Just giggled as my last meme mentioned trouble with displays and appropriately, a large chunk of the replies were “well MY displays work just fine!” (And charmingly, many were thoughts of things to check, other distros etc. It’s a very kind community, though that may also be the fediverse.)
The linux user community is its own worst fucking enemy
It’s not TOO bad around here, but when I was on a Linux binge on Youtube, some people in the comments there genuinely just don’t want other people to move to Linux. That’s not my words, it’s theirs. They flat out don’t want new Linux users or for Linux to grow… but they use it.
Sorry, linux is full, go away.
The internet was a great place before the everyone started using it and the corpos got onboard. I think that’s where that attitude comes from.
I can sort of understand this instinct. I am not opposed to new people using linux but I think the obsession with “growth” is the wrong way to think about software tools.
The way most companies make adoption of their software system grow is by making it more convenient to use, then exploiting network effects to force more users on to their platform. For the vast majority of people “convenient to use” means a locked down environment where they have little or no control and don’t have to make technical decisions.
Right now to use a Linux OS you are going to have to do a little bit of learning and make some decisions. The requirement that you actually think about an OS for a few minutes acts as a significant barrier for a lot of people, but removing that barrier results in a product that does not allow the user to control their software. Which I think would be bad.
I can sort of understand this instinct. I am not opposed to new people using linux but I think the obsession with “growth” is the wrong way to think about software tools.
For me, “growth” is a means to an end, not the end itself. I want Linux saturation. Largely, I view Linux more as a project to empower good and smart people against stagnant stupidity and reactionary evil of (most of) the super wealthy. Unfortunately, this means taking on masses of fucking morons on board the linux train. If you don’t have that network effect, you are throwing away power, and our enemies will never do that. They will always grab on to and hold in a death grip every piece of power and leverage they possibly can.
So smart and good people (linux experts/devs) need to understand that if they want good things, they need to be willing to fight ruthless (but stupid) monsters, and that also requires ruthlessness and morally grey thinking. And it means accepting the dirty masses into their smart people club, in fact encouraging them in (maybe some of those dumb fucks will stop being dumb by way of being pulled in).
christ, imagine being so sad a person you build your special personality around a friggin OS.
If Linux becomes common, then they won’t be a ‘special haxor’ anymore. Can’t be having any of that you know.
Over the years, I have seen less and less of the ‘RTFM noob’ attitude and Linux forums becoming more welcoming and accepting of new users. But assholes still exist and won’t ever go away. But they do make a good match with the newcomers that expect to have everything work just like it did in Windows or even Mac because they’ll be damned if they are going to learn something new and different. And yes, they exist. Why those people even try Linux is beyond me, but you do run into them if you spend time hanging out in forums.
but when I was on a Linux binge on Youtube, some people in the comments there genuinely just don’t want other people to move to Linux.
Probably Microsoft bots attempt at keeping Windows alive.
Probably Microsoft bots attempt at keeping Windows alive.
Yes. I think no one really knows how much this happens, but I keep seeing evidence that it is happening much more than that average person suspects.
If you convince someone to try Linux, you give them all the emotional and intellectual support they need, for this is the law.
Look, you’re harming our effort to convince people that there are no bugs in Tux-Sing-Se. How are we gonna get people to switch unless we pretend that all is perfect and flawless? Because clearly, that’s what Windows users expect…
(sarcasm)
Of course there are no bugs in Tux-Sing-Se. When i moved there, I had an absolute bug free experience and only needed one small hour to get my Bluetooth headphones working!
There are no bugs in Tux-Sing-Se, only user error.
I feel you brother, specially if you have missmatched displays, if you mention it, it’s staright up your fault somehow.
How mismatched do they have to be though?
I have 2 monitors, 1 Benq, another MSI. 1 @ 60Hz and another @100Hz.
When I move a window with VSync to the 100Hz monitor, it starts doing 100Hz and changes back to 60Hz when I move it back to the 60Hz monitor.
It works fine when I 90° one of them.Though the resolution and screen dimensions (hence pixel pitch) are the same. So is it one of these that needs to be different?
How mismatched for it to cause problems or for it to be enough for people on the internet blaming it on that? In both cases I don’t know tho.
I haven’t visited the issue in a couple of years so hopefully that’s not a thing anymore
Currently my displays work fine too, different refresh rates and bit depth (but not really, dithered 6 bit or smth).
To cause problems that is.
If I can reproduce the problem, I might be able to think what might be causing it.I’ve had issues with wildly mismatched display sizes: 13" netbook docked to a 72" monitor.
…while I had “mirror my display” enabled…
Even then, I’ve only seen any issue in a few niche proprietary apps.
And rest assured, my life partner already makes fun of me for enabling “mirror displays” in this setup.
It actually mostly just works though!
