Hey folks. I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with Linux for over 20 years. Usually, my attempts to use it are either thwarted by issues installing, issues booting, or general problems while using it… leading to “catastrophic failure” that I can’t fix without digging into hours of research and terminal commands.
Windows 11 (even 10) are rock solid for me, even as a very heavy multitasker. No crashes. No needing to reboot, unless I’m forced to with an update, and really no issues with any hardware or software I was running.
But with Linux, I just can’t believe how unstable it is, even when I do the absolute basic things.
I’m trying to learn why this is, and how I can prevent these issues from coming up. As I said, I’m committed to using Linux now (I’m done with American software), so I’m open to suggestions.
For context, I’m using a Framework laptop, which is fully (and officially) supports Fedora and Ubuntu. Since Fedora has American ties, I’ve settled with Ubuntu.
All things work as they should: fingerprint scanner, wifi, bluetooth, screen dimming, wake up from suspend, external drives, NAS shared folders, etc. I’ve even got VirtualBox running Windows 11 for the few paid software that I need to load up from time to time.
But I’m noticing issues that seemingly pop out of nowhere on the software/os end of things.
For example, after having no issues updating software, I get this an error: “something went wrong, but we’re not sure what it is.”
Then sometimes I’ll be using Firefox, I’ll open a new tab to type in a search term or URL, and the typing will “lag”, then the address bar will flicker like it’s reloading, and it doesn’t respond well to my mouse clicks. I have to close it out, then start over for it to resolve.
Then I’ll open a different app, sometimes it might open, sometimes it won’t.
Or an app will freeze for no obvious reason, and I’ll get a popup asking to wait or quit.
Another time I left my computer while I went out for a walk, came back, and it was like I just rebooted… all my work was gone, and it was starting fresh from the login screen.
I’m trying not to overload things, and I’m doing maybe 1/5th of what I’d normally be doing when running windows. But I don’t understand why it’s so unstable.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
FWIW, I’m not keen to switch away from Ubuntu, because I do still want official support if there’s ever a problem with getting hardware to work.
UPDATE: Wow, I did not expect to get so many responses! Amazing!
Per suggestions, I ran a memtest86 for over 3 hours and it was clean.
I installed Fedora 41 and am now setting it up. Seems good so far, and elevated permissions can be authorized with biometrics! This was not something I had to. Ubuntu, so awesome there!
Any specific tips for Fedora that I should know? Obviously, no more Snap packages now! 😂
UPDATE 2: Ok, Fedora seems waaaay more stable than Ubuntu (and Mint). No strangeness like before… but not everything works as easily. For example, getting a bridged network adapter to work in virtualbox was one-click easy on Ubuntu… not so much on Fedora (still trying to get it working). And Virtualbox didn’t even run my VM without more terminal hackery.
But the OS seems usable, and I’m still setting things up.
One thing I have noticed, however. When I search for how to fix or do something, nearly all websites and forums reference Debian/Ubuntu commands, so the fragmentation there is a little annoying
Like @[email protected] just said, run memory test.
What hw do you have in that laptop?
something went wrong, but we’re not sure what it is.
Check the system journal with
sudo journalctl -eWhat hw do you have in that laptop?
It’s the 11th Gen Framework 13 running:
- Intel® Core™ i5-1135G7 , integrated Intel XE graphics chip
- Western Digital Black 770 2TB SSD
- 32gb ram (16GB x 2) Crucial DDR4-3200
sudo journalctl -e
This generates a lot of stuff. Anything in particular that I should post?
What do you mean by unstable? I don’t get what this means. Install? Perhaps choosing a graphical install if available for your distribution of choice. I’ve heard nice things about Mint (can’t tell, I’m using Artix, and Guix is in my plans).
That said, US or EU are not that different. Actually the EU is little by little deteriorating the data privacy it used to say it protected, but moreover, even if the data is kept in EU, what does it prevent US gov or corps to get access to the data? Did people forget about the 5 eyes, the extended ones (not sure how many, there were several extensions)? Did people forget that no matter the current differences, the EU and the US are allies (not just politically) any ways?
Linux (kernel) itself has already identified itself as a US org, since it complies with the US requirements and law, to the point of banning developers from countries the US doesn’t like to be cooperating with US orgs (whether gov or not).
So, focusing on country based software developers shouldn’t be the main motivation. Looking for free/libre software if possible, so that you get some freedoms of yours sort of intended to be protected through licenses, or if not available then open source, is what we should be looking for. On top of that, communication software should be e2ee, and if possible distributed or peer to peer, or at least decentralized, and so on. Also we tend to forget that the data kept in the cloud is no longer yours anymore, no matter the cloud, neither the country, and if in need to keep personal data on some cloud we should make sure it’s encrypted, but still the data keeps being the cloud owner hands, so having personal backups is important, and clouds usually don’t advertise what metadata they leak.
Having said that Fedora sounds OK to me while Ubuntu sounds too commercial to me and actually now a days looking for users to get packages from its own “app store”. Instead of the “country of origin” for a distro, perhaps more importantly it is to see what your needs are, for example do you prefer rolling release vs. stable releases? Do you prefer vanila kind of packages (as close to upstream as possible) or your fine with the distro making changes to the upstream software as that serves better your purposes? How user friendly the distro is? Though perhaps you’re out of options if the framework laptop requires firmware or patches not found upstream, then you might better stay with the “officially supported” distros, unless what you miss by not having such firmware or patches is something you can live with, but usually x86 laptops are “easily” used with gnu+linux on top, except for some drivers not fully working with your hardware or missing firmware, but people usually still uses those laptops with gnu+linux on top. For arm laptops (I believe framework has laptos with arm CPUs, and actually is offering some initial ones with risc-v cpus) that tends to be a little more involved and I personally have no experience with that, and actually I’m waiting for a cheap enough and not so low level risc-v laptop or mini-pc to start experimenting with it (not all distributions support arm and even less risc-v).
