People online complain that Linux is hard to install for new users. But who are these people and why do they levy these complaints? The biggest barrier for the new Linux user isn't the installer; i...
I’m curious what OSs and what issues you had. If you want, make a post in a Linux community and reply with the link here. I’d be keen to see where I’m at in helping others with Linux drivers since I just had some issues I resolved. I want to move my grandpa’s computer to Linux when Win10 runs out so it could be a practice opportunity.
I’ve tried PopOS 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS and 25.04.
PopOS mostly worked but almost none of my games worked, they acted like they weren’t being hardware accelerated by my GPU when they launched at all, and every time I tried to update the driver the install process hard-locked my system and when I rebooted it it came back up with no video driver at all. I was finally able to get one driver version to work, after doing about 10-15 install/reboot/unfuck cycles (the 555-server closed source driver.) I tried a couple versions of the open source drivers and they didn’t work either. I also had this weird issue with (I think it was) pipewire where my sound would cut out at random and the only way to get it back was to go into the sound control panel and toggle between speakers and headset repeatedly. I noticed this especially when joining a voice channel in discord, but it would just happen out of the blue too.
Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS installed fine but whenever it boots the monitor goes into standby with a no-signal notice. The system seems to be running, ctrl+alt+del reboots it, but I can’t even us ctrl+F2-6 to get a curses terminal where theoretically the video drivers shouldn’t matter at all? When I tried to install 25.04 (on the assumption that it would have a newer video driver) I booted on the USB key and even the installer didn’t work, same issue: monitor goes no-signal.
In case it matters, my specs are:
Ryzen 7 3800X 3.9GHz 8-core
Gigabyte Vision OC 12 RTX3060 w/12GB VRAM
32GB DDR4-3200 RAM
Multiple SSDs, some SATA, some NVMe in M.2 slots, but I’ve only ever installed linux on my BPX Pro 1TB NVMe drive that’s ~4-5 years old.
Okay, so I’m assuming with Pop you used the nvidia driver edition which meant it loaded using that. It’s possible that Ubuntu tried using nouveau and failed to work I guess but I think I need to know more. Tell me about how you are connected to your monitor. Display port or hdmi? Do you have a docking station?
Were both installs using Wayland, xorg or dont know?
It’s interesting that Pop installed and showed everything but Ubuntus later version didn’t because Pop is based on Ubuntu and theoretically has most of the same drivers. I’ve experienced it not working exactly the same before but yeah, that’s odd.
Does your computer use secure boot and was it on at the time you tried installing Pop, and Ubuntu?
Was anything above the usb in the boot priority during the Ubuntu installation? If the screen was unresponsive and the device rebooted using Ctrl,Alt,Del then how do you know that was ubuntu?
Do you have a spare device such as a laptop around with an Ethernet port?
What other distros have you tried and have you ever used Linux Mint? It’s my GOTO for anyone new to linux (including myself).
Sorry that’s a lot of questions but I think more information could be very useful.
Monitor: HDMI cable straight into the #1 HDMI port on my GPU. Probably have a DP cable around here somewhere but haven’t felt like fucking with it since it worked fine on an HDMI cable on Pop. It’s a standard desktop setup, not a laptop with a docking station or anything.
Wayland/xorg: no clue, it never asked and I never saw even the first pixel of graphical anything.
Yeah I thought so too re:Pop/Ubuntu, part of the reason I tried Ubuntu is because it was similar but I hoped it would have more stable drivers or the like. shrug
Secure boot: I don’t remember (and can’t reboot to check bios) - I think I remember having to disable it when I installed Pop, but that was several months ago and my memory is shit.
Boot: Yes, the windows boot drive (an old 128GB SATA SSD), but I hit F11 on boot adn selected USB to boot to that to do the install just like with Pop. But again the install worked fine at least on the older LTS version of Ubuntu. And it booted on USB correctly with the later version too, just as soon as it went graphical it b0rked.
