I’ve been an IT professional for 20 years now, but I’ve mainly dealt with Windows. I’ve worked with Linux servers through out the years, but never had Linux as a daily driver. And I decided it was time to change. I only had 2 requirements. One, I need to be able to use my Nvidia 3080 ti for local LLM and I need to be able to RDP with multiple screens to my work laptop running Windows 10.
My hope was to be able to get this all working and create some articles on how I did it to hopefully inspire/guide others. Unfortunately, I was not successful.
I started out with Ubuntu 22.04 and I could not get the live CD to boot. After some searching, I figured out I had to go in a turn off ACPI in boot loader. After that I was able to install Ubuntu side by side with Windows 11, but the boot loader errored out at the end of the install and Ubuntu would not boot.
Okay, back into Windows to download the boot loader fixer and boot to that. Alright, I’m finally able to get into Ubuntu, but I only have 1 of my 4 monitors working. Install the NVIDIA-SMI and reboot. All my monitors work now, but my network card is now broken.
Follow instructions on my phone to reinstall the linux-modules-extra package. Back into Windows to download that because, you know, no network connections. Reinstall the package, it doesn’t work. Go into advanced recovery, try restoring packages, nothing is working. I can either get my monitors to work or my network card. Never both at the same time.
I give up and decide it’s time to try out Fedora. The install process is much smoother. I boot up 3 of 4 monitors work. I find a great post on installing Nvidia drivers and CUDA. After doing that and rebooting, I have all 4 monitors and networking, woohoo!
Now, let’s test RDP. Install FreeRDP run with /multimon, and the screen for each remote window is shifted 1/3 of the way to the left. Strange. Do a little looking online, find an Issue on GitHub about how it is based on the primary monitor. Long story short, I can’t use multiple monitor RDP because I have different resolution monitors and they are stacked 2x2 instead of all in a row. Trust me I tried every combination I could think of.
Someone suggested using the nightly build because they have been working on this issue. Okay, I try that out and it fails to install because of a missing dependency. Apparently, there is a pull request from December to fix this on Fedora installs, but it hasn’t been merged. So, I would need to compile that specific branch myself.
At this point, I’m just so sick of every little thing being a huge struggle, I reboot and go back into Windows. I still have Fedora on there, but who would have thought something that sounds as simple as wanting to RDP across 4 monitors would be so damn difficult.
I’m not saying any of this to bag on Linux. It’s more of a discussion topic on, yes, I agree that there needs to be more adoption on Linux, but if someone with 20 years of IT experience gets this feed up with it, imagine how your average user would feel.
Of course if anyone has any recommendation on getting my RDP working, I’m all ears on that too.
Skill issue
Git gud scrub
Windows admin here. It was immediately clear to me how this would end:
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someone proficient in windows goes back to being a dumb newbie is gonna be frustrating as heck.
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being a power user/IT professional most likely means non standard setup
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there are very few windows native admins in the linux sphere to test things from a non dev/non user perspective
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the companies making „professional“ linux are still not comparable to M$
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„professional linux“ would probably be RHEL for you.
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you can try and run a windows vm in your linux to try if stuff works then.
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your mindset needs to change: you‘re now a guy responsible for implementing rdp correctly, embrace open source and make it work for everyone. See the amount of influence you can actually have.
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if you can, consider using windows and linux side by side as long as needed, until stuff works. Find the reasons people abandon windows (i.e. you finally have control).
Just a stream of ideas. Hmu if you have any questions.
someone proficient in windows goes back to being a dumb newbie is gonna be frustrating as heck.
This was me. I kept thinking Linux was making things “overly complicated” until I really stopped to consider how extremely complicated it is in Windows or MacOS to do anything, we’re just all used to it. Once I re-framed my perspective to that of “a noob that was learning” it made it so much less frustrating and now after learning I see that Linux in most ways does things so much simper.