Again, I’ve heard nice things of Mint, particularly for people new to gnu+linux, and it’s not a rolling release distribution. Though I’m one of those thinking that rolling relase distributions are easy to live with, at least not on the server spectrum (there are actually servers running on top of rolling release distributions such as Arch, but that’s not the majority of them) given they can’t afford reboots (very few updates actually require reboot on gnu+linux, linux/kernel itself being one of those which better get a reboot ASAP but not necessarily immediately) or changes requiring a service to drop even for a little while. But with rolling releases one doesn’t have to deal with big differences between distribution major versions upgrades, and the changes requiring using intervention when upgrading packages are distributed on time, so no need to focus on a lot of them at once.
Just my two cents, :)
Something is awfully weird here, because Linux literally runs the worlds infrastructure for the internet. It is not unstable by any stretch of the imagination. Something you’re doing between all distros has got to be the culprit - something you do differently than other people.
OP is a newbie and is externalizing his lack of knowledge.
A 747 would seem like a death trap if a toddler were given control but there, as here, it isn’t the plane that’s the problem.
Coming from Windows, Linux (especially when only talking about GUI environments) seems to not tell you anything about your problems. Eventually you learn how to find the relevant logs and the problems seem less arbitrary.
But with Linux, I just can’t believe how unstable it is, even when I do the absolute basic things.
That doesn’t sound right.
Start with Linux Mint. I’ve helped Boomers use it. My dad has been using it as his daily driver for almost 5 years and he doesn’t know the difference between an OS and a Word Processor (he keeps calling LibreOffice “Linux”).
Choosing Ubuntu over Fedora because of American ties is rich
Can you explain? I mean, anything is better than a Microsoft OS, tbh.
But I’d rather avoid American-based distros if I can.
Bro. Framework is an American laptop.
I bought it before the coup and threats to my country! 😂
Well I assure you Fedora is on the leftist side 😂
I’d say Fedora is one of the best distros even the founder of Linux uses it. It’s FOSS like all of Linux, people can see if there’s an issue. Ubuntu has made a lot of decisions recently such as pushing snaps that people dislike. Most big name distros are connected to corporate funding, that’s how they continue to be maintained. Finally, Canonical being British owned certainly doesn’t make it better, possibly worse privacy wise.
Edit: conflating big American tech firms that steal your data with big America tech firms that make FOSS is just silly.
conflating big American tech firms that steal your data with big America tech firms that make FOSS is just silly.
For sure. But also seeing Americans as friends and allies… and now we (Canada and the rest of the world, but not Russia) are being attacked with threats on our sovereignty, just doesn’t seem normal anymore.
Nothing that used to be logical can be taken as such now. An American tech that makes FOSS is still an American tech. And I hate even having to say that, because I would have gladly supported American FOSS just a few months ago.
I think you’ll find nearly every significant FOSS project will have American contributors software in its development. Typically, anyone who can code and wants to contribute can do so.
because FOSS has no country lines, and fedora is a bit better nowadays.
Using only non american oss is literally impossible.
pebkac
For every linux post trying to manifest “it works good now” like the secret, there’s a post like OP and a response like this.
Because Linux has been awesome since at least Slackware 1.0.
Usually, my attempts to use it are either thwarted by issues installing, issues booting, or general problems while using it… leading to “catastrophic failure” that I can’t fix without digging into hours of research and terminal commands.
This was my experience as well … 20 years ago. I’ve not had many of these issues over the past few years using any distro. I used Debian for a couple years and now I’m on Arch. Really, it just works for me…
TBH now that I think about it, I ran in to more issues with Ubuntu than just simply using Debian.
TBH now that I think about it, I ran in to more issues with Ubuntu than just simply using Debian.
That seems to be the consensus from reading the other comments!
Yeah, I didn’t want to be not supportive of your choice of distros, but my immediate thought was not Ubuntu… I use it headless for some homelab servers, but nowadays as far as desktops go, Ubuntu is not it.
Someone below mentioned Aurora, Bazzite’s sister. I currently use Bluefin, which is another of Bazzite’s sisters, also on Framework, and it has been pretty set it and forget it. They’re all “atomic” desktops in that it’s hard to be able change the underlaying important parts of your computer, while you have free reign on all the bits that aren’t important to keep the lights on. Updates happen frequently, but don’t touch your files on top, so it’s always the latest, and if something does break, you can easily boot up into the last image you were on.
If you’re not looking to tweak your computer too much and just want it to run, I’d recommend Aurora or Bluefin depending on your desktop preferences.
Someone below mentioned Aurora, Bazzite’s sister. I currently use Bluefin, which is another of Bazzite’s sisters, also on Framework,
I know nothing about these… but I just installed Aurora in Boxes to try, and damn, it’s nice. Maybe a little “too busy”, but it’s got everything I could ask for out of the box (no need for extension manager). I might replace Mint with Aurora on my MiniPC, but if it’s as unbreakable as they say, it may replace Fedora.
Right now, Fedora has still be very stable, but since I’m staring from scratch, I might as well get it right the first time. I’ll be experimenting more to see which I prefer.
If it makes you feel any better it sort of is Fedora. Fedora has both original and atomic flavors. Someone took the atomic flavor of Fedora (which comes as a blank slate) and added in some quality of life changes. Nothing permanent, just tweaking some settings and preinstalling some programs. And then called it as Aurora.
And the only difference between Aurora and Bluefin is KDE (very customizable and Windows like) vs Gnome (customizable through widgets, but not enough if you’re a power tweaker and more of a Mac style desktop environments). And Bazzite is the same, but gamer focused (I installed it on my steamdeck).