Spare laptop: nope. Closest I have is an old headless NAS box that’s running an old version of RedHat I think?, but also it’s been in my closet for ~5 years because I don’t really have anywhere to set it up. So mostly no.
Distros; I mean a lot of years ago i messed a lot with RedHat and before that Slackware, but nothing on this hardware. I have not tried Mint, and I’ve heard good things about it, but I mostly wanted to go with a main-line distro like ubuntu because a lot of the forum posts and such I found talking about how to fix random things seemed to be for ubuntu so it seemed like it’d be easier to get help on.
And no problem, I’m happy to answer if it means I can make this work.
Boot: Yes, the windows boot drive (an old 128GB SATA SSD), but I hit F11 on boot adn selected USB to boot to that to do the install just like with Pop. But again the install worked fine at least on the older LTS version of Ubuntu. And it booted on USB correctly with the later version too, just as soon as it went graphical it b0rked.
So do you get a grub menu at all? Is there the Plymouth (green, grey and white text only) loading screen? What does booting look like? I need more detail here because I’ve had driver issues and this is sounding more like a boot issue. Would it be possible to remove other hard drives during a test installation then add them back afterwards? Totally understand work and life comes first and all but if you get the opportunity, I’ve got a hunch.
I’m thinking we need a matrix chat or something to send images and details on lol
I have to hit F11 to choose to boot the linux partition, at which point I get a grub menu. I don’t recall anything that says Plymouth on it, and I normally don’t get a text screen at all unless I boot into recovery mode, at which point I get the usual linux text-spam on boot.
Booting looks like:
POST, F11
Select Linux to boot from (it’s listed as the 128GB SSD because that’s where the MBR/etc is, but linux is on a 1TB NVMe SSD)
Get grub menu.
Select Ubuntu.
Wait a lot on a black screen.
Get a brief Ubuntu logo that lasts a couple seconds.
Black screen again for a few more seconds.
No signal.
Remove other drives: no, that would be a significant pain in the ass. But also Pop worked installed on the same NVMe SSD with the same other drives in the system, so I’m pretty sure it’s not a drive/BIOS-related boot issue.
I’d be happy to chat, though I have no idea what matrix even is. Feel free to DM (does lemmy even do DMs? I’m still kinda new) if you want to try to get something like that set up tho. I’m on discord if that helps?
I’m curious what OSs and what issues you had. If you want, make a post in a Linux community and reply with the link here. I’d be keen to see where I’m at in helping others with Linux drivers since I just had some issues I resolved. I want to move my grandpa’s computer to Linux when Win10 runs out so it could be a practice opportunity.
I’ve tried PopOS 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS and 25.04.
PopOS mostly worked but almost none of my games worked, they acted like they weren’t being hardware accelerated by my GPU when they launched at all, and every time I tried to update the driver the install process hard-locked my system and when I rebooted it it came back up with no video driver at all. I was finally able to get one driver version to work, after doing about 10-15 install/reboot/unfuck cycles (the 555-server closed source driver.) I tried a couple versions of the open source drivers and they didn’t work either. I also had this weird issue with (I think it was) pipewire where my sound would cut out at random and the only way to get it back was to go into the sound control panel and toggle between speakers and headset repeatedly. I noticed this especially when joining a voice channel in discord, but it would just happen out of the blue too.
Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS installed fine but whenever it boots the monitor goes into standby with a no-signal notice. The system seems to be running, ctrl+alt+del reboots it, but I can’t even us ctrl+F2-6 to get a curses terminal where theoretically the video drivers shouldn’t matter at all? When I tried to install 25.04 (on the assumption that it would have a newer video driver) I booted on the USB key and even the installer didn’t work, same issue: monitor goes no-signal.
In case it matters, my specs are: Ryzen 7 3800X 3.9GHz 8-core Gigabyte Vision OC 12 RTX3060 w/12GB VRAM 32GB DDR4-3200 RAM Multiple SSDs, some SATA, some NVMe in M.2 slots, but I’ve only ever installed linux on my BPX Pro 1TB NVMe drive that’s ~4-5 years old.
