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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.
You guys are being pretty stupid to expect most people that is trying Linux the first or 2nd time to have any idea what a Cosmic Desktop is supposed to be and why it’s a bad idea to use it at this moment? Calling people fools for not following Linux news at all is pretty elitist. You’re reminding me again why I hate interacting with the Linux community sometimes.
Linus literally just asked chatgpt what to do and then decided against his own already gained experience and chose Pop! again. He calls himself mR tECh tIpS. He could atleast use the competency he actually has. I dont think he is a bumbling fool. But he sure as hell acts like one when it comes to anything Linux.
And the playful incompetency and antics are part of the identity of the channel. I get that. Its Top Gear for PC and tech related topics. But in this video it just feels like he has zero interest in the challenge and openly tries to make Linux look bad. I’m sure somebody will argue he just plays a fool to provide a cautionary how not to approach a switch to Linux. But i dont see that. The video isnt setup like that. He doesnt react like that. He seems genuinely surprised that when you install an OS with which you arent experienced with in middle of a LAN party it wont work out. While beeing the organizer of the party AND beeing filmed for a video. Yeah, no shit it didnt work out.
He’s roleplaying as a newbie nontechnical user, which he always does. Asking ChatGPT is normal for an average user, at least from my experience of an average user. You’re suggesting that one bad experience should be enough for anyone to completely write-off a distro? Isn’t that a bit of a toxic approach to things?
And the playful incompetency and antics are part of the identity of the channel. I get it. Its Top Gear for PC and tech related topics.
OK, so you do know. That’s good.
But in this video it just feels like he has zero interested in the challenge and openly tries to make Linux look bad.
That’s the part I don’t get. Where is he openly trying to make Linux look bad?
I’m sure somebody will argue he just plays a fool to provide a cautionary how not to approach a switch to Linux.
Because he does that regularly.
But i dont see that. The video isnt setup like that.
Because the video isn’t meant to be that, but Linus does that anyway. You can see from the other two presenters that they don’t aim for that. Linus just thinks that’s the way he should approach it to give the video more value and anyone that is familiar with him would know that.
He seems genuinely surprised that when you install an OS with which you arent experienced with in middle of a LAN party it wont work out.
Are you suggesting that any OS would break when installed in the middle of a LAN party when done by someone inexperienced? Can you explain this thought process a bit better? I just don’t see how the problem he is having is caused directly by his inexperience or the fact that he is at a LAN party. Isn’t it mostly due to Pop!_OS shipping a beta DE in an LTS release?
While beeing the organizer of the party AND beeing filmed for a video. Yeah, no shit it didnt work out.
Again, I don’t see the relation between those and the problem he experienced.
Have you ever organized an event? Have you ever attended an event? Like what part isnt to get here? Installing a fresh OS while you do other stressful things or just other things which need your attention is a stupid move.
Then on top: Have you ever done something which you are inexperienced with while beeing distracted by other things which need your attention? While under time pressure. In what world isnt that detrimental to anything you want to do.
And yes i’d argue the chances of having the same outcome with a different OS is a lot higher with these circumstances UNLESS you have like 20 years of experience like he does with Windows.
And yet which of the issue he encountered had anything to do with him being distracted during the event? Can you point it out to me?
The part where you take a breather. Assess the situation. Try to find a solution. Ask for help in a forum or discord channel. You know things you do when encountering a problem with something you’re not familiar with.
But i’m under the impression that you dont argue faithfully. So i’m going to fuck off.
So you mean exactly what he’s gonna do after the LAN party? So all I can see is that people are so quick to jump on his throat that they assume he’s gonna end the experiment where the video ends. Got it.
So, despite the fact that I’m addressing your points properly, you’re just gonna accuse me of not arguing faithfully for no reason at all?
That’s the part I don’t get. Where is he openly trying to make Linux look bad?
“I’m about to get hit with the Linux curse!”
“Oh, the Linux curse got me!”
“Oh, I’m a special Linux snowflake right now, and everybody’s counting on me, but I can’t do anything because of Linux!”
Yeah, the curse on him. The video is also showing relatively painless experience of the other two presenters and Linus should also know about their experience.
I honestly feel that online Linux communities are the biggest barrier to more widespread adoption. As with any online space, unless the people in charge want to ban toxicity, it will always, always, take over any community.
So don’t go in online Linux communities. You can just read the docs and get by without ever interacting with anyone online. Also, the Linux community is like tens or maybe hundreds of millions of people. There’s no way to ban toxicity across hundreds of millions of interactions without a centralized moderation force.
Amazing. Keep going. Yes, the children are wrong aren’t they? I’m literally clapping.
