Linux

Do you guys just have flawless experiences or what?

When I was new to linux I had many issues but the longer I used it the less problems I had. I think its a combination of new users not understanding the different parts of linux and not understanding the linux way of doing things. That leads to a lot of tweaking which can cause more issues than it solves.

Now that i've been on linux for 4 years everything works as expected and this is after changing distros a few times. my systems are pretty much untouched in terms of root folder tweaks or anything. I would say to keep trying linux since its not 'boat life' constant maintenance over the long term.

Not flawless, but that's on me for insisting on a very particular look and workflow that involves lots of manual config editing.

It takes a while to get settled.

You have traded a perception of convenience for security, privacy and freedom.

Many people bounce back and forth for a bit, dont feel bad if you get fatigued and go back for a few. However, once you start using Linux, you'll start to see the truth about windows. You'll be back, even if you leave for a few.

Be patient, you'll learn the ropes and soon it will be second nature.

Also, your logs will tell you much. Uploading a log to an ai makes troubleshooting much easier.

If it makes you feel any better, I say the same thing about windows when I'm forced to use it.

It isn't just a different operating system, it's also a different workflow and set of habits.

Stick with it, it will reward you.

Nah, my Linux journey has been far from flawless. I troubleshoot stuff on Linux as much or more than I did on Windows.

My experience has indeed been flawless but that's simply because I don't have many use cases where flaws could appear. I use the Vivaldi and gimp on my t490 and play indie games on my steam deck.

You compare a machine that a vendor has prepared for windows to you preparing the pc for linux. It sounds like you did the setup. Alternatively, you could've paid someone to do that job for you. You could've bought a framework laptop with linux. It would work out of the box without any issues. And if there is one, you can blame framework.

Because I had issues with the distros I was using, I distro jumped. If the distro is perfect, there is little reason to jump. Ever since jumping onto fedora silverblue I don't do anything with the OS anymore. It just works. I mainly install flatpaks. Did you try a live usb with some distros before deciding upon ubuntu studio? You chose one niche distro and to me it sounds like you judge about all distros.

A distro is just a package manager and a set of settings and apps pre selected by someone. If those settings don't work out for you, it might be the wrong distro.

I had a lot of problems when I've used Ubuntu in the past. To be fair that was 2009 - 2012 and it was a much less mature product. But whether it's snaps, unity, or Ubuntu One integrations, they always seem to be doing their own thing in a way that's not particularly helpful.

I've had a much more "just works" experience with Fedora and Mint.

Not at all, but the benefits are worth it.

Every OS sucks. Linux sucks wayyy less tho

I'm on AMD, but I do still run into frequent issues. Normally with Ubuntu variations most things just work but not everything.

Linux is created mostly by unpaid volunteers, so it's gonna have it's faults. For so many reasons I'm inclined not to use Windows so finding that a feature doesn't work isn't a big deal for me.

The problem with Linux is that most distributions suck for beginners. People recommend Debian/Ubuntu because they're stable but that just means they don't get updated, not that they won't break. The obvious solution is to use Arch, which has the latest version of software and therefore does not break on new hardware. But that sucks too because Arch's goal is not that your setup works either, it's that you have the latest versions of software installed no matter the cost. OK, so I guess Fedora will be good because it's somewhere in the middle. Fedora is better but their non-free codec stuff is not great for noobs either.

I think the best recommendation is Pop! OS because it has none of the above issues. You will still have outdated software but at least not outdated drivers. Just use the defaults, don't change the desktop environment etc. If you install third party software in the .deb format, expect breakage when you eventually upgrade to a new release. Try to use flathub for that. Be aware that software on Flathub is user-submitted and may contain a virus. Check that it's verified by a trusted source, not just some random person's github website.

Then there is OpenSUSE Tumbleweed which I guess is pretty good too but it's hard to recommend to noobs because it's sort of esoteric and because you cannot install .deb packages from the internet on it. Finally there are the atomic distros which have the same issues but at least they should break less likely. If you only need software from flathub and what's available in the app store, they're fine.

idk why I wrote this but yes most distros don't "just work"

Flawless? Is anything really. I guess you could say Linux is an aquired taste. You get used to the maintenance aspect of it. I use Arch because I'm used to it and because it has great documentation. I have a NVIDIA GPU because I was told they work fine under Wayland now. Apparently people saying that only use their computer for games because I have graphical glitches in several apps and certain video codecs won't play now. So, you will make mistakes along the way. Although I think I'm having a better time with Linux + NVIDIA than my sister is with Windows + NVIDIA rn lol. Arch really is a better experience but it's not the best to start with. For that, I'd recommend Debian. Feel free to reach out if you have any specific questions, I'll see if I can be of any help. I've been doing this for a while because I'm a stubborn asshole who got tired of Windows reverting changes I made after every update.

you just need to learn linux, same as you did windows. things work differently, and it can be frustrating until you figure out how things work.

and just like windows, once you figure out your drivers and software and stuff, you will fly past it whenever you are setting up your linux box.

