Linux can be intimidating. And there is going to be a learning curve. Especially if you’re the kind of windows user who’s familiar with gpedit and has custom .bat files.
But what get’s left out is the joy and satisfaction that comes with learning how to Linux. I just re-installed my OS a week ago, and I was able to recognize and resolve dependency and permissions issues without having to look anything up. I also finally learned and started using rsync for backups over SSH/SAMBA. I know it’s not much, but it made me feel like a real hackerman.
The only thing I learned in my last few years of Windows was how to disable features that annoyed me.
I would think someone who is taking advantage of bat files would feel right at home with shell scripts in Linux. In my experience, shell was much easier to pick up than batch
Batch is probably the same, but what always made me laugh about shell scripts is you could ask a bunch of people how to do something, and they’d all have a different way, it’s like there’s always a new tool to learn and try to fit into your workflow if you want, I love it
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bazzzite bazzzite bazzzite bazzzite bazzzite bazzzite bazzzite bazzzite BAZZITE BAZZITE BAZZITE BAZZITE BAZZITE BAZZITE BAZZITE BAZZITE
ok?
The trick is to learn to absolutely despise Windows before doing the switch, then everytime something breaks on Linux you reminisce about the olden days and decide that typing two or three commands in the terminal isn’t so bad afterall.
The trick is to
dump your personal files into a seperate, non OS hard drive so that if shit hits the bricks, you have a parachute.
Ask me how I know.
Backups are a good idea.
My first night on Linux was rough. Getting all my apps installed and set up was exhausting, especially because I had no experience using the command line. For those who haven’t stared into the dark void of a Linux terminal before, it’s where most system management happens — installing apps, running updates, and the like. It’s an unavoidable part of the Linux experience
Bullshit. And fuck you for
propagatingperpetuating this notion, yet again.Edit: fixed to the correct word.
You dont have to. But honestly its worth the time to get over the fear of the terminal. Understanding how they work and being comfortable using them has many advantages. So many things do not require a bloated GUI application. Like again its not necessary but its a bandaid that I think is worth it to rip off.
I really take issue with the author suggesting that you need to. You do not need to, and it is a myth that needs to go away. Particularly when they said it was “exhausting” installing applications. Linux is miles ahead on that front: you look through a list of what you like, or search for them, and click on the ones you want.
Also for system management, there is no need for the terminal either and the author says “It’s an unavoidable part of the Linux experience”. That one in particular really doesn’t sit well with me.
Now can you? Yes. Should you? Also yes, because it is the easiest way to convey and execute an idea. But you do not have to.
And they fail to mention that windows does this too, for almost every task for system maintenance is done this way: press run+r, now type “whatever -command”.
Anyways a moderately mainstream article and they are going to scare people away over something they did not need to do. Which after a year you would think they would have figured that out.
I agree for the most part. It depends a lot on what distro youre using, what DE, so on. But you can easily get by on gnome without having to use the terminal much if at all.
KDE as well. It is astounding how easy it is to use a modern KDE distro: everything has tips and hints get you to the setting you want. Even mounting shares is just click and mount.
Personally I enjoy typing stuff in the konsole
The one I’m on has a very functional “search and install” app, but I still find myself habitually opening up terminal for installation out of “fastness”. Maybe it’s a poor impulse I should correct.
Probably the biggest thing driving terminal use is opening and configuring system files. You can do that with the file explorer and an elevated text editor, but a lot of guides aiming for conciseness will give you some command to wget a long file online, then insert content into a text file by path in one line.
Oh for fucks sake, so much neckbeard energy here dismissing this guys personal experience.
When you’re a new user and don’t know what the hell the native app store application is, which doesn’t have all the programs a person would want to use and install there, and when a new user goes to find their old windows apps that have Linux install instructions, what’s the first thing that they have there? Guess. It’s always find your flavor of Linux and the first steps shown are always terminal commands with sudo apt get or sudo dnf.
That’s everyone first time with Linux until they learn more about it so get off your high horse and condescending gatekeeping attitude.
Gatekeeping, I hate that word. So useless. In this scenario the author is gate keeping saying all the linux system management is the command line. Its “exhausting”. Well bullshit. Let me say it again: BULLSHIT.
It is perpetuating a myth. This is not true. They are gatekeeping the users who don’t want to because they are saying it has to be this way.
Look, I like the command line, I get why sharing information is so much easier by providing a command rather than a wall of screen shots.
Yet at the same time, my travel laptop over here, two years in, has never had to have “system administration” and package installation from a command line. Depending on the distro it simply is not necessary.
The user has choice.
Buddy, they literally do not know that choice exists, and you’re getting angry and calling them a liar instead of growing the community by teaching.
The Linux community has a reputation for being filled with condescending dickheads, and that’s part of the reason why people are turned off from even trying.
Buddy, they literally do not know that choice exists
Yeah, because people like this author keep repeating it.
The Linux community has a reputation for being filled with condescending dickheads
Yet another annoying myth. Look, I am saying it with a bit of vitrol here, but its basically to the universe as the author (as far as I know) isn’t here.
Could I be a bit nicer? I suppose, but they were so wrong, and using strong words like “exhausting” to describe a practice they don’t even have to do is annoying. Read what they wrote, they said all admin tasks are command line. Nonsense of course. If they had said, I started out this way, or it was what I had learned, with just a tiny bit of journalistic effort they would know there are a variety of ways.
I have gone back and read forums, from 10 to 15 years ago, just because I keep hearing: linux is so condescending and rude, and it wasn’t the way I remembered it, so I went to see. And guess what? Nothing but nice and friendly people trying to help each other.
It gets old fast.
I came across this the other day but haven’t had a chance to use it. Hopefully this saves someone a lot of time installing programs.
Huh ninite for Linux. That’s neat
I ran Fedora Silverblue for a year with the terminal uninstalled.
Depends on your distro. Maybe on Ubuntu or Mint, sure. I’m running EndeavourOS, and it’s terminal or nothing. I’m fine with that, but YMMV.
I am running EndeavourOS and it’s possible to function without terminal. I use it because I love it but no need at least not for app installing having Discover.
Anyway can’t compare an arch based distro to Fedora or Ubuntu
Anyway can’t compare an arch based distro to Fedora or Ubuntu
Why not?
They are both built for stability, Arch is built to be bleeding edge.
None is superior to the other, that depends on the user, but an arch-based distro will require the terminal sooner than later, while you don’t need to touch it in Ubuntu.
I use it because I love it but no need at least not for app installing having Discover.
Didn’t you have to install that via the terminal? Discover store is not installed on EndeavourOS by default. You must have installed it and forgot.
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Even on Ubuntu I had to use the terminal pretty frequently. Older games especially are a big PITA to get working sometimes.
Why do you neckbeards constantly lie so aggressively about this? That post exactly describes every single Linux migration I’ve ever done. You WILL end up in the terminal at some point, and you will find apps and games that just don’t work well in Linux.
Step one: download bazzite Step two: install Step three: ??? Step four: Fuck windows
I would caution against fucking Windows - you’ll likely end up with a nasty virus
That’s why you use a firewall and open a port to insert your ramdisk
Hey, just because I preach harm reduction, doesn’t mean I’m gonna kink shame
terms and conditions apply, your situation may vary with Nvidia hardware
I kinda get there’s some common meme about Nvidia being Linux’s kryptonite, but everything’s been okay for me on CachyOS. This after some issues earlier in the year on Mint and even Bazzite.
Waiting patiently for commercial software to be ported to Linux:
- creative suites, I think Canva is working on Affinity for Linux but they want to release their iPad version first. Wine is working right now but there are a few things I’m getting tired of (navigating folders and trying to print). I know, Gimp, Inkscape and Krita.
- 3D modeling software for engineers, like solidworks or NX. I’m trying Blender add-ons for CAD but it’s not as capable. Don’t you dare suggest FreeCAD.
- Music production software, esp. Ableton.
And drivers too. Yeah, we’ve got the big stuff covered, Intel, AMD, NVidia all release Linux drivers. But peripherals manufacturers mostly target Windows, maybe macOS, but leave Linux drivers to be developed by the community.
Don’t you dare suggest FreeCAD.
I have a Hope/Hate relationship with FreeCAD. Sometimes I can get it to do something useful and I get hopeful. Then I try to do something simple and ruin the entire design and have to start from scratch and I curse the developers lineage for all of time. I want it to be great, and it is closer than it has ever been. But it isn’t a replacement for professional design suites.
I just tried it after probably 5 years and it’s much better than what it used to be. The workflow is close to what I’m used to in NX, so far at least.
i’m just dreaming of a good after effects clone (or port) for linux (preferably open source). left-angle autograph kicked the bucket, and pikimov is just a bit too limited. at least fusion360 can be streamed in a browser now, but freecad seems to be getting quite good as of lately.
i pretty much only use windows at school now for ae/cad work.
Solidworks and NX works on Linux?
Not for me. I wish it did.
I looked more into it, apparently NX used to.
Affinity Suite for Linux would be a game changer.
Seems like someone posted a update or extension or something for Freecad that changed the interface and made it more familiar. I don’t mind it the way it is, but apparently others like the change. Might be worth searching for.
archive link
Anyone else facing captcha loops whenever they try to view an archive.is link? Haven’t been able to read subscriber only articles for months now
LLM-driven web scraping is intense for some sites, so their bot detection software is tuned in a way that creates a lot of false positives.
Obscuring your browser fingerprint, or blocking javascript, or using an unusual user-agent string can trigger a captcha challenge.
If you’re not doing that and seeing a site suddenly start giving your captchas then they may be being DDoS’d by scrapers and are challenging all clients.
A site that archives content is especially vulnerable because they have a lot of the data that is useful for AI training.
It is incredibly annoying, but until we have a robust way of proving identity that can’t be gamed by bad actors we’re stuck with individual user challenges.
No but I do get about three or four challenges. I can paste the article for you if it helps?
Not every time, but far too often. They don’t seem to care that they’re discriminating against people with AV impairment, plus locking out some secure browsers.
Dang, yeah it’s probably my strict browser settings. Thanks for the confirmation of shared experience.
I don’t have this problem; You probably are using TOR or a VPN and it triggered the captcha, if it’s not then it’s def strange, never seen this happen to me
Yeah, the Linux community has done a shitload of work to bring Linux up to as good as windows (in the technical sense) and better than windows (regarding the often hostile user experience).
Microsoft is now helping with the marketing by making the windows experience even worse, driving more people to “take the plunge” only for them to realize there isn’t a place where the floor suddenly drops away and you’re left helpless, and that that actually is a better description for using windows outside of the rails MS wants.
If you use an AMD gpu, there’s actually fewer steps to go from empty disk to playing a game, assuming that game isn’t trying to do things with the kernel or is one of the rare games that aren’t compatible for reasons other than anti-cheat (I’ve seen one game like that so far, forget the name of it but a logistics game that needed some dotnet library or something and I ended up giving up and refunding it rather than troubleshooting it until it worked, though others on protondb did say they got it working).
The days where windows gives an easier or better experience are gone, even ignoring all the next level enshitification of win 11. I’ve been on Linux for about a year now but wish I had switched sooner.
If you use an AMD gpu, there’s actually fewer steps to go from empty disk to playing a game
That’s the theory, assuming that the Amd Gpu works with Linux. It might also just crash your system, which is a know problem of the driver, which hasn’t been fixed. You have to semi-randomly pass parameters to the kernel, hoping to find something that works.
I had crashes on Linux because of defective hardware but first thought it was because of software/config/driver issues. I reinstalled the OS, problem persisted. I installed two other completely different distros, problem still there. To make sure it’s not because of Linux in general, I installed Windows…
Damn the installation of Windows (newest image) with updates and only the basic drivers for GPU and mainboard took longer than installing three different Linux distros, and I’m not exaggerating!
Linux: Boot installer, choose to use network installation so you get the newest packages, maybe add or remove some features, choose locales, enter login credentials, files get copied, reboot when finished, done.
Windows: Boot installer, workaround to use local account, installing files, reboot, installing more files, choose locale and login credentials, answer questions about privacy, install more files, reboot, login to Windows, download updates, reboot, download more updates, reboot, open edge (optional: install other browser), visit mainboard manufacturer website, search for correct drivers, install, reboot, visit GPU website, download driver, install, reboot…
And then it’s only the absolute minimum. No debloat or other software installed like office suite or steam which on Linux can selected and installed directly with the OS.
When the day comes that Linux runs all of my games, I will give the dual-boot the boot. :)
Stop playing games that won’t play on Linux.
Just throw away the money you spent, and the social groups that use those games as hangouts!
You could say the same about drugs…
Mostly online multiplayer with cheat protections specific only for Windoze.
Which specific don’t work. Every online multivitamin game I played works. I don’t play COD or those modern “AAA” slops.
The only games that don’t run nowadays I think are the ones that require installing kernel malware so you might reconsider playing them regardless of your OS.
Not everything has to be 100% perfect - even Windows is not able to run all of my games. Most games run without problems and those games which make problems are mostly due to anticheat. It’s a perfectly reasonable solution to simply dual boot if you want to play Call of modern Warfare: DLC edition
That will most likely never happen, so stop lying to yourself.
I switched months ago after some full screen pop up for Windows 11 took over my whole screen in the middle of me doing stuff. In a blind rage, i plugged my usb in and downloaded Pop. Did a full clean install and never looked back. There have been some hiccups, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed right away.
Linux isn’t especially complicated on a daily basis, but you have to be willing to solve your own problems
This is a good takeaway from the article. If you have a problem, you need to at least try to search for a solution.
Since joining The Verge in October, I’ve started using a MacBook for work
Imo that The Verge requires MacOS (or windows) for their workflow is a huge red flag for anyone who is using Linux.
i miss handwriting input; both english and chinese writing. yes keyboard is faster but time spent writing isn’t that wasted for me, and my posture is better when i used a drawing tablet exclusively instead of mouse and keyboard, also i’ve bullied windows handwriting recognition enough that it’s pretty much chicken scratch input.
Where I live now, the kiddos can’t even write the language properly without some sort of keypad or keyboard.
Old Man Shouts At Cloud
Yesterday I decided to write some notes for language learning by hand, I realized I did not remember the last time I wrote anything by hand
You can get Linux apps for that?
not to the point of fast sloppy cursive so bad i can’t read it myself, and that’s what i get with windows after using it for years. linux apps just didn’t match up and i keep getting cranky it’s better to just stop.
edit: went looking around and still no new ones or updates to the ones existing. it’s possible i missed something, i don’t actually pay attention to this anymore.
Would be nice to be able to read the article. This hiding shit behind an account just guarantees I’ll never read it on your site.
I think this is a result of much site traffic being AI search agents or crawlers nowadays, which doesn’t generate any ad income for sites. So they don’t really have a choice
Yeah, that makes sense. I get it, I just despise it, lol.
I keep forgetting that I use Linux, since everything feels … normal. I switched from Win 11 to Fedora a few months ago.
Welcome to the club!
Been using linux exclusively for personal computing since 2019 and don’ miss windows either.
Not exclusively but almost exclusively since 2004 here, the time when there was a thing similar to wine for printer drivers
