4 ms·

Linux is great! And, thanks to Steam, a lot of games wirk as well. Not all, but most. Ubuntu, I haven't tried anything else so far, is a charm on Lenovo hardwa

by hef19898 3y ago

Linux is great! And, thanks to Steam, a lot of games wirk as well. Not all, but most. Ubuntu, I haven't tried anything else so far, is a charm on Lenovo hardware. Update wise, it is were Windows was a couple of years ago. Meaning there are random updates that just kill and break certain functions. Happened last week, everything was running fine, including steam, as it always did. Until an update managed to delete the GUI, reinstalling the GUI killed nVidia drivers, Steam couldn't be installed under 23.04 for some missing dataset, installing said data (some 32-bit stuff) killed WiFi... No attack on Linux so, I rember that not too long ago I stopped all Eindows updates because for months the auto-updates had the same effect (save the WiFi bit). So yes, my dqily, private driver is Linux. And will be, except for games, for the time being. All I uave to do now, well after vacation, is to get Steam running properly again. Feels like a throwback to the pre Win 10 days, when Windows randomly did the same thing with regards to drivers and certain games / programs.

erwincoumans 3y ago
It would be great if Linux had some automatic checkpoints so you can revert to a working system after an update. So many times updates leave a broken system and re-install Ubuntu from scratch is quicker than fixing the problem.
- aednichols 3y ago
  Check out immutable distros like Fedora Silverblue & Kinoite.
- tracker1 3y ago
  I haven't had that happen for a few years now... I will say the RX 5700 XT had a really rough few months after launch on Linux. Other than that, it's been relatively smooth. Mostly been using PopOS and Ubuntu-Budgie.
- joshspankit 3y ago
  Once NixOS is desktop-ready you’ll have a way more powerful checkpoint system
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
  NixOS has this by default, on any filesystem. You can also do it with ZFS or BTRFS filesystem snapshots.
- justinclift 3y ago
  Some Linux distros actually do this. :)
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  Bootable snapshots are a thing, also known as boot environments. You need to use ZFS or btrfs, or possibly bcachefs or LVM offer them. And they never have seemed to have a great implementation on Linux compared FreeBSD, but they do exist.
  - tredre3 3y ago
    > but they do exist. And here's the crux of it, isn't it? Unless it's accessible and enabled by default, it might as well not exist from the PoV of the end user. Windows' restore points happen automatically before updates or driver updates. Then you're prompted automatically to restore if Windows fails to boot after an update. As usual Linux has all the pieces but no desire to create UX to go with it. Which is a shame because ZFS with automatic snapshotting daily or before major events combined with a simple UI that can run in the preboot environment would be a game changer and make Windows look like a toy.
    - dizhn 3y ago
      OpenSUSE Tumbleweed has this. The installer defaults to btrfs and snapshots using snapper. Snapshots are automatic before and after every package manager operation. Save for something that breaks grub, you can always recover.
      - bravetraveler 3y ago
        In that spirit, if you have an EFI system, you don't need GRUB
        boomboomsubban 3y ago
        You sort of do if you want to boot kernels on btrfs. Refind is an option, but not most of the other EFI bootloaders.
        bravetraveler 3y ago
- michaelmrose 3y ago
  To be pedantic It's impossible for "Linux" to have this as this exists way higher than the kernel or even the filesystem layer. Linux mint has timeshift. The now defunct Project Trident installer set up a zfs root with zfsbootmenu and an update script that automatically sets up a boot environment you can revert and boot from with the built in feature of zfsbootmenu. Both let you achieve your goal. You can set up either system even if they aren't built in.
  - rkagerer 3y ago
    A lot of comments here say Timeshift is crap - do you find it helpful yourself and can you elaborate on what works / doesn't? https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/timeshift https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/timeshift
