Arch User Reacts To Linus Tech Tips Linux Challenge Pt 2

The second episode of the Linus Tech Tips linux challenge is out and this time we're tackling game streaming under linux, this is something I am incredibly familiar with so I hope the commentary I add gives some extra context for why and how the issues occur

==========Support The Channel==========

==========Resources==========

=========Video Platforms==========

==========Social Media==========

==========Credits==========
🎨 Channel Art:
All my art has was created by Supercozman

#LinusTechTips #Linux #LTT #LinuxGamingChallenge #GamingOnLinux

🎵 Ending music

DISCLOSURE: Wherever possible I use referral links, which means if you click one of the links in this video or description and make a purchase I may receive a small commission or other compensation.

[BrodieRobertson]

The fact that Windows treats bat and powershell files differently isn't an argument against my point that Windows also doesn't let you double click to start powershell script files, if anything it's a design flaw in Windows that it's configured like that by default. It should be treating them the same way and if you want it to there is a way to change it

[crazychicken]

The time of the month where all my favorite Linux video makers react to LTT

[backspacer]

Woah, just noticed Luke installed the Flatpak version of OBS that's found in the Linux Mint sofmanager, a true warrior right there

[ktpro]

"Unofficial" being interpreted as "Unsupported" seems reasonable as "Unsupported by 1st party" which can be perceived as incomplete or buggy. Coming from a closed-source to FOSS it is an expectation reinforced by basic things like Nvidia closed drivers vs nouveu. I'm glad Linus has taken this on and the community is reacting to it as this is another push that can get Linux over the line. I've had Linux running on VMs, SBCs and on special purpose appliances and haven't changed to it for gaming because I don't want to spend days of limited gaming time diagnosing why the desktop doesn't work.

[Mennenth]

as for that end segment... It is absolutely a mindset thing, but I think the frustration is totally warranted and not unfair at all. An average user is NOT going be excited to switch to linux with zero expectations of things working; their computer and peripherals were working totally fine before, so it is absolutely reasonable and valid to expect they should continue to work. And trying to get the average user to change their mindset is basically a Sisyphean task (for the past 6+ years I've been trying to demonstrate to people that if they just take the time to learn a new skill, the Steam Controller is actually an incredibly powerful controller... no luck. And thats just a controller, not an entirely new way to use their pc as a whole).

Its why I dont blame Linus at all, not even the 20% or whatever he wanted to take ownership of in the wan show, for nuking his desktop environment due to that bug that thankfully has been precluded at this point. Anyway... To the average user, installing Steam is routine. It should never throw an error. When it did, its almost as if the error doesnt register because its so far out of the norm for an average user - especially when the command line is involved - that they are basically blind to it because all they want to do is install steam and this is frustrating and do as I say and install steam. Its why I think changing the confirm message to "yes break my system" isnt going to work either; installing steam shouldnt break the system what is this nonsense? The average user isnt even going to be aware its a red flag until they've made that mistake.... and honestly the average user will likely give up at that point and go back to windows/mac.

The truth is that while Linux *can* work... it is no where near in a state it can be viable for the average user. Everything from hardware compatibility (goxlr, canon cameras, etc), to all the tiny concessions that get made (not all obs settings working, audio being ehhh at times due to sample rate issues they never faced before, etc), to the - as they put it in the wan show - whole using the command line as a crutch (for the average user, linux is competing with os' that yes do have a command line but its rarely if ever needed because a gui exists for basically everything)...

I look forward to getting my Steam Deck and seeing what I can do with Linux, but LTT's daily drive for a month challenge is giving me significant concerns. I've got a bunch of projects going on in my life right now. While I dont mind learning a new OS, I DONT have the time to be constantly fighting my system just to get things to function as they should.

[ivanjarmoluk]

I think technically the lack of device support is a developer problem, and usually there are workarounds, but that fact doesn't change that the average user expects their hardware to work. Whether it's official software or robust community made software, hardware in general needs better compatibility to continue to make Linux a more viable option for average users.

What you said about how you should expect nothing to work is a good way to approach it if you're excited to switch to Linux, but if you're an average user just looking for a Windows/Mac alternative, that's absolutely terrifying, and the vast majority of people will choose to keep their hardware rather than re-purchase and re-learn more compatible stuff.

[jiraphat]

14:45 Totally agree, we should stop advertise that Linux can work without restart. My machine can restart in 15 seconds. I'm not going to jump though 2hr tutorial to have a chance that my system can work without restart. Every time I update my arch, something always stop working in a weird way (network slow, no sound, can't detect usb drive, etc), restart machine always solve them.

[danflumerfelt]

I appreciate Linus's brutally honest approach. Especially as it will be seen as a call to action by developers (Pop!_OS has already begun work to make sure nobody will ever again experience what Linus did)

But it is frustrating that Linux gets treated as a second class citizen because Windows is king of the hill.

[ARVash]

It seems like this genuinely is very good for linux distros because they're highlighting experience issues both with products and distros that are likely to hit a new user regardless of how dumb, who want to game and stream which is an audience we _should_ be targeting. Especially in prep for the influx of users post steam-deck. Some of these are going to be fixed like hourse or days after the video goes live, and it's a sign that maybe we need more things like this. We've gotten so (rightly) defensive to people mindlessly shitting on linux that I think sometimes we get defensive in a way that prevents important growth. I do agree that running scripts as the default is probably a dangerous default, extremely convenient as a developer though.While I certainly think it's aspirational to think that everything should just work, I do think it's attainable at least for 80% of users. I do blame github for the right click download, and I think it's dumb as hell that it works the way it does presently. I'm nearly certain there is a way to have a different target for download than for navigate, even just a simple download button would be good.

