There's been a huge amount of talk recently about switching to Linux for gaming, thanks to the challenge from Linus Tech Tips (YouTube) where two of their people tried the full-switch but it didn't go so well for Linus and Pop!_OS. Now, System76 are trying to improve.
It was pretty unfortunate that as Linus was going to install Steam, Pop's packaging had some sort of breakage that wasn't quite picked up and Linus ended up hosing the Pop desktop install. You can easily do some finger-pointing on where the real blame lies here from Pop not ensuring a major package like Steam works correctly before it's pushed to users, to Linus ignoring the (what should be) pretty-clear warning message:
Oh no, please, Linus — don't do it! Linus did it.
The point remains the same regardless, and throwing around pointy-fingers isn't really helpful. It shouldn't have happened, it's as simple as that. Loading up the Pop!_Shop GUI and telling it to install Steam should have been enough. Going by what System76 engineer Jeremy Soller said on Twitter, the cause was this:
"For some reason, an i386 version of a package was never published on Launchpad. Steam being an i386 package, when trying to install it, it had to downgrade that package to the Ubuntu version to resolve dependencies, which removed Pop!_OS packages.".
One thing System76 has now done to prevent such almighty breakage in future, is to patch APT (the package manager), in Pop to prevent users being able to see the "Yes, do as I say!" prompt by default. Unless, they add a special file to actually enable it. On top of that, another System76 developer Jacob Kauffmann mentioned on GitHub their plans to "make further improvements" to the Pop!_Shop GUI so that "users don't have to fall back to the terminal in the first place". Sounds like lessons learned, and hopefully smooth sailing for users in future.
Update: a new version of APT brings in its own improvements for this.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: F.UltraAt least there is one comment thread with over 1024 comments with "wow didn't know linux sucked this hard".Those kind of comments are usually from those fanboys who says "just install windows" when someone asks about linux support, then cries about some game being console exclusive (the irony).
The real damage is if someone thinking about trying linux take this video as the first (and maybe only) impression.
Quoting: x_wingHe is by far the biggest tech youtuber. Linus Sebastian is not exactly a Linux friendly PC user, but in his team he has a guy named Anthony that is an advocate of Linux OS.Hmm then I get it why there's so many people talking about it
There's a guy in my country who makes some amazing videos about linux called "Diolinux" aiming for beginners, but since all his content is in Brazilian Portuguese his videos can't reach many people worldwide due to not being on English.
I'm pretty sure some of his followers access this site too
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Mohandevir Nov 10, 2021
Quoting: F.UltraQuoting: 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".
Must take into account that warning messages in Windows usually means next to nothing, even, in some cases, for the tech savies. Thus, the Next->Next->Next and then look at the damages. Then do a search with the error message and the resulting behavior and you might find a solution that has absolutely no link to the said original message...
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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
Grow up. Will you?
Seriously, this distro/DE/init system/display server bashing is just plain tiring. I have been working on Ubuntu since 8.04 and never (yes, never!) experienced any groundbreaking problems, yet I have never felt inclined to name-calling other distributions.
(BTW you should run Arch and mention it accordingly. Manjaro! How lame is that!)
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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.
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Quoting: sudoerMeanwhile everything seemed to work fine for him with Manjaro, which he should have chosen from the get-go, because of newest kernels, newest drivers, for newest hardware,Well, maybe, but everything also went fine for his challenge buddy with Mint, which has neither newest kernels nor newest drivers. There are a lot of distros and I don't think it's valid to claim he "should" have chosen Manjaro.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 10 November 2021 at 5:35 pm UTC
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Quoting: ageresBut then I realize it's about some guy from YouTube.
"Some guy" is putting it mildly. I'd say a lot more potential Linux users out there know Linus Sebastian but have never heard of Linus Torvalds before.
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Quoting: F.UltraQuoting: BielFPsQuoting: 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.
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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...
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.
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Quoting: ageresMaybe I'm too old, but it feels weird for me when I see Linux users are saying "Linus" without mentioning the surname of that Linus, and it turns out that it is not about Torvalds. I read headlines like "Linus tries to install Linux", "Linus breaks his Linux installation", "Linus bashes Linux" and wonder wtf has happened to Torvalds? But then I realize it's about some guy from YouTube.
Felt similar with the Steam thread "Linus Discusses His Experience Moving to Linux". Finally. :D
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Quoting: F.UltraLinus 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.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".
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?"
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 10 November 2021 at 6:01 pm UTC
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