this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Linux

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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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I start: the most important thing is not the desktop, it's the package manager.

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[–] tom42@lemmy.world 70 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That after getting used to Linux I will hate to be forced to use less free operating systems.

[–] elfahor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This so much. I absolutely cannot stand Windows anymore.

[–] vynlwombat@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Windows is so bad

[–] Resonanz@slrpnk.net 12 points 1 year ago

Once you go FOSS, you never go back.

[–] gideonstar@feddit.de 35 points 1 year ago (6 children)
[–] xapr@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago

Just read this book:

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Used to use gedit, the found nano and it was awesome. Then found Vim... I RAN back to nano haha

[–] lud@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Try micro.

It's much better and quite easy if not easier to use than nano. It should really be the default simple editor.

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[–] Swarfega@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

I remember, back in the day, I asked on IRC how to edit a file in Linux. Someone said vi. Little did I know that in chat someone said, the next question is how do I quit. I asked that exact question. Yes chat erupted.

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[–] aaaa@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I guess the main things would be:

  • As a beginner, don't bother trying to dual boot -- If you still need a Windows box, get some cheap hardware to do your Linux work on. It's too easy to screw up both systems otherwise.
  • Don't get too hung up on a specific distro, the better you are at dealing with different configurations, the better prepared you will be for whatever comes. Once you've gotten one set up, don't be afraid to just try a different one.
[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I never had a problem dual booting, even as a beginner. I always kept everything on two separate drives, though, each with their own EFI partition.

[–] spez@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

I kept them on the same drive, different EFI partitions.

[–] flashgnash@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

I did the opposite, have always dual booted my laptops and had win on my PC until quite recently now that I'm comfortable enough not to need a safety net anymore

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[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 33 points 1 year ago

The 1:1 windows:Linux replacement is just a means to keep you on Windows. Once you learn Linux, you'll come to understand how much of a farce it is and how it's designed to keep you away

[–] Cwilliams@beehaw.org 31 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I learned to never settle. If you don't like the default workflow of Gnome, try some extensions, or even a different DE. Same with Package Managers. If you don't like the syntax, make an alias. Don't just "deal with it". Windows has brainwashed people into thinking that there is only one way to do a thing.

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[–] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Trying not to make it windows.

There's a lot of conveniences that Windows comes default with.

When I switched to Linux, my immediate goal was to find alternatives for EVERYTHING. That lead to being disappointed by a lot.

Understanding Linux and also recognizing there's a lot of shit I don't need (that windows was giving me for the sake of VALUE) was a game changer.

[–] secret301@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

Understanding Linux and also recognizing there's a lot of shit I don't need (that windows was giving me for the sake of VALUE) was a game changer.

This 100%! After using Linux for the past few years I've realized a lot of the crap windows has by default is stuffed in there to have something to market.

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[–] throwawayish@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Distrobox exists, so one is not bound to use a specific distro just because it packages some of the apps/binaries they require.

[–] flashgnash@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Installed distrobox on NixOS because I was worried being limited to only nixpkgs and have not touched it once lol

Same goes for the windows VM except for the time I needed to run excel macros for work

[–] null@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Worried about being limited to only the biggest selection of packages available. Does not compute.

[–] flashgnash@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

I'd never heard of nixpkgs before so thought it was some small niche thing

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[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So enjoying immutable fedora with AUR support. Cannot be overstated...

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To start sooner.

[–] PuppyOSAndCoffee@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Rasberry Pi or other NUC is a great way to begin.

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[–] supert@lemmy.sdfeu.org 14 points 1 year ago (6 children)
  • tab completion in bash
  • vim
  • zfs
  • git (though it didn't exist then)
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[–] EponymousBosh@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wish I'd known how much of a pain in the ass having an NVIDIA card would be. I would have gotten a different computer.

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[–] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] mosthated@feddit.nl 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That even though you are running an LTS version of Ubuntu (e.g. Ubuntu 22.04), some packages that have arrived over a year ago on e.g. 23.10 will never arrive on 22.04.

Example: i3-wm 4.22 or up (https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=i3&searchon=names&suite=jammy§ion=all).

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[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

After switching to Linux I wish I knew how to report bugs. I'm a qa tester and I notice so many little things that can be replicated and fixing them would polish the user experience. But there are so many layers I don't know who to report the issue to. My first thought wasto report it to the distro forum and have the more technical people there take a look at the issue then escalate it to the distro maintainers or the actual software devs.

Another thing I wish I knew, was how to get my 2nd hdd to mount automatically. I fucked to my system 4 times(and recovered it) trying and then had to get my sys admin friend to do it for me.

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Reporting KDE bugs is still extremely inconvenient.

There should be a 1-click option just to submit an automatically collected data dump, maybe with an optional text field we can write. Just to help providing some data, without all the hassle of creating an account, answering N questions, and following up with answers - sometimes I do care about the issue, most times I don't, but still want to flag that something wrong happened so they're aware of it.

I have the impression that a lot of bugs and random crashes go unnoticed because users don't bother to go through the process of opening a bug report - and they shouldn't need to, nor know how to.

[–] pelotron@midwest.social 4 points 1 year ago

My first time I was presented with the bug reporter I thought it was cool, but then it said I had to have all the debug symbols installed so it could unwind the call stack. Ok I thought, and searched apt for a little. But I couldn't find them all as there is not a standard naming scheme, so that effort was wasted. I wish their bug reporter would auto download all debug symbols needed.

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[–] canadaduane@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (10 children)

When you're just trying to get work done: pick a solid, well-tested high-profile distribution like Fedora, Pop!_OS, or Debian (or Ubuntu). Don't look for the most beautiful, or most up-to-date, or most light-weight (e.g. low CPU usage, RAM, etc.). Don't distro hop just to see what you're missing.

Of course, do those things if you want to mess around, have fun, or learn! But not when you're trying to get work done.

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[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That I shouldn't care as much about installed packages I no longer use. Sure, going through installed programs and cleaning up from time to time is ok, but no need to panic if something sticks around.

Especially when I installed something manually needing dependencies for programming, I tend to write down names of installed packages and then managing it manually, because I wasn't yet aware what their names mean. Now using same OS for over a year, heavly testing stuff, having multiple desktop enviroments and not cleaning it up my system partition is taking less than 30GB, compared to 1TB disk it's nothing.

[–] DocBlaze@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

to keep a pendrive version of windows-to-go around for installing firmware and BIOS updates. It's impossible to create one without windows already installed. Hopefully the open firmware updater in Pop OS! catches on or more manufacturers release Linux updates.

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[–] CocaineShark@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

TIL there's tab completion lol

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Tab completion, history, history search, you name it

[–] guillermohs9@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Unmounting removable drives after writing to then is crucially more important than on Windows

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[–] garam@lemmy.my.id 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Gnome is better on 1920 than in 1366. XFCE is better on 1366...

And Ubuntu sucks..

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[–] flashgnash@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

That you can use any DE on any distro

[–] regalia@literature.cafe 6 points 1 year ago

tab completion

[–] xilliah@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago

Nothing, to be honest. It just worked and I loved it.

[–] secret301@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

That just like windows and Mac if it doesn't support that platform prepare for headaches. Unlike windows and Mac you can get things that aren't supposed to run on Linux to run thanks to great tools like wine, proton, and even waydroid. But if you wanna avoid headaches just stick with what's supported for the most part.

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