Why most users give up on Linux on their first try ! Stay away from POP OS!?

[Tang Li]

Hello there guys, I use Linux Backtrack/Kali for my servers (mysql, apache etc)... In this scenario, I don't need a gnome or any fancy DE or a DE at all.

 

I use windows for everything else (ASM, C, c++, c# development and gaming). I also use a lot of Ida Pro, Ghidra, Xdbg 32 / 64, ollydbg, scyllahide and a lot of other toys.

 

I decided to take a look at some other Linux Distros to see what was good for gaming out of the box. I did this because I heard Battleye and easy anti cheat games will run on linux native with out the use of KVM passthrough + kernel recompile (to avoid virtual machine detection) etc... This is thanks to the upcoming steam deck handheld console.

 

Long story short, I am not your average user when it comes to using a computer, and getting things to work on POP OS properly was WAY to time consuming... I had to edit the x11, and so many other things to get it to run normal.

 

My system specs

5950x OC

3090

++

 

I decided to take my rig up to a linux ride, and get my stuff ready to start doing what I do with games in linux. You know, learn the APIs, modify all my codes to run on linux etc...

 

Well...

 

---------------------------- POP OS  ----------------------------

The first OS I tried was POP OS ... I also downloaded their NVIDIA version since it was recommended due to my setup.

This is what I can say in just a few hours...

POP OS is PURE JUNK !!!! Nothing works!  Every time I restarted the OS my primary monitor would become my secondary, my refresh rate would go back to 60, my resolution would change... 

How is a newbie supposed to work with this? Pop OS is just junk. Then using the Jetbeans rider IDE, visual studio code ... OMG how many conflicts... is this kernel modified? MONO sdk, imwheel (to modify mouse wheel scroll speed)... WOW nothing worked out of the box...

Unreal Engine from source wouldn't build with out modifications to the scripts... Was my installation corrupted or something? I checked the ISO's HARSH before I installed it lol.

 

I guarantee you a linux first timer would NEVER install linux again on their machine after this experience.

 

---------------------------- Mint OS ----------------------------

The second OS I tried was Mint with their modern DE ... cinnamon I think.

This was a whole other experience.

 

My sh scripts ran as I expected, my coding IDE's worked with no conflicts, the screens are in order.... Wine works, wine + mono works, BOOM ! Had zero issues.

Ok, If a first time Linux user had this experience I think they'd be ok. Everything worked out of the box !!!

 

 

---------------------------- Ubuntu OS ----------------------------

I'd say this ran the same as the above. Everything was okay.

 

I will try a few more, so far I am sticking to Mint OS. I like the windows XP look.

 

[idkfelix]

"beginner" distros are truly for beginners, as soon as you try to do anything more advanced it all starts to fall apart. If more ppl recommended distros like arch/manjaro with good wikis to new users more ppl would stay.

[Tang Li]

As long as things work out of the box and work as intended people won't quit! ... It seems like in POP OS has something unorthodox heavily modified. The fact my screen resolution, refresh rate, and primary screen was resetting every time i restarted, rendered the OS broken for me. Now if something like this happens to a newbie, what will they do?

 

Linux needs to work out of the box like windows. Many distros are solid... but pop os is broken at a whole new level. 

I understand these distros are including a lot of cute things to make it friendly but if they break Linux to get it done it becomes pointless..

 

On the other hand, I am still testing stuff with Mint. lol this thing works, zero crashes, no conflicts, zero issues so far. Mono works, .net SDK works... Compiled a test .exe with monodeveloper, jetbeans rider, no issues.

 

When it works it works. I would use Mint and Ubunto out of the box so far. Thanks for mentioning manjaro I wanna give it a try next see if it works.

 

[10leej]

3 hours ago, idkfelix said:

"beginner" distros are truly for beginners, as soon as you try to do anything more advanced it all starts to fall apart. If more ppl recommended distros like arch/manjaro with good wikis to new users more ppl would stay.

No, stop. You should make a concious decision to install either of those two distros.

You can do advanced things on Ubuntu and Pop_OS!. Shoot I've migrated debian to Ubuntu (and back). I have even migrated CentOS to Fedora.

Arch's wiki isn't even all that great. Want a good wiki? Read gentoo's. Does that mean everyone should install Gentoo? Heavens no.

