I’ve done a long analysis of that incident on using the swiss cheese model, it boils down to:
There was a bugged version of steam.deb released that would throw an incompatibility with some weirder desktops, to include Pop!_OS’ kind-of-not-quite-Cosmic-yet fork of Gnome. This incompatibility would have it uninstall the entire GUI. Including X11.
This bug was found and patched long before this. But, the bugged version just happened to be in the apt cache of the image of Pop!_OS that Linus installed.
Pop!_OS didn’t perform an apt update at any point during the onboarding cycle, or when launching the Pop!_Shop.
Linus went to install Steam, the Pop!_Shop saw that scary warning about uninstalling the GUI, and refused to do it.
Instead of googling “popos failed to install steam” and learning how to update before installing, Linus yelled at the camera about Linux requiring the terminal, googled how to install it from the terminal.
Most install instructions for Debian-based Linux tell you to apt update and apt upgrade before an apt install, but Linus seems to have only found the apt install instruction.
Possibly because Windows always says doing something can damage your computer, Linus ignored the warning and forced the install to continue.
APT happily uninstalled X11.
A lot of the fault falls on the design of Pop!_OS and how it handles the apt cache, that somehow neither the onboarding process nor launching the Pop!_Shop did it. Most of the time it’s mostly not a problem mostly. But one time it was a major problem, on international television. In the same episode, Luke installed Linux Mint, and showed it prompting him to install updates, which refreshes the apt cache and prevents problems like this.
Some of it does fall on Linus. Rather than attempting do diagnose and solve a problem, he threw a little bitch fit.
He was approaching linux as an average idiot, like me, would.
and that is absolutely how it would have gone, and probably did go, for lots of people before it got caught on a camera by a big youtuber… especially since, iirc, the issue was known to Pop OS for a while before hand.
For like my first 4 years in linux, all the support I could find basically boiled down to “if X doesnt work, paste this command and run it”. So yes, I can totally see an average idiot doing exactly what happened in the video… and I’d wager it happened quite a few times to quite a few people, before the this video made it famous and made Pop finally get off their ass to fix it.
I don’t particularly make secret of my dislike for Linus, but I feel like the criticism on this particular topic is unfair. Shit like this does happen with new users with no IT/Sys Admin linux knowledge, And its most likely going to happen more frequently as more non-knowledgable new users come into linux and stumble into things weird niche situations and stuff… More monkeys smashing keys means more weird issues being found, afterall.
Yeah - he could have fixed it. He had a whole team of people who probably already knew how to do it and might have even known himself.
But the video isn’t supposed to be someone who knows how to navigate problem-solving on Linuz setting up Linux. It’s supposed to be someone trying Linux, and it’s a good representation of the experience.
Indo not EVER recommended random people to try Linux, because as much as Windows and MacOS suck, they generally work out of the box with minimalist user intervention. You buy a laptop with Windows it’s generally gonna turn on and run the software you want it to run.
Linux does not have that experience for the average user. And the very fact that there’s a million forks doesn’t make it better. Especially when the system-crashing bug is unique to version 1.9763x version of the weird fork you’re using that was only the live version for 17 minutes 8 months ago and only pops up when using version 4.63x of whatever software you’re using.
When Windows has a bug that is occurs when using Excel it impacts millions of people and is discovered within minutes.
What’s notable though is Linus’ experience is likely to be very typical of an average non-technical Windows user’s experience when it comes to dealing with problems.
To seemingly lose the ability to read when an error occurs and then just try and slam it through regardless instead of pumping the brakes and asking for help is all too common.
Yeah I feel like anyone who blames Linus for this is missing the point. Was it dumb, yes, but if we want the average (or even a bit tech-savy) Windows gamer to transition to Linux then the distro they use needs to be resistant to this. Most people don’t read shit, they just want things to work so they can play their games. And they’ll happily click through multiple warnings to get there.
And if the average idiot searches for a solution to the problem, and the solution says to run X command… the average idiot is gonna trust it and run it, and assume anything that comes up is supposed to happen.
I’m on year 5 of fully committed to Linux everything (minus work) and I still assume “oh yeah I can probably just sudo force the thing I want. Reading logs takes too long” and yeah it bites me in the ass sometimes.
Its weird to hold Linus (Tech Tips) to such a high standard for no other reason than he makes tech YouTube videos.
I’m a fucking sys admin and I make the same mistakes. Its human. I’m glad he’s at least making Linux seem accessible while also bringing to light the realities of how different the troubleshooting strat is from Windows to Linux.
There’s a personality cult around Linus Torvalds and a hate cult around Linus Sebastian. Neither are as perfect or imperfect as their respective cults make them out to be, and Linus Sebastian isn’t anywhere on the level of fame or merit that Linus Torvalds is. That’s pretty much it.