Now I don’t think it’s ease-of-use issues that prevent people from going with Linux, it’s switching costs. Few have time to learn a new system. Even if it is the easiest to learn.
That’s a lesson I learned switching to macos for a few years. After spending that much I basically had no choice but to learn to adapt.
It did make it a lot easier to switch to Linux later on because I’ve already abandoned a workflow and a set of apps once already.
I completely agree that linux is quite simple. Additionally, it allows for a lot of customization which is nice imo.
All extremely valid points. Especially…
- your mindset needs to change: you‘re now a guy responsible for implementing rdp correctly, embrace open source and make it work for everyone. See the amount of influence you can actually have.
This is the mind set I need. I was most likely so frustrated at the driver issues by this point, I probably didn’t give it the go it needed. Like I said when it came to compiling a dev branch, I just said f it. Hopefully I’ll get some time in the coming days to approach it with a fresh mindset.
Awesome to hear it. Feel free to update.
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Weak
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Sorry to hear it didn’t work out for you :(
To squeeze in a metaphor : Linux is just a hobby project that kind of got out of hand in a previously Microsoft dominated world.
In the BSD world (FreeBSD,NetBSD,OpenBSD etc.) things are actually much worse. I’ve read that on computer conferences BSD developers come with an Apple Macbook (Running MacOS) to show BSD software development, which is running on servers. And I like BSD, but on the desktop it is still lacking. One only has to look at the amount of packages which no longer have a maintainer. I am not complaining about it, as I realize that maintaining open source software can be a burden.
If you want to play some more with Linux on the desktop, you can use WSL on Microsoft Windows, or use VirtualBox. Wanting to make Linux your daily driver may require more patience, or throwing money at it to speed up code development.
Linux is honestly fine. The problem is bias and tendencies coming from Windows.
Virtualbox is going to have less than great performance and WSL is very limited and not a full system. Best option is to grab a used laptop and get hacking.
For me, the built up revulsion I feel towards windows and the sheer determination I feel to never use it again, means I would rearrange my monitors, or, you know, try more than two distros.
Linux isn’t for everyone, I acknowledge that fact. It requires a user that wants to troubleshoot, wants to figure out why something doesn’t work and make it work. If the headache isn’t fun, you’re not the right kind of masochistic self flagellator that Linux attracts, and that’s okay.
If you ever do decide to give it another whirl, try Linux Mint, MX Linux, or my personal flavor of choice, EndeavourOS. And put your monitors in a boring straight line like the rest of us before you coming crawling back.
This reply is meant to be partially humorous but entirely honest.
Ok, but here’s the thing: OP is 20 years into a tech career and troubleshooted extensively. Even identified potential solutions that they deemed too much work for the payoff (such as compiling a software release for fedora themselves because the beta branch’s buildbot broke the fedora build).
You need to put a shit ton more emphasis on your self flagellation point, and a lot less on the love of troubleshooting. We’re beyond troubleshooting and well into the “I have more fun trying to repair an engine while it’s running than actually driving a car”
I get it, some people are more interested in making the best swiss army knife than actually using it to cut things. Just please don’t conflate it with a lack troubleshooting ability.
Most of the issues on Linux faced by end users are some variety of “if you don’t like it then code your own software dumbass”, “real programmers use butterflies”, and “you’re using it wrong, but there’s no documentation anywhere of that being the case, only tribal knowledge. OUTSIDER! OUTSIDER! BURN THE OUTSIDER!”
Especially the last one. For fucks sake, if I wanted piss poor documentation put together by overstreched amatuers, written entirely in the context of expecting everyone else to have their same deep domain knowledge, and unorganizedly spread over every far flung corner of space then I’d just move back to my old job in tech support (🥁 badum-tsh)
Yeah, you make valid points. Maybe Linux isn’t for people who need windows capabilities for work. I enjoy the tinkering, but I don’t make my money on my Linux machine. I work in construction, I’m only a nerd at home.
