this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
124 points (86.9% liked)
Asklemmy
43970 readers
648 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
command line interface
I’m fine with it, but it’s cryptic and a deal breaker for many.
is one on windows
Yes, but most people don’t ever have to use it for anything. The average Windows user doesn’t know what you mean when you say “open a command prompt.”
I literally only use it on Windows to compile some source code or run python scripts.
And most people, if they used Linux, wouldn't have to use the terminal for anything either. Linux has come along a long way for the average user, assuming you choose a sensible newbie-friendly distro like Zorin on Linux-friendly hw, or your PC comes with Linux OOTB (like System76 machines) - then an average user, would never have to touch the terminal.
Just ask my elderly parents - they've been running Linux for about 15 years now without having to touch the terminal or learn any commands. And before you say anything - yes, they do more than just Facebook - they print and scan stuff, backup files from their phones, transfer files across USB drives, do some light document editing - pretty much all your basic computing tasks really - and they never needed to touch the terminal.
This misconception that Linux users need to use/learn the terminal really needs to die.
Your one use case does nothing to convince me. I’ve read enough recent examples contrary to that to know better, not to mention having had to manually edit a ridiculous number of setting files on my own system to get something to work properly that should have just worked without jumping through all the hoops. Keep lying to yourself that this will be the year of the linux desktop.
And all you're giving is vague excuses without any specifics. You shouldn't have to edit anything at all manually, if you're running a sensible distro on Linux-friendly hardware.
If you had to do edit stuff then either you were using the wrong distro, and/or you've got incompatible hardware.
And who said anything about being the year of the Linux desktop? Stop putting words into my mouth.
I don’t need to be specific. It’s not necessary to convince you or a priority to explain what all I had to do. You’re not worth the time, this isn’t a debate. I diagnosed the issues and fixed them. I recently tried Zorin out of curiosity and it was a shitshow with numerous things not working. I went to Linux Mint and still had to fix issues. Pretty sure that’s the exact distro you referred to, plus the one determined to be easiest and most noob friendly. So that presumption of yours is DOA. Now fuck off, because I don’t need your opinion on whether or not I did something wrong, and the comments on this post are filled with people who also have issues. Go lecture them.
Really, then why are you replying to me? You should stop replying to me then if your time is so precious.
Was that on Linux friendly hardware though? You completely ignored the second point. Zorin was just an example, with the disclaimer/condition that you also need compatible hardware. Notice that I never said that Linux/Zorin would work on anything/everything. You can't just put any distro on any random box and expect everything to work.
Then why do you keep replying to me? If you don't need my opinion then just ignore me and move on.
Who I choose to reply to or not is my decision. Why do you care?
The OP’s post is asking why people leave Linux… if you cannot handle an honest response to the post, and consider it slander, that’s your problem.
If you cannot understand by what I’ve already written that I fixed the issues, and are unable to work out for yourself that means the hardware is compatible after necessary fixes, that’s also your problem.
Also, my comments are in writing, so it would be libel, not slander. If you’re going to accuse me of something, be accurate.
Now I’m blocking you. Go whine at someone else.
edit: I didn’t even mention the times since the original fixes when doing a simple, completely normal system update broke one thing or another and had to figure that out. This is the reality linux fanbois hate to see.
I was replying to your claim about the command line "being a deal breaker for many", when I made the counter-claim that it's basically irrelevant, because if you're using the right distro on the right hardware, then you would never have to touch the command line.
If you had LINUX-FRIENDLY hardware then you wouldn't even need to go thru hoops, assuming you're using a sensible distro. The fact that you had to do a bunch of fixes simply proves that your hardware wasn't Linux-friendly in the first place, OR you're using a distro that's not appropriate for your hardware.
Say you bought a brand new bleeding-edge machine that just came out with a new CPU architecture or something. Zorin, which would normally be fine, would probably not be ideal in this instance, because it's based on Ubuntu, which uses outdated packages. So in this instance, you may need a distro with a more recent kernel. That is why I keep reiterating you need both the right hardware AND the right distro for YOUR situation. Zorin was just an example of a newbie-friendly distro - it doesn't necessarily mean its the right OS for you and your hardware.
But this is also why I keep insisting on "Linux-friendly" hardware - if you don't know what's Linux-friendly and don't want to go thru hoops trying to get basic shit working on random systems, try getting a machine from System76 and then tell me whether or not you were forced to use the command line for basic tasks.
But don't just go buy some random hardware without doing your research first, and then proceed to install Linux on it, and then whine about having to use the command line.
Lmao, you're acting as if that doesn't occur on Windows at all. Practically every Windows update is a shitshow. Just see the latest Bitlocker update botch-up, or the print spooler patch, which needed another patch, which needed yet another patch. Or the time when Windows decided to delete all your documents? Yeah, fun times. This is the reality M$ fanbois hate to see.
I've set up Linux for various family members over the years, most recently for my Wife (lubuntu lts on an old laptop) and it's always been smooth, unlike windows where I'm having to fix their problems every other week.
Key takeaway here is I had to set it up for them, none of them had a chance in hell at doing so themselves. For simple tasks, once setup correctly - it's great. For an end user experience without initial help, the slightest thing will throw them during setup.
Until a normal system update breaks something within a few days, weeks, months, whenever. And you may be able to fix it. This is a common occurrence that can happen to anyone, not that it necessarily will. It is well documented in the annals of lemmy.
I mean it depends on the hardware - you can get unlucky with that, sure. I've usually installed timeshift so it can be easily restored if necessary, but I've never had to restore any of the systems I setup besides my own - since Ubuntu 12.04 - around 12 years ago.
LTS is what I go with so no bleeding edge updates, and I've not setup anyone else's system that has a dedicated GPU so many of the common issues don't apply in my case.
However, I remember from 8.04 - 12.04 having a complete fking nightmare with WiFi adaptors. I get a twitchy eye just thinking about ndiswrapper...
I’ve done an update and suddenly bluetooth doesn’t work. Or audio. Or the network is fucked. Or there’s no display on soft reboots, and you have to completely shutdown, turn off and restart to get video again.
One of the current Microsoft-induced selling points for linux is that it's supposedly a great alternative for hardware that doesn’t support TPM, particularly for people who wouldn’t know how to disable that requirement on Win11 and above. Well, guess what? All that equipment is old. So all the arguments that it’s a hardware problem are not great for linux, since it’s linux that doesn’t play nice with it without fiddling.
For a time I was able to turn this machine into a Hackintosh that ran MacOS well with everything compatible, including the video card before they switched to metal and discontinued support for nVidia drivers. That was easier than getting linux to work and stay working properly, and it’s well documented how much of a pain Hackintoshes were to get working right.
My entire family is on Elementary OS. Brother, niece, grandmother.
If a man, a child, and an old woman can use,.so could you.
Not sure what problem you ignorant people have with reading, but I’m currently using it after fixing problems that some people insist didn’t exist. My system has Win10, Linux Mint and Garuda all working, after fixing multiple things. The linux distros still occasionally break after basic system updates and need to be fixed again. Meanwhile, Win10 has been solid as a rock for me. I spend zero time troubleshooting it. Bye.
edit: before the next assumption is made… no, the linux distros don’t share a partition, they’re in independent partitions, on a separate drive from and not sharing a boot partition with Windows, so none of that are valid issues to blame.