Who would have guessed?!

If you are the “computer person” in your family, you probably have experience screwing with, breaking, and fixing whatever OSes you have used over the years.
The refreshing difference with Linux is that the software and the people who created it are not trying to prevent you from doing what you want with your computer.

Same with arson
- What's the Venn Diagram of "childhood pyromaniacs" and "Linux users" look like?
  
  It's just 1 circle with both labels in it.
  
  Too fuckin real.
  
  You ever seen a really bad hemorrhoid?
  
  Can confirm. Made many sparkler/aerosol can boom.booms
- See, this is why you Linux users have a bad rep.
  /s

And the less you use Windows, the worse you get at using it. Luckily the bar for Windows competency is pretty low, just basic critical thinking skills and Google get you far.
- You can make that point for any operating system, basic critical thinking could mean anything
  
  You could but you'd be drawing a false equivalency.
- Honestly, potentially the more you use Windows the worse you get at it. You come to accept the garbage, but the more you try to fix it the more it fights you and the less stable it becomes. A user who just doesn't touch anything is probably better off.
  
  Windows I just got used to my issues and didn't try to fix them if I couldn't find similar issues online, with linux ill actually check for the issue and usually find and fix it (with the help of the internet, but the initial phase of finding what I need to search and what the issue is, I do better on linux)
- /triggered/
  Oh hell no. My basic critical thinking applied to googling has got me to a forum with the solution to wi-fi not working in the form of "meh, it happens. reser all network settings and reboot". Which became my personal turning point of "fuck this shit, I'd rather have actually debuggable software"
  /cooled down/
  Well, your point read as "look at the problem, search for solutions and you probably will find them" stands, it is the low competency bar that triggered me: to even know where crash logs etc might be on Windows is far beyond even "power user" level
  
  If you're searching online for how to fix the problem... Couldn't you also search online on how to find the crash logs? I fully get sometimes not having enough knowledge in a subject to even know where to begin searching, but "well, the first result wasn't helpful, guess I'll stop looking for an answer" and "it says to check XYZ, but I don't know what that is. Too bad I don't have a way to search for what things are" aren't exactly difficult hurtles to overcome.
  
  What? It's easy to find a solution to WiFi problems, come on.
- basic critical thinking skills
  My great-aunt would like a word with you.

This is why you have to switch to more and more difficult distros over time, to keep yourself on your toes
- It's a bell curve. Eventually you switch back to ez mode for your main machine and have alternative or niche distros on spare kit
  
  Ken Thompson, who invented UNIX first in assembly and then rewrote it in C, is now running a Debian derived OS as his main daily driver.
  
  Can confirm. Study laptops are on Linux Mint Debian Edition, gaming PC is on CachyOS currently but it changes all the time, had Bazzite on it beforehand
- Me going from Mint to Ubuntu to Kubuntu to Neon to Arch. My experience with the Arch installation process is just the command shutdown
  Someday I'll be comfortable enough with this nerd shit to trust myself with unsupervised access to a CLI. Until then I'm happy just knowing what a DE is
  
  next step is nixos! holy fuck transitioning from arch to nixos was hell, i did like 10 years of arch.

Over the years of using Windows (2010-2023), I don't remember learning anything at all, only using the command line twice, once to check the hard disk and once to clean the registry... I'm in love with Linux terminal.
- Did you not learn anything because you simply did not need to, perhaps? Because you can do a lot if you need to.
  
  My gosh if it was easier I would have done so much with Windows before switching to Linux. Instead I was stuck with bad performance and annoying pop ups from my device manufacturer.
  
  I guess so.
- Over the years of using Windows (2010-2023)
  I switched to Linux full time in 2011 👴. Was fed up with Windows 7's bullshit.
  But I must say, I leaned a tone while I was using Windows XP,. This is during this time I would build my first PCs, setup local network at home and for LAN parties, setup file sharing and damn printers 🤬, start to learn programming.