So, my machine does everything I need it to in Linux. Some things require me to memorize fairly lengthy commands and perform more complicated functions than I’d ever have to in windows. Sometimes I learn things the hard way, sometimes my shit breaks. I try to learn something while fixing it, and if it doesn’t work I nuke and pave and keep good backups.
The satisfaction I get from becoming competent must give me some serious dopamine because I’ve stuck with it, and I’ve come to perform most day to day actions in the CLI.
I certainly don’t think OP has a lack of ability to learn, but, I also don’t think Linux is a good fit for his use case. Yet.
I absolutely cringe to make this comparison but it’s the first thing that came to my pop culture poisoned mind so here we go:
In Rick and Morty, when Evil Morty has finally achieved his long-sought and hard-won goal of escaping Rick and the Central Finite Curve, that sigh of relief he gives before stepping into the new untamed universe.
That’s how I feel about making the move to Linux, personally. That sense of overwhelming relief to be free of something you hate so much is a reward. That’s why I put in the effort to manage Linux. Being free of Microsoft’s (and Apple and Google) shit is something I want so much that I’ll not only put in the time, I’ll even enjoy it somewhat.
Okay so genuine question from someone who’s used various distros for all sorts of things over the years, just never as a daily driver. What sorts of things have caused your revulsion towards Windows? Aside from Microsoft’s bullcrap like Alexa or MS Store ads which can all be disabled, I’ve personally never had enough of a problem with Windows that justified the effort required to move away from it. And I would consider myself a power user who loves to customize things.
Again, I just want to genuinely understand what sorts of problems people have that cause them to hate using Windows that much, even if they’re just subjective things.
The sinking sensation of realizing that my entire operating system is spyware that phones home tens or hundreds of times each time I sit down to use it. Massive bloat and poor optimization neutering my otherwise just fine hardware. My operating system deciding it will no longer support my beater legacy hardware.
Really the shift happened when I became privacy conscious, and once I saw that all of my gaming and day to day tasks worked just fine on Linux I decided to go all in.
Also the fact Microsoft just doesn’t seem to respect that the user is the admin, not them. You can still claw back control, but over the years, the amount of clawing you have to do has increased.
To put it simply, I hate when my OS does something I explicitly told it not to do, or undoes something I deliberately set. And as the years have gone by, the amount of times that happens with Windows has skyrocketed.
I have a bunch of issues(some way smaller and borderline nitpicks) with windows, but I guess there’s some big ones:
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Linux runs smoothly on older computers, even with KDE which everyone talks about as if it was heavy. Windows is a slug in comparison.
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Linux is free, truly free. Microsoft can’t beat that.
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Shit just works (unless you are on Nvidia…), don’t need to install drivers and shit like that.
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most of the software you don’t get from a random website and they all update at once, rather than having each one update itself and only itself
While my next rig is fully AMD, my current is Nvidia and shit just works with some fiddling
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What sorts of things have caused your revulsion towards Windows? Aside from […]
You mean aside from the shitty way Microsoft treats their users? 😆 Yeah ok, if we leave all that aside then there’s no revulsion. I’ll use Windows without any issues, I’ve used it extensively and I use it daily for work but it feels bloated and old and Microsoft being shitty doesn’t help.
Learning Linux is not that hard and you get an OS and DE where things work just as well as Windows and also nobody’s telling you what to do, and you get choices. Which is nice, because I think I should be able to make the most out of something that’s supposed to be a generic computing device.
For me, it was when Windows 11 didn’t even give me the luxury of moving my taskbar to the top of the screen and I had to use a third-party application to do so, which was janky as hell. It sounds very small, petty and superficial, but small things like that can immensely affect one’s experience and workflow. “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” is an applicable phrase to that.
Sure, I can just use Windows 10, and I do in fact have a Windows 10 VM in VMware (since WINE has issues with MusicBee and WACUP, and I’m trialing the Apple Music app for Windows as well), but Windows 10 will no longer be supported next year.
