• BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    I’d certainly use it more.

    I don’t hate Linux, I think it’s an amazing bit of kit. A brilliant idea to build a Unix-like OS for desktop hardware.

    The flexibility it has is astounding. The different distros really exposes this.

    This flexibility is also it’s Achilles Heel - no single UI to Rule Them All means it’s not approachable by the average user. The lack of standard tools in all distros means you have to add them, but which ones? (Of course this lack of tools means you can assemble a smaller, more compact, reduced risk-surface build for specific purpose).

    I currently run 3 or 4 different distros/builds for different purposes - Proxmox, UnRAID, Mint, Truenas, etc.

    The problem with Linux is the community. Us tech folks are (as a group) terrible at clearly documenting things in ways that address why someone would be reading docs, e.g. the minimalism of man pages that only show switches. That’s tolerable for man pages (or was 30+ years ago, when the only people using these systems were studious technical folks who had put lots of effort into learning the systems first), but most other docs today look just like them.

    Related, we’re also not great at working with people, often assuming they know what we know, so our answers tend toward only answering the very specific part of a question, rather than the bigger picture, e.g. “Use this command”, without explaining what’s going on, how this command addresses the issue, or even trying to understand what they’re actually trying to do. We tend toward efficient terseness.

    Just step into a business meeting with Senior Management and tech folks - the tech folks are gritting their teeth to get to the next thing, because in our minds we’ve already solved what management proposed, while management wants to spin the idea around seven ways to Sunday before they feel good about it. (Neither is “wrong” just different sets of priorities and responsibilities).

    TL:DR, Don’t hate Linux, we (the tech head community), are the problem.

    • madthumbs@lemmy.worldOPM
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      1 month ago

      “Use this command”, without explaining what’s going on

      rm (-for remove) -fr (French language) /s

    • madthumbs@lemmy.worldOPM
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      1 month ago

      I bet Jim Jones said something similar once. It’s not like the ‘hobby’ doesn’t have a belief system using faith attached.

  • ghen@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    I use Ubuntu and it works perfectly fine for me but I’m not allowed to say that around Linux guys.

  • Dem Bosain@midwest.social
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    1 month ago

    Don’t let these Linux crybabies get you down. I’m tired of asking for help with a Windows issue and getting “switch to Linux” as an answer.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    It doesn’t matter to me that much whether you use Windows, Mac or Linux. It’s just that there are a lot of articles saying how Windows keeps nagging people to upgrade to 11, how they keep breaking their own product, how they haven’t fixed 20 year old bugs, how they tack on stuff like AI that nobody asked for, on and on. As the local tech wiz my family and friends complain to me about these unwanted changes too from time to time. On the Mac side it’s more polished but you’re locked into a very limited set of hardware options. The thing is that it’s not a given that an OS or computers do these things. There is a good alternative, and Linux evangelists (which you could call me one of) are simply making people aware of it.

    “I use Linux” is an assertion that you haven’t ceded most of the control of your computer to Microsoft or Apple, and that you are willing to trade a little bit of convenience for software freedom. Just like Lemmy is to Reddit, Bluesky and Mastodon are to Xitter.

    • madthumbs@lemmy.worldOPM
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      1 month ago

      Windows keeps nagging people to upgrade to 11

      Which will protect them from root kits, boot kits, and keyloggers. It’s ran by a corporation that has a reputation to uphold and we’ve seen in the past where people complain about Windows yet weren’t being responsible with updates. -Nagging justified.

      how they keep breaking their own product

      Inherent with features. In contrast, Linux users harassed FOSS developers into quitting projects (Ueberzug for example) which broke several daily softwares for me. Updating to Pipewire because ‘it’s ready’ broke ac3 passthrough. Wayland because ‘its ready’ broke drag and drop between windows and doesn’t work with a DWM that took time and effort to configure. Then, there’s the breaking problems faced by running rolling release or cutting edge (which still runs behind Windows on tech) - This topic could be it’s own thread.

      how they haven’t fixed 20 year old bugs

      Linux has had decade old bugs in recent news.

      how they tack on stuff like AI that nobody asked for

      Features that are in expensive Photoshop are now free and yet not available in GIMP. - I certainly am happy about that. I’m also interested in the Notepad re-write feature. Things I didn’t ask for were a dozen desktop environments (especially Cinnamon), multiple display managers, multiple file browsers (that are practically the same), etc.

      “I use Linux” is an assertion that you haven’t ceded most of the control of your computer to Microsoft or Apple, and that you are willing to trade a little bit of convenience for software freedom.

      Which matters to? - Game cheaters with kernel level anti-cheat.

      Anyway, this isn’t “Windows Sucks” or a debate forum. We get enough of that elsewhere.

      • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        The purpose of my comment is to refute the notion that “no one cares”, only partially true. Yes, most people aren’t interested in what OS I use and I’m not interested in theirs. Where they care is when things stop working the way they wanted it to.

        With Linux, it can take a while to get to a comfortable spot, but you can have a configuration that keeps working for a long time, and you can upgrade when you want to. Things in Windows just happen to appear whether the user asks for it or not. If I wanted a weather widget I’ll get one, that has nothing to do with security or anti-malware except that it looked like a malware toolbar when I first saw it on a public computer. Various UI elements (like OneDrive on my work computer) keep jumping all over. With Windows it’s not my computer, and work and Microsoft spy and collect reams of my PC usage data for reasons other than anti-malware, anti-cheat and security, I personally want to keep that out of my non-work life, and I imagine others would as well.

  • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I think they talk about it so much because it’s a large time investment, so it becomes just as much of a hobby as it is an operating system. That’s why you don’t see post after post about using Windows or MacOS.

    Take my opinion with a grain of salt. The last time I ran Linux it was red hat, and that shit took a ton of forum research to cobble together to my liking and support all peripheral functions. I understand it’s easier these days.

    • SatyrSack@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      That was the original pronunciation before the community mispronounced it so much that the creator decided to just roll with it.