I’ve tried switching to Linux from Windows 10 twice now. The first time went wonderfully (on Mint) until I found out that secure boot was stuck in the enabled mode and I had to completely reinstall my bios. This was absolutely necessary as everything was unbelievably slow, especially gaming (on a decent laptop). I understand this is totally my fault as almost every Linux guide says to make sure secure boot is disabled. After fighting with that for literal days, I finally reinstalled Linux mint. WiFi was suddenly completely nonfunctional, no networks were detected, and none of the proposed solutions I saw online worked. I have very little experience with Linux and other complicated tech nerd stuff besides that which comes with tinkering with computers occasionally. I do however have a great deal of patience and stubbornness. I spent maybe a week or 2 just working on this first attempt at making Mint work, until I ran out of patience. After coming back to it a month or 2 later, I decided to try Pop!_OS. Once again, it went incredibly at the start. Because I fixed the secure boot situation, I could now game better than I ever could when I had windows installed. Very few compatibility issues showed up that I couldn’t conquer. Suddenly, I try playing Enter the Gungeon after having already played it a couple of times. Nothing out of the ordinary, I had done this before. Suddenly the entire computer freezes and I can still hear just fine. I restart my computer and… no sound. Nothing from any possible source, not Discord, not Firefox, not even the media I have downloaded. I look up the problem, I see several people have had it before, and only a couple ever got a solution. I try EVERY proposed solution on any forum with even similar issues, and still nothing. I have been fighting with my computer for 3 or 4 hours now. I’ve heard Linux praised for feeling like it is your computer that is subject to your will. I’d disagree right now, because it feels like there are spirits in my laptop trying to intentionally fuck me over every time I start enjoying the Linux experience. Does it get better? Am I crazy? Am I haunted? How is this anyone’s ideal experience?

edit: I’m on an MSI Thin GF63. Nvidia GPU, Intel CPU. Compatibility seemed fine WHILE this latest attempt was working, up until my sound got fucked. I have a hard time imagining if that could be related to anything besides my sound card and drivers, but I’m nowhere near savvy when it comes to Linux. I’m now installing Bazzite as some of you guys recommended so I can ease myself into this whole Linux thing. I’ll give another update if this fixes it :3

edit edit: It’s still happening. I can see the “Alder Lake PCH-P high definition audio controller” in my audio config GUI apps and I can see the meter moving when audio is playing. Still, nothing is played. I am not dual-booting. Ive seen people have had issues with this card before, but seemingly the only solution (that I’ve yet to try) is to buy a whole new laptop. I don’t have the money to do that currently. If someone is particularly tech savvy I am willing to hear out proposed solutions, but know that I have tried nearly everything online even remotely related to broken audio on Linux. My computer is haunted and I’ll need a proper qualified exorcist it seems. note: it works with Bluetooth headphones. I haven’t had a chance to test it with wired headphones but I will continue to give (near)real-time updates.

  • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    I stopped reading at “secure boot was enabled so I had to reinstall my BIOS.” There’s nothing about that statement that makes any sense.

    • Cattypat@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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      6 days ago

      It was enabled and for some reason grayed out so I couldn’t disable it. Looked up several solutions and nothing worked so I just updated my bios. That ended up working.

  • JoeyJoeJoeJr@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    I used Windows growing up, switched to Linux in highschool on my personal machines, and was forced to use Mac for nearly 10 years at work. In my experience, they all have problems, and the worst part is always early on. After you’ve used them for a while and have gotten familiar/comfortable, the problems get easier to deal with, and switching back (or on to something new) becomes more daunting/uncomfortable than dealing with what you have. So in that sense, yes, it will get easier.

    Also, as hardware ages, you often see better support (though laptops can be tricky, as they are not standardized).

    Keep in mind, when you use Windows or Mac, you’re using a machine built for that OS and (presumably) supported by the manufacturer for that OS (especially with custom drivers). If you give Linux the same advantage (buy a machine with Linux pre-installed, or with Linux “officially supported”), you’re much more likely to have a similar, stable experience.