Bummer that it’s giving you such a hard time. On rdp: Linux/Linux doesn’t even need it. ssh to remote. Run gui app. It runs on remote and displays locally. Wayland is probably going to kill that though. Until it does, the X11 client / server model is pretty swank.
Wayland has waypipe which does exactly that
Good!
Same as you, in IT forever, …I switched, and I’m never going back. It’s fast, and it’s brought the joy back for me. Nvidia needs to do better, but that was the only difficulty I had.
Thank you for sharing your story!
For your kind of use case and issues, I’d recommend finding someone local with a good amount of Linux experience and do a couple of pair sessions. I find this transports a lot more (especially ‘soft’) knowledge on concepts and how to do things efficiently. Also, it helps to share frustrations ;-)
Linux does not try to be another Windows. While it’s fairly possible to treat it kinda as such especially in newer times, it won’t feel efficient or convenient that way, in my experience.
Can you elaborate on what pair sessions are?
It’s being 2 people in front of the screen instead of one.
It’s something related to the main advice I can give to someone wanting to try Linux = do not be alone and ask for help a lot.
I read “boot”, “side by side with windows, “ubuntu”, Nvidia” and some awfull war flashbacks came back to haunt me.
As someone who grew up toying with both windows, Mac and Linux I think people always underestimate how hard it’ll be to migrate to an OS they never tried before. I’ve seen lots of people getting frustrated that way, regardless of the OS.
So I’d say being an IT guy or a tech illiterate won’t change much in that regard. I guess being an IT might at least give you shortcuts but you’ll still hit a wall if you don’t check beforehand if all your needs will be easy to access and how much pain you’ll have to deal with.
At least that’s my take on it.
But yeah, Ubuntu can be awfull depending on your needs. Windows and Linux don’t make good neighbors, windows is always the one trying to murder the other, and Nvidia is a nasty piece of work.
News Flash!
“Linux is still a pain in the ass, even for experienced IT professionals.” More at 11…
I’ve run Linux for a great many things over the years. Running 2 AWS LightSail instances for my own use. Running dozens of Ubuntu Server instances at work. Shit just works.
But Linux is a hard fail for a daily driver. Maybe not for you, but for most of us it sucks.
I’ve tried and tried and tried, for 20+ years. Of course I can make it work, but it’s a pain in the ass. I got work to do on my daily driver, and fucking around as well. I need a desktop that just works. With everything.
It’s more like Linux is a pain in the ass, especially for IT professionals.
How many people are trying to use 4 monitors with weird configurations and admin software? Most people open up their laptop lid and run some programs, that’s about it.
Point in case, much like OP I do personally use 2 monitors + Nvidia GPU + LLM and it worked out of the box on Arch Linux, but Wayland crashes my setup so I need to be aware of that.
Weird, I’m using Linux as my daily driver and have A LOT less bullshit to handle.
It does take a bit of setup, but I’m a lot more productive and haven’t really any Windows “exclusive” tools, except for some Windows only protocols for which I still need to boot up Windows now and again.
The problem is people try using Linux like Windows. It’s like using a hammer to drill holes, obviously you’re going to have a bad experience if you use the tools the wrong way.
That sucks. I’ve found that 90% of stuff works fine in Linux, 5% works if you jury rig it enough, and 5% just straight up doesn’t work - and if that last 5% is needed for your job, then you’re SOL. For me the few things that don’t work are worth giving up because of how much I hate Windows’ spyware and adware, and all my work apps work fine in a browser window so I’ve never had to worry about that.
I’ve quit a few games years ago for that exact reason.
Dont fall for bait guys
Jfc all this sub is is people bitching and moaning about windows. Do you all really have NOTHING else to talk about?
An entire sub dedicated to Linux and all you can do is talk about windows.
There’s an app on Flatpacks called Thincast remote desktop client. I don’t htink it’s using the free rdp libraries, so it’s possible that the bugs you encountered with the other open source apps (that all use the same underlying libs), might not be there.
