Quoting: Purple Library GuyThe thing we should keep in mind is this: Linus owes us nothing.
There he is, he has a stated goal of setting up a Linux desktop and getting to the point of running a game on Steam. He installs a Linux desktop, tries to install Steam, and it won't, and he tries, not very astutely, to install Steam a different way, and that last attempt borks his install.
And he is in the entertainment business, and has already mused publicly about the rough nature of the arc he expects: Episode 1, pissed off with things being different and being unable to make things work; Episode 2, things feeling much better, gotten used to it; Episode 3, overall conclusions and stuff. Along those lines.

And Pop!OS hands him on a silver platter this decidedly entertaining "not working" stuff at the core of his stated goal, to rant about entertainingly. What's he supposed to do, shut up about it? Bend over backwards to tone his response down to be more boring?

Really, he doesn't owe us that. He's not our publicist. We can bitch that he should have done stuff differently, but the fact remains that if Steam had just installed properly in the first place, as it should have, it would have been a quite different video.

Agreed, but I still think that he can be criticized. I've yet to see anyone crucifying him, but then I'm not on reddit so I can't speak for any possible clowns there.

But there are more things to come, e.g in coming videos he will claim that it's not possible to handle root folders using the file manager in Manjaro (and that is a possibility, I don't know since I don't use Manjaro and it works just fine with Nautilus in Ubuntu) so he have a whole segment about how horrible it is that Linux now forces him to use the terminal to install a plugin for OBS (and apparently he couldn't find that OBS also looks in ~/.config/obs-studio/plugins so he wouldn't even need to be root in the first place even though a simple google would have told that [I mean I found out and I have never used OBS in my life, but then my experience with Linux told me that it probably would look in a place like .config or .local]).

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Tuxee

Quoting: GuestThe fact this slipped through System 76's internal testing is absolutely inexcusable!

Also, who actually ignores warning messages and proceeds regardless?

What other options does he have as an "uninformed user"? You get the information that some packages are being removed. So? Then he would have to know what this packages are actually good for. And as already mentioned: He had no other option than to hit "y" if he wanted Steam.

He could have asked Anthony, but being stubborn, didn't.

I get the impression Linus is not as clueless as he makes out and ultimately manipulated his viewers.

Well that part was actually part of their "challenge" in that they should approach it as "normies" and not as some one that have instant access to an expert.

"Normies" don't ask for help when they're uncertain about things? Because that sounds counter-intuitive.

They do but perhaps they don't have an expert at the level of Anthony nearby and they stated beforehand that they would not use him since it would be "unfair". And I also think that we come to the LTT videos a bit from the wrong angle, their idea with the series is not to determine if Linux works or not but as a challenge for Linus and Luke to see if they both can stand using exclusively Linux for a whole month.

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Quoting: kalin

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: kalinI tried popos and it was the same garbage as ubuntu. After some update the system got broken. From my experience manjaro is far better choice then anything Debian based. Turd is a turd no matter how much chocolate topping you put on

This kind of comment is unhelpful and, frankly, deluded. I've said it before - it's insanely frustrating to see such a small niche shitting on another niche just to get one over on the other 'side'. Grow up.

No, I just have an opinion, negative one and it's coming from personal experience. I tried many distros for big period of time. The last time I used ubuntu was for 8 mounts and frankly this time was better then previous time because now they use systemd and my system boot for adequate time yet many of their packages are not linked to most recent version of their libc or other crucial lib which lead to crashes or undefined behavior. I stopped using it after system get broken after update, similarly to what happen to Linus with pop os (not like I blame apt)
I don't even remember why I stop using popos but in the beginning I was so enthusiastic that I even donate money to the project and only after 4 mounts I quit it forever

Well now I have to step in here and be the big bad toxic "well it works for me" guy. There is simply no possibility that what you wrote could be true, none of the libs (including libc) are updated in that manner in Ubuntu nor on Debian. The version of the lib to use is chosen during the feature freeze some two months before release and then it will remain throughout the entire lifetime of the version of Ubuntu, updates after that fact are not ABI/API breaking in nature and will only be for backported fixes.