 

Stop telling people to install Arch. Let them decide on their own to do that.

[idkfelix]

2 hours ago, 10leej said:

No, stop. You should make a concious decision to install either of those two distros.

You can do advanced things on Ubuntu and Pop_OS!. Shoot I've migrated debian to Ubuntu (and back). I have even migrated CentOS to Fedora.

Arch's wiki isn't even all that great. Want a good wiki? Read gentoo's. Does that mean everyone should install Gentoo? Heavens no.

 

Stop telling people to install Arch. Let them decide on their own to do that.

Arch has the best wiki, then gentoo

 

if someone is looking to get into linux im going to recommend them an arch based distro, just because u dont have the 3 brain cells to use a wiki dosent mean a beginner wont

 

also ubuntus still debian based and fedora is still redhat based so u have only rly tried out 3 distros. idk how ur rly "migrating" between minimal and bloat.

[10leej]

7 hours ago, idkfelix said:

Arch has the best wiki, then gentoo

 

if someone is looking to get into linux im going to recommend them an arch based distro, just because u dont have the 3 brain cells to use a wiki dosent mean a beginner wont

 

also ubuntus still debian based and fedora is still redhat based so u have only rly tried out 3 distros. idk how ur rly "migrating" between minimal and bloat.

I'm sure people can read a wiki, but there comes a use case where people don't want to take any manual involvement to maintain a system. I've been using Linux for well over 10 years as my primary OS and I wouldn't want to maintain an arch system that long.

Also Arch's wiki has nothing on Gentoo's in terms of quality.

[Giganthrax]

I once installed PopOS in a VM to try it out. It was hella bugged so I was like "PopOS? More like NopeOS, amirite?" and uninstalled it.

 

The moment Linus said Pop was his distro of choice, I knew we were in for a fun video.

[Tang Li]

(we're anticipating more native game support because of steam deck and windows privacy doesn't exist even after using OO software and stuff)

 

Hello there guys, since I am going back to Linux Full time, , I am going to do my best to help our Linux Community.

 

Attached is a program to automatically install custom versions of PROTON to use with steam with 1 command.

Tested with MINT.

 

1)extract main from the attached tar.gz

2) type ./main in your terminal to run (does not need sudo).

 

I am also attaching the source code in case you want to compile it with g++.

 

Have fun!

 

/*
 * main.cpp
 *
 *  Created on: Oct 19, 2021
 *      Author: Melissa Li (Xetal Engine)
 */
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

 std::string tarname = "s";

int selection = 0;

void exit( int exit_code );

int main()
{
  start:

   std::cout<< "To automatically install Proton-6.19-GE-2 - Press 1 -" << std::endl;
   std::cout<< "To install a different version            - press 2 -" << std::endl;
   std::cin>> selection ;
   std::cout<< std::endl;

   if(selection == 1)
   {
       system("wget https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases/download/6.19-GE-2/Proton-6.19-GE-2.tar.gz");
       
       std::cout<< "Creating directory ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d" << std::endl; 
       system("mkdir ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d");

       std::cout<< "done..." << std::endl; 
       std::cout<< "Installing package... Please wait..." << std::endl; 
       system("tar -xf Proton-6.19-GE-2.tar.gz -C ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/");

       std::cout<< "done..." << std::endl; 
       std::cout<< "Please restart STEAM and this version of proton should now be visible in the list." << std::endl;
       exit(0);
   }
   if(selection == 2)
   {

   std::cout<< "1) Please put the Proton's tar.gz in the same folder as this program" << std::endl;
   std::cout<< "Please enter or paste the name of the tar file which contains the PROTON GE you would like to install" << std::endl;
   std::cout<< "example: Proton-6.19-GE-2.tar.gz " << std::endl;
   std::cout<< std::endl;

   std::cin>> tarname;

   std::ifstream ifile;
   
   // Check if file exists

   ifile.open(tarname);
   if(ifile) 
   {     
   
   std::string command = "tar -xf " +tarname +" -C ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/";
      
   const char* c = command.c_str();

   std::cout<< "Creating directory ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d" << std::endl; 
   
   system("mkdir ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d");
   
   system(c);

   std::cout<< "done..." << std::endl; 
   std::cout<< "Please restart STEAM and this version of proton should now be visible in the list." << std::endl; 
   exit(0);

   } 

   else 
   {
      std::cout<<"The file: " << tarname << "does not exist, please note it is case sensitive" << std::endl;
      //goto start;
      exit(0);
   }
   
   }

   if(selection!=1 || selection !=2)
   {
       std::cout<< "Invalid selection..." << std::endl; 
       goto start;
   }

 

 

 

[beace]

It's a good thing that someone finally mentions it like that with some surface-level comparison, which is more than enough for the average user in terms of picking a distro that simply runs games out of the box. Especially with all those recommendations to use Pop OS! we see.

