racemaniac

Unlike on Windows, errors here are usually informative, and “something like …” is useless. We can’t trust you to determine if it’s vague or not.

Yeah, i'm a developer, the error i got was about as helpful as "nullreference exception". I found the issue was the SMBv1 default by googling the exact error. Here it is for you "Failed to retrieve share list invalid argument". Really helpful message :).

The article advises you to install GDebi from repositories (with a nice GUI) to do that. Have you done that?

Yes, and then got stuck since that tool failed to find something called gconf2 that is a dependency. Then i followed command line install instructions that also gave errors. Which the instructions found perfectly normal and expected, they said to then run an apt command to fix it, but then apt would just uninstall the application again (which i guess 'fixes' a botched installation).

But you find it normal that the application normally handling .deb files on linux just disappears on a popular beginner distro, and to install something i have to start googling and avoid all the links telling me to use the built in application that suddenly disappeared, to then find that one link that tells me "yeah, ubuntu made a huge mistake here, here's how you fix it".

Sorry, but this is just abysmal user experience. And yeah, i'm a developer, i can find my way around command line tools, but for something this basic? for real?

Your fault is treating it wrong. If others don’t need it and you need it, why cry that desktop Linux sucks? Maybe it sucks for you, well, sorry.

So i should expect every little thing to be a minor or major struggle, with the rich ecosystem of linux apps be so fragmented to mostly just work on the distro the developer uses, which you have to guess since they might still mention your distro on their website, even if they don't really properly support it.

If treating it wrong means not making linux my hobby, and just wanting to use it like i can with my headless servers, then it's indeed not for me. And yeah, i've head my moments of frustration with my synology/raspberries. But most of the things i want to do on them do work from the first try, and if a gui is offered, it just works. If that's too high of an expectation, then you just come across as delusional for me. I don't expect everything to be perfect, but for it to be this bad in 2023 just seems ridiculous. And maybe i just happened to land in a perfect storm of things that don't work on ubuntu being the first things i try. But then being like "maybe linux isn't for you". I'm a professional developer running multiple headless linux machines and a dozen docker containers for various things. If it isn't for me, who is it for O_O...

Maybe the refreshrate issue could be driver related, but hardware decoding works. And intel 13th gen is 2 years old now, it's not as if i'm on bleeding edge hardware. The other 2 issues (SMB & installer) aren't even hardware related at all.

And from what i've read the past years, hasn't linux support for newer things improved a lot? Ok, if a new cpu/gpu releases, maybe wait a couple of months for linux to be stable, but 2 years should be fine these days right? I don't think any of my issues are related to hardware support.

From my current experience, Ubuntu seems a lot more annoying. Ok, it spies less on you but at least windows mostly works :p

Thanks for the reply, i didn't really want to make this post, but i thought "it's 2023, how bad could it be switching to linux", and then this stuff happened. And of course it's downvoted because... the harsh truth isn't popular...

And the even worse issue is that i'm a developer, i'm very technical, i don't mind looking up solutions, i don't mind using the command line, and i've got some headless linux servers here (and yeah, synology/raspberry pi is the 'easy' linux headless servers, but i know how to use them and have done things beyond beginner stuff on them).

But these 3 issues right from the beginning were just... wow... a protocol that got breached 7 years ago being the default you can't change. The installer for a package type that many applications use to get installed on your OS suddenly going missing on the current "stable" version. And while i can right click on my desktop and change the refreshrate of my display via the display manager, having an app do the same probably requires some arcane knowledge even an experienced developer can't google. And HDR is another layer of hell that requires specific software, because why support a nice feature that has been introduced (googles it)... 20 years ago.... be supported by default by linux...

I get multiple replies "you're expecting it to work like windows". If expecting a stable version to be stable, 7 year old vulnerabilities being closed, and 20 year old features working is expecting the windows experience... then yeah, the linux experience isn't for me. But if that's honestly what you guys are saying... i really don't think the issue is me...

Ahh the favourite pasttime of the linux community: blaming the user.