Okay, so I’m assuming with Pop you used the nvidia driver edition which meant it loaded using that. It’s possible that Ubuntu tried using nouveau and failed to work I guess but I think I need to know more. Tell me about how you are connected to your monitor. Display port or hdmi? Do you have a docking station?
Were both installs using Wayland, xorg or dont know?
It’s interesting that Pop installed and showed everything but Ubuntus later version didn’t because Pop is based on Ubuntu and theoretically has most of the same drivers. I’ve experienced it not working exactly the same before but yeah, that’s odd.
Does your computer use secure boot and was it on at the time you tried installing Pop, and Ubuntu?
Was anything above the usb in the boot priority during the Ubuntu installation? If the screen was unresponsive and the device rebooted using Ctrl,Alt,Del then how do you know that was ubuntu?
Do you have a spare device such as a laptop around with an Ethernet port?
What other distros have you tried and have you ever used Linux Mint? It’s my GOTO for anyone new to linux (including myself).
Sorry that’s a lot of questions but I think more information could be very useful.
Probably re:Pop nvidia driver edition.
Monitor: HDMI cable straight into the #1 HDMI port on my GPU. Probably have a DP cable around here somewhere but haven’t felt like fucking with it since it worked fine on an HDMI cable on Pop. It’s a standard desktop setup, not a laptop with a docking station or anything.
Wayland/xorg: no clue, it never asked and I never saw even the first pixel of graphical anything.
Yeah I thought so too re:Pop/Ubuntu, part of the reason I tried Ubuntu is because it was similar but I hoped it would have more stable drivers or the like. shrug
Secure boot: I don’t remember (and can’t reboot to check bios) - I think I remember having to disable it when I installed Pop, but that was several months ago and my memory is shit.
Boot: Yes, the windows boot drive (an old 128GB SATA SSD), but I hit F11 on boot adn selected USB to boot to that to do the install just like with Pop. But again the install worked fine at least on the older LTS version of Ubuntu. And it booted on USB correctly with the later version too, just as soon as it went graphical it b0rked.
Spare laptop: nope. Closest I have is an old headless NAS box that’s running an old version of RedHat I think?, but also it’s been in my closet for ~5 years because I don’t really have anywhere to set it up. So mostly no.
Distros; I mean a lot of years ago i messed a lot with RedHat and before that Slackware, but nothing on this hardware. I have not tried Mint, and I’ve heard good things about it, but I mostly wanted to go with a main-line distro like ubuntu because a lot of the forum posts and such I found talking about how to fix random things seemed to be for ubuntu so it seemed like it’d be easier to get help on.
And no problem, I’m happy to answer if it means I can make this work.
So do you get a grub menu at all? Is there the Plymouth (green, grey and white text only) loading screen? What does booting look like? I need more detail here because I’ve had driver issues and this is sounding more like a boot issue. Would it be possible to remove other hard drives during a test installation then add them back afterwards? Totally understand work and life comes first and all but if you get the opportunity, I’ve got a hunch.
I’m thinking we need a matrix chat or something to send images and details on lol
I have to hit F11 to choose to boot the linux partition, at which point I get a grub menu. I don’t recall anything that says Plymouth on it, and I normally don’t get a text screen at all unless I boot into recovery mode, at which point I get the usual linux text-spam on boot.
Booting looks like: POST, F11 Select Linux to boot from (it’s listed as the 128GB SSD because that’s where the MBR/etc is, but linux is on a 1TB NVMe SSD) Get grub menu. Select Ubuntu. Wait a lot on a black screen. Get a brief Ubuntu logo that lasts a couple seconds. Black screen again for a few more seconds. No signal.
Remove other drives: no, that would be a significant pain in the ass. But also Pop worked installed on the same NVMe SSD with the same other drives in the system, so I’m pretty sure it’s not a drive/BIOS-related boot issue.
I’d be happy to chat, though I have no idea what matrix even is. Feel free to DM (does lemmy even do DMs? I’m still kinda new) if you want to try to get something like that set up tho. I’m on discord if that helps?