I’ve been an IT professional for 20 years now, but I’ve mainly dealt with Windows. I’ve worked with Linux servers through out the years, but never had Linux as a daily driver. And I decided it was time to change. I only had 2 requirements. One, I need to be able to use my Nvidia 3080 ti for local LLM and I need to be able to RDP with multiple screens to my work laptop running Windows 10.
My hope was to be able to get this all working and create some articles on how I did it to hopefully inspire/guide others. Unfortunately, I was not successful.
I started out with Ubuntu 22.04 and I could not get the live CD to boot. After some searching, I figured out I had to go in a turn off ACPI in boot loader. After that I was able to install Ubuntu side by side with Windows 11, but the boot loader errored out at the end of the install and Ubuntu would not boot.
Okay, back into Windows to download the boot loader fixer and boot to that. Alright, I’m finally able to get into Ubuntu, but I only have 1 of my 4 monitors working. Install the NVIDIA-SMI and reboot. All my monitors work now, but my network card is now broken.
Follow instructions on my phone to reinstall the linux-modules-extra package. Back into Windows to download that because, you know, no network connections. Reinstall the package, it doesn’t work. Go into advanced recovery, try restoring packages, nothing is working. I can either get my monitors to work or my network card. Never both at the same time.
I give up and decide it’s time to try out Fedora. The install process is much smoother. I boot up 3 of 4 monitors work. I find a great post on installing Nvidia drivers and CUDA. After doing that and rebooting, I have all 4 monitors and networking, woohoo!
Now, let’s test RDP. Install FreeRDP run with /multimon, and the screen for each remote window is shifted 1/3 of the way to the left. Strange. Do a little looking online, find an Issue on GitHub about how it is based on the primary monitor. Long story short, I can’t use multiple monitor RDP because I have different resolution monitors and they are stacked 2x2 instead of all in a row. Trust me I tried every combination I could think of.
Someone suggested using the nightly build because they have been working on this issue. Okay, I try that out and it fails to install because of a missing dependency. Apparently, there is a pull request from December to fix this on Fedora installs, but it hasn’t been merged. So, I would need to compile that specific branch myself.
At this point, I’m just so sick of every little thing being a huge struggle, I reboot and go back into Windows. I still have Fedora on there, but who would have thought something that sounds as simple as wanting to RDP across 4 monitors would be so damn difficult.
I’m not saying any of this to bag on Linux. It’s more of a discussion topic on, yes, I agree that there needs to be more adoption on Linux, but if someone with 20 years of IT experience gets this feed up with it, imagine how your average user would feel.
Of course if anyone has any recommendation on getting my RDP working, I’m all ears on that too.
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I swear, every time one of these posts/comments pops up, the chances root issues are caused by Nvidia hardware is insanely high.
but if someone with 20 years of IT experience gets this feed up with it, imagine how your average user would feel.
Do you think “your average user” would run into something like this? How many people are running 4 monitors?
I read the first paragraph and saw your prerequisites included working with nvidia.
That is a non-starter, right there. You can blame Linux for a whole lot of little flaws, but most of the blame should go to your hardware vendor for providing shitty support for Linux.
Popos has out-of-the-box nvidia support that works great
Works with CUDA and RDPing on a 2x2 monitor grid?
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Nvidia is by far the most popular dedicated GPU manufacturer out there. If distros can’t figure out how to make it “just work” then Linux will never take off outside of the nerd market.
The problem is Nvidia’s drivers, not the distros.
You may as well be saying distros really need to get their shit together on releasing Photoshop for Linux
If someone with no experience installs Linux on their machine, and has to spend 20 hours fixing all of the problems they’re not going to stick with Linux. It doesn’t matter which distro it is, they’re just going to say Linux sucks and never use it again.
There’s a pretty big difference between trying to run software for X OS on Y OS, and trying to just make your computer do basic tasks. The average person doesn’t know that Nvidia are a bunch of assholes, nor do they care.
I know.
But there’s nothing that can realistically be done about it until Nvidia stops being dickheads.
Distros can’t constantly hop about putting out fires that Nvidia starts, and neglect the other work they need to do.
Even when they do that, it doesn’t work anyway. It’s still buggy, systems still break. It really is only Nvidia who can fix their shit drivers, unless the nouveau team make an alternative that’s superior to Nvidia’s proprietary drivers.
And nah, there’s no difference between my Nvidia/Photoshop example. None whatsoever.
if someone with 20 years of IT experience gets this feed up with it, imagine how your average user would feel.
The average user just wants to open up a browser to use tiktok, instagram, gmail, and whatever else it is people use these days. Maybe edit a few documents and look at local pictures? The average user isn’t going to use RDP or train an LLM.
As others have said: NVIDIA sucks for linux. They have sucked for linux for more than a decade (snippet). And RDP: try Remmina.
Also dualbooting is so-so. Windows likes to mess up the bootloader for no reason during updates. If you switch, it’s best to go full linux or try first from a VM.
Even the average user will sometimes need non-average features.
Maybe they want to print a document and have an old HP printer laying somewhere.
Maybe they want to try this AI filter thingy that is such a fad on Tiktok
Maybe they need to digitally sign a document, or log in using their card reader and government ID to do their taxes.
If even one of those don’t work how they should immediately out of the box, then Linux is not for the average user.
Maybe they want to print a document and have an old HP printer laying somewhere.
Linux is probably your best bet actually.
Maybe they want to try this AI filter thingy that is such a fad on Tiktok
Browsers work on linux
Maybe they need to digitally sign a document, or log in using their card reader and government ID to do their taxes.
All works on linux, most likely even works through the browser (which is what I’ve been doing).
If even one of those don’t work how they should immediately out of the box, then Linux is not for the average user.
And they work “out of the box” on windows? You have to go to a download page, to get the right driver, ensure you have the right windows version and service pack (those are still a thing right?), restart your computer and hope it worked. Hey, maybe there’s even some new fangled “security measure” that installs a rootkit that requires you to go into your BIOS to activate a feature in order for it to work.
Since it’s not “out of the box”, maybe windows should also be canned, right?
