Linux is a pain in the ass
| 8 min read
I've been tinkering with my Linux gaming PC over the past few days. I found a decent deal on a Hisense 4K UHD TV. So suddenly I had a good display and could start installing the computer. The Videocard is still somewhere in customs limbo. And the upgraded Power Supply seems to have fallen off the map too, no idea when that will arrive. Thanks Amazon! But I figured I should get started with some Linux already.
First I installed, or tried to install, the 500GB Nvme ssd I bought. This is a secondary SSD in the computer where i want to store my games, Minecraft worlds and similar stuff like it. The already installed 256GB Nvme will be the bootdisk. Kingston in all its wisdom didn't include the mounting screw. So I left that for today and installed the computer with just the 256GB SSD. Surely installing an extra SSD in a computer with Linux is easy, right? Today I luckily could get a "installation kit" from a local computer store for a few pesos.
I haven't done any Desktop Linux since 2006 or so. With that in mind I fully expected that almost none of my knowledge would translate to modern Linux. Which turned out to be correct. Google Gemini will fill the gaps. But I also read in reviews that for what I was going to do, a fairly Terminal free experience would be possible these days. Which is absolutely incorrect. And Google Gemini also wasn't very helpful.
But, I didn't know that 2 days ago. So I blissfully dd'ed the Ubuntu ISO onto a USB thumbdrive and I set out to re-discover Linux and have some fun with it.
I've been looking forward to try out Linux Mint for about 2 years. As I alluded to last week, this didn't go too well. Simply because out of the box nothing would work. It looked ugly too. But, I realized I don't really care which OS my PC has as long as it's not Windows. It was quickly decided to go back to old trusty Ubuntu then. I've used Ubuntu 20 years ago on a Acer laptop, and despite its shortcomings, I remember quite liking it. That was version 6 or something. Yesterday I went with the more recent of Ubuntu version 24.04.5 LTS.
It promptly failed to format the 2nd disk and treated it like a USB thumb-drive when it finally managed to mount it. And just remounting it like a real SSD is of-course too easy. So I had to figure out a UUID, edit fstab, reboot the system. Then symlink the mounted folder to something my limited admin user could reach and reset all permissions so I could finally try to use my SSD. Yea, great innovations over the last 20+ years. Geez!
Anyway, when that was finally working, Ubuntu refused to install deb files - Notably the one for Jellyfin. It insisted on reverting to Snap every time it got the chance. I ended up downloading the deb from Github and run it outside of the app manager so it would finally install. Jellyfin did its thing and all seemed to work. But fear not though, of-course it was broken. The sound output was messed up - Same as on my Macbook Pro. But unlike my Macbook the settings for sound are seemingly ignored, and it quickly turned into a shitshow of trial and error with terminal commands.
I struggled with it for a few hours and along the way developed a strong dislike for how the Ubuntu GUI works. The limited Gnome dumbassery they created drove me nuts. Having to resort to terminal for basically everything because the GUI falls short was beyond annoying. When I finally had most of the technical stuff figured out and working, I ran into basic user issues. For example, I couldn't even adjust the Files Sidebar icons. Copy paste across programs didn't always work, or not reliably. Because why would it? And in general, I just didn't really like having the dock on the side of the screen, or the overall look of Ubuntu Gnome. Surely my inexperience with clicking through menus and navigating the settings app played a role in all this, but Ubuntu and me didn't connect with each other at all.
At first I figured I just had to adapt, learn to like it. Ubuntu is the bestest-most-popularest Linux after-all. User friendly too! And since I've been on MacOS for 18 years, an adjustment period is to be expected. But then I saw that Pop OS has a nicer kind of Gnome, Cosmic or something they call it. It looked so much nicer!
I did the dishes, helped my mom paint part of her kitchen and decided I should install Pop_OS!. It seemed like a step into the right direction. When I made the USB boot disk, the PC wouldn't allow it to boot like Ubuntu did the day before. No idea why. But I had to reset the BIOS. Not a great start. Things started to go downhill during setup. I was not allowed to set up the 500GB SSD, once again letting the system do whatever with it. Yes! It ended up being treated as a USB thumb drive again. So stupid. It's not even on a USB bus! Gemini actually provided the right commands for it to fix the stupid issue. And once it worked I went through the settings program and adjusted the color accent from purple to blue. I made the rounded corners less round and indeed, as I saw in screenshots and promotional material, Pop OS looks really good. I like the dark-ish theme. The rounded corners are just square enough now. And with a few small tweaks I was happy with it. Things were looking up, right?
But then I set up the sound output, because why would you detect the HDMI output that works, over the Analog out that isn't connected.
beep beep beep
Every 2 seconds the computer would beep at me, because reasons. This took me 2 hours to figure out. But I'm not sure what I did. A thing called pw-play would start, beep in panic, crash again. And restart, beep again, and crash. Just looping endlessly. But you wouldn't know that of-course, because errors at this level do not get a popup or alert dialog. Oh no! It just goes in a loop driving the user nuts for hours. I think updating the system helped. Otherwise reinstalling Pipewire might have done the trick. I don't know. Neither do I care. Why is the volume lowering itself with I accidentally adjust the left/right balance for sound? Who knows? Why won't wifi auto-connect? Yea why doesn't it!?!?!
Maybe because it's the year of Linux. The OS is finally good now. Good enough to go mainstream and take over the world.
No! It's not. Not even close. And anyone who says otherwise is an idiot!
Flatpak is supposed to be optional, or so I read in at least 3 reviews and comparison articles with Ubuntu. Fine, cool! I like that. But it appears that everything I want to install only comes as a flatpak. I stared at it and thought, whatever! I do not care anymore. If it's in the Cosmic store or whatever, I just click install and be done with it. Fucking bundled software nonsense, waste my disk space and impose sandbox limitations on my system? Sure! Clearly I'm not allowed to do what I want anyway.
Jellyfin kinda works, but of-course it won't transcode 5.1 sound to stereo. Even though everything on this system is set to Stereo. The Jellyfin server, the local client, everything ignores what I configure. No errors, no visible reasons. It just doesn't do what I configure. So I have movies without audible dialog. Great!
Minecraft took 3 hours to get going because Flatpak's sandbox sucks. Remember how I wanted my worlds and stuff on that secondary SSD? Yea, Flatpak hates that idea and I had to add custom paths to flatpak or something. Sure, just give me the command and I'll break the sandbox! I don't care! What's that? I can also install a deb for the Prism Launcher? Better think twice, because doing so causes the whole OS to fail. Yep, another hour lost on troubleshooting issues that shouldn't exist in the first place.
Gnome/launcher/whatever doesn't show half the icons for things I installed. Minecraft has a grey generic Gear Icon. Jellyfin has no icon at all and is just a transparent hole in the dock and app launcher. I installed an RSS reader, it had that same generic grey icon, but after a reboot it got a newpaper icon. Yea ok. I'll just hover programs with the mouse and look for the program label... Does it otherwise work? Then I don't care anymore.
Luckily Flatpak is optional though... Not!
And despite it having like 3000 regions and locales installed there was no Dutch locale for numbers and dates. I can just download it, with yet another terminal command, because the UI falls short. But come on! Why?! Why would you have a fairly common region like that not installed? Especially since ubelibubelistan, and 30 obscure variations of spanish and english are included.
But! I did set a nice Rick and Morty wallpaper though, it didn't crash! It didn't give errors! Maybe it is the year of Linux after all! Stupid Linux!
I bet even Windows 11 is beter than this. I probably should've kept that installed.