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I'm committing to Linux, but it's so unstable. Any suggestions? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 23 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) by Showroom7561@lemmy.ca to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Hey folks. I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with Linux for over 20 years. Usually, my attempts to use it are either thwarted by issues installing, issues booting, or general problems while using it... leading to “catastrophic failure” that I can't fix without digging into hours of research and terminal commands.

Windows 11 (even 10) are rock solid for me, even as a very heavy multitasker. No crashes. No needing to reboot, unless I'm forced to with an update, and really no issues with any hardware or software I was running.

But with Linux, I just can't believe how unstable it is, even when I do the absolute basic things.

I'm trying to learn why this is, and how I can prevent these issues from coming up. As I said, I'm committed to using Linux now (I'm done with American software), so I'm open to suggestions.

For context, I'm using a Framework laptop, which is fully (and officially) supports Fedora and Ubuntu. Since Fedora has American ties, I've settled with Ubuntu.

All things work as they should: fingerprint scanner, wifi, bluetooth, screen dimming, wake up from suspend, external drives, NAS shared folders, etc. I've even got VirtualBox running Windows 11 for the few paid software that I need to load up from time to time.

But I'm noticing issues that seemingly pop out of nowhere on the software/os end of things.

For example, after having no issues updating software, I get this an error: "something went wrong, but we're not sure what it is."

Then sometimes I'll be using Firefox, I'll open a new tab to type in a search term or URL, and the typing will "lag", then the address bar will flicker like it's reloading, and it doesn't respond well to my mouse clicks. I have to close it out, then start over for it to resolve.

Then I'll open a different app, sometimes it might open, sometimes it won't.

Or an app will freeze for no obvious reason, and I'll get a popup asking to wait or quit.

Another time I left my computer while I went out for a walk, came back, and it was like I just rebooted... all my work was gone, and it was starting fresh from the login screen.

I'm trying not to overload things, and I'm doing maybe 1/5th of what I'd normally be doing when running windows. But I don't understand why it's so unstable.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

FWIW, I'm not keen to switch away from Ubuntu, because I do still want official support if there's ever a problem with getting hardware to work.

UPDATE: Wow, I did not expect to get so many responses! Amazing!

Per suggestions, I ran a memtest86 for over 3 hours and it was clean.

I installed Fedora 41 and am now setting it up. Seems good so far, and elevated permissions can be authorized with biometrics! This was not something I had to. Ubuntu, so awesome there!

Any specific tips for Fedora that I should know? Obviously, no more Snap packages now! 😂

UPDATE 2: Ok, Fedora seems waaaay more stable than Ubuntu (and Mint). No strangeness like before... but not everything works as easily. For example, getting a bridged network adapter to work in virtualbox was one-click easy on Ubuntu... not so much on Fedora (still trying to get it working). And Virtualbox didn't even run my VM without more terminal hackery.

But the OS seems usable, and I'm still setting things up.

One thing I have noticed, however. When I search for how to fix or do something, nearly all websites and forums reference Debian/Ubuntu commands, so the fragmentation there is a little annoying

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[-] brax@sh.itjust.works 1 points 16 minutes ago

I've been running Linux for 20+ years as well (on-amd-off for most of that, but mostly on). Stability has almost never been an issue, only when I was fucking around and finding out lol. My biggest problem in recent years was Ubuntu never having what I wanted, and Arch always having what I needed.... So I just moved to Arch and things have never been better.

[-] MangoCats@feddit.it 1 points 24 minutes ago

I started using Linux more or less full-time in 2014. I find it to be just as "stable" as Windows or OS-X, which is to say: it's stable until you do something that makes it not stable.

If you're staying in the mainstream, using a "stable release" from a big distro (Ubuntu, Debian, there are others...) and waiting at least 6 months after the release of that stable release before using it, I have found Ubuntu to be just as stable as Windows or OS-X. You might want to use an unstable app, that can be a problem in any OS, but granted: there aren't as many "stable" apps to choose from in Linux as Windows.

OS-X and their apps have burned me hard, repeatedly, for things that Windows and Linux had under control 10 years earlier.

The major difference in my WIndows vs Linux experiences has been: when you want something to work and it just doesn't, in Windows you have to shrug your shoulders and explain to your customers: It just doesn't work, there's nothing we can do. In Linux, you have the option to do the heavy lifting and make it work. It will frequently not be worth the effort, but if you're really determined you can fix just about anything in Linux.

[-] Hirom@beehaw.org 10 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Somewhat obvious tips to get a more stable experience:

  • Use a distribution that favour stability over being on the bleeding edge. Like Debian stable, or another distribution that maintain LTS releases,
  • Install software from the distribution's official package repositories. Avoid third party packages and repos as much as possible. If you really need a third party repo, verify it's compatible with your specific distro and has reputation for being well maintained,
  • When you do see a problem, take time to troubleshoot and if necessary make a bug report with necessary information for developers to identify the problem, so there's a better chance to see it fixed.
  • If you use Linux in a professional settings, there is paid support available out there, in some cases this get you priority for bug fixes.
[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 54 minutes ago

Good advice, also Fedora's "atomic" distros are both bleeding edge and extremely stable!

[-] eugenia@lemmy.ml 10 points 13 hours ago

You need to start with Linux mint. The errors you are mentioning are common in ubuntu, crashes happen and popup all the time on my ubuntu installations too. But never on Mint. Mint is based on the stable version of ubuntu, that it has long term support and it's regularly getting updates to make it even more stable and secure. So please start with Mint, or Debian 12 (although Mint is better for new users).

[-] TerHu@lemm.ee 1 points 10 hours ago

this! and whilst i don’t know the hardware support for new framework models on mint, i recon it’s pretty good.

[-] communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 0 points 8 hours ago

I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.

I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.

The mere fact that it generates a new system for you on update and lets you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).

How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.

Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.

Cinnamon (the default mint environment) doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.

I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to infinitely troubleshoot if you add me on matrix.

[-] ChuckEffingNorris@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 minutes ago

Can I just say thank you for offering help like this. I have wanted to switch to Linux for years, but due to proprietary software I simply must use I can't.

If I ever get away from needing this software can I take you up on the offer?

What is matrix lol

[-] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 56 minutes ago* (last edited 55 minutes ago)

I agree with you completely. No disrespect to Mint, but immutability is (IMO) possibly the most important advancement for Linux adoption in its entire history. I would love to see more distros release immutable versions.

[-] eugenia@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 hours ago

I use Linux sine 1999 and I prefer Mint. It works just fine for everyday users. The thing wiht Mint is that it has setting panels for most things, and it makes sense as a design. It might not have the latest support, but what it does, it does well. The same can not be said about other distros in conjunction to care-free users.

[-] communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Honestly, your usage of linux since 1999 is why I don't trust you know what's best for beginners. I give tons of people linux, mostly the elderly, cinnamon has been an absolutely terrible experience for them. You're highly experienced and used to something that works for you, the best choice for beginners changes more than you do.

but what it does, it does well.

Can you not say this about fedora?

The same can not be said about other distros in conjunction to care-free users.

The very purpose of an immutable distro is to stop carefree users from doing exactly that, until mint makes an immutable distro, it simply isn't the best choice for beginners.

Do they not care about mixed refresh rate displays, mixed dpi displays, the security issues involved in x11, etc? I think they will prefer if those things just work. Mint doesn't have that, sure what works works well, but that's true for fedora too... and more works.

