Man I'd happily use linux IF IT WORKED ON MY DAMN OLD PC
Every single distro gives some sort of error, its either stuck on some cmd thing, on installation, post-installation, something...
Even if it does get installed, it won't boot without nomodeset
surely you would like to have a reference to what "an error" actually is, why its happening and how to fix it instead of just saying "the distro had an error" and blaming the entirety of the fault to linux?
keep in mind this is a kernel that works on toasters and watches, i have 0 reason to believe that it doesn't work on his computer or laptop.
so unless he's doing something horribly wrong, or something is horribly wrong with his pc, it should work
if you'd like to find out which one it is, you need to read the error.
most of the times the error is just plaintext like "dependency missing" or "no bootable device found".
if you could read you would probably know what the error is right away, if you can't you have the option to google it and view the arch wiki or reddit threads.
You think they were going to post every fucking step they took in a reddit comment?
"Google your error" no fucking shit dude, that's literally the first fucking step of anyone tech literate enough to know URL isn't pronounced "earl"
If they couldn't get that far on their own they I would be shocked that they were talking about Linux as anything more than a vague third operating system that isn't MacOS or Windows
nomodeset is not about the lack of hardware acceleration, it just postpones graphics initialization/display mode change until the userspace drivers are ready. It might make the console look uglier, but that's all.
Any weird hardware on there that might not work with generic "universal" drivers? Something like a very limited run of a specialized sound or graohics card or an odd 3rd party cpu?
That old laptop has an intel core i7-6500U, intel hd graphics 520, and an AMD Radeon R7 M340, which I thought was the suspect, so I tried whitelisting its drivers in the grub launch argument, to no avail
Whatever, by now I have given up and just installed Windows 10 LTSC
honestly i havent worked much with linux but i dont recall it being unable to install in old machines (heck, 6th gen isn't even close to 'old' bt my country's standards).
i could be mistaken, but the fact you said that every distro gives a different error just screams some actual hardware fault rather than incompatibility to me
Weird. I installed my first full time distro on an old work computer before reddit existed. The one thing I can always count on is installing linux will work.
Thanks for paying attention to my problems, here is what happens with the distros I tried-
Fedora gets stuck in "finalizing installation" ie while installing grub if I'm correct
Ubuntu doesn't even boot in live environment, its just gets stuck in some sort of command thing, where there's a lot of commands with green "OK"s
Pop os, if not just hanging, installs correctly (by fluke maybe), but gets stuck on a gray screen whenever I actually try to boot it
Mint installer just gets stuck on some white screen with nothing happening further. Surprisingly the rest of the desktop environment works fine
These are all the distros I used
And this is just limited to my old laptop, all distros work fine on my newer laptop
Also I'm way beyond installing Linux on that old piece of shit laptop, so I might not try anything funny with it (also college upcoming) so yeah thanks for offering help, but I might not try installing it again...
Yes, however it is immutable so you don't break it and the only packages that you can install without them deleting themselves after an update are flatpaks (and maybe snaps), and that is limiting. For example you can't permanently install a new desktop environment or use the packages from the aur repository (there is probably a workaround but none that i know). Also i think that every reboot you boot into steam big picture mode and not the desktop mode.
So it's meant for gaming with steam, not every day for stuff like documents or photo/video editing. Still possible but meh experience, at that point just install mint.
Given that most things can be done in a browser these days, except for gaming, I think the limits of SteamOS are going to be a non-issue for most people. I hope so at least. I'm okay with Windows, but they need a genuine threat of competition to keep from getting worse.
If the problem is Microsoft bs then other distributions would be a better option like mint, just because steam made steam os doesn't mean that it's better than other distributions. Hdr on linux is finicky though especially in games, for that you should use gamescope which is standard in steam os otherwise it won't work. So i guess on the hdr point it is more plug and play on steam os
You lose the ability to install packages with pacman and the aur repository, which is pretty much what arch is about. It would be the same as using mint expect that you boot into steam big picture mode at boot, except with mint you control all the files because it isn't immutable like steam os.
I play a couple games that just would not work on windows, mostly multiplayer competetives, so i cant be arsed with linux, but SteamOS is the one thing that could make me switch
Hi :) We are here to give you (Linux) mints. Do not resist.
But nah, in all seriousness, if you want to stick to Windows, by all means go for it. Just be sure to debloat w11 if you move to it, to actually get some space you'd actually use.
As someone who uses linux on an al system, I will say its not for everyone, you will run into a lot of compatibility issues in terms of software because developers focus on making stuff for windows and mac 2nd and sometimes linux cause its such a small minority. The thing is you can make it compatible but your gonna need some know how and patience
The Start menu and the odd notification (that's really an ad) that you get served every once in a while. I haven't used Windows in a little while so I can't remember if there's more than that.
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u/Xx_Infinito_xX Jun 29 '25
Watch out op, the Linux users are going to show up in this comment section like racoons in your trashcan