Additionally, what changes are necessary for you to be able to use Linux full time?

  • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    It just doesn’t work. It’s a simple as that. Things are constantly breaking. When they do I look up support articles that are written in fucking Klingon and sent to the terminal to type in commands that always return some sort of generic error “command not found” or some shit because the solution is written for a different one of the 862700422 available distros.

    I have no idea how to install all the different program types (flathub, db, appimage, etc.). Windows has exe. I click “install” and boom, it’s done.

    Sometimes I try to remove software in the package manager and it acts like it is uninstalled but it’s still fucking there.

    I can’t even select a file because there are no previews. Just a gazillion blue squares with names like “dlcosn_3947912947”.

    And other reasons, but I digress. I don’t have time to learn a new career, I just want a computer that works.

    • Raven FellBlade@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I used Linux Mint for several years on a dual-boot laptop. I rarely found myself booting Windows. While there was a learning curve, Mint was fairly accessible out of the box and was generally a delight to use. Until it wasn’t. At some point, the drivers for my video card updated, and just flat broke everything. And I can’t really use a computer on which I can’t see the desktop. I waited. And waited. A fix for the driver may have eventually come, but after awhile, booting into Windows just became my default, until eventually I just wiped the Linux partition to recover the storage space.

      It was fun while it lasted, and I may choose one day to give it another go for the fourth time. This wasn’t the first time I’ve had something like this happen. First time was with Fedora, and the second was Ubuntu. Each time, I had the same “it worked until it didn’t” experience, and each time it stopped working was usually some kind of broken driver making my hardware incompatible.

    • UlrikHD@programming.dev
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      I have no idea how to install all the different program types (flathub, db, appimage, etc.). Windows has exe. I click “install” and boom, it’s done.

      That’s strange, I’ve always felt that installing stuff is a lot easier on Ubuntu than windows. It’s just apt install <program> and apt remove <program>. Having to manually download and run an exe feels outdated in comparison.

      I can’t even select a file because there are no previews. Just a gazillion blue squares with names like “dlcosn_3947912947”.

      Curious what distro you installed that had that issue. The only preview issue I’ve encountered was on win10 where I had to pay for windows to support H.265 to give me previews of H.265 files.

      Things are constantly breaking. When they do I look up support articles that are written in fucking Klingon and sent to the terminal to type in commands that always return some sort of generic error “command not found” or some shit because the solution is written for a different one of the 862700422 available distros.

      That’s a fair point though. If you aren’t willing (and most aren’t) to learn enough to be comfortable with the terminal, it can be very easy break something when you are forced to interact with the terminal.

      • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I’ve always felt that installing stuff is a lot easier on Ubuntu than windows. It’s just apt install <program> and apt remove <program>.

        😂 Except that you have to know exactly what <program> is, character for character, and usually includes some long string of numbers and letters where 1 character is wrong and you have to retype the whole damn thing. This is the opposite of easy.

        Curious what distro you installed that had that issue.

        Fedora/Gnome

        If you aren’t willing (and most aren’t) to learn enough to be comfortable with the terminal, it can be very easy break something when you are forced to interact with the terminal.

        Yes and the problem is you’re ALWAYS sent into the terminal for absolutely any kind of debugging.

        • Dubious_Fart@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Been using linux for 6ish years.

          Aint nothin @HughJanus said thats wrong.

          assuming what you want is even on apt. if its not, then you gotta add the repository… and some stuff doesnt even offer that. So you gotta find and download the .deb file. or even compile it from source yourself.

        • oatscoop@midwest.social
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          1 year ago

          Except that you have to know exactly what <program> is, character for character

          Everything has [Tab] completion these days.

        • UlrikHD@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          Except that you have to know exactly what <program> is, character for character, and usually includes some long string of numbers and letters where 1 character is wrong and you have to retype the whole damn thing. This is the opposite of easy.

          If it a program you are unfamiliar with, yes you’ll probably need to search for the apt name and copy paste. I much prefer that over searching a website, verifying it’s not a scam site, then download the exe, and then run the exe once the download is finished. After the first time, just add it to a .sh script and then you can download every program you need automatically if you ever need to set up a new instance again.

          I guess it’s not for all, but worst case it’s hardly any more work than needing to go to a website to download the exe.

      • min_fapper@iusearchlinux.fyi
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        1 year ago

        Apt does not have most packages you need anymore. You have to add custom repositories for everything. Which means you have to go to a website and still run a whole bunch of commands. Worst of both worlds. Other distros are not as bad, but between snap, flathub, etc. Linux package management is not in a good state at the moment.

        • Xer0@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Agreed. Try using apt install program name, not found. Search Google “how to download program name on Linux”. Get told you first have to add these 3 different repos or whatever in the terminal, then type in this command to download it. Why do I need to Google HOW to download a program? Nothing is ever simple with Linux. It’s absolute bollocks in that regard.

          • min_fapper@iusearchlinux.fyi
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            1 year ago

            The sad part is that it used to be simple. You could do apt install whatever and it would usually get it.

            They also used to have a graphical frontend for apt, which felt like an app store before app stores (and even the iPhone itself) existed.

            I suspect it’ll get simple again. If canonical doesn’t do it, some other distro will overtake it.

      • Excel@lemmy.megumin.org
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        1 year ago

        There will never be a world where average users prefer typing arcane command line shit over clicking on a button in a GUI.

    • voxel@sopuli.xyz
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      you don’t have to use all of the app containers things, pacman, apt or whatever your distro uses is often enough.

      if you don’t have previews at all, your system is completely broken and fucked up

      if you get a command not found, well you just need install the missing tool…

      • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        you don’t have to use all of the app containers things, pacman, apt or whatever your distro uses is often enough.

        I don’t even know what these words mean.

        if you don’t have previews at all, your system is completely broken and fucked up

        What are “previews”?

        if you get a command not found, well you just need install the missing tool…

        …what tool!?

        I’m constantly genuinely surprised at how Linux users are unable to grasp why people don’t want to use it.

        • shapis@lemmy.ml
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          Your points are all entirely fair. It also surprises me how quite a few people don’t get it.

          And it’s not that many requisites to fix it either.

          A) don’t break shit on updates. This is the worst thing that could happen.

          B) There needs to be a clicky app store. Just one. No options. No pick your repos. No pick between flatpak and whatever else. Just a visual app store you click an app and it install. You click to remove it gets removed.

          It’s seriously not that much you’d think.

          Having that said. If you do choose to endure through the learning curve. It’s mostly worth it. But fuck. It’s such a dumb self imposed learning curve.

          • Dubious_Fart@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            The biggest strength of linux, is also its greatest flaw and weakness.

            Is that if people disagree with what a projects doing, they can split off, make their own version of the project, and now that has to compete with the other project, as well as the 5 others that are out there.

            So things just keep diluting, and spreading out, when it should be going in the opposite direction for a good user experience.

          • voxel@sopuli.xyz
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            1 year ago

            well gnome software and epiphany app stores just work.
            click, install, done.
            they provide an option to pick the source to install from (package/flatpak/snap), but they both automatically pick the best one for you.

            Debian/Ubuntu almost never break on updates (unless you mess with the PPAs too much), but at a significant cost: some packages and software (especially desktop environments and system packages) being 1-2 years out of date.

            • shapis@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              well gnome software and epiphany app stores just work.

              Man I wish I had time to boot up a vm with a big distro, open both stores and try to install something, it’s immediately obvious.

              There’s a reason everyone online says “oh yeah, the stores exist, i still use the terminal though”

              They do not work.

        • voxel@sopuli.xyz
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          1 year ago

          you mentioned that file previews are broken for you, thy should just work, unless some component it terribly broken or missing…

          also about the last part, package name usually matchess the name of the command, so for example if an online guide tells you to use the ffmpeg command and it’s not found on your system, usually that means that you have to install a package called ffmpeg.
          some package managers and command line shells provide more helpful error messages, like: command X was not found, but here are some packages that provide this command, do you want to install one of them?

          by the way, you mentioned that you tried using Fedora. common source of frustration is beginners trying to use apt on a system that doesn’t support or use it (apt is only used in Debian, Ubuntu, and their derivatives). Fedora uses dnf instead.

          …but, as a beginner, you shouldn’t even worry about this, as most distros provide easy-to-use, graphical app store applications that can automagically install apps (from your package manager, Flatpak, Snap, etc, picking the source automatically if it’s unavailable in one of them) with a single click.

          • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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            you mentioned that file previews are broken for you, thy should just work, unless some component it terribly broken or missing…

            Uhhhhh nope, that’s just the way it works.

            …but, as a beginner, you shouldn’t even worry about this, as most distros provide easy-to-use, graphical app store applications that can automagically install apps

            Yes I have the “Software” package manager. At best it is extremely slow, at worst it just doesn’t work at all. But it doesn’t come preloaded with many repositories, I had to manually load flatpak.

  • techgearwhips@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Shit never works and I basically have to become a programmer and expert in CLI to get shit to work… until it breaks again. So after having to Google everything on how to do supposedly simple shit, I always end up going back to Windows and GUI’s because I don’t have time to become a developer.

  • DharkStare@lemmy.world
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    I’ve used both regularly for years and went back to Windows when I switched to PC gaming and it’s just so much better. Everything just works on Windows.

    Linux really needs to work on improving its user experience if it wants to be a true competitor to Mac and Windows. All these little config tweaks and command line prompts you have to do to get things working on Linux just isn’t going to win a bunch of people over who are used to things being a few clicks on a wizard to get working.

    Edit: it’s been years since I last tried Linux so maybe things have changed.

    • bastion@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      fwiw, I’m now pretty darn happy with Linux and gaming. Granted, I use Steam, so there’s that.

      There are issues sometimes, but I just keep a copy of windows around for windows-only things. Generally, Linux “just works” for me, but I’ve also learned to just skip it when something requires too much involvement to get working.

    • crystal@feddit.de
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      What software were you trying to install that you couldn’t install by simply clicking the install button in the software store?

      • DharkStare@lemmy.world
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        It’s been too long so I don’t remember but there were several things I tried to install that required me to add a new repository, install from that, and then fiddle around with config files to get it to work.

        Lots of people swear that Linux is easy but that’s never been my experience. It’s always command prompts and config files.

        It’s been years since I last used Linux so maybe things have gotten better. I’ll likely be finding out eventually when Win 10 EOL comes because I don’t want Win 11.

  • harmonea@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I got tired of everything taking so much effort. I was almost always able to eventually wrangle what I wanted out of the OS, but every change I wanted to make and thing I wanted to try needed so much searching and learning. I wanted stuff that just worked, even if it was “dumber.”

    That, and some parts of the community I ran into were really prickly. One that was especially memorable: I was asking for help on a big-ish project with a lot of followers and helpers and didn’t expect the lead dev to answer my question, but when he did, he felt the need to make a snide as hell comment about how I have no business being there if I’m going to forget to start a service. On top of the exhaustion I was already feeling, I had a massive moment of “okay my guy, I guess I’ll just fucking leave then.”

    Anyway, it just feels better being a poweruser on windows. I know enough to keep it clean, safe, and slim (like using powershell to disable the bits they don’t expose to a settings UI, for example) – to truly admin my machine – without having to work so hard for it day in and day out.

    • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Unfortunately, those kinds of interactions are inevitable when the developer/user relationship is so close. And it goes both ways. I saw a thread just yesterday where a user reported an issue on github, a second user said they saw it too. Later the first user posted a workaround to the issue, and the second user came back with “took you long enough”, and that was the end of the exchange.

      Some people in the world are just dicks, but that doesn’t mean we should reject interacting with everyone. Similarly, a community of user-maintained software is going to have some asshats, but that doesn’t mean we should hand our computing freedom over to one or two corporations. Just my two cents.

    • Autocheese@lemmy.world
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      Yikes, that is why I hate tech forums. Too many times I’ve asked an informed/thought out question I’m unable to find via search and the first replier basically says “hey go FUCK yourself.”

    • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I’ve found this same type of animosity and superiority all over tech forums in general.

      • harmonea@kbin.social
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        You’re not wrong, but running Linux directly correlates to more time spent on “tech forums in general,” so it’s still a bigger problem with that OS than others imo.

    • _cerpin_taxt_@lemmy.world
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      Currently my experience with 3D printing. It’s one thing after another, and the community, at least on Reddit and Facebook, fucking sucks. If I ask a question, it’s always “hey how about you go fuck yourself” or an essay that has zero relevance to what I’m asking. Made a post on Reddit the other day (I know, but have a single burner account until the 3D printing community here takes off more) and just asked to see some settings due to just constantly having issue after issue. Half of the responses were people just telling me they’re not fucking wizards and they need to know what kind of problems I’m having. I… didn’t ask for that whatsoever. I very explicitly just asked for someone’s slicer settings to compare to.

      • harmonea@kbin.social
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        That’s absolutely the worst help forum experience, when you’re asking one question but everyone extrapolates the question they think you REALLY meant to ask and talks down to you about it.

        And of course if you try to steer the conversation back to your actual question, you get painted as the unreasonable one placing all sorts of conditions on the generous free help others are allowed to bestow upon you.

        The less reliance on others Linux requires, the better off it will be for general adoption.

        • richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one
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          everyone extrapolates the question they think you REALLY meant to ask and talks down to you about it

          It’s true, but the “X-Y problem” is real.

          The question may be “what’s the best way to do X”, when they actually want to do Y and they concluded, erroneously, that X is the best way to do it. Responders suspect this, so they want to steer the questioner to a best explanation to find out if that’s the case, just to watch the questioner’s tantrum when the immediate answer is not what they expect.

          • harmonea@kbin.social
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            Speaking only for myself, if I want to know the best way to do Y, I ask about how I can do Y. If I’m at the stage where I’ve moved on to asking about how to do X, there’s a reason I want to approach the problem that specific way – personal preference, limitations of my setup, learning a new approach, whatever else – and I’m not there to get into some asinine argument defending my choice, I’m there to find out how to do X.

            So while I’m well aware of the thought process behind it, I will never not find it incredibly disrespectful to disregard the question being asked in order to make snarky little guesses at intent and answer a totally different question.

            • richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one
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              1 year ago

              This, of course, assumes perfect understanding on your part. That could be a mistake, specially as you are, you know, asking for help.

              • harmonea@kbin.social
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                The standard “come prepared with a good question” is simply not as hard for a savvy user to meet as you’re making it out; certainly it’s far easier than scrying between the lines and derailing the topic on purpose, and it strikes me as arrogant that anyone would trust their own attempts at mind-reading more than the clear words on the page. I’ve got a very good idea why you’re taking this all so personally that you’re replying to it three weeks after any of it was active.

                Well, at least the very fact that you’re taking it personally means it dug deep enough that you’re aware it’s a problem, even if you still have a bit of a journey before you accept it needs a change.

                • richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one
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                  The standard “come prepared with a good question” is simply not as hard for a savvy user to meet as you’re making it out

                  Your mistake is presupposing a savvy user.

                  I’ve got a very good idea why you’re taking this all so personally that you’re replying to it three weeks after any of it was active.

                  Please enlighten all of us about the procedure granting you telepathy, or shut the fuck up.

        • _cerpin_taxt_@lemmy.world
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          Haha your second paragraph sums it up perfectly. A few folks did share their settings, but they were for completely different printers/hardware haha. Most of the online guides I’ve found are written under the assumption that you’re already a master at the hobby, and it’s strangely spread out in random little nooks of the internet - there’s not really a ton of centralized discussion forums. Maybe the hobby is way smaller than I thought, or maybe I’m just in way over my head, but I fix tech problems for a living - did not expect this to be as much of a challenge. Never buy a 3D printer if you value your sanity and living stress-free. Sorry, I just needed to rant for a minute haha.

          • Statick@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            Yeah 3D printers are fussier than I expected. Especially when printing anything involving supports and more specifically… small areas that need supports. I print a lot of stuff for D&D and have just started cutting things up into pieces with blender to print easier, then glue it together

            I will say. My first thought was obviously to ask what printer you have, to see if I could send you my profile for you to compare (depending on the slicer you use). Then my second was to ask if you’re having issues and if so, what the issues are.

            Only because sometimes a seemingly large issue could be a very small fix.

            When I first started, I got it working great and then out of no where nothing would stick to the bed. I spent more time than I’d like to admit messing with settings only to realize it was the oils on my hands causing adhesion issues. Some 99% IPA fixed all my issues real quick haha.

            • _cerpin_taxt_@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              That would be awesome! I’ve got an Ender 6 with a Micro Swiss NG extruder. I was printing decently with the stock hardware, but that stock extruder was a nightmare and kept slipping or completely losing grip on filament mid-print, so I upgraded to this extruder. Now I’m just trying to find that perfect spot to where it extrudes but doesn’t grind filament. I’ve been having some really messy prints.

              I just had a feeler gauge arrive in the mail, so I’m about to use that to try leveling the bed more accurately. Everyone says to just use a piece of paper or something, but different paper is different widths haha.

              I do have a PEI bed, so stuff sticks and comes off way easier now, but I would love to check out your slicer settings to get a good baseline! What kind of hardware do you have, and which slicer do you use?

              • Statick@programming.dev
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                1 year ago

                Sure thing, I have a two Sovol SV06’s, one for a 0.4 nozzle and one for a 0.2 nozzle, and a Bambu Labs X1C.

                The SV06’s took me a few weeks to tweak, especially the one with the 0.2 nozzle.

                Here is my cura profile for the Sovol SV06 with the 0.4 nozzle https://filebin.net/ljh52w2lehipzbms

                Just using that outright probably won’t work. What I would do is load up the default Ender 6 profile that Cura has, and then adjust settings based on mine. For instance. You went from a bowden extruder to a direct drive. So you can probably copy my retraction settings as a baseline and adjust from there. You need far less retraction on direct drive extruders (i.e. 0.2mm-1mm for direct drive vs 5mm-8mm for bowden).

                I would also look up CHEP and Teaching Tech on youtube. They have great videos on bed leveling and everything else related to 3d printing.

  • Mindlight@lemmy.world
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    It’s always something that doesn’t work and I can’t get working. Right now (I dual boot) it’s my 4G modern in my laptop that I don’t seem to understand how to activate the GPS receiver in. Even if I got it to work I wouldn’t know since I have no idea on how GPS is supposed to work on Ubuntu…

  • the16bitgamer@lemmy.world
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    Software. What’s a computer without software other than an over glorified calculator.

    That was my first experience with Linux back in the early 2010’s and pretty much up to recently. However with changes to my workflow and Steam improving and sharing the improvements with Wine. My software library went from web browsing and office software t

    99% of games, and all of my business software.

    The UX experience needs some work under the hood. There is still a nasty tendency to over rely on the terminal to fix basic problems. (IBT=off for VM to work).

    But its close enough that I can almost recommend it to my grandparents… Almost.

    • Kwalla@lemmy.todayyoutomorrow.me
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      Linux is perfect for grandparents or non tech savvy family if you set it up for them. Once it’s up and running, there isn’t much of anything they can do to break it.

        • GadgeteerZA@lemmy.ml
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          Not so, it was true for my 86-year-old mom. I installed Linux Mint and put the Chrome browser icon on her desktop, and that was all she used. She only checked e-mails and browsed like Facebook, etc. Every month or so when I went to visit, I’d just run the updater. Never broke and I never really had to do anything. The reason why I put it on, was her PC was getting old, and Windows was getting super slow. So it was win-win. She did not even know it was Linux.

          • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            If the only thing you’re doing is turning it on and firing up a browser, I can see that working for just about any device with just about any operating system…

  • squidman64@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I got tired of having to endlessly maintain it, vs windows which generally just works (no fighting with audio drivers, wifi drivers, gpu drivers, suspend to disk works without glitching, etc) and i like playing video games without having to deal with wine. Still run linux on servers, and my work desktop and laptop are linux since we have an IT department which maintains it for me.

  • Skates@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    First time I ever seriously used Linux was for work, back when I was a developer. You’d have to pay me to use it again. I like gaming, but I don’t like wasting my time troubleshooting games. Nor do I enjoy debugging random crashes/black screens in random drivers. Sure, it’s fun, but if I’m gonna work for it, someone somewhere better be signing my overtime slip. Cause I get a few hours free per day, and I’d rather not deal with sigsegv anymore if I can help it.

    Not to mention sound. My job as dev included using ALSA for some use cases. I don’t know if you ever had the misfortune to need to do that or how it went for you, but if I ever need to touch that shit again I will scalp Torvalds with a goddamn headphone jack.

    I installed windows 11 when I bought my last PC. I figured I’d give it a shot, see if it’s as bad as all my dev friends say it is. You know how many drivers I’ve had to fix to make my games work? Zero. You know how many hours I spent debugging weird issues? Also zero.

    There’s a reason windows has a price tag. And part of that reason is that it works better than free stuff. I’m a believer in FOSS, but if you’re a craftsman and you can’t hammer a nail without needing to adjust your hammer every few swings, you should find a hammer that’s not made out of silly putty and dreams.

    • MrSlicer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Years ago I had the opposite issue. The printer driver would rarely work. When I switched to ubuntu for unrelated reasons the printer worked everytime. I suspect that this is very unusual and 99.999% of the time your scenario is more likely. Just wanted to share =).

  • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    My pattern with linux is that I tinker with it until I eventually break it in a way I don’t have the knowledge or skill to repair, and then I balk at the thought of starting from scratch again, so I just put windows back on the machine…

  • Sertou@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Because in my experience Linux hasn’t been consistently reliable in the long term.

    My computer is a tool. I need it to just work, not cause me work. I’ve tried many distros and sooner or later something random stopped working, causing me to stop what I was doing and troubleshoot the problem.

    Like the time I installed Mint on my desktop and my GPU fan ran full throttle all the time. Or that time when OpenVPN stopped working from one boot up to the next. Or those times when a fresh install hung up and failed fully boot.

    Contrast that with the thousands? tens of thousands? of days when Windows just started without incident, got out of my way and let me work or game or whatever.

    Is Windows bloated and slow? Yes. Is it constantly spying on me? Yes. Is it annoying in dozens of little ways that Linux isn’t? Yes. But it is consistently reliable and Linux isn’t.

    I’m not a Windows fan boy, and I’d love to be able to use a linux desktop on the reg but every time I forget my previous disappointment long enough to try again, I am once again disappointed.

    One thing has been working well for me. I have a Raspberry Pi with Raspian running Pi Hole, MiniDLNA and a couple of other things. It’s been as solid and reliable as I could ask.

  • limeaide@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I tried installing Zorin amd Pop_OS on my laptop, but the mousepad gestures, bluetooth, speakers, and a bunch of other small things didn’t work.

    I just don’t have the time to tinker with it. I have an hour or two of free time a day and it’s hard to convince myself to spend it trying to get linux to work whenever I have windows that just works.

    Plus, i found that people just weren’t helpful. Unlike some people, i didn’t come out of the womb knowing how linux works. I did research and fixed what i could, but some things i could’t fix. People were rude, condesending, and just not helpful whenever i would ask a question

    Just not worth it for me at this moment

    • Tak@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I think the biggest thing here is how insular the linux community can be. I do think that Lemmy’s linux communities are much better about being supportive and welcoming however. Less of a dick measuring contest and more a group of people who are passionate and want to engage with the topic.

      • limeaide@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I definitely felt that. It’s demotivating to feel like you’re being looked down upon for trying to learn an OS that they themselves promote so much

  • Gefrierbox@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    It crashes at random times without any forewarning. One moment I’m browsing lemmy, the next moment I get a black screen and the computer starts to reboot. Also sometimes after waking up from hibernation, the computer freezes, not even switchting off/on caps lock works in those moments. It doesn’t matter which distribution I use, they all crash on me (tried Fedora, EndeavourOS, Debian). I guess Linux isn’t compatible with my hardware, but I don’t know how to fix it or where to start.

  • joshinator@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    I think the main difficulty with Linux desktops is this “all or nothing” approach to the OS.

    Recently got a Steam Deck and most of the games really just work, but that’s a handheld where I play solo. On desktop I mostly play online with friends.
    I really don’t want to constantly switch OS depending on the anticheat situation when we play something else.
    And then there is software (fusion360, simhub) & hardware (3d mouse, joysticks, ffb wheel, maybe VR?) that just works on Windows.

    So instead of maintaining Windows & Linux on dualboot I just stick with Windows on the desktop.
    And I used Linux for a long time on my laptop (and can’t wait to ditch MacOS), still use it on servers, but the desktop is just a whole different beast.

    • jamiehs@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Well said. I’m in a similar situation with the Sim Racing stuff. Also my daughter plays Genshin Impact and my son is just getting into StarCraft 2;

      SC2 works flawlessly under Proton apparently, but Genshin not so much (anti-cheat stuff it seems). So if you share a gaming PC the question becomes even trickier to answer.

  • cynetri (he/any)@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    Got a long one. I’ve gone back and forth a few times (I’ve landed on a dual-boot Windows 10 and Arch setup, maining Arch) (btw) and my biggest takeaway is this:

    Mainstream Linux distros, like Mint, do have admittedly very polished basic experiences. The problem is, though, is that it breaks down as soon as you introduce it to unique use-cases or hardware features.

    Linux, specifically stable distros like Mint, are already ready for mainstream use for people who use it for basic stuff like email, web browsing, desktop social media like Facebook, and so on. It’s also very usable for gaming, as we saw with Steam Deck, but still has issues primarily with adoption.

    But if you have for example, a 2-in-1 laptop or a VR setup, things break down very quick. I had to configure my 2-in-1 manually and not everything works still, and VR is a joke if you don’t have a Vive or Index, and even that’s iffy. SteamVR is still extremely buggy and missing features.

    Linux is, by design, configurable and open. This is both its greatest strength and weakness, because it allows users to set up their systems how they want, but only if they know how to. A truly “user-friendly” distro is simply not possible if you retain the configurability, which Valve knows, and is why SteamOS is locked down the way it is. This model is growing in popularity but it’s not quite here yet.

    At the end of the day, I still use it despite these shortcomings because I feel it’s important. I should be able to look at the code and know what my machine is doing, and trust that it respects my rights and freedoms. This is why Linux, and maybe BSD, have to win. But for now, I still have a drive with Windows 10 because it’s just simply not a full experience yet, and that’s okay. For now

  • Redredme@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It kept working.

    Linux, every time, without fail, commits suicide after a few weeks/months. It’s never something big, always small stuff. A conf file which got fucked by a package. Init.d calls something stupid. Mbr bullshit.

    And the same applies to get stuff to work. It’s not hard, but researching the issue and fixing it takes time. Those issues do not exist in windows.

    It gets annoying. Windows, for all it’s shit has gotten more and more self repairing over the years.

    I want to work. I want to play. Now, preferably.

    • 200cc@lemmy.tedomum.net
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      1 year ago

      Linux, every time, without fail, commits suicide after a few weeks

      You must be doing something really wrong with it because on popular distros this is not really supposed to happen. If you encounter such issues report them to the devs. You probably want to try a more stable distro

      • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        They’re not doing anything wrong. This is my experience, as well as many many others. Why else would so many people and businesses overlook a completely free operating system? I’ve used all the “stable” distros.

        If I reported issues to the devs, I wouldn’t be doing anything else, and it wouldn’t solve the problem I have TODAY. This is not a solution.

        • CurseBunny [she/her]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          “Why else would so many businesses overlook a completely free operating system”

          Well, they don’t. Plenty of businesses use Linux systems. It’s not (only) because it’s free, though. The issue of licensing often isn’t a factor that comes into play over having a system that just works. It’s easy to customize, flexible and comparatively secure. Your experiences with Linux are valid, but many businesses and individuals do use it daily and for good reason.

          • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Well, they don’t. Plenty of businesses use Linux systems.

            Well they do. Plenty of businesses (ie: virtually all of them) use Windows. Those are the ones I was referring to.

              • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                This is just nonsense.

                No. It’s not.

                Linux servers are all over the place.

                Linux servers are run by IT admin. AKA people who know how to use Linux.

                I feel like you’re not arguing in good faith, here.

                I feel like you’re making up bullshit arguments based on angry words you read on the Internet.

                • CurseBunny [she/her]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  1 year ago

                  Yeah, businesses that use Linux generally hire people who know how to use Linux. I don’t think you actually know what you’re arguing about anymore, but you can do it by yourself. Hope things get better for you in the future.

                • CurseBunny [she/her]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  1 year ago

                  That’s fair, but it’s hard to not bring up servers when someone is making broad statements like “businesses don’t use Linux”, though. In the scope of that particular discussion I feel servers are pertinent enough.

        • somedaysoon@midwest.social
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          1 year ago

          You are doing something wrong. Linux doesn’t blow up by itself… my grandparents and wife both run it for the past 5 years and haven’t had a single issue with it. So how is it that I know people that are completely tech illiterate and have no problems running it, but so many self-proclaimed “power users” here have issues with it?

          Linux isn’t going to wall you in and prevent you from breaking it. That’s what I love about it, it gives you power and control over your machine, but if you don’t have the knowledge to wield that power, then you shouldn’t be fucking around with changing things. Stick with the package manager, and don’t fuck with system configs… unless you actually understand how it effects the system.

          Why else would so many people and businesses overlook a completely free operating system

          There are many, many reasons… not a single one is stability.

          • shapis@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            If you think that’s the case. Check some big forums for each big distro right after a point update to read the tales of woe and breakage.

            My personal experience with this has been:

            Pop_OS broke after an update. Unrepairable as far as I could tell. And I tried hard. Happened to multiple.people there was a reddit thread about it.

            Fedora broke on an update. Not sure if repairable. I didn’t try. I had the most boring vanilla installation possible.

            Arch has been unbootable twice over the years. And had to do many manual interventions. Both times it was fixable.

            People are not lying to you when they say it breaks randomly. Just because it wasn’t your personal experience doesn’t mean it isn’t a common experience. You just have been lucky so far.

            • somedaysoon@midwest.social
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              If you think that’s the case. Check some big forums for each big distro right after a point update to read the tales of woe and breakage.

              Again, Linux gives the user full control over it, and that includes the ability to break it… again, many people can not wield that power properly.

              People are not lying to you when they say it breaks randomly. Just because it wasn’t your personal experience doesn’t mean it isn’t a common experience. You just have been lucky so far.

              You’re right, they are not technically lying, they are just too dumb to realize the thing they did to break it. When immutable distros become more popular, those people will be less likely to break things.

              You just have been lucky so far.

              It has absolutely nothing to do with luck. Don’t get me wrong, some Linux distros are known for updates breaking them. Arch based distros are infamous for it… but those are bleeding edge, rolling release distros. Distros based on Debian? Redhat? Never fucking break… there are reasons 90% of the top web and cloud infrastructures run on Linux: security and stability.

              And Windows breaks all the time with updates… multiple times Windows updates have deleted peoples’ user files. That’s the most erogenous thing an OS can do… delete important user files.

              https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/microsoft-explains-why-windows-10s-october-2018-update-was-deleting-peoples-files/

              https://www.howtogeek.com/658194/windows-10s-new-update-is-deleting-peoples-files-again/

            • somedaysoon@midwest.social
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              1 year ago

              People are not lying to you when they say it breaks randomly. Just because it wasn’t your personal experience doesn’t mean it isn’t a common experience. You just have been lucky so far.

              Your’e right people are not lying, they just don’t realize what they have done to break it. Linux is great because it gives the users full power… and that includes the power to break it. Windows babysits the user, and it doesn’t allow them to make changes that break it.

              If you think that’s the case. Check some big forums for each big distro right after a point update to read the tales of woe and breakage.

              So? A lot of dumb people use Linux too… just because dumb people break things doesn’t mean that Linux isn’t stable. There is a reason 90% of web and cloud infrastructure runs on Linux… because it’s a more secure and stable OS.

              You just have been lucky so far.

              Luck has nothing to do with it.

              • shapis@lemmy.ml
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                Your’e right people are not lying, they just don’t realize what they have done to break it.

                I’m running a fresh Debian stable build for the past 2-3 days, with NO apt package installed(other than flatpak), no other modifications, vanilla as vanilla gets, only flatpaks installed.

                So far: On first install, apt upgrade was broken… lol… yeah.

                Other than that, it freezes on suspend, and I’m getting weird screen flickering that it’s really hard to troubleshoot so far, specially because when I turn on OBS it mysteriously just doesnt happen. Also steam doesnt open up sometimes, sometimes it does, depends on if you’re feeling lucky or not, it also doesnt respect the DE settings, so when it does open the scale is wrong, and everything is tiny.

                And this is with a distro known to be stable.

                • somedaysoon@midwest.social
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                  Why don’t you explain to me why I have not had any problems running 3 servers for the last 5 years. And why I’ve not had any problems running it on 6 other machines of varying desktops and laptops? Why don’t you explain to me why 90% of web and cloud infrastructure chooses Linux because it is so reliable and stable? I do everything in Linux… everything, including recording in OBS and video editing in Lightworks, no problems.

                  So tell me, why is it only certain users that seem to have a problem with Linux? Why do you think that is? Because it seems to me the really basic users get on fine with it, and the really advanced users get on fine with it. The only people that have problems are Windows power users that have no fucking clue what they are doing, but try things anyways and break things.