Awesome Tips The Linux Challenge Is Going… – WAN Show February 27, 2026
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Pop!_OS in the big 2026 🥀
One thing that still has me stumped as a fairly experienced Linux gamer (since 2019) is that "native" still is not always the quality marker that protondb makes it out to be. In my experience most instabilities I come across are in the native Linux builds of games by now and I'm better off just running the Windows version inside Proton usually. It's just that the Linux ecosystem is so diverse that it seems to be almost impossible to make a universal build that works on all distros. Although you'd think that Valve fixed this by shipping Steam with a custom theoretically reproducible Linux runtime environment. But in my experience there are still problems.
If u want to game and have less problems why not chose Bazzite. I have it on my main gaming rig and its awsome, almoust never have any problems running games. In worst case on steam u gave to chase another Proton layer for it to work. Its also built on fedora and have great support and a good store for apps. I use fedora on my old MacBook pro and running different linuxes in VM just to try. But for me is bazzite and fedora. . . In worst case lutris to make other shit work. And heroic launcher to collect the games from other vendors like epic games and gog. It is some tinkering in the beginning to get your linux how you want. And its not realistic to claim that you do nothing to get right into the gaming if you just installed linux
Linus: "When I Google 'good beginner distro' Mint keeps coming up, and when Luke ran Mint on our last Linux challenge he beat me. So let me install Pop." Sorry my man that one is on you.
Only problem with Ubuntu + steam was app store I think is snap so VR did not work with snap, had to install steam direct. Now been happy all Ve steam games have worked with Ubuntu 25.10 + steam + alvr + quest 2. Using amd gpu
Oh. god…. he used LLM's to help choose. Just a few moths ago copilot recommended atlas os (pre-debloated windows) as an option. Most of linux community, including me, are screaming bazzite…
Christ just run mainline Debian lmfao
When i'm picking Linux distro, i just go with Ubuntu. This do not mean that i'm liking Ubuntu. But one of the most popular distros are the one which people used the most, so they encountered all strange bugs, reported them, and some got fixed. All new fancy OSes, are just permanent alpha/beta.
Best picks are those where there is huge and stable community behind. Extra points if there is any commercial company backing the distro.
Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora are usually better picks then elementary OS, PoP OS, and other.
Installing NVIDIA drivers is not much harder then on Windows so people should not picking distro based on if there are driver preinstalled.
I've been using Linux since most of the commenters in here weren't even born (not regularly; but enough that i was the guy giving away Linux install discs in college). And it's biggest problem is fragmentation. A regular user, even a gamer with a little more info, should not have to figure out which distro is best at the current moment. Gaming should work everywhere, regardless.
A quick google search recommends Pop, Bazzite, and others – some of which I haven't heard of until today because I don't stay glued to distro news.
I'm all for encouraging Linus to try new variants for sure – but some of this fault lies squarely with the nerds running this stuff. Work together to make a few versions work for everyone. Stop shoving a new fork in the salad just because you don't like onions.
3:37 [Sam Altman] – I think Sam Altman is secretly T-101
The problem pointing out flaws as a Windows user expecting a drop-in replacement when switching to Linux and not getting that expectation met is that the switching experience is still considered to be a rite-of-passage. The expectation to learn a new operating system because one has been burned by Windows, and for the user to make that effort to do that switch has that satisfying payoff for those who succeed. Bringing back to that drop-in expectation at the beginning, to have that kind of expectation is perceived to be a mockery of the effort they've spent to understand a different system.
There's also the sentiment that we need the majority to be still on Windows to be the sacrificial lambs for Microslop's data harvesting operations, otherwise they would start corrupting Linux even more than it's currently happening at the moment if more sheeple are herded to use Linux.
Can we please for the love of God stop recommending LTS releases? LTS may have been good in 2005 and may be good for servers but ever since I've been using Linux I've always had problems with some package being freezed at a buggy version. I've had more problems with Ubuntu LTS back in 2012-2014 period (I've tried it for fun a few times after that too and always managed to run into a problem 20 minutes in) than my whole time (since 2014) running the "unstable" Arch. It's also worth nothing that the geniuses from Pop decided to turn their last LTS into alpha/beta.