And this have been true since their first release (4.10) back in 2004. Now I don't doubt that you had problems, but they did not originate by packages not being built for the included version of libc or other libraries. Did you by chance add some external repositories like PPA:s or downloaded external .deb files?

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Quoting: randyl

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: GuestAlso, who actually ignores warning messages and proceeds regardless?

People wanting to prove a point. The less cynical answer: "Windows people that are conditioned to ignore things like UAC and just click next->next->next regardless".

Linus strikes me as being in that sweet spot where he knows a lot about computer tech stuff in general, which makes him confident, but doesn't actually know enough about Linux to justify his confidence in that specific setting. So he can confidently make a big mistake. If it was me, I don't have a ton of knowledge, so I don't have the confidence, but I do know enough to know that screwing up on the command line on Linux can have big results. So I wouldn't have done what he did.

To be fair, in his case not having Steam would be almost as serious as not having a desktop--the main point of him having a desktop was to play games on Steam, so if the desktop won't let him install Steam it's kind of pointless. And it was a fresh install with no personal files on the hard drive, 'cause he'd switched to a brand new one--the "hardware guy" approach to security. So risking things going wrong was a small penalty, and potentially getting Steam by running that risk was a big reward. So where for most people, installing one package would be way less important than the chance of screwing up their system, he could be like "Sure, why not?"

Great summary PLB. LTT (Linus Tech Tips) started out with a big focus on hardware with an audience who were home PC builders and PC Master Race builders. He used to do a lot of reviews on different hardware components and provide tech tips for builders. For example he has a really interesting episode where he compares thermal paste application methods and compounds to see if there is a big difference.

The saddest part of that video to me is when his partner (who used Mint) pre-apologized to the Linux community for potentially offending them for any missteps he might take and how he was worried about "Linux Chads" berating him for it. I mean that's just sad and unfortunately a lot of comments in this thread completely reinforce his fear.

In my opinion, if Linux gamers (and Linux users in general) really want greater adoption, then the community needs to be a lot kinder, understanding, and more welcoming. Digging into tribalism, distro slagging, using denigrating terms to describe "windows users", and reinforcing an "us vs them" team mentality is not going to win hearts and minds. If someone is overly harsh and beats a puppy, it will turn on them and always fear them. Is that really the environment and direction we want to take? Is that how the community in general wants to be perceived?

Well you claim that, but there isn't even a single comment on Luke in this thread at all (unless I missed one?). So no, his fear was completely unreasonable (at least to me).

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Tuxee

Quoting: GuestThe fact this slipped through System 76's internal testing is absolutely inexcusable!

Also, who actually ignores warning messages and proceeds regardless?

What other options does he have as an "uninformed user"? You get the information that some packages are being removed. So? Then he would have to know what this packages are actually good for. And as already mentioned: He had no other option than to hit "y" if he wanted Steam.

He could have asked Anthony, but being stubborn, didn't.

I get the impression Linus is not as clueless as he makes out and ultimately manipulated his viewers.

Well that part was actually part of their "challenge" in that they should approach it as "normies" and not as some one that have instant access to an expert.

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Quoting: damarrin

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: BielFPs

Quoting: dubigrasuBad timing indeed, sadly what a missed opportunity for Pop!_OS (God!...this name!) to show its value. (as a side note, I felt so vindicated when Linus agreed that it has a "spectacularly stupid name").

I am also one of the people that are bothered with those silly names, "Pop!_OS" and "MariaDB" for example make it looks like those are pet projects made by one person, rather than serious solutions.

How influential is this Linus guy in general (outside US/UK)? I never watched anything from him, but judging by how many people are talking about this video makes me thing that this could unfortunately scary new user out of trying a linux distro (or worse, advocating against it).

The video have 1.1M views and then it was first released on their own paid platform so unable to know how many views it had there.

At least there is one comment thread with over 1024 comments with "wow didn't know linux sucked this hard".

