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Slightly tonque-in-cheek, but: > The main sentiment in your comment which I don't think I've seen addressed in other comments is the fervency of the people att

Slightly tonque-in-cheek, but: > The main sentiment in your comment which I don't think I've seen addressed in other comments is the fervency of the people attacking the mere notion that Linux is not a viable option...but I'm often surprised with the confidence and sheer malice of people who will attack any notion of Linux not being a viable desktop. > I've seen it on HN, I've seen it in Gaming subreddits, I've had it in non-technical subreddits and I've had it in real life. People just have no qualms shitting on anyone who expresses problems with linux and it confuses me that people care so much and have so little consideration for the opposing point of view. You can see it up and down this thread, anyone who expresses frustrations or compatibility issues immediately gets 3 replies to the effect of "You're wrong, I've been running linux since 1954 and it works perfectly and no issue like that exists". I like linux. I maintain a cluster of linux machines at work, and have 2 linux boxes at home because it does things that windows just can't. But those 2 boxes take up about 90% of my "tech support" time.

Zhyl 4y ago
I also see the complement. My comment's top reply is someone including an attack on Linux rather than expanding on their main motivations (unless they see them as one and the same?) and the responses and children thereof are then all about people either also attacking or trying to defend Linux. It seems like a topic that is really deeply seated for this audience, but the fact that it is so deeply seated is a blind spot that doesn't seem like people have the ability or the interest to examine.
- Eji1700 4y ago
  It's because I've expanded on my issues with linux over and over and over again. And there's always some laundry list of "well did you try..." followed by the kind of forum hunting for answers and CLI inputs that I haven't had to do on any other machine since the 2010's. And that's if people are being reasonable. I've had plenty of insanely nasty interactions (not that it's unique to linux, but the ratio sure is higher) and it's the only time I've ever been told "well why don't you just write your own driver". Hell the most simple, concrete, easily documented example in recent times was Linus' attempt to use linux as a gaming platform, where when trying to debug a basic issue, he nuked the machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0506yDSgU7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0506yDSgU7M This entire series is an extremely well documented example of what many "mid level" users experience is going to be, and 10 minutes into that video, in attempting to install steam on PopOS, a distro designed for gaming, he uninstalls his desktop. This is SUCH a red flag for anyone who's ever worked UI/UX. Seriously, look in detail at what he did about 10 min in. 1. Installs PopOS for gaming. 2. Trys to install steam, it fails with a complicated error that is of very little help. 3. Some amount of time spent on offscreen research. 4. Comes up with sudo apt-get install steam as an answer. And if you're moderately techy at all, that seems like a perfectly reasonable answer (still not the "just use the installer that was SUPPOSED to work but it doesn't seem malicious). Sudo for admin, apt-get is the cli everyone uses, and then just install steam right? Cool. 5. You then get a couple of pages of heavy technobabble if you're not a common linux user with a "type yes you really want to do this prompt". That's a red flag, but again when the CLI entry basically translates to "admin install steam" yeah you're not really expecting it to then uninstall your desktop. Now the pinned comment on the video is "this has been fixed and shouldn't be possible anymore". And there's TONS of comments saying "oh well he should've done x or y first", but this has been my and many other people's experience with linux for decades, and we're all tired of going in circles. This video series was a wonderful example of all the little "oops" and "gotcha" moments that I think a ton of linux users just handwave away, or don't even realize they're naturally preventing by having just adapted (well of course i ran a system update after the install? Don't you?). I spend a lot of my job looking very carefully at how people do things, because what most people think is a 4 step process is actually a 10 step process where they just assumed 6 of those steps were obvious, and that's what it has always been like to try and learn linux for me. I'll try it again in the future I'm sure, but this semantic argument nonsense when there's so much evidence of linux flaws floating around gets old. I don't want to have to write an essay on my childhood traumas and motivations and how that led me to linux every time I try to use an OS. I want it to work, and when it doesn't work, I want the solutions to be easy to find and implement. Not based on what configuration of OS, hardware, versions, and phases of the moon. Some of that is not directly linux's fault, being unpopular makes it harder for them to support all hardware, but that doesn't matter to the end user.

Zhyl 4y ago

I also see the complement. My comment's top reply is someone including an attack on Linux rather than expanding on their main motivations (unless they see them as one and the same?) and the responses and children thereof are then all about people either also attacking or trying to defend Linux. It seems like a topic that is really deeply seated for this audience, but the fact that it is so deeply seated is a blind spot that doesn't seem like people have the ability or the interest to examine.

Eji1700 4y ago
It's because I've expanded on my issues with linux over and over and over again. And there's always some laundry list of "well did you try..." followed by the kind of forum hunting for answers and CLI inputs that I haven't had to do on any other machine since the 2010's. And that's if people are being reasonable. I've had plenty of insanely nasty interactions (not that it's unique to linux, but the ratio sure is higher) and it's the only time I've ever been told "well why don't you just write your own driver". Hell the most simple, concrete, easily documented example in recent times was Linus' attempt to use linux as a gaming platform, where when trying to debug a basic issue, he nuked the machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0506yDSgU7M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0506yDSgU7M This entire series is an extremely well documented example of what many "mid level" users experience is going to be, and 10 minutes into that video, in attempting to install steam on PopOS, a distro designed for gaming, he uninstalls his desktop. This is SUCH a red flag for anyone who's ever worked UI/UX. Seriously, look in detail at what he did about 10 min in. 1. Installs PopOS for gaming. 2. Trys to install steam, it fails with a complicated error that is of very little help. 3. Some amount of time spent on offscreen research. 4. Comes up with sudo apt-get install steam as an answer. And if you're moderately techy at all, that seems like a perfectly reasonable answer (still not the "just use the installer that was SUPPOSED to work but it doesn't seem malicious). Sudo for admin, apt-get is the cli everyone uses, and then just install steam right? Cool. 5. You then get a couple of pages of heavy technobabble if you're not a common linux user with a "type yes you really want to do this prompt". That's a red flag, but again when the CLI entry basically translates to "admin install steam" yeah you're not really expecting it to then uninstall your desktop. Now the pinned comment on the video is "this has been fixed and shouldn't be possible anymore". And there's TONS of comments saying "oh well he should've done x or y first", but this has been my and many other people's experience with linux for decades, and we're all tired of going in circles. This video series was a wonderful example of all the little "oops" and "gotcha" moments that I think a ton of linux users just handwave away, or don't even realize they're naturally preventing by having just adapted (well of course i ran a system update after the install? Don't you?). I spend a lot of my job looking very carefully at how people do things, because what most people think is a 4 step process is actually a 10 step process where they just assumed 6 of those steps were obvious, and that's what it has always been like to try and learn linux for me. I'll try it again in the future I'm sure, but this semantic argument nonsense when there's so much evidence of linux flaws floating around gets old. I don't want to have to write an essay on my childhood traumas and motivations and how that led me to linux every time I try to use an OS. I want it to work, and when it doesn't work, I want the solutions to be easy to find and implement. Not based on what configuration of OS, hardware, versions, and phases of the moon. Some of that is not directly linux's fault, being unpopular makes it harder for them to support all hardware, but that doesn't matter to the end user.