 

On 10/20/2021 at 6:54 AM, idkfelix said:

"beginner" distros are truly for beginners, as soon as you try to do anything more advanced it all starts to fall apart. If more ppl recommended distros like arch/manjaro with good wikis to new users more ppl would stay.

How exactly does a beginner distro prevent you from doing "advanced" stuff without it falling apart in the first place? You keep praising Arch wiki and Arch-based distros, well, then you should be well-aware of how you're more than capable of turning any Arch installation or Arch-based distro into something much more complicated and beginner-friendly than any of the beginner distros ever would be, yet it would remain just as functional provided that you took your time to establish that.

 

It's absolutely possible to tweak the distro to whatever you like and keep it running perfectly fine. It may arguably be easier with Arch, which does not come with a lot of component intertwined out of the box, but taking the same care and attention you seem to praise about Arch-related stuff, there is no reason why doing anything "advanced" would mess your Debian-based beginner-friendly distro.

 

The only question here is, what's up with Pop, really? They seem to position the thing as a smooth out-of-the-box experience for gaming among other things, but I keep reading about experience that is well behind Linux Mint for that matter. Hasn't Pop been around for enough time to, well, actually be on par with Mint, at least?

[10leej]

5 hours ago, parasite_avi said:

The only question here is, what's up with Pop, really? They seem to position the thing as a smooth out-of-the-box experience for gaming among other things, but I keep reading about experience that is well behind Linux Mint for that matter. Hasn't Pop been around for enough time to, well, actually be on par with Mint, at least?

Actually Pop_OS! targets power users and programmers, not gamers. About the only thing they do for gamers is preinstall the nvidia driver. Plus they're really trying to push innovation on top of the GNOME Desktop via extensions which is always going to be a bumpy ride since everyone likes to use.... other extensions as well.

The gnome team does not support extensions officially and actively discourages their use, while other extensions are not supported by the pop team. So you have to do a lot of juggling around with any extension that modifies the gnome-shell workflow (tiling, launcher, top and bottom bars) because you're living on a hope and prayer that your extensions will play nice with each other.

This is a big pain point for Pop_OS! and really you either buy in to Pop_OS!'s configurations, or you're better off with something else at the end of the day if you want a system thats updated but not requiring manual intervention (other wise known as system administration).

[beace]

14 hours ago, 10leej said:

Actually Pop_OS! targets power users and programmers, not gamers. About the only thing they do for gamers is preinstall the nvidia driver. Plus they're really trying to push innovation on top of the GNOME Desktop via extensions which is always going to be a bumpy ride since everyone likes to use.... other extensions as well.

The gnome team does not support extensions officially and actively discourages their use, while other extensions are not supported by the pop team. So you have to do a lot of juggling around with any extension that modifies the gnome-shell workflow (tiling, launcher, top and bottom bars) because you're living on a hope and prayer that your extensions will play nice with each other.

This is a big pain point for Pop_OS! and really you either buy in to Pop_OS!'s configurations, or you're better off with something else at the end of the day if you want a system thats updated but not requiring manual intervention (other wise known as system administration).

Thanks for the input, I didn't know Pop_OS! had this target audience. Beats me even more that people keep throwing it as a recommendation for beginners here and there.

 

I never used GNOME, but can definitely imagine how much of a trouble plugging extension can be sometimes. And either way, if it targets power users and programmers, having everything being 100% plug and play is not even the most necessary thing since it just provides you some things out of the box and then you're supposed to take care of it as you please and probably expected to be able to handle it appropriately.

 

 

[emosun]

People give up on linux for the same reason people dont want to eat at a resturaunt thats always empty. 

[flindeberg]

On 10/21/2021 at 5:48 PM, 10leej said:

Actually Pop_OS! targets power users and programmers, not gamers.