I think your own statements here are pretty elitist.
“As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding.”
Kinda, but I think your quote is even more apt when applied to the people shitting on Linus by letting their strong feelings get in the way of the facts.
most people
The channel that calls themselves “Tech Tips” and has 16.8 million subscribers is supposed to know more than “most people”. Or at least be willing to put in some research and give actual “tech tips” like their name suggests
The reason they have 16.8 million subscriber is because they cater to the average tech-interested user and not tech experts. Not including the experience of an average person that hasn’t done a ton of research would be to exclude their biggest demographic. Besides, it’s not like they only show one perspective. People seem to love ignoring the fact that the other 2 presenters had an okay time with their Linux install and can serve as the alternative route to Linus’s own painful experience.
Yep, every thread of this video I’ve seen on the fediverse has been overflowing with reminders of why people don’t want to deal with Linux
he just acts like a bumbling fool not being able to figure out the most basic of things
Yeah, most people can’t figure them out. That’s the entire point.
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 thumbnail is 100% clickbait. Linus is doing his normal thing. But he was very understanding generally. Luke “by the way” has really gotten way deeper in than just experimenting with mint. Daily driving now. Even the newer hire is generally positive of the experience this far.
I’d say despite the thumbnail Linus’s issues were of course niche but valid for anyone installing on random hardware. Actual things that need to be looked at and worked on. And part of the reason really green users should be pointed strongly to Linux system integrators first. Rather than random distribution on random hardware.
I’m relatively new to Linux. What do you mean by system integrators?
Business or individuals designing and putting systems and software together with support and stability in mind. Sort of like dell lenovo HP etc were known for. Like system 76 or tuxedo.
Your hardware will work right out of the box because it was designed to. No frustrated phfaphing about at the command line first thing. Trying to diagnose Wi-Fi weirdness and niche hardware bugs as a complete novice.
My biggest gripe with videos like this is that they don’t even explore the option. Let alone show it off or promote it. Part of it is the Linux / BSD culture of course it runs on it. Obsessed with the fact that it could more than whether or not it should. combined with the unquestionable fact that Microsoft forcefully and illegally. As in have been found guilty in court of forcing and bullying system integrators to not offer alternatives of any kind. So much so that BSD and Linux have been almost completely the domain of techy and skilled enthusiasts in the know for decades. Who often make far better evangelists than they do tech support. Especially when your median user just want computer go burr.
Gotcha. I can’t say I have ran into hardware incompatibility issues in the half dozen or so distros I’ve tried kn multiple machines, but I would probably recommend Tuxedo to a non tech person and it’s great that they exist. They’re even a pretty good value.
I generally don’t have much problem either except for network cards. Network cards can absolutely still throw you for a loop today.
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.
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.
I mean that’s kinda the point. They’re noobs, they don’t know what’s right from wrong. People who don’t know right from wrong are likely to go down the wrong path.
IMO Linux’s biggest issue with normal people uptake is choice. Normal people don’t want 7000 options. It also makes diagnosing problems all the more harder.
I mean that’s kinda the point. They’re noobs, they don’t know what’s right from wrong. People who don’t know right from wrong are likely to go down the wrong path.
Ok. But that’s a personal problem, not a Linux problem. In the end of the day if you’re relying on “listicles” and LLMs to make basic decisions for you (for just about anything, frankly) you’re going to have a bad time.
PopOS is a bad and outdated recommendation right now, because they have literally just switched to Cosmic, a brand new desktop environment that just came out of beta a few months ago. I would argue that it should still be in beta right now, and I do think that System76 made a mistake by calling the current version 1.0, but in the end of the day ChatGPT predictably gave Linus a bad recommendation, because that’s what LLMs do.
If you go to ChatGPT for tech advice, legal advice, medical advice, or even something as computationally friendly as solving math problems, you’re probably making a mistake. That’s an “AI” problem, not a “Linux” problem. Use your brain and stop relying on “AI” to think for you.
IMO Linux’s biggest issue with normal people uptake is choice. Normal people don’t want 7000 options. It also makes diagnosing problems all the more harder.
I disagree. Choice and competition is generally good, as it means that different kinds of people with different use cases can have their needs met.
IMO Windows’ biggest issue is the lack of choice, in the sense that computers are treated as one-size-fits-all systems where your grandma is expected to use the same computing environment as a professional software developer, which ultimately leads to a system that’s not ideal for either of them. Why are we gaming on the same OS that people at the tire store are running? Would we be surprised to find that is holding computing back?
In the end of the day, choice is good, lack of choice is bad.
