I’ve tried installing Linux on two computers four times last month, but I haven’t been able to for one reason or another. I’ve already spent an hour debugging simply because I cancelled the installation once at the wrong time (ie. any time after hitting start) and had to go in there and rename shit (???). If the community really wants us to switch, it needs to iron out all this garbage at the front door. I can only imagine the frustration of getting everything else up and running. Fuck these headaches. I’ve had a better UX installing Windows, which I did about 10 times last year without a hitch.
I have to agree. I love Linux. I’m using it for all of my servers and it works great. I recently tried to switch my daily use computer from Windows 10 to Linux, and it’s not gone well. I’m on my 5th install and third disto. I’ve been told it’s a hardware compatibility issue, but if I need to buy a new computer to run Linux, I’m in the same boat as switching to Windows 11.
Bit of an odd question, but did you try booting it from a USB on that machine and see if it worked alright for a few days with what you wanted it to do? Typically if it works fine from the bootable usb, it shouldn’t really have any issues installing unless your drive is copy protected or something, especially if it’s Mint like you mentioned below, also I’d recommend poking their forums if you haven’t yet, somebody might be able to shed more light on what’s wrong with specific errors and behaviours
I don’t know what distro you’re installing or what the hell you’re doing, but most of the time it’s trivial. From my experience, the Linux installation is much simpler and easier than Windows.
It is different though, so if you bash your head against it expecting Windows then you’re obviously going to have a bad time. You need to start with the understanding that it’s a different thing and you’ll have to learn it, just like you did Windows when you first started with that. You weren’t instantly an expert. You just forgot what it was like to be a noob who doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Well, I’ve worked with Linux before, and it wasn’t a generally smooth experience, so I went in with “it’s a different environment” in mind. But the series of events that unfolded was absurd. I was so ready and hyped to install some software that I remember from back in the day and try to emulate at least one game, but no luck. If I want to do it, I’m gonna need to dedicate some time and more effort than expected to setting up. I’ve been procrastinating because I don’t want to deal with these bugs.
For games, just use your package manager to install Steam, then install Proton from there. (IIRC it’s automatic for just the standard release version.) Steam games should mostly just work without you needing to do anything. Other games, you want to use something like Heroic or Lutris (I recommend the former) to manage them and launch them with Proton without manually doing it all every time.
If you expand on what your issues were, I’m sure plenty of people would be happy to help. Again, it should be pretty trivial, so I’m not sure what went wrong.
SteamOS is just there to run one single application: Steam. Users see absolutely nothing of Linux. It could be running MacOS or BeOS or TempleOS and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to them.
Not that it’s a bad thing, it confirms that Linux is stable and mature and that you can use it for an appliance, but that’s pretty much it. And yes, you can bypass the Steam interface and run a KDE desktop (is that the UX you think of? it’s available on any Linux and pretty much any Unix-like desktop), which is nice of Valve to have included. But except for the .1% who will toy with it, there isn’t really much point (and yes, I did toy with it end enabled ssh, and added a few gadgets). I still wouldn’t install SteamOS as a desktop system though. That’s not what it’s made for.
Let’s not reach for the “this guy doesn’t want to learn” excuse because that’s you shifting the blame on me, and instead focus on the “this experience has been more frustrating than it needs to be as a first step in adopting an OS and growing the user base”. If I didn’t want to learn, I wouldn’t have bothered to look how to fix the USB after simply cancelling the installation. In what world is that normal? That bug has been around for ages. Also, your installer fatally errors out without a clear cause. Not only was it frustrating, but my time and effort were also wasted. So please…
Why would you cancel the install half way through, is that something you normally do?
If you don’t have the time to install it properly, don’t start the process. If you do have the time see it through.
If you think you have made a mistake and can’t simply back up to the step you think you messed up, just continue. Most things can be fixed after install. Worst case scenario, you will just have to reinstall.
If you backed out because you were afraid of messing up your windows partition, I highly recommend backing up all your data before you install in the first place.
In what world is that normal?
The world where the vast majority of people don’t cancel installing an OS halfway through the process.
