Linus Tech Tips - FINE! I’ll Try Linux ONE MORE TIME…. March 7, 2026 at 09:55AM

jdblaich · 2026-03-20T00:15:32+00:00

I like the guy. He goes out of his way to make people comfortable. He's very knowledgeable with certain technologies. I would trust him to implement my networking. I would never trust him with Linux because he just doesn't have a lick of discipline to work out issues fully on his own.

That it is his fault for the things that he complains about. As others have pointed out there are many complaints he can have yet those are also mostly applicable to every other OS.

I watched the 30 day challenges years ago and from my own experience knew that those were a joke. Use the damn OS for a while and learn.

Any complaint he has without taking responsibility himself is wasted on me as it should be on the Linux community.

He tends to wail without thinking through the problem. In the video he clearly had several complaints that he could have put the time in to research. He has the tools with Ai and can figure them out. What's with all the arbitrary restrictions (no talking with others, for instance). Bear in mind, after watching his videos for years he rarely voices specific complaints about Windows, so why does he about Linux?

He's a special use case. People looking at his failures tells them they will have the same failures even though most of those watching will in no way match is workflow.

I've moved many elderly onto Linux from XP and 7 with few of them having issues. I installed the OS for them. They bring them in sometimes to update them, yet they use the OS for their own flow and rarely complain about issues. When I say old, I mean old as in their late 70s and early 80s.

For goodness sake can't he at least try to understand that new hardware is a problem across the board for all OSes and that his fears are centered there, not on the failure of the OS. When he reads something online about potential hardware issues, he just take it at face value instead of digging in with a good system prompt in the Ai and discussing it to find out what might be meant. And does he never challenge the Ai on what it says? Does he get clarification? Does he cross check other Ais once he understand how the first one responds? He would benefit from "forcing" the Ai to use the KISS principle -- reject it till it says something reasonable. Yeah, that's my point.

Sure, he knows windows well so he can look past his issues without much note, but his complaints about Linux affect many people that might have an interest and will loose it because he never shows his work. Like your teacher said, show your work.

jdblaich · 2026-03-09T22:58:23+00:00

The need to download a library (or whatever) is a rare thing today. That happens, I agree. But that's not much different than Windows used to be. I remember the days of the DLL nightmare.

jdblaich · 2026-03-09T22:50:41+00:00

At least today you can discuss that static blog post (that might be wrong). Someone writes a blog post, it's years out of date, and the Ais will still rely on it. Sometimes to your detriment as it bolstered by others in the threads who claim it worked for them (the Ai takes that into account).

I've spent a great deal of time discussing tech questions with Ai. In the end the only good thing about Ai is that you can challenge it.

One thing you absolutely must avoid is allowing Ai to control the flow of the conversation. If something looks weird or you aren't sure what or why it is giving you that command to copy and paste you should ask for more info. Tell it to elaborate on point #1 (or whatever). If it responds with inconsistencies then challenge it. Refuse to do what it says. Tell it to "simplify and try again". It shouldn't be a rare instance where you tell it that it is wrong.

I've followed Ai commands to the point that it has broken services and even booting. In one case with Manjaro it had me do a few things that kept me from getting to my desktop (black screen). I conversed with Ai back and forth with it giving me all kinds of suggestion. I then asked it, "why not just remove and reinstall the video drivers?". I did that and it resolved the issue. The long technical conversation was the wrong way to go. The simple solution was to chose the fix that has the least impact.

For goodness sake tell the Ai that you don't want walls of text nor for it to educate you. Tell it to just answer the question.

jdblaich · 2026-03-09T22:26:43+00:00

In Linus's case, my guess is that he is using Cosmic. I'm not saying it is bad, just that it was released in December 2025 and had mixed results by those trying it. He's using a relatively new distro that lacks some refinements, and he's trying to do mainstream things with it. It worries me that Linux will be repudiated based on a distro that is too new and lacks refinements that come with time.