[-] mr_right@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

i agree that immutable distros are good for beginners and this is especially true for users who are not exactly tech savvy or don't want to mess with their systems, but i don't think the features that cinnamon misses are that important to as many users as you think there are

HDR is nice but not everyone can afford it, and mixed refresh rate displays might be important for gamers and desktop users but not as much in a laptop ( and yes i know that high refresh rates drain the battery but why would you game on battery anyway ), mixed DPI displays ??? only a small subset of users have those. yes the OP is a heavy multitasker but again he is using a laptop (but having support is nice)

however what i do agree with is that fractional scaling is awful in cinnamon and the reason i consider it a serious problem is that high res displays are now common and fractional scaling directly affects user experience

[-] communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Yeah but there's so many more reasons to choose kde over cinnamon, there is a massive disparity in security between the two, KDE uses wayland by default, and as a result is SIGNIFICANTLY more secure, just off the top of my head, here's some problems with cinnamon that will not be resolved anytime soon, that have all already been resolved by this transition KDE-side:

  1. Every single app can read your keyboard input without asking
  2. Every single app can see what every single other app is doing without asking
  3. Apps can fullscreen themselves and go over everything else, because they can control their own window placement to any degree they want, again, without asking.

and in the future the disparity will only go up, just as an example, look at the rate of development on KDE based distros vs cinnamon... cinnamon is entirely outclassed. The KDE team is massive, the cinnamon team is a few people with no real funding. ( if you don't believe me, here are the stats for the last month cinnamon side: https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/pulse/monthly vs https://github.com/KDE/plasma-desktop/pulse although you'll note kde isn't developed on github and that's just a mirror. It's not even close, cinnamon has less monthly than 1/10th of the weekly for kde. The KDE text editor alone outpaces all of cinnamon dramatically, https://github.com/KDE/kate/pulse ) The rate of code output and refinement is not even close. The level of customization you can do with KDE vs cinnamon isn't even comparable. If you run into an issue with cinnamon, you're SOL, whereas KDE can actually worry about your bugs, because they have so many more developers.

I have tried giving people cinnamon, it has gone disasterously, usually due to DPI problems. But I don't think it's a safe recommendation at all, just given the security issues. Also mixed dpi displays are extremely common, many people have 1 4k and 1 1080p screen, for example, or maybe they plug into a tv... it's much more common than you think.

In short, i think the only reasonable recommendations for beginners in terms of desktop environments, are KDE or Gnome (if they're mac users and are willing to learn something different), unless their hardware is TERRIBLE and old, in which case they might want lxqt or xfce, maybe.

[-] mr_right@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

first this is not a criticism of kde. use what ever you want i just want to keep expectations within the realm of reality.

now about the security issues, afaik those problems exists because X11 not cinnamon specifically which is why cinnamon for Wayland exists ( it's gonna take WAY longer to mature than KDE), but i don't think that this is a big problem for most for now since our user base is small so there is much less malware and targeted attacks (well as long as you are not a high profile employee at a company with vast data access privileges )

the mixed dpi displays is a fair point too, i do that sometimes and i would say that i used it more than the people i know who might used it once or twice for a PowerPoint representation or something. programmers, gamers, graphical designers are peanuts compared to office work and regular users ( watching youtube, arguing on the internet etc)

i don't understand what you mean exactly by performance when talking about a DE ( responsiveness, ram and cpu usage ? ...). in terms of cpu and ram usage i'm pretty sure that kde consumes more and in terms responsiveness i would assume that kde is better but how much ( a difference between 5 s and 2 s is huge but from let's say 80 nanosecond to 60 is just for benchmarks and won't be noticed in real world usage)

what really holds us back is the lack of commercial software compatibility and at least decent alternatives compared to industry standards

oh yeah, and nvidia drivers + wifi and bluetouth

[-] communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

but i don’t think that this is a big problem for most for now since our user base is small so there is much less malware and targeted attacks (well as long as you are not a high profile employee at a company with vast data access privileges )

Security is not as huge of a problem on linux as it is on windows for sure. But EVERY SINGLE proprietary app you use can snoop on EVERYTHING. and I do not trust proprietary apps, beginners especially will use a ton of proprietary software. Remember that we're recommending to a beginner, not a linux evangelist who is willing to do anything to make linux/foss work for them.

i don’t understand what you mean exactly by performance when talking about a DE ( responsiveness, ram and cpu usage ? …). in terms of cpu and ram usage i’m pretty sure that kde consumes more and in terms responsiveness i would assume that kde is better but how much ( a difference between 5 s and 2 s is huge but from let’s say 80 nanosecond to 60 is just for benchmarks and won’t be noticed in real world usage)

If you use KDE on a laptop from like 2002 it will be a HORRIBLE experience, they use way too much ram, way too much rendering (with animations and whatnot), absolute cpu and gpu hogs for a machine from back then. that's pretty much the reason xfce and lxde exist. It'll also be real bad on cinnamon. Maybe this is better now, I haven't tried in a while.

