I tried last week. Bunch of stuff in my system didn’t work out of the gate, trying to use fixes that were meant for slightly different hardware/distro combos broke it further. Ultimately it became trying to start over or going back to the default Windows install.
So anyway, I’m using Windows on that machine now. How’s your week been?
At least you tried! And annoying that you stumbled upon hw issues.
If you ever want to try again what about getting hold of an old drive, or try dual boot, then you can swap back to windows easily and there’s less pressure for Linux to work out of the box.
As you say the guides you used didn’t match, try and research more about what is the correct distro for you, and maybe start with one that looks like a sure bet.
Guys, seriously, I know how to do this. I’ve installed Linux on random PCs for decades. It’s not my first rodeo.
Once you turn the century it starts to get annoying when people’s default stance to legit compatibility issues becomes to affect condescending patience at you. I knew how to set up a dual boot (I chose not to, instead directly booting from an external drive, which works just fine and allows you to revert by just yanking it out), I knew how to find support (the guides don’t match because the laptop family I was using needs specific libraries and kernel modifications and my model is relatively rare so the tutorials aren’t meant for it specifically).
I swear, the Linux community, such as it is, thinks that everybody backing off is some technically illiterate rando and mostly scared of UX differences and typing terminal commands. That’s really not the case. All available Linux DEs are extremely easy to parse for both Windows and MacOs users, being able to copy/paste text to take semi-complex actions instead of digging through the visual interface saves some time and the total normies that could use this type of feedback aren’t trying to do this in the first place. It’s fine.
I’ll try again next time I have a disposable computer that has some specific plug-and-play distro ready to go. Maybe. If I feel like it. And if I need tech help with it, I’ll gladly ask. For now, though, this particular machine is back to Windows because the troubleshooting is more of a hassle than the transition is an improvement. That’s the beginning and the end of this conversation, really.
I mean, call it what you want, that’s why I qualified it in the first place.
I’m not mad at them, but it’s been long enough that I do find it frustrating that you can’t share any degree of a technical problem or UX issue without having a bunch of people crawl from under every rock to share with you the same three pieces of Linux 101 advice.
I used distro “ShouldWork” and GPU “ShouldBeSupported”. And given that it didn’t work and wasn’t supported, I didn’t keep troubleshooting it, because I already have a OS install that works and requires no troubleshooting.
I would love a one click install for each of my specific devices that is reliable out of the box, but that’s not the world we live in, so in this timeline that computer is back to Windows now.
Maybe that’s because of your extremely niche hardware vendor not providing appropriate drivers for their hardware?! Honestly, I read your salty comments under this post and your kind of attitude really pisses me off. Don’t like the experience? Totally fine, don’t use Linux and move on. Linux, for the most part, is FOSS software so feel free to contribute to it instead of complaining about things being broken. Linux is also free in terms of cost. So quite frankly, the developers of your distribution of choice owe you nothing.
But I do like Linux. That’s a really silly thing to say. That’s why I was trying to get it in there even though I knew the support wasn’t all sorted. Screw that “if you don’t like it, leave” attitude.
And no, I won’t contribute to fixing the issues because I lack the technical skills to do so and the skills I can contribute they don’t need. That’s also silly, you can’t be arguing for mainstream adoption of a thing and simultaneously saying users should be out there fixing it themselves if they encounter an unaddressed hardware incompatibility.
And yes, it’s absolutely down to the manufacturer not making a Linux version of their drivers and dumb dedicated software. Absolutely. What am I supposed to do about that? It’s not a niche manufacturer, either, it’s a pretty popular one. As far as I know, none of the big corporate laptop manufacturers offer official Linux support (at least not Lenovo, Asus, MSI or Dell, that I know of). In fact, the indie manufacturers tend to offer better support, what with using less custom hardware and software and sometimes offering a built-in Linux install as an option to serve as a workaround for OEM fees.
Look, if you don’t want to hear about the issues people encounter with your OS of choice… fine, I guess. I don’t know why you’re emotionally invested in utilitarian pieces of software, but you do you. But if you hope that you’re going to be online having a fanclub about an operating system, of all things, and nobody is ever gonna show up saying “hey, I tried it and it kinda didn’t do it for me”… eh… maybe make it a private Discord channel instead, because that’s probably not gonna happen otherwise. That’s probably a reason why you don’t get Windows or MacOS fanclubs out there, because let me be clear, I would have just as many objections to dump into those, albeit for different reasons.
I laughed. This is the perfect response. Look at the triggered people!
Linux evangelists, man… They’re insufferable. I love Linux, but it’s not the only OS worth having in 2024. Like, I actually hate Apple but I still have a computer that boots it in my place. It’s okay to have lots of options!
