TIHI

I do not prefer apt-based systems, but I’ve installed variations of Ubuntu (e.g. Mint) on systems for geriatric (grand)parents in the past 5 years and have not yet needed to drop into shell to fix something.

If the needs are basic (browsing, email, printing, documents), Linux hasn’t needed wizardry for years. This is mostly thanks to Gnome and KDE’s hard work on GUI admin tools, but if someone is going directly from Windows to i3, they’ve chosen a steep hill to climb.

No idea what you mean. I just quickly wanted to update before calling it a night, got a grub update and now it neither boots the default nor the fallback image. I use Arch BTW.

That is not a problem on any of the major distros, so I’m not sure what you’ve been using. Most distros have a GUI package manager that is awesome and you can update with just a few clicks. So what hoops are you jumping through, and how is this such a problem that it’s costing you time?

My grandma runs Ubuntu and has gotten by fine without the command line

Mostly just when you initially install like most OSes ; browsers, office suits, game launchers, etc… My mother doesn’t even notice fedora automatically installing updates when she turns her PC off. (I enabled automatic updates for her)

Even with my arch Linux install with Hyprland, most of the time I just update before I turn it off. With a terminal command but even that is just paru and my password or flatpak update. If I had kde or gnome desktop, I could set it up to auto update too.

Sometimes I don’t even bother and use the computer without updating it for a couple of months or it automatically updates when I install new software.

I accept this fate.

Yeah I’m not sure the last time you used Linux but it’s nothing like that these days. As long as you stick with a well established distribution you’ll be fine. I haven’t had to go in a “fix” an update in a while, even in some of the beta updates they’re fairly stable.

FUD

My suspicion is it’s not just your sexy Linux story but the only sexy Linux story.

This is the best blowjob story I’ve read yet lol

The problems are different, and you can fix them in Linux. However, if you like dogshit workflows, a lack of customization, no control or the feeling like your OS is in control instead of you, ads in your OS, and telemetry data being sent, then Windows is the far better option.

AMEN! I asked recently if there was a good Linux alternative to this program I used in Windows called “Bulk Rename Utility” and i was flooded by people telling me how easy it was to set up a script to do what I want.

Turns out the best alternative is running BRU in Wine.

Based 😁

I still don’t understand why there isn’t a terminal-gui (you know, those text but graphical utilities) for basic stuff like mounting a network share. Why do I still need to manually edit fstab?!?

I do have to vouch for sometimes the command line is easier, not with everything but sometimes. Like my VPN sometimes it’s a little slow on the uptake and finding a server all that nonsense but I can also just have a few taps away at the command line and bing bang boom it’s done.

“Why even use a DE? Try a WM like openbox”

Well, because a lot of things are simplified with DE functionality, and not everyone has the same preferences…

Sometimes what you want to hear and what you need to hear, are not the same thing.

My Aunt bought a new laptop to run her eBay/Facebook selling business on. She’s not particularly techy but has used Windows machines for admin work for prob 20 years or so. Laptop had no office apps installed and she tracks everything in a spreadsheet. Original plan was to install Libreoffice but it was running some budget version of Windows 10 you can’t install anything on, can’t remember what it’s called. So I installed Fedora. Chromium and Libreoffice Calc open on login, her ancient HP printer works, she’s able to access her camera as USB mass storage when she lists items and unattended upgrades are enabled. That was 2 years ago, no problems since.

I installed Linux to my tech illiterate parents. They are doing fine. No issues in years.

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Or sfc scannow, absolute classic

Doesn’t even have to be a “class of idiots”. It would be enough if stuff didn’t just sometimes break, seemingly randomly. (It’s not quite random, obviously.)

Recent example: I had OpenSuse TW recommended because of its reliability. First tip: install codecs, which requires adding the Packman repository. Now, simply updating threw up errors several times because Packman and the other repositories are apparently not in sync, and some dependencies would break if I updated. (Waiting a few days “fixed” it, but still shouldn’t happen.)

Depending on which update method you use (Yast/Discovery/zypper/update widget) you get different error messages, most of which are not informative. This is for an established distribution known for its reliability, and this alone would keep me from ever recommending it to normal users, even moderately tech-savvy ones.

Things are getting better, but I’m still shopping around for a distro that just works. Perhaps that new Fedora version, or one of the immutable ones, now that they are getting popular.

Pretty much. I’d absolutely love to run an idiot proof distro. If one existed.

I had the same experience as you did: I’ve tried Linux every few years ever since someone brought it to my attention in the nineties. And it always felt like a hobby instead of an invisible layer that just makes my computer tick. After Microsoft tried to ram W11 up my arse for the umpteenth time, I tried again recently. And it was amazing. Absolutely zero driver issues and it is FAST and CLEAN. No pop-ups or sneaky ads or any of the other things that make me feel like a tenant on my own computer. I now have a dual boot setup Ubuntu/W10, where I really only still use the W10 boot for games. And I have my office and audio software living in separate VM’s that I can use regardless of which OS I booted into at the start.

It’s awesome.

Yeah ignore the people in this thread. I’ve been using Linux for the past year and a half, and it’s the exact same experience for me. And I am definitely more technology literate than the average person.

As much as people want to believe that Linux is easy and hassle-free, it’s not, and it is a long way off. They are biased because they have technical knowledge so they don’t see the problems that the average user would have.

That being said, I do like Linux. There’s a reason why I still use it despite all this. But it’s up to you if it’s worth it.

Edit: Also all the people recommending Linux Mint, in my experience, it was horrible! Very unstable, and not even very customisable. I feel like I’m going crazy. Can someone explain why it’s so popular? Was I doing something wrong?

Three distros usually get recommended as fairly hassle-free. Ubuntu (personally haven’t used since 2012 or so, don’t like that they started advertising stuff), Linux Mint (haven’t used in years either, but through no fault of Mint - I changed to something less hassle-free, Gentoo) and Pop!_OS. The latter uses customized Unity, but is working on its’ own desktop environment. I have a feeling that when they’re finished with it, it will be very user friendly (maybe not the FIRST release, but certainly the later ones).

Mint and Pop!_OS are both based on Ubuntu, so you’ll have the vast repository of knowledge that is AskUbuntu to help you with most things.

So get one of those 3 distros and you’ll be good! They come in different flavours (desktop environments), I believe GNOME is the most polished one, KDE (on

Also there’s two new methods to install software - flatpaks and snaps. Flatpaks are considered the better standard and are supported by Linux Mint and Pop!_OS out of the box and Ubuntu… tries to force you to use snaps. Flatpak is decentralized and anyone can host a store (but mostly you just need Flathub, which is configured by default on most distros I believe). Snap is centralized and its’ backend is closed-source, so you’re dependent on Canonical.

Both of these install your software in a sort of sandbox that manages the dependencies - this means there should be no library version conflicts, so it doesn’t matter what the system version of library X is, the application can use whatever version it needs. Should be a way to reduce compatibility issues on your Linux system, I believe - I haven’t tried them yet, mostly because I minimized my kernel to the point where flatpak was complaining about missing some filesystem driver, and I didn’t care too much about getting it to work. Will do it soon though.

As for gaming - Pop!_OS has an image available that comes with nVidia drivers straight out of the box, but the other ones I suggested, will also allow you to install them easily. Steam can be installed via apt (may require configuring a secondary repository) or flatpak (Flathub has it!). Once you have Steam installed, playing Windows games is as easy as checking compatibility on Protondb and seeing if there are any tips on whether you should use a non-default Proton version or add command-line options. But most games without draconian kernel-level anticheats work nowadays. New AAA games that don’t work on default Proton get support fairly quickly on the GloriousEggroll fork of Proton, but that has to be installed manually (I guess nowadays there’s an utility that can handle it too). However, oftentimes, a brand new game will work right away on existing Proton versions too. And sometimes there are regressions, so you may also want to try older Proton versions for some games. But that’s as simple as changing a setup option in the Steam GUI. No terminal-fu required.

Overall, it’s actually fairly pleasant compared to what it was 10 years ago, when you had to configure wine and pray. Proton handles all that for you. If you’re a patient person and can wait a few weeks or months after a game comes out, it’s very good, otherwise it can be a bit hit and miss.

You CAN also play non-steam games using Proton via Steam. I played through the entirety of AC Valhalla that way, by adding Ubisoft launcher as a non-steam App. Completely unsupported so it doesn’t have a special config like it does for officially supported games, but it worked, just had to change the version to something old

No, bird 2 then screams at bird 1 for using Ubuntu and recommends <FLAVOR OF THE MONTH HERE> distro that will totally work and is totally easy to use despite the lack of documentation. It’s then bird 1’s fault if they can’t get their niche hipster distro to work.