    Also, I’ve had better stability with stock Ubuntu than its derivatives (Pop!_OS and Mint). It might be worth trying an upstream distro, to see if you have better stability.

  • procapra@lemmy.ml
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    6 days ago

    Your wifi issues with mint were probably driver related. Ive found especially for newer devices Linux mints kernel is too old and doesn’t always fully support hardware. If you have access to Ethernet or USB hotspot you can likely download and install the newest kernel and fix that issue.

    Mint is recommended for a reason, it’s a traditional Linux experience, it’s stable, and it looks familiar to newbies. Plus, lots of us Linux nerds use Debian/Ubuntu (what mint is based on) so it’s easier for us to help you.

  • steeznson@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    It does get better with some of the more advanced distros. Perversely they are easier to run and maintain. The beginner distros try to hide the complexity to make everything more user friendly but these abstractions can be more confusing than the fundamentals they are hiding.

    However there’s nothing people online can do if you don’t find linux interesting enough to do a deep dive on it.

  • jdnewmil@lemmy.ca
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    7 days ago

    That is not an ideal experience. However, hardware gremlins are not a universal experience either.

    Others have pointed out that getting a slightly older laptop to put Linux on can give the tinkerers time to get the key drivers working, and avoiding bleeding edge revisions of your distro can help.

    It is quite possible that my comfortable experience with Mint and Ubuntu over the years have been influenced by my low expectations of getting all the bells and whistles working the way they would in Windows. I like the software environment that typically comes on Linux and I don’t stress when Windows software (esp games) doesn’t work (though Steam makes a lot of games work anyway).

    I did have to spend more time getting the bios and fingerprint reader straightened out on my latest laptop (Dell Inspiron), but Google and blogs walked me through it and the only remaining problem is that sometimes when the fingerprint prompt times out I have to use the password until I reboot.

  • rozodru@piefed.social
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    5 days ago

    When I first moved to linux I used Mint for a week and then moved to something else. As always by EVERYONE it was suggested to me as a “starter” distro and I really wish people would stop doing that.

    I, like you, had issues with it. Sound issues, Wifi issues, GPU issues, and doing personal research and digging the consensus was always “it’s an issue with Mint.” I was about to go back to Windows 11 cause I was like “none of this linux shit works”

    THEN I decided to try a different distro, CachyOS, and suddenly the sound was fixed, the wifi didn’t randomly drop out, and my GPU worked flawlessly. I’ve distro hopped since then and those Mint/Ubuntu issues never came back.

    Try something other than Mint. if you still have the issues go back to Windows.

  • kittenroar@beehaw.org
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    6 days ago

    Driver support will always potentially be an issue unless you buy laptops that are built for Linux, or are well vetted. This is because Microsoft has near total market control and Linux support is usually reverse engineered later if the drivers source is never shared.

    Same thing for gaming – gaming support on Linux is mostly a bunch of ad hock hacks, because those games were never made to run on Linux in the first place.

    So, if you want to commit to Linux, make it an informed choice. You will need to make some sacrifices. Or you could always just dip your toes and only use Linux for running a server or hosting a website.

  • comfy@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    To answer the main title question: it definitely can get better, especially if you’re using common hardware with maintainers working to improve the code to handle them.

    I’m one of the people with a mostly smooth Linux experience on my devices (I have similar values to other nerdy programmers and naturally purchase more similar or popular computers/parts, and I haven’t really had brand new bleeding-edge computer parts, so that might give me better odds at a smoother experience), no weird audio/WiFi/GPU issues that you often see here. The only issues I have are so inconsequential they’re not worth mentioning. And I’ve used the two OSs you’ve used.

    • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Yeah same here.

      My biggest two problems are: my audio interface of my desktop PC doesn’t power cycle correctly when the PC enters sleep, resulting in me having to re-plug the device after sleep. No command or kernel param I tried fixed this issue. Issue persist across different distros (Pop, Nobara, Arch) And on my media laptop KDE likes to skip to the beginning of the video a short while after pauaing for some reason. It happens in haruna and in Firefox, but only when I have the Firefox KDE integration plugin installed. It used to work fine on vanilla arch, this only started once I installed cachy to try it out. Currently downloading tumbleweed to see if it works there.

