So I've been hearing the buzz about Linux and gaming and how it's finally fixed everything and is a perfect replacement for windows. My windows install has definitely accumulated some bloat, so blasting it and trying some Linux for a bit sounds like a solid plan.
Last time I tried this was early Ubuntu days, so I know there's some... hurtles especially with Nvidia. But at least they're releasing official drivers now!
So after some research I settled on trying out Fedora. Loaded up a USB, selected live mode... and blank screen. Guess it doesn't like Nvidia 3080s much. Rebooted, used troubleshooting mode with basic graphics. It loads 1024x768 on my ultra wide which looks about right for Linux.
So I do some digging and find Nobara Linux which is Fedora but all set up for Nvidia and gaming! Perfect! Made a USB, tried to boot live and.... Kernel error, could not get further.
So back to base fedora and...
Off to install Nvidia drivers!
After some googling I found RPMfusion is the route to go, and I set down to decipher the cryptic text that is their god awful and confusing how to. After almost 2 hours I managed to get the fucking thing installed and figured out how to UFI disable safe mode on my ASUS ROG, which also was not straightforward. Fuck whatever key process he was trying to describe.
Next up is getting my media server, which is a basic NAS on a SAMBA server up and running. On windows you open up your file explorer, right click under your drives, select "map network drive", enter username and password and you're gravy. Or you can find it via network discovery.
So first thing is first, open up file explorer and try to browse via GUI. It sees the workgroup and the server but when I try to open it or click mount it gives the cryptic message "software refuses connection". After an hour or so of cryptic tutorials involving command line and confusing bullshit I admit defeat, and connected to it as an FTP server. Which worked relatively smoothly.
First thing is first downloaded VLC and played The Expanse Season 5 EP 3 where I'd left off. Success, but some noticable choppiness. Then I tried to jump to a random point in the episode. File crashes. I want to note that FTP streaming over the Internet to my phone using the same damn VLC player doesn't react like that, nor does Windows. Tried tweaking some settings in VLC to do with performance and the screen is blank when I try to play again, audio works great. Try to reset the settings, still blank. Try rebooting, still blank. Full reinstall of VLC and we're back in business.
So 3 hours have passed. I barely got my graphics card working and can't mount a network drive. Plus now I can't play my media and skip to any point of it meaning I can't pick up where I left off or jump around the episode to see if I've seen it before.
I haven't even tried gaming.
I'm going to try again tomorrow, but y'all are dirty liars. Linux is still bullshit and has been since I first installed it over 20 years ago. What the hell has the community even accomplished if it still sucks this much dick to use?
Yes. Linux desktop has been and always will be a pain in the ass. Either deal with some bloat or Linux bullshit you ain't getting away from both.
There's only so much ass I can handle. Linux seems to almost delight in being utterly inaccessible.
It has its strengths in hosting services and professional work is far easier and supported very well commercially.
Desktop is a hot mess. Unless you are willing to learn Wayland and x11 and how they work you are going to run into issues. Electron in Wayland was basically unfixable for most apps for a very long time while still being the default in many common distros.
When I google "how to mount a network drive in windows" I get https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/map-a-network-drive-in-windows-29ce55d1-34e3-a7e2-4801-131475f9557d as the first result. Which is a complete step by step tutorial on how to do it. It uses a nice little GUI set of windows, wherein you input your server and username and bam, everything just works.
When I google "how to mount a network drive in Fedora 39" I get absolutely NOTHING related to how to do this in Linux. Which is a basic bitch level of functionality btw, mounting a remote drive is basically required in an office environment.
When I finally found instructions they were.
sudo mkdir /media/SYNC_ME
Open fstab, which appears to be an equivalent of a MS registry key where drive configuration is stored.
add the following line to FSTAB to link your remote server to the local folder you created which 'mounts' it in the OS.
//NASIPADDRESS/SYNC_ME /media/SYNC_ME cifs username=USERNAME_HERE,password=PASSWORD_HERE,iocharset=utf8,sec=ntlm 0 0