Will probably get flamed to death for this, but… a few months ago I’ve decided to try Ubuntu on an older Intel MacBook Pro, just to try it out after many attempts in the past. (Mac user here)
Then I tried to use the trackpad. After 30 minutes of fiddling I gave up. Say what you want about Apple’s UX choices, esthetics and business practices. But boy do they know how to produce a computer and UX combo that fits like a glove.
In comparison, the Ubuntu experience was like eating nails.
And before y’all go off; I would like to switch. I’m getting tired of Apple’s business practices.
After years of using linux distros and settling on an arch based distro for my daily use, I switched jobs and they allowed me to have “linux” as my laptop OS.
They put Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on the laptop. Admittedly I hadn’t used it for a few years, maybe 18.04 outside of server use cases maybe.
The experience is horrible. It throws errors about Ubuntu, about Visual Studio Code or any program every hour, without those programs having any trouble whatsoever to function.
It reminds me so much of Windows, and even though I prefer it over that system, I can’t shake the feeling I’m serving the OS, rather than the other way around, just like in Windows.
And don’t even get me started on Snaps over DEB packages. Had never tried them before and I can say with confidence the hatred is deserved. Code didn’t even start up in the snap version and Firefox was so slow and laggy I was thinking the laptop was broken somehow.
No flaming here, but your first mistake was trying Ububtu - it’s not the best in terms of hardware compatibility, and they (Canonical) often make controversial software/development decisions, which makes it one of the most hated distributions in the Linux community.
Your second mistake was trying it on a Mac. Now don’t get me wrong, many people do run Linux on a Mac, but it’s not quite plug-and-play (compared to PC), and not everything may work as intended. Since you’re new to Linux, I wouldn’t recommend your first experience of it to be on a Mac. And to be clear, this isn’t Linux’s fault - since Apple (or whichever chipset maker) doesn’t provide Linux with any official drivers/code, the devs have to figure stuff out themselves by reverse-engineering stuff, and as expected not everything may work.
If you’ve only got Macs around and you don’t have the patience to troubleshoot Linux issues / read manuals etc, then the easiest way to try it out is in a virtual machine like Parallels or VirtualBox. The performance might not be the best, but at least everything should work out-of-the-box. As for the distro, since you’re a Mac user, you’d probably feel more at home with elementary OS. Other options you could try include Pop!_OS, and Zorin (the Pro edition even has a macOS-like layout).
Once you’ve tried Linux in a VM and decide you’d like to use it full-time, the best way to experience it is on native Linux-first hardware - basically PCs which come with Linux out-of-the-box, such as those made by System76, Slimbook, Star Labs, Tuxedo etc.
Yeah, I have a similar experience. I used a bunch of operating systems in my years. From C64 GEOS over Atari TOS Amiga OS, DOS, Windows (pretty much all of them since 3.1, except Vista and 8), Android, MacOS and iOS to Linux (several distros)
I don’t know why, but MacOS and iOS are for me just the worst user experiences. I feel completly trapped and helpless when using either one. Guess they are just not for me.
I used to greatly prefer MacOS until I switched my desktop from Windows to Linux and got comfortable there troubleshooting and installing things. Now I feel exactly the same as you with MacOS. Trapped.
Same. I hate the unintuitive keyboard shortcuts, the nonsensical drag and drop everything UI, and their ridiculously over complicated development system.
In case nobody has mentioned Asahi Linux yet, I’ll bring it up. I haven’t used it, but I have a friend who does.
Asahi Linux is a project and community with the goal of porting Linux to Apple Silicon Macs, starting with the 2020 M1 Mac Mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro.
Our goal is not just to make Linux run on these machines but to polish it to the point where it can be used as a daily OS. Doing this requires a tremendous amount of work, as Apple Silicon is an entirely undocumented platform.
Asahi Linux is developed by a thriving community of free and open source software developers.
I believe they have a Fedora-based distro that should be solid for daily use, but again I haven’t used this myself.
I’m in a similar boat. I’ve got a bunch of small Wayland niggles, but I’m waiting to investigate them until after I switch to Tumbleweed when it gets Plasma 6 (I’m currently on Kubuntu).
Really enjoying Tumbleweed so far. The extra testing cycle they do versus Arch has a measurable effect on stability and need to fiddle with things after a routine system upgrade.
Dumb questions maybe. But I mostly keep Windows for like Battle.net games. Is there any way to play Overwatch II or Diablo IV in Linux? With proton or any other way? Legit would tip me into that realm. I’m a Debian fan if that matters. But I’m comfortable in other distros. Except Arch 😆
Diablo IV steam version has officiall support for Linux as far as I know. Or rather, support for Steam Deck via Proton, which is practically the same thing.
That would be the easiest path, but would cost you!
You can try to install the battle.net version via Lutris: lutris.net/games/diablo-iv/ and it should work. I haven’t tried this game in particular, but had a great experience with Lutris in the past.
It is a great front end for Wine/proton and a database of install scripts and configurations for many games.
Bit off-topic, but if you would want to also play games from the Epic store or GOG, be sure to try Heroic Launcher.
I play StarCraft II regularly, have played Diablo IV and just started WarCraft 3 recently, all without any issues. All you need is proton or install steam and add a non-steam game.
