Linux

Is Linus getting paid by Microsoft to dissuade people from using Linux? Obviously he's not, but every time he does one of these videos he just acts like a bumbling fool not being able to figure out the most basic of things. He's trying to use Pop!_OS with COSMIC, which I understand is still full of issues. Meanwhile the other guy is trying to install a game that requires kernel AC and TPM secure boot (PUBG). It's like he keeps engaging with Linux in bad faith.

Not gonna watch this video, but I see the clickbait thumbnail says "LAST CHANCE" which is just dumb. Linux will outlive him and me and you. There's no reason to not give it another chance within the next 20 or so years. In fact, they'll almost certainly release another video about Linux.

The part of the video that's unspoken is that he spends most of his time trashing Pop!_OS while he is invested in a company that is competing against System 76.

I'm not saying that to dismiss the complaints against PopOS, many of which are totally valid. Cosmic is honestly not good enough yet to be shipping as the default DE on PopOS, and by doing so System76 are really undermining the reputation Cosmic, PopOS and their entire company. Own goal there by System76.

At the same time Linus is making questionable choices at best. Asking ChatGPT for distro advice may be the "normie" thing to do right now (although I'm not too sure about that), but it's not the smart thing to do and it did lead him down a bad path. On top of that installing his OS at a LAN party when people are waiting for him to play a game is just dumb and makes this entire the entire thing seem like a bad faith attempt.

With that said, Valve are to blame for not making sure their old games all work perfectly on Linux out of the box.

I used to really dig Linus, i watched from NCIX up until a few years ago. I stopped watching for a bunch of reasons. I remember when he said one of the things he wanted to do when starting a company was ensure everyone that worked for him could "afford a house", then to see how he treated people and kept them at low wages was a bummer.

I mean, i guess when you grow that big that fast some things get left out, but i also feel like maybe exponential growth isn't always a necessity?

Also it seems like he's one of the only personalities online that has not increased in technical ability at all.

Its a wild video tbh. Switching your OS on your own LAN which you organize? This is already a high stress situation and then he expect it to just work out of the box with barely any time or patience to give it a fair try. If a Linux veteran would do this for shits and giggles as just a guest things still could have gone wrong but he probably would have atleast the experience to fix things.

But this isnt even a Linux issue. Imagine installing Win11 for the very first time without decades of Windows experience because you are eg a Mac user. The chances are pretty high that something goes wrong and you wouldnt have any clue how to fix them in like half an hour.

Normalizing the use of ChatGPT for decisions doesnt sit with me well in general. But especially for Linux stuff its such a bad choice. I may be a luddite and AI hater. But i actually have tried those damn chatbots and they fucking suck for Linux questions. Their answers are more often than not atleast missleading, outright wrong and sometimes just outdated.

I could shit on linux all day for all the real issues it has. But at some point i just skipped every Linus segment because it was unbearable to watch his antics.

The segments with Luke and the helmet guy were pretty good tough.

Ugh...not gonna watch it anyway, but I hate it in general when a content creator with the stereotypical Linux user characteristics (nerdy, tech-savvy), but without the more important requirements (patient, willing to learn, adaptable) produces this kind of content.

LTT is garbage. Remember when they made news by not backing up their stuff and lost it all on some homemade nas?

Imagine still watching LTT when he almost ruined a startup because he didn't want to spend 400 bucks worth of employees time for testing the product properly.

Literally a fucking trash human that doesn't give a single flying fuck about other people.

Tech slop... Blech

Let's not give attention to whiners and saboteurs like this. We all already know what's going on behind the curtains, and we all can tell that this video is being done in bad faith.

Every time he does this it’s just an astounding admission that Linus actually doesn’t understand computers at all. He’s good at Windows.

I didn't watch the video but... Why TF did he choose Pop! OS with Cosmic Desktop‽ That's not something a non-technical user would choose. That's like... Beta software (Cosmic) running on a Linux distro made and tested for very specific hardware sold by System76.

That's like trying to put wheels made for a truck on a random sedan. Like, yeah you can do that with a bit of effort but why? It makes no sense.

If you're going to put a Linux distro on random hardware pick something universal and stable that was made to run on random hardware like Kubuntu/Ubuntu. Especially if you're new to Linux.

Also, if you're going to do something ridiculous like this why not just start with Gentoo? Don't use the GUI installer either! Go the LFS+ route and take care picking your file systems and compile flags 😁

BTW: Out of all the random people I've ever known to "try Linux", the ones who had the best first-time experience all used KDE (Plasma) as their desktop. That means Kubuntu, Bazzite, or SteamOS. For newbies, always go with KDE. Seriously: Its interface for settings and the launcher are familiar enough to both Windows and Mac users that they don't have a hard time while also being different enough that they don't make bad assumptions about how things work (which is a problem for Gnome).

A lot of the hate in this thread seems unfounded. While this video touches on some things that the community is insecure about, I think it does a good job of providing relevant and true facts that someone considering the switch should know:

For someone not sure which distro to choose, they get:

• a warning about listicles and llms being unreliable resources
• a warning about a distro that is commonly recommended for gamers that has made the unfortunate decision to ship beta software in a release labeled as stable
• a showing of two better alternatives

For someone wondering about game compatibility, they learn:

• proton db is a useful resource, and if an online multiplayer game says "borked" you're not going to get it working. If that's a deal breaker for you then you should stop here
• for a good gaming experience outside steam deck you're going to need to be comfortable with setting launch flags. If that's a deal breaker, stop here
• Other than the borked one, all games they tried got running without more hassle than some launch flags that were easily found in proton db. I would actually call this charitable since they didn't need to mess with different proton versions at all which is common

For someone who has used Linux on servers at work, but hasn't tried it as a primary desktop they learn:

• you are Luke, if nothing above was a deal breaker, you'll do fine

For someone who has never used Linux at all they learn:

• Don't pick pop os like Linus
• if you pick bazzite like Elija and nothing above is a deal breaker, you'll be alright

All of this information is valuable, relevant, true, and important for someone to be aware of before they dive in. I say all this as a gamer that's been playing exclusively on Linux for over a year now. It is not an experience without friction, to me that friction is worth it. If someone else doesn't think it's worth it, I'd rather they not switch right now, rather than switch and have a bad time. Maybe in a couple years Valve will be able to reduce the friction in the broader ecosystem the way they did on the deck. Until then it's better not to bring people in that are going to be unhappy with the current state.