See, i install ubuntu. It has this files application to brows your files in a gui. I click other sources, it detects my SMB shares, i click on one of those, and i get some vague error, i no longer have the exact error text but it was something like "item not found in list". You feel that on a fresh desktop install clicking the files tab, and then clicking the discovered network share, and expect it being able to handle a protocol that got exploited in 2017 being disabled, and then throwing an error "item not found in list" is me just randomly clicking around expecting a windows experience and me not being able to read error messages? You're so far off the mark that it's not even funny anymore. Yeah, i've got a dozen containers on my synology with proper permission management and shared users between those containers, properly exposing some to the internet, and having set up watchtower to automatically update everything to keep it secure since i'm such a windows user that doesn't know anything else...

Ubuntu does still have a GUI to install software from .deb packages, I think.

dude, CLICK THE LINK I GAVE, IT DOESN'T. and what do you mean install a package for another distribution. https://dockstation.io, see the link "download for ubuntu/debian". I'm just doing what the first application i thought of trying tells me. Or do the developers of linux apps themselves have no clue how to support the most popular distro? According to you that may be the case, but that's not my fault then.

And why did i google software? i entered "docker" in the package manager but didn't find much, so i thought i'd give google a try. also to get some reviews/experience of people trying the applications, i could blindly try packages, but reading some user experiences makes the choice easier.

If your screen is at 60hz and your source is at 24hz, some frames will last 2 frames, some will last 3 frames, it's a subtle stutter you see when for example the image is panning (and linux defaulted to 30hz on my monitor, so 24fps on 30hz refreshrate the effect is even more noticable), so i prefer the system to just switch to the proper refresh rate. The monitor/projector support switching to exactly 24fps, in the infinite power of linux, how hard could this be, for real. I get this is "advanced" and "a nice windows feature". But ffs, it's switching your display output. I can right click on my linux desktop, go to the display settings, and select 24fps refresh rate, and it switches. How hard could it be to provide an api to let an application do the same...

If the community is like this on every nice to have feature that shouldn't be that hard to support, linux probably also isn't for me.

(reminds me of another subtle issue i noticed in Kodi. on the windows version i can use the back button on my mouse to go back to the previous screen, on the linux version that didn't work. found an issue about it, where the replies were "we can't map every specific input system you have by default" (but the windows version can). And even better "wtf is a back button on a mouse" (that guy apparently missed the last decade of computer mouse development). And even after multiple users mentioning "we just want the linux version to behave like the windows version", but that question was just ignored in favor of "configure it yourself in the settings (even though the config didn't allow to map that button", and the ignorance of what even a back button on a mouse would be.

So expecting the stable version of ubuntu to not just have thrown away its installer for one of the main ways of installing things on it, and for it to have disabled a protocol that was used in ransomware attacks almost a decade ago is... "i'm expecting ubuntu to behave like windows".

I'm sorry, but you're just ridiculous.

Regarding the refreshrate: this also connects to a projector, and i don't think it's able to wait for frames, it'll just push out x frames per second, and if it doesn't match your video source, you'll see smooth motion isn't quite that smooth. It may be an "advanced" usecase, but if supporting something like this is "expecting ubuntu to work like windows", then yeah, maybe i better stick to windows... I had expected linux to also be good for htpc usage, but maybe not then.

But for real, i've got multiple headless linux machines here, i ssh in to them, got docker containers on them with some complicated usecases too, i know what to expect from linux and i don't expect it to be like windows. But for the very first 3 things i try on a popular "beginners distro" to be this awful. This is not expecting "this works like windows", this is me expecting a vulnurability of 2017 having been addressed, them not fucking up something as major as a package installer in a "stable" version, and the refreshrate is maybe a tiny bit specific, i can kind of forgive it that (but it would make linux bad for my usecase sadly, but for a modern desktop OS, i don't see why it wouldn't be supported).

Regarding the deb files not being the way to do it. I'm sure that's why plenty of sites have install instructions for ubuntu be like "here, install this deb file". You say this is not the way to do it, SO MANY APPS say it is. can this community please make up its mind??