I do think Linus should be held to a higher standard than the average joe, but yeah. IMO he should have done his due diligence to do things right. It was just very low effort for a guy whose professional life revolves around tech.
Some people go way too far with lambasting him though.
I have to disagree, the point of the video was to try how Linux was for someone to switch over to. People engage with Linux like that and pop os changed the error bypass command as a result. It was a net positive for desktop Linux.
Now ltt as a whole? Yeah, no. Reviewing coolers on the wrong GPU, auctioning off prototypes instead of returning them, recommending people use insecure windows debloaters, etc. is completely unacceptable.
I’ve done a long analysis of that incident on using the swiss cheese model, it boils down to:
A lot of the fault falls on the design of Pop!_OS and how it handles the apt cache, that somehow neither the onboarding process nor launching the Pop!_Shop did it. Most of the time it’s mostly not a problem mostly. But one time it was a major problem, on international television. In the same episode, Luke installed Linux Mint, and showed it prompting him to install updates, which refreshes the apt cache and prevents problems like this.
Some of it does fall on Linus. Rather than attempting do diagnose and solve a problem, he threw a little bitch fit.
He was approaching linux as an average idiot, like me, would.
and that is absolutely how it would have gone, and probably did go, for lots of people before it got caught on a camera by a big youtuber… especially since, iirc, the issue was known to Pop OS for a while before hand.
For like my first 4 years in linux, all the support I could find basically boiled down to “if X doesnt work, paste this command and run it”. So yes, I can totally see an average idiot doing exactly what happened in the video… and I’d wager it happened quite a few times to quite a few people, before the this video made it famous and made Pop finally get off their ass to fix it.
I don’t particularly make secret of my dislike for Linus, but I feel like the criticism on this particular topic is unfair. Shit like this does happen with new users with no IT/Sys Admin linux knowledge, And its most likely going to happen more frequently as more non-knowledgable new users come into linux and stumble into things weird niche situations and stuff… More monkeys smashing keys means more weird issues being found, afterall.
Yeah - he could have fixed it. He had a whole team of people who probably already knew how to do it and might have even known himself.
But the video isn’t supposed to be someone who knows how to navigate problem-solving on Linuz setting up Linux. It’s supposed to be someone trying Linux, and it’s a good representation of the experience.
Indo not EVER recommended random people to try Linux, because as much as Windows and MacOS suck, they generally work out of the box with minimalist user intervention. You buy a laptop with Windows it’s generally gonna turn on and run the software you want it to run.
Linux does not have that experience for the average user. And the very fact that there’s a million forks doesn’t make it better. Especially when the system-crashing bug is unique to version 1.9763x version of the weird fork you’re using that was only the live version for 17 minutes 8 months ago and only pops up when using version 4.63x of whatever software you’re using.
When Windows has a bug that is occurs when using Excel it impacts millions of people and is discovered within minutes.
What’s notable though is Linus’ experience is likely to be very typical of an average non-technical Windows user’s experience when it comes to dealing with problems.
To seemingly lose the ability to read when an error occurs and then just try and slam it through regardless instead of pumping the brakes and asking for help is all too common.
Yeah I feel like anyone who blames Linus for this is missing the point. Was it dumb, yes, but if we want the average (or even a bit tech-savy) Windows gamer to transition to Linux then the distro they use needs to be resistant to this. Most people don’t read shit, they just want things to work so they can play their games. And they’ll happily click through multiple warnings to get there.
And if the average idiot searches for a solution to the problem, and the solution says to run X command… the average idiot is gonna trust it and run it, and assume anything that comes up is supposed to happen.
I’m on year 5 of fully committed to Linux everything (minus work) and I still assume “oh yeah I can probably just sudo force the thing I want. Reading logs takes too long” and yeah it bites me in the ass sometimes.
Its weird to hold Linus (Tech Tips) to such a high standard for no other reason than he makes tech YouTube videos.
I’m a fucking sys admin and I make the same mistakes. Its human. I’m glad he’s at least making Linux seem accessible while also bringing to light the realities of how different the troubleshooting strat is from Windows to Linux.
There’s a personality cult around Linus Torvalds and a hate cult around Linus Sebastian. Neither are as perfect or imperfect as their respective cults make them out to be, and Linus Sebastian isn’t anywhere on the level of fame or merit that Linus Torvalds is. That’s pretty much it.
I do think Linus should be held to a higher standard than the average joe, but yeah. IMO he should have done his due diligence to do things right. It was just very low effort for a guy whose professional life revolves around tech.
Some people go way too far with lambasting him though.
I have to disagree, the point of the video was to try how Linux was for someone to switch over to. People engage with Linux like that and pop os changed the error bypass command as a result. It was a net positive for desktop Linux.
Now ltt as a whole? Yeah, no. Reviewing coolers on the wrong GPU, auctioning off prototypes instead of returning them, recommending people use insecure windows debloaters, etc. is completely unacceptable.
This was really interesting to read.