4 ms·

I just don't understand this. I've used Debian and Ubuntu for many years, and I've never had to reinstall a single installation for any reason. I use packages

I just don't understand this. I've used Debian and Ubuntu for many years, and I've never had to reinstall a single installation for any reason. I use packages whenever possible, and when installing unpackaged software, I use checkinstall to make a package from it. When I move to a new system or disk, I rsync the filesystem over and boot from the new disk. There is no accumulated cruft; or if there is, it's limited to e.g. tiny config files in /etc from older package versions, which aren't a problem or even noticeable. The closest to cruft is hidden directories in my homedir from software I don't use anymore. That isn't a problem either: they don't take up much space, and it's easy to manually delete them if I ever feel like it. If not, they are compressed and deduplicated by backup software, and they're hidden by default, so who cares?

bpchaps 11y ago
I wish I had your luck... A lot of fixes on forums constantly suggest to uninstall first. Which sometimes actually fixes issues. Other times it makes things worse. Either way - buying a lottery ticket soon?
- alphapapa 11y ago
  > A lot of fixes on forums constantly suggest to uninstall first. A lot of people seeking and offering help on forums are former Windows users, who are used to doing that to fix problems. They just don't what else to do, so that's what they do. And, sure, if you break a configuration file or package dependency, wiping the disk and reinstalling will fix that--but so would fixing the file or dependency. In my experience, the nuclear option is never necessary with Linux. Worst case, you boot off a CD or USB drive, mount the partition, chroot if necessary, fix it, and reboot. > Other times it makes things worse. That is very strange, indeed. D: > buying a lottery ticket soon? Haha, nope, been having this "luck" for years now, but it only seems to affect my Linux installs. :(
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    To be honest, I've solved many more problems with Linux by reinstalling (usually a different distribution) than with Windows. And just yesterday my Linux did what I've never seen an OS do before - it losts it UI clock display. The solution was simple and typical for Linux - it involved killing a random process. But at that moment I realized that we used to laugh that rebooting stuff is the Windows way of doing things. Not anymore, apparently. ;).
    - bpchaps 11y ago
      My favorite is still hunting down .lck files with strace because of a bad lock file implementation. Reinstalling definitely fixes that one :). Looking at you, firefox and yum!
    - alphapapa 11y ago
      > And just yesterday my Linux did what I've never seen an OS do before - it losts it UI clock display. The solution was simple and typical for Linux - it involved killing a random process. What desktop environment was that? There are many different ones available for Linux systems, and they don't all behave that way. e.g. I've never had that kind of problem with KDE3/TDE or KDE4.

bpchaps 11y ago

I wish I had your luck... A lot of fixes on forums constantly suggest to uninstall first. Which sometimes actually fixes issues. Other times it makes things worse. Either way - buying a lottery ticket soon?

alphapapa 11y ago
> A lot of fixes on forums constantly suggest to uninstall first. A lot of people seeking and offering help on forums are former Windows users, who are used to doing that to fix problems. They just don't what else to do, so that's what they do. And, sure, if you break a configuration file or package dependency, wiping the disk and reinstalling will fix that--but so would fixing the file or dependency. In my experience, the nuclear option is never necessary with Linux. Worst case, you boot off a CD or USB drive, mount the partition, chroot if necessary, fix it, and reboot. > Other times it makes things worse. That is very strange, indeed. D: > buying a lottery ticket soon? Haha, nope, been having this "luck" for years now, but it only seems to affect my Linux installs. :(
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  To be honest, I've solved many more problems with Linux by reinstalling (usually a different distribution) than with Windows. And just yesterday my Linux did what I've never seen an OS do before - it losts it UI clock display. The solution was simple and typical for Linux - it involved killing a random process. But at that moment I realized that we used to laugh that rebooting stuff is the Windows way of doing things. Not anymore, apparently. ;).
  - bpchaps 11y ago
    My favorite is still hunting down .lck files with strace because of a bad lock file implementation. Reinstalling definitely fixes that one :). Looking at you, firefox and yum!
  - alphapapa 11y ago
    > And just yesterday my Linux did what I've never seen an OS do before - it losts it UI clock display. The solution was simple and typical for Linux - it involved killing a random process. What desktop environment was that? There are many different ones available for Linux systems, and they don't all behave that way. e.g. I've never had that kind of problem with KDE3/TDE or KDE4.