this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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My current issue is i see you guys constantly having issues, editing files etc.

Is it not stable?

Can you not set it up and then not have ongoing issues?

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[–] Dreyns@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 months ago

Well since a few days my laptop speakers do not work anymore lmao. I had to install it 4 times to make my gpu drivers work. If you're not that teck savy it's fine but you need to atleast be interested in it and ready for it, and also patient. If you have a laptop I strongly advise you check online to see how well supported it is and if you have a nvidia card check if people are having issues.

Good luck on your journey, so far i don't regret my choice mostly because i know that linux is so maleable no matter the issue i'll get it fixed.

[–] bonus_crab@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

My experince :

Tbh motherboard matters. Updating my msi motherboard actually fixed a major issue for me preventing grub from letting me select what OS to load on boot.

I installed linux mint and did have to do a bit of tinkering to get my audio to work from the front panel too. Found answers in the mint forums.

Other than that my discord streams have no audio and discords screen capture daemon or whatever keeps the computer from shutting down for like a minute after i try to.

Those are the only issues Ive had though.

As for lack of features, no HDR sucks, but other than that I'm good.

Warpinator is nice for syncing files with my phone.

Also enjoying the simpler feel compared to windows, and no ads.

[–] explore_broaden@midwest.social 3 points 8 months ago

I’ve never really had issues with Fedora (has more up to date software vs Debian stable) or Debian, they generally just work. Back when I used arch there were a couple of times in about a year and a half where it stopped booting (mobile nvidia graphics forced me to do weird things that lead to issues), but that’s a less stable OS on top of a bad hardware setup for Linux (obligatory fuck Nvidia).

[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago

As everyone is saying, Linux can be perfectly stable, depending on your distribution.

The only thing I’d think about is that you could have to tweak a few things to get everything working at the beginning.

For instance, I had nothing to change to make everything work in Fedora on my Surface Go, but I gad to enable rom fusion in the terminal to get the wifi working on my wife’s MacBook Pro.

Otherwise, you can just enjoy your Linux distribution as long as you don’t want to do crazy stuff out of the beaten paths.

[–] HubertManne@kbin.social 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Im a big zorin fan. Its an out of the box distro that focuses on windows compatiblity. that means it comes with tons of preinstalled apps so that you can do things right away like edit docs or watch videos but it also comes with well configured play on linux so that there is a good chance you can run any needed windows programs that you need to. Maybe people graduate out to more unixy stuff but its funny. Im a tech guy but in my personal life I just want to install and go. https://zorin.com/os/

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 months ago

Isn't Zorin abandoned? Anyway I would stick to the well beaten path of Linux Mint or Pop os

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Depends on the distro, some are rolllig. /s

And some are intended to fiddle with (Arch and Gentoo for example). Others are made to explore new ways to do things (like immutable root, state managing package manager, each app in their folder Mac-style, such things). Of course there's a lot of stable general-use distros too. But you may ask someone else for examples.

[–] wrath_of_grunge@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

it's been awhile since i dove into Linux, but last time i dabbled i was liking Kubuntu.

[–] willya@lemmyf.uk 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

As already stated why would there be a bunch of posts of people bragging about their uptime and stability? Would be pretty boring no? Why are you wanting to make the switch and what are your needs?

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Leas about needs, more about taking back control of mt personal electronics

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Leas about needs, more about taking back control of mt personal electronics

That makes you a good candidate; it means you are motivated. Expect to learn new things. Expect that sometimes you are going to blame something on Linux when it's really your own ignorance. Expect that sometimes, it might be the fault of Linux, or might be the fault of the distro you chose, etc.

Some very fundamental things work differently. Go to a forum or community that is specific to the distro you choose and ask them about the proper way to install software and "package management." Understanding that one topic, and the nuance of how your chosen distro expects you to manage software, will stave off a great many of the problems you are likely to have as a noobie.

If considering this a learning experience sounds good to you, you will succeed. Don't try to "learn Linux" - try to learn what you need to in order to achieve individual tasks on your system, or solve minor annoyances. Doing that will pull in a lot of context. Linux forums are great, but forums specific to the distro you choose will almost always be superior during the learning phase.

In this very thread I see comments from folks who likely expected it to work just like Windows with different trappings. Don't expect that, because it's not what you are going to get. Consider it an adventure.

Source: Tried Linux and gave up in 1999. Tried Linux and gave up in 2004. Tried Linux and stuck with it in 2007. Have not touched Windows except when paid to do so since then, and each and every year since then has made it clearer and clearer what a good decision that was.

