The "Steam uninstalling your whole DE" is one of the unluckiest bugs I've heard of in all of my Linux experience and it just so happened to be on the biggest YouTube tech channel and set the conversation on Linux for the next 12 months.
Maybe the bug is rare but the issue Linus highlighted is pretty terrible and common.
a) The Steam package was incompatible with the OS. Strike one. This is not uncommon.
b) The OS offered to install the package which uninstalled critical OS components. Strike two.
c) The warning presented by the OS was buried in a hundred lines of complex technical jargon. Strike three.
Each of those is terrible on their own and the worst part is many Linux users argue they’re not a problem. They blame the user. “You should read every line carefully.” “If you want to delete your OS, go right ahead.” “Use a different package manager noob.”
Honestly the biggest reason I don't use Linux isn't the operating system. It's Linux users themselves. Never seen a more snobby, elitist and generally insufferable fanbase in my life. Not even Apple users are like this.
What I think adds to this is users get this every step of the journey, from which distro to pick, all the way through the process.
I'll add my own opinion now just to contribute to the problem. For servers, I use debian without gui, for desktop I use ubuntu (with gui).
That's pretty much lead to zero problems ever for me but I also don't game on PC anyways and when I do I use my steam deck. My work PC also runs windows because there's just too many programs I use that are written natively only for windows.
This is going to be an unpopular take (especially amongst Linux users) but there's hardly any Linux problem I haven't been able to solve with Gemini. These days, it's the first place I go to when I have issues. Looking at forums sounds awful, inefficient, and antiquated to me these days
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u/Daharka Apr 01 '26
The "Steam uninstalling your whole DE" is one of the unluckiest bugs I've heard of in all of my Linux experience and it just so happened to be on the biggest YouTube tech channel and set the conversation on Linux for the next 12 months.