I'm sure this will draw some criticism but I've found duck.ai to be extremely helpful in troubleshooting minor issues with my Linux mint installation and recently with accessing and understanding SMART hard drive diagnostic data. It's very helpful in figuring out which commands could be useful in the terminal and in understanding exactly what each terminal command is doing. Of course finding answers in forums and manuals is still relevant and important but as a beginner, this has been a fast and easy way to get advice.
- Just be careful to think twice before doing what it says. (That goes for any advice from the internet too!)
  Like all the old stories of people's GPS steering them into a lake. Let the GPS help you, but still, like, actually look at the road!
  ETA: It's probably quite reliable at explaining what terminal commands do, since it's drawing from many manuals. But sometimes it might completely make up the answer, in a way that's almost right but terribly wrong. You think the command does one thing, so you use it 'appropriately', but really it does something else so your carefully thought out use goes completely wrong.
- That makes sense. It cuts through the RTFM bullshit, and gets you a clear answer without unnecessary ego.
- Good point. I don't know why I didn't think about this sooner, i literally use it for other programming stuff.

Wow, in that way it's almost like Linux is the same as every other thing.

Wait, you guys are getting better? /j
- im still stuck in vi hell... help... cannot exit program
  
  Have you tried standing up from your computer and going outside? It's the only 100% reliable way I've found to exit vim.
  
  There's no exiting vi, gotta buy a new computer
  
  Dude, just reboot the machine, as long as vi is not autostarting you should be good
  
  That's why you install Emacs and never look back. Everything you need in one program. No need to exit at all.
  
  The only thing i know about vi is how to exit it lol.
  
  All jokes aside, why do people even bother with vi?
- Absolutely! I never break my system the same way twice.
  
  Real :3
  Though actually most of the stuff I had not work on my system was cause of flatpak permissions x3
- I'm getting better at finding new ways to break my installation. Now I don't mess with things and just use it as is. Might start messing with stuff on my laptop rather than PC so I can mess up there instead.
- Not me! It’s been too reliable and everything that I need works fine without much effort at all, so I never get any experience troubleshooting or using the command line.
  
  Based linux stability /hj

I'm still gonna have to dual boot for the foreseeable future, but I force myself to usually boot mint unless I want to play any vr/multiplayer/racing games (which is often, unfortunately). But I do really enjoy how much you can do in linux and learning it.

Nah I just ask deepseek. It set up a set of dockers for me in 2 minutes and also gave me commands to create my folder structures.
- You probably did this, but for anyone reading, if you copy commands from the internet, look up what all the commands and flags do to be sure you understand it fully, and then type it in yourself in a terminal instead of copy/paste. If you get an instruction to curl
  <something>
  | sh, split it into two steps, curl to get the script to a local file you can read, read it, then run if you know what it does. Do these things for anything you don't trust 100%.
  
  I did half of that. I looked at the commands to see what it did, what folders it made. Then I checked that the dockers pulled is the same from the official docker sites. I pasted the codes in rather than manual typing though. I’ve done this from sonarr, radar, audiobookshelf, jellyfin and sabnzbd.
  The terminal commands to get dockers working I did copy directly from deepseek after checking it’s the same on docker’s site. Weird part is I tried to follow docker’s instructions first but it didn’t work. Then after looking at deepseek, it gave the same instructions from a different page of deepseek. So what I copied into command should have been the same.
  Other than that I don’t really install anything as I’m quite paranoid about these stuff.

it's a good os. on the other hand everytime i learned anything in windows it would get invalidated by new ux and new bugs...

Do you guys also keep a notepad file on your desktop with all the usual commands and shortcuts on it? I can't imagine remembering them all otherwise... and I kind of cringe at the non stop DDG ing I have to do to do some basic liux stuff.
- I press up key in terminal to find my commands, as for shortcuts I only use a few so I already remembered all of them
- Just go up arrow til you dont need to anymore lol, i sometimes keep a sticky note, wish gnome had a sticky note in the topbar extension
  
  Doesn't gnome have that sticky app?
- Yes.
  Source: Am Systems Admin (engineer/architect/your mom)
  
