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I find that video cards are the reason for the overwhelming majority of stability issues on desktops and laptops for at least the last 15 years (they didn't see

I find that video cards are the reason for the overwhelming majority of stability issues on desktops and laptops for at least the last 15 years (they didn't seem quite as bad when those cards were much simpler), across all operating systems, including macOS (how many models have had stability issues related to discrete video card heat management or other shittiness? But windows laptops with discrete cards tend toward similar problems) so I'd bet it's that. Luckily, since I don't do anything with machine learning or 3D modeling or any of that, I can usually get away with using ultra-stable Intel video or something similarly bland. I only put a fancy card in this because I wanted it to double as a gaming rig. Win 10 on the same machine? Zero crashes in about a year. Linux in a VM on the same machine, hosted on Windows? No crashes. So it's probably the video card driver in Linux, not the hardware's fault exactly. Lemme see exactly the card.... Radeon RX 5500 XT. Not exactly cutting-edge even when I bought it—I usually shop bang-for-buck, plus deliberately went a little out-of-date since I was buying for a planned Linux machine. Probably would have gone Nvidia but I'm aware which one works better on Linux has flipped sharply since Way Back When, the last time I ran Linux on a machine with a discrete video card. Didn't matter, still broken. No clear cause of crashes. Would crash in a game, crash while browsing, crash editing text. Often I've been able to track Xorg crashes to a specific action (playing Flash on the first version of Ubuntu to use PulseAudio, for example) but not this time. Driver is (or was, for the couple months I made a go of it) just absolute shit with this particular card, I guess. ("but that's AMD's driver, not Linux's fault" OK, but that doesn't matter from my perspective, the machine was unusable for either work or gaming with Linux on it, unless, maybe, I crippled the hardware by using an open-source driver) [EDIT] that it did it in both Xorg and Wayland is another indicator it's likely a driver issue. It's that or bad memory, but Windows and Linux-in-VirtualBox-on-Windows don't crash, so I'm pretty sure that's not it.

bogwog 5y ago
So you’re saying Linux will crash frequently (1-2 times per day) with an RX 5500 XT? It shouldn’t be that hard to track someone down with that card to see if that’s true. Not that I think you’re lying, but you seem convinced that it’s the card’s fault while it could be something else. Also, > My experience is that desktop Linux is only tolerable (stable) in a VM or on extremely conservative hardware. That conclusion is not supported by anything you’ve written. All you can say is that, based on your limited testing (and many assumptions), the RX 5500 XT linux drivers were unstable at some point last year. For the record, I’ve been using desktop linux (Kubuntu) for the past 6~7 years with an Nvidia GTX 980 with zero issues whatsoever. I use it for both gaming and work, and never had the system crash on me. I even upgraded the CPU/Mobo/RAM and GPU (originally had a 970) during that time without any issues. No need to reinstall linux or anything ridiculous like that. It just worked as expected. And when I eventually decide to upgrade again, I’m extremely confident that I wont have to do a reinstall either, or worry about system stability because in my experience, Linux is very stable and has excellent hardware support.
- handrous 5y ago
  I've run Linux on lots of machines over a lot of years. It was my main desktop (well, laptop) OS on two devices over an ~8-year span, even. I don't think, based on fairly extensive personal experience, it's had a great position compared with Windows, on the stability and ease-of-maintenance dimensions, since Win7 came out and that OS got way more stable (arguably, since one of the service packs of XP, I forget which one—2, maybe?—whipped that OS into pretty decent shape, or maybe since 2K if we're allowing non-home-targeted versions). I'm not a Windows fan at all, but it's gotten far more stable while Linux in my substantial experience hasn't made much progress on stability, in a desktop OS context, specifically, where applications crashing with greater frequency or the windowing system crashing count against a platform, not just blue-screens and kernel panics. Major distros also have a bad habit of backsliding temporarily, but significantly, on stability with upgrades when major subsystems are changed out, in a way and to a degree that Windows and, say, macOS, do not (this is not a claim that those never have issues of this sort, mind you, they're just less frequent, less severe, and less long-lived, typically), and the alternatives are to use slow-changing distros that leave you hunting for sources for modern software to run on them when you need it, or stuck on old kernels without newer hardware support, or rolling distros, which are their own special stability risk. Meanwhile, most of the progress Linux has made on the desktop in the last 15ish years as far as features is lame, unhelpful-at-best GUI churn (to be fair, macOS and Windows are guilty of plenty of this, though not as much) and stuff that macOS and Windows already did better (very ordinary and basic wifi use not requiring you to learn yet another command line tool for something that's two clicks in a point-n-drool interface on other operating systems, stuff like that). Hell, one feature I'm now very interested in, which is X-Window-style remote applications (as are others, see: remote-Chrome-as-a-service as a business model) is stagnating tech that's on its way out, on Linux, not something the community is running forward with as a differentiator.
vcxy 5y ago
Hmm, with my 5600 XT I've never had a problem with Xorg or Wayland. I can't remember the last time my computer crashed. Just another data point, not trying to claim this wasn't happening for you.
- handrous 5y ago
  Oh, I'm entirely sure all the people reporting that their Radeon cards work great on Linux aren't liars. It must be fine for lots of people.
stryan 5y ago
> Lemme see exactly the card.... Radeon RX 5500 XT. Not exactly cutting-edge even when I bought it—I usually shop bang-for-buck, plus deliberately went a little out-of-date since I was buying for a planned Linux machine. AMD Navi cards have a known issue that causes those crashes[0]. It's believe to be a hardware issue since RMA'ing the card normally fixes the issue, but you're right in that it's something that only the linux driver seems to trigger. [0] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/892 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/892