I see.
I haven’t tried mirrored displays (just never needed it). Perhaps I can try that out if I get a different size/res monitor.
My 100Hz display can do 60Hz, so I am expecting it to just drop to that when I mirror them with this setup.
Mine are old and can’t think of a concrete one, ask op, theirs are more recent
I’ve never heard of that being an issue before, people get upset over that? My displays are different too with 2 1080p and a 2k
I’ve seen people being shat on for crazy things, my personal favorite is when the only solution given to a problem is buy something better
Despite it’s reputation, I don’t remember anyone being unkind even in the arch forums, worst cases I would describe more so as inconsiderate. We all lift together, after all
Those donkeys are very cute
-hey, you should switch to Linux now, it’s way better than Windows 11, everything works and the community is very helpful
-what? you’re having some issues on Linux? uhh, skill issue, go back to windows lolI have been in the Linux community for a decade now and I have yet to see anyone recommend someone go back to Windows
I tried mint and that’s exactly what I was told to do when I have a complaint.
Just one more distro man, I swear it’ll solve everything this time man
I literally had this reaction from a someone recently. I commented that I had trouble installing a specific program, so I switched back to windows for now. I was not looking for advice, it was just a post asking about recent Windows user’s experience switching to Linux, so I shared my experience and that I had the intention to try again because I want off Windows.
Dude commented like I’m just a dumb dumb who didn’t follow the numerous instructions online (I did) because it’s so easy to install on Linux (doesn’t change my issue) that their mom could do it (again, still doesn’t change that I had issues).
I’ll be trying again soon, but I can understand why some folks would be turned off of Linux because of that.
People don’t use the correct terms when describing things. Linux users are very helpful, but some people are much more DIRECT and don’t want to hold your hand, just like the Arch community. Ask a dumb question, get a smart ass response. But still read all of them and then you will eventually find the solution to your problem.
I have been able to fix all the issues i had with linux after a few weeks of trial and error. Now i have linux running on several computers and things just work. When they don’t, you know there are 50 Ubuntu help threads to get you the information you need.
Have a windows issue? Good luck even getting windows to acknowledge the problem, let alone fix it.
I used to be a dual monitor guy on my gaming rig, but there were a few times I had issues with display (usually playing older games like Underlord)
So I just became a single monitor guy, but its a big monitor
i will say that wayland has solved a lot of multimonitor issues, although most games where i have monitor issues in my dual monitor setup can be fixed by ensuring the monitor i want to play on is at 0,0 on the layout. sone fames are weird about that
I’m personally allergic to doing anything to my distro other than installing games and VSCodium.
Its why I barely understand the X11 v Wayland discussion. I have no idea how to customize my Linux set up, if a troubleshooting step says “May bork computer if done wrong” I just reinstall the Distro or try another one. It takes like 5-10 minutes to install Linux on most modern computers
To me this is a feature of Linux. “It works on my distro” means I’m using that distro now!
These days you can just go for wayland, anything that still requires x11 will just launch under xWayland being normal x11 session within your wayland session (like steam, for example)
These day you can just go for wayland, anything that still requires x11 will just launch under xWayland being normal x11 session within your wayland session (like steam, for example)
Yes. That describe my experience well!
I’m vaguely aware of the big transition, but I’ve felt like Mr Magoo walking blind through it all and luckily missing any headaches.
I did have one intermittent issue that I blamed on Wayland in my heart. But I recently discovered it was actually an issue with my hardware.
The argument about X11 and Wayland is pretty much over. All the major distros, Fedora, Open Suse, even Debian. And DEs, like Gnome and KDE, have fully committed to Wayland and the smaller DEs, like Cinnamon and Budgie, are in process to make the switch. Only a small handful smaller distros have stomped their feet and said no to the switch so far. So that’s not really an issue anymore.
And having lived through the RPM Hell, unmet dependencies, compiling drivers and custom kernels, and unsupported hardware years, if I have issues with a distro that I can’t solve in a few days of goggling and effort, then I’m either going to live with it or I’m out.
But sir, I am not fucking a donkey, I am typing text with keyboard!
edit: meant to be a language pun, nothing more
YOu poking keyboard!
Oh my © 😀
Your meme about displays got me to go fix the 4k60 output on my PC. I use a TV as my screen and the EDID it reports us borked and leaves it off so I had to make a custom EDID and inject it at boot.
10/10 way easier than it sounds, annoyed I had to use a popular windows program to do it though because the first copy I found of the app I needed had a Trojan (thanks VirusTotal for confirming I’m not crazy for checking every exe no matter how official looking).
Why tf do we not have an EDID editor?
On Mint and some screen issues as well
Mint is still on X11, pretty much all other distos switched over to Wayland by now, which works much better with multi-monitor setups.