People have 7000 choices of food, but it doesn’t stop most people from finding something to eat for breakfast. People have 7000 choices for transportation, but it doesn’t stop them from getting where they need to go in a way that suits them.
It’s not hard to get a good recommendation of what Linux distro to use today if you just ask someone who knows what they’re talking about.
What are you on about? People absolutely do get decision paralysis choosing what to eat or what car or bicycle to buy. And those come with budget constraints. The trouble with Linux distros is that you can afford literally any of them!
You’re looking at this as a power user. Normies don’t want to have to make decisions.
Sorry but, what you you on about?
Being free and open source is literally the entire premise and the most important “feature” of the Linux ecosystem: it will almost always be free (as in beer), and there will always be a lot of good choices. You’re probably never going to convince me that computers would be better off if we had to spend more money with fewer options.
People keep making this point, but to be perfectly honest it’s a dumb one because it’s the nature of the beast. OK, let’s say for the sake of argument that there’s too many distros out there, so now what?
None of this changes the fact that going to ChatGPT for advice (on pretty much any topic) is a bad idea. It doesn’t have thoughts or opinions, it doesn’t know that (for better or worse) Cosmic just shipped 1.0 a few months ago. It recommended him PopOS because it does nothing other than regurgitate old information scraped from the internet.
Its’ like… If I use an LLM for investment advice and I lose all of your money, who’s the idiot? I am.
Mate, you don’t need to convince me that choice is good. I’ve used as daily drivers, among others, Debian and several of its’ derivatives, Arch, Gentoo and openSUSE (I’m not going to bother checking the capitalization on that despite the fact that I’m literally using it to write this comment).
Linus went through the type of journey a normie would. Look at articles aimed at uninformed people, or ask an LLM. Because normies are uninformed. Hell, most normies don’t WANT to be informed. You know what everyone in my social circles that knows what a package manager or desktop environment even is, has in common? They’re all tech enthusiasts or professionals working in tech, usually both.
The goal of the video, IMO, is to find out if a completely-new-to-Linux user has a good journey in 2026 or not. Part of it IS choosing your first distro, and that is at this point the absolute hardest thing for a newcomer. And it is in fact still quite common for beginners to pick Pop!_OS because it’s been so heavily recommended in recent years (I’m talking last 5, not last year or 2) so there are still a ton of reddit threads and lists around.
Its’ like… If I use an LLM for investment advice and I lose all of your money, who’s the idiot? I am.
Most people also consider investments to be a lot higher risk than picking an OS/distro, so a normal person wouldn’t blindly trust ChatGPT like that for something so important, I’d hope. But there’s definitely idiots that will do that too.
Ok, so don’t review “Linux”, review PopOS. Then review Bazzite. Then review Cachy. Etc. Why teach (through implication) your normie users that Linux is all one thing?
Pretty sure bazzite is also in the video
Agreed. Also, they did include their own mistakes in the video (first telling about problems but then later saying that it was their own fault). You could just not include that in the video since it’s pointless info about Linux when you yourself did the mistake. I think all of this in combination is meant to subtly influence viewers for “Linux = expect problems”. And since LTT is generally more on the entertainment side and less on the factual/trustworthy side, and still very well-known, it could also mean that they’re being paid to spread a little bit of that FUD.
On the other hand, genuinely newbie Linux users can definitely reveal some bugs or problems which might not have occurred otherwise. It’s like running a fuzzer that tests the ability of a program to deal with lots of random and nonsensical input. Because some of those Windows gamers sure have some questionable habits when interacting with their PC.
Also, it shows that genuine newbies maybe need more guidance from their distro to break certain Windows habits. For example, how to install drivers (you don’t because they should be there already) and applications (you shouldn’t download them from the manufacturer’s websites as a 1st priority). Somehow, these Windows-user friendly distributions never really include hints like that, even though that’s a completely different paradigm of using the OS.
they did include their own mistakes in the video. You could just not include that in the video since it’s pointless info about Linux when you yourself did the mistake.
Right, because a new Linux user isn’t going to make any mistakes…?
Exactly he is just spreading fud due to his lack of research. I expect better from Linus here.
Apparently according to the comments and he tried an Alpha build that is still a WIP
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.
He is? Could we get a source for that please?
trashing Pop!_OS while he is invested in a company that is competing against System 76.
LOL remind me which distro Framework is developing?
You realize System76 makes laptops, right?
You realize you can run whatever distro you want on System76 laptops, right?
That’s not the point. The point OP was making is that he shat on a competitor’s product without disclosing it.
He didn’t shit on anyone’s product. System76 sells laptops, not distros. Jesus Tittyfucking Christ you guys are so irrational and deluded.
