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Important: never execute code or follow advice that you don't understand or can't verify, especially here. The word of the day is credibility. This is a meme community -- even the most helpful comments might just be shitposts that can damage your system. Be aware, be smart, don't remove France.
If you are the βcomputer personβ in your family, you probably have experience screwing with, breaking, and fixing whatever OSes you have used over the years.
The refreshing difference with Linux is that the software and the people who created it are not trying to prevent you from doing what you want with your computer.
Wow, in that way it's almost like Linux is the same as every other thing.
I'm still gonna have to dual boot for the foreseeable future, but I force myself to usually boot mint unless I want to play any vr/multiplayer/racing games (which is often, unfortunately). But I do really enjoy how much you can do in linux and learning it.
This is why you have to switch to more and more difficult distros over time, to keep yourself on your toes
It's a bell curve. Eventually you switch back to ez mode for your main machine and have alternative or niche distros on spare kit
Me going from Mint to Ubuntu to Kubuntu to Neon to Arch. My experience with the Arch installation process is just the command shutdown
Someday I'll be comfortable enough with this nerd shit to trust myself with unsupervised access to a CLI. Until then I'm happy just knowing what a DE is
next step is nixos! holy fuck transitioning from arch to nixos was hell, i did like 10 years of arch.
Or Gentoo? I haven't used nixos yet so cant speak on it but Gentoo has been awesome to tinker and learn with.
Same with arson
What's the Venn Diagram of "childhood pyromaniacs" and "Linux users" look like?
Too fuckin real.
Over the years of using Windows (2010-2023), I don't remember learning anything at all, only using the command line twice, once to check the hard disk and once to clean the registry... I'm in love with Linux terminal.
Over the years of using Windows (2010-2023)
I switched to Linux full time in 2011 π΄. Was fed up with Windows 7's bullshit.
But I must say, I leaned a tone while I was using Windows XP,. This is during this time I would build my first PCs, setup local network at home and for LAN parties, setup file sharing and damn printers π€¬, start to learn programming.
Did you not learn anything because you simply did not need to, perhaps? Because you can do a lot if you need to.
My gosh if it was easier I would have done so much with Windows before switching to Linux. Instead I was stuck with bad performance and annoying pop ups from my device manufacturer.
What popups? Am I doing something wrong/right that I do not get those? What could you not do but now can?
HP had a thing that popped up in my task bar that in order to hide I had open their preinstalled software that didn't work.
Also less common were the Microsoft account things after updates and other Microsoft fullscreen things that caused serious difficulties as they wouldn't even render right in some cases (I got something telling me to install windows 11 which wasn't even possible for some reason and the close button was off screen, that happened the last time I used that computer after not having touched it for a couple of weeks).
Edit: Things I couldn't do but can do now that I use Linux and learned how to:
I guess so.
I'm sure this will draw some criticism but I've found duck.ai to be extremely helpful in troubleshooting minor issues with my Linux mint installation and recently with accessing and understanding SMART hard drive diagnostic data. It's very helpful in figuring out which commands could be useful in the terminal and in understanding exactly what each terminal command is doing. Of course finding answers in forums and manuals is still relevant and important but as a beginner, this has been a fast and easy way to get advice.
Just be careful to think twice before doing what it says. (That goes for any advice from the internet too!)
Like all the old stories of people's GPS steering them into a lake. Let the GPS help you, but still, like, actually look at the road!
ETA: It's probably quite reliable at explaining what terminal commands do, since it's drawing from many manuals. But sometimes it might completely make up the answer, in a way that's almost right but terribly wrong. You think the command does one thing, so you use it 'appropriately', but really it does something else so your carefully thought out use goes completely wrong.
And the less you use Windows, the worse you get at using it. Luckily the bar for Windows competency is pretty low, just basic critical thinking skills and Google get you far.
You can make that point for any operating system, basic critical thinking could mean anything
Honestly, potentially the more you use Windows the worse you get at it. You come to accept the garbage, but the more you try to fix it the more it fights you and the less stable it becomes. A user who just doesn't touch anything is probably better off.
Windows I just got used to my issues and didn't try to fix them if I couldn't find similar issues online, with linux ill actually check for the issue and usually find and fix it (with the help of the internet, but the initial phase of finding what I need to search and what the issue is, I do better on linux)
Wait, you guys are getting better? /j
im still stuck in vi hell... help... cannot exit program
Have you tried standing up from your computer and going outside? It's the only 100% reliable way I've found to exit vim.
Nuh uh, I gave it access to a 3d printer and it boxed me in while I was sleeping.
I mean it's on you to manage boxing and unboxing in your projects
it's a good os. on the other hand everytime i learned anything in windows it would get invalidated by new ux and new bugs...
Do you guys also keep a notepad file on your desktop with all the usual commands and shortcuts on it? I can't imagine remembering them all otherwise... and I kind of cringe at the non stop DDG ing I have to do to do some basic liux stuff.
I press up key in terminal to find my commands, as for shortcuts I only use a few so I already remembered all of them
I've got things that need to run periodically set up in crontab, and create menu launchers for things that I run as needed.
Just go up arrow til you dont need to anymore lol, i sometimes keep a sticky note, wish gnome had a sticky note in the topbar extension
Doesn't gnome have that sticky app?
I use the up key for that
I use KDE, and I put a sticky note widget on my top bar, so when you click it, it drops down (and then disappears when you click off of it). Whatever is on it is saved between sessions.
Works great for this kind of thing.
Edit: I also put a webbrowser widget up there that points to this handy site: https://linuxcommandlibrary.com/
Same deal, click the icon and the site drops down.
You'll get to the point where you can't use windows anymore XD
I had to troubleshoot some windows problems for family a bit back, and it was the worst x3