The only reason I see for a beginner not to choose KDE over xfce is if they have a laptop from the 32 bit era. Elsewise, KDE if you use windows, Gnome if you use macos. The development speed alone and the fact that they have proper funding means in 20 years they'll probably still be around, cinnamon development is nearly dead by comparison, we shouldn't be encouraging people to use significantly less supported software unless there's a compelling reason, and for cinnamon, there really just isn't. People won't want to relearn everything when cinnamon breaks for them, might as well start on the most well supported stuff for all hardware.

I personally don't use KDE, but I don't think we should be recommending anything but KDE/Gnome to beginners without very good reason. Sure, use whatever you want, but that isn't a valid course of action for someone who doesn't even know where to start, and the obvious answer for where to start is KDE.

I think many people here have been linux users for so long that they forget their solution isn't the best choice for beginners.

[-] mr_right@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago

Security is not as huge of a problem on linux as it is on windows for sure. But EVERY SINGLE proprietary app you use can snoop on EVERYTHING. and I do not trust proprietary apps, beginners especially will use a ton of proprietary software. Remember that we're recommending to a beginner, not a linux evangelist who is willing to do anything to make linux/foss work for them.

i don't trust them either but from what i have seen most don't care

The only reason I see for a beginner not to choose KDE over xfce is if they have a laptop from the 32 bit era.

this is a bit of a stretch

the development rate is a deciding factor for sure and i agree that we shouldn't encourage using software that is considered "obsolete"

i don't agree on everything and maybe you're right i still don't get why they dropped support for kde but still support MATE

[-] communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 1 points 4 hours ago

i don’t trust them either but from what i have seen most don’t care

They get this benefit for free on KDE. Even if they don't care, it's still better for them.

this is a bit of a stretch

I don't see how it's a stretch, someone was posting with basically this exact problem on one of the linux forums on lemmy like, last week. I don't feel like digging up the post but this happens sometimes.

i don’t agree on everything and maybe you’re right i still don’t get why they dropped support for kde but still support MATE

Makes absolutely no sense for a beginner distro.

[-] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 24 points 17 hours ago

Where did you get this laptop from? Did you buy it new or used?

The reason why I ask is because it sounds like you have hardware issues.

[-] trolololol@lemmy.world 10 points 17 hours ago

Yep, the Firefox thing is weird. I'd run a memory test . Does this laptop do the same thing with Windows?

Also op mentions 20 years, were your other experiences like this?

[-] muusemuuse@lemm.ee 18 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

You need to stop worrying about “official support.” You aren’t a business so it doesn’t matter for you. There is more support out there online for free than you realize. There’s nothing magical framework does for you that doesn’t get ported out everywhere else eventually anyway. Stop limiting yourself like that.

That being said, Ubuntu is built in Debian. Debian is an incredibly solid and stable distro. Ubuntu does do a few questionable things with it but it’s still very reliable. If you have problems with stability, it’s very unlikely Ubuntu is the problem unless you did something so incredibly stupid to it support wouldn’t help you anyway.

I have a theory. Windows can dance around memory corruption issues in ways Linux just refuses to do. Windows will misbehave in strange ways trying to make things work until it just can’t anymore. Linux is more of a binary thing. It works or it doesn’t. It’s not going to play pretend for you. It refuses. Linus has an obscene hand gesture for your hardware.

I want you to get a copy of memtest86+ and boot it off a flash drive. Then just let it beat the shit out of your CPU and ram for a couple hours.

Framework laptops are generally Intel. Intel hasn’t been making the best stuff over the past few years. It’s possible your cpu might be affected by a flaw Intel tried to cover up for a while. If it has it, nothing in earth will ever make that chip reliable. It’s not fixable. It will only get worse with time no matter what OS you use.

[-] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 12 points 17 hours ago

Yeah, this was my first thought: test your hardware.

[-] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 15 hours ago

Frameworks have all AMD options too, just a heads up. I have one and it runs great!

[-] muusemuuse@lemm.ee 1 points 10 hours ago

They do indeed! And if I had a framework that’s exactly what I would buy unless they had an ARM offering.

[-] Commiunism@beehaw.org 4 points 13 hours ago

Usually with Linux, once you start out you're gonna get a ton of issues and you'll have to troubleshoot them one by one. However, afterwards it should just be a smooth sailing.

Also as a word of warning from my personal experience, official support isn't something you should be that concerned about. When it comes to software, when some corporation makes some official version for a specific distribution (like Ubuntu), it usually is made by some B-team and doesn't work that great. If the program is good, it should be available on most major distros rather than just "an official version for just one" if that makes sense.

Also good call - if one distro is causing a fuck ton of issues, just give another one out. The main difference for users between distros is what kind of software setup they are going with, and some setups are just prone to issues on some hardware or wasn't tested properly. Still, I do hope Fedora treats you better.

[-] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 63 points 23 hours ago

Choosing Ubuntu over Fedora because of American ties is rich

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[-] kitnaht@lemmy.world 45 points 22 hours ago

Something is awfully weird here, because Linux literally runs the worlds infrastructure for the internet. It is not unstable by any stretch of the imagination. Something you're doing between all distros has got to be the culprit - something you do differently than other people.

[-] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

OP is a newbie and is externalizing his lack of knowledge.

A 747 would seem like a death trap if a toddler were given control but there, as here, it isn't the plane that's the problem.

Coming from Windows, Linux (especially when only talking about GUI environments) seems to not tell you anything about your problems. Eventually you learn how to find the relevant logs and the problems seem less arbitrary.

[-] Cpo@lemm.ee 4 points 9 hours ago

Or hardware issues (i still have night sweats over wifi on laptops even though that has been better for decades now).

[-] Evotech@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Server infrastructure does not run X Servers / GUI

[-] blinx615@lemmy.ml 53 points 22 hours ago

Framework fully supports Ubuntu and has full guides on them. If you have issues, I'd suggest posting on the Framework message boards, they're very responsive.

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[-] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Running a framework 16 with FedoraKDE and before that a 4gb ram 2015 toshiba satellite (in 2024) running Fedora (regular Gnome) and haven't had one of these issues. Most issues I have had were caused by me, every now and again I run into a regular old bug in something and half the time that gets fixed pretty quick.

I wish I could help, but we just have opposite experiences unfortunately. That said, because of this I don't think it's "linux," or I'd likely have at least similar experiences.

OH for a while I did have a bug where VLC would stutter playing video and nobody had a fix, so I uninstalled/reinstalled VLC and it works now. Idk, I've had shit like that happen on windows too though, it's basically the software version of power cycling hardware when it acts up.

[-] thebardingreen@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz 43 points 23 hours ago

But with Linux, I just can’t believe how unstable it is, even when I do the absolute basic things.

That doesn't sound right.

Start with Linux Mint. I've helped Boomers use it. My dad has been using it as his daily driver for almost 5 years and he doesn't know the difference between an OS and a Word Processor (he keeps calling LibreOffice "Linux").

[-] communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz 2 points 8 hours ago

I honestly think mint is an outdated suggestion for beginners, I think immutability is extremely important for someone who is just starting out, as well as starting on KDE since it’s by far the most developed DE that isn’t gnome and their… design decisions are unfortunate for people coming from windows.

I don’t think we should be recommending mint to beginners anymore, if mint makes an immutable, up to date KDE distro, that’ll change, but until then, I think bazzite is objectively a better starting place for beginners.

The mere fact that it generates a new system for you on update and lets you switch between and rollback automatically is enough for me to say it’s better, but it also has more up to date software, and tons of guides (fedora is one of the most popular distros, and bazzite is essentially identical except with some QoL upgrades).

