Caught me off guard with the Linus part. I laughed so much. Lmao
This really shouldn’t be a hot take but I think the people here will disagree. “Linus unironically did nothing wrong in his linux challenge video” The linux community really shouldnt act like he was using it wrong because its a terrible look.
No reasonable person can pretend there are no issues with linux. Sure you can get good at using linux and not run into these issues but they still exist and people will still run into them and you shouldnt blame the person.
Linus installed popOS at a friggin LAN, under pressure, and was rushing to get stuff working then got bent out of shape by comments on protondb about how to get his game to work. His colleagues sat at home, with all the time in the world to figure stuff out and were pleasantly surprised by their experience.
Linux has issues for sure, I run into them daily, but there’s a big difference in giving it a fair shot and saying “could’ve happened on Windows” and making a video as it only happens on Linux. If Linux came on hardware by default, and people had no idea it was Linux, they’d be complaining about their computer, just like people complain about Windows. Linus acts like everything is a Linux issue whenany things are just computer issues you get used to.
There is nothing wrong with installing linux at a LAN. Its quick to install and configure, its actually a layup situation for linux. If Linus had installed it at home he would have had an equally poor experience since the issues were completely out of his control. PopOS shouldnt have labeled Cosmic as production ready and shipped it. Valve should have fixed left4dead2 as its been a known issue for 5 years.
Sure there is: if you’re larping the average Joe.
The big problem is Linus decides to pretend to be some “average user” when he isn’t one, and therefore ends up making absolutely bonkers decisions. It was super obvious in the last video because Linus was the only one participating who had major issues, and the only one participating who pretended to know nothing.
If they actually wanted to give Linux an honest shot and see if they can replace windows on one or more of their computers, the format would be entirely different. I think the format would probably start with a Q&A session with a well known Linux YouTuber like Wendel (who they still appear to have a good working relationship with) where they get the initial “here’s what you need to know and what I recommend for the best experience right now” then a check in call after 24 hours, 72 hours, 1 week and 2 weeks where they touch base, discuss pain points and how to alleviate them. Such a format would give an easy transition as well as great advise for the audience, but still present plenty of opportunity to directly see real world pain points and rough edges but instead of those rough edges being “haha Linux bad” they can instead be “here’s how to overcome them” or “this is an area that needs some developer time, anyone want to dive into improving this?” And maybe if they were really feeling crazy they could offer up some bug bounties for the pain points they find! Because that’s the power of open source is if you have the knowhow you can go in and fix it!
I honestly suspect Linus just doesn’t want to change, and that’s why he keeps failing to actually give Linux a shot. This might be an unpopular opinion here but it’s okay if he doesn’t want to change, but he should not be trying to tear down the Linux community for content in the process
I think this perspective is insane. They should absolutely not approached switching to linux by leveraging expert linux advice through their youtube contacts. Its fine for Linus to have issues switching to linux, most people do and the video wasnt just Linus having issues it was also Luke and Elijah having a good experience. When it comes to switching to linux Linus is an average user, he doesnt know about the system and is going in with little experience. LTT has gotten these pain points fixed and their video did not come off as “haha linux bad” did you watch it?
As a linux user I want linux to be an approachable thing, I would be pissed if it was presented as a thing that required expert consultation from wendel.
I would be pissed if it was presented as a thing that required expert consultation from wendel.
The thing is, such consultation is also providing the same information to the audience, so its not just for Linus, Luke and Elijah. If you’re diving in without the last 10-30 years of background knowledge of what’s broken, what’s been forked, which forks are worth running, which organizations are in chaos and which keep quietly pushing good code, having someone give you a quick rundown of “here, you’ll want to run this or this distro, use this software for XYZ and right now its best to run games this way, oh and this launcher/game is completely broken on Linux so skip it for now” skips a lot of the friction that Linus is subjecting himself to. And any normal person would ask their Linux-user friend, ask in a relevant discord or ask on a relevant subreddit and get roughly the same thing. The collaboration and consultation provides this same information in a video-friendly manner is the main difference.