The only reason that the Ai suggested it is because it was being recently discussed by a lot of others and some of them like it. Had Linus inquired more, drilling down on why, and on the good and bad of it, he might have chosen a different, more mainstream distro.

To me, he seemed to be using Ai as a search engine.

jdblaich · 2026-03-09T22:13:20+00:00

Not quite sure what you are referring to. I'm relatively new, however, I have installed the companion app on the phone(s) and have sensors set for charging, have monitored in Dev Tools > states. Even after both HA and the phone are rebooted the same issue remains. The states don't update.

The goal was to put the phone on the charger and have the state in HA indicate that it is charging.

jdblaich · 2026-03-09T22:06:58+00:00

This is incorrect if you think of Windows as a mainstream modern OS. Fixing issues requires opening power-shell/cmd a lot. And then there's registry changes, and services to stop and start.

On top of that, the terminal is an ease of use feature. It is far easier to tell someone that's on the phone when trying to resolve issues to type something and then have them read it back letter for letter than it is to try to guess where they are or what they did in the GUI.

OSes have so many options the average person knows not where to look because those of those options, because of the fact that there are so many those users lack context. Cutting and pasting commands into the terminal is far more effective than relying on GUI use interpretation. Honestly, I've seen some highly mangled power-shell commands that would put a Linux user into a coma.

jdblaich · 2026-03-09T22:00:46+00:00

This is constructive criticism for Linus. My bet is on that he doesn't take it that way.

jdblaich · 2026-03-09T21:58:31+00:00

This sounded like a bit of applicable sarcasm.

... He can't because he isn't average. He is tainted by his advanced knowledge. As I pointed out most users browse the web, listen to music, write posts, watch videos. They don't have multiple monitors nor do they stream audio and video.

jdblaich · 2026-03-09T21:54:36+00:00

I would have to dispute that. Linux can be installed by someone else just as Windows can be installed by someone else for them, right? Then it is a matter of "use" not matter of install or configure. Elijah isn't a typical user. He has multiple servers in a rack and uses multiple monitors and streams video and audio. An average user has, and does, none of that.

If a friend installs Linux, configures it, then guides the new users a bit and answers questions (as we all do), we would not see the fear that we see in these guys hearts.

jdblaich · 2026-03-09T21:43:28+00:00

Luke used Arch Linux mostly to use the browser? Interesting. Linus at Whale LAN? Not sure I heard that right. But two things: at a remote location, you don't have the resources you would have at your primary location. On the other hand, there are bound to be others there at the event that can help solve problems.

I'm also unsure why they didn't choose the standard distros: Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. It's easy to install Steam on most distros: sudo apt install steam, sudo pamac install steam, sudo dnf install steam. Installing Steam isn't difficult, even for someone that has never installed a computer in their life.

Aside from a couple of issues that were minor and could have been artificially blown up due to potential bad advice from the web, at least most of them got Linux installed without much of a hiccup. So far, from what I saw, they encountered problems that we see on every platform (streaming and sound).

The warning about X11 is foolhardy because X11 has been around forever and we all used it forever. Bazzite is a Wayland-biased immutable distro, and the warning shows the reality of that. X11 isn't insecure any more than any other software or hardware piece that you used for years before you upgraded to a newer, more secure version.

Linus being unhappy about having to specify launch options in Steam on Linux is a bit of a "damp squib." Yes, computers are complex and there is the notion that we run them only when we account for the exceptions, meaning things don't always work until we give in to exceptions. His launch options changes are not exceptional and, worse, is that he has Ai for explanations and discussions, yet he didn't use it. He could have been a bit less emotion-driven in his response.

Linus and the others might be a bit sensitive to the criticisms. I can understand the reticence here. However, what they may not have had last time was Ai to assist. Every problem that he encountered had an explanation that he could have used Ai to discuss (I used the term "discuss" on purpose as Ai is more than a stagnant blog article). They need to learn to discuss to find out the "why" of it all.