Seriously, you guys need to stop trying to troubleshoot Linux’s shortcomings at people. I know. Everybody knows. If you don’t, that’s the first thing any tutorial will tell you. I’m not looking for technical help, just sharing an anecdote.
If you’re curious, no, I couldn’t do Pop because I needed some specific libraries and kernel modules to support this particular device’s power management and I/O quirks and those were only officially supported in a handful of distros, so I picked one of the ones with better documentation, and even that wasn’t meant for my specific hardware.
Not that it matters, because it’s a laptop with a iGPU and a dGPU, and the Intel iGPU was just fine out of the box, so getting the Nvidia dGPU to work well was way down my priority list for this exercise, since the device was meant mostly for web browsing and media consumption. Instead, I had issues with sleep mode, since that was related to those specific modifications, and I coudn’t figure out a way to make it wake from boot without locking up, which is a pretty big dealbreaker for a device on a battery. Plus the embedded audio controls had some issues, the touchpad was flaky and eventually trying to go through the process of getting that dGPU running exposed other compatibility troubles.
I was ready to roll back to Windows once I noticed the touchpad acceleration was messy out of the gate, honestly, that’s my bar for troubleshooting tolerance. So no, I didn’t fail to do a cursory Google search in 2020 and find out that Nvidia support is messy. I knew that my slightly nonstandard device was going to be a bit of a challenge, but was hoping to get lucky. Didn’t get lucky and went back to what works on it. It’s not a call for help, it’s just a thing that happened last time I tried to switch a device to Linux.
Something doesn’t add up. My guess is you’re using a MacBook but don’t want to tell us for obvious reasons.
There’s literally no reason for “specific libraries and kernel modules” when installing Linux on any x86 PC. It makes no sense.
Hah. Nope. There’s a ton of custom features on hardware that need tweaking all over Windows laptops. There are entire forums dedicated to specific brands out there. None of this was much of a surprise, I had put off giving this a try because I had read about the hoops I’d have to jump through and been too lazy to try.
Huh. I’ve installed Linux on anything from an old 32bit netbook to a Fujitsu convertible that both had such a fucked up UEFI implementation they couldn’t even boot a standard Windows ISO without Ventoy in grub mode, as well as a cobbled-together Workstation with Nvidia graphics, and never ran into issues like this.
I tried last week. Bunch of stuff in my system didn’t work out of the gate, trying to use fixes that were meant for slightly different hardware/distro combos broke it further. Ultimately it became trying to start over or going back to the default Windows install.
So anyway, I’m using Windows on that machine now. How’s your week been?
You still have Windows? Well there’s your problem, you’re supposed to format the entire drive when installing Linux…
At least you tried! And annoying that you stumbled upon hw issues.
If you ever want to try again what about getting hold of an old drive, or try dual boot, then you can swap back to windows easily and there’s less pressure for Linux to work out of the box.
As you say the guides you used didn’t match, try and research more about what is the correct distro for you, and maybe start with one that looks like a sure bet.
Guys, seriously, I know how to do this. I’ve installed Linux on random PCs for decades. It’s not my first rodeo.
Once you turn the century it starts to get annoying when people’s default stance to legit compatibility issues becomes to affect condescending patience at you. I knew how to set up a dual boot (I chose not to, instead directly booting from an external drive, which works just fine and allows you to revert by just yanking it out), I knew how to find support (the guides don’t match because the laptop family I was using needs specific libraries and kernel modifications and my model is relatively rare so the tutorials aren’t meant for it specifically).
I swear, the Linux community, such as it is, thinks that everybody backing off is some technically illiterate rando and mostly scared of UX differences and typing terminal commands. That’s really not the case. All available Linux DEs are extremely easy to parse for both Windows and MacOs users, being able to copy/paste text to take semi-complex actions instead of digging through the visual interface saves some time and the total normies that could use this type of feedback aren’t trying to do this in the first place. It’s fine.
I’ll try again next time I have a disposable computer that has some specific plug-and-play distro ready to go. Maybe. If I feel like it. And if I need tech help with it, I’ll gladly ask. For now, though, this particular machine is back to Windows because the troubleshooting is more of a hassle than the transition is an improvement. That’s the beginning and the end of this conversation, really.
People who are mad at the “Linux community” amuse me. It just makes you sound like a baby.
I mean, call it what you want, that’s why I qualified it in the first place.
I’m not mad at them, but it’s been long enough that I do find it frustrating that you can’t share any degree of a technical problem or UX issue without having a bunch of people crawl from under every rock to share with you the same three pieces of Linux 101 advice.
What distro did you use? and what gpu?
Nope, we’re not doing this.
I used distro “ShouldWork” and GPU “ShouldBeSupported”. And given that it didn’t work and wasn’t supported, I didn’t keep troubleshooting it, because I already have a OS install that works and requires no troubleshooting.