  This guy's lucky to have such a good mum.
  Remember to share your notepad with them, even if they're all like, "mom, your bash usage is like from the '90s, so cringe!" Behind all the fuss, they're still learning from you.
- I've got things that need to run periodically set up in crontab, and create menu launchers for things that I run as needed.
- Try a different shell, like fish or zsh, maybe. Something with really intense command auto-completion and history.
  I personally use fish, it is amazing for this kind of thing.
  ETA: also read up on rc files for whatever shell you are using. Creating aliases and functions based on what you do all the time is essential IMO.
- I use the up key for that
- I use KDE, and I put a sticky note widget on my top bar, so when you click it, it drops down (and then disappears when you click off of it). Whatever is on it is saved between sessions.
  Works great for this kind of thing.
  Edit: I also put a webbrowser widget up there that points to this handy site: https://linuxcommandlibrary.com/
  Same deal, click the icon and the site drops down.
- I use obsidian to make notes of how to install and setup applications from a fresh install, for example to install mariadb-libs when I install digikam so that I can use the mariadb database on my nas, and the way to mount my nas shares in fstab
- I'm using my companies' mediawiki personal user page to keep snippets and one liners that took me some time to cobble together. I export that regularly to a personal device, so, yes. I've found that I never look at it because once I've hammered something together I usually got the concept so next time it takes me a fraction of the time.
- No. Stuff I use more than once I just put in a shell file. I don't really run much on the terminal besides those files and using it to update my system.
- Sometimes I'm searching for a recipe to some obscure Linux tool and finding my own answers on Stackoverflow from ten years ago.
- I ctrl-r my history and set the histsize to some ludicrous value
  
  History is documentation enough.
- Yup
- No never even crossed my mind but ig I was also in a competition for Linux that required me to memorize basically every single command and option
  
  Which is bullshit tbh, which in turn is why I don't like LPIC. Even RedHat exams give you VMs with full manpages. Know concepts and know what to expect from which tool, everything else is wasted resources.

You'll get to the point where you can't use windows anymore XD
- I had to troubleshoot some windows problems for family a bit back, and it was the worst x3
- I'm about at that point. I had to set up a Windows VM last year to do some testing. It was more of a struggle to install than I expected.
  
  I stopped using it regularly several years ago, then I come back to help someone install it and it took me more time than I want to admit to figure out how to make a local account that wasn't attached to a Microsoft cloud account.
- Joke's on me, I still have to use windows at work!
- Nah, even a kid can handle Windows. But after becoming a Linux user, I don't even want to look at Windows, that's for sure.
  
  A young enough kid can handle just about anything put in front of them at the same rate. When you are learning from zero there isn't a ton of difference.
  I mean early 2000s? Oh windows easier 100%. But today? Both are easy im different ways and to a child just starting out on computer it won't matter

That's why sausages are better than Linux: you can start using them on a professional level right from the start. And as a bonus sausages don't use Nvidia!
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/nvidia-breakfast-bytes-are-now-available-at-dennys-if-you-want-to-experience-the-breakfast-of-geniuses
  
  ...and this was before April...

But I use Linux all the time and am still horrible at it!
- Fr, GitHub may as well be written in wingdings
  Thank Linus for nerds that write proper readmes

Meanwhile, when, as a little more than a basic user, I look at my system, feeling as if I'm dealing with a dumpster fire just to have that nagging recurrent insight: "I actually have a brain and can learn!"

You can actually go through the motions for years and learn nothing if the software allows for it.

Hopefully we can make progress on the "getting people started" front instead of the "I hate UI and am superior to others" circlejerk
- I've tried my hardest to use Linux but gave up. I want to like it, but the hurdle is too high to get everyone on board. At the end of the day, the computer is a tool. Maybe a hand made walking stick is better than a manufactured one - someone who is not versed in the ergonomics and construction of walking sticks is going to opt for the stick that enables them to walk today. I use computers enough to see learning Linux as an investment, it's just not something I have time for today.
  
  I like that analogy. A walking stick you buy from a store can never fit you as perfectly as one you make yourself, but if you don't know how to make a walking stick, you're gonna make a shitty walking stick. I'm happy that I'm in a position to walk with a shitty stick until I get better at carving, so to speak
- I haven't personally encountered any of that myself. I personally don't use GUIs (UI could also refer to a terminal) for anything other than apps that implemented one for their own settings and unless they use the same terminology as the terminal commands or files I wouldn't be able to guide anybody through one. So if people are just unwilling to learn how to use a inferior yet simpler way to do something just because somebody who asked for help finds it simpler that seems totally reasonable.

That was me for a while, then I decided I was done learning computer. 💩

Me when I realize the more I use Termux, the better I get at using Debian