this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
2 points (52.6% liked)

Unpopular Opinion

6317 readers
83 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!


How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.


If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.



Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)


  • If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
  • If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].


Rules:

1. NO POLITICS


Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.


2. Be civil.


Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...


Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.


5. No trolling.


This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.



Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm a life-long Windows user who nowdays has a MacBook as a daily driver and a gaming PC running Linux. I consider myself somewhat tech savvy but holy fuck Linux just makes me want to tear my head off. I just spent 45 minutes trying to install Standard Notes "the right way" and in the end I just gave up and downloaded it from the Ubuntu store instead. Error, you need to add this repository. Error, you need to enable this feature. Error, you need to install this tool first which you can use to install another tool and that tool helps you fix the issue preventing you to solve the first issue etc. I honestly can't even imagine how you could make this any more difficult.

I guess Linux is like welding; it's great when someone sets the welder up for you and you just press the trigger and start welding but you're up for some absolute misery trying to figure that out on your own.

Also, a huge credit to chatGPT. I can just take picture of my terminal window and it gives me step-by-step instructions on how to troubleshoot most issues I've had. I'd be at complete loss without it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 6 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

I just spent 45 minutes trying to install Standard Notes "the right way"

I'm curious what you mean by the "right" way, from a website? Linux does things differently at a fundamental level, that I won't deny. But I'll also say, if you're interested in Linux, you have to be willing to learn.

I'm not an expert, but as I understand it most Linux distributions rely on repositories, and expect you to install most of your software from there for both security and compatibility reasons. Those errors were telling you what additional things needed to be downloaded before what you selected would work. And I guess I'm confused on that point. You said it pointed you to what you needed, did things not work after the downloads completed? I know Linux Mint does this, and it's considered to be very user friendly. To use your analogy, if you turn the welder on and it says you need fuel, "please download this exact type" that should resolve the issue.

I know it's hard expecting everything in Linux to function exactly like Windows, but that's not how it works and that's by design. Regardless, as Windows adopts more spyware, ads, and anti-user features into their products I think Linux is the far better (free and open-source) choice and it's definitely worth learning... Good luck!