I would love a one click install for each of my specific devices that is reliable out of the box, but that’s not the world we live in, so in this timeline that computer is back to Windows now.
Maybe that’s because of your extremely niche hardware vendor not providing appropriate drivers for their hardware?! Honestly, I read your salty comments under this post and your kind of attitude really pisses me off. Don’t like the experience? Totally fine, don’t use Linux and move on. Linux, for the most part, is FOSS software so feel free to contribute to it instead of complaining about things being broken. Linux is also free in terms of cost. So quite frankly, the developers of your distribution of choice owe you nothing.
But I do like Linux. That’s a really silly thing to say. That’s why I was trying to get it in there even though I knew the support wasn’t all sorted. Screw that “if you don’t like it, leave” attitude.
And no, I won’t contribute to fixing the issues because I lack the technical skills to do so and the skills I can contribute they don’t need. That’s also silly, you can’t be arguing for mainstream adoption of a thing and simultaneously saying users should be out there fixing it themselves if they encounter an unaddressed hardware incompatibility.
And yes, it’s absolutely down to the manufacturer not making a Linux version of their drivers and dumb dedicated software. Absolutely. What am I supposed to do about that? It’s not a niche manufacturer, either, it’s a pretty popular one. As far as I know, none of the big corporate laptop manufacturers offer official Linux support (at least not Lenovo, Asus, MSI or Dell, that I know of). In fact, the indie manufacturers tend to offer better support, what with using less custom hardware and software and sometimes offering a built-in Linux install as an option to serve as a workaround for OEM fees.
Look, if you don’t want to hear about the issues people encounter with your OS of choice… fine, I guess. I don’t know why you’re emotionally invested in utilitarian pieces of software, but you do you. But if you hope that you’re going to be online having a fanclub about an operating system, of all things, and nobody is ever gonna show up saying “hey, I tried it and it kinda didn’t do it for me”… eh… maybe make it a private Discord channel instead, because that’s probably not gonna happen otherwise. That’s probably a reason why you don’t get Windows or MacOS fanclubs out there, because let me be clear, I would have just as many objections to dump into those, albeit for different reasons.
I laughed. This is the perfect response. Look at the triggered people!
Linux evangelists, man… They’re insufferable. I love Linux, but it’s not the only OS worth having in 2024. Like, I actually hate Apple but I still have a computer that boots it in my place. It’s okay to have lots of options!
Because I know that nvidia is not really good on linux, you can try using pop os because they have pre-installed nvidia drivers
Seriously, you guys need to stop trying to troubleshoot Linux’s shortcomings at people. I know. Everybody knows. If you don’t, that’s the first thing any tutorial will tell you. I’m not looking for technical help, just sharing an anecdote.
If you’re curious, no, I couldn’t do Pop because I needed some specific libraries and kernel modules to support this particular device’s power management and I/O quirks and those were only officially supported in a handful of distros, so I picked one of the ones with better documentation, and even that wasn’t meant for my specific hardware.
Not that it matters, because it’s a laptop with a iGPU and a dGPU, and the Intel iGPU was just fine out of the box, so getting the Nvidia dGPU to work well was way down my priority list for this exercise, since the device was meant mostly for web browsing and media consumption. Instead, I had issues with sleep mode, since that was related to those specific modifications, and I coudn’t figure out a way to make it wake from boot without locking up, which is a pretty big dealbreaker for a device on a battery. Plus the embedded audio controls had some issues, the touchpad was flaky and eventually trying to go through the process of getting that dGPU running exposed other compatibility troubles.
I was ready to roll back to Windows once I noticed the touchpad acceleration was messy out of the gate, honestly, that’s my bar for troubleshooting tolerance. So no, I didn’t fail to do a cursory Google search in 2020 and find out that Nvidia support is messy. I knew that my slightly nonstandard device was going to be a bit of a challenge, but was hoping to get lucky. Didn’t get lucky and went back to what works on it. It’s not a call for help, it’s just a thing that happened last time I tried to switch a device to Linux.
Something doesn’t add up. My guess is you’re using a MacBook but don’t want to tell us for obvious reasons.
There’s literally no reason for “specific libraries and kernel modules” when installing Linux on any x86 PC. It makes no sense.
Hah. Nope. There’s a ton of custom features on hardware that need tweaking all over Windows laptops. There are entire forums dedicated to specific brands out there. None of this was much of a surprise, I had put off giving this a try because I had read about the hoops I’d have to jump through and been too lazy to try.
What is this mysterious device that requires specific libraries and kernel modules? So I can state the fuck away from the device and the brand
Huh. I’ve installed Linux on anything from an old 32bit netbook to a Fujitsu convertible that both had such a fucked up UEFI implementation they couldn’t even boot a standard Windows ISO without Ventoy in grub mode, as well as a cobbled-together Workstation with Nvidia graphics, and never ran into issues like this.