Some trouble

No idea what you mean. I just quickly wanted to update before calling it a night, got a grub update and now it neither boots the default nor the fallback image. I use Arch BTW.

My grandma runs Ubuntu and has gotten by fine without the command line

I accept this fate.

FUD

I haven't had this kind of problems with Fedora or Nobara, for me they just work. I've had more problems and used more time troubleshooting Windows than Linux

Yeah I’m not sure the last time you used Linux but it’s nothing like that these days. As long as you stick with a well established distribution you’ll be fine. I haven’t had to go in a “fix” an update in a while, even in some of the beta updates they’re fairly stable.

And brick your install when you want to use a package made for an older version of your distro. Got Debian 11? Good luck running that utility built for Debian 10! (or Ubuntu 22.04 and utility built for 18.04)

Mostly just when you initially install like most OSes ; browsers, office suits, game launchers, etc... My mother doesn't even notice fedora automatically installing updates when she turns her PC off. (I enabled automatic updates for her)

Even with my arch Linux install with Hyprland, most of the time I just update before I turn it off. With a terminal command but even that is just paru and my password or flatpak update. If I had kde or gnome desktop, I could set it up to auto update too.

Sometimes I don't even bother and use the computer without updating it for a couple of months or it automatically updates when I install new software.

Fedora. Flatpak. Good experience chheeck.

Just use nobara or pop!_OS, makes everything a lot easier

TIHI

I do not prefer apt-based systems, but I've installed variations of Ubuntu (e.g. Mint) on systems for geriatric (grand)parents in the past 5 years and have not yet needed to drop into shell to fix something.

If the needs are basic (browsing, email, printing, documents), Linux hasn't needed wizardry for years. This is mostly thanks to Gnome and KDE's hard work on GUI admin tools, but if someone is going directly from Windows to i3, they've chosen a steep hill to climb.

My suspicion is it's not just your sexy Linux story but the only sexy Linux story.

This is the best blowjob story I've read yet lol

AMEN! I asked recently if there was a good Linux alternative to this program I used in Windows called "Bulk Rename Utility" and i was flooded by people telling me how easy it was to set up a script to do what I want.

Turns out the best alternative is running BRU in Wine.

"Why even use a DE? Try a WM like openbox"

Well, because a lot of things are simplified with DE functionality, and not everyone has the same preferences...

I still don't understand why there isn't a terminal-gui (you know, those text but graphical utilities) for basic stuff like mounting a network share. Why do I still need to manually edit fstab?!?

Based 😁

I do have to vouch for sometimes the command line is easier, not with everything but sometimes. Like my VPN sometimes it’s a little slow on the uptake and finding a server all that nonsense but I can also just have a few taps away at the command line and bing bang boom it’s done.

As a former computer service technician, we used Ubuntu Live USB and DVDs (yes it was a long ago) a lot.

I remember something happened to my family's Windows computer once. A system file had gotten corrupted somehow so it could only boot into the repair utility, which, naturally, couldn't repair the file.

The solution I found on Google was to put in the installation disc (I think it was Windows 7?), run the disc at startup (by switching the boot order in the BIOS), and fix it using Command Prompt on the disc.

Windows' own diagnostic tool included with the OS couldn't fix the problem. Only the disc could. It was pretty fortunate we still had that thing. Until then, it had just been sitting there collecting dust.

Windows lacking tooling to fix issues caused by its own malfeasance was what made my switch to Linux permanent. I used a LiveCD to fix file system issues that Windows had no tools for unless I wanted to pay thousands for janky third-party tools. Once I did that and recovered most of my lost data, I thought long and hard and just said "fuck it, I'll use Linux".

None of my family will run Linux, however, on my recommendation. I can cope with Linux's ... selective set of user friends. They can't, and I'll be damned if I turn into free tech support.

"Let me Bing that for you"

From my experience you wind up just hitting up YouTube or stack exchange or something similar for a tutorial on how to do something that could work out the box on a Windows machine

Or sfc scannow, absolute classic

"Glad you are interested

<friend>

, just follow this simple guide"

Perhaps the real tech support was the friends we installed Linux for along the way.

My Aunt bought a new laptop to run her eBay/Facebook selling business on. She's not particularly techy but has used Windows machines for admin work for prob 20 years or so. Laptop had no office apps installed and she tracks everything in a spreadsheet. Original plan was to install Libreoffice but it was running some budget version of Windows 10 you can't install anything on, can't remember what it's called. So I installed Fedora. Chromium and Libreoffice Calc open on login, her ancient HP printer works, she's able to access her camera as USB mass storage when she lists items and unattended upgrades are enabled. That was 2 years ago, no problems since.

