It's been a week. Ubuntu Studio, and every day it's something. I swear Linux is the OS version of owning a boat, it's constant maintenance. Am I dumb, or doing something wrong?
After many issues, today I thought I had shit figured out, then played a game for the first time. All good, but the intro had some artifacts. I got curious, I have an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and thought that was weird. Looked it up, turns out Linux was using lvmpipe. Found a fix. Now it's using my card, no more clipping, great!. But now my screen flickers. Narrowed it down to Vivaldi browser. Had to uninstall, which sucks and took a long time to figure out. Now I'm on Librewolf which I liked on windows but it's a cpu hungry bitch on Linux (eating 3.2g of memory as I type this). Every goddamned time I fix something, it breaks something else.
This is just one of many, every day, issues.
I'm tired. I want to love Linux. I really do, but what the hell? Windows just worked.
I've resigned myself to "the boat life" but is there a better way? Am I missing something and it doesn't have to be this hard, or is this what Linux is? If that's just like this I'm still sticking cause fuck Microsoft but you guys talk like Linux should be everyone's first choice. I'd never recommend Linux to anyone I know, it doesn't "just work".
EDIT: Thank you so much to everyone who blew up my post, I didn't expect this many responses, this much advice, or this much kindness. You're all goddamned gems!
To paraphrase my username's namesake, because of @SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone and his apt gif (also, Mr. Flickerman, when I record I often shout about Clem Fandango)...
When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall GNU/LINUX OS grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: "Have ya paid your dues, Jack?" "Yessir, the check is in the mail."
Hello again, I remember you from another post I commented on lol.
So a few things:
Then a few months later I accidentally blew up my whole system with some command I ran without understanding what I did, broke everything, couldn't even boot into my OS anymore. I decided to distro hop a few times to see what worked best for me. Arch is great if you are a power user, but at the time I wasn't, so it was a terrible choice for me.
I bounced between a few different distros and settled on Nobara, which is based on Fedora but with a ton of kernel-level patches for better gaming performance. And it came with lots of gaming related software already installed.
I actually had as many or more issues with Windows leading up to trying Linux. Windows has always been pretty buggy for me, just bad luck I guess. On average I have way more issues with Windows than Linux, and the Linux issues I can usually solve, but the Windows issues generally I just had to end up dealing with because there was no good solution.
I remember when I posted to you the other week that the most important thing for Linux distros was if it worked for you, and if you liked using it. Seems like so far you've answered that question with Ubuntu Studio in the negative. It's not been working well for you, and you're getting frustrated using it. That's fine, the beauty of Linux is there are a ton of other options, and you aren't stuck with just having to deal with a specific distro.
Some people will swear by a specific distro. They've used it for 10+ years on 15 different computers and never had a single major problem. Great for them, that doesn't mean you will or won't, try several, find your home distro and stick with it.
For me, there is one distro I would recommend for new Linux users more than any other, Linux Mint. It is based on Ubuntu, so you've already got a bit of experience with that under the hood. It comes with a easy GUI utility for installing NVidia drivers, so you don't have to manually install additional repos and drivers via the terminal. Their Cinnamon desktop isn't the prettiest or most modern looking desktop, it doesn't have a ton of customizability either, but it's rock stable. I've never had a single major crash or lock up with the Cinnamon desktop environment, it's simple, intuitive, and stable.
Part of starting the Linux journey is trying different options. Some users get lucky their first time and land on the perfect distro that they use for years, but most don't. Most try a handful of distros before settling on their favorite. You probably wouldn't go to a shoe store, try on the first pair you see and then buy them right? You browse the selection, find a few that look nice and seem comfy, try them on, walk around in them, pose a bit, then pick your favorite.
And like I said before, as you build up your Linux skills, the issues will become easier and easier to solve. Problems that took me hours to troubleshoot and solve when I was new take 5 minutes to fix now. Things that I had to watch hours of videos and read dozens of forum posts to understand are just "common sense" to me now. You'll get there, just keep an open mind and hold on, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
If you need/want additional help, DM me and I will do my best to help out. For Linux Mint if you decide to try it, don't worry about the various alternative versions they have. Just go with their standard download, Linux Mint, Ubuntu edition, with the Cinnamon desktop.
I really appreciate you taking the time…again haha. I get that it’s a learning curve, my biggest issue is pretty user specific. I’m a freelance voice actor, which is why I chose Ubuntu Studio.
My concern for distro hopping is audio issues, more than I’ve already experienced. Ubuntu Studio was “built for creatives” so it seemed like the best option and based on my experience, it probably is haha. I can’t imagine trying to make this work from scratch.
The obvious answer is to go back to Windows, it really is WAY better for precise audio recording the easy way. Though I’ve matched (and even bettered) my audio output with Linux, it takes a lot more time and effort which won’t get better. Linux takes more steps for NY work flow and there’s no way around that.
That said, I made the switch for personal reasons, and I’ve fully committed even though it’s created many hurdles. I needed to vent, and really appreciate you and everyone else taking the time. Thank you.
No prob, always happy to help another user if I can, especially the newbies. I was you once, I remember many nights of wanting to rip my hair out and toss my computer out a window lol.
Audio issues can be a bear. What is your current setup? DAC, Microphone, DAW of choice, etc?
Shotgun mic into Behringer UV1 into Scarlett 4i4. I went from Adobe Audition to Reaper and it's been a fucking challenge. Adobe is a garbage company, but I didn't pay for it:) I love FOSS so much but Ardour was a bitch and a half. ALSA is frustrating as well as you can't use more than one program at a time and JACK and PulseAudio don't seem to recognize the Scarlett so those are out. I've got things working, but it dumbs down to like 3 clicks per 1 on Audition. Takes more time overall.
Check this out, not sure how relevant, but a cool project that unlocks some of the proprietary functionality of a bunch of Scarlett devices on Linux: ALSA Scarlett Control Panel
Also if you haven't checked it out already, r/linuxaudio has some posts I found on various Scarlett device questions, you'll have to search for specifics.
And lastly, are you using Reaper as a Flatpak? If you are, download "Flatseal" it's a Flatpak app that allows you low level control of all your flatpak application permissions on your system. You can set all kinds of low level system access to the Flatpak you're using, that can help fix various issues that come up because of how Flatpaks are sandboxed on Linux.
Hopefully some of this is helpful. I'm not an audio expert, so my abilities on this issue are limited sadly.