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.

I swear, every time one of these posts/comments pops up, the chances root issues are caused by Nvidia hardware is insanely high.

Windows admin here. It was immediately clear to me how this would end:

1. someone proficient in windows goes back to being a dumb newbie is gonna be frustrating as heck.

2. being a power user/IT professional most likely means non standard setup

3. there are very few windows native admins in the linux sphere to test things from a non dev/non user perspective

4. the companies making „professional“ linux are still not comparable to M$

5. „professional linux“ would probably be RHEL for you.

6. you can try and run a windows vm in your linux to try if stuff works then.

7. your mindset needs to change: you‘re now a guy responsible for implementing rdp correctly, embrace open source and make it work for everyone. See the amount of influence you can actually have.

8. if you can, consider using windows and linux side by side as long as needed, until stuff works. Find the reasons people abandon windows (i.e. you finally have control).

Just a stream of ideas. Hmu if you have any questions.

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?

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.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Multiple mistakes:

1. You went with a very old distro, Ubuntu 22.04 is almost 2 years old. You could pick a non-lts ubuntu instead. Thankfully you ended up picking Fedora.

2. A single google search could've given you better alternatives to FreeRDP like Remmina. You can always ask people stuff like this on Lemmy or elsewhere ("what's the best rdp client on linux?") rather than waiting till you run out of patience.

3. You shouldn't need to compile software by yourself, you can use flatpak to install newer versions of software and flathub even has a beta repo you can add for even newer software.

It's not against you, we all learn from mistakes. Just try to be more social about your linux journey if you don't want to struggle

Tldr: you made the classic mistake of going head first into this without a friend to help you or at least documenting yourself properly on the current state of Linux desktops through various medias like Youtube. It doesn't help that you suffered from the ol' "I'm a windows expert so this should be similar/easy and if it fails it's not my fault"

IT for 20 years

Can't use a live CD

Uh huh

At this point, I’m just so sick of every little thing being a huge struggle

Suffering is inevitable. This is the first noble truth in Buddhism. Troubleshooting Linux is Tao.

"something as simple as RDP" haha hahaha you're a funny one!

My recent experience with helping a friend with an nvidia card to work on Linux is that I never want to touch an nvidia card again.

Also, please tell me which average user makes its own windows installation. When I was young in the 90s I was paid to install windows in my village.

But yes, much progress is still needed to smooth the installation. The problem is that the hardware is often a fault though, through their shitty drivers.

I would think that some of these problems with RDP and monitors might be caused by running Wayland with an Nvidia GPU. I'm pretty sure both Ubuntu and Fedora use Wayland out of the box by default. Best off using Xorg until Nvidia sorts their shit.

Dont fall for bait guys

Weird, sucks you had a rough time. I'm mostly perplexed about the network card issue, and the monitors. I haven't had any trouble like that in more than a decade. I've honestly actually had more trouble with a new install of windows failing to detect hardware than Linux recently.

You definitely are not a typical user, and you have specific requirements that heavily bias towards Windows.

Just do what works best for you. Yes, you'll have to put up with Windows BS, but your problems with daily driving Linux are worse.

For rdp take a look at remmina

For RDP, i use Remmina, no idea if it will do what you want for your weird monitor layout, but it is a well featured RDP client.

I would say that your experience is unusual, even with nvidia. Ive always used nvidia, and its generally been a significantly smoother experience.

For me, the built up revulsion I feel towards windows and the sheer determination I feel to never use it again, means I would rearrange my monitors, or, you know, try more than two distros.

Linux isn’t for everyone, I acknowledge that fact. It requires a user that wants to troubleshoot, wants to figure out why something doesn’t work and make it work. If the headache isn’t fun, you’re not the right kind of masochistic self flagellator that Linux attracts, and that’s okay.

If you ever do decide to give it another whirl, try Linux Mint, MX Linux, or my personal flavor of choice, EndeavourOS. And put your monitors in a boring straight line like the rest of us before you coming crawling back.

This reply is meant to be partially humorous but entirely honest.

Same as you, in IT forever, ...I switched, and I'm never going back. It's fast, and it's brought the joy back for me. Nvidia needs to do better, but that was the only difficulty I had.

You tried. That is far more than many people. Good for you!

I have had similar experiences, but from Linux to other OSes. The mental models for using them are really different, and those don't get enough discussion.

Not that you did anything wrong in this process but I think you stacked the deck against yourself by requiring an open-source OS work so seamlessly with a proprietary one.

Don't give up too easily friend. I've been slowly moving some of my hone systems away from Window's, and much like you, I've spent close to 20 years as a Windows admin. I have the advantage of using Linux on my always ancient laptops over the years and it is my personal opinion that Debian is the way to go.

Give LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) a go, it is very familiar to navigate coming from Windows and isn't going to have constant updates breaking stuff (looking at you Arch).

First thing after installing run apt-get update, then add the Nvidia drivers (add the source to your sources and install, if you need help, post back and we've got you!) and reboot.

but who would have thought something that sounds as simple as wanting to RDP across 4 monitors would be so damn difficult.

The ubuntu unstability surprised me (not that I would recommend it anyways), but this didn't. Isn't RDP a proprietary protocol of Microsoft? Probably not too many use it in the Linux world

Thank you for sharing your story!

For your kind of use case and issues, I'd recommend finding someone local with a good amount of Linux experience and do a couple of pair sessions. I find this transports a lot more (especially 'soft') knowledge on concepts and how to do things efficiently. Also, it helps to share frustrations ;-)

Linux does not try to be another Windows. While it's fairly possible to treat it kinda as such especially in newer times, it won't feel efficient or convenient that way, in my experience.

Hey buddy, no stress, I feel ya! Switching OSes is like trying a new flavor of ice cream – it can be an adventure at times. But, let me share some wisdom from my Linux journey. When we focus on the small stuff, we unintentionally give power to the big guys. Linux is all about flexibility and community support. Sure, it might not be perfect right away, but that's part of the fun! Keep pushing through, you'll soon see why so many of us love this open-source world. Let's rock this Linux life together

For RDP, I use Remmina. Multimon only works on X though, not wayland, so make sure that's the graphic server you're running. Idk if it'll work for 2x2 tho, I only have 2 monitors.

For the headaches, I use a magic pill that I'm not legally allowed to view the ingredients of and cry into my Tissues as a Service.

That sucks. I've found that 90% of stuff works fine in Linux, 5% works if you jury rig it enough, and 5% just straight up doesn't work - and if that last 5% is needed for your job, then you're SOL. For me the few things that don't work are worth giving up because of how much I hate Windows' spyware and adware, and all my work apps work fine in a browser window so I've never had to worry about that.