I installed Linux to my tech illiterate parents. They are doing fine. No issues in years.

I don't because I don't wanna be that guy.

But in general these days, I'd absolutely recommend it. Anything in the debian family is just as easy to use as windows. As long as you hook them up with some good cron jobs for auto updates and rollbacks on failures and stuff, they'll be right as rain.

To be clear, I wouldn't have in like 2015.

As long as the distro is stable anyone can use it to use a browser and browse the internet. I had put Ubuntu Linux for my mom on a laptop, back in 2010, she was using just the browser. She had it for 2 years, no problems. She did nothing else with that laptop though, because that was the first time she was using a computer. She was mostly facebooking.

Often it's worse. It like telling people to move to a different country because the roads are better there.

Car is making some weird sounds -> you slipped a bearing, your head gasket is blown, or something else catastrophic, because you bought a Ford/Kia/etc. -> buy a new car

Ehh

More like someone saying

"Then change the station"

When someone complains

"I don't like the ads on this radio station that I listen to in my car on the drive home"

There's no financial loss by doing so, it's relatively easy, just have to find out which frequency another broadcast you like is playing on

I don’t do tech support but I can’t relate at all.

Windows is consistently the lowest quality software I interact with and Linux (Fedora) works out to be more reliable, simple, and often better featured.

Got a 2060. Nvidia and EasyAntiCheat were the reasons I performed the ultimate act of heretical blasphemy in installing Windows on my computer

This, any old laptop with Windows xp, 7 or even ReactOS would do tbh, don't want to raise the bar giving a teenager an expensive win11 "Optimus Prime" box

I had the same experience as you did: I've tried Linux every few years ever since someone brought it to my attention in the nineties. And it always felt like a hobby instead of an invisible layer that just makes my computer tick. After Microsoft tried to ram W11 up my arse for the umpteenth time, I tried again recently. And it was amazing. Absolutely zero driver issues and it is FAST and CLEAN. No pop-ups or sneaky ads or any of the other things that make me feel like a tenant on my own computer. I now have a dual boot setup Ubuntu/W10, where I really only still use the W10 boot for games. And I have my office and audio software living in separate VM's that I can use regardless of which OS I booted into at the start.

It's awesome.

Three distros usually get recommended as fairly hassle-free. Ubuntu (personally haven't used since 2012 or so, don't like that they started advertising stuff), Linux Mint (haven't used in years either, but through no fault of Mint - I changed to something less hassle-free, Gentoo) and Pop!_OS. The latter uses customized Unity, but is working on its' own desktop environment. I have a feeling that when they're finished with it, it will be very user friendly (maybe not the FIRST release, but certainly the later ones).

Mint and Pop!_OS are both based on Ubuntu, so you'll have the vast repository of knowledge that is AskUbuntu to help you with most things.

So get one of those 3 distros and you'll be good! They come in different flavours (desktop environments), I believe GNOME is the most polished one, KDE (on

Also there's two new methods to install software - flatpaks and snaps. Flatpaks are considered the better standard and are supported by Linux Mint and Pop!_OS out of the box and Ubuntu... tries to force you to use snaps. Flatpak is decentralized and anyone can host a store (but mostly you just need Flathub, which is configured by default on most distros I believe). Snap is centralized and its' backend is closed-source, so you're dependent on Canonical.

Both of these install your software in a sort of sandbox that manages the dependencies - this means there should be no library version conflicts, so it doesn't matter what the system version of library X is, the application can use whatever version it needs. Should be a way to reduce compatibility issues on your Linux system, I believe - I haven't tried them yet, mostly because I minimized my kernel to the point where flatpak was complaining about missing some filesystem driver, and I didn't care too much about getting it to work. Will do it soon though.

As for gaming - Pop!_OS has an image available that comes with nVidia drivers straight out of the box, but the other ones I suggested, will also allow you to install them easily. Steam can be installed via apt (may require configuring a secondary repository) or flatpak (Flathub has it!). Once you have Steam installed, playing Windows games is as easy as checking compatibility on Protondb and seeing if there are any tips on whether you should use a non-default Proton version or add command-line options. But most games without draconian kernel-level anticheats work nowadays. New AAA games that don't work on default Proton get support fairly quickly on the GloriousEggroll fork of Proton, but that has to be installed manually (I guess nowadays there's an utility that can handle it too). However, oftentimes, a brand new game will work right away on existing Proton versions too. And sometimes there are regressions, so you may also want to try older Proton versions for some games. But that's as simple as changing a setup option in the Steam GUI. No terminal-fu required.