You do realize that there is more than one reason why a person would need to cancel an installation that doesn’t necessarily have to do with not having allotted enough time, right? I had the whole afternoon. And that if the button exists on the UI, it’s reasonable to conclude that the feature is in working condition and would not do the one thing antithetical to what we’re trying to achieve.
I don’t know why you’re talking down to me, but I’d rather not engage further if that’ll be the case.
If you order pieces from people who are mostly doing carpentry as a passion and make furniture. Sure it’s frustrating and you have to put in work. But you can’t compare it to buying stuff from IKEA and telling everyone those carpenters need to do more of that.
What flavor of Linux were you trying to install? My experience on endeavoros has been pretty plug and play. I imagine it would be similar on mint, Ubuntu, fedora, Debian. If it was Linux from scratch, yeah that’s likely going to be frustrating.
It was Mint, which is why I found it odd. I’ve also used Ubuntu years ago, but that wasn’t plug-n-play either from what I remember. I spent too much time getting my sound and video cards running, and then spent twice that time getting Compiz to work so I could have all the cool effects. 😅
Honestly, just try something else. If you’re trying to do gaming, I’d recommend Garuda Dragonized from personal experience. It’s Arch based, but comes packaged with everything you’d need for gaming, and a utility to install a bunch of extra stuff you might want, like launchers, controller drivers, etc. I think it even comes with the Nvidia drivers that you’ll need to install manually for most other distros.
I my opinion it’s really ugly out of the box sadly, with a horrible “gamer” look. It’s KDE though, so it’s really easy to customize.
Truth is windows has plenty of bugs too, the main difference is that it comes pre installed so you don’t have to deal with the install bugs, and you’re already acclimated to all its quirks so you don’t notice them as much.
As for Mint, it gets recommended a lot because it’s stable and looks a lot like windows, but it’s old and slow to update to modern standards, you can always go for a more bleeding edge distribution like fedora.
I’ve tried installing Linux on two computers four times last month, but I haven’t been able to for one reason or another. I’ve already spent an hour debugging simply because I cancelled the installation once at the wrong time (ie. any time after hitting start) and had to go in there and rename shit (???). If the community really wants us to switch, it needs to iron out all this garbage at the front door. I can only imagine the frustration of getting everything else up and running. Fuck these headaches. I’ve had a better UX installing Windows, which I did about 10 times last year without a hitch.
I have to agree. I love Linux. I’m using it for all of my servers and it works great. I recently tried to switch my daily use computer from Windows 10 to Linux, and it’s not gone well. I’m on my 5th install and third disto. I’ve been told it’s a hardware compatibility issue, but if I need to buy a new computer to run Linux, I’m in the same boat as switching to Windows 11.
Bit of an odd question, but did you try booting it from a USB on that machine and see if it worked alright for a few days with what you wanted it to do? Typically if it works fine from the bootable usb, it shouldn’t really have any issues installing unless your drive is copy protected or something, especially if it’s Mint like you mentioned below, also I’d recommend poking their forums if you haven’t yet, somebody might be able to shed more light on what’s wrong with specific errors and behaviours
I don’t know what distro you’re installing or what the hell you’re doing, but most of the time it’s trivial. From my experience, the Linux installation is much simpler and easier than Windows.
It is different though, so if you bash your head against it expecting Windows then you’re obviously going to have a bad time. You need to start with the understanding that it’s a different thing and you’ll have to learn it, just like you did Windows when you first started with that. You weren’t instantly an expert. You just forgot what it was like to be a noob who doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Well, I’ve worked with Linux before, and it wasn’t a generally smooth experience, so I went in with “it’s a different environment” in mind. But the series of events that unfolded was absurd. I was so ready and hyped to install some software that I remember from back in the day and try to emulate at least one game, but no luck. If I want to do it, I’m gonna need to dedicate some time and more effort than expected to setting up. I’ve been procrastinating because I don’t want to deal with these bugs.
For games, just use your package manager to install Steam, then install Proton from there. (IIRC it’s automatic for just the standard release version.) Steam games should mostly just work without you needing to do anything. Other games, you want to use something like Heroic or Lutris (I recommend the former) to manage them and launch them with Proton without manually doing it all every time.
If you expand on what your issues were, I’m sure plenty of people would be happy to help. Again, it should be pretty trivial, so I’m not sure what went wrong.