The main problem with their approach is trying to do everything on Linux. It is much easier to just dual boot and use the windows install as a gaming os. You can just reboot anytime for those problematic games.
37:30 Installing Teams for linux: If you're on arch-based (so this includes Luke on CachyOS) you can just install "teams-for-linux" from the AUR (f.ex. using yay or paru), or the electron-version that uses an already installed electron you might have. CachyOS in particular has a native package in the cachyos repos these days. I've been using it basically since installing CachyOS about a year ago, it just woks (for me).
Tbh my experience with anduin os is that it works perfectly with steam games. It runs all of mine without any issue.
Tried pop os for one of my laptops did not work. Had some crash while installing. Since I have 2 home PC with Ubuntu and it worked right away. Why people recommend these different small distros I don't know
Honestly I want Linus to try Linux Mint, because it is my goto for onboarding people into linux because it doe not break. Honestly want to know how strong the curse is.
Why pop os again???? Why not cachy or bazzite?
Linus, for the love of god, please, just go with CachyOS with KDE Plasma as your desktop environment
For the love of Wan Show, just use Bazzite
I've tried Linux multiple times, always had issues. But now, my only reason not to install Linux on my laptop is because there's no JavaScript support for Adobe PDF Reader.
I require extended JavaScript support to run my D&D PDF's. I have no idea why JavaScript support is not a thing yet.
Extremely stupid to go with pop_os . How stupid can you be , noone talks about it !! Cachyos is the one everyone use now
12:12 no shot Linus is complaining about just selecting compatibility option here. That additional run command, is 'optional' for those who're having issues even after setting compatibility. Which 99% of users don't have this issue (my personal, and small sample size experience).
Additionally I'd like to point out, Linus you kinda sound hypocritical when you encourage users to tinker, explore alternative to platforms and services, that are predatory and not consumer friendly.
That small step wasn't as big of a deal as you made it out to me.
Maybe I am sounding ignorant, and I apologize for it, but encouraging and constantly tinkering create independent computer users, so we don't have live-service desktops, and tech illiterate public going towards the future.
I mean this comment in a wholehearted way, don't take it the wrong way.
Keep trying with Linux, the more we go through these steps, gradually things will get better, and as someone who's experience Linux for the last 6 years of my life, it has exponentially improved in just recent years.
Bro had the real Linux Linus installing a distro by his side, but still chose the distro almost nobody is talking about (apart from their cosmic DE). And using SEO inflated AI listings in 2026 is even worse.
Linus just needs to use actually solid distributions like bazzite, fedora, cachyos, arch (but maybe just get Luke to set it up for him 😂😂)
When I switched away from Windows about a year ago now, I wanted to try out CachyOS first. I'm still using it. Not because it's better than the others (subjectively or objectively), but because I never had a reason to. Everything just worked (for the most part, much more than I expected). I have exactly ONE game I wanted to play where I couldn't just "press Play", everything else was that simple for me. I truly love that it's arch and I get a the newly released kernel literally on the day (or the day after) after it's out. I didn't know what arch was or meant when I picked this, or how close it actually is to vanilla-arch. Only now am I finding out that this happens to fit my own philosophy very well.
As for Luke not finding steam (around 36:00): on CachyOS there's a "gaming" meta-package. if you're in the "CachyOS Hello"-App (graphical, autostarts after install), it has a button called something like "install gaming stuff". It installs gaming stuff, including steam, their own proton-version and a bunch of other launchers for other stores and other "plumbing" for gaming. The installer also tells you this, at least it told me when I installed it. Pacman also has a FULL UI, if you want to use it called "CachyOS Package Installer". It includes steam (like ANY package that is in the arch repos), but not on the "popular applications" tab, but on the "Repo" tab where you interact with the full repo (and yes, it could be more obvious).
Situation like Linus having people waiting on him on lobby is exactly why I dualboot and don't think it's realistic to cold turkey Linux. I can, and have, cold turkey'd Linux – but that's after I've 100% confirmed everything I do works on Linux. Even then, I'd still have some sort of access to Windows just in case .
