- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
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Yeah, the Linux community has done a shitload of work to bring Linux up to as good as windows (in the technical sense) and better than windows (regarding the often hostile user experience).
Microsoft is now helping with the marketing by making the windows experience even worse, driving more people to “take the plunge” only for them to realize there isn’t a place where the floor suddenly drops away and you’re left helpless, and that that actually is a better description for using windows outside of the rails MS wants.
If you use an AMD gpu, there’s actually fewer steps to go from empty disk to playing a game, assuming that game isn’t trying to do things with the kernel or is one of the rare games that aren’t compatible for reasons other than anti-cheat (I’ve seen one game like that so far, forget the name of it but a logistics game that needed some dotnet library or something and I ended up giving up and refunding it rather than troubleshooting it until it worked, though others on protondb did say they got it working).
The days where windows gives an easier or better experience are gone, even ignoring all the next level enshitification of win 11. I’ve been on Linux for about a year now but wish I had switched sooner.
Been using linux exclusively for personal computing since 2019 and don’ miss windows either.
Not exclusively but almost exclusively since 2004 here, the time when there was a thing similar to wine for printer drivers
Would be nice to be able to read the article. This hiding shit behind an account just guarantees I’ll never read it on your site.
Here you go:
I think this is a result of much site traffic being AI search agents or crawlers nowadays, which doesn’t generate any ad income for sites. So they don’t really have a choice
I’m not changing until they make a “Linus Proof” distro…
Why not try immutable distros? Fedora silver blue/kionote or bazzite have immutable system images. You cannot break them.
I really wish we stopped linking users to random niche distros, its just much more common to run into bugs due to less users.
A lot of misinformation and people going about things wrong in the comments.
Do y’all not do research before buying a house, buying a car, or applying to a new job?
Y’all need to go back and learn critical thinking.
Enlightening
The only problem I’ve had so far on Linux was due to my RAM breaking. Same shit could’ve happened on Windows. As much as everyone talks about needing “manual intervention” in Arch, I had to do the same shit on Windows after a bad update pushed unsigned USB drivers (which I was unaware of, I only saw the blue screen) then once I did a system restore it just failed after wiping my hard drive despite only using tools from Windows itself. I ended up having to get a third party tool to fix it all, because the vhdx files Windows made assumed my computer was UEFI despite only supporting BIOS. It was a mess.
The moral of the story is: Windows still has these problems, people are just more used to solving them so it doesn’t feel like they’re solving a problem.
Step one: download bazzite Step two: install Step three: ??? Step four: Fuck windows
I would caution against fucking Windows - you’ll likely end up with a nasty virus
That’s why you use a firewall and open a port to insert your ramdisk
Hey, just because I preach harm reduction, doesn’t mean I’m gonna kink shame
terms and conditions apply, your situation may vary with Nvidia hardware
I kinda get there’s some common meme about Nvidia being Linux’s kryptonite, but everything’s been okay for me on CachyOS. This after some issues earlier in the year on Mint and even Bazzite.
My first night on Linux was rough. Getting all my apps installed and set up was exhausting, especially because I had no experience using the command line. For those who haven’t stared into the dark void of a Linux terminal before, it’s where most system management happens — installing apps, running updates, and the like. It’s an unavoidable part of the Linux experience
Bullshit. And fuck you for
propagatingperpetuating this notion, yet again.Edit: fixed to the correct word.
Oh for fucks sake, so much neckbeard energy here dismissing this guys personal experience.
When you’re a new user and don’t know what the hell the native app store application is, which doesn’t have all the programs a person would want to use and install there, and when a new user goes to find their old windows apps that have Linux install instructions, what’s the first thing that they have there? Guess. It’s always find your flavor of Linux and the first steps shown are always terminal commands with sudo apt get or sudo dnf.
That’s everyone first time with Linux until they learn more about it so get off your high horse and condescending gatekeeping attitude.
Gatekeeping, I hate that word. So useless. In this scenario the author is gate keeping saying all the linux system management is the command line. Its “exhausting”. Well bullshit. Let me say it again: BULLSHIT.
It is perpetuating a myth. This is not true. They are gatekeeping the users who don’t want to because they are saying it has to be this way.
Look, I like the command line, I get why sharing information is so much easier by providing a command rather than a wall of screen shots.