If you don’t understand or want to learn, then linux isn’t for you. You may ask a computer savvy friend to teach you.
It’s a non-trivial thing and it requires some skills that many people aren’t really trained for.
SteamOS proves that Linux doesn’t need technical expertise to operate.
All Linux OSs need to aim for SteamOS’s UX, imo, if they want to see greater adoption.
Unless the point is to keep normies from migrating to it, which is just bass ackwards.
SteamOS is just there to run one single application: Steam. Users see absolutely nothing of Linux. It could be running MacOS or BeOS or TempleOS and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to them.
Not that it’s a bad thing, it confirms that Linux is stable and mature and that you can use it for an appliance, but that’s pretty much it. And yes, you can bypass the Steam interface and run a KDE desktop (is that the UX you think of? it’s available on any Linux and pretty much any Unix-like desktop), which is nice of Valve to have included. But except for the .1% who will toy with it, there isn’t really much point (and yes, I did toy with it end enabled ssh, and added a few gadgets). I still wouldn’t install SteamOS as a desktop system though. That’s not what it’s made for.
Desktop mode isn’t Steam.
Let’s not reach for the “this guy doesn’t want to learn” excuse because that’s you shifting the blame on me, and instead focus on the “this experience has been more frustrating than it needs to be as a first step in adopting an OS and growing the user base”. If I didn’t want to learn, I wouldn’t have bothered to look how to fix the USB after simply cancelling the installation. In what world is that normal? That bug has been around for ages. Also, your installer fatally errors out without a clear cause. Not only was it frustrating, but my time and effort were also wasted. So please…
Why would you cancel the install half way through, is that something you normally do?
If you don’t have the time to install it properly, don’t start the process. If you do have the time see it through.
If you think you have made a mistake and can’t simply back up to the step you think you messed up, just continue. Most things can be fixed after install. Worst case scenario, you will just have to reinstall.
If you backed out because you were afraid of messing up your windows partition, I highly recommend backing up all your data before you install in the first place.
The world where the vast majority of people don’t cancel installing an OS halfway through the process.
You do realize that there is more than one reason why a person would need to cancel an installation that doesn’t necessarily have to do with not having allotted enough time, right? I had the whole afternoon. And that if the button exists on the UI, it’s reasonable to conclude that the feature is in working condition and would not do the one thing antithetical to what we’re trying to achieve.
I don’t know why you’re talking down to me, but I’d rather not engage further if that’ll be the case.
The way I see it…
If you order pieces from people who are mostly doing carpentry as a passion and make furniture. Sure it’s frustrating and you have to put in work. But you can’t compare it to buying stuff from IKEA and telling everyone those carpenters need to do more of that.
Right, and I accept that from any other part of the OS that isn’t the very first step when trying to use it.
What flavor of Linux were you trying to install? My experience on endeavoros has been pretty plug and play. I imagine it would be similar on mint, Ubuntu, fedora, Debian. If it was Linux from scratch, yeah that’s likely going to be frustrating.
It was Mint, which is why I found it odd. I’ve also used Ubuntu years ago, but that wasn’t plug-n-play either from what I remember. I spent too much time getting my sound and video cards running, and then spent twice that time getting Compiz to work so I could have all the cool effects. 😅
Honestly, just try something else. If you’re trying to do gaming, I’d recommend Garuda Dragonized from personal experience. It’s Arch based, but comes packaged with everything you’d need for gaming, and a utility to install a bunch of extra stuff you might want, like launchers, controller drivers, etc. I think it even comes with the Nvidia drivers that you’ll need to install manually for most other distros.
I my opinion it’s really ugly out of the box sadly, with a horrible “gamer” look. It’s KDE though, so it’s really easy to customize.
Truth is windows has plenty of bugs too, the main difference is that it comes pre installed so you don’t have to deal with the install bugs, and you’re already acclimated to all its quirks so you don’t notice them as much.
As for Mint, it gets recommended a lot because it’s stable and looks a lot like windows, but it’s old and slow to update to modern standards, you can always go for a more bleeding edge distribution like fedora.
tbf mint had a few rough edges last i tried it.