      A small price to pay IMO.

  • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    What if you boot a windows installation, from an external drive or something? Does the sound come back?

  • dajoho@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    Seconding just installing something easy and pre-setup. Try a desktop variant of Bazzite (I like the gnome flavour) and see if most of your issues just disappear.

        • Cattypat@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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          7 days ago

          I clicked on the KDE version because it said that would be closer to a classic “desktop” environment, and yes the Nvidia version

          • dajoho@sh.itjust.works
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            7 days ago

            Cool beans. Let us know how your experience goes and if you have problems. I have it on four devices here and it has been very smooth every time.

            • dajoho@sh.itjust.works
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              5 days ago

              I have just seen your edit. I had a similar problem with no audio but meter levels working on my toughbook. Could you start terminal, type alsamixer and turn all the volumes up? Press F6 to swap through sound cards.

              For me I had to adjust the headphone volume.

  • drone509@discuss.tchncs.de
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    7 days ago

    In my limited experience, there are basically two flavors of Linux:

    1. Latest software, everything’s available but it breaks a lot.
    2. Doesn’t update frequently, might have to be cautious with third-party software but very stable.

    As I’ve gotten busier, my preference for stable distros like Debian has grown. I think there’s also a lot of value in trying for due diligence the first time you install a distro. It’s much simpler to take the time and do it correctly than to try and fix it afterwards. Sometimes it takes a few attempts to get everything set up correctly, but it’s worth it long term.

  • mvirts@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Aight, almost every time It seems like audio is working but you actually hear nothing, getting alsamixer out and selecting each output channel and making sure it’s unmuted and full volume, on every sound device that shows up ( hit f6 I think to switch device to ) makes a difference. I’ve never figured out why it gets f’d up but I think it has to do with the service that saves and restores alsamixer state during shutdown and startup

  • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    This is I believe, very typical. If you just want to get in the car and go from point A to B, your only choice is Microsoft. The car will spy on you, force you to do things like visit the dealership to get the light to go off, break and require you to go to the dealership and of course buy a new one when you don’t want to.

    To avoid this, you can buy a Linux car and do anything you want to…as long as you are a mechanic or are willing to become one.

      • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Maybe having issues as bad as sound completely being broken isn’t typical but some kind of issues that you need to tweak yourself are normal. More so than on windows, I think. Sure, a power user who is privacy conscious definitely needs to tweak windows a whole lot to get it to a state they are comfortable with. But if all you want to do is browse Facebook and YouTube, windows is absolutely way more hands off. Even if Linux is getting there.

        • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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          7 days ago

          some kind of issues that you need to tweak yourself are normal.

          yes, that’s almost every os.

      • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        I got it from every experience I’ve ever had with Linux. That said not an expert, but that’s kind of the point.

        • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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          7 days ago

          and i got it from none. your anedoctal experience doesn’t mean anything in this context.

          • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Well if doesn’t mean anything because this platform is full of Linux fanboys. I want to love it for all that it is, but unfortunately every time I try it, I have the same kind of experience OP has. I’m sorry if that doesn’t fit in your world view.

            Oddly, I’m trying it yet again. My laptop is old and Microsoft is trying to make it obsolete. Since I only use it in a limited fashion, I’m hoping to get away with it. Time will tell.

            • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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              6 days ago

              what are you even saying bro, what worldview.

              its very uncommon nowadays for modern computers not to play nice with linux like op’s.

              download the latest ubuntu iso or something and try it out. be a little patient if you don’t know how to do something. ask for help if you need to.

  • Harvey656@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I had tons of problems with Mint, that one included since I have to secure boot on for work reasons. (Absolutely abysmal let me tell you.) I use Kubuntu, and just run it in insecure mode, haven’t had any problems at all outside the potential security risk I suppose. It’s Ubuntu of course, that could turn you off I understand people aren’t fond of it, but everything works great with very little tinkering needed.

    I tried bazzite, but found it lacking since I like to tinker and mess with things, and that just isn’t happening on an immutable distro.

    I have a gigabyte motherboard, amd cpu and Nvidia card if that matters.