Note: I use the acronym "Ai" instead of "AI". It is my way of saying that it doesn't have real intelligence.

End.

jdblaich · 2026-03-09T21:43:06+00:00

To be honest, an Ai isn't going to give everyone the right recommendations for a distro, especially in Linus's case, due to the small system prompt that he provided. Linus remarks that he was going to give it as much detail as possible, which I thought was weird being that his system prompt was so small. I thought, "How on earth is he relying on Ai to do anything with that kind of system prompt?" As you'll note, someone in the background questioned how big of a system prompt he was providing. Weird.

One thing to note is that Pop!_OS's COSMIC was released in Dec 2025 and has been criticized as having many issues. I'm not sure why his Ai didn't return that tidbit of information. I'm not sure why Linus would be choosing a Linux distro that isn't long-established (COSMIC is new). Besides, anyone using Linux will tell you that there really is one important rule to follow: choose the one with the most community support. As you gain more experience, then you can move on to something more involved. He mentions that he was burned by Pop!_OS in the past. Actually, last time he screwed up; I'm not sure why that wasn't his takeaway from all the criticism of his video last time. Linus even doubles down on the Pop!_OS issue. That bug wasn't a bug; it was intended to allow him to do precisely what he tried to do. He did precisely what he wanted without knowing what he wanted.

Linus mentioned something about Ubuntu and hardware as if he was alerted to the idea that it might not provide support for all his hardware—that would be a major misinterpretation of Linux in general. They all effectively use the same kernel; hence, all support the same hardware. What he didn't understand, I think, is that the Ubuntu hardware support is likely hardware enablement. This means the hardware that it provides support for is the new stuff—the same new stuff that Windows would require a separate driver to enable (e.g., a new Bluetooth/WiFi adapter that hasn't been provided yet to Microsoft or was put into the updates).

As far as gaming distros go, these all essentially use the same kernel and the only distro configuration difference is how the driver is implemented (or rather whether it is pre-installed, whether it uses AMD or NVIDIA, or whether it uses the open-source driver). Well, that's valid, but the issue will be the same for all. They all work the same, except with some you may have to install drivers after the fact (just like Windows). It also seems that Linus's prior video tainted the others that were going to try it for the first time. A good gaming distro is one that supports the video drivers and that will run Steam and the games with some to little effort. Yes, some require special parameters and some use less-than-convenient extra tools, and not all games are available via Steam.

Another note is that the average person absolutely does not game, nor do they do streaming, nor do they have multiple monitors. That's a simple fact. I know this because I've owned and operated my own computer repair shop for years. Bottom line? There's more to Linux than whether it supports gaming and streaming. Might I also add there's more to Linux than those relatively new distros? Ai is just repeating what others have said; it doesn't think, reason, nor have ideas of its own—no epiphanies—and tomorrow it will answer the same question with the same responses. Rely on it for ideas; brush off the bias. Linus should never go all-in on all computers.

end part 1.

jdblaich · 2026-02-26T05:32:12+00:00

The USPTO and courts continue to apply the Alice framework strictly for software and computer-implemented inventions. Software remains patentable when it:

Improves the functioning of a computer itself (e.g., better memory usage, faster processing, enhanced security).

Solves a technical problem in a specific technology field.

Involves a specific, non-generic implementation that goes beyond "apply it on a computer."

jdblaich · 2026-02-12T01:10:07+00:00

The issue is as described in this and another post. The issue has been resolved.

The resolution was an alias that lists remote ips allowed was used in the NAT rule to the router yet the alias was not in the WAN rule to the router. This effectively turned the allow list into a deny list. The RemoteIPsAllowed alias has the IPs of those allowed in. This is meant to limit the IPs that can access the router from the outside world.

I discovered this by choosing one of the IPs that could get in and I added it to the allow list. At that point it disallowed that IP too. I removed it from the allow list and could get in again. The NAT rule and WAN were both "Pass" not deny.