Battle.net games have been some of the most reliable non-steam games you’ll find. You’ll have trouble in the Riot Games space (League on Linux, Windows 7, and 8 are all dead in the next month due to Vanguard), and some Epic Games (Fortnite), but if you’re a Battle.net/Steam gamer Linux is ready for you.
As a sidenote, I bought a whole new SSD and I plan to switch from windows 10 to ubuntu (yeah I know) when I have more stability in my life. At the moment I don’t want more changes in my life because I have a lot going, but it’s coming
The haters will tell you Ubuntu sucks. Every distro has pros and cons. Use whatever you feel comfortable with, and if you feel like trying something else, do it!
ignore anybody giving you grief about whatever distro you use - people need to realise that gatekeeping an OS over minor UI experiences is a dumb fight that discourages normal users getting involved. Whether ubuntu is your gateway into other linux, or the system you end up using for 10 years - you do you, whatever is working is fine. In any case, ubuntu today is much better than it was even 5 years ago - like the comments on this thread say, things just work. You’ll still probably have to use terminal more than you should, but linux is becoming very usable for everybody.
Indeed. However it’s necessary to use that command on both the main PID and all its child processes, otherwise you will run into issues like the game video stopping but the game logic still running in the background.
This is just a tool to automate finding the pid (via hyprctl or other ways) and correctly suspending it.
Thank you for the heads up! The DS3 will always hold a very fond place in my heart - countless hours on Littlebigplanet 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3 and Gran Turismo 6 were had on those awesome controllers.
Someone smarter than me can probably explain this way better...
As far as Wayland goes, If I remember correctly, it's mainly just a protocol, and Gnome/KDE do all the actual work of making stuff happen, so both need to support it to have it work correctly. Like if Wayland was a language like French, Gnome and KDE need to know the French words for something before they can have conversations about it, and Gnome hasn't been as studious with it's dictionary in regards to VRR. X11 just has an ancient code-base, and adding support for anything involves a lot of effort to make sure something else isn't broken by the addition.
Gnome hasn't officially merged support for VRR yet, but there is a merge request to add support, and a patched version built on that code available if you want to try it (mutter-vrr, gnome-control-center-vrr) at least on Arch Linux's AUR.
The stupid thing is mutter-vrr works far better than Plasma’s implementation in my experience. Plasma locks refresh rate to max if your cursor is moving, causing games that use the cursor to stutter badly while the mutter implementation refreshes the cursor at the game’s rate as expected.
A locked bootloader is all they need to lock you out for “a uniform experience and support across all devices”. That freedom to install whatever is not a given.
First: nice AI gen image. Dude apparently has a weird relationship with mice.
That said:
Maybe, just maybe, my insights could simplify someone else’s path into the world of Linux.
I don’t think distro hopping would really simplify anyone’s path to using Linux, especially not with family members who just want to use computers to get stuff done.
I think it makes a lot more sense to just pick one popular distro, and walk through any issues you have with that. That way you build up a bunch of tips and tricks, instead of just war stories about what sucked on the surface.
That said, thanks for writing about Linux! Honestly anything helps in getting people interested.
Thanks for your input. Part of the reason I’m focusing on Fedora and Fedora derived distros right now is specifically for that reason. To give new people a path to gaming success. Windows 10 and 11 basically proved Microsoft is going to monetize at any cost. Gaming has been the primary reason people stay on Windows, and that isn’t necessary anymore.
I think Nobara is the distro for gaming. its easy to use, has a brilliant and supportive discord thats friendly to the new/unknowing, and all the gaming headaches (like steamtinkerlaunch that require compiling from scratch on a certain other popular semi-default distro) are all ready and raring to go, either from the get go, or via a simple and easy tool.
I’ve been on linux for a relatively short time. only 6ish+ years? hard to remember off the top of my head. and Nobara is legitimately the best experience I’ve had out of everything I’ve tried.
Not going to base my personality around or become obnoxious about pushing it, but its definite the most click and go distro for gaming that i’ve seen.
Debian is usually very stable, which means drivers and kernel versions will be outdated in comparison with other distros, which can make you lose possible performance. To be fair I wouldn’t worry too much about this though since I don’t expect the performance to be significantly different, but it’s something to take into consideration.
Don’t be afraid of trying a different distro, RedHat or Arch based for example, just make / and /home different partitions and you should be able to install over your root without affecting your home so it makes it easier to switch system if you want to.
I haven’t chosen cutting edge hardware (AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT) so I don’t think drivers should be an issue in my particular case.
I think separating /home is a good idea so I can try some different distros and compare.
Oh yeah, everything will work, but if next week AMD pushes a driver update that improves performance you’ll only get it in a few months. Other than that Debian is a really nice distro, I used it for a while and that’s the only complaint I had.
This is important, if your games are installed in a drive formatted in NTFS you will have problems with Proton/Wine/etc. One way to discover the issue is to run Steam from terminal and it will tell you the details in an error message
I kinda think they did that because of the Quest since what do you call that if you’re only playing games installed in the headset, not using Quest Link?
Sorry, no I didn’t mean it could play Steam games without Link. I was just saying that there is precedent for calling it a platform of its own because of how Quest works. Sure, on Steam it’s going to be based on the OS running it, but VR is a more unique experience than the OS being the platform.
Just Linux for me…I haven’t used windows since windows 7. I’m probably going to sell my steam deck though because it mostly just sits in the case on top of my computer (where I usually play since my computer is plugged into my 50 inch bedroom TV. But the stream deck is nice and fun to play with.
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