    - michaelmrose 3y ago
      I have not personally used timeshift. I have used zfsbootmenu and syncoid found it useful and fit for purpose. Personally I think its more reasonable to separate boot environments from backing up as they are two separate if related concerns. EG boot environments are for when something went wrong with an update and backups are for when your drive failed. If both went wrong you just do both operations in sequence restore from backup and THEN pick the prior boot environment and make it the default. Insofar as timeshift consider the review source, circumstances, and nature of complaints. Users who don't have difficulties rarely post anything and yet many reviews are positive. Those that aren't seem to focus on people who didn't realize they could provide a secondary drive and just kept storing data until their OS drive filled up. Mint leans heavily towards technically incompetent users and yet many people were able to use it successfully. Meeting every users needs no matter how incapable is probably a poor benchmark to define if somethings is "crap" or not even if those users problems are are a great guideline to a path forward to helping all users better. For instance it might be better if timeshift only supported a fs with snapshots instead of rsync and required a secondary disk and warned of space issues long before the disk fills up but it seems quite possible to competently use it right now.
- usr1106 3y ago
  OpenSUSE had this 7 years ago when I last used it. I think they still have it, it's called snapper. Not that I would really have turned any Linux significantly non-functional by updating during the last 15 years. But it's all software, so everything can happen one day...
bee_rider 3y ago
It is unfortunate that people recommended Ubuntu as a starting distro for so long. It does too much. It will update things for you, or give you a pop-up to tell you to update. Updates happen all at once, rather than a little at a time, so you get these big dramatic updates with combinatorial bug explosions. Maybe the repos will be gone if you don’t update in time. Maybe your favorite packages have moved from apt to snap. Good luck! A rolling release distro like Arch would be a better first experience for most people I think. Linux is not where Windows was years ago. Software gently rolls in at a nice steady rate. Some distros choose to take that nice steady flow, chop it up, and for some reason emulate the Windows catastrophic update experience. It is… an odd decision.
- ASalazarMX 3y ago
  Please use Ubuntu LTS, you can live with 2-year old versions at its worst, specially when snaps can deliver up-to-date applications. I'm not happy with some of Canonical's decisions, but I can't deny that using LTS as a daily driver is boring because most things just work without fiddling. I don't have as much time to fiddle with the OS nowadays.
  - hedora 3y ago
    Ubuntu LTS breaks my stuff more often than Manjaro (~= Arch). I don't understand why Canonical decides to backport breaking changes to LTS releases, but they do it on a regular basis, and I don't trust them for anything important. (I'm not suggesting using manjaro for stuff that needs to be stable over a long time period -- it's not meant for that, which is precisely my point!)
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    I’ve used LTS on a shared system, but I don’t love it. 2 years is shorter than you’d expect, and now if we want to update we’ll need to deal with 2 years worth of work, configuration, and cluges if we want to update.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    My first fall back was to downgrade from 22.04 to 20.04 again. Steam worked fine, wifi worked. I was happy. Until, that is, I tried reinstall Darktable, in version 4.x as that was the one that used for basically all my photo edits in the last year. Turned out Ubuntu 20.04 only supports darktable 3.x, and darktable 4.x edits are not backwards compatible (kind of logic, so the loss of around 100 edits is totally and absolutely on me and only me). For now, I use the Linux installation as my daily (as soon as I re-imported my passwords to Firefox, as of course I lost those as well during reinstall number 3...) and Windows as my gaming "console". Until, that is, the official Steam installer works under 22.04 again. The Steam client from Canonical sucks IMHO.