Yet at the same time, my travel laptop over here, two years in, has never had to have “system administration” and package installation from a command line. Depending on the distro it simply is not necessary.
The user has choice.
Buddy, they literally do not know that choice exists, and you’re getting angry and calling them a liar instead of growing the community by teaching.
The Linux community has a reputation for being filled with condescending dickheads, and that’s part of the reason why people are turned off from even trying.
Buddy, they literally do not know that choice exists
Yeah, because people like this author keep repeating it.
The Linux community has a reputation for being filled with condescending dickheads
Yet another annoying myth. Look, I am saying it with a bit of vitrol here, but its basically to the universe as the author (as far as I know) isn’t here.
Could I be a bit nicer? I suppose, but they were so wrong, and using strong words like “exhausting” to describe a practice they don’t even have to do is annoying. Read what they wrote, they said all admin tasks are command line. Nonsense of course. If they had said, I started out this way, or it was what I had learned, with just a tiny bit of journalistic effort they would know there are a variety of ways.
I have gone back and read forums, from 10 to 15 years ago, just because I keep hearing: linux is so condescending and rude, and it wasn’t the way I remembered it, so I went to see. And guess what? Nothing but nice and friendly people trying to help each other.
It gets old fast.
Na sorry, hes right.
For someone who doesn’t spend every moment on their pc, its daunting and takes energy to learn and remember all of this just to make your pc run.
Keep in mind that changes are coming even if you stay on Windows or Mac or Android or iOS. AI in particular is going to require everyone to relearn everything in non-deterministic ways, so you end up begging the system to do what you want in new creative ways. Also, the UI will be radically reworked over and over. There’s really no way to avoid learning new ways to do things on an invention that’s less than 50 years old.
Yes, it’s work that we don’t usually have the energy for, especially now, but the best we can do is look for a community to support each other through it all.
That is true and a large part of why I do love how linux mostly has stayed the same for 20 years in its basic form. I was able to apply a lot of the things I had remembered from years ago when I used it briefly.
You dont have to. But honestly its worth the time to get over the fear of the terminal. Understanding how they work and being comfortable using them has many advantages. So many things do not require a bloated GUI application. Like again its not necessary but its a bandaid that I think is worth it to rip off.
I really take issue with the author suggesting that you need to. You do not need to, and it is a myth that needs to go away. Particularly when they said it was “exhausting” installing applications. Linux is miles ahead on that front: you look through a list of what you like, or search for them, and click on the ones you want.
Also for system management, there is no need for the terminal either and the author says “It’s an unavoidable part of the Linux experience”. That one in particular really doesn’t sit well with me.
Now can you? Yes. Should you? Also yes, because it is the easiest way to convey and execute an idea. But you do not have to.
And they fail to mention that windows does this too, for almost every task for system maintenance is done this way: press run+r, now type “whatever -command”.
Anyways a moderately mainstream article and they are going to scare people away over something they did not need to do. Which after a year you would think they would have figured that out.
The one I’m on has a very functional “search and install” app, but I still find myself habitually opening up terminal for installation out of “fastness”. Maybe it’s a poor impulse I should correct.
Probably the biggest thing driving terminal use is opening and configuring system files. You can do that with the file explorer and an elevated text editor, but a lot of guides aiming for conciseness will give you some command to wget a long file online, then insert content into a text file by path in one line.
I agree for the most part. It depends a lot on what distro youre using, what DE, so on. But you can easily get by on gnome without having to use the terminal much if at all.
KDE as well. It is astounding how easy it is to use a modern KDE distro: everything has tips and hints get you to the setting you want. Even mounting shares is just click and mount.
Personally I enjoy typing stuff in the konsole
Depends on your distro. Maybe on Ubuntu or Mint, sure. I’m running EndeavourOS, and it’s terminal or nothing. I’m fine with that, but YMMV.
I am running EndeavourOS and it’s possible to function without terminal. I use it because I love it but no need at least not for app installing having Discover.
Anyway can’t compare an arch based distro to Fedora or Ubuntu
Anyway can’t compare an arch based distro to Fedora or Ubuntu
Why not?
Because Fedora and Ubuntu (Debian) have been around for forever? In my experience Arch also feels more like a your on your own kind of Distro which I liked back in the day (build one myself with an online guide), but now I just want my machine to run and function unattended besides the updates.