Do they SELL PopOS? No? QED.
lmao you sound like you own LTT merch
ROFLCOPTER I do not.
System76 makes PopOS and ships it on their Linux-friendly laptops and desktops.
Framework, a company that Linus is heavily invested in, also makes Linux-friendly laptops.
I’m not saying he’s doing it intentionally, or that his criticisms are invalid, but there is a basic conflict of interest there.
There is no conflict of interest. Because S76 does not sell Pop OS. You can buy a Framework laptop and put Pop OS on it if you want, completely for free. It adds absolutely zero value to S76 PCs.
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.
Imagine installing Win11 for the very first time without decades of Windows experience because you are eg a Mac user.
Actually funny thing, I have a pretty minimal amount of windows experience, and basically 0 windows 11 experience (my use of windows computers was basically flash games back when I was a kid, and IT classes, which boiled down to launching office apps or codeblocks), and as the resident “computer person” of the family I usually end up having to fix various issues for them. Which ends up with me looking up very basic things for like 30 minutes that I can do in linux with 'muscle memory" in 30 seconds all the time :3
Which is all to say this is an apt comparison and a real issue
It’s not an apt comparison because Windows doesn’t use apt for packages 😉
Heck. A winget comparison then?
Or I suppose if we need something on both OSes we have like… pip or something lol. I don’t actually know that many package managers that happen to be available on windows
Yeah, wtf? Installing a new OS you don’t know during a LAN? I’d have no problems doing it with Linux, but give me a windows USB and we bad faith and I’ll definitely fuck it up on camera.
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.
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.
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.
The evidence you’ve presented is truly overwhelming
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.
What did he do that is so wrong this time? As always, he approaches it like someone that doesn’t know Linux intimately and are not technical enought to rtfm, so I don’t understand why it is you guys are expecting newbies to act like they’re used to Linux all of a sudden?
He installed beta quality software and expected it to work without issue. Then when it didn’t he declared himself “cursed”. It’s not a curse, he’s just a fool.
He’s approaching it as someone new to Linux. Nobody that new would know it as beta quality software when it’s presented as the main download from the website. Calling newbies a fool for not following Linux news is just classic Linux elitism.
Just no. This has nothing to do with Linux - this guy has a huge team of people doing research, orchestrating videos and analyzing interactions. This is the face of a huge company, not some “newbie” like you make it appear.
This is simply another piece of engagement bait. He will never have good success because he will have another “last go” in half a year.
He didn’t have a motivation to switch. He didn’t raise a clear scenario why he claims to want to switch. He’s baiting communities like this one and I’m quite annoyed that this fucker still succeeds.
I’ve met many Linux newbies in my life - not a single one just went with the first distro showing up. Not a single one. Depending on the individual it was either “what’s best for me?” or “What’s easiest?”. I can count the people who didn’t start out with one of those two on one hand
You’re missing the point. He said it himself. He wants to approach the challenge like what a normal person would encounter Linux. That means no team doing the research for him and no using the industry connection to solve every problem. His target audience are not Linux experts that have all the knowledge, it’s windows users who are interested in tech, but are average users. Expecting a GN type video from LTT is like expecting a serious car review from Top Gear. I’d say you’d be foolish to expect that.
This is simply another piece of engagement bait.
Who is expecting otherwise? This is Linus we’re talking about.
He didn’t have a motivation to switch. He didn’t raise a clear scenario why he claims to want to switch.
What were you expecting? He’s making a video about switching to Linux for a month. When did they say he is motivated to switch completely? It’s another trial video like it has been before. If any of the participant liked it enough, they can decide to stay, like Luke did on his laptop. Where is this idea that he needs to be completely determined to switch even coming from?
I’ve met many Linux newbies in my life - not a single one just went with the first distro showing up. Not a single one. Depending on the individual it was either “what’s best for me?” or “What’s easiest?”.
Did he not google the best distro for his use case, which is gaming? What else are you expecting an average user to do? They showed two perspective of an average user when looking for a Linux distro, either by referring to Reddit recommendation or googling and asking ChatGPT? Are you telling me both of these methods are not valid or something an average user wouldn’t do?
No, you’re missing the point: he can claim all he wants. He doesn’t and didn’t. You say yourself that it’s engagement bait - why do you believe this statement of his??
Edit just because I was curious and had to test for myself: “What’s the best Linux gaming distro” for example shows a different result for me. Adding “comparison” blows it onto a completely different direction and gives more sources.
Engangement bait doesn’t mean lie. Is that what you thought it meant this whole time?
