So I've been hearing the buzz about Linux and gaming and how it's finally fixed everything and is a perfect replacement for windows. My windows install has definitely accumulated some bloat, so blasting it and trying some Linux for a bit sounds like a solid plan.
Last time I tried this was early Ubuntu days, so I know there's some... hurtles especially with Nvidia. But at least they're releasing official drivers now!
So after some research I settled on trying out Fedora. Loaded up a USB, selected live mode... and blank screen. Guess it doesn't like Nvidia 3080s much. Rebooted, used troubleshooting mode with basic graphics. It loads 1024x768 on my ultra wide which looks about right for Linux.
So I do some digging and find Nobara Linux which is Fedora but all set up for Nvidia and gaming! Perfect! Made a USB, tried to boot live and.... Kernel error, could not get further.
So back to base fedora and...
Off to install Nvidia drivers!
After some googling I found RPMfusion is the route to go, and I set down to decipher the cryptic text that is their god awful and confusing how to. After almost 2 hours I managed to get the fucking thing installed and figured out how to UFI disable safe mode on my ASUS ROG, which also was not straightforward. Fuck whatever key process he was trying to describe.
Next up is getting my media server, which is a basic NAS on a SAMBA server up and running. On windows you open up your file explorer, right click under your drives, select "map network drive", enter username and password and you're gravy. Or you can find it via network discovery.
So first thing is first, open up file explorer and try to browse via GUI. It sees the workgroup and the server but when I try to open it or click mount it gives the cryptic message "software refuses connection". After an hour or so of cryptic tutorials involving command line and confusing bullshit I admit defeat, and connected to it as an FTP server. Which worked relatively smoothly.
First thing is first downloaded VLC and played The Expanse Season 5 EP 3 where I'd left off. Success, but some noticable choppiness. Then I tried to jump to a random point in the episode. File crashes. I want to note that FTP streaming over the Internet to my phone using the same damn VLC player doesn't react like that, nor does Windows. Tried tweaking some settings in VLC to do with performance and the screen is blank when I try to play again, audio works great. Try to reset the settings, still blank. Try rebooting, still blank. Full reinstall of VLC and we're back in business.
So 3 hours have passed. I barely got my graphics card working and can't mount a network drive. Plus now I can't play my media and skip to any point of it meaning I can't pick up where I left off or jump around the episode to see if I've seen it before.
I haven't even tried gaming.
I'm going to try again tomorrow, but y'all are dirty liars. Linux is still bullshit and has been since I first installed it over 20 years ago. What the hell has the community even accomplished if it still sucks this much dick to use?
So I think your problem is that you’re expecting and treating things like Windows.
Linux, just like MacOS, isn’t Windows.
There’s going to be a learning process on the right way to do things. Same as if you were trying to switch to MacOS. Also Linux isn’t a unified thing. There’s a lot of different flavors that all do things differently for different uses.
For example raspberry pi uses a version (distro) that works best for its uses. That wouldn’t necessarily be the best use for something else.
Servers use different distros than a desktop. Not that you couldn’t use it on a desktop, it’s just not optimized for it.
Since Linux is not a unified experience like Windows, MacOS, BSD, etc. you’re going to have more of a learning curve. That’s not a bad thing it just puts more responsibility on you to make choices.
With that being said there are A LOT of beginner distros that provide a curated experience where pretty much everything just works out of the box.
Fedora can be a good choice but like everything in life there’s going to be a lot of things that you don’t know that you don’t know. Other people provided great resources to help get it working.
So if you go into this with the expectation that things will be exactly the way it is on windows you’re setting yourself up for failure.
You can totally have a system that performs better for gaming than anything you can get on Windows. You just have to accept the responsibility and reality you are going to have to learn how to do things differently than Windows.
If that’s not your cup of tea that’s completely fine! There’s nothing wrong with staying with things you already know and are comfortable with. Change isn’t for everyone. 😉
Oh right it's my fault for expecting Linux to work lol. This response is why people will NEVER switch to Linux. The outright refusal of the community to make Linux in any way user friendly.
So in what ways would you like to see it more user friendly? Can you provide some details on what that looks like for/to you?
Is there a new user experience that happens on Windows that you would like to see? For example, if someone has never used Windows before what kind of resources/support are available to make it user friendly out of the box?
Sure.
Off the rip I can say trying to map a network drive is exactly what the issue with Linux has on user friendliness.
In MS you open up "computer" right click and select "add network drive". Then a series of prompts has you enter server and username and you're done. Drive mapped and mapped permanently. Oh and it's been this easy to do since windows 2000.
How's that done in Linux?
https://www.edgeverve.com/assistedge/knowledge-base/RPA19.1/Installation/Appendix_I/Mounting_Shared_Folder_in_Linux.htm
That seems to be the guide but I can't get it to work. You have to do everything 100% manually through command line, which I know is the Linux way. Ultimately I kept getting errors and never got it to work.
Mapping a network drive is semi-advanced I know. The fact that I even know what that is should tell you I'm not a beginner with PCs. The fact that I cannot make this simple process work despite being a tech professional (thank God in a windows environment) should tell you more.