[thrik]

Overall great video, I like your content more every time I see it.

Linus and Luke are approaching this to see if Linux can be switched to without any compromises imo, which is reasonable based on how the community often refuses to admit this is the case lol.

Some more specific thoughts:

3:14 - Apt - you are the only Linux veteran I've seen with this take! It's so common sense, I've brought it up before but was shot down. It's especially important for "apt-get" because many Window users considering Linux have heard of apt, but haven't heard of pacman for instance.

4:30 - OBS (unofficial support) - it's not too hard to empathize and realize from the POV of someone who might consider OBS "unofficial" support to be a "hack-job".

7:22 - Keyboard Master - I wonder if this just came up as the first result on a Google search, so Linus concluded it was popular. On Windows for a similar situation, this wouldn't be an unreasonable conclusion to draw. He's also very busy and has a family - he might have had more time to research on these topics if he was younger.

16:10 - Pacman, Pamac - it's not unreasonable for Linus to be confused about Pamac not including flatpaks and snaps by default if he didn't know the history and context of these things

20:50 - Luke driving to the store to pick up a cord for this camera - Luke isn't yet invested in Linux to the point of rationalizing wanting to buy new hardware for it, which is reasonable at this stage. That's something that comes later on as one grows to appreciate Linux more.

[Fernando-ekjp]

I like your tone and take. You try and keep an open mind and go through how something might make sense to think even if it's not the optimal solution.

[iodreamify]

12:00 about scripts on Windows, it seems to be true for Powershell but what about .bat and .cmd batch files? I often come across batch scripts which you can execute just with a double click and editing it is a secondary option in the right click menu. Executing it launches a cmd.exe terminal window and it does its thing. If it needs an input, lets say a folder it's going to be working on you can even drag and drop the folder onto the script in the file manager and it will still work instantly. On Linux i pretty much always first have to open a terminal and only then execute the script or binary from within the terminal and provide arguments if it needs any.

Or what if i have a binary executable on Linux which needs to be run in a terminal? i believe double clicking it does nothing whereas on Windows it will open up a terminal window.

[SapioiT]

11:40 Actually, Windows has a system for managing in which app each extension should be opened. That means that, with a few clicks, you can have your sh scripts be opened by the script-running executable, or by whatever other application you want it to. Only .exe, .msi, and I think there was one more, don't have that option, and that is because they are opened as applications, so people don't brick their system. So no, in this particular case, you are not correct. For example, there are tools to have a .php file open in a browser with the localhost address of that file ran through the server, in Windows, for example. So although .php is a script, one can have it run like an executable, by having it opened with an application which does that. It might be more dangerous than opening the file with a text editor, but then again, that's why different files have different icons, and executables can have any icon, so people know what they are risking by opening said file/executable. By the same logic, running a random script off the internet is the same, since most people don't read a long script line-by-line to understand what it does, they just run the thing and hope for the best. Sure, it might be open-source and all that, but that doesn't change the risk factor, just makes it slightly more likely for people with the know-how to find exploits, and that both makes it more likely for the bugs to be fixed, and makes it more likely for the bugs to be exploited, so not much has changed there. Honestly, I hope for the day when Linux will become more like Windows from that point of view, and when apps like Wine and Lutris would allow us to just double-click a Windows app and have it magically working, even at a loss of efficiency.

[olegurvingurigard]

for clarification, I think Linus is comparing *.sh and launching in shell to Windows *.bat files which does by default run in CMD

[hojjat]

3:45 I guess he kept typing the command and automatically typed "yes" and somehow ended up with "yes sudo apt-get install obs-studio" which would be an infinite loop of that command.

[deth]

On Windows there is a system environment variable called PATHEXT which specifies which file endings get executed.
By default it is set to .COM .EXE .BAT .CMD .VBS .VBE .JS .JSE .WSF .WSH .MSC

[phenixnunlee]

My biggest complaint was that the go XLR officially is Windows exclusive. Legit can not even use with Mac OS so legit the worse choice for this purpose

[jellowiggler]

I think the LLT Linux desktop evaluation is pretty fair from Linus and Luke. They are both above the average knowledge level user, and both still having some issues. People should expect their computers to just work. When you get to the end-user level things should just work, period. I think the difference is that Linux on the desktop isn't there. It might never be there without direct hardware company support. You can only get so far on enthusiasts' backs.

[MrBrannfjell]

I hope you continue with these "new daily drive linux" reacton videos. Not neccesarily only for this LTT challenge series, but other people who wants to document their experience getting started with Linux. I find your comments and resolutions insightful and interesting, and reacting to new people in the scene allows us to be exposed to all these issues that otherwise would go unforseen. (as well as building a solution for them).

For instance, I think its awesome that Pop!_OS is now defacto harder to break, because everybody watched the first LTT video, and the devs immediately came up with a solution to the problem.
(You can no longer nuke the GUI by an install command in the terminal without doing some novice-level stuff that conveys your intention of breaking the system)

And I dont think I'm the only one who enjoys this content, it seems to be growing this channel, giving you alot of views on these type of videos.

[Zibouloubloub]

I started using Linux just last week, I actually picked it up after watching Linus' pt.1 video. I would say his frustration is warranted but has also showed the possible hurdles and challenges when switching to Linux. Watching reaction videos like yours or others also helps troubleshooting and learning from their mistakes. If Linus had not pointed out an issue, I would not search for it or it's possible solution otherwise and would have been stuck frustrated. For example I've ended up choosing Garuda as my starting distro, I also used 'apt' or 'apt-get' as my first command because I've known 2 people in my life who used Linux and both of them are using Ubuntu. I'm slowly getting the hang of things, and I learn new things every day when watching channels like Brodie's, Tech Hut, or Distro Tube.