your docker issue with a downloaded deb package from the net … wtf - first of all why not use something from the repositories … getting out of just downloading something from someone and installing it should be prio 1 when changing to linux … but how hard could it be to do a sudo apt install ./filename.deb

Oh man, i love all the comments saying this, and now seeing this pop up: [https://startrek.website/post/5789855](https://startrek.website/post/5789855)

Steam saying “if you want to install steam on ubuntu, just download our .deb package”.

Yeah, obviously people moving to Linux will figure out they don’t need to download .deb packages if THE MAIN THING THAT USED TO KEEP THEM ON WINDOWS, NOW FINALLY AVAILABLE ON LINUX, AND MADE BY A HUGE TECH COMPANY USES A .DEB PACKAGE.

And yeah, i can find command line ways of installing a package. But that pretty much defeats the entire point of a linux desktop you know, the entire thing i’m complaining here about. If your answer to me complaining that the linux desktop being a dud is “yeah, most things don’t work, just use the command line”, you’re completely confirming me in the message of my post.

I love his reply, but i’m afraid history so far has shown that supporting open platforms is not a competitive advantage. The number of hackers like us in the smart home market is negligable. Proper closed platforms rake in the big money, and the public loves it… Add on some cloud integration & a subscription to functionalities that would take a home assistant user not much time to set up, and you’ve got something the average customer seems to want…

Still a shit (and probably without any real legal basis) attempt by Haier, but if they’re actually aiming at a walled smart home system, from an economical perspective they’re probably right… And i hate that they’re right…

I figured out all the issues myself, as repeated here, i’m a professional developer with some headless raspberry pi’s & synologies i know how to manage.

This is a rant on the abysmal state of the linux desktop (stable OS just losing random crucial features, relying on a vulnurable protocol for basic functionality, supporting nice to have features such as HDR & variable refreshrate (which are both decades old) being an absolute nightmare).

Hence the title being a complaint about the linux desktop being an absolute nightmare and total crap, and not “help me, i’m stuck”. I was not stuck, i can figure out the workarounds, but i was appalled at what i saw, i expected issues & struggling, but this was way beyond & below what i could even imagine.

Also evidenced by the dozen of distros i’ve had recommended so far, and conflicting advice (i absolutely do, and do not need wayland for variable refreshrates, depending on who you ask).

This is just a nightmare ecosystem to participate in, and that’s what i wanted to get across, and i think i succeeded pretty well :).

Yeah, someone else totally didn’t link the ticket (open since 2019) here about whatever ubuntu uses for its SMB share discovery defaulting to SMB1 and giving the exact error message i got when trying to see the SMB shares list of the server it discovered.

So yeah, not all of ubuntu defaults to it, but discovery sure does, and it’s embarrasing. I made this issue knowing full well that the things i complained about are 100% accurate.

You can continue to live in your imaginary world where Ubuntu is better, but it simply isn’t.

I’m not blaming them for an unknown apps developers choices, i’m blaming them for putting on their site that deb packages is the heart of ubuntu, but when i complain here that installing one is a nightmare on the latest ubuntu i get thrown at my head that installing deb packages is a stupid idea and i should somehow know better.

You can keep throwing up strawmen, but that won’t change my point in anyway. But you can keep ignoring the point i guess, you’re quite good at it it seems.

That the ecosystem seems so complex that even developers don’t know how they should recommend their users should install an application. Haven’t encountered that yet on windows. And i’ve had plenty of people here tell me “yes, you CAN install deb packages, and many apps will GIVE you deb packages, and the ubuntu page says Debian packages is the very HEART of ubuntu. But you’d be insane to install something like that”. Does that sound like a good ecosystem, where people aknowledge that the best way to do stuff is ignore everything app developers & the makers of one of the largest distros say, and do the opposite and ignore apps that you can’t install in the way that i should magically know is the best way.

I stand by my words man, but you’re free to try to convince me :).

I am talking about a specific distribution, the one i was posting here about, so then we can stop this thread here i guess :).

To install something you have to install it from the repository, and not download something from some webpage.

Ah yes, i should have known better than to rely on the documentation of the website of an application i should install. Do you guys really consider this a sane ecosystem? I google what kind of apps there are for what i want. I find the site of one i want to try, it says “here is a deb package for ubuntu”, and then hell ensues. And when i share this experience your reaction is “you should have known better” O_o… yeah no. This is just insanity. If according to you even the developers of applications fail to send their users in the right direction on how to get their application installed, there is probably little hope for a mere user like me.

Thanks for the suggestions :). I think in about 50 replies you’re the first that’s like “hey, maybe there is some way to get VRR working on linux”, and not be like “why would you want that? just ignore the stuff that doesn’t work on linux”.

I’m probably going to stick with windows a bit longer for now, and i’ll give it another try when i read that wayland is a bit further along since it sounds like what i need, but is still in its infancy.

I know it’s not literally the same, but it’s the exact same principle, ubuntu breaking installing deb packages would be equivalent to microsoft breaking installing msi packages. You do understand analogies i hope and realize that it’s often impossible to find 100% exact matches when you want to make a comparison.

