In 2021, Linus Tech Tips, a popular Youtube channel about tech tips by a guy called Linus, did a challenge in which they tried to install and use Linux for playing games. 15 minutes after installing the Pop!_OS distro, while trying to install Steam, Linus managed to break his operating system by typing the following confirmation phrase: "Yes, do as I say!"
Why It Happened
Linus tried to install Steam through Pop!_OS software manager, which failed. Unfortunately, he was tech savvy enough to not give up there and use his troubleshooting skills to try to install Steam via the terminal, using the command sudo apt-get install steam.
The command is correct. It will tell the Aptitude package manager to install the steam package, which is Steam's package. The package manager's job is to make sure that any software a piece of software requires is installed when you try to install it. For example, Krita uses the Qt toolkit, so installing Krita automatically installs Qt as well.
Conversely, if you uninstall a package that another package depends on, the dependee will also be uninstalling, e.g. if you have Krita installed and you uninstall Qt, Krita will be uninstalled because it simply can't work without Qt.
In rare cases, two different software depend on different versions of the same package that can't co-exist in the same system. When this happens, one version needs to be uninstalled, and uninstalling it will also uninstall anything that depends on it. The package manager will warn you if this is necessary so you can cancel the operation in case something is wrong with the package.
In Linus' case, the problem was aggravated that the conflicting packages were essential packages. Essential packages are just packages marked by the LInux distribution, in this case by Pop!_OS, as being essential. This included the desktop environment, which is the software that displays the taskbar on the screen, among other things.
You are allowed to uninstall these "essential packages" because if you know what you're doing you can just install a different desktop environment, for example, if you want. Unfortunately, Linus had no idea what he was doing, so he wouldn't have been able to do that.
Aptitude showed plenty warnings that what he was going to do was a bad idea, requiring him to type "Yes, do as I say!" in the command-line in order to proceed. As a new Linux user, he didn't know this was unusual, and might have imagined this was just some Linux thing he wasn't aware about, so he proceeded with it. Aptitude uninstalled everything, and he had to reinstall Linux.
You really should watch the video, because it's really funny. The timing was very comedic.
Why the Steam Package Had Conflicts?
This was due to an error by Pop!_OS.
[...] Going by what System76 engineer Jeremy Soller said on Twitter, the cause was this:
"For some reason, an i386 version of a package was never published on Launchpad. Steam being an i386 package, when trying to install it, it had to downgrade that package to the Ubuntu version to resolve dependencies, which removed Pop!_OS packages.".
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/11/system76-patches-apt-for-pop-os-to-prevent-users-breaking-their-systems/ (accessed 2025-03-07)
Although I haven't been able to confirm it, it seems that if Linus was particularly unlucky because he downloaded an ISO image that contained the error and didn't update the system before trying to install Steam. Had he updated the system before installing Steam, or Pop!_OS updating the ISO on their website, this incident could have been avoided.
At the time, the incident became controversial in the Linux community. Some blamed the user for not reading the manual, or the warnings, while the serious developers took note to fix flaws in their software.
To improve the user experience for non-technical users, Discover (KDE’s software center) will now prevent anything that removes any crucial packages like the desktop environment.
You probably know that this issue was highlighted by Linus Sebastian (Linus Tech Tips) when he ended up removing gnome, Xorg, and other vital packages when installing Steam on Pop!_OS.
https://news.itsfoss.com/kde-plasma-5-24-dev/ (accessed 2025-03-07)
Opinion
Personally, it's impossible for me to side against Linus here. Linus isn't even the average PC user, he's a tech tips Youtuber. If he can't use your software, it's not because he's bad at computers, it's because you're bad at software.
And I do mean this. Having to use the terminal AT ALL always was and always will be a terrible experience for the very few tasks it's required. Desktop-based Linux distributions will never be a serious competitor to Windows until it has first-party GUI's for all the administrative tasks that currently require the use of the terminal.
I don't know why I don't have a GUI to manage systemd yet. Windows has a GUI for its services. You never use it, but it exists. Making the user figure out the terminal instead of just building a proper GUI for it is the root of all issues on Linux.
For example, in the same video, Linus complained that Linux has no way to list all the hardware he had connected so he could see if his drivers were working, something that Windows does have (the Device Manager), so he had to search for a software that did that on Linux and install it. Why such software isn't part of the distribution to begin with?