enough to achieve what i want…

Generally often means using Hex editor…

Or cheat engine (but i dont use this much) or other little apps specific to certain games.

 

And tbh, its very cumbersome, and I often think "this should be easier"

 

i also made a couple of mods myself (not really from scratch, except one, but original enough to call it actually my own)

 

I also fully modded Steam, i absolutely hate the default UI, its just ugly, cant change the colors , overview is awful, etc…

 

But thing is, most of these things , while sometimes  tedious, are generally  really simple and its easy to find instructions, and what i like there usually isnt really a lot of redundancies, if you hex edit something - thats how you do it, there arent randomly other lines you could edit that do basically the same…

 

 

 

Now - the reason Im mentioning all this - I dont think my use cases are *that* unusual (although i understand its not something majority of users does) - and Im just very curious how all these things work in "Linux" and honestly Im not very confident they will work at all (most of them)

 

But, personally, its something I have to try, out of curiosity, and maybe Im learning something, or get positively surprised (but realistically probably not?)

 

 

 

 

PS: and then theres also stuff like AFTERBURNER, i dont think i can live without that, or without undervolting my GPU…  

 

 

Its simple things like that, that really dont give me a lot of hope Linux is, or will be an alternative for me, there kinda needs to be something else (and i understand  thats also not super likely )

 

PSS: just looked this up as I know.a lot of my mods and programs *need* this

(vc redistributables)

https://amp.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/9jf9re/linux_with_visual_c_2017/

 

 

Seems to work, "maybe" … but they arent sure?

 

And its definitely way harder to install seemingly, on windows you literally just click on the exe(s) (you need both, x64 and x86)  : D

 

 

 

[Alexeygridnev1993]

If a distro gives me that much trouble from the start as you describe, I typically just nuke it and try another one. Luckily, there is a huge choice these days, there's no need to spend hours troubleshooting a system which was likely borked from the beginning.

 

The best experience I've had is with plain vanilla Ubuntu or Kubuntu. You install the system, you issue a one-liner

"sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y", you install apps you need using either an appstore or a command line, then you forget about it.

 

The above-mentioned one-liner you can run at whatever time it's convenient for you, just try to update fairly regularly for security reasons.

[dragonfly43]

It boils down to 'Thrown away mentality'.

There are people who think that it's normal to change computer every 4, 5 years when they start running like molass.

I have a friend who just did that. I volunteered to install Linux, plus doing support for him.

I pleaded to him not to throw it away, but 'his son - who is an IT guy - told him to buy a new one'.

My friend just needs a browser to play stock market.

[Slyder67]

13 hours ago, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

If a distro gives me that much trouble from the start as you describe, I typically just nuke it and try another one. Luckily, there is a huge choice these days, there's no need to spend hours troubleshooting a system which was likely borked from the beginning.

So i picked this because i figured out what my problem was and i only figured out after running into the very similar issues. It turns out, i had an LVM partition. This broke like everything. I couldn't access anything in file explorer and it was a pain in the butt to remove that partition so i could do a clean install of a new OS. Now, im not the smartest user when it comes to linux but ive reformatted my harddrive quite a few times on windows and never ran into an issue like this, and ya you can say "Well you picked LVM as a format so its you're fault" but the problem is that if a fairly tech literate guy can mess up this up, this could like completely screw up someones computer, even  making it so they couldent reinstall windows, all on the OS install screen of supposedly the most user friendly Linux Distro.

[Giganthrax]

For regular desktop use, Linux has the following advantages:

- Most distros are more lightweight than Windows, which makes Linux run better on weaker hardware (not really an advantage since crucial programs such as Chrome are still just as demanding)

- It doesn't get viruses or malware (major advantage for many people)

- It's free (major advantage if you don't know you can buy a win10 pro key for $4 on ebay)

- Microsoft doesn't spy on you (some people really care about this, lol)

 

IMO unless your use case is extremely basic (you just want to browse websites, watch movies, listen to music, check email, etc.) or extremely advanced (you're an actual developer/IT guy/tech enthusiast), there are no real advantages to going Linux. Doing anything else beside the basic stuff is almost invariably vastly more complicated than it is on Windows, or basically impossible to do, and cross-platform software often gets major Linux updates later than it does on Windows. And don't even get me started on the bugs.

 

I like Linux. I use Linux Mint Mate as my daily driver on my work laptop and I'm very happy with it. However, I understand Linux still has a looooooong way to go before it can be safely placed in the hands of a regular user who doesn't want to experiment with software or hardware and just wants things to work. 

[dragonfly43]

Quote

16 hours ago, Giganthrax said:

(not really an advantage since crucial programs such as Chrome are still just as demanding)

 

You can use lightweights like Seamonkey, Palemoon... and lots more.