LTT 1 month Linux Challenge thread

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!” :slight_smile:

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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.

I already have a good capture card that supports Linux. I don’t need to buy another.

As long as you seem like you actually want to learn and you’re not just ranting because things are different to Windows this hasn’t been my experience of the Linux community at all.

Well, Linus’ point is to get those people angry again but on what he deems to be the focus for someone who’s completely new. The fight over pacman vs apt is never going to end, nor is the bitterness people feel about developing for Electron where everything’s a webapp.

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Well that fight is easy, DNF wins :stuck_out_tongue:

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Not if you hold packages. DNF breaks even further if you hold packages.

Never experienced issues with it but granted I haven’t held all that many packages in my 3 years.

Had to do it all the time for Nvidia and Blackmagic proprietary blobs last time I tried Fedora 27.

if you dnf -y install foo -x nvidia* -x kernel*
You are pretty much good to go. Now you can even have the x86 + i686 packages side by side with no issue (Hello gstreamer ! ) I do think apt and pacman should have protected packages though.

You can exclude packages globally in /etc/dnf/dnf.conf without having to do that for each package. There’s also a dnf plugin that does it for you I think.
If that leads to other issues I don’t know.

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Sure, but in the example I listed, You wouldn’t expect to excluide the kernel and a graphics driver for more than a test period of time. Having to edit dnf.conf and then change back wouldn’t make any sense.

i think that people don’t really understand what Linus and Luke are trying to bring over.
What they try to show is how the journey would be for a new user switching over to linux.
I think he repeated that many times in his video’s.
The key to show the out of the box experience with linux and hurtles that a new user,
would likely run into when using their systems like they used to in the Windows eco system.

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Yeah, that’s where my learning curve led to, cause there wasn’t an equivalent to apt-mark on Fedora.

The issue is there is no LTS kernel to stay on a specific Kernel revision and not have it push to the next major revision. This is a nightmare on both Nvidia and Blackmagic proprietary drivers.

There actually is, it’s dnf versionlock.

Well there is, and that’s simply holding the package :stuck_out_tongue:

That said, if you want actual LTS (and not just the Kernel), that’d be CentOS/Rocky/Alma/RHEL.

Running LTS Kernel on Fedora is the same as running LTS Kernel on Arch. It’s just the wrong distro for the use case.

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Then yeah I prefer to use 20.04 LTS with my systems for the lack of Nvidia and Blackmagic breakage.

I would use Fedora for a All AMD system like the STRIX G15 AMD Advantage edition.

It’s unfortunately the only AMD Advantage version laptop for sale in Canada, nothing else, that’s it.

Windows 10 SKU:

Windows 11 SKU: