Just like with Windows, the more advanced stuff you do, the more advanced problems you’ll have. If you just wanna set and forget, avoid arch based and you’re golden.
There was a time when I had to do that. I was a teenager. I had no idea what I was doing. And it was many many years later that I finally learned how to quit it. That pain keeps me away to this day.
That’s assuming that you’re able to google it. Before everyone had a phone in their pocket, and 17 computers lying around if you were stuck in command line with no GUI then you had no option.
I’m not sure of you are trying to be funny, but just in case you are not, if their only working environment was a terminal and they didn’t know how to get out of vim, they were fucked to begin with.
I’m guessing they entered vim because they copied it from somewhere, be it another window, having vim in a terminal emulator, a mobile phone where they searched whatever, or another PC. If we are talking about a non graphical PC with just a single tty or a user without the knowledge of changing ttys or without the knowledge of searching the web from the command line, who somehow entered vim without external input, that’s kinda on them, idk. There’s several fuckup steps in there, all nicely stacked.
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Thing is, when people say that windows doesn’t break, they mean that it doesn’t break for normal users. I’d be surprised if those know what a command like editor is, to begin with.
Exactly … If all you’re going to do is go online and maybe write a document once in a while … a simple distro like Mint or PopOS will just work without issue.
This is odd phrasing. It sounds like you’re saying mint and pop aren’t capable of more. Same when people call them "good for newbs"n implying that more advanced users flock elsewhere.
I second this advice. Arch is a rolling-release distribution, so most of its packages are updated to the latest releases as soon as they come out, regardless of whether they’re tested to be stable with other software and hardware configurations.
I have “ubuntu server” installed on an old computer I use for hosting game servers. That thing is incredibly stable and low-maintenance.
Make it an alternative OS before erasing your existing OS so you can switch back and forth and use the old one to research when something unexpected happens on your new one. This way you can transition slowly. Expect there to be challenges, but also expect to learn a lot. It’s a fantastic platform.
For a reasonably stable but updated os I would recommend FreeBSD. You only have to install X yourself, and linux guides doesn’t work. But reading manual page and searching on mailing lists can solve every issue. OpenBSD is easier but it is a bit “slow” in performance, packages are not updated (you have to follow -current, the latest development branch).
It depends what you want it to do. For basic stuff, linux desktop works fine. If you need specific software i’d look into if it’s doable and how hard it is first.
Linux by default runs fine and without issues, if you pick a distro with stable releases. If you go with something like Arch, you likely will run into issues. If you want to do heavy modifications or run fancy software, you tend to run into issues. Thing about the fancy software is, it tenda to only work properly on linux, hence the issues being linux related.
If you’re a gamer, just don’t. A lot of people here will say you can run almost any game easily, but you usually need to do some fancy commands per specific game to get it to run properly. Which is fine if you just play one game occasionally, but if you hop between games or like buying the latest games, don’t.
If you have a specific preference for desktop environment, make sure it comes with the distro and is well supported by it. You can install whatever you want on any distro, but you have more chance to break shit.
How out of date is your comment about gaming? I barely touch my terminal and have never had issues with my linux gaming pc. If you use steam proton just works
He’s just flat out wrong about gaming. I haven’t had to put in any special “commands” (unless he means the tick box in steam settings to allow compatibility on all games, which I checked once and didn’t have to futz with anymore…) and I haven’t run into a game I wanted to play and couldn’t. I’ve heard that games that rely on aggressive root-kit anti-cheat don’t work, but I’ve avoided those titles on principle for a decade at least. But if those are titles you want to play, then yes, you’ll need windows - no amount of tweaks or commands will make them work in Linux because of the game developer’s choices.
That said, it really makes me wonder if gaming on Debian derivatives is worse? I can only speak to what I’ve used which is fedora based and arch based. And no I don’t constantly run into issues with either. I’ve spent less time “fixing” stuff since I switched to Linux, not more. Ymmv.
Yes yes, i oversimplfied it for the sake of explaining to someone who doesnt know linux. I’m talking about having to figure out specific parameters that may or may not work on some hardware but not on others. I had this issue with 2 of 4 games i tried in 2021. Eventually i did get both games to work but with weird glitches.
I dont think debian is the issue, but nvidia and it’s wonky ass linux drivers. my 12 button mouse is also useless in linux. maybe it’s better by now. last time i tried i had issues with wayland. though i heard big update for fedora was coming for wayland in may (?) 2024, so i might try again then.
The biggest thing that always gets in my way is no Visual Studio IDE support. yes, theres other IDEs, i’ve tried them all with various levels of wonk to the point i end up jus not being able productive with c# or be even less productive in other languages.
Same with photoshop or video editing sofware. Sure, you got gimp and kedit, but theyre just not as good and have weird issues.
Can you not set it up and then not have ongoing issues?
That’s a tough one to answer, because Linux has one key element that is different from other OS : it isn’t one single thing dumbed down to cater to everyone, instead it has multiple variations (distributions), each has their own logic and ideas, and everyone of them are highly customisable (so yeah you can spend a lot of time editing stuff if you want to). This means that it higly depends on what you chose to use, what you wanna do with it, and what are your skills.
I could say that you would get as much issues as you would with any other OS, but that would be wrong depending on the distribution you use, that would be wrong if you have a specific need that isn’t easy to get on Linux or not yet troublefree to use, and that would be wrong if you have no idea what you are doing. You could even have less issues (but I wouldn’t advertise that thought). This is why there are what people call “noob friendly distros”, meaning as much troublefree as possible and easy to learn (doesn’t mean it has all your needed features, or that it will grant you the best experience).
I have been toying with Linux since I was 15, but I only made the switch some years ago (I’m 29). Most of my issues were either that the distribution I used did’nt satsfy me, or that my needs were a bit complicated to get working, but once I found something that worked for me most of my experience has been «you configure it once and then you are good to go», I cannot say it is the same for everyone.
One important thing to note is that switching from a familiar OS to an unfamiliar one is never easy (people tend to forget how hard they had to learn using a pc), and it can get painfully hard to do if you go at it with the wrong mindset. So if you want to try it out, I’d suggest you first spend some time looking if everything you need will be available and easy to get working, then find a distribution that you think would suit you (since it’s a first dive you might try something “noob friendly”). Ideally you would first look how it works before trying anything, for exemple don’t be fooled thinking a distribution is only defined by how it looks, it’s how it works that matters most. It’s a bit like preparing yourself for a trip, never try it blindly (it’s a common mistake people do when switching between OS, be it Linux or otherwise), it will require patience and an open mind because you will have to learn how thing works since it’s new to you and it might feel like nothing is working the way it should, so it’s better if you can still go back to an OS that is familiar to you if something goes wrong. And then you’ll see for yourself if it is a troublefree experience or a masochist one :p
I don’t know who these people having issues are but I run Linux Mint Debian Edition and have no issues editing my stuff.
The only issue I can imagine is if they had formatted an external HDD with ext4 and and copied docs from a previous Linux install, and now when they copy it to their new install, they don’t have permission to edit the doc.
For example, you try out Ubuntu for a few weeks/months. You format your ext HDD in ext4 and create docs in Ubuntu. You then copy those into the HDD. Or maybe you had another drive formatted with NTFS and copied docs from there onto the ext4 drive.
After a few weeks you erase Ubuntu from your machine and install Arch. Now when you try to edit a doc on the HDD or copy it to your machine, you find you don’t have permission because those permissions were set on your previous Ubuntu install.
I’ve had permission issues with that hence I format my ex HDD with exFAT and it works perfectly. Also works perfectly with Windows and macOS as they can all read/write to exFAT without permission issues.
Linux is stable if you pick a stable distribution. The big thing is the skill floor is higher than windows, but the skill ceiling is way higher too. But yeah pick a well respected LTS distribution (not arch based, use a Debian based one) and Linux will be just a boring computer until you start fucking with it. But you can fuck with it, and that’s the beauty and the danger of it. Remember the “delete system 32” memes? Yeah you can’t do that in windows anymore, they idiot proofed it so hard it’s smart people proof too, linux will let you make a terrible decision if you sudo it.
I really wish Linux desktop was stable. On Ubuntu 22.04, this year alone I had nvidia driver failures, wake up from sleep issues, crypsetup failing to decrypt the root drive on startup (and dropping to a busybox shell), gnome UI freezing and more.
I’ve been using Linux for over ten years and love it. On servers, it’s rock solid but on desktop it’s hit and miss. The good part is that problems are fixable, it’s just not user friendly.
Not sure what you’re doing, but I’ve been using Debian and Pop_OS! without issue for work and gaming for 4 years. I’ve never had to reinstall or troubleshoot something unless I created a problem doing something stupid.
As already stated why would there be a bunch of posts of people bragging about their uptime and stability? Would be pretty boring no? Why are you wanting to make the switch and what are your needs?
Leas about needs, more about taking back control of mt personal electronics
That makes you a good candidate; it means you are motivated. Expect to learn new things. Expect that sometimes you are going to blame something on Linux when it’s really your own ignorance. Expect that sometimes, it might be the fault of Linux, or might be the fault of the distro you chose, etc.
Some very fundamental things work differently. Go to a forum or community that is specific to the distro you choose and ask them about the proper way to install software and “package management.” Understanding that one topic, and the nuance of how your chosen distro expects you to manage software, will stave off a great many of the problems you are likely to have as a noobie.
If considering this a learning experience sounds good to you, you will succeed. Don’t try to “learn Linux” - try to learn what you need to in order to achieve individual tasks on your system, or solve minor annoyances. Doing that will pull in a lot of context. Linux forums are great, but forums specific to the distro you choose will almost always be superior during the learning phase.
In this very thread I see comments from folks who likely expected it to work just like Windows with different trappings. Don’t expect that, because it’s not what you are going to get. Consider it an adventure.
Source: Tried Linux and gave up in 1999. Tried Linux and gave up in 2004. Tried Linux and stuck with it in 2007. Have not touched Windows except when paid to do so since then, and each and every year since then has made it clearer and clearer what a good decision that was.
I support Windows for my job, and have done so for over twenty years. I find Linux easier to use in every way, and more reliable, and I don’t have to force it to respect my authority as the owner of the system it runs on.
Even running Arch for the last decade or so, I largely don’t have issues that wind up being any more complicated than downgrading a package every so often. Most of my config editing occur in one of three situations. First and most common, initial setup of a program to telling it where to find any files it needs and change any default settings I have a different preference on. Second, it’s a program I use constantly and want to tweak it to work just so, adding to it as I discover new features that catch my interest, like tweaking my ncmpcpp and tmux setups. The last case is procrastination, where I get obsessively focused on something because, clearly, the reason I haven’t written my 5 page paper due tomorrow has nothing to do with the fact I’ve been screwing around and not keeping up with my coursework for the last week, and can instead be squarely attributed to the fact that I have discovered some aspect of my emacs setep that needs to be refined, like realizing I dislike how biber formats my references in Auctex and needing to spend hours finetuning my reference style to m’ exact preferences.
For most general use cases, like browsing the web, listening to music, watching movies and maybe firing up a word processor, this is entirely unnecessary. To give an example, I got tired of having to periodically spend a night purging my elderly mother’s laptop of myriad viruses and uninstalling the dozen or so IE toolbar she kept infecting her system with. Clearly not a techy person. I put Linux mint on it, changed the desktop shortcut for Firefox to the Internet Explorer icon, ditto for Open Office’s word processor with Ms Word, and she was happy as could be without really noticing a difference. I would just remote in and periodically update it. Worked fine for her until she got a new new computer, by which point she’d realized she could, in fact, live without all that malware taking up half her screen in IE.
This is a forum where people seek help. Of course you’re going to see problems here. Nobody posts “hey it’s been several years and I’ve had no problems.”
Of course linux is stable. It runs like 80% of servers on the Internet.
Also can confirm. Been using Arch, which most people consider requires more fiddling than other distros, for almost 10 years now and have had few issues with it. I've had to fix my Windows install more than my Linux.
Personally, I don’t get the appeal of distro hopping. I think it’s nice to try different concepts, but there aren’t that many.
You basically have the “classic” distributions, like Debian, Suse, Fedora and their derivatives and if you want those split up into the stable and the rolling distributions (Arch, maybe Debian Sid). Then there’s the source-based distributions, most notably Gentoo and derivatives. Declarative distributions, NixOS and GUIX system. And then maybe the newer breed of immutable distributions like Fedora Silverblue.
To me, the difference between an Arch system and Debian are kind of minimal. Yet I’d always prefer Arch. But why would I hop to OpenSUSE?
Granted, I always install from the terminal anyways and build my system to my needs, so I usually don’t get the default experience.
I’m going to do my best to “wait” for PopOS 24.04 before I hop out again. It seemsbI finally got Endeavour right, with hybrid graphics and all. The only pain was actually how long it took to install Lubre Wolf. Ah, and that the first attempt at installing flatpaks, nothing was showing up after install until I rebooted. But now they work as expected.
Yeah it’s stable, as long as you aren’t messing with the core of things you’ll be good. Gaming isn’t the worst on most systems but it can still be a challenge. And if you have a laptop trying to set up your GPU so it won’t destroy your battery can be a challenge. Those are really your only pitfalls though. If you just want to install it browse the Internet, code, do office stuff it will work perfectly. If you start trying to do anything too fancy there is a possibility of running into unstableness from misconfiguration
trying to set up your GPU so it won’t destroy your battery can be a challenge
Avoid NVidia. Get a GPU from a company that respects the way you will use it instead of engaging in malicious compliance so it can claim it works, but it never does.
I’d suggest that Linux tends to attract a higher percentage of people that want to tinker with their OS, and tinkering with your OS can lead to some unexpected outcomes, or outright break things that someone would have to turn to the community for help.
It depends a lot on what you want to do with it though too. Browsing the web, checking email, spreadsheets / word processing, etc? You could likely install literally any Linux os and be fine, and definitely be fine with the mainstream core distros.
If you’re gaming, I’d recommend a distro aimed at gaming. PopOS, nobara, bazzite, or Garuda all come to mind, depending on your preferred flavor.
But, as much as it pains me to say it, if you need to run, for example, Adobe or Autodesk products (or something similarly specialized and proprietary) you’ll probably have a better time doing it in windows. There are alternative options that will work in Linux fine, but if it’s for work or some other situation that requires you to use those specific proprietary products, you might be stuck.
In the last years I’ve tried Ubuntu, Debian, crunchbang and PopOS. A few months ago I asked IT if I could change the os on my company laptop from Windows 10 to Linux Mint. It means I have to stay outside the AD domain, but since almost everything (email, teams, OneDrive…) is available on the web, the only downside is not being able to use the wifi projectors. I can live with that. Mint is simple to use, easy on the eyes and stable as hell. And windows games run really well with proton, except maybe Starfield but I can wait :)
May I ask what you thought of PopOS? I’ve been considering taking another stab at a Linux dual boot and it’s down to that or Mint. My last attempt was Manjaro several years ago but I didn’t stick with it.
Until one of the RAM sticks went bad, my parents, who are in their 60s ran Ubuntu Linux for years without an issue. I set it up in 2016, as a dual boot with Windows. They almost never booted into Windows, and told me they preferred Linux.
Yes, 16.04 LTS. And they updated as I helped them update, but never went beyond some patch level of 16.04. The point here is that they ran for many years with complete stability, no viruses or malware, and preferred it.
My children ran Mint desktops for years without issue or complaint. When I bought them new laptops though I decided to let them run the default Windows.
(To preface, when I say “Linux”, I’m referring to the effectively established colloquialism that “Linux” means kernel + utilities + distribution = operating system)
Right. In fact, at home, I run all three operating systems. To me, it’s using the right tool for the job. Windows is a great OS for gaming (though Valve is working to make it as viable on Linux, it’s still not…quite…there, but close). Mac is great for UX, media work, and as a work PC (software development or otherwise). Linux is great for tinkering, software development, and running services.
The “issues” that the OP even refers to are usually not so much real issues, but rather a person simply trying to learn. And that’s what is great about Linux for someone who doesn’t yet know it – there’s a LOT to learn. I’ve been using Linux since 1999 (big box Redhat 5.1!) and I still often learn something new about it.
The “issues” that the OP even refers to are usually not so much real issues, but rather a person simply trying to learn.
Very much agree. In a lot of cases the problems people encounter are just a different and therefor unfamiliar way of doing things. This can sometimes be remedied by finding a GUI that is more similar to what they are familiar with, but this is also likely a different and unfamiliar task :)
No issues really. They had used Windows machines at school as well as chromebooks so they were not married to any single interface. For them the GUI was a way to open a browser or art program. It was the tools that mattered.
That makes sense. My kids were exposed to Chromebooks at some point (when I was still a Google tool), but the freedom to break and fix whatever that want with Linux just dazzled them, which adds to my happiness 😏
Car enthusiasts spend a lot more time under the hood than normal drivers. You’ll find a similar effect here.
Install something like Linux Mint, maybe chase down a few quirks with your particular hardware (for instance, I installed a surround sound system with a fairly hot amplifier, so every time the motherboard turns the sound chip on and off there’s a loud pop, so I had to change a couple settings in some config files from 1 to 0 and Y to N, and it’s been fine ever since) and you’re pretty much golden until you decide to start messing with something.
There are extremely stable Linux distros, there are Linux distros that aren’t so stable, but come with newer packages. Which one you choose depends on what you want.
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