this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Weird way to say spend hours fixing something that just randomly borked your PC.
Seriously, though. Windows has a fuck ton of issues, but it seems like every distro I install I am eventually greeted with something just completely breaking for no reason whatsoever and spend the next 6 hours scouring Linux forums for a solution, where everyone is just hostile as fuck screaming at people to "figure it out yourself" and to "use Terminal".
Glad it works for you, though. Wonder how many downvotes this cold take is going to net me lol.
Yep, this has been my experience too.
People shit on windows, but it was easy to navigate, and generally made an effort to keep you from breaking it and you pretty much never had to enter a command line for anything as an average user.
Linux troubleshooting, especially for new people, is going to become a much bigger problem as time goes on because any searched solution basically boils down to copy and pasting stuff into terminal and hoping its 1)still relevant and 2) doesnt break everything worse. Which is probably why so many immutable distros have popped up, to give that windows level of protection.
As for hostility? Its still there, in pockets. Not so much on lemmy from what i've seen, but it still exists elsewhere.. but it is significantly better overall than it was 10+ years ago, where questions about problems were seemingly treated as insults against the prophet and were responded to with great aggression, and often racist undertones.
Amen to that.
A lot of Linux users have forgotten how tech-savvy they are even compared to the average power user. Saying "Linux just works" shows just how tone deaf they are.
As someone who didnt know anything about file systems besides FAT32 and NTFS, and as someone who isn't comfortable using command line, trying to switch to Linux was horrible. On windows something might not work they way you want it to, but it does kinda work. On Linux I felt like I had to fight every step of the way to do simple tasks.
Its like buying a car - I'm not a gearhead, I just want something that gets me around when I put petrol in. I want to drive it off the lot, even if there are a few maddening features like the cup holder being in the wrong place. I don't want to have to choose the right wheels and assemble them, I don't want to have to buy seats and install them, and I don't want to stop every other day to figure out why something isn't working.
The only times I've "broken" something it's because I did dumb shit lol. I've heard tell of it happening but usually not on something like Debian LTS, usually arch. Also, if you're looking for a GUI solution that doesn't exist, yes, people will often say "use the terminal" and unless you said "no terminal" they usually say "try this command.." with it. I've only had one dude be an insufferable prick about it in all my time on linux, and it got him (CHEFKOCH) banned from c/linux like 2y ago. I'm not gonna downvote you for being wrong, but you are at least outdated in your info.
Maybe I’m the minority, but I’ve never really broken my Linux. Sure, it’s NixOS, so it’s a little more stable than many other distros, but still, I have a much better time with it than I do with Windows
Same, does it work? If it means booting into a DE and being able to move your mouse and type on your keyboard, sure most distros can do that.
It’s those little gotchas everywhere that gets you. Enabling video acceleration on Nvidia in firefox? Getting LDAC to work on Bluetooth? Etc. etc.
Do most distros work? Yeah, only if you don’t mind software encoding, or compiling from some user-provided repos.
I have a few hobby boxes running all flavours of distros, but whenever I need something to just work with no caveats, I go back to w11.
This happend to me a lot 10-15 years ago but since then has never again happened to me. With the noteable exception of Arch Linux which does tell you to read update notes though.