Do the viewers learn anything useful by seeing Linus experience a problem, spin theories on the spot while troubleshooting, then cut to finding a forum post explaining a possible fix, and Linus tries it possibly fixing it/possibly not? The viewers certainly learn less than if they saw some of that, then got to see a more experienced creator explain what’s going on, what should have happened and how to fix/prevent it moving forwards. The video stops being just watching people flailing and instead becomes “here’s what they did, here’s what they should have done so you now know don’t have to go through the same thing!”
Its a similar concept as any video where LTT has an enterprise vendor help out with the initial configuration or leans on the enterprise support to fix/explain something. Instead of guessing and potentially misleading the audience of millions, they can get a much more accurate solution/explanation in the same video
What do you mean it’s possible for a multi millionaire ceo with a mansion and a private jet to lose touch and not want to change? Preposterous.
I don’t know if I agree that Linus’ decision making can be attributed to role playing as an “average user” so much as it being a case of too much experience hindering him. He’s someone who has been interacting with tech for his entire life and has become very proficient at it within his domain of knowledge. He is definitely someone who is used to tossing the user manual aside when he gets a new device and stumbling his way through until he groks it, and he is using that same approach with Linux. This ends up meaning that he just does stuff that should work the way that he’s used to (i.e. follows the Windows paradigm) and then runs into problems because of it. I think that a lot of his issues basically stem from his ego not permitting him to take a step back to re-learn some of the fundamentals, or least map them onto his Windows-focused mental model.
All that said, Linux distros have varying levels of issues and quirks that have to be learned/dealt with, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with pointing those pain points out. Linus just needs to take a step back and realise that he’s going to have to actually learn something if he wants to be successful.
I don’t think LTT’s approach is bad exactly. I really just take issue with their argument that “there are thousands of ‘switching to Linux’ videos on YouTube, so we don’t need to cover that ground again.” It’s ignoring the fact that, for better or worse, they have the biggest audience and furthest reach in the space. There’s still room for “we’re approaching this like normies would,” but I really think they need to close it up with “if you want to do this, here’s how to do it right.”
Why would we want a “heres how to switch to linux right” from ltt? Even the big linux youtubers get roasted for making those videos incorrectly.
That video wouldn’t be for us. Also, the videos as they are are getting roasted heavily already, so it’s not like that’s gonna stop them.
Its pretty well received. I think only the fringe parts of the linux community who love linux but dont understand it are getting upset.
Maybe we have different expectations on roasting levels then. I’m particularly thinking of all the comments making fun of Linus doing a fresh install at a LAN event, picking PopOS again, setting himself up to fail changing all his devices at once to one distro constrained by handheld support, etc. For an honest followup advice video, I’d expect them to consult with someone like Wendell first, so I wouldn’t actually expect it to be a bad video.
Yeah i think all the people criticizing him for picking pop are actually braindead. That criticism should only go towards pop for shipping their cooked new de way to early with no warning label and the linux community for recommending it.
I dont think the lan party thing holds anymore weight. Its fine to install linux at a lan and he would have had just as bad of an experience at home since the issue was with cosmic and left4dead and was not caused by him.
I dont think he switched his devices that was just his reasoning while chosing. He ended up picking bazzite and kubuntu.
My issue is the categorization which in turn paints a picture on a lot of OSes. Call it a Pop OS challenge, or debian challenge, etc. In people’s minds there is windows, ios, and everything else is “linux”. Just leaves a bad taste. Just like in your comment you’re broadly painting “linux” issues as if windows or such doesn’t also run into problems at times (especially with windows updates lately).
In the talk show they do, he talked about how even with the issues he loves Pop OS and even mentioned that very argument–that he has problems with Windows too, and at least this way one of those problems isn’t copilot.
This is an extremely bad take.
99% of Linux distros behave the same for the most part. There are outliers, like immutables, or NixOS, but whether you’re using Ubuntu, PopOS, Kubuntu, or Mint, your experience with the “linuxness” of your OS will be mostly identical. I’m not talking about things like “the DE looks different”, or the overall “look and feel”, I’m talking about software compatibility, driver compatibility, etc.
You could, I guess, argue if they should say “we’re testing a Debian based distro” instead of “Linux”, but that’s about it.
As already mentioned, Ubuntu/PopOS/Kubuntu/Mint are maybe the four most identical distros in the entire ecosystem. But your point really does hold true even with less-identical distros.
Currently, I have an Ubuntu Server, an Arch PC, and an old laptop “test machine” running Fedora. These are totally different limbs of the Linux family tree, but things pretty much work the same in all of them. The main difference is the package manager: Apt vs Pacman vs DNF. But like, they’re all doing basically the same thing under the hood: checking your installed software against some repository to see if anything needs an update. The actual workflow is pretty much the same with any of them.
After that it’s pretty much just a question of downloading the desktop environment and software you like. Or finding a distro that comes pre-installed with what you want. To make a gaming analogy: linux distros are like Dark Souls classes: starting stats and equipment, but the starting point doesn’t lock you into your you build in the future.
NixOS is a different beast for sure.
the interessting thing with linus is that he 1. plays the non tech person and 2. has pretty bad luck with linux fetures that are broken or bugs because he stumbles over them to 120%.
I also like the contrast between Linus and Luke because Luke drives Mint on his Laptop and cachy os on something other and he has very few problems.
Luke has had problems he mentions on the WAN show. But they two really arent comparable because Luke’s use case is completely different hes much closer to the average person. He only uses a web browser and some light gaming.
Average person?
In talking computer literacy, he is easily within the 1 percent of the 1 percent.
hes probably worse at software issues than his audience. Hes always been a hardware guy
Arch is goat. My first distro was Fedora. Absolutely hated DNF so then I switched to Mint but didn’t like Cinnamon— felt like I was using Android (I love Android but not on desktop lol). Also I has to wait longer for features. Switched to Arch with KDE and never looked back.
What were your issues with dnf?
Linus has a skill for messing things up with Linux
It’s a little crazy to me how the most popular tech youtuber struggles so much with Linux, meanwhile fucking PewDiePie, who’s not known for being particularly bright, has been making videos about Linux and selfhosting and how fun it is to configure his system lol.
The hardest person to convert is a Windows “poweruser”. They have an unfounded confidence in their ability to do things. They think because they know Windows well they should be immediate pros at other OSes as well.
no pewdiepie 1000% messed things up on linux. the difference is he didnt show it in his videos
If you mess up and then fix it/start over and get it right the second time around, did you mess up?
Yes, most people dont see their operating system as a Jenga tower to be knocked down and built up again.
Well yes, but you also learned something.
cOnTeNt
It’s on purpose.
Linus: Now, I want to give Linux the fairest chance possible - That’s why I’m going to fresh install it blind during a 10,000 person LAN party, in the worst networking nightmare scenario possible
“Hmmm… testing branch. Sounds like the branch for me.”
To defend Linus here, he’s always doing something
I’m borderline Linux illiterate and have been using Pop as my daily driver for years without problems.
I think I’ve had to troubleshoot a major issue exactly one time and that was easy.
Do you run cosmic?
Yes.
thats suprising. Every linux yt video on cosmic has been riddled with issues and when i installed it in a VM there was a memory leak that made it unusable.
Btw, Pop OS has said they will comply and add age attestation in case you weren’t aware.
If its legally required what are their options? I currently use Pop! OS, what are my options in that scenario? Like legally speaking how does age verification work?
There are many distros that have said they will not implement the age attestation/verification feature into the distro. Many distros are not developed/located in the US, therefore they do not have to comply. The link below is kept updated to show which OSes will or will not comply
Linking to a conservative fuckwit’s GitHub is an interesting choice tho
There was something that happened a while ago that made all the tech influencers look kinda silly in regards to Linux. I’ll never forget this comment on one of the videos around the kerfuffle. ‘All these computer experts have just been downgraded to Windows influencers.’ It’s so true how they can tell you all the inner workings of a Windows machine and the moment they try Linux their expertise just falls apart.