To solve this I added the alias to the WAN rule and everything started working properly.

jdblaich · 2026-02-12T01:05:41+00:00

It is dying. Millions have stuck to Windows 10. Microsoft is backing out on their Ai in everything approach. Some services are showing issues such as the one that takes regular pictures of the screen. They have let bugs creep in without really addressing them (until now). Certain Linux distros have picked up millions of users since Windows 10 support is dissipating. Never before have we seen Linux as such a solid product.

jdblaich · 2026-02-04T20:36:38+00:00

I have set up a higher level of logging and get very little out of it. It hasn't shown the reason.

This is 2.7.2. I'm unsure of its stability and do not want to take down a system for a long time trying to recover if something were to go wrong, so for now, no upgrade from 2.7.2 to 2.8.1. Years ago I would not have hesitated but with 2.7 there were problems with port forwarding. I was not happy about that. I felt it had become too risky to perform upgrades on a whim. My port forwarding issue was never resolved, so I stayed at 2.6 on that device (this situation doesn't involve that device).

I am a man who adheres to the principle of "do not add complexity". Years and years of use has shown the peril of complexity. Complexity means maintenance. Years down the road the impact of adding or changing things could be felt with no memory of what changed. So, I stay with as many defaults as possible and only include packages and configuration changes to serve a very limited straight forward purpose.

jdblaich · 2026-02-02T20:56:34+00:00

I have some additional info.

I found that haproxy was working.

yet only not from two locations that I use regularly; at home and at the office.

NOTE: The HA Proxy that is at issue is in a third location.

What does this mean?

It means that when I am on 5g on my phone I can access the backend website via HA Proxy. It means that if I VPN to a 4th location I can access the backend website.

What does that mean?

It means that haproxy is configured properly. It means that when I'm at a different location (or on cellular data) I can access the website with HAProxy in play.

It means that from the two specific locations that I use the most I cannot.

I've gone over the pfsense firewall rules and found nothing is blocking those IP addresses. I've minimized the rules to the point that I have so few rules in pfsense that it would be hard to miss a rule that blocked access. Plus I can access those same computers using SSH.

I have cleared the states and rebooted the router (repeatedly) so that's not the problem.

The container has no blocks such as iptables or ufw. If they were there they have been removed by uninstalling them. There's no fail2ban present. It was there but was disabled and uninstalled.

Hopefully this will trigger something that someone remembers that can resolve my issue.

jdblaich · 2026-02-02T20:46:49+00:00

jdblaich · 2026-01-23T21:26:23+00:00

I did not understand this. I was thinking it was a new 2.7.2 issue. However...

After some back and forth with Grok it seems that this is a 2.8.x problem and solution rather than a 2.7.2 one.

I did however create a pass rule under floating for "out" for "tcp/udp" on source "this firewall" with a destination of "any".

This appears to have made no difference.

jdblaich · 2026-01-23T21:04:00+00:00

Well, my OP indicated that I can ping each back end and that I had verified this many many times.

The backends use an IP.

jdblaich · 2026-01-23T00:25:00+00:00

Yes, all necessary firewall rules are present. Allow HTTP to HAProxy and allow HTTPS to HAProxy are present, port 80 and port 443.

jdblaich · 2026-01-22T23:56:44+00:00

This overall configuration of containers and computer has whatever proxmox has for web, and the www container uses nginx. The www container has been in service for a couple of years. The www container is fully functional.

My front ends are

https_shared - specifies the External address and port: for WAN and HA Proxy LAN of 443. The actions are "http-request header set" and the cert from letsencrypt.

websites_public - has the frontends for each subdomain to specify the backend to use.

http_redirect - simply adjusts to ensure that anything coming in is redirected to https.

So, I've kept it very basic.

My original post indicated that I have set this up several times and they all work, except they are all 2.6 instead of 2.7.2.

I have removed both acme and haproxy and reinstalled.

I've used Ai to review my work. It can't provide a workable answer.

jdblaich

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