bogwog 5y ago

So you’re saying Linux will crash frequently (1-2 times per day) with an RX 5500 XT? It shouldn’t be that hard to track someone down with that card to see if that’s true. Not that I think you’re lying, but you seem convinced that it’s the card’s fault while it could be something else. Also, > My experience is that desktop Linux is only tolerable (stable) in a VM or on extremely conservative hardware. That conclusion is not supported by anything you’ve written. All you can say is that, based on your limited testing (and many assumptions), the RX 5500 XT linux drivers were unstable at some point last year. For the record, I’ve been using desktop linux (Kubuntu) for the past 6~7 years with an Nvidia GTX 980 with zero issues whatsoever. I use it for both gaming and work, and never had the system crash on me. I even upgraded the CPU/Mobo/RAM and GPU (originally had a 970) during that time without any issues. No need to reinstall linux or anything ridiculous like that. It just worked as expected. And when I eventually decide to upgrade again, I’m extremely confident that I wont have to do a reinstall either, or worry about system stability because in my experience, Linux is very stable and has excellent hardware support.

handrous 5y ago
I've run Linux on lots of machines over a lot of years. It was my main desktop (well, laptop) OS on two devices over an ~8-year span, even. I don't think, based on fairly extensive personal experience, it's had a great position compared with Windows, on the stability and ease-of-maintenance dimensions, since Win7 came out and that OS got way more stable (arguably, since one of the service packs of XP, I forget which one—2, maybe?—whipped that OS into pretty decent shape, or maybe since 2K if we're allowing non-home-targeted versions). I'm not a Windows fan at all, but it's gotten far more stable while Linux in my substantial experience hasn't made much progress on stability, in a desktop OS context, specifically, where applications crashing with greater frequency or the windowing system crashing count against a platform, not just blue-screens and kernel panics. Major distros also have a bad habit of backsliding temporarily, but significantly, on stability with upgrades when major subsystems are changed out, in a way and to a degree that Windows and, say, macOS, do not (this is not a claim that those never have issues of this sort, mind you, they're just less frequent, less severe, and less long-lived, typically), and the alternatives are to use slow-changing distros that leave you hunting for sources for modern software to run on them when you need it, or stuck on old kernels without newer hardware support, or rolling distros, which are their own special stability risk. Meanwhile, most of the progress Linux has made on the desktop in the last 15ish years as far as features is lame, unhelpful-at-best GUI churn (to be fair, macOS and Windows are guilty of plenty of this, though not as much) and stuff that macOS and Windows already did better (very ordinary and basic wifi use not requiring you to learn yet another command line tool for something that's two clicks in a point-n-drool interface on other operating systems, stuff like that). Hell, one feature I'm now very interested in, which is X-Window-style remote applications (as are others, see: remote-Chrome-as-a-service as a business model) is stagnating tech that's on its way out, on Linux, not something the community is running forward with as a differentiator.

vcxy 5y ago

Hmm, with my 5600 XT I've never had a problem with Xorg or Wayland. I can't remember the last time my computer crashed. Just another data point, not trying to claim this wasn't happening for you.

handrous 5y ago
Oh, I'm entirely sure all the people reporting that their Radeon cards work great on Linux aren't liars. It must be fine for lots of people.

stryan 5y ago

> Lemme see exactly the card.... Radeon RX 5500 XT. Not exactly cutting-edge even when I bought it—I usually shop bang-for-buck, plus deliberately went a little out-of-date since I was buying for a planned Linux machine. AMD Navi cards have a known issue that causes those crashes[0]. It's believe to be a hardware issue since RMA'ing the card normally fixes the issue, but you're right in that it's something that only the linux driver seems to trigger. [0] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/892 https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/892