Don’t get me wrong. I love Linux and FOSS. I have been using and installing distros on my own since I was 12. Now that I’m working in tech-related positions, after the Reddit migration happened, etc. I recovered my interest in all the Linux environment. I use Ubuntu as my main operating system in my Desktop, but I always end up feeling very limited. There’s always software I can’t use properly (and not just Windows stuff), some stuff badly configured with weird error messages… last time I was not able to even use the apt command. Sometimes I lack time and energy for troubleshooting and sometimes I just fail at it.
I usually end up in need of redoing a fresh install until it breaks up again. Maybe Linux is not good for beginners working full time? Maybe we should do something like that Cisco course that teaches you the basic commands?
While I’m fine with Linux most of the time, the few times I got frustrated with Linux was when I was following instructions and getting different results because either information was wrong or there were steps that weren’t included. A few examples I can think of are:
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There are a lot of games that I’ve played (mainly from Itch) that offer a Linux version, but that version isn’t tested and often times has mismatched libraries. In one case, they forgot to bundle the Linux version with the game’s assets and only included the executable.
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A lot of Linux installation guides just tell you that you can just install the distro from it’s LiveCD. Maybe this is the case for some computers but every computer that I’ve installed Linux onto required some extra steps. I’ve always had to disable secure boot and then re-enable it after installing but I’ve never seen a guide mention that, just some random answers on askubuntu that suggested it. They also never mention that you should use the LiveCD to make sure that everything is working properly.
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There are some emulators that I’ve never gotten the Linux versions of to work properly and I can only get the Windows versions to work properly. PCem keeps telling me it can’t find any bios even though I put them into the specified folder. Mesen (the pre-Mesen2 version) runs but I can’t change any of the settings and the only documentation that exists is for the Windows version.
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This sounds like an Ubuntu problem, sadly. Ubuntu is, in my experience, a mess of a distribution. Debian works almost flawlessly and I think you’ll have less issues with a properly run distro.
Something to consider: Stable gets old quick. Debian SID isn’t supported by Docker.
Because they don’t know how to use a computer they only have experience with the windows/msc workflow that keeps users ignorant by design.
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I’ve been daily driving Pop on my laptop and my biggest frustrations currently are lack of working drivers for the fingerprint reader and speakers, and the Proton VPN client is crap compared to Windows.
Does proton support wireguard? That has first-class support on Linux.
IIRC you can download Wireguard configs and just use it as a regular wireguard VPN. However, this limits you to the server that you picked unless you want to generate another config for a different server.
Apparently not by default, there’s a config you can download but I haven’t been able to get it working.
I dunno, why would anyone be frustrated by having everything labeled with an incomprehensible acronym and an entirely unique and often vague directory structure with a stringent yet useless file level security?
Linux is amazing for it’s ability to be customized. That comes with a cost in on ramping new users. Hell, I’m an old user, and what I know is half useless because it’s so old. The end result is that I use linux to run a raspberry pi that shares out instrument data. And that’s all it does. It’s not a desktop, it’s a tool that does a thing. It does that one thing reasonably well, and I don’t have to screw with it. Because I never update it, never connect it to the internet, never install new things. Until I make a new one to do a new thing.
Honestly I have no idea why anyone would want a linux desktop for daily use. It’s nice to have an environment to set up the device for what it’s going to be doing. But beyond that, it’s usually not even going to have a monitor attached to it.
“Honestly I have no idea why anyone would want a linux desktop for daily use.” I like to own my computer.
I’m looking forward to owning my computer, especially as Microsoft claws away more of my rights season by season. But WTF am I getting myself into when I make the jump? Is it possible to own my computer and have an easy to understand OS?
I hope I’m not fucking myself when I try to make the switch, but when the first response to it’s got problems is don’t look a gift horse in the mouth then yeah, it makes me a bit worried I’m going to be left out in the elements on my own by a community with the attitude of COD gamers.
I believe it is possible to have an easy-to-understand OS, it all really depends on your choice of distro and desktop environment. I would recommend downloading a distro that comes pre-installed with the desktop environment you prefer (you can install other desktops after the fact, but a preloaded “spin” of a distro will make things easy to understand at first.)
I think the ‘toxicity’ of the linux community is, in my experience anyways, totally overblown. Yes, if you post a question you might get a few snarky, entitled responses, but thats the same for any community. For every troll there are many more people willing to help you out.
For an easy start on Linux, I would recommend a “beginner” distro such as:
Example: <distro name> (<desktop environment>)
- Linux Mint (Cinnamon)
- Ubuntu (GNOME)
- Kubuntu (KDE)
I think new users are often intimidated by how much there is to learn about Linux, but I assure you all of that will come with time. Some people also fear using the terminal, but I would strongly suggest learning how to at least:
- Update your system
- Install / remove / search for packages
from the terminal.
I hope that answers some questions, if not or I just confused you more, ask as many questions of me as you need.
It requires active user participation. Windows, Mac, iOS and Android will all “work” even if you have no idea what you are doing and no plans to to learn. Just keep running the apps or downloading .exes from cnet.
You can stumble your way through Linux as well but it’s a lot less forgiving. If something doesn’t work immediately it’s up to the user to search the relevant keywords and see if there is a is a fix. That can be frustrating if you aren’t so great with a search engine, you don’t know what the relevant terms are or you don’t know how to implement a fix that is not for your exact setup.
My man, my laptop sometimes turns off the screen when I tap the touchpad in Windows. It’s far more broken than Linux is. Let’s not go into how slow it is on an HDD in Windows 10… I have given up on booting into Windows since it’s unusable
Windows, Mac, iOS and Android will all “work” even if you have no idea what you are doing and no plans to to learn.
Oh no they won’t. You’ll just replace iOS and Android devices too often to notice, and with Windows you’ve gotten used to fixing broken crap.
If something doesn’t work immediately it’s up to the user to search the relevant keywords and see if there is a is a fix
Worked much better for me that the alternative process under Windows. May be the main reason I switched.
That’s more or less my experience too, my installation slowly breaks over time til I’m fed up and reinstall everything. Not sure what I’m even doing wrong if anything at all.
My main draw towards Linux is the exact opposite experience. I have a Linux install that has been carried over three computer and two harddisk changes over 10 years and it’s still as good, or slightly better than it used to be.
My suggestion would be to start with something stable like Debian and read the manual when you want to tinker with it. Especially this: https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian
My suggestion would be to start with something stable like Debian
It’s literally broken out of the box rn. The Debian live images are borked
Nothing is perfect. Every distribution I used have had bugs at some point.
I would usually wait a while before, maybe until the first point release to upgrade so that there is time to iron out all the teething issues.
The actual problem is only encountered when the raspi-firmware package is (re)configured or when the kernel/initramfs is updated.
I would rather try Fedora if it always break. Fedora only break because the driver like nvidia, but nothing else I ever see it broken if I’m using AMD/Intel iGPU
I’m been using Fedora for many version number, and it’s fun and working as it’s… Never break, unless it’s driver.
Speaking of myself, I think I’m just too lazy / have too little time and energy to slowly troubleshoot everything.
I am always on a rush, and when you’re on a rush and something like apt not working happens, you just implement some workaround that maybe makes everything worse or is not a full solution. As others pointed, putting commands you see on Google without fully understanding them is a bad idea, and a lot of my “Linux troubleshooting experience” is “trying a bunch of Google solutions in a trial and error fashion”.
For example a base issue I have with my current installation is that I firstly installed Ubuntu and then installed KDE, instead of installing Kubuntu, and the installation is kind of glitchy. I never put the time to fix the issues that maybe were not that difficult to fix, but they were unimportant and it just worked. That stuff slowly accumulates over time until the fresh install with that characteristic “this time will be different” feel lol
As others pointed, putting commands you see on Google without fully understanding them is a bad idea, and a lot of my “Linux troubleshooting experience” is “trying a bunch of Google solutions in a trial and error fashion”.
Right? I have no idea if the solution is right until I’ve done it, and it’s unlikely that the first one or two I try will be it. They’re all black magic commands.
You are definitely doing something wrong.
You are definitely doing something wrong.
Yes, installing through official media and doing sudo apt-get upgrade, the horror.
That is a one-off situation. I might be losing my patience with the amount of ignorance in these types of threads but if you honestly believe that Windows is a more stable OS than Linux, you’re objectively wrong. Period.
Do you think Windows doesn’t have one-off issues with updates? Microsoft delivered an update in 2018 that literally deleted user files in home directories. And a simple Google search will inform you of the Windows updates that have broken userspace multiple times since then and before then.
Pointing out a bug that has been around for less than a few days and will be fixed shortly does not refute the above statement.
It was still unfixed as of yesterday. That’s how I found it out. I installed debian and was like huh. I can’t update.