I’d disagree with that. Unless you meant office power users and excel-programmers. Sure, you could use it as a power user, but there are much better power user alternatives out there.

[flindeberg]

On 10/20/2021 at 1:37 AM, Tang Li said:

5950x OC

3090

Don’t go Debian based. You have much to gain from using bleeding edge distributions in terms of performance due to your hardware.
 

If I were you, I’d install a fresh arch, compile latest stable tkg-linux, slap on the nvidia 495 beta drivers, install gnome 40 on Wayland and be happy  (note the order)

 

Avoid distributions which include the nvidia drivers if you consider yourself a power user, they will just lead to trouble if you change anything.

[flindeberg]

On 10/20/2021 at 1:37 AM, Tang Li said:

my refresh rate would go back to 60

Use the 495 nvidia drivers and Wayland. Xorg can’t handle monitors with different display rates. 
 

If you have a 60 hz and a 240 hz monitor the 240 hz one will get a 240 hz signal with the same frame four times in a row as the desktop updates at 60 hz.

[riklaunim]

I would say Linux experience constantly is questionable due to one reason or another. I used Gentoo and Arch long ago, when Arch had a one config file and handy installation ISO. Nowadays I don't even bother, time spent on wikis is not worth it. Way more things should "just work". I'm using mostly Xubuntu and it's ok-ish although there is always something "minor" that breaks the experience. Video playback at weird dimensions at random, KDE apps not working properly or missing icons (bad dependencies). Or Manjaro installer that can't do EFI partition on it own and displays a copy paste partition config on subsequent screen to go back and paste it manually...

 

If I have Nvidia card on a laptop/PC and the distro uses nouveau then it's very likely the system will hang/crash or do something annoying like spin fans to 100% constantly. Open Source and all but using unstable driver isn't the solution. At minimum use the generic one so at least the desktop won't crash and ask user to install Nvidia drivers.

 

And when you read like https://www.dedoimedo.com/ reviews you can see that each and every distribution has some sort of problems. Something does not work, something has trash UX. It's hard these days to find a high quality distro.

 

Tried WSL2 on Windows to see if I can just move my local kubernetes development platform but it's not that easy (and it does not have USB pass-through so some microcontroller projects would have problems). At some point I hoped Google would also do ChromeOS workstations but it's not happening and likely won't. The system is way to cut down/proprietary to just use whatever you want on the Linux side. mac OS on ARM still has some limitations - kubernetes/Python seems to already be here, but some UART was a problem when I did some testing on an older mac mini. Plus it would lack the ability to run Windows with games (and hard at upselling ram and storage which I would use quite a bit).

[LBrocato]

On 10/21/2021 at 10:48 AM, 10leej said:

Actually Pop_OS! targets power users and programmers, not gamers. About the only thing they do for gamers is preinstall the nvidia driver. Plus they're really trying to push innovation on top of the GNOME Desktop via extensions which is always going to be a bumpy ride since everyone likes to use.... other extensions as well.

The gnome team does not support extensions officially and actively discourages their use, while other extensions are not supported by the pop team. So you have to do a lot of juggling around with any extension that modifies the gnome-shell workflow (tiling, launcher, top and bottom bars) because you're living on a hope and prayer that your extensions will play nice with each other.

This is a big pain point for Pop_OS! and really you either buy in to Pop_OS!'s configurations, or you're better off with something else at the end of the day if you want a system thats updated but not requiring manual intervention (other wise known as system administration).

even if i was a power users or programmer i would not use  Pop_OS! 

[LBrocato]

On 10/19/2021 at 8:54 PM, idkfelix said:

"beginner" distros are truly for beginners, as soon as you try to do anything more advanced it all starts to fall apart. If more ppl recommended distros like arch/manjaro with good wikis to new users more ppl would stay.

 what have here is a  arch fanboy

[XVB]

On 10/20/2021 at 7:37 AM, Tang Li said:

Hello there guys, I use Linux Backtrack/Kali for my servers (mysql, apache etc)... In this scenario, I don't need a gnome or any fancy DE or a DE at all.

 

I use windows for everything else (ASM, C, c++, c# development and gaming). I also use a lot of Ida Pro, Ghidra, Xdbg 32 / 64, ollydbg, scyllahide and a lot of other toys.