Wut popos is pretty good got it on all other family members computors
Linus managed to uninstall his desktop environment by installing Steam because there was an issue with deps on the package and he didn’t really look at the list of packages that would be uninstalled either.
And now he’s doing another Linux challenge and he picked Pop again. Which is now using COSMIC which is in Alpha stage at the moment, so a recipe for more issues lol
Yeah I’m a pop fan but as exciting as COSMIC is, it’s still just not ready. The Gnome version with the cosmic gnome-shell extensions is much better.
Shitting on macOS like that is completely unjustified.
Nah, worst os I’ve ever used
Skill issue
No skill issue involved when your team arrives to work and every single employee’s screen sharing functionality stops working…and there’s no warning or notification why it’s not working.
No skill involved when your sound drivers stop working during a presentation and you need to reboot to get them working again because there’s no way to restart the devices.
No skill issue when the file explorer has no way to access the root directory - you have to run finder from the command bar and that somehow works.
No skill issue involved when an update breaks all local domains and you have no way to override, so you have to change all dev domains for everyone across the whole org…TWICE.
No skill issue when wifi and bluetooth randomly stop working and the only solution is to reboot.
No skill issue when pressing the play button and it open iTunes when Spotify is already open.
Not a skill issue when desktop transitions don’t accept input until the transition completes. Reducing the transition time does not help, the transition must fully complete before you can provide input.
I could go on, but I can only recall so much anecdotal experience from the few years I suffered through that shit. Maybe some of these things have been fixed, but release after release the experience would worsen and usability would degrade. I’ll never use a mac again, my productivity is too important to me.
Anyone who stans for MacOS are just lying to themselves.
Don’t forget forced AI bullshit
I haven’t used a mac in a few years - there’s AI stuff now? The OS was pretty bloated considering what it was - it used more memory than a Windows machine which is impressive.
macOS uses more aggressive caching of the filesystem and other things. Using available memory isn’t bad.
Swap is also bette4 because Apple chooses actually fast SSDs.
Using a Mac with only 8 GB of RAM is a lot more fun and performant than a windows machine.
There are very few and limited AI features now. For example Mail has a button to summarize text. There’s also a mediocre local AI to generate images. Apple focuses on locally run small AI models that add small features. It’s not in your face and demands you use it. You can easily ignore the AI features.
Compared to windrows macos is a lot better.
Well after all it’s all proprietary bullshit. I personally don’t use Mac or windows. Windows is trash BTW.
What is supposedly wrong with my operating system?
A YouTuber entered a command, it warned him it would delete system files. He said yes and concluded Linux was flawed.
The joke is that if you’re that guy then even Pop won’t work for you.
Stupid take - the warning came when he ran sudo apt install steam, not even a joke. He said yes but there is literally no reason that command should break his entire OS. If it wasn’t flawed then why was it fixed later on?
He actually did a video after that where they do s “Linux challenge” and he, again, chooses PopOS, and again is the only one of the three participants to run into issues.
Ubuntu on a desktop, mint on an older laptop, and Pop_OS on my daily driver laptop…
What am I doing wrong here?
What am I doing wrong here?
Ubuntu on a desktop
See, that’s what I don’t get, it works fine. Plays games and browses the Internet. Why is that wrong?
Do you have any snaps installed? Each one slows down your boot time because every snap is virtually mounted on boot.
You think you don’t have any snaps? Ubuntu hijacks apt commands to install snaps.
You removed snaps completely from your system to avoid that? Ubuntu reinstalls it after an update.
And that’s besides the fact you’re trusting a closed source app store that’s managed by scum who sold user data to Amazon. They can literally add whatever spyware they want to FOSS and you won’t know it. And considering how many people accused them of illegally harvesting data through Azure Ubuntu images…
