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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Quoting: GuestQuoting: F.UltraQuoting: GuestQuoting: TuxeeQuoting: 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: 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]).
Last edited by F.Ultra on 11 November 2021 at 1:38 am UTC
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Quoting: F.UltraBut there are more things to comeOn the bright side, after they recorded the third video Linus said that once he'd settled in it was actually really easy to use, and Luke has switched his work laptop to Linux - not as part of the challenge, just because he prefers it for getting things done.
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Quoting: CatKillerQuoting: F.UltraBut there are more things to comeOn the bright side, after they recorded the third video Linus said that once he'd settled in it was actually really easy to use, and Luke has switched his work laptop to Linux - not as part of the challenge, just because he prefers it for getting things done.
And I just saw one of their small clips where they praised the printer support in Linux!
I just wish they would get out of their "nobody should ever have to use the terminal mindset. The terminal is perhaps the thing that I love the most about Linux...
Last edited by F.Ultra on 11 November 2021 at 1:57 am UTC
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Quoting: F.UltraI just wish they would get out of their "nobody should ever have to use the terminal mindset. The terminal is perhaps the thing that I love the most about Linux...It lets me do anything on any of my computers from my phone without getting out of bed.
The change to apt that might make a difference (there's no sufficient hurdle that they could have put in front of someone like Linus to prevent this issue) would be to check when the last update was run before installing anything: if the package list is too old (say, if it hasn't been refreshed that day) then automatically update it before trying to install anything. I think Manjaro does something like that? There's no reason why it would be desirable for the package list to be stale, and people aren't generally on dial-up any more, so ensure that the list of versions and dependencies is fresh.
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Quoting: CatKillerQuoting: F.UltraI just wish they would get out of their "nobody should ever have to use the terminal mindset. The terminal is perhaps the thing that I love the most about Linux...It lets me do anything on any of my computers from my phone without getting out of bed.
The change to apt that might make a difference (there's no sufficient hurdle that they could have put in front of someone like Linus to prevent this issue) would be to check when the last update was run before installing anything: if the package list is too old (say, if it hasn't been refreshed that day) then automatically update it before trying to install anything. I think Manjaro does something like that? There's no reason why it would be desirable for the package list to be stale, and people aren't generally on dial-up any more, so ensure that the list of versions and dependencies is fresh.
Not sure how Pop handles this but the full ISO from Debian and Ubuntu contains packages so until you do "apt update" you can install the older versions of packages from the disc, this is done in case you don't have Internet access.
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Quoting: F.UltraNot sure how Pop handles this but the full ISO from Debian and Ubuntu contains packages so until you do "apt update" you can install the older versions of packages from the disc, this is done in case you don't have Internet access.True, but apt can already use the cached list if it can't contact particular online repository servers. So in the case of no Internet access it would simply try the update, not connect, and then use the existing list.
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Quoting: CatKillerQuoting: F.UltraNot sure how Pop handles this but the full ISO from Debian and Ubuntu contains packages so until you do "apt update" you can install the older versions of packages from the disc, this is done in case you don't have Internet access.True, but apt can already use the cached list if it can't contact particular online repository servers. So in the case of no Internet access it would simply try the update, not connect, and then use the existing list.
True, and if I'm not mistaken Ubuntu since 20.04 (or perhaps earlier) does an automatic update during the install process.
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Philadelphus Nov 11, 2021
Quoting: HolzkohlenYeah, from my point of view it was a cautious success, and left a nice supportive comment on the video (which I'm sure will be lost among the 7,000 others) to let them know there are those of us cheering them on in their attempt. It's easy to overlook with Linus's situation, but Luke gets Linux Mint installed, gets Steam installed, and runs a game with no issues. In the first episode. His experience was basically boring (seeing as how no one is really talking about it), which is really encouraging! Meanwhile Linus manages to bork his first choice within fifteen minutes, yes, but instead of giving up for the day (an action I wouldn't blame anyone for doing at that point) he gives it a second go and gets a second distro installed. Sure it's got a sound bug, but that's probably something he'll be able to fix after a good night's sleep and a few hours of Googling, and will probably be straightened out in the second episode.Quoting: gradyvuckovicIt's easy to be disappointed by the first episode of this series and view it as a disaster.
I found it to be absolutely hilarious. I don't care about petty squabbles. No distro is perfect, linux is not perfect, but that is not why any of us use it. I also find it funny how the linux community as a whole seems to behave like a corporate PR department, thinking of this in terms of a PR disaster.
I for one am excited for the rest of this series. I had a blast watching the first one.
The overall tone was quite levelheaded and even, with no one smugly proclaiming Windows' superiority or Linux's inferiority, and no one angrily swore off Linux for life. I suspect (or at least hope) that with the public challenge to keep them using Linux for a month, by forcing themselves to stick with it they'll get over the initial hump of difficulties everyone new to Linux encounters and get into the smooth sailing regions well before the time is up. I'm sure they'll probably try playing some AAA games that don't work or maybe some complicated streaming setup that fails or something, but on the whole I expect the overall experience to be pretty painless after the initial few days.
Quoting: F.UltraI just wish they would get out of their "nobody should ever have to use the terminal mindset. The terminal is perhaps the thing that I love the most about Linux...Stephen Hawking said that, when he was writing A Brief History of Time, his publisher told him that for every equation he put in the book he would lose half his readership. He ended up including only a single equation, and the book became a phenomenal bestseller.
I suggest a corollary: every time you require use of the terminal, you lose half your potential user base. Let's face it, the majority of computer users are only barely comfortable handling a GUI in the first place. Requiring such people to use the terminal is like requiring people who are barely comfortable with arithmetic to solve non-linear partial differential equations. I absolutely agree that the terminal is one of the best parts of Linux, and people should be able to use it as much as they want; but I also believe that people having to use will probably see Linux's fraction of desktop usage never break a few percent. (This is where different distros come in; you can have a range of distros from "never need the terminal ever" to "doesn't have a window manager", and that's fine as people can self-sort according to their comfort level as long as there are beginner-friendly distros for them to start off with.) So I don't think that's an unreasonable point of view for a new-to-Linux user...
Last edited by Philadelphus on 11 November 2021 at 4:38 am UTC
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TheRiddick Nov 11, 2021
It's pretty embarrassing for System76 and they should reach out to Linus and work with him to get him to give it another try. Thought I think Linus has committed to Manjaro, lol. Now Manjaro devs are probably pretty nervous!
Last edited by TheRiddick on 11 November 2021 at 5:35 am UTC
Last edited by TheRiddick on 11 November 2021 at 5:35 am UTC
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