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I love Linux, but it's still like a glass house. One simple terminal command out of curiosity will basically force you to reinstall the OS. If you're response

I love Linux, but it's still like a glass house. One simple terminal command out of curiosity will basically force you to reinstall the OS. If you're response to that is "well you should know what you're doing before you run as sudo," all I can say is no. There is no reason why changing a DE, or installing certain software should make it nigh impossible to revert to previous changes short of being an expert or full reinstall. Plus minor quirks with every single one. It gets tedious fast to the point that I just want to develop. I don't want to mess around with why I can't use this piece of software because of some configuration issue related to Linux. I just want it to work. When I'm on Linux, more often then not I'd rather just not have complicated software as I'm used to on Windows or Mac. Linux is where you go when you borderline have to expect something isn't going to work or you'll need to do a reinstall at some point. I've never felt that way about Windows or Mac unless my root drive felt bloated and it was entirely optional.

danieldk 5y ago
> I love Linux, but it's still like a glass house. One simple terminal command out of curiosity will basically force you to reinstall the OS. Counterpoints: * Fedora Silverblue provides an immutable base OS with atomic updates/rollbacks. Makes it hard to mess up your system to the point where it doesn't work. * NixOS and Guix provide delarative system configuration with atomic updates/rollbacks. * Even on a 'traditional' distribution, you can use something like btrfs or ZFS snapshots and rollback your changes if you have a tendency to destroy systems ;). That said, Linux is not for everyone and it is completely fine to use macOS or Windows (as I write, I am using macOS on a MacBook).
mixmastamyk 5y ago
Shouldn’t change major parts of the os unless you fully understand what you’re doing. Has been true on every os since the beginning. I recommend Ubuntu Mate as something that works well for dev work with a minimum of tweaking needed. Also, I always keep my data files on another partition so OS installs are not a worrisome operation.
bogwog 5y ago
> One simple terminal command out of curiosity will basically force you to reinstall the OS. You mean like `sudo rm -rf /`? Would an equivalent command run by an admin on Windows not cause the same types of issues? Sure, there might be some files that can't be deleted while the system is running (like kernel32.dll or whatever it's called), but you'll certainly break a lot of things which you can only reasonably fix by reinstalling Windows. > It gets tedious fast to the point that I just want to develop What type of development do you do? Front end web development? C#/.NET/WPF? Something else? Because life as a developer on unix is much much nicer than it is on Windows for most types of work. If you're not one of those people who is stuck with Visual Studio, you should invest time into learning to work on Linux, Mac, FreeBSD, etc. It'll be better for your job prospects (and sanity) in the long run.
- somethingreen 5y ago
  My last Linux kill was mixing up command that adds group to a user with one replacing whole user groups list.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I just reinstalled gnome manjaro. Not even an hour in and there is a major issue. I right clicked on the dock to get to Dash To Dock. I hit the super key at the same time an while that menu was up, I hit the settings button for the dash to dock. My dock blew up to ~200% in size, all my icons increased in size and I can no longer enter the settings for dash to dock. It just opens up an error that is very long and I'm not willing to resolve. This is why Linux desktop will never be taken seriously.
  - bogwog 5y ago
    > My dock blew up to ~200% in size, all my icons increased in size and I can no longer enter the settings for dash to dock. It just opens up an error that is very long and I'm not willing to resolve. Because you personally don't know how to use it, the Linux desktop will never be taken seriously? Imagine if a tech-illiterate person was using Windows, and then they accidentally enabled the option to hide the taskbar. If they were to throw their hands up and complain about how this shit doesn't work, you would probably think they were overreacting. And if you send them some instructions on how to restore the task bar, and they reply with "instructions too long; I'm not willing to read all that, I'll just reinstall the operating system", you would probably think they were being ignorant and lazy. I think the problem is that not everyone reacts differently to being made to feel stupid (which software frequently does to us): some people approach the situation with humility, other people get defensive and angry. I see this a lot with programmers, where someone inherits another person's code and rather than attempt to understand it, they proclaim that it's shit and decide to rewrite it. That's the only explanation I have for why so many tech literate people (incl' engineers) seem to completely shutdown when confronted with seemingly trivial issues. It has to be something emotional like that, because doesn't take much time or effort to look up how to fix whatever problem you're having. Sure, you might not need to "look up" how to do something on Windows, but you've also (probably) been using Windows for a very long time. And with all that said, I would recommend you use KDE Plasma instead of Gnome, and a mainstream distro like Ubuntu (or Kubuntu, which comes preinstalled with KDE instead of Gnome). Aside: Idk why people keep recommending Gnome to Linux newcomers. Gnome is basically a hyper-opinionated attempt to copy the worst parts of Windows/macOS/Android/iOS, and a half-assed attempt at that. KDE Plasma is an actually usable and mature desktop, and it should be much more familiar to people coming from Windows (which is probably the vast majority of people). I've been using it without issues for the past 6~7 years (never had to fix a broken thing, never had to copy and paste a magic command, and certainly never had to reinstall the operating system)

danieldk 5y ago

> I love Linux, but it's still like a glass house. One simple terminal command out of curiosity will basically force you to reinstall the OS. Counterpoints: * Fedora Silverblue provides an immutable base OS with atomic updates/rollbacks. Makes it hard to mess up your system to the point where it doesn't work. * NixOS and Guix provide delarative system configuration with atomic updates/rollbacks. * Even on a 'traditional' distribution, you can use something like btrfs or ZFS snapshots and rollback your changes if you have a tendency to destroy systems ;). That said, Linux is not for everyone and it is completely fine to use macOS or Windows (as I write, I am using macOS on a MacBook).

mixmastamyk 5y ago

Shouldn’t change major parts of the os unless you fully understand what you’re doing. Has been true on every os since the beginning. I recommend Ubuntu Mate as something that works well for dev work with a minimum of tweaking needed. Also, I always keep my data files on another partition so OS installs are not a worrisome operation.

bogwog 5y ago

> One simple terminal command out of curiosity will basically force you to reinstall the OS. You mean like `sudo rm -rf /`? Would an equivalent command run by an admin on Windows not cause the same types of issues? Sure, there might be some files that can't be deleted while the system is running (like kernel32.dll or whatever it's called), but you'll certainly break a lot of things which you can only reasonably fix by reinstalling Windows. > It gets tedious fast to the point that I just want to develop What type of development do you do? Front end web development? C#/.NET/WPF? Something else? Because life as a developer on unix is much much nicer than it is on Windows for most types of work. If you're not one of those people who is stuck with Visual Studio, you should invest time into learning to work on Linux, Mac, FreeBSD, etc. It'll be better for your job prospects (and sanity) in the long run.

somethingreen 5y ago
My last Linux kill was mixing up command that adds group to a user with one replacing whole user groups list.
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I just reinstalled gnome manjaro. Not even an hour in and there is a major issue. I right clicked on the dock to get to Dash To Dock. I hit the super key at the same time an while that menu was up, I hit the settings button for the dash to dock. My dock blew up to ~200% in size, all my icons increased in size and I can no longer enter the settings for dash to dock. It just opens up an error that is very long and I'm not willing to resolve. This is why Linux desktop will never be taken seriously.
- bogwog 5y ago
  > My dock blew up to ~200% in size, all my icons increased in size and I can no longer enter the settings for dash to dock. It just opens up an error that is very long and I'm not willing to resolve. Because you personally don't know how to use it, the Linux desktop will never be taken seriously? Imagine if a tech-illiterate person was using Windows, and then they accidentally enabled the option to hide the taskbar. If they were to throw their hands up and complain about how this shit doesn't work, you would probably think they were overreacting. And if you send them some instructions on how to restore the task bar, and they reply with "instructions too long; I'm not willing to read all that, I'll just reinstall the operating system", you would probably think they were being ignorant and lazy. I think the problem is that not everyone reacts differently to being made to feel stupid (which software frequently does to us): some people approach the situation with humility, other people get defensive and angry. I see this a lot with programmers, where someone inherits another person's code and rather than attempt to understand it, they proclaim that it's shit and decide to rewrite it. That's the only explanation I have for why so many tech literate people (incl' engineers) seem to completely shutdown when confronted with seemingly trivial issues. It has to be something emotional like that, because doesn't take much time or effort to look up how to fix whatever problem you're having. Sure, you might not need to "look up" how to do something on Windows, but you've also (probably) been using Windows for a very long time. And with all that said, I would recommend you use KDE Plasma instead of Gnome, and a mainstream distro like Ubuntu (or Kubuntu, which comes preinstalled with KDE instead of Gnome). Aside: Idk why people keep recommending Gnome to Linux newcomers. Gnome is basically a hyper-opinionated attempt to copy the worst parts of Windows/macOS/Android/iOS, and a half-assed attempt at that. KDE Plasma is an actually usable and mature desktop, and it should be much more familiar to people coming from Windows (which is probably the vast majority of people). I've been using it without issues for the past 6~7 years (never had to fix a broken thing, never had to copy and paste a magic command, and certainly never had to reinstall the operating system)