Edit: Addressing your edit. Of the top 4 results on google not including reddit, Pop!_OS was mentioned 3 times with one article putting it at the top of the list.
Ok, fair enough. Pop OS, once again, should be ashamed. It’s pretty egregious that they don’t make it very clear that this is beta (maybe even alpha) quality software.
So, as a normal person, when an OS isn’t working and has a bunch of bugs, wouldn’t the correct response be to try another OS? Especially when your friends aren’t having the issues you’re having. He’s tried Pop twice now, and both times, the clowntown devs have caused him headaches. Maybe try another OS and stop shitting on Linux as a whole because of Pop OS.
The problem with Linus is that he views himself as an expert in computers when really he’s just decent at Windows. He knows basically nothing about anything but DOS derived OSes. Give him something POSIX and he’s completely lost. He acts worse than a newbie, because a newbie at least knows that they know nothing.
Linus didn’t shit on Linux as a whole, come on. Last time he tried Pop was over a year ago, he figured something might’ve changed in the meantime. And he did research what could be causing the issues (and found a fix for L4D2), and did also mention that overall the system was intuitive, installing it was fairly simple and he enjoyed not having his data being sold. He also said that all his devices were plug-and-play, no driver downloading shenanigans required. But of course he is going to highlight the issues he runs into, it’s kind of the point of the video to show that not all experiences with Linux are seamless, and you can get radically different results depending on your chosen distro.
Yes, I think the main problem was System 76 shipping a beta DE with an LTS release, which is why I’m surprised most people focused on shitting on Linus for the problem he is having.
Given that most users are still on Windows, you can tell just how numb most people are to bs coming from their OS, so it makes sense for an average user to try out a popular distro a 2nd time after it didn’t work out the first time. Also, this is the 2nd time he’s trying it, so calling it his fault for not trying another distro after failing twice is kinda misplaced, isn’t it? If he’s still on Pop!_OS in the next video, then your criticism would make sense. He’s also not shitting on Linux, only showing the problems he encountered. If he was trying to shit on Linux, the perspective of the other two presenters wouldn’t be so positive.
Linus definitely plays up the character of someone who knows enough to be dangerous. That’s part of the entertainment of his channel. Expecting him to only do things competently is basically asking him to abandon the style of his current content. It’s like expecting a serious car review from Top Gear. You’re never gonna get it and you shouldn’t be expecting it.
He is shitting on Linux. Look at the thumbnail and title of the video. He’s pushing the narrative that Linux is difficult. Linux isn’t particularly difficult, it’s just different than Windows. If you have no knowledge of either, they’d both be difficult to use. I know for me, using Windows is such a pain in the ass, cause everything is so different than Linux, and I’ve been using Linux for 18 years. But I’m not going to say Windows is difficult just because I’m unfamiliar with it.
It’s way easier to do a lot of things in Linux than Windows, and to his credit, he does touch on this for a few seconds in his video. But he spends so much time focusing on the bugs in the beta quality software that no other distro uses that yet again, he’s going to be pushing people away from Linux as a whole because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
He needs to realize that he’s not “cursed”, he’s just nowhere near the computer expert that he thinks he is. Again, he’s just a fool.
You mean the beta piece of software that is shipped in an LTS release that nobody who don’t follow Linux news would know is a beta software? And you’re blaming the people who don’t know instead of the people who should know better than to do that?
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).
I have sympathy for the point he was making to say it is really difficult to choose correctly and that guides can point people in confusing directions. And veterans who advocate taking the difficult path can make it more confusing.
But he needs to stop acting like a noob and be the tech guru he claims to be. He needs to contribute to the conversation by saying “it can be difficult to choose as a beginner…but here are 3 good options… Mint, Bazzite, etc etc”. He can even cover the common pitfalls for beginners and oddities of Linux misbehaving with certain hardware and how one can go about resolving the issues.
I wasn’t outraged at his first video as many others were years ago. But running a tech media company, having truckloads of expertise in house, supposedly wanting to support self-hosting and framework laptops, etc…and then doing this shit…come on man.
At this point Pewdiepie has done more for Linux than LTT has.
Because of a random reddit post…
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.
Like most “tech” journalists 😬
System76 again ew
Manjaro is next…
Painnnnnn.
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.
Why he doesn’t use SteamOS/HoloISO when he is a daily Steam Deck user is beyond me.
I wouldn’t recommend HoloISO to a newbie. (Or anyone really. It’s meant for the Steam Deck.) He hasn’t tried Fedora, Bazzite, Kubuntu, or Mint though. I’d be interested to see how he breaks those. xD
Finally, Linus being Linus.