I came across this the other day but haven’t had a chance to use it. Hopefully this saves someone a lot of time installing programs.
Awesome!
Huh ninite for Linux. That’s neat
To me it was like, oh, you made it different and that makes so much more sense, why are they not doing it like that in Windows? Or just during university; there is a tool for that format? And it is already installed? Nice.
I did the same but I cannot replace it. Half of my devices are not working.
What kind of exotic hardware do you have? Pretty much any of the old and new hardware I keep throwing at it has worked, do you have specialized equipment?
Some pen display, graphic tablets, and audio pheriperials are not always fully supported on Linux. Even new hardware does not guarantee a full support.
Hell, even common stuff like the Elgato Stream Deck either doesnt work, works very poorly, or can’t replicate all of the functionality.
My partner has a bog standard Weseary headset and the knobs don’t work on Linux. Setting up his gaming mouse from Logitech was also a nightmare. Linux needs to work on it’s plug and play for normies, as much as I love it.
If it is a wireless one Solaar has been my go to program to manage Logitech mouses, so maybe that will also help you?
paywalled
Here you go:
Disable javascript
Mainly music devices
Linux isn’t especially complicated on a daily basis, but you have to be willing to solve your own problems
Who was solving your problems before then?
To give the author credit, ignoring the other flaws with windows, most things “just worked” and generally either didn’t have an issue or if it did, fixed it’s own issues. I didn’t really have to resolve any issues or anything. Heck it even fixed itself if it failed to update, rolling back the changes and alerting the user next boot (which I usually just ignored and let fix itself which it generally did after a few days/tries! lol)
My current rig had Windows as the primary OS from 2016 to about 2024, during that time I don’t recall any times I had to actually look up any issues unless I personally created the problem. I think the most extensive issue I had was my 5700xt crashing under high load but that wasn’t something I could fix anyway as it was a driver issue, or when i made the entire system unbootable cause I messed up making a recovery partition
When I swapped back to Linux (Linux Mint at first, then Linux Mint DE, then Debian 12, now Debian 13), I had multiple hurdles from my headset not functioning, to my video card not being supported, no login screen(this surprised me as I had thought Debian was supposed to be stable), etc, these issues didn’t fix themselves, I had to fix them. Granted some were easier to fix (like the no login screen was a super simple edit to a config file), but it wasn’t something I had to deal with on windows.
Linux isn’t going to hold your hand like Windows does with issues. So yea you need to resolve your own issues, Linux isn’t going to do it for you, the most it will do is post a command in the log saying “issue X expected, run this command to fix”
Running windows is like playing with an action figure. You take it out of the box and it does what it’s supposed to. Linux I consider more like a Lego set. Sure you have to put some stuff together before you really play with it, but it’s YOUR creation by the time your done with it and you can modify to suit your use case. If you have no interest in tinkering with ur OS windows or Mac is just a better option, if you want to tailor your experience how you’d like Linux is the way. I run W11 on my gaming PC because I don’t have time to mess with it and experiment anymore. I have played with so many Linux distros but never had one work flawless out of the gate, and always reserved it for my secondary fuck around rigs because if I wanted to fuck around I could but I do want something that i can press the power button and evrything works fine without use of my brain after working a 13 hour day where i might get lucky to play for 40 mins lol. My fuck around time these days is totally sapped by project vehicles and house issues the last think I wanna do is play around in terminal when I have 10k other more important things to do :c
I’m not sure I entirely agree anymore. I’ve installed Mint OS on both my mother’s and my grandmother’s computers and neither of them have complained a single time about it to me. Setting up a printer was even easier, I tried helping an acquaintance with W11 set up a printer and it was hell, with Mint it just figured out everything relevant on its own, I just had to confirm that it was correct.
Fellow project car and house enthusiast here!!
I sometimes forget others dont have these massive time sucks and can afford to troubleshoot for hours. I cant! Even though its kind of fun, I have shit to do.