Yeah, there are a lot of comments like that there, as if they only saw that one part of the video. Some are possibly MS employees who work on their image, a lot are undoubtedly people who’d never try Linux anyway because they’re happy to remain on the winning team.

I'm not cynical enough to believe that there are actual MS employees making comments on that video. It's more likely salty edge lords and the "we are on the winning team" crowd that you speak of.

What bothers me more are the thousands of comments there on people claiming to have tried Linux, something failed and when they reached out for help on forums or subreddits they where met with hostility and snark from Linux users. Then again they never ever give links to said posts so it's hard to know if it did happen, if it did happen but understandably so due to context or if it's just made up.

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Quoting: damarrin

Quoting: MohandevirIt's just sad... Bad timing. The problem is solved, I read? Took what? Couple of hours to get a fix? How much time would have been required, on Windows, to get a fix for a similar issue? Next tuesday patch? Next month? I must admit that I never witnessed a Windows update bricking a PC or generate a BSOD, either... :huh:

But it's Linux, it doesn't have that margin. It must be nothing less than perfect, accross the board, on all distributions simultaneously, to convince mainstream users.

This is something that happens across various industries, not just OSs. I recently had a conversation about this regarding rowboats of all things. Once a company/product is “market leader” in the minds of the people they can do pretty much anything and people just shrug and learn to live with that. Any competitors, however, must constantly be perfect and any slip up is met with ridicule and serves only to reinforce peoples’ conviction it’s futile to struggle against the status quo and keep using the leader’s product. It’s a very curious psychological construct.

The age old, "No one is ever fired for buying IBM".

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: GuestAlso, who actually ignores warning messages and proceeds regardless?

People wanting to prove a point. The less cynical answer: "Windows people that are conditioned to ignore things like UAC and just click next->next->next regardless".

Linus strikes me as being in that sweet spot where he knows a lot about computer tech stuff in general, which makes him confident, but doesn't actually know enough about Linux to justify his confidence in that specific setting. So he can confidently make a big mistake. If it was me, I don't have a ton of knowledge, so I don't have the confidence, but I do know enough to know that screwing up on the command line on Linux can have big results. So I wouldn't have done what he did.

To be fair, in his case not having Steam would be almost as serious as not having a desktop--the main point of him having a desktop was to play games on Steam, so if the desktop won't let him install Steam it's kind of pointless. And it was a fresh install with no personal files on the hard drive, 'cause he'd switched to a brand new one--the "hardware guy" approach to security. So risking things going wrong was a small penalty, and potentially getting Steam by running that risk was a big reward. So where for most people, installing one package would be way less important than the chance of screwing up their system, he could be like "Sure, why not?"

Of course, my main issue here is that he actually says in the video at 10:15 "removing essential packages, what are you talking about". Could be that he just said it out loud and not really processed it, I cannot speak for what went on in his mind at the time :) it's just that he have talked alot before they made these videos that a problem with Linux is that "you have to use the console to fix everything" which is why I lean more towards this being "oh this gave me a good example of showing that Linux does required the terminal and why it's so dangerous to do so".

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Quoting: GuestAlso, who actually ignores warning messages and proceeds regardless?

People wanting to prove a point. The less cynical answer: "Windows people that are conditioned to ignore things like UAC and just click next->next->next regardless".

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Quoting: BielFPs

Quoting: dubigrasuBad timing indeed, sadly what a missed opportunity for Pop!_OS (God!...this name!) to show its value. (as a side note, I felt so vindicated when Linus agreed that it has a "spectacularly stupid name").

I am also one of the people that are bothered with those silly names, "Pop!_OS" and "MariaDB" for example make it looks like those are pet projects made by one person, rather than serious solutions.

How influential is this Linus guy in general (outside US/UK)? I never watched anything from him, but judging by how many people are talking about this video makes me thing that this could unfortunately scary new user out of trying a linux distro (or worse, advocating against it).

The video have 1.1M views and then it was first released on their own paid platform so unable to know how many views it had there.

At least there is one comment thread with over 1024 comments with "wow didn't know linux sucked this hard".

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