 

I decided to take a look at some other Linux Distros to see what was good for gaming out of the box. I did this because I heard Battleye and easy anti cheat games will run on linux native with out the use of KVM passthrough + kernel recompile (to avoid virtual machine detection) etc... This is thanks to the upcoming steam deck handheld console.

 

Long story short, I am not your average user when it comes to using a computer, and getting things to work on POP OS properly was WAY to time consuming... I had to edit the x11, and so many other things to get it to run normal.

 

My system specs

5950x OC

3090

++

 

I decided to take my rig up to a linux ride, and get my stuff ready to start doing what I do with games in linux. You know, learn the APIs, modify all my codes to run on linux etc...

 

Well...

 

---------------------------- POP OS  ----------------------------

The first OS I tried was POP OS ... I also downloaded their NVIDIA version since it was recommended due to my setup.

This is what I can say in just a few hours...

POP OS is PURE JUNK !!!! Nothing works!  Every time I restarted the OS my primary monitor would become my secondary, my refresh rate would go back to 60, my resolution would change... 

How is a newbie supposed to work with this? Pop OS is just junk. Then using the Jetbeans rider IDE, visual studio code ... OMG how many conflicts... is this kernel modified? MONO sdk, imwheel (to modify mouse wheel scroll speed)... WOW nothing worked out of the box...

Unreal Engine from source wouldn't build with out modifications to the scripts... Was my installation corrupted or something? I checked the ISO's HARSH before I installed it lol.

 

I guarantee you a linux first timer would NEVER install linux again on their machine after this experience.

 

---------------------------- Mint OS ----------------------------

The second OS I tried was Mint with their modern DE ... cinnamon I think.

This was a whole other experience.

 

My sh scripts ran as I expected, my coding IDE's worked with no conflicts, the screens are in order.... Wine works, wine + mono works, BOOM ! Had zero issues.

Ok, If a first time Linux user had this experience I think they'd be ok. Everything worked out of the box !!!

 

 

---------------------------- Ubuntu OS ----------------------------

I'd say this ran the same as the above. Everything was okay.

 

I will try a few more, so far I am sticking to Mint OS. I like the windows XP look.

 

uhh, Thankyou... Finally smeone who gets it, I am a computer hobbiest so all I know about computers are self-thought, I had similar experiences where pop was weird, and Ubuntu was just such a breath of fresh air. Help is easy, mods are easy, everything works out of the box. i like Manjaro better, but ubuntu is just less bug ridden.

[Tang Li]

Hello guys, Spent about a week with mint... I give this distro a score of 80 for gaming, I hope it gets to 100 after steam deck gets out. Here is what I have to say:

But it is really good in other things, and really bad for others. (I can only speak for the things I tried.)

 

My veredict: "for Linux mint"

 

------------------ GAMING -------------------- 80%, Hopefully 100% After steam deck.

 

*If your thing is 100% gaming, forget it right now, and wait for all the post STEAM DECK adaptations. The AAA titles will require a KVM passthrough with a kernell mod. Took me about 15 ish hours to be able to run Rainbow Six Siege + Battleye with KVM + Kernel Modification... I was able to make the KVM undetected. But most people would find it annoying to get this kind of setup just simple because there are no 1 click setups. A KVM + passthrough with out the proper kernel modifications will probably get you banned since it's very easy to detect when running a conventional VM setup.

 

*Lutris, Wine, Wine64, PlayonLinux... They are not as straight forward as one might think... For example, when I tried to install Starcraft 2 via Lutris, even though the game was listed under GOLD, the Battlenet Agent would sleep... I had to reinstall my nvidia driver since the one that came included with the OS was pure garbage. Finally I got it running but It took me a good hour or so to figure it out... This type of crap is 100% a deal breaker for a Linux beginner to figure out.

 

*Biggest problem is, the same process could work for some and not for others. The distro's version, and things like this can play a big part. It is very easy to break a lot of things with a simple update. I had to downgrade a few libraries to be able to use wineprefix correctly for this version of mint 

 

------------------ PROGRAMMING -------------------- 200%, Just need to get more familiar with the OS itself to be 100% fluent in this environment.

This was the selling point for me...

