When Windows 10 support ends I was planning on transitioning to Linux on my desktop. I just tried CachyOS KDE Plasma and immediately ran into two serious issues:
-
I could not figure out how to get audio to come out of my headphones. Everything is connected, and sound totally works on Windows 10 with my Audioengine D3 USB DAC, but not in CachyOS. I messed with all the system audio settings, profiles, and mute control, and nothing worked. No audio at all, not from test sound, not from browser.
-
Apparently Wayland is the name of the default/best video compositor for Linux, but it doesn’t seem to support ycbcr subsampling modes. In Windows 10, I use the Nvidia-provided 4:2:0 subsampling mode with my RTX 2060 Super to get 4K120 support over HDMI to my LG C1 (genuinely hard to see the difference unless you’re running a test pattern). It seems you have to use the X11 compositor in Linux to get that feature, but I’ve read that X11 provides a poor experience compared to Wayland.
Not to mention, my first CachyOS install attempt bugged midway through (installing from DVD disc) and I spent a lot of time unsuccessfully trying to restart the install process not realizing something was borked in that session that was preventing partitions from being formatted for the installer. So I rebooted and manually set to load the installer into RAM, and finally was able to get it to install.
Seeing my experience hasn’t improved since the last time I tried Linux (Mint, a few years ago - really bad audio stuttering), now the plan has switched to sticking to W10 until software inevitably stops supporting it (Nvidia is already ending W10 game ready support this year), and then switching to W11. I’ll just have to use mods to improve the usability, specifically for start menu and right click menu.
I would like to use Linux but it really disappointed me seeing all the hype on LTT’s channel, only to see that it’s still user experience hell. It’s either “works but evil” (Windows) or “doesn’t work but not evil” (Linux) and that’s unfortunate.
They could, but the HDMI forum just had a recent history with not allowing even AMD to make their hdmi 2.1 compliant drivers open source, so progress on open drivers efforts across the entire open source community slowed down almost to a halt due fear of critical open projects being sued due to patent infringement and copyright.
Refer to the news: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/hdmi-forum-rejects-amds-hdmi-21-open-source-driver
The history of Linux hardware incompatibility is paved by hardware and software monopolies holding the line via legal/economic interference, lobbying and malicious compliance such as the infamous: Embrace, extended and extinguish.
Refer to the history:
Embrace, extend and extinguish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Widespread efforts by Microsoft and at&t to smother the image of open source legal stability by patent trolling:
BSD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIX_System_Laboratories,_Inc._v._Berkeley_Software_Design,_Inc.
Linux: https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-ballmer-steps-up-linux-infringement-suit-rhetoric/
Summaries of the situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_and_free_software
As seen above, these sort of interventions are nothing new, standard desktop Linux could not only be theoretically capable of doing many of the things it currently can’t, it already does those things in: closed, out of Linux kernel tree repositories that companies refuse to open source and merge into the main kernel due a protectionist stance on artificial scarcity and upholding of existing monopolies.
Refer to infamous Linus middle finger to nvidia: https://www.techspot.com/news/49025-torvalds-blasts-nvidia-over-linux-support-gives-them-the-middle-finger-during-speech.html
If a massive company like nvidia is like this, imagine the thousands of hardware companies out there, with varying levels of competency and “ethics”, now put into perspective how low the bar is for profit first companies, ie. All of them is set, where would your DAC manufacturer stand exactly between them? How many inches above the crust of the seventh layer of hell, exactly?
Post like these sting because people have no ideia just how much effort it takes to make Linux work in spite of the unwillingness of hardware companies, which are not only awful, have been awful, they are also getting exponentially more awful by the dollar. The future of open general computing is grim, man, we’re in the trenches with AI slop now even.
Sorry for the rant, but I felt compelled to, please be reasonable given the circumstances. Again, my bad.
OP has an Nvidia GPU, presumably running their proprietary drivers. AMDs open source drivers vs the hemi forum have nothing to do with this.