How common is the story of “I was new to linux and completely broke it”? that’s not a good user experience for someone who’s just starting, it’s intimidating, scary, and I just don’t think it’s the best in the modern era. There’s something to be said about learning from these mistakes, but bazzite essentially makes these mistakes impossible.

Furthermore because of the way bazzite works, package management is completely graphical and requires essentially no intervention on the users part, flathub and immutability pair excellently for this reason.

Cinnamon (the default mint environment) doesn’t and won’t support HDR, the security/performance improvements from wayland, mixed refresh rate displays, mixed DPI displays, fractional scaling, and many other things for a very very long time if at all. I don’t understand the usecase for cinnamon tbh, xfce is great if you need performance but don’t want to make major sacrifices, lmde is great if you need A LOT of performance, cinnamon isn’t particularly performant and just a strictly worse version of kde in my eyes from the perspective of a beginner, anyway.

I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to infinitely troubleshoot if you add me on matrix.

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[-] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 19 hours ago

Could this be a snaps thing?

I despise snaps and left Ubuntu for that reason. I don't remember the specifics but I think even after installing firefox with apt it somehow get's magically switched to a snap.

I daily drive debian on a t490s and it's rock solid. There's just no way anyone could consider this set up unstable.

In recent years I've found most of my problems come from the fancy new packages. In order of reliability I find that it goes apt > .dev > AppImage > flatpak > snap

[-] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 23 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

I'll likely be downvoted for this, but if you're committed to Linux, you might want to reconsider using Ubuntu (or Fedora for that matter). Ubuntu has a well-earned reputation for trying to make things "easy" by obfuscating what it's doing from the user (hence that useless error message). They're also a corporate distro, so their motivations are for their profit rather than your needs (wait 'til you had about Snap).

A good starting distro is Debian (known for stable, albeit older) software. It's a community Free software project and the 2nd-oldest Linux distro that's still running as well as the basis for a massive number of other distros (including Ubuntu). The installer is straightforward and easy too.

Or if you're feeling ambitious, I'd recommend Arch or Gentoo. These distros walk you through the install from a very "bare metal" perspective with excellent documentation. Your first install is a slog, but you learn a great deal about the OS in the process, ensuring that you have more intimate knowledge when something goes wrong.

[-] wckring@lemm.ee 2 points 9 hours ago

The latest arch with archinstaler is actually very straight forward from boot to full desktop install. It just does not have a gui for installation. Very ligh, minimum packages by default but works great.

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[-] BCsven@lemmy.ca 6 points 17 hours ago

This has not been my experience. I'm not on Ubuntu, but OpenSUSE and NixOS. Everything works and operates as expected everytime. The only issue once was nvidia driver updated versions before kernel did and I had to reboot to a previous snapshot and wait a few days till the kernel update was released to work with whatever happened to the driver. But 8 years of a dependable system otherwise

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 18 hours ago

People downvoting a post asking for help have very weak egos. I hope you’re able to find a better Linux experience, OP.

[-] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 18 hours ago

Another time I left my computer while I went out for a walk, came back, and it was like I just rebooted… all my work was gone, and it was starting fresh from the login screen.

Well, I'm pretty sure I had this happen once or twice in the recent past after wake from suspend I think, but it might be that my CPU is just one of the faulty intel ones.

Either way the rest of this does not reflect my experience at all. Try distrohopping, I feel like you'll find one that you like and doesn't have these issues. openSuSE is always one of my suggestions, it was the one that I used for a long time when I started out as well, but tbh I'm out of touch with the more mainstream distros, I've only touched Gentoo and NixOS in the past >5 years. (I also specifically recommend against using Ubuntu.)

Then I’ll open a different app, sometimes it might open, sometimes it won’t.

Or an app will freeze for no obvious reason, and I’ll get a popup asking to wait or quit.

Check journalctl --user, and also htop, specifically the process state, for the last one (you mention a NAS, is it perhaps stuck on IO? I'm in a fucked network where that regularly happens with my NAS.)

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this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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