I’m just so sick of Microsoft and Google. But there’s two things holding me back:
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I wanna play Steam games on my PC
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I am just an amateur hobbyist, not a tech wizard
Is there any hope for me?
I’m just so sick of Microsoft and Google. But there’s two things holding me back:
I wanna play Steam games on my PC
I am just an amateur hobbyist, not a tech wizard
Is there any hope for me?
I’ve been trying to adapt to Linux Mint/Cinnamon as my daily driver and yes, stuff breaks. My sata and nvme connected drives kept disappearing every time I started my computer so I had to learn about mounting and auto mount (they are just there on Windows). My game and program installs on Bottles and Lutris kept going “missing” and losing their .exe’s. I downloaded 70gb of Guild Wars 2 files at least 8 times because I thought each time I had fixed the “files missing” problem only to have them disappear on reboot. I still didn’t figure out what was happening and am only able to play now because I found out how to use the provider portal on Steam. I can’t make launcher short cuts from the actual executable, I have to go to the desktop and do it and when I do, it won’t let me drag it to my panel for some reason. When I thought I had found a solution, I reactivated some launcher applets and ended up with three different instances of my panel launcher icons and still no ability to add new ones. My systems connected to the same ethernet used to show up in my network panel and I was able to access my shared folders and media files but they all stopped showing up a few days ago and I had to learn all about Samba share and minimum and maximum server protocols and still am trying to find a solution.
Yes, Windows breaks stuff too, but Linux is NOT a perfect product that works flawlessly for everyone and [@cRazi_man@europe.pub is right. All of their points are things I’ve been struggling with and would warn a Linux noob about. I personally would rather trust those random forum posts than LLM summaries (and have solved some issues that way) but otherwise I agree with each of their bullet points.
Yes mounting is different, but that is not a Linux issue. Same as when you boot into windows, but an EXT formatted drive will not appear AND it will never mount. Windows helpful choice is “unknown” and offer to format. These are just OS differences, not breakages.
Cinnamon might be part of your problem with shortcuts…
Yeah SMB shares can be tricky. I have issues with them in Windows as well, not linux specifically.
I am not saying linux is perfect. All computers rely on a person being able to deal with them. I just find it much more stable then windows ever was. You add bottles and Lutris into the mix, and now it is a third party software issue: just like plenty of software in windows as well.
I think there’s a difference in personal interpretation of what a “Linux issue” is, here. It sounds like you might be interpreting “Linux issue” as problems with the software itself, or its capabilities, features and processes etc. Personally, I am using “issues with Linux” to mean the entire user experience from start up to using the GUI and whether or not I can do the things I want and need to do on a daily basis easily and intuitively. Certainly, Linux as a software plays into it, but the things you are brushing off as 3rd party incompatibilities are absolutely part of the Linux experience in my opinion. I’m not trying to throw blame, but when introducing new people to Linux it’s best to acknowledge there may be some tinkering and adaptation needed to get things working as they should.
Depends on what “should” means. My printer for example will not work with windows. It works fine with linux. So… that really is a printer driver issue. No matter which one it works with.
As for the OS out of the box, everything works on a fresh install of either - although linux is far more loaded with ready to go software, and windows requires you to add it. And any of the software you add to either can cause breakages, that is computing.
I noticed over the years that Linux works fairly well for people who did not start with windows first. Both have learning curves, but habits are habits.
I am going to take my linux laptop for an example: 2 years. No tinkering. There is nothing to do, it just works.
My other laptop (windows): damn thing need tinkering all the time: turn off this, regedit that, just to get the nagware and crap out. Won’t allow remote desktop with the license, needs drivers to be updated, software that came with it is bloatware garbage.
I’ve been tinkering with my Linux machine for the past 8 months or so, and having random issues like the ones I listed and more besides that I’ve already solved. Meanwhile my old Windows 7 machine has been working flawlessly for about 8 years, no regedits or crap software issues. I think I had a driver issue with my mouse a couple years ago that I clicked a button and it fixed it. My laptop running Windows 7 also has been working flawlessly since about 2016 beyond prompting me to format media that I connect to it, but I press a button and that goes away. Recently I’ve been having compatibility issues with software because it’s such an old OS but as you said, that’s a 3rd party software issue, not a problem with Windows 7.
Glad your Linux experience is so smooth though. Must be nice!
This is a pointless conversation man. There are clearly plenty of Linux zealots on Lemmy. Noobs like me have had a hard time with Linux. I’ve never understood the argument that “my experience was different, so your experience is invalid”. Once someone learns about something, they forget what it’s like to have no knowledge of the thing.
The Linux community was reacting like this when Linus (from LTT) installed PopOS and tried to install Steam and it somehow wiped his desktop environment. Shit happens in Linux and the noob experience is brushed aside, while touting “the year of Linux”. I really don’t get it.
I agree with your overall point, as a long time Linux, Windows and Mac poweruser who has shepherded many into a new OS in the past. People who don’t like to explore new/different technologies as a hobby get quite comfortable with whatever they’re used to and the way that it works and then quickly lose empathy for those that are earlier in their journeys.
Just to clarify on the Linus Pop!_OS thing, he didn’t read the prompt that said he was about to uninstall his desktop environment and then typed in “yes I understand this can break my system” or something like that, which had been added as a prompt to keep people from not reading the warning. Anyways people got mad that he did that because he literally ignored the warning and the meaning of the words he had to type that had been added to idiot proof the thing.
Two desktops and three laptops, they all work great. My biggest ongoing issue, and it is fair to say it is a problem, is VR. I have not tried recently, but that is one area that was smooth to set up in windows and I havent had luck in Linux.