I’ve done a long analysis of that incident on using the swiss cheese model, it boils down to:
There was a bugged version of steam.deb released that would throw an incompatibility with some weirder desktops, to include Pop!_OS’ kind-of-not-quite-Cosmic-yet fork of Gnome. This incompatibility would have it uninstall the entire GUI. Including X11.
This bug was found and patched long before this. But, the bugged version just happened to be in the apt cache of the image of Pop!_OS that Linus installed.
Pop!_OS didn’t perform an apt update at any point during the onboarding cycle, or when launching the Pop!_Shop.
Linus went to install Steam, the Pop!_Shop saw that scary warning about uninstalling the GUI, and refused to do it.
Instead of googling “popos failed to install steam” and learning how to update before installing, Linus yelled at the camera about Linux requiring the terminal, googled how to install it from the terminal.
Most install instructions for Debian-based Linux tell you to apt update and apt upgrade before an apt install, but Linus seems to have only found the apt install instruction.
Possibly because Windows always says doing something can damage your computer, Linus ignored the warning and forced the install to continue.
APT happily uninstalled X11.
A lot of the fault falls on the design of Pop!_OS and how it handles the apt cache, that somehow neither the onboarding process nor launching the Pop!_Shop did it. Most of the time it’s mostly not a problem mostly. But one time it was a major problem, on international television. In the same episode, Luke installed Linux Mint, and showed it prompting him to install updates, which refreshes the apt cache and prevents problems like this.
Some of it does fall on Linus. Rather than attempting do diagnose and solve a problem, he threw a little bitch fit.
What’s notable though is Linus’ experience is likely to be very typical of an average non-technical Windows user’s experience when it comes to dealing with problems.
To seemingly lose the ability to read when an error occurs and then just try and slam it through regardless instead of pumping the brakes and asking for help is all too common.
Yeah I feel like anyone who blames Linus for this is missing the point. Was it dumb, yes, but if we want the average (or even a bit tech-savy) Windows gamer to transition to Linux then the distro they use needs to be resistant to this. Most people don’t read shit, they just want things to work so they can play their games. And they’ll happily click through multiple warnings to get there.
I’m on year 5 of fully committed to Linux everything (minus work) and I still assume “oh yeah I can probably just sudo force the thing I want. Reading logs takes too long” and yeah it bites me in the ass sometimes.
Its weird to hold Linus (Tech Tips) to such a high standard for no other reason than he makes tech YouTube videos.
I’m a fucking sys admin and I make the same mistakes. Its human. I’m glad he’s at least making Linux seem accessible while also bringing to light the realities of how different the troubleshooting strat is from Windows to Linux.
I do think Linus should be held to a higher standard than the average joe, but yeah. IMO he should have done his due diligence to do things right. It was just very low effort for a guy whose professional life revolves around tech.
Some people go way too far with lambasting him though.
I have to disagree, the point of the video was to try how Linux was for someone to switch over to. People engage with Linux like that and pop os changed the error bypass command as a result. It was a net positive for desktop Linux.
Now ltt as a whole? Yeah, no. Reviewing coolers on the wrong GPU, auctioning off prototypes instead of returning them, recommending people use insecure windows debloaters, etc. is completely unacceptable.
I’ve done a long analysis of that incident on using the swiss cheese model, it boils down to:
A lot of the fault falls on the design of Pop!_OS and how it handles the apt cache, that somehow neither the onboarding process nor launching the Pop!_Shop did it. Most of the time it’s mostly not a problem mostly. But one time it was a major problem, on international television. In the same episode, Luke installed Linux Mint, and showed it prompting him to install updates, which refreshes the apt cache and prevents problems like this.
Some of it does fall on Linus. Rather than attempting do diagnose and solve a problem, he threw a little bitch fit.
What’s notable though is Linus’ experience is likely to be very typical of an average non-technical Windows user’s experience when it comes to dealing with problems.
To seemingly lose the ability to read when an error occurs and then just try and slam it through regardless instead of pumping the brakes and asking for help is all too common.
Yeah I feel like anyone who blames Linus for this is missing the point. Was it dumb, yes, but if we want the average (or even a bit tech-savy) Windows gamer to transition to Linux then the distro they use needs to be resistant to this. Most people don’t read shit, they just want things to work so they can play their games. And they’ll happily click through multiple warnings to get there.
I’m on year 5 of fully committed to Linux everything (minus work) and I still assume “oh yeah I can probably just sudo force the thing I want. Reading logs takes too long” and yeah it bites me in the ass sometimes.
Its weird to hold Linus (Tech Tips) to such a high standard for no other reason than he makes tech YouTube videos.
I’m a fucking sys admin and I make the same mistakes. Its human. I’m glad he’s at least making Linux seem accessible while also bringing to light the realities of how different the troubleshooting strat is from Windows to Linux.
I do think Linus should be held to a higher standard than the average joe, but yeah. IMO he should have done his due diligence to do things right. It was just very low effort for a guy whose professional life revolves around tech.
Some people go way too far with lambasting him though.
I have to disagree, the point of the video was to try how Linux was for someone to switch over to. People engage with Linux like that and pop os changed the error bypass command as a result. It was a net positive for desktop Linux.
Now ltt as a whole? Yeah, no. Reviewing coolers on the wrong GPU, auctioning off prototypes instead of returning them, recommending people use insecure windows debloaters, etc. is completely unacceptable.
This was really interesting to read.