There’s a subforum in the mint forums about this, and this is the reason why I don’t recommend mint for newbies anymore.
Out of curiosity, what do you recommend instead?
Depends on user…
If a user is ok with using terminal to install apps and is reading outputs of commands, I recommend endeavourOS, because it is very nice having yay finding any apps you need (but nvidia driver setup has to be done in terminal and you have to check, that you have the right dependencies) Edit: TIL, if you choose NVIDIA proprietary in bootmanager of EndeavourOS iSO, you are ready to go
If user is not happy with rolling, debian would be next choice, but still not a set and forget, and apps have different ways to be installed and often you have to add sources to ATP)
If a user want it do just work and being modern, I would point them to fedora/bazzite (damn, don’t know how to write, but the gaming first distro that is very steamOSy)
And if a user does not at all want to anything on OS level and is therefore fine with using snaps, I would lead to Ubuntu most recent version (was positive amazed on how good it became as I had to setup one at work)
Edit: Bonus for people who dislike terminal but still want rolling updates: openSuse Tumbleweed, you can install anything by gui, and there is a website with apps similar to the AUR where you can search apps and install them using a single click Package manager is full GUI as well. It updates itself every time you turn off your PC, what I very much like
I’m leaning more and more to recommending Atomic distros for newcomers now. Fedora SilverBlue or Kinonite are excellent choices. Bazzite or Aurora for gamers. It’s pretty hard for newbies to mess up their install and rolling back to a working install is easy if you do. All the while letting users install software without effort through flatpacks and appImages. Even updates can be automated easily.
You can also switch between all of the ones you named using
ostree rebaseor so, which is pretty rad
Bazzite is a good option.
Had issues with screen flickering in grey while on Wayland on a laptop computer
I can’t get the monitor to stay off. Something keeps getting it to turn back on, which is annoying because I have 3 devices plugged into it. So instead of me coming back to another device and both monitors turn on and to that device, this monitor is just always showing the one device and i have to switch the input.
I can’t get the monitor to stay off…
This is just a shot in the dark, but:
I recently learned enough about the differences between HDMI and DisplayPort to boil them down in my mind to “HDMI Bad. DisplayPort Good.”
Wild oversimplification, I know.
So now, whenever I have display issues of any kind, the first thing I do is upgrade the cable to a DisplayPort cable.
I mention this specifically because I have felt like my monitor wake and sleep behavior became more predictable.
Sorry, this idea really is mostly vibes. (Informed by my perception that HDMI has a crazy amount of control signaling which itself is proprietary and inconsistently implemented.)
But for the cost of an $8 cable, I feel like swapping in a DisplayPort has led to better display outcomes for me.
You know what, it is hdmi. That’s not a crazy idea. The ports are hdmi on both ends though, the monitor has a displayport but my desktop is using it and the mini pc has 2 hdmi outputs. I wonder if adapter-cable-adapter would do anything for me in that case.
Yes.
I’m always nervous about those little black-box mysterybadapters, but I have used them and had them be fine.
I don’t really know enough about how HDMI works to say if it helps as much as native DisplayPort at both ends.
I suspect it might help, since some DRM will fail open when it can’t negotiate a restriction. And I imagine those dongles require keeping things simple.
My use of the adapted setup has been rare - mostly due to not having many such adapters on hand when I’m setting things up.
Anyway, I feel a little bad passing on my superstition; but it seems to have helped me.
Worth a shot, I guess.
Weird 👀
Yeah, I tried to look into it and never figured it out. Just for clarity as I reread my comment, by on/off I mean the monitor going to “sleep”.
Ooh, makes more sense
Screens are for Windows n00bs.
Hell yea, pros use braille
If you need feedback on your inputs, it just means your inputs are too imprecise.
I type in morse code and receive the output in braille
Yeah, it does take some malice aforeskin when choosing hardware. It doesn’t take much anymore. But you do need to consider what you are using and what features you expect to work.
It seems it’s always best to be just a bit behind the bleeding edge of technology when committing to a any distro. If you want to be on that edge, you should expect to bleed every now and then.
If you want to be on that edge, you should expect to bleed every now and then.
Exactly. And alternatively, buy bleeding edge hardware that ships with Linux pre-installed…and then bleed a little anyway, because it is still the bleeding edge, haha.
Sort of related, but I recommended against my teen getting a Mac laptop for college because it is different and he wasn’t familiar with it. While that’s not obstacle for us techies, it seems to be for normies. However he has had no issues.
In case that extrapolates to Linux …. A different UI, different paradigms, aren’t necessarily an obstacle to normies
I have trouble using Mac. Besides that it sucks, last time it was my main machine was almost 10 years, so I don’t remember basic stuff.
Does that make me a normie? ☺️☺️☺️