I wasn’t on the ubuntu machine anymore, so i couldn’t quickly find the link to the SMB issue, but you’re in luck, someone else in this thread already did (he linked it with (in capitals) WHAT THE HECK as link title): https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/samba/+bug/1697817

And he understood my frustration that such a bug would be open for about 5 years now across multiple major versions. :) . Now i’ve manually mounted some of the shares, the file manager suddenly also uses a better version of SMB to fetch the shared folders and it suddenly works. But this should take googling & terminal work to just explore a network share from a desktop environment.

Right clicked the .deb package > Open with other application > Open with the Ubuntu software install center app

That’s because you’re so lucky to not be on a clean 23.10 install, since as i showed in the link i posted, it’s not there in a clean 23.10 install for some reason :). I found tons of links saying i should right click, and open it with an application that for some mysterious reason was missing on my ubuntu install :).

Yeah, but unlike me she isn’t a professional developer that has some experience with headless linux systems.

And please, don’t avoid the real question: What exactly would be the linux way? It’s a nice thing to repeat, but how would you describe the linux way in this context? I’m a new linux user, i want kodi to switch my display to the correct refreshrate when i play a movie. I want to follow the linux way, what is that way?

Ah, i see you found the same ticket i did.

Sorry for not posting that link, but i’m now not on the ubuntu machine (for maybe obvious reasons), so i didn’t have easy access to the exact error message & ticket ^^'…

I can tell you i don’t need any windows experience to browse a discovered network share, enable a setting in an application and have it just work, and click an .msi file and expect windows to not have removed the handler for that file type.

I get it, you like linux, but blanket statements like this are just so unproductive. “and it’s a much better experience for me than Windows (in every aspect).”. Sorry, i just don’t believe you. I’m sure you’re happier with linux for many good reasons, but there have to be things that windows did better.

Just because you are a “power user” on Windows doesn’t mean you can handle Linux the same way.

I’m not expecting that, i just wrote this after 5 hours of frustration when trying to get imo pretty basic things to work. This is not just “i clicked or installed something and it didn’t work”. I’m a developer, i’ve got many docker packages running on my NAS, i know my way around a linux terminal. This is “they didn’t work, so i started googling, then 2 hours of frustration later i settled on not being able to just browse to my network share in the file manager and mount them somewhere via some fstab editing in the terminal”. and "ffs, i just wanted to try a docker gui, how hard could it be to install a deb package which the ubuntu site itself says “deb packages are the heart of ubuntu” (ubuntu must be stone dead if that’s the heart). And the refreshrate & HDR is nice to have i guess. But yeah, i want nice things, they don’t seem such unreasonable features to request. And i wouldn’t mind if i had to follow some complicated guide to get there. It’s just after hours of googling, i’m no closer then where i started.

What exactly would be the linux way? It’s a nice thing to repeat, but how would you describe the linux way in this context? I’m a new linux user, i want kodi to switch my display to the correct refreshrate when i play a movie. I want to follow the linux way, what is that way?

Worked perfectly for me 20 years ago. What was the error message you got, again?

failed to retrieve share list from server invalid argument

You said later that when you did it via the command line, it didn’t work anyway. Which was more or less what I told you might well happen because downloading .debs from the internet is a bad idea.

Are you serious? I just googled “is installing deb packages on ubuntu good”, from ubuntu.com ( https://ubuntu.com/about/packages#:~:text=‘Deb’ packages are the heart,with rich and dynamic dependencies. ) :

‘Deb’ packages are the heart of Ubuntu The ‘deb’ package format comes from the Debian Linux distribution and is widely considered the best package format for system-level libraries and applications with rich and dynamic dependencies.

If i have to describe gaslighting, i would give this as an example. The websites of linux application offer deb packages mentioning explictly they are for ubuntu. The ubuntu site itself says “Deb packages are the heart of ubuntu”. I try to install one, the linux community: “are you stupid? What gave you the idea that downloading a deb package that said it was for ubuntu and trying to install it was a good idea?”

DK, man, I’m a little reluctant to continue this because I keep trying to tell you about how you should use Linux and you keep seeming to think that I’m trying to trick you or something

I’m trying to install a package the way the developer says i should, and the distro says is the very heart of the distro. And you find it strange that your replies come across as blaming the user and a bit ridiculous?

All this then says to me is that i should find myself a linux teacher to teach me the arcane linux knowledge, since the most direct documentation of app developers & distro developers is the exact opposite of what i should do?

I’m sorry, but to me it just sounds like you’re making excuses for linux since you like it. This comes more across as the infamous “you’re holding it wrong” iphone issue. I’m sure there are many ways to do things in linux, but you can’t blame me for being skeptical when you say this so very well documented & recommended way of doing things by both the app developer & distro creators is not the way to do things…

What was the error message? I want to investigate this a little bit.

failed to retrieve share list from server invalid argument

but I’m sure you weren’t trying to come in here and coming across as aggressive either.