Fully agree. When I mention switching to Linux on the rare occasion it comes up I make sure to mention that you can do basically anything on the platform, but with that customization comes drawbacks. If you are afraid to research an issue then I would not recommend full stop. I also mention not to be afraid of needing to use the terminal if needed. Don’t expect a 1:1 it’ll do most things you can do on Windows, but there will be some things you just can’t
Running windows is like playing with an action figure. You take it out of the box and it does what it’s supposed to. Linux I consider more like a Lego set. Sure you have to put some stuff together before you really play with it, but it’s YOUR creation by the time your done with it and you can modify to suit your use case
I really love this analogy, and plan to steal it for future use.
This is a common misconception I think. “Stable” from a development point of view (which is what Debian is) is not the same as “Stable” from a user point of view. It can be, as long as no other variables are changing. But a typical desktop user IS a variable, and they change other variables all the time. “Stable” makes sense on a server, where the server has a defined role and a specific purpose that basically never changes. It’s “stable” and if the OS is also “stable” that gives you assurance that nothing is going to break unexpectedly… ONCE you have it tested and set up properly to be stable in the first place.
But installing on a fresh system where you’ve never run this OS before is the antithesis of stable. You are initially in an “experimental” state, and you may need the latest updates and patches to even be compatible with the hardware you’re running. Then you’re going to use this system daily, downloading stuff, installing new apps and tools regularly, changing configurations when you feel like it. None of this is stable. And that’s fine, it’s not wrong, it’s just the reality of being a user with a desktop system. It’s not stable, it’s not supposed to be. It’s your daily driver.
To paraphrase George Carlin, a bad driver, driving a safe car doesn’t really make you safe, at all. First, learn to drive THEN get your safe car. A stable distribution like Debian is for people who already know how to find all the compatible-by-default hardware and do the configuration necessary to make things safe and stable and using Debian assures them that once they have got it into that state, Debian isn’t going to undo their work and make unexpected changes.
For users, especially on the desktop, you often want bleeding edge latest updates to fix these kind of compatibility issues as soon as they’re identified, even without absolutely rigorous testing and validation that it won’t mess up someone’s “stable” configuration. You really do want the opposite of “stable” development, in order to make your own system more stable as quickly and reliably as possible in the circumstances. It will never be as stable as Debian running on a server, but that’s normal, and expected. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Debian is a good OS, but as a desktop user, on your main system, it might be counterproductive. For what it’s worth, I run PikaOS, which is a gaming-focused distro derived from Debian (Debian’s stable foundation is a huge asset for people building distros on top of it) but provides prompt access to all the latest updates and patches needed for gaming and includes configurations and drivers for supporting the latest consumer level hardware and all the common tools and things that power users want, that are becoming popular day by day. This is the opposite of “stable development” but it’s perfect for a desktop system in my opinion and they do a great job.
Yea, I get that. Stable is from the developer POV, my expectation though was that I could at least finish the install process without running into an issue. I didn’t expect that a built in driver would decide to just black screen and the official driver to just not work period(Linux Mint), or that the installer wouldn’t be smart enough to properly configure the X server to allow for a login(Debian 12).
I somewhat expected it of Mint, but for Debian 12 I was pretty surprised to see it. You would think something that was good enough to reach a point where they did a package freeze would be able to at least reach a desktop before showing signs of an issue. But I guess considering that the installer itself crashes if you try to manually partition a server, and then decide to go back in and set up luks in the installer, I shouldn’t be too surprised.
Being said,
I have not heard ofDid not know that PikaOs it was a Debian derivative, I might actually look into that one then. (and yes before you ask it is exclusively because it contains “Pika” so I think it would be funny to try it 😂)edit: I realized after seeing the logo I had heard of it, just didn’t know it was based off debian.
I just put my desktop on pika, its nice. Maybe a little better performance than stock Debian in games, but i could be imagining things.
I like the bird sounds it uses as system sounds. Drives my dog crazy looking for whats making tge sound.
Haha I just noticed your name, that’s a funny coincidence. But yeah I’m a big fan of Debian in general. The problem, as you noticed, is often it doesn’t have great support for the latest hardware. On the other hand, it often has great support for older hardware, and PikaOS refuses to install at all on some of my older, less capable systems, so those are running Debian right now. So it’s kind of a “right tool for the job” sort of situation. They have their purposes, it’s definitely not one-size-fits-all.
Who was solving your problems before then?
Every tech company in existence, in exchange for all of your privacy and now subscription fee.