I think it’s just general fear of the command line. I’ve had a friend who always owned a mac, and started using it for his programming course. While assisting him in trying to compile some programs or use something like git from the mac’s zsh terminal, I can tell it’s a stressful event for him, even though all I told him to enter were simple commands like ls, mkdir, g++ etc.
I have a machine that runs fedora with no trouble at all. I never needed to debug anything, multimonitors and sound outputs all work. But every once in a while, something happens which can only be solved through the command line, because linux simply does not have a settings utility as extensive as windows control panel. It’s fine for me, but telling that friend to bring up the terminal and enter a cryptic line will probably freak him out.
Computers in general are very complex systems, I think it’s easy to say the majority of users understand very little about them even though they use it often. I think you might be in that group.
It’s not plug and play
And what does that mean? That drivers for most hardware doesn’t exist unless we write it ourselves? I don’t have time for that steep a climb.
You guys are now seriously freaking me out. My experience has been decades of windows not mainframes with 1980s era OSes. Is all that experience going to be useless?
I have 70 and 80 year olds running Linux Mint without any problems or support hassles (because their old PCs run like dogs on windows and linux is much lighter on old hardware). It also reduces my (unpaid) support effort to nearly zero over constant windows issues.
There’s a reason it’s one of the most installed desktop linuxes
Install a copy on an old machine, or setup virtual box and try a virtual machine. It even comes with a “try before you buy” mode where if you boot the install USB (you need to create it) you’ll boot into a working copy of Mint so you can just give it a try and make sure it works ok on your PC.
Seriously, it’s very little different to windows - everything you’re likely to want to do is available in a graphical window.
Mint is great.
Tbh, if you’re using mainstream hardware, and a sensible DE like KDE Plasma, it pretty much is plug and play these days. Drivers are built into the kernel; the system detects your hardware at boot and loads the appropriate drivers automatically, so you can even swap out components and simply turn the system on and it’ll work in most cases. Peripherals like audio interfaces that are tricky and require diver installs on windows are often plug and play on GNU/Linux, but generally speaking, being a windows expert will not help you.
Windows has layers of abstraction designed to make it difficult for you to understand how the OS is actually working - GNU/Linux does not. You can access any information, change anything you like, and almost all system config down to a low level can be done by editing plain text files. It’s intimidating at first, but with some experience, config and troubleshooting is miles easier than windows because no information is hidden from you. Then again, that really is in the realm of advanced usage; for day to day computing you shouldn’t have to think about any of this.
If you’re worried, try out a live USB of a beginner friendly distro like Manjaro. You can run the os off of a USB stick and get a feel for it.
It sure would be nice if even one variant were, though.
A distro like Mint with Gnome or KDE just detects everything and works out-of-the-box, in my experience. I consider them as close to Windows as possible.
I only touch windows when I absolutely have to, and luckily that is getting rarer over time
Reading comments, it’s soo strange that I never borked my system once during nearly 7 years of linux usage. Playing games were frustrating, but it was improved a lot by now. My ubuntu never failed to boot, the only audio problem I had was with the mic. Even better, KDE Connect introduced new workflow to me. I wonder why my computer always boots well even when it gets borked during shutdown…
Nowadays, I use my own hand-rolled DE. It still refuses to break on me. Guess I am really lucky or something.
Same here. My issues atm are that NixOS is just too darn complicated sometimes… But that doesn’t mean stuff gets borked.
I’ve borked my system a few times, but I know it was always because I messed with stuff that I didn’t understand. My system is much more stable now that I learned those early lessons.
You’re not alone. I’ve been rocking Arch for a few years now, and I only reinstalled it when I changed computers. It just works.
Learning cli tools takes time. My advice: don’t do anything unless you are %100 sure what you are doing or you know how to revert whatever you did. When I first started using Linux I used to mess everything up by trying to solve my problems copy-pasting commands blindly. But in time I wanted to know what those commands were are, what each argument did etc. Apart from the cli tools, one can still mess things up with GUI apps if you edit system files blindly. Now this happens for people who want to dive a bit deeper. If you want a less risky swim, there are immutable distros where it’s less likely to break things.
I still keep track of what I install and what I change on my system. That helps a lot too.
This is why I use NixOS in a git repo. I will never be able to successfully recall all the steps I did otherwise
Have at look at this: https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian
I found this to be invaluable when I was borking stuff all the time.