 

The fact I was able to debug to debug a AntiCheat protected game's memory inside of a KVM with out having to program a Bypass, made it all worth it for me lol. Please dont be mad at me. I do develop cheats but as soon as I make it work, I uninstall the game. It's what I do, I don't even play games anymore. A few headshots and im done. I never test my stuff for more than 5 minutes, I usually call it a success, and go decompile something else.

 

*If your thing is programming or game hacking, you will be fine. I converted 2 complex W2S (World to Screen ESP)projects. I was able to run a Open GL ESP inside of Linux for rainbow six in KVM with minor delays. Obviously this means no manual map / kdmapper required inside of windowsVM to bypass battleye.

*I was able to adapt every single c++  project I had to compile and run on linux... in c# some weird stuff happened like for example this.TB_pw.PasswordChar = '*'; didn't do anything (hide Textbox characters and substitute for * (password textbox)). But considering I can run c# on linux is good enough for me.

*C++ didn't get affected at all. everything runs 100% if not better. There are so many good tools for c++ projects in Linux, visual studio code, jetbeans, g++, cmake... Again I am used to programming in Windows, but I just need to keep remembering that things like #include windows.h requires me to do open documentations to learn more about Linux and stuff.  

 

------------------ JUST SIMPLY USING THE COMPUTER -------------------- 50% Browsing the net, youtube, music, etc.

 

*If it wasn't for windows' privacy issues I wouldn't even consider Linux for anything other than running Monster Sized Servers...

 

I have to tell you. I appreciate how smooth most things run on Windows... I can't EAT the fact that moving a web browser's window around while a video is playing, makes the window lag. Running any OS on the caliber of hardware I am grateful to have, I expect everyday tasks to run smoothly. Like, I want to be able to drag a window from side to side with out graphical stutters... This doesn't seem to be possible in MINT. It just isn't fair to compare it to windows 7, 10 or 11.

 

*Also some things don't work properly in every Distro from what I can see... So maybe if I created a nice piece of software right now and I made it in Mint, it doesn't mean it'd run in arch or something else flawlessly with out any minor or major tweaks.

 

------------------ FINAL WORDS --------------------

I love Linux... It has potential. In fact I believe it's core structure has MUCH MUCH more potential than Windows. If every linux developer from every distro got together to make a single LINUX OS, I can guarantee you it'd surpass windows in every way. It's just... there are too many teams with too many different ideas all trying to make everything work. But it is simple just not the way it works. If 1 single function in the kernell for example is different, what ever called that function would react accordingly how it was coded. 

 

The fact the developers don't all work from the same "BASE CODE", makes it really really hard to make things work on ALL linux with ALL hardware with out major issues.

 

Anyways. Thanks guys !!! Let me go reinstall Windows 10 now cuz I really really really really really miss visual studio. There is absolutely NO IDE in linux that comes close to Visual Studio. By far. Not even Jetbeans expensive stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[idkfelix]

8 hours ago, LBrocato said:

 what have here is a  arch fanboy

not an arch fanboy but it is imo the best beginner distro

[Master Disaster]

On 10/20/2021 at 8:10 AM, idkfelix said:

Arch has the best wiki, then gentoo

 

if someone is looking to get into linux im going to recommend them an arch based distro, just because u dont have the 3 brain cells to use a wiki dosent mean a beginner wont

 

also ubuntus still debian based and fedora is still redhat based so u have only rly tried out 3 distros. idk how ur rly "migrating" between minimal and bloat.

The problem isn't about the level of documentation or the users ability to read said documentation, the problem comes down to Arch being very manual and complex and the fact that blindly following instructions off a webpage without understanding what it is you're doing is a sure fire way to a fubar install.

 

10 hours ago, idkfelix said:

not an arch fanboy but it is imo the best beginner distro

Yeah, and IMO you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Question, have you ever actually used Arch? And I mean used when its installed on a bare metal primary system and for longer than a few hours?

 

There's a reason one of the only things the entirety of the internet agrees on is that Ubuntu is the best way to learn Linux.

 

On 10/20/2021 at 2:54 AM, idkfelix said:

"beginner" distros are truly for beginners, as soon as you try to do anything more advanced it all starts to fall apart.