For the low low price of all of your money and privacy you can avoid having to figure out how to backup your own files and have a team of developers ensuring that any kind of difficulty that you have will be fixed before you even realize it was a problem.
Once it is ensured that you will never develop those skills you are completely dependent on their services and they can keep jacking up the price.
Hate Netflix’s price increase, or password sharing restrictions? Too bad you spent 8 years not learning how to setup streaming media that you control. Hate listening to ads in order to listen to music? Well, it looks like Spotify doing everything for you has paid off for them.
Everyone has traded their privacy for convenience, if you want your privacy back then you have to give back the convenience and learn to do things for yourselves.
The entire internet? Whatever problem you had on windows you can just Google it and there’s either a YouTube video, reddit thread, or some obscure forum post that fixes your exact issue by copy and pasting some Powershell commands or a random bat file or GitHub project.
Linux? It’s gotten better, but the community side can get quite toxic or outright ignorant of how to troubleshoot any kind of issues tbh.
That’s probably the direct opposite of my experience and an experience of everyone I know.
With Windows problems you do get a lot of very, very long youtube videos that says a lot of things, but unless your problem is trivial, the shit wouldn’t work, and random bat files aren’t working for unexpected problems, or are just viruses. More often then not though, you get a question on Microsoft forum, with one answer asking you to run that windows repair bullshit that never actually solves anything. And then you just accept that it’s not something you can do and move on with your life, thinking that ignoring the problem is actually solving it. Alternatively there is for some reason very expensive program that does what you wanted badly, while using 20% of your machine’s resources, but you’re so exhausted at this point, that you pretend it’s normal.
With Linux you will get snarky answers telling you that you’re an idiot for not reading the error message on your screan (which is, yeah, you are), or that you’re an idiot for not reading the first page of man (which is, yeah, see above), or the most detailed explanation of inner workings of this specific thing that is giving you troubles, and you pretend to understand all of it while just copying and pasting all the random commands from the answer like an idiot that you are. But if you actually want to learn, you just do that, and then your problem is solved and you’re a bit more knowledgeable in the end.
Every time people talk about how Linux community is unhelpful, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. How can I always find help and support no matter how weird and obscure or banal and trivial my problem is, am I special or do people don’t know how to google? I mean, snarky and condescending? Yeah, that happens. But unhelpful? Never in my experience.Same with Linux. Is there a problem Search it. Someone had that problem before. Shit even basic AI can help you out if you can’t quickly solve the issue.
Yeah, they had the same problem… 13 years ago, and their solution doesnt work on modern OS’s due to package changes and command depreciations.
Thats how about 99% of my internet searches for linux problems end up.
For me I got better results if I used the actual distro + version in the search, Linux is to general a term, but say Fedora 43 + problem would really narrow down the amount of results and also prevent really old answers to pop up.
Some random Indian guy on YouTube with a tutorial that somehow perfectly solves your weird issue.
The trick is to learn to absolutely despise Windows before doing the switch, then everytime something breaks on Linux you reminisce about the olden days and decide that typing two or three commands in the terminal isn’t so bad afterall.
The trick is to
dump your personal files into a seperate, non OS hard drive so that if shit hits the bricks, you have a parachute.
Ask me how I know.
Or you can do like I did and simply put an extra hard drive in, load Linux on it. Then use your old Windows hard drive as a storage drive. For the first couple of weeks it was a nice safety blanket to have.
Oh, and if your PC doesn’t have the room inside for an extra hard drive. Make it an external.
Backups are a good idea.
Also one backup is no backup, ask me how I know :,)
In contrast, Linux won’t stop you if you try to use a command that deletes every file on your PC (“sudo rm -rf /”).
Actually AFAIK it will stop that specific command nowadays. I don’t have a VM handy to test, but without the “–no-preserve-root” flag it should give an error.
(Don’t actually run that command on a machine you care about, I’m only 80% confident.)
Nope, it absolutely won’t let you
Goddamn this mf really did hold the gun up to his own head and pulled the trigger just to prove it would go click.
Maybe he did it in a vm
Nope, I’m on bare metal :)
You are ice cold metal, my friend 🤘
Gotta test the guardrails sometimes…
could this be based on the distro?
or is it built into the kernel?
It was made default for rm command in 2006.
