Linus has a skill for messing things up with Linux
this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026
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It's a little crazy to me how the most popular tech youtuber struggles so much with Linux, meanwhile fucking PewDiePie, who's not known for being particularly bright, has been making videos about Linux and selfhosting and how fun it is to configure his system lol.
The hardest person to convert is a Windows "poweruser". They have an unfounded confidence in their ability to do things. They think because they know Windows well they should be immediate pros at other OSes as well.
LTT isn't known for being bright either.
The main draw of his channel is that he has no idea what he's doing.
Like his budget builds that rely on buying parts later so they aren't included in the price. Or that he stands on the cases to close them.
It's just about watching a monkey play with tech.
you do know he was an engineering major?
no pewdiepie 1000% messed things up on linux. the difference is he didnt show it in his videos
If you mess up and then fix it/start over and get it right the second time around, did you mess up?
Well yes, but you also learned something.
cOnTeNt
Naw he's just the ElectroBOOM of computers. Intentionally does shit wrong to show people how not to do things.
He wishes he were electroboom
the interessting thing with linus is that he 1. plays the non tech person and 2. has pretty bad luck with linux fetures that are broken or bugs because he stumbles over them to 120%.
I also like the contrast between Linus and Luke because Luke drives Mint on his Laptop and cachy os on something other and he has very few problems.
There was something that happened a while ago that made all the tech influencers look kinda silly in regards to Linux. I'll never forget this comment on one of the videos around the kerfuffle. 'All these computer experts have just been downgraded to Windows influencers.' It's so true how they can tell you all the inner workings of a Windows machine and the moment they try Linux their expertise just falls apart.
at least mac has a functional filesystem and shell lol
This really shouldn't be a hot take but I think the people here will disagree. "Linus unironically did nothing wrong in his linux challenge video" The linux community really shouldnt act like he was using it wrong because its a terrible look.
No reasonable person can pretend there are no issues with linux. Sure you can get good at using linux and not run into these issues but they still exist and people will still run into them and you shouldnt blame the person.
Weren't people giving him commands, and he was running them without understanding what they did? Or am I thinking of somebody else?
Aha you were probably thinking of every one that is learning Linux ever born?
My issue is the categorization which in turn paints a picture on a lot of OSes. Call it a Pop OS challenge, or debian challenge, etc. In people's minds there is windows, ios, and everything else is "linux". Just leaves a bad taste. Just like in your comment you're broadly painting "linux" issues as if windows or such doesn't also run into problems at times (especially with windows updates lately).
In the talk show they do, he talked about how even with the issues he loves Pop OS and even mentioned that very argument--that he has problems with Windows too, and at least this way one of those problems isn't copilot.
The big problem is Linus decides to pretend to be some "average user" when he isn't one, and therefore ends up making absolutely bonkers decisions. It was super obvious in the last video because Linus was the only one participating who had major issues, and the only one participating who pretended to know nothing.
If they actually wanted to give Linux an honest shot and see if they can replace windows on one or more of their computers, the format would be entirely different. I think the format would probably start with a Q&A session with a well known Linux YouTuber like Wendel (who they still appear to have a good working relationship with) where they get the initial "here's what you need to know and what I recommend for the best experience right now" then a check in call after 24 hours, 72 hours, 1 week and 2 weeks where they touch base, discuss pain points and how to alleviate them. Such a format would give an easy transition as well as great advise for the audience, but still present plenty of opportunity to directly see real world pain points and rough edges but instead of those rough edges being "haha Linux bad" they can instead be "here's how to overcome them" or "this is an area that needs some developer time, anyone want to dive into improving this?" And maybe if they were really feeling crazy they could offer up some bug bounties for the pain points they find! Because that's the power of open source is if you have the knowhow you can go in and fix it!
I honestly suspect Linus just doesn't want to change, and that's why he keeps failing to actually give Linux a shot. This might be an unpopular opinion here but it's okay if he doesn't want to change, but he should not be trying to tear down the Linux community for content in the process
I think this perspective is insane. They should absolutely not approached switching to linux by leveraging expert linux advice through their youtube contacts. Its fine for Linus to have issues switching to linux, most people do and the video wasnt just Linus having issues it was also Luke and Elijah having a good experience. When it comes to switching to linux Linus is an average user, he doesnt know about the system and is going in with little experience. LTT has gotten these pain points fixed and their video did not come off as "haha linux bad" did you watch it?
As a linux user I want linux to be an approachable thing, I would be pissed if it was presented as a thing that required expert consultation from wendel.
Shitting on macOS like that is completely unjustified.
