I was one of the few who watched it few weeks ago when it was on Floatplane, and I was honestly shocked that he managed to nuke his install almost instantly because of a dependency issue. Granted, he should’ve read it, but I see a very newb Linux user doing that.
At least Luke seemed to have much easier time.
Glad Linus went with Manjaro Plasma, and hopefully all of his criticism will be heard and addressed (i.e. his hatred of Dolphin).
I have a hatred for Dolphin too, but even more so for KDE. I know people love it, I just can’t. Honestly though, Linux is not that hard. I just hope this works for him, so that Linux doesn’t get a bad rap.
I have that same issue while installing Linux Mint. Took a bit but you can get through it all with using keyboard.
You should ALWAYS update the system before you do anything further with a new install.
When I saw what he was about to execute I was like noooooo. It did it’s best to stop him with the type xxx to continue. Nice touch. I think the lesson for all of us is read the screen before saying.
To be fair i’ve done exactly what Linus did as a new user, I simply didn’t know what those packages were and it’s easy to say don’t mess with things you don’t absolutely understand but that just means don’t use Linux because that applies to near everything in the beginning.
Very good point. Still nothing was lost and a reinstallation is always an option.
It was a bugged package, but when your computer say something like that- you should really read it. He may not know what the names are, but it did say essential packages. I still would have like to see him on Leap or OpenMandriva
I tried Pop_OS! for a little while once, and the impression it left me with, was that the software packaging (as a coherent whole) seemed really “brittle”. Something similarly blew up on me (as happened in the OP). It wasn’t Steam, and it didn’t totally nuke my GUI, but through a seemingly innocuous choice (and I’ve been using Debian-based Distros since like 1998) I put the packing system into a very-hard-to-break-out-of conundrum. That was the end of my Pop_OS! use right there!
I can appreciate what Pop_OS! is trying to do: make the very latest drivers all available for very new laptops/desktops, but I feel that they go out on a limb too much in their various packaging system hacks, making for “brittle” situations like the OP encountered.
I have a combo of KDE Neon Testing + Pop!_OS. Good thing that mine never got borked.
I never experienced it 
But yea, I get why you described it as brittle.
Do people read Terms and Conditions?
Nope
As an former heavy windows/mac user, I can identify with almost every gripe and expressed criticism put forth in LTT’s video. The only one he was missing was, “Where is the C:\ drive?!?”
I hope he sticks with it, and is flooded with encouragement, help, and appreciation. As a pretty competent tech-guy, I’m sure he’ll figure most of this stuff out sooner, rather than later. I know people in IT departments that are intimidated by linux. He gets kudos from me for trying a challenge like this. (regardless of the motives)
I lost count on how many installations I rendered useless from just ‘playing around’ with installing and uninstalling… and mindlessly entering in commands I found online… and the whole gambit of goofy things you try when you’re brand new to linux. I loved that it was just so easy to try another distro, or reinstall and be right back to where I was.
His comment on ‘windows settings’ scattered around the OS made me laugh. Sorry, but when WINDOWS starts to make KDE look organized, Microsoft needs to just stop, and just begin re-releasing Windows 7, then XP, then 2000… etc. etc. and work their way back to sanity.
These are fun episodes to catch, and I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen so far.
In regards to the removing of X by LTT, I don’t fully blame him. I have been confused by the terminal APT output. It’s not as well organized as Zypper or DNF. I appreciate the summary much better there… especially Zypper. It’s nice and clear. I do think that he should have tried Fedora instead. As much as I love openSUSE, it does have it’s hurdles to overcome for new users. Personally, I much prefer it but I do think it is an acquired taste.
I thought this was worth sharing here. A different take on the LTT Challenge… “Linux Guy Tries Windows 11 for a Month”:
"I am reversing the Linux Tech Tips Linux Challenge to try Windows 11 for a month running on hardware. Using the same criteria (almost) that Linus and Luke are using to evaluate Linux (only in reverse). "
Linus sucessfully took down the darlings of the Linux Gaming community in one weekend with Garuda and Pop!_OS. To me, this could all have been avoided had he gone with one of the “main” distros of Linux. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch . To me, this is Linux. Large communities, stable, cutting or bleeding edge, popular distros.
The overall problem with niche distros is just that, They Are Niche! They have the underpinnings of one of the aforementioned distros with tweaks and scripts running to make things a certain way. There are less eye on packages and their effect on the experience and even less people to work out what to do in a pinch.
If I was Linus, I would have modified the rules of the competition:
Why do these things? I find his approach, unreasonable even to the most basic of users. Very rarely would anyone venture into a full install on their own without mentioning it to someone they know who might have experience with the software.
With today’s size and experience of the Linux community this would be a reasonable approach. Years ago I entered the Linux ranks with no outside help – relying only on my experience of a few decades of tech support of both hardware and windows, about a decade of full stack LAMP programming and that based on about a half-dozen years of pearl and HP-UX administration in the mini-environment. And with all of that under my belt, I still blew up about the first 3 installs. At one point I left the whole hot mess set for about a year. I didn’t know about different distros, I didn’t know about different desktop environments, I didn’t know about LTS release cycles, etc…
What made the difference for me was persistence and community. I learned from the kind and generous support of people who simply wanted to help a fellow human being find their way. I can’t understand why Linus would attempt this experiment and deny himself the benefit of the real jewel of the Linux experience – and that is: a community that wants to see him succeed.
He seems to want to replicate the average user transitioning experience. Maybe he is using the community anonymously. Maybe he is engaged with the community without us knowing it’s him. Or maybe not, we’ll never know.
Very well stated. Thanks for the comment.