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The thing is that indeed one of the very valid benefits is that with open source the solution is almost never "just reinstall". Because at least you have the to
by AshamedCaptain 7y ago
The thing is that indeed one of the very valid benefits is that with open source the solution is almost never "just reinstall". Because at least you have the tools to investigate and fix the problem right to the deepest level.
E.g. I have an issue where Thunderbolt ports suddenly stop working -- the symptom is that I hear the device connected chime immediately followed by the device unconnected chime. Event log is empty. Impossible to debug -- there's nothing else to tinker with. System restore worked.
Linux -- there is a kernel flag that forces the BIOS to power on the controller and whatever. Ohmygosh I had to open a terminal, but at least I didn't had to reinstall.
And please don't come with "given the choice of opening a shell and digging in or just reinstall, I would choose reinstalling 100% of the time", because then it answers the question of the OP.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoIn my experience, the documentation of how any given system in a Linux Desktop is actually put together and actually gets anything done is so lacking that you've spent hours pulling apart a tangled mess of awful before you can even begin to see what the issue really is. I'll grant, however, that modern Windows often manages to be even more convoluted than that.
- AshamedCaptain 7y agoI don't disagree, but the point is that you can. With closed source, it's not about convoluted or not. There's a point in which you just cannot proceed debugging.
- ufo 7y agoIn a similar example that is closer to the topic at hand, I recently had an issue where if I turned on a certain setting it would cause my ç key to become a ć instead, as an unwanted side-effect. Since everything on Linux is free and open source, I was able to find and read the source code that was responsible for my problem, which allowed me to figure out how to workaround the issue for now, and to file a bug report with the upstream developers.
- Spearchucker 7y agoThat's a lot of effort when you just. Need. To. Send. An. Email...
- ufo 7y agoThis bug only affects a very very small number of people so I went through the effort because if I didn't I doubt anyone else would even notice it:)