Nah, worst os I've ever used
Skill issue
No skill issue involved when your team arrives to work and every single employee's screen sharing functionality stops working...and there's no warning or notification why it's not working.
No skill involved when your sound drivers stop working during a presentation and you need to reboot to get them working again because there's no way to restart the devices.
No skill issue when the file explorer has no way to access the root directory - you have to run finder from the command bar and that somehow works.
No skill issue involved when an update breaks all local domains and you have no way to override, so you have to change all dev domains for everyone across the whole org....TWICE.
No skill issue when wifi and bluetooth randomly stop working and the only solution is to reboot.
No skill issue when pressing the play button and it open iTunes when Spotify is already open.
Not a skill issue when desktop transitions don't accept input until the transition completes. Reducing the transition time does not help, the transition must fully complete before you can provide input.
I could go on, but I can only recall so much anecdotal experience from the few years I suffered through that shit. Maybe some of these things have been fixed, but release after release the experience would worsen and usability would degrade. I'll never use a mac again, my productivity is too important to me.
Anyone who stans for MacOS are just lying to themselves.
Thank you for providing examples. Some are fair enough.
file explorer has no way to access the root directory
It has several ways. From the menu bar: > Go to⦠> Folder > /
By default Finder no longer shows your main drive in the sidebar. You can easily enable that in Finder settings though.
You can also navigate the folder hierarchy up until you are at root. cmd + up is the keyboard shortcut for that. You can also command + click the icon in the window title bar and then select the folder upwards in the hierarchy you want to navigate to.
There are several other ways to do this as well.
reboot
A very common way to resolve problems on all operating systems.
update breaks all local domains
Weird.
release after release the experience would worsen and usability would degrade
I agree that macOS experience has worsened over the last couple of years. Itβs still better than Linux and windows overall.
It's understandable that you had issues and I have quite a few gripes with it as well, but I never had any of the severe ones you mentioned.
I use it for backend development (Go and C#) and Game dev. I've used Linux for a long time, Apple silicon is what made me curious enough to try a macbook for work purposes and I'm generally happy with it after 4 years of heavy usage. Windows I use exclusively for gaming but that's going to change very soon.
It's fine if you don't like it but calling it a "non-computer" is dumb, and that's what my original comment was meant to convey.
None of these happen on a regular occasion, I canβt even remember the last time ANY of them happened in my office where macOS is the default. 90% of what you experienced is probably user created errors**. But then again I realize Iβm in a Linux sub and itβs what we Linux users do, tweak shit.
** except for the play button. Apple does like to force Apple Music over my already open player.
macOS is perfect for every day use for most people and for those that know how to use it outside the normal, powerful.
This shit happened all the time, it was a non-stop nuisance, and it's only the tip of the iceberg. Retina display would disconnect daily, peripherals would disconnect when connected through a retina display, the entire OS one time would not boot and there was no real error message but was fixed by clearing some battery cache after we already ordered a new macbook.
These issues plagued our entire office, but you just lived with it because you didn't have a choice. One ycombinator commentor described these issues as "papercuts", and they're so abundant that they moved away from MacOS entirely. Another commentor describes that the most recent release is the most "breaking" version yet. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47440759
It's pretty ignorant to say "it's perfect for every day use" in the face of literal users struggling to use it for "every day use".
Something is missing. Do you want a computer? No. Do you have money? Yes: Apple. No: Chrome OS
Wut popos is pretty good got it on all other family members computors
1
Ubuntu on a desktop, mint on an older laptop, and Pop_OS on my daily driver laptop...
What am I doing wrong here?
What am I doing wrong here?
Ubuntu on a desktop
What is supposedly wrong with my operating system?
A YouTuber entered a command, it warned him it would delete system files. He said yes and concluded Linux was flawed.
The joke is that if you're that guy then even Pop won't work for you.
Stupid take - the warning came when he ran sudo apt install steam, not even a joke. He said yes but there is literally no reason that command should break his entire OS. If it wasn't flawed then why was it fixed later on?
Iβm borderline Linux illiterate and have been using Pop as my daily driver for years without problems.
I think Iβve had to troubleshoot a major issue exactly one time and that was easy.
Btw, Pop OS has said they will comply and add age attestation in case you weren't aware.
What did he do this time?
He chooses pop over and over again at the worst times. The beta of cosmic was buggy for his use. And he installed it in the middle of a lanparty no less. That said. He eventually switched to mint same as Luke I think. Luke who has also been using, by the way. And he and Luke have had pretty positive things to say this time. Between windows actively going to shit and Linux continuing to chug along and improve.