I support Windows for my job, and have done so for over twenty years. I find Linux easier to use in every way, and more reliable, and I don't have to force it to respect my authority as the owner of the system it runs on.

[–] Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

You're welcome!

[–] gaael@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Yes you can.
I spend a lot od time fixing things that I broke because I like it and it's a hobby for me.

I installed Linux Mint Debian Edition on my SO's laptop last year (old thinkpad t470) and I haven't had to do anything about it since then. The installation process was easy, I didn't bother changing the defaults and just clicked "Next" on most of the steps.

Can you share with us the hardware you'll be using ? In most cases it'll be easy peasy, but some stuff is known to cause issues that we might be able to identify before you start your journey.

[–] filister@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Depends on your use case. Most of the people running Linux I think are the kind that want to experiment and try different stuff, opposite to the regular user of Windows. And you know when you do changes chances are something to break much higher.

If you install some user friendly and stable distro, VSCode, browser, word editor and you never touch the terminal or do any changes it will be solid and stable.

[–] scratchandgame@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

My current issue is i see you guys constantly having issues, editing files etc.

These guy cannot self-develop

They never learn thing themselves. Never read books. Never read manual pages.

Just ignore them.

Is it not stable?

Commits to softwares around Linux (userland, system maintenance tools, etc) usually just works (even if alpha). There are few bugs.

Alpine Linux edge+testing is much stable (my only issue come from testing mesa packages, just don't upgrade this package to any version without -r0 or -r1 or like that :) )

Can you not set it up and then not have ongoing issues?

Yes.

A system that never have to su root (except for shutdown, reboot).

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[–] VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I use Ubuntu for everything I do (except building and testing windows binaries) beside upgrading when it asks me to I never really have to worry about anything, everything I use just works and the ui is fine.

I'm not a big gamer and I only really use open source software so I don't know if you'll want to do things I don't but I do pretty much everything else: image editing, video editing, CAD, coding, all sorts of weird internet stuff.

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[–] billgamesh@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

I have linux distros that i like and work for me, i almost never have issues. I think it depends on hardware, and i think a lot of the issues are just people trying to do things as they used to on windows and things just work a bit different

[–] shikitohno@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Even running Arch for the last decade or so, I largely don't have issues that wind up being any more complicated than downgrading a package every so often. Most of my config editing occur in one of three situations. First and most common, initial setup of a program to telling it where to find any files it needs and change any default settings I have a different preference on. Second, it's a program I use constantly and want to tweak it to work just so, adding to it as I discover new features that catch my interest, like tweaking my ncmpcpp and tmux setups. The last case is procrastination, where I get obsessively focused on something because, clearly, the reason I haven't written my 5 page paper due tomorrow has nothing to do with the fact I've been screwing around and not keeping up with my coursework for the last week, and can instead be squarely attributed to the fact that I have discovered some aspect of my emacs setep that needs to be refined, like realizing I dislike how biber formats my references in Auctex and needing to spend hours finetuning my reference style to m' exact preferences.

For most general use cases, like browsing the web, listening to music, watching movies and maybe firing up a word processor, this is entirely unnecessary. To give an example, I got tired of having to periodically spend a night purging my elderly mother's laptop of myriad viruses and uninstalling the dozen or so IE toolbar she kept infecting her system with. Clearly not a techy person. I put Linux mint on it, changed the desktop shortcut for Firefox to the Internet Explorer icon, ditto for Open Office's word processor with Ms Word, and she was happy as could be without really noticing a difference. I would just remote in and periodically update it. Worked fine for her until she got a new new computer, by which point she'd realized she could, in fact, live without all that malware taking up half her screen in IE.

[–] danielfgom@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

I don't know who these people having issues are but I run Linux Mint Debian Edition and have no issues editing my stuff.

The only issue I can imagine is if they had formatted an external HDD with ext4 and and copied docs from a previous Linux install, and now when they copy it to their new install, they don't have permission to edit the doc.

For example, you try out Ubuntu for a few weeks/months. You format your ext HDD in ext4 and create docs in Ubuntu. You then copy those into the HDD. Or maybe you had another drive formatted with NTFS and copied docs from there onto the ext4 drive.

After a few weeks you erase Ubuntu from your machine and install Arch. Now when you try to edit a doc on the HDD or copy it to your machine, you find you don't have permission because those permissions were set on your previous Ubuntu install.

I've had permission issues with that hence I format my ex HDD with exFAT and it works perfectly. Also works perfectly with Windows and macOS as they can all read/write to exFAT without permission issues.

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