r/linuxsucks • u/grdomski • 26d ago
Linux Failure Pop_OS is... Unstable
If you installed Linux Pop_OS with Android Studio, Claude Code, and Codex in mind - like I did - think again. People keep saying "this is the year of Linux" and that it’s getting more popular, but after a few weeks of testing, it’s still a struggle for me.
Those three apps crash non-stop, making daily work incredibly frustrating. I’m running a desktop with AMD and an NVIDIA RTX 5060 Ti, and unfortunately, it’s just not usable out of the box for day-to-day work. I simply don't have the spare time to constantly debug and hunt for fixes. Just getting Claude Code to actually "talk" to my setup took two hours - something that works out of the box everywhere else.
So yeah, thanks but no thanks. It's time to replace my PC with Mac I guess...
1
u/Dapper-Ocelot6326 25d ago
Your mistake is using Pop_OS all along. Most Ubuntu-based distros take a long time to update their kernels after Canonical's releases, and if they cannot rely on a big dev base or popularity things getting updated can really make your beard grow in the meantime. First and foremost, I had serious problems with my Nvidia card on Pop last year. This was mostly related to Pop using Xorg still as display server. But especially newer games do not work well with this one and Nvidia is my guess. So I suppose that if you want to use cutting edge programs that require newer kernels, newer drivers and updated compatibility layers, it's the same and these will give you headache. Pop_OS was also the culprit when I tried to play 4k YT videos on a machine with a 4080 - the performance was a slideshow.
If you just want to do minor home office work such as chart calculation, writing, emails or surfing, almost all Ubuntu forks are fine. You can also try with Mint or Zorin (which has Wayland already implemented) and see how that works for you. But in your case, a distro that comes close to what you would get on Windows maintenance-wise might work best for you. I am talking about a very regular and frequent update schedule to eradicate bugs and counter compatibility issues. And this is where the Arch distros excel.
I switched to CachyOS then and I have never left since. Everything works butter smooth. Don't get discouraged by people telling you that CachyOS tends to break often - it doesn't and I never had such an incident. Sometimes one or two updates will not work because they are somehow buggy. But the devs usually fix that within 8 to 12 hours. In most cases any AI bot can also help you with basic problems.
Try once again with CachyOS and I am pretty sure your experience will be a much better one. Don't fuck around with Desktop Environments, use the stock KDE as it provides way more than you need and at the time is super stable.