I knew i wouldn’t come across too well XD. I might as well have posted this on the “off my chest” community. This was written in frustration so will be negative & harsh, but i’m technical enough to also know that at least 2 of the issues i mention are pretty unforgivable. But just browsing to an SMB share that is discover relying on a protocol that is deprecated and was exploited over 6 years ago by ransomware… Gotta love linux security focus. And that installer suddenly disappearing from ubuntu… nice way to ruin your user experience and make anything they google obsolete and unhelpful and make it hard to figure out how to install stuff when it’s not in the default app manager.

And i love how the refreshrate issue is like a magnet for people here to be like “yeah, but do you really need that” (and while they’re at it ignore the other 2 issues, since they’re inconvient to address). But our eyes are really god at detecting disturbances in smooth motion. I can at least easily spot it, try it next time you watch something on your tv, whenever the camera pans, if the refreshrate & framerate don’t perfectly divide, it’s visible. It can not bother you, good for you, it does bother me. It’s like if i say “you’re now on manual breathing mode”, and for the next 5 minutes you’ll be very aware you’re breathing. If the camera makes a nice large panning movement, and i point out how you can see the framerate not matching the refreshrate, you’ll probably keep seeing it whenever the camera pans…

If “cool stuff on windows” is going to your file manager and browsing to a network share, and that working, and not having the stable version of the OS suddenly lose its installer for a specific kind of files… Then yeah, i should probably stick to windows. I can kind of get the refreshrate thingy, although it’s still pretty pathetic after all these years. And reading up on HDR (which is 20 years old by now), feels equally pathetic. Yes, i’d like to be able to use my linux desktop to be able to play video files as intended: with the monitor/projector switching to the correct refresh rate (so you don’t see a slight stutter whenever the camera pans), and with HDR if applicable.

I made this thread about 5 hours after i installed ubuntu, you guys seem to be avoiding actually knowledging that these are some huge glaring issues that completely ruin the user experience, and be like “but look at the cool stuff linux can do”. I know the cool stuff linux can do, i’ve got a dozen docker containers running on my synology doing home automation/downloading/servers of all kinds/… I just hoped the linux desktop experience would be… at least tolerable and not 5 hours of frustrated googling trying ‘advanced things’ like… browsing to a network share, installing a package i get when i click on ubuntu/debian on the site of a linux application (and i didn’t post the whole ordeal, then installed a tool to install the package, that failed due to some dependency, then installed it via the command line, that then also gave all kinds of errors, which the instructions found perfectly normal), or playing a video file the way it’s supposed to be played.

If you really think those 3 above usecases are “cool windows stuff” and “it’s unrealistic to expect these from linux”, can you please say that explicitly? Browsing to a network share, installing a .deb package supported on a debian based OS, and playing a HDR video file in HDR and at the correct framerate with your display are “unrealistic expectations”. The last one you might be able to make a tiny bit of a case for, but the other 2… for real??

I guess it kind of helps, but that means that the linux desktop will always be a shit experience, and i should just stick to my headless linux servers and find something else if i want a GUI… which is kind of sad…

And the strength you see in linux… ok, WSL in windows is probably a bit less efficient, but for most usages all those windows downsides are now moot with WSL & docker. if i want to install a web server and wordpress, it’s just as easy as any linux server. And installing programs like image editors, can’t say i’ve ever encountered issues doing that on windows.

Of course i know the main advantage of linux is no spyware crap, but it’s kind of sad if after all these years that’s pretty much still the only advantage. And i do use many open source apps in spite of free(mium) or cheap commercial/cloud alternatives existing that are more user friendly, if it gets the stuff i want done done, it’s good enough. But it seems i’m still not ready for the linux desktop experience, no matter how often it’s repeated on the fediverse here how good it is now…

What steps did you do that led you to conclude that SMB v1 was the issue?

I typed in the exact error message i got in google, and found the issue is that it tries to use SMBv1 to get the list of shares, and if it’s disabled on the server, you’re out of luck.

Was the video quality noticeably off in any way

It was running 24fps video on 30hz refreshrate. It’s subtle for sure, but easily noticable. It means every 5th frame last twice as long as the others. If the camera pans, you just see it isn’t perfectly smooth. It isn’t a complete disaster, but is it really that hard of a feature? I can kind of get the “you don’t need it” in some cases, but i’ve spend all this time & money on a nice projector & sound system to watch movies. I don’t want to see some slight stutter whenever a camera pans since my OS can’t match my refresh rate to the video it’s playing. Even though i can manuallly switch to that exact refresh rate if i wanted to.

seem to be under the impression that Ubuntu is supposed to install .debs you downloaded when you click on them

Dude, it is. Google it yourself. Pretty much every single link you find when googling why clicking on deb files gives an error that the application for such files is not founds shows you how to assign the default installer in ubuntu to those files so it works. You’re really gaslighting me here. this is expected behavior, everything you can google indicates it is expected behavior, i gave you the link about someone helping with alternatives now they suddenly broke it, but that link also says they expect it to soon be fixed again in ubuntu. But now i complain about it being broken and you’re all like “that’s totally not expected behavior”.

Look, i get it, you like linux and are happy with it. But you can’t just wipe any negative experience under the carpet with gaslighting like this. That’s just ridiculous. It is expected behavior for a distro like ubuntu, and pretending it is not is just ridiculous.