I also hate fixing issues but once you set your system up, with all correct nvidia drivers and couple other miscellaneous items (gnome extensions, config variables) it will be "smooth" sailing up until you reinstall.

Honestly, after tens of years of personal computing, there should be easier/more robust ways to run software and move windows around.

Bootstrapping and initcpio are workarounds for inadequate hardware imo.

As others have mentioned, an alternative distro ypu can try is Bazzite. It's an immutable distro, so most of the OS is read-only. The OS gets installed on 2 partitions (so you'll need roughly double the storage space) but you'll boot into one while updates get pushed into the dormant one. When the OS reboots, you'll get the recently patched partition while the older one waits for updates and also serves as a backup, just in case.

There's also Nobara, which is based on Fedora but with gaming specific addons. I think you'll be able to easily install nVidia drivers as well. It is also a rolling release distro so you'll get faster updates which I think is better if you want to game in linux.

I've tried a few different distributions and yeah, it varies.

It seems logical to get Ubuntu Studio for audio, but in my personal opinion it's kinda bloated. I've tried most of the included software at some point and decided that I'm not going to use it.

I'd rather have a clean simple distro and then just install Reaper for all my audio needs.

That has worked out great on both Mint and Puppy. I don't know about Ubuntu, because it's been several years since I tried that.

I did also install a few games on Mint, but nothing like AAA games, because the PC doesn't have a graphics card. I just play Minecraft and Sauerbraten. No issues with those.

Maybe I'm lucky, or maybe it's because it's old hardware or pretty standard laptops, but I'm also not trying much, so I also expect it to work.

Keep it simple. I think that might be the key, because I have seriously not had a single issue with anything, nor have I typed a single line in the terminal.

If I needed a multipurpose PC, I'd probably go with Mint as of now. I'd install one app at a time and figure out what I actual need instead of trying to make everything work at once.

That's what I'm doing with my DAW right now. One plugin at a time. If something doesn't behave, then I don't need it. When I turn on the PC to make music, I don't want to waste time fixing stuff. I'm totally over trying to fit a square block into a round hole. I've already tried that for too many years using Windows.

Surface Go 1: Had problems with my bluetooth mouse being slow to be detected. Also sometime it’s slow until I connect and disconnect the screen it’s hooked up to. Otherwise works flawlessly.

MacBook Pro 2012: Sometimes I have to reinstall some drivers for the wifi. Otherwise works flawlessly.

Both run Fedora 42. So I’d advise you to not give up and maybe just switch distro👍

We've all been there. It's super frustrating but once you've attained enough experience with a Linux OS you come to appreciate it and the problems either become less impactful or disappear as you learn to anticipate your actions causing said issues and adjust your behavior accordingly.

I've been a Windows user for multitudes longer than I've been a Linux user. It took me a few years to become a fairly advanced user of Linux. When I occasionally have to use Windows for work I still struggle to troubleshoot anything and am constantly frustrated knowing a task I'm doing could be many times simpler if I was on Linux.

Some distros are more fragile than others. Stuff like not having the Nvidia drivers installed by default (I'm assuming for the llvmpipe issue) are sometimes discussed in installation guides. IDK if Ubuntu has one since I don't use it.

Blink-based browsers (like Vivaldi, Chromium, etc.) IMO kind of suck on Linux (or at least Wayland). It's probably worse with Nvidia cards since Nvidia is still sometimes flaky on Wayland.

The LibreWolf issue is maybe not an issue at all. I'm assuming you mean RAM, and if so, browsers just like to eat as much memory as they're allowed to eat. If you open up something else and it needs the memory, LibreWolf will likely let go of some of it. There are probably some knobs you can dial in LibreWolf (or Linux kernel settings) if it's really an issue for some reason.

I only really have issues when I'm trying to set something up that's not already configured by the distro (or if I'm doing something particularly weird).