Lets agree to lets this play out 
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This is a bit nitpicky, but read this thread:
So I guess, is that something a new user should have realized or not. I think it is fair to assume battery notifications are implemented by default.
Watching the second video and I’m about to get a stroke.
Noone can tell me that Linus of all people doesn’t know how right-clicking a link in a browser and “save target as” works.
That was 100% commenter bait. There is just no other way lol.
The same thing with the “GitHub is for Developers, so Linux is for Developers” argument. 100% commenter bait.
Also saying that in the context of literally 80 seconds before in that same video he’s talking about fkin setting up a VM and passing through devices. Cheap bait is cheap I guess lol.
And that is one of the reasons I don’t watch his stuff regularly.
In what universe are Manjaro/Arch and Mint on Ubuntu base “little” distros?
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Could be in reference to the larger corporate distros like Fedora (RedHat) and Ubuntu (Canonical). Mint and Manjaro probably has less than 100 full time employees combined.
The corporate distros can afford to do proper QA. So you should, in theory, have less papercuts.
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Makes sense I guess.
But purely from a user base they aren’t small at all and as was mentioned before, they are some of the first distros that will turn up when people search for what Distro to use.
Fedora for some reason rarely actually turns up.
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I think it’s a shame that Arch / Manjaro get pushed way more often than Fedora. I guess people in general don’t want to touch distros that are made by corporations. But maybe it’s also because Fedora users are usually more level-headed. They don’t evangelize Linux left and right, like Arch btw and Manjaro btw do. I had this meme for a long time, while not really current anymore (who still uses rc files in arch?), it still pretty accurate:
I wonder how that would change if a fork of Fedora would happen. But I doubt a fork would last out for long, because Fedora is probably among the best places to contribute to. If people contribute and problems get solved upstream, there is no reason for forks to get created, unless it’s something niche. I can’t think of anything other than maybe try to run Fedora without systemd, which would require quite a bit of hacking which I doubt you can do upstream.
Things getting fixed upstream is probably the reason why Fedora as a bare Linux distro is way more polished than Ubuntu as a bare Linux distro. It’s also interesting that Debian feels more polished than Ubuntu, even with all the Debian patching. The bad part about Debian is that if you want the latest stuff, you kinda have to run testing or sid, which is why Ubuntu interim releases make a bit more sense.
Just to keep the discussion somewhat on-topic, now that I think about it, no user should download random scripts from the internet that don’t come from a reputable source without understand what it is they are running. The first thing Linus should have done when he tried downloading the script was to open it up in a text editor and check what he was actually running. Given, most people wouldn’t know the difference between an html file and a shell script if their life depended on it, but those users should not be trying to hack their systems.
It’s like trying to put a kid or an unassuming old lady who knows nothing about cars except how to drive them, to change a car’s oil. Without some previous knowledge either through experience, example, or reading a manual, or even simple instructions / labels on stuff that could guide someone, there is a very high chance that either something will go wrong or basically nothing would happen.
I agree, I doubt Linus wouldn’t have noticed that he was trying to execute an html file. It all comes back to either “read the friendly manual” or ask or pay someone to help you. There are tons of forums online, normal people would try to ask someone for help when they don’t know what they are doing. Linus assumes that normies are anti-social creatures that are too proud of themselves to ask for help, which is really far removed from reality. Look how productive the small linux problem thread is. Look how many helpdesk issues show up on the L1T forum. Heck, look at Ubuntu forums or some random stack exchange forums, just how many users ask questions before they try to do stuff! It’s ridiculous to even try to do everything by yourself, which Linus tries his hardest to do. I agree with you mihawk, the 2nd video in this series is either a joke or bait to attract people to watch. Given, I still hold my stance that the 2nd video is more of a nothingburger compared to the first one.
And I also agree that Linus should be publicly shaming companies a lot more for not supporting Linux. If a company doesn’t want to support Linux or macOS, the least they can do is mention on their products clearly that “this product is only compatible with Windows” and it would solve a lot of issues. The “compatible with Windows” labels are bs, manufacturers like Logitech should say “only works on Windows” and call it a day, I doubt people would be mad at them for not supporting Linux, they’d just buy products that work on Linux. Same for Elgato and whatever else Linus owns, it should be clearly labeled on their websites. Note that I haven’t checked any of those manufacturers’ websites, but if disclaimers like this do appear there, then Linus should stop crying that “oh, my product that the manufacturer says only works on Windows doesn’t work on Linux and it’s Linux fault, booo hooo.”
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Absolutely agree it was argument bait to rile up people and cause in fighting. And maybe that’s what he wanted.
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My only problem with Fedora is the rolling kernel. Blackmagic devices and Nvidia devices that rely on proprietary blobs don’t roll along as fast as the kernel changes. All AMD systems will have a much better time on Fedora.
Well why is everyone rooting for Ubuntu then 
TBH the only reason I started on Fedora was because Wendell mentioned it a couple times during his btrfs and vfio adventures a couple years ago before he tried Arch. Well that and that I had my… uh… “experiences” with Ubuntu and Mint.
But the point is before that I had never even heard of Fedora nor did I know that it was made by Red Hat (which I had heard of because… well who hasn’t).
I don’t think it was necessarily to rile people up, but comments good or bad drive the YouTube metrics.
I mean, you can pin package versions including the Kernel… I mean I get your point, but it’s not like it’s unfixable.
Well, yes, which also is another point towards the “comment bait”. Maybe not quite as bad as the other two, but you get the point.
If we’re being serious though I think some people (especially those that are techliterate, but not quite uber-knowledgable) just take GitHub as a reputable source because well… “everyone can look at the code and point bad things out” right? Well, yeah, but has anyone done that is always the question.
That said, you don’t know where he got the tip for that goxlr-on-linux from. I’m pretty sure I saw that repo before somewhere, so he might have gotten it off of the LTT forums even.
IDK depends how you look at it I guess? It feels like they were showing a lot of stuff that didn’t work and not really anything that did except for a bit at the end… which was a bit disappointing, but maybe that’s in the next videos.
Well, I do see your point there, however the point of the challenge was for someone that already had their Ecosystem set up on Windows to go over to Linux. And yes when you’re building a new PC surely you’ll check for compatibility, but you can’t expect someone to throw away half their setup simply because they changed OS. That’s not fair for either side.
So I do get the complaints they made, but yes, it’s also on the manufacturers. That said, things that don’t officially support won’t even mention Linux support at all so that’s your clue. Even stuff that does support Linux, but has no official support doesn’t usually list it. The USB capture cards for example work just fine on Linux most of the time, but manufacturers still don’t mention it because they don’t wanna deal with the support requests.
As for neither of them going Fedora: On that front I’m actually kinda glad neither of them ran with Fedora because it would have been a shitshow to see them installing nvidia drivers on it…
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It was a steep learning curve to do that though, and LTS kernels are not a thing on Fedora. I just wish there was a easier way or a easy guide, but it’s a pretty steep learning curve to hold versions of packages without breaking stuff.
This tweet thread just proves how ridiculous preaching to the choir is, as is the act of nitpicking.
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Linus straight up said that it’s a failure of things the moment a normal user is being pointed to GitHub and being asked to run commands and scripts they don’t understand. I agree with that. It’s also unavoidable for the most part since that’s just how the user experience goes over time; you will eventually have to get comfortable with that stuff for one thing or another eventually. So, it’s a rightly strong criticism against the experience.
I don’t want to get dragged into the peripherals argument, but I heavily disagree with you on that front.
So reading this, my immediate thoughts go:
This proves the adage of “Linux is free, if your time is worthless.” My time is valuable. If I’m already in the camp of paying to save time, why in the world wouldn’t I just use MacOS or Windows?
If their was a fully commercialized version of desktop, end user focused Linux, with customer support and all, id just pay for that. Sadly, that doesn’t exist.
Hell, the above is why I own a Synology; could’ve rolled a NAS myself, but why would I want to waste my time? DSM is like half the value of those machines
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Ubuntu used to be rooted for a lot in the past, but lately I haven’t seen Ubuntu being very recommended anymore, outside maybe OMG!Ubuntu comment sections. Pop!_OS is kinda the latest darling besides Manjaro.
Actually, kinda the same. I only tried Fedora because I knew Wendell and Linus Torvalds use it. I was pleasantly surprised. Well, I was probably going to try Fedora at some point by myself anyway, because I had a lot of experience with CentOS as a server, so for things that would require more up-to-date stuff, I would have looked into its more current upstream, which is Fedora (CentOS Stream is still way behind Fedora).
This ^
Yeah, I agree… somewhat. I mean, the methodology to switch is flawed IMO. I believe I addressed it before here, I don’t recall. There may be people who just get rid of windows cold-turkey and install Linux, but I doubt these are a majority, or even a relevant minority. And there may even be people who recommend doing so. But IMO, people shouldn’t just get rid of Windows. If they really want to try Linux, they should either dual boot (wouldn’t recommend that though), or get a second machine, doesn’t have to be too great, run Linux on that and treat Windows like a backup machine, or a console. Not to mention, I believe most people would first try Linux maybe in a live boot USB, see that their second monitor is not working, or that the desktop is glitchy (like it happened to Luke) and just restart into Windows and look for another distro or not even touch Linux again for a while. They wouldn’t try to brute-force their way into Linux, like Linus and Luke did.
I’m not saying that manufacturers should mention what things their products don’t work with. I’m saying they should only mention what they do work with. I wouldn’t expect anyone to mention that their high-end gaming mouse “doesn’t work with Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD, GhostBSD, Solaris, macOS, Darwin, OpenIndiana, Redox, Haiku, MS-DOS, TempleOS, Commodore64 or PS5.” I would expect them to just say “only works with windows 10 and windows 11” and that’s it. Unofficial support for one of those can be available, but as long as manufacturers don’t support them, nobody has any right to complain that their products doesn’t work with something that a user wants to use. Hey, if I want to use a Valve Steam VR controller on a Wii U, I cannot rightfully complain that Valve or Nintendo doesn’t support it, even if I bought the controller for its intended purpose before I thought of using it in an unsupported way. Linus is doing just that, he owns products that he used in supported ways by the manufacturers and is now complaining that the products don’t work in unsanctioned ways. Well, excuse my vulgarity, but no shit!
Agreed, I’m against people doing uncomfortable things, if they aren’t used to doing things like looking on github and running scripts, they should not be doing it. I agree, people who make others do that without explaining how to do it and what it does are not helpful. But those are rare, because if you ask, I’m pretty sure anyone will gladly help except maybe people on the Arch forums.
If your time is valuable, you pay others to set up stuff for you. If your time is valuable, you don’t learn to do those stuff yourself in Windows, you pay others to do it on whatever OS saves you the most time, because your time is valuable.
Again, I’m one of the people who believe people should not switch to Linux without a good reason for it. Things like, valuing free software more than convenience, or Linux working on their old PCs when Windows stopped working, or Linux being a bit more secure against malware, or any other really strong reason. Just switching because people are trying to convince you is dumb. I think I mentioned somewhere else, but I did not get convinced by someone to switch to Linux, I looked it up, tried it myself, got comfortable and after a while, decided that Linux is the better OS for me personally. I took about 6-7 years or so for me to switch full time to Linux after my first taste of it.
I could have forced myself to switch, but why would I do that when everything worked for me in Windows and Windows was fine for what I needed and I already knew how it worked pretty well? I only switched after I learned how to use Linux. The argument about “not valuing your time” is disingenuous, really. I know you don’t intend any insult or any other shenanigans, but people who actually use that argument are either ignorant or malicious (again, not talking about you). If you are an iOS and macOS user and have been all your life, why should you take time to learn how to use Windows? You value your time, so there is no reason for you to use Windows. Of course, in some circumstances, you will be forced to learn how to navigate the Windows ecosystem, like say for example, you want to play games other than what are available on macOS. Same goes for Linux, if let’s say you are in a situation where you want to keep using your still usable old hardware, like a 6th gen Intel core-i CPU after Windows 10 got EOL’ed, you will be forced to learn Linux, or buy a new PC and throw your old, still functional PC in the trash, or use an unsupported OS and live with the consequences of that (like lack of new software or security patches). There is likely to be a lot of people who fall into all of those camps and I’d say we should be prepared for the influx.
So basically you’re asking for the exact situation you’re criticising?
Manufacturers already only mention what they support so I don’t really see what your point is here.
True, but again the challenge was to use the existing setup. And realistically there is no way for a “normie” to have the software still working while gaming on Linux.
You’d have to have a separate PC just to control the peripherals which is a) kinda stupid b) fairly expensive, not everyone’s Linus with a warehouse full of random hardware, and c) not exactly the spirit of the challenge.
It may be possible to do using USB passthrough, but that also only works for some hardware and not for all of them.
And besides, the criticism was directed just as much towards the manufacturers as it was towards Linux.
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If they do and it is visible on the product page or the product box, then no issue there. What I have issue with is that Linus cannot rightfully complain that a product doesn’t work on Linux if the manufacturer doesn’t support it. And that he should be assuming that nothing works on Linux. Same goes for anyone, not just Linus. It’s a good assumption to make, nothing works until you confirm with others that it does work.
That’s how I have been looking for even nicher stuff, like ARM SBC, I looked what OS has support for them and made a purchasing decision that way. And if there is no support for an OS I want to run, it’s on me to make it work on it, or ask or pay someone to make it work on it.
That’s what I was saying, that the challenge is flawed and I explained above that nobody would jump on Linux, have the expectation that everything will work flawlessly and then complain that things don’t work like they do on Windows. Linus makes a lot of bad assumptions which I doubt most people would do if they looked 5 minutes on the internet, which is required if you don’t know what you are doing, like it’s the case for Linus.
I agree with criticism towards manufacturers, but I also think nobody is entitled to someone else’s labor, in this case labor being support for another OS.
Again, most people who would try to run Linux, see that stuff doesn’t work and they cannot make it work would do either one of two things: a) switch back to Windows, or b) try to get rid of what doesn’t work and replace with similar stuff that does work. Either two options are legit for either hardware or software. One example could be the StreamDeck for hardware and MS Office for software. Switching back to Windows is an option which would make those keep working. On Linux, you would switch to DE / WM keybindings for the deck and LibreOffice or OnlyOffice for MSO. Again, both decisions are equally valid, depends on one’s preference.
What normie would be hard-headed enough to try to make Elgato stuff to work on Linux by booting into a Windows VM and passing the hardware back to the host OS? That’s insane! Again, normal people would just switch back to Windows and that is fine.
The point is, the challenge is flawed to begin with. Nobody would be brute-forcing their way into Linux like that. Sure, it does provide for some entertainment for some people and obviously brings money to LMG, but the reason Linus said the challenge exists was to present the pains of switching to Linux cold-turkey, as if Windows would stop working tomorrow. Nobody does that.
Sounds like Linus basically held out actually playing most games until he could get back to Windows. AND he really hated Linux experience at the end it seems.
Anyone serious about learning to transition over to Linux should do dual boot. Spend a week on Linux, then return to windows, keep this up for a couple years and you’ll see yourself spending MORE time with Linux OS over Windows.
I’m a pretty advanced Linux user now but I still have win10 on backup in dual boot. Hoping to move that to a WM at some point once I learn allot more on howto do it for my specific requirements. (basically not willing to compromise ANY of my Linux-desktop configuration in order to run a VM)
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While I agree, that is one of the biggest downsides to Linux and that’s kinda the whole point they are making.
If you’re on Windows you can just assume it’s going to work because… well duh. But on Linux you can’t just go willy nilly and take whatever equipment you have. And yeah, for people that know about it that’s fine but the point of the series is people that don’t know.
Now Linus should know, yes, because arguably he’s above-average-tech-literate, but that doesn’t extend to normies.
I think you underestimate a big part of the gaming crowd that is told “just use Linux it works now”.
I don’t actually think so. I mean the point of it is to show what works easily and what doesn’t, and showing that you can brute-force something if you really want to, is a positive thing in my eyes instead of saying “it’s not possible”.
Because yes, some people will have the tenacity to go through the hoops to get it working, others might not, and that is fine. But outright saying it’s not possible at all would be misrepresenting it too.
Well funny example because from what I know the StreamDeck works just fine* with a third-party UI. And I wouldn’t count that as brute-forcing either.
*except on Wayland, but that’s a Wayland limitation
Some? It provides a lot. The whole point of linux for the majority of normies is something to be laughed at.
A lot of it’s users can be on the autistic spectrum, which makes it even more funny, supposedly. As many on the spectrum can’t see beyond, the point of view from the normies side. That’s the supposed ‘funny’ part. The problem is, that it’s actually not funny for someone who understands what it means to be autistic or on the spectrum.
Honestly, it’s kind of scary. For both sides. On one side you have the laughing crowd, which flabberghastingly lol’s at linux for general purpose. On the other you have people that are naturally more intrinsically inclined for computing and computers in general. So much so, that they may differ in social situations. Where the supposed ‘lots of funzies’ are for ‘normies’ or people in general.
The linux users have more technical skills to create things that are otherwise not possible under even standardized rules. Some with diagnosis are on the spectrum, where things above ‘normie standards’ are possible.
Such as Terry A Davis, who created a non-standard dialect of a standardized computing language. Who does or event thinks to do something like that? Not many normies, that’s for sure. Linux needs way more people like that, i don’t necessarily mean Terry personally, but anyone who can think and create outside of standardized boxes.
That’s the actual interesting part and something to be adored, as opposed to being looked down or frown upon. Which just leads people to getting even worse, than the situation/s they are / were already in.
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I would like to add one thing that gets lost in translation here; In Linux, there’s usually either a hardware agnostic app, or sometimes things are even built into the settings themselves.
Here are a few projects that are gamer focused for mouse and RGB:
RGB: OpenRGB, ckb-next
Mouse: Piper, Solaar
The advantage to this model is that over time, features slowly blend into the OS itself. Keyboards, for instance, are pretty much an integrated part of the experience now. So are printers. And Scanners. Often you don’t even need to install those these days - they are automatically detected and assigned a driver, just like that. I see no reason that the same could not happen to streaming / gaming hardware over time, but enough people need to get into Linux for bug reports and hardware support to start creeping in.
This model is usually slower, especially in a field where no standards exist and only the most brave dare venture into the unknown. It is not perfect by any means - but it is different, and on Linux you do well to first look whether or not a centralised app or project does exist. Current status is kinda meh though, I give you that.
Professional Gaming and Streaming on Linux are still a niche of a niche, and that is why this area is one of the most underdeveloped on Linux right now. It is getting better, and the last 10 years has transformed gaming from a really abysmal experience to kinda-sorta-decent. Things are better now, but still not great.
Or to misquote a certain popular movie: “Obi Wan Gabe has taught you well… But you are not a Jedi gamer yet!”
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I think this is beyond valid for this conversation.
There are a bunch of chads and elites in the linux community who harass people that are struggling. They would rather flame someone for not doing something their way or for doing something as simple as updating software. It is pretty toxic sometimes.
I have had similar experiences to eposvox. I will use linux for a week and go back to windows for 3 months. Then come back to linux trying to stay positive with a mostly headache experience. Having to setup network shares via terminal is not something you do or have to do in windows or even mac os. Using terminal is nice sometimes, but for beginners who find tutorials about it to do something like making sure pulse audio defaults to the audio source of your choice is archaic. It is counter intuitive. Linux for all it tries to be and mimic, it is counter intuitive.
Arch users saying updating your software is user error is counter intuitive to mac os and windows. Getting my triple displays to stay the way I want them is a challenge. Often waking my computer from sleep messes with my display configuration.
I have had other challenges/headache inducing moments with linux. It does occur with windows, but ever so rarely, unlike in linux.
3 weeks is the longest i have ever used linux, and I have had to reinstall linux due to breaking shit so badly once already. But peace of mind with less data telemetry is a positive. Maybe the only positive I see with linux.