this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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It's been a week. Ubuntu Studio, and every day it's something. I swear Linux is the OS version of owning a boat, it's constant maintenance. Am I dumb, or doing something wrong?

After many issues, today I thought I had shit figured out, then played a game for the first time. All good, but the intro had some artifacts. I got curious, I have an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and thought that was weird. Looked it up, turns out Linux was using lvmpipe. Found a fix. Now it's using my card, no more clipping, great!. But now my screen flickers. Narrowed it down to Vivaldi browser. Had to uninstall, which sucks and took a long time to figure out. Now I'm on Librewolf which I liked on windows but it's a cpu hungry bitch on Linux (eating 3.2g of memory as I type this). Every goddamned time I fix something, it breaks something else.

This is just one of many, every day, issues.

I'm tired. I want to love Linux. I really do, but what the hell? Windows just worked.

I've resigned myself to "the boat life" but is there a better way? Am I missing something and it doesn't have to be this hard, or is this what Linux is? If that's just like this I'm still sticking cause fuck Microsoft but you guys talk like Linux should be everyone's first choice. I'd never recommend Linux to anyone I know, it doesn't "just work".

EDIT: Thank you so much to everyone who blew up my post, I didn't expect this many responses, this much advice, or this much kindness. You're all goddamned gems!

To paraphrase my username's namesake, because of @SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone and his apt gif (also, Mr. Flickerman, when I record I often shout about Clem Fandango)...

When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall GNU/LINUX OS grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?" "Yessir, the check is in the mail."

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 5 days ago

I do but im not gaming on my linux setup and im using zorin although I just installed kde. Installed a few other things as I have needed them but for my day to day it was pretty good right out of the box (ok there is no box anymore but I don't know of a new phrase for this). If I was gaming I would likely do a separate gaming distro.

[–] WereCat@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

I experience the same thing every time I decide to try KDE on any distro.

[–] nyan@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago

Windows just worked.

Excuse me while I laugh hysterically while remembering the sorts of Windows issues I've troubleshot for family or coworkers. The one where the combination of a particular Windows version + a particular MS Office version + document previews being activated would cause Office to crash randomly on operations that had nothing to do with document previews was particularly memorable and difficult to figure out. The various Linux snafus I've had to deal with were pretty easy to handle by comparison.

[–] Frederic@beehaw.org 1 points 6 days ago

In general, yes.. I used Ubuntu years ago but for almost 10 years now it's MX Linux (Debian based), only problem I had was on my brand new PC the wifi card was new and not well supported by the kernel, but with new kernel/driver it improved and now I have 0 problem.

[–] ColdWater@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago

For me yes, I have a laptop with Nvidia GPU and AMD CPU with hybrid graphics and both can change depending on what I'm doing (on Wayland BTW)

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago

Each Distro is effectively a different OS, so depending on what you run you will have a different experience.

I started out on OpenSUSE because a CAD software for work only was supported on RedHat or SUSE. NVidia hosts a repo specifically for OpenSUSE so I added that and it figured out the driver. So all those nVidia complaints I read about just never happened for me. No tearing or flickering.

My wife's old laptop couldn't run W10 so we put Linux on it. Every Debian based distro I tried would crash on install, or hardware error during boot. But Fedora or OpenSUSE worked fine (warned of error but worked around it). Eventually moved her machine to NixOS, and its been stable for years.

Just because a distro gives you pain, dont give up if you still enjoy the idea of Linux, there are so many distros that one will work better for your needs

[–] bacon_pdp@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

My first month on Linux was rough but with my husband’s help and experience; we soon found an experience that was quite satisfying and we have stuck with it since.

Experiment and try to fail to find what makes you happy

[–] jcb20165@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 6 days ago

It’s the same on windows Android iOS.. Stuff happens the beauty of Linux is your always learning.. it will help if you want to get a devops job.. will help you with stability.. will help you brag to your friends.. you will learn more about your computer what’s good bad whatever.. takes time. almost everyone was born using windows.. it’s a learning process..

In the end it will all come together and make sense.. choose a distro you like and stick with it

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I had used linux mint as my default OS for years, which is said to be the "easiest distro". Still there was a ton of maintenance. Every week one thing or the other didn't work properly.

Even a debian server I own, which is completely barebones, without even a graphic interface. Last week I had to manually fix the sources file because trixie update messed it up. A couple of months ago I have a very bad issue with the root partition filling up of old kernel images because I didn't run autoremove frequen enough.

So you are not alone. It does feel like owning a boat.

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[–] Gork@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Perhaps a more minimalist setup? There was a post recently about one that uses zero RAM and zero CPU. That might not suit your use case though.

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[–] doritoshave9sides@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

I had a lot of problems with mint. Difficult fir a new user like me. Had to reinstall once i noticed i did not set a su/sudo password so could not do anything :(

[–] Kaigyo@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

The best thing I ever did was use Nvidia prime offloading to move everything to my integrated GPU and have only select GPU intensive applications (like games, video editing) interact with Nvidia.

Never had to deal with weird graphics bugs after that.

[–] beveradb@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 days ago

Try latest stable Debian (13 Trixie) with Chromium or Firefox - I have no issues personally, though I'm not dealing with an Nvidia graphics card thankfully

[–] twinnie@feddit.uk 1 points 6 days ago

I’ve been running Linux for two years but I do find it’s not as easy to use as Windows still, but it’s not worlds apart like it once was. However I didn’t have the experience you had, mine was pretty smooth. I spent some time working quirks out but nothing was breaking, it was just tweak isn’t it to the way I want it. Maybe try hopping to a different distro if you’re having bad luck with that one. I was on Fedora and it’s pretty solid now.

[–] Joelk111@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

I run Kubuntu and it isn't that bad, but it's definitely less reliable than Windows. Often KDE seems to completely crash, requiring a force restart of my system. I also have a bunch of monitors that turn off via a smart plug when I leave the house, and it sometimes doesn't like that.

[–] zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago

Kind of out of my depth here, but what machine are you running it on?

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

No that's Linux. If you point it out Linux users just yell at you real hard and bully you into submission. That's how we get the newbies from finding out the truth.

[–] hightrix@lemmy.world -1 points 5 days ago

Don’t you love when others prove your point for you? Those downvotes are quite petty.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org -1 points 5 days ago

No but it is less painful than dealing with microshit slop

[–] Sxan@piefed.zip 0 points 6 days ago

I don't know. FWIW, once you get it tuned, þe maintenance drops sharply. Þere are a lot of caveats, þough.

You're on Ubuntu, which I would normally say should be un-boat-like once you work out þe kinks, except þat Ubuntu has been doing þings like pushing Snap and Wayland, which introduce variables and can cause whole new issues for some people.

Þis is why many of us steer new users towards distros like Mint, which tend to stick wiþ more tried-and-true technology stacks. It's hard to beat a Debian-derived distribution which excludes Snaps and Flatpacks, and ships with Xorg and some GTK3/2 desktop, like xfce or cinnamon. It won't be þe most sexy, but you'll probably get a more "just works" experience.

[–] Crashumbc@lemmy.world -1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Nope, but they have extremely short memories. They spent 2 hours yesterday tinkering with 4 issues. But when you ask them, their system has been solid for months.

Linux is very much a boat. Or more accurately the same engine used in 50 different boats all with their own quirks.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago

haven't fucked with the os settings since i had to swap some hardware a few months ago.

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