Missed this post at first and this categorically proves you're clueless. I'll just say this, if Ubuntu is falling apart for you then you 100% should avoid Arch at all costs

 

Edit - I should say, I do run Arch, base Arch (not Manjaro, Arco or Endeavour), on my main desktop PC. Don't come back with I'm an Arch hater because I actually do believe Arch is the best way to run Linux, just not when you're starting out.

[Master Disaster]

On 10/20/2021 at 11:40 PM, Tang Li said:

(we're anticipating more native game support because of steam deck and windows privacy doesn't exist even after using OO software and stuff)

 

Hello there guys, since I am going back to Linux Full time, , I am going to do my best to help our Linux Community.

 

Attached is a program to automatically install custom versions of PROTON to use with steam with 1 command.

Tested with MINT.

 

1)extract main from the attached tar.gz

2) type ./main in your terminal to run (does not need sudo).

 

I am also attaching the source code in case you want to compile it with g++.

 

Have fun!

 

/*
 * main.cpp
 *
 *  Created on: Oct 19, 2021
 *      Author: Melissa Li (Xetal Engine)
 */
#include <fstream>
#include <iostream>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

 std::string tarname = "s";

int selection = 0;

void exit( int exit_code );

int main()
{
  start:

   std::cout<< "To automatically install Proton-6.19-GE-2 - Press 1 -" << std::endl;
   std::cout<< "To install a different version            - press 2 -" << std::endl;
   std::cin>> selection ;
   std::cout<< std::endl;

   if(selection == 1)
   {
       system("wget https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases/download/6.19-GE-2/Proton-6.19-GE-2.tar.gz");
       
       std::cout<< "Creating directory ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d" << std::endl; 
       system("mkdir ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d");

       std::cout<< "done..." << std::endl; 
       std::cout<< "Installing package... Please wait..." << std::endl; 
       system("tar -xf Proton-6.19-GE-2.tar.gz -C ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/");

       std::cout<< "done..." << std::endl; 
       std::cout<< "Please restart STEAM and this version of proton should now be visible in the list." << std::endl;
       exit(0);
   }
   if(selection == 2)
   {

   std::cout<< "1) Please put the Proton's tar.gz in the same folder as this program" << std::endl;
   std::cout<< "Please enter or paste the name of the tar file which contains the PROTON GE you would like to install" << std::endl;
   std::cout<< "example: Proton-6.19-GE-2.tar.gz " << std::endl;
   std::cout<< std::endl;

   std::cin>> tarname;

   std::ifstream ifile;
   
   // Check if file exists

   ifile.open(tarname);
   if(ifile) 
   {     
   
   std::string command = "tar -xf " +tarname +" -C ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/";
      
   const char* c = command.c_str();

   std::cout<< "Creating directory ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d" << std::endl; 
   
   system("mkdir ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d");
   
   system(c);

   std::cout<< "done..." << std::endl; 
   std::cout<< "Please restart STEAM and this version of proton should now be visible in the list." << std::endl; 
   exit(0);

   } 

   else 
   {
      std::cout<<"The file: " << tarname << "does not exist, please note it is case sensitive" << std::endl;
      //goto start;
      exit(0);
   }
   
   }

   if(selection!=1 || selection !=2)
   {
       std::cout<< "Invalid selection..." << std::endl; 
       goto start;
   }

 

 

 

Ever heard of ProtonUp? Its a Python script that will pull the latest version of Proton GE and either drop it in the compatibilitytools.d folder or save it to any folder the user specifies

 

https://github.com/AUNaseef/protonup.

 

You could call that to pull GE as part of your program, would save the user from having to get it themselves.

[idkfelix]

9 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Yeah, and IMO you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Question, have you ever actually used Arch? And I mean used when its installed on a bare metal primary system and for longer than a few hours?

I used arch for about 2 years as my first distro before switching to gentoo

 

ubuntu is bloated, has a shit package manager and has annoying as appamour, ive tried it time and time again but its just not good.

 

Arch/Arch based distros are by far the best way to learn linux. having a distro that makes you learn and do stuff yourself will always be the best way

[Master Disaster]

2 hours ago, idkfelix said:

Arch/Arch based distros are by far the best way to learn linux. having a distro that makes you learn and do stuff yourself will always be the best way

That's called projection, you might be OK with learning to drive the supercar before having your drivers license but what's good for you is not good for everyone.

 

Out of interest, which world profile set do you use? There doesn't seem to be one for cinnamon at all.