Overall, it's actually fairly pleasant compared to what it was 10 years ago, when you had to configure wine and pray. Proton handles all that for you. If you're a patient person and can wait a few weeks or months after a game comes out, it's very good, otherwise it can be a bit hit and miss.

You CAN also play non-steam games using Proton via Steam. I played through the entirety of AC Valhalla that way, by adding Ubisoft launcher as a non-steam App. Completely unsupported so it doesn't have a special config like it does for officially supported games, but it worked, just had to change the version to something old

Yeah ignore the people in this thread. I've been using Linux for the past year and a half, and it's the exact same experience for me. And I am definitely more technology literate than the average person.

As much as people want to believe that Linux is easy and hassle-free, it's not, and it is a long way off. They are biased because they have technical knowledge so they don't see the problems that the average user would have.

That being said, I do like Linux. There's a reason why I still use it despite all this. But it's up to you if it's worth it.

Edit: Also all the people recommending Linux Mint, in my experience, it was horrible! Very unstable, and not even very customisable. I feel like I'm going crazy. Can someone explain why it's so popular? Was I doing something wrong?

This is why Linux fanboys also need to embrace the "use the best tool for the job". I use Linux, just not on my daily driver gaming PC. But I also wouldn't use Windows as a hypervisor... they all have their place.

good luck this time, here's guide that got me to switch

It's definitely different environment so there are lots of small things that you have to get used to.

In all my years of using Linux I have used about every major distro there is. I still stick to the old and tried advice, if people want hassle free distro, they should use Ubuntu.

I'm not happy with snaps but that's a minor flaw. It still provides the best out of the box experience for people who just want stuff to work.

Dual-boot can be set up at the installation process automatically. Just make sure you have enough space on your NTFS for the installer to make it smaller and stay alert that you pick the correct partitioning scheme on installation "install Ubuntu alongside Windows". Steam, Nvidia drivers all just work on Ubuntu. No need to tinker.

Pretty much. I'd absolutely love to run an idiot proof distro. If one existed.

Doesn’t even have to be a "class of idiots". It would be enough if stuff didn’t just sometimes break, seemingly randomly. (It’s not quite random, obviously.)

Recent example: I had OpenSuse TW recommended because of its reliability. First tip: install codecs, which requires adding the Packman repository. Now, simply updating threw up errors several times because Packman and the other repositories are apparently not in sync, and some dependencies would break if I updated. (Waiting a few days "fixed" it, but still shouldn’t happen.)

Depending on which update method you use (Yast/Discovery/zypper/update widget) you get different error messages, most of which are not informative. This is for an established distribution known for its reliability, and this alone would keep me from ever recommending it to normal users, even moderately tech-savvy ones.

Things are getting better, but I’m still shopping around for a distro that just works. Perhaps that new Fedora version, or one of the immutable ones, now that they are getting popular.

Ubuntu does this well with gnome shell, where it's more like using a mobile device that a desktop. To be truly idiot proof you just need to prevent actually interesting software from being installed :D

username checks out

I would disagree with "average casual user" or maybe I think about them differently. For me average casual user now is completely fine with Linux distribution like Mint or Ubuntu or similar (or maybe chrome os). And with that they are little bit safer online as they are usual targets and victims of malicious software etc.

I think casual users are type of people completely happy with internet browser, media player, image viewer and just basic software ... They are usually satisfied with regular Android phone Wich is enough for everything they do in computer space.

This type of users (like my mother and other members of family) are fine with major Linux distros. They don't care about OS they use, it means nothing to them.

This is where I draw the line when suggesting Linux to people. If they don't know and don't care ..Linux is usually fine. If they are aware of what type of os they use or even what version ( talking about Windows) I will suggest Linux only if they are open to it and I'm willing to help and recommend some software alternatives.

This is the way

Windex stands for WINDows EXit so they're the same thing anyway

Nah bro, don't get let yourself get locked into shit, get both, just get one laptop running two o.s and use whichever one suits the job you're trying to do

Screen and tmux are your friends in this situation. They can keep your vim session alive when your SSH connection drops, so you can reconnect and continue where you left off.

Have you tried using Mosh? It's the "Mobile Shell" which was built to survive the dodgey connections of WiFi, mobile/cell and long distance SSH connections. Well worth a look if you're having problems with a disconnecting shell.

It's available on all versions of Linux, iOS, Mac and Android.

Holy hell, three Decks? How did they get bricked? I've had mine since the second shipment batch and beyond some very early software issues it's been pretty solid.

No, bird 2 then screams at bird 1 for using Ubuntu and recