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I am finally getting away from Windows, but it's been pretty hard (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/6028275

After being extremely annoyed with how Microsoft was trying to force me to use their worthless Outlook programme, and learning that Windows 11 (which they've also been pressuring to try) is polluted with advertising, I decided that it was time to migrate to another operating system. Somebody recommended EndeavourOS to me, and after backing up my valuables and following these instructions, I am finally trying a better operating system.

If I'm being honest, my first impressions are... not good.

One of the first things that I notice is that I can't easily modify the /usr/ directory. I tried to install Java there but the OS would not let me because I lack the permission. How do I get the permission? I don't know. I am guessing that it has something to do with Terminal Emulator, and the fact that I have to use this program so much immediately tells me that this OS was made for programmers in mind, not ordinary users. On Windows, I could click an executable, click a few more buttons and be done with it, but here the OS wants me to mess with a ~~DOS prompt~~ terminal.

Then there is the scaling. I managed to adjust the scaling while keeping the resolution so that everything on my screen didn't look microscopic. The problem is that when I open certain tabs or windows, they stretch out so far that the monitor can only show part of them. Here's a screenshot so that you can see what I mean:

This is just lousy design. I can shrink the window, but not by much.

I want to uninstall a font. How do I do that? Well, I read on the EndeavourOS forum that I need to run 'pacman' (meaning the terminal) to uninstall a font. Nobody elaborated on that. So after entering the terminal, typing 'su', then my password (another annoyance), then entering "pacman -R /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoColorEmoji.ttf", the terminal spits out "error: target not found: /usr/share/fonts/noto/NotoColorEmoji.ttf", even though I am 100% certain that it is there. I would just remove it by simply clicking it and deleting it, except that the OS refuses and tells me "Error removing file: Permission denied".

Speaking of which, I actually find this more annoying than Windows' worthless 'administrator' function. At least I could simply click the administrator function and be done with it. The process here looks much less straightforward.

I want a calendar with scheduling, which is part of the reason that I am quitting Windows. I downloaded the Orage application hence, then I clicked on 'orage-4.18.0.tar.bz2' in my downloads folder. My cursor spins like something is loading, and... nothing happens. I don't even get an error message.

There are some other things that I could mention (where's the color filter?), but these are the worst offenders. I'm not calling it quits on EndeavourOS, and I am sure that eventually I'll get the hang of things, but so far this has been unenjoyable.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

OP's experience is a bit of a microcosm of it. I have a lot of fun learning my way around Linux, but feel a lot of pressure when I need to do something specific that I'm having trouble with. So I'm having lots of fun running it on my server or my steam deck, stuff I consider a hobby, but a bit uncertain about moving to Linux for a daily driver, where I might have to get work done.

I am running Mint, which I'm understanding is a lot more user-friendly than OP's distro. And to be honest, 90% of the user experience is the same as on Windows with Mint. I just feel like I need to understand more about Linux, it's file system, and all of its very technical quirks before my main PC makes the switch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I remember that feeling. And using a beginner friendly distro like Mint is a mixed bag, because while the simple stuff is easier, more complex things can be a bit more difficult than they might be on a system designed to be flexible, like Endeavour or Arch; it's a compromise either way.

You nay have already done some of these, but the things that gave me the confidence to switch were:

Learning how to use the terminal a bit, specifically, basic commands like ls, cd, pwd, cp, mv, cat, touch, and grep - even if you don't need to use the terminal on whatever OS you're on, this will give you confidence.
Reading the docs on my package manager and learning how to use it properly so that I wasn't following ancient tutorials on the internet blindly and breaking things.
Deciding to only change things about my OS when necessary or when the change I'm making is officially supported by the team behind the OS (like moving to dracut on Endeavour).
Learning that "everything is a file." Poking around ~/.config and realizing that system config is all text files helped me feel empowered to fix issues that may arise.
Setting up failsafes: BTRFS system snapshots with Timeshift on Endeavour, configured to show snapshots on the GRUB screen so that I can revert to a known working system at boot if I break something. I also cloned my Windows install and turned it into a VM so that I could access it at any time if I needed to.
Embracing FLOSS alternatives. Instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and spending ages trying to get some specific piece of proprietary software working, realising that FLOSS projects are often designed on and for Linux and usually work much better there than they do on Windows or MacOS. I do design work professionally, so I figured out how to move my entire print design workflow to Scribus, Inkscape, and Krita, and although it took some learning, I'm much happier for it. Stick to software available in the package repos of your OS, or available as a Flatpak or AppImage, and find alternatives for everything else if at all possible. There is a near endless supply of high quality software for Linux and it's a real shame to move to the OS and not take advantage of that.

At the end of the day I was still fairly petrified, but I found the experience much smoother than I had dared to hope. I think the deciding factor was that I used to really enjoy my computer way back in the Windows XP days through to Windows 7, but that joy had long since gone until I found it again with Linux. When using my computer began to feel like drudgery, I didn't really have a choice but to switch.

Also, a hugely overlooked part of choosing a distro is the community around it. If your distro has good people filling its forums, you'll never need to worry about getting something working when you need to.