Yeah, it's not as if memes like this are still all over here on the fediverse: https://lemmy.gockandgum.party/post/https%3a%2f%2flemmy.gockandgum.party/4488?thread=0.16856.18063

and everyone upvoting it and people getting the impression that starting on ubuntu is still a good idea.

i've probably got nearly as many distro recommendations as i've got replies here, because as if you guys know which distro would support a whole 3 complicated usecases i gave (not use a vulnurable protocol, have an installer, and supporting some slightly advanced feature for applications to use).

I gave ubuntu a try because i've seen regular posts here about ubuntu vs mint, and people being pretty balanced about both, maybe i missed all the posts that said "using ubuntu will cause you hours of pain avoiding vulnurabilities that are almost a decade old by now, with unstable 'stable' version etc...", but i do remember plenty of posts here being like "just start with ubuntu or mint, it'll be fine".

It's not that i don't believe you, but i just typed out the nice surprises i encountered while just trying some (imo basic) things on a fresh install.

the SMB thing, seriously... this is a vulnurability from 2017, and ubuntu not only defaults to this protocol, but doesn't even have a way to disable it??

the refresh rate thingy, maybe a bit specific, but in windows it's just a setting you enable in any app, and it works.

and the installer being "oops, we forgot to replace it"... if the ubuntu version was marked as "this is bleeding edge unstable", i would have just taken the LTS version. but from all i can tell 23.10 is just the latest stable, that seems to be anything but stable?

This is not about "being open to it", this is just 5 hours of googling, trying things, realizing that things that i expected to be pretty basic are just working sooo badly. and i know switching from windows would take some effort, but hours of struggling to have to end up working around a vulnurable protocol that i can't disable, having to struggle with just getting some package installed (defeating the entire point of why these packages would be easier), and for now giving up on a nice playback feature.

And of course in this thread i've already had at least 3 different distros recommended with noone really knowing if the kodi usecase is supported by them because even people who use linux for everything have no way of figuring out which distro, if any, supports refreshrate switching...

you can be all "you have to be open to it", as i've got multiple headless linux machines and even got some complicated stuff running on it requiring me to do some more advanced stuff via ssh and actually understanding some parts of linux. It's not that i don't want to learn, i wouldn't even know how. Read the replies yourself, people are already "do you really need refresh rate switching?" (aka, we also don't know how to figure out how to get this feature that just works in other OS'es to work in any linux distro).

I'm not expecting everything to just work, and don't mind googling. but these were literally the 3 first things i tried on this linux, and each of them was hell... and googling for solutions was also hell with a lot of outdated advice, and regarding the refreshrates... not really much advice at all, even though htpc on linux is relatively popular & this is something that can be a known benefit to the playback quality.

And of course i'm getting downvoted for this post because posting the reality of trying desktop linux (as an experienced IT guy) is something that's rather not seen?...

It is? I watched the first season, and the ending was so bad it just completely lost me. I'm not expecting much from most star trek story lines, but if your entire season is 1 big story and it's that bad...

I'm willing to engage this discussion with you :).

I don't believe i'm entitled to any labor for free, but i do oppose the mechanic of huge corporations starting with good & free services, and when they then become a monopoly, suddenly i'm "entitled and want labor for free and an idiot" when i don't agree with all the enshittification, money grabbing, privacy violations, and everything else they think they can get away with.

If you start a service with a certain premise (it being free, little ads, ...), and then once you're a monopoly and want some extra money start changing all that, while making sure any competition has as little chance as possible to challenge you... yeah, good luck with that XD.

And i'll make a predition, give it 5 years at most before game passes go through this phase. Currently all the gamers are "wow, these are such good value", once it gives the publishers enough of an excuse to stop allowing you to buy them, watch the same fragmentation & raised prices, enshittification, possibly even advertising getting added to it once you're stuck using such a system.

I don't believe i'm "entitled", but i won't support such tactics & monopoly abuse. They came to power by pretending to be a free site to share videos on, and they'll die that way as far as i'm concerned. Good riddance.