I"m not sure what you mean by that? Most of the time you'll see it in your file manager just like on Windows. In Windows it's called Network Places, in Gnome it's called Other Locations and in Plasma it is called Remote/Network. If for some reason it doesn't show up like it does on Windows too, you still totally could enter the URI smb://file.server/share_name if you wanted. I could be completely wrong, but that's fairly user friendly IMO since it's pretty much the same as doing it on Windows, macOS, etc. The steps are different because it's not Windows, but the end result is the same.
As for that link, that's how you map it from that version of software running that application. That's actually a old method too that does not really work that well. I'm sure it works well for their applications and software but that's highly specific for them. So unless you're running an Edgeverve Edge Assist that guide doesn't apply to you.
A better way is to not think of it as "Linux" think of it as Ubuntu 20.04, or Fedora 38, etc. Just like Windows is more like Windows 11, Windows Server 2018, Windows 7, etc. While it has most of the same kind of stuff it's different in how it does things. Sometimes those differences are more obvious than other.
You do not have to do everything though the command line either, yes it can be a lot faster if you know what you're doing (same for Windows), but it's not a requirement. It's completely possible to install applications, do gaming, etc. without ever touching the terminal. I think this video explains it pretty well. Obviously things have improved in the past two years but the core of it is still true.
Okay so I've done some detailed responses elsewhere.
Other network places shows it maybe1/3 of the time. It throws an error when trying to open it.
smb://file.server/share_name does not work. It also throws its own unique error.
So I can't get smb to work at all. I know it is working because I'm also testing it on a Mac. For some reason Linux will just not work.
I don't care about your video, like at all.
All I care about is mapping a network drive. If I can't do that Linux is useless to me. I've jumped to PopOS, which out of the gate is working better than Fedora did, but I still CANNOT access my network drive. I'm downloading windows again as we speak, this is a nightmare.
Guess again if it's a samba v1 share.
All ASUS routers that have USB file sharing use Samba v1, and only Samba v1. And that's not the only NAS devices that are still sold with Samba v1 only.
Also true with linux. The difference is I have to check one box in Windows. In linux I had to edit what are essentially the registry keys for 2 different programs (packages), then add a manual argument in fstab for mounting it. Oh and there was no encompassing tutorial for that task that was easily googlable, me figuring that out was the result of combining like 3 different random bits I got off of forums after almost 8 solid hours of exhaustively searching the subject.
With windows 'enable samba v1 share' pulls up result one how to do it, you open one program, check one box, and you're done.
It's different from windows is no excuse for the absolute lack of ease and support doing anything. I'll believe Linux is better for gaming when I see it which will probably be never if the elitist community can't get off it's high horse and make an actual easy to use and friendly experience that Linux has been missing since day 1.
Can you be more specific in what you’re looking for?
For example how does Windows make an easy & friendly experience from day 1 for someone who hasn’t ever used Windows?
Lots of tooltips and pop ups from what I remember last time.
There’s also the fact that windows is the default, and that can’t be ignored. People have been taught windows since they were in school. There’s less of a need for a ton of tutorials because the vast majority of at least the US have been using windows since elementary school.
Linux does not have that advantage and it is explicitly user unfriendly in most cases. Having to use the terminal to do things should not be required at all. Most users should never need to know it exists, let alone use it.
Are you saying that it's unfriendly because it's different and not the default?
Gnome, Pop_OS!, Elementary, etc is pretty user friendly, sure it's not perfect, but it does have a new user experience that tells you how to do things, how to find help, etc. The UX includes a lot of helpful tool tips too.
As for the terminal, it's completely possible to use most popular distros without touching the terminal at all.
It’s not possible to use popular distros without the terminal. Anyone saying that is lying. Within an hour of a fresh install there’s normally 5-10 things I’ve had to use the terminal for because a GUI didn’t work or didn’t exist.
I’m saying it’s unfriendly because it has 0 protections for the user to prevent them from bricking their own system. I know that’s a positive to Linux purists, but it’s a huge problem for everyone else.
Windows can get away with a certain level of expecting people to know how their OS works. Linux can’t. With the different defaults it makes it a very unfriendly move from windows
True, to an extent. It does warn you when you're doing something obviously dumb for the most part though. Most of that is mitigated by keeping everything in a user context and sandboxing. For example it will allow you to mess up your own account, just like windows will, but it will make you enter a password to do anything outside of your user that could create problems system wide. Windows does similar things too.
Different does not equal user unfriendly, IMHO.
Would you say that macOS is not user friendly because it has different defaults than Windows? Would you say that Samsung's version of Android is not user friendly because it does things different than Google's version? Would you say that all smart phones are not user friendly because they do things differently than iPhone (IOS)? What about Chrome and Firefox? Which one would you said is user unfriendly because it does things differently? Would you say that Gmail is unfriendly because it has different defaults than Outlook?
As with all things it just depends on what you're doing and how you're doing it. If someone is handed a system that has something like Fedora setup on it. They could just install steam, install some games, install chrome, or whatever else they want without touching the terminal.
Now the process of setting up, installing packages to make hardware work eg Nvidia, tweaking things, etc. Yeah that part in some instances does need the terminal. If you have hardware and a distro where everything just works, then you could actually not have to use the terminal at all. System76, Dell, etc has shown this with their laptops, Valve showed this with the steamdeck, etc.