I might not need it even once in a year, but I'd rather have it and not think about it. I'd imagine this is true for a lot of people who plays multiplayer shooter or have to work with Photoshop.
Maybe I’m weird but with the way Proton and Wine have improved I feel like focusing on “gaming” disros just bites you in the ass.Go for something stable and well supported, fedora and ubuntu work just fine.
Nobara or Bazzite is the solution to your Linux curse. All 2025/2026 guides have chosen to recommend Bazzite
for the love of Linus Torvald, try CachyOS or Bazzite instead of Pop!_OS please!!
2:18:00 I would argue that millennials had more pressure put on them to do well in school than any other generation. So im sure gen Z is just rounding the other side of the curve.
Linus: I had such a bad experience the last time with Pop!_OS!
Also Linux: Lets use Pop!_OS again for the Linux Challenge-
Started watching this, then remembered I should get used to watching on LMG Clips, and the latest episode is still from last week?
Linus Sebastian – A man actively trying to ruin Linux.
Thank you Linus, for making the absolutely worst choice EVERY SINGLE TIME .
where do you even find all these gatekeeping people? i mean yeah they exist but you're just overreacting, no one's gonna eat you for asking for help
Can you do the funniest thing and get a sponsor for razors? "Our laptop sponsors Razor, our chair partner Razor and our razor partner….."
lol Linus should try cachyos, zorrin, or bazzite
For new people choosing a distro: All 1000+ of them boil down to Debian based (Ubuntu, PopOS!), Red Hat (Fedora for normal users) or Arch. Anything else is mostly not needed. Start using the main distro AND THEN go to derivatives. I use Arch (btw), and later I added the cachy repos, it's all I need from cachy. I try to keep my distro stock, customize the DE and apps. By how fast they get updates, it's Arch, Fedora, Debian. For most people, I'd recommend Fedora, though arch is great if you have guidance from a user, so that's what I thought my friends. Overall you wish for something 1) Well supported, not a flavor of a flavor unless you know what they change 2) Get modern drivers. Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, PopOS! DO NOT UPDATE PACKAGES as fast as possible ON PURPOSE, but you need to have the newest ones, there are always improvements.
Linux users are IT-vegans… pretencious
Hey guys, heres my linux challenge. I found this really cool distro called templeOS, i really like temples. I wont use bazzite or noobara or cachyos, they are too popular (i wonder why?). Anyway tried installing steam and it didnt work! Wtf! Linux is NOT ready!
Long time viewer, since you had 200k subs, usually agree and support the channel wholeheartedly, but why wouldn't you just use Bazzite or Fedora? Choice seems simple to me. I actually went back to Win 11 on my desktop for random program support, but I run Bazzite on my HTPC and my msi claw with the z2 extreme. And as linux gaming has been taking off, a lot of other youtubers are running their benchmarks with Bazzite, it would be nice if we could standardise across the youtuber space IMO. Thanks for all the years of content, wishing you the best in 2026!!
Comment on the very end, I am older than you guys and had friends that were in high competitive leagues in CS and quake. They DEFINITELY practiced every day, for hours. That hasn't changed.
Honestly. I got mint cinamon and it has been near perfect even transfering game files partialy just worked. It broke for all the proton things becouse of how steams sets that up, but it worked for some native stuff.
I had some issues with setup where games wouldnt launch properly, but that was an ntsf thing that was instantly solved when i switched that over.
The "no tinkering" requirement is too hard for anything that isn't a big chunk of a dominant market. Remember having to install different codecs for every new video you downloaded or "Best viewed in Netscape 4.0" in the 90s and 2000s? Or drivers for a WiFi adapter back when WiFi wasn't a popular thing yet? This is not about Linux, it's about the maturity of the condition you are testing. Aside from golden jails like MacOS, things "just work" in open ecosystems only after thousands of third-party hardware manufacturers, developers, and studios do the tinkering for you before the product even ships. Ease of Use is just labor you didn't have to see.
Most successful ragebait.
To be fair, you could also mount you home separate and just use it again and keep all your stuff and probably stay logged in? But one has to try this and probably it would be super cool if we would have an installer which would just ask you to do it for you.