erwincoumans 3y ago

It would be great if Linux had some automatic checkpoints so you can revert to a working system after an update. So many times updates leave a broken system and re-install Ubuntu from scratch is quicker than fixing the problem.

aednichols 3y ago
Check out immutable distros like Fedora Silverblue & Kinoite.
tracker1 3y ago
I haven't had that happen for a few years now... I will say the RX 5700 XT had a really rough few months after launch on Linux. Other than that, it's been relatively smooth. Mostly been using PopOS and Ubuntu-Budgie.
joshspankit 3y ago
Once NixOS is desktop-ready you’ll have a way more powerful checkpoint system
SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
NixOS has this by default, on any filesystem. You can also do it with ZFS or BTRFS filesystem snapshots.
justinclift 3y ago
Some Linux distros actually do this. :)
boomboomsubban 3y ago
Bootable snapshots are a thing, also known as boot environments. You need to use ZFS or btrfs, or possibly bcachefs or LVM offer them. And they never have seemed to have a great implementation on Linux compared FreeBSD, but they do exist.
- tredre3 3y ago
  > but they do exist. And here's the crux of it, isn't it? Unless it's accessible and enabled by default, it might as well not exist from the PoV of the end user. Windows' restore points happen automatically before updates or driver updates. Then you're prompted automatically to restore if Windows fails to boot after an update. As usual Linux has all the pieces but no desire to create UX to go with it. Which is a shame because ZFS with automatic snapshotting daily or before major events combined with a simple UI that can run in the preboot environment would be a game changer and make Windows look like a toy.
  - dizhn 3y ago
    OpenSUSE Tumbleweed has this. The installer defaults to btrfs and snapshots using snapper. Snapshots are automatic before and after every package manager operation. Save for something that breaks grub, you can always recover.
    - bravetraveler 3y ago
      In that spirit, if you have an EFI system, you don't need GRUB
      - boomboomsubban 3y ago
        You sort of do if you want to boot kernels on btrfs. Refind is an option, but not most of the other EFI bootloaders.
        bravetraveler 3y ago
michaelmrose 3y ago
To be pedantic It's impossible for "Linux" to have this as this exists way higher than the kernel or even the filesystem layer. Linux mint has timeshift. The now defunct Project Trident installer set up a zfs root with zfsbootmenu and an update script that automatically sets up a boot environment you can revert and boot from with the built in feature of zfsbootmenu. Both let you achieve your goal. You can set up either system even if they aren't built in.
- rkagerer 3y ago
  A lot of comments here say Timeshift is crap - do you find it helpful yourself and can you elaborate on what works / doesn't? https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/timeshift https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/timeshift
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    I have not personally used timeshift. I have used zfsbootmenu and syncoid found it useful and fit for purpose. Personally I think its more reasonable to separate boot environments from backing up as they are two separate if related concerns. EG boot environments are for when something went wrong with an update and backups are for when your drive failed. If both went wrong you just do both operations in sequence restore from backup and THEN pick the prior boot environment and make it the default. Insofar as timeshift consider the review source, circumstances, and nature of complaints. Users who don't have difficulties rarely post anything and yet many reviews are positive. Those that aren't seem to focus on people who didn't realize they could provide a secondary drive and just kept storing data until their OS drive filled up. Mint leans heavily towards technically incompetent users and yet many people were able to use it successfully. Meeting every users needs no matter how incapable is probably a poor benchmark to define if somethings is "crap" or not even if those users problems are are a great guideline to a path forward to helping all users better. For instance it might be better if timeshift only supported a fs with snapshots instead of rsync and required a secondary disk and warned of space issues long before the disk fills up but it seems quite possible to competently use it right now.
usr1106 3y ago
OpenSUSE had this 7 years ago when I last used it. I think they still have it, it's called snapper. Not that I would really have turned any Linux significantly non-functional by updating during the last 15 years. But it's all software, so everything can happen one day...

bee_rider 3y ago

It is unfortunate that people recommended Ubuntu as a starting distro for so long. It does too much. It will update things for you, or give you a pop-up to tell you to update. Updates happen all at once, rather than a little at a time, so you get these big dramatic updates with combinatorial bug explosions. Maybe the repos will be gone if you don’t update in time. Maybe your favorite packages have moved from apt to snap. Good luck! A rolling release distro like Arch would be a better first experience for most people I think. Linux is not where Windows was years ago. Software gently rolls in at a nice steady rate. Some distros choose to take that nice steady flow, chop it up, and for some reason emulate the Windows catastrophic update experience. It is… an odd decision.

ASalazarMX 3y ago
Please use Ubuntu LTS, you can live with 2-year old versions at its worst, specially when snaps can deliver up-to-date applications. I'm not happy with some of Canonical's decisions, but I can't deny that using LTS as a daily driver is boring because most things just work without fiddling. I don't have as much time to fiddle with the OS nowadays.
- hedora 3y ago
  Ubuntu LTS breaks my stuff more often than Manjaro (~= Arch). I don't understand why Canonical decides to backport breaking changes to LTS releases, but they do it on a regular basis, and I don't trust them for anything important. (I'm not suggesting using manjaro for stuff that needs to be stable over a long time period -- it's not meant for that, which is precisely my point!)
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I’ve used LTS on a shared system, but I don’t love it. 2 years is shorter than you’d expect, and now if we want to update we’ll need to deal with 2 years worth of work, configuration, and cluges if we want to update.
- hef19898 3y ago
  My first fall back was to downgrade from 22.04 to 20.04 again. Steam worked fine, wifi worked. I was happy. Until, that is, I tried reinstall Darktable, in version 4.x as that was the one that used for basically all my photo edits in the last year. Turned out Ubuntu 20.04 only supports darktable 3.x, and darktable 4.x edits are not backwards compatible (kind of logic, so the loss of around 100 edits is totally and absolutely on me and only me). For now, I use the Linux installation as my daily (as soon as I re-imported my passwords to Firefox, as of course I lost those as well during reinstall number 3...) and Windows as my gaming "console". Until, that is, the official Steam installer works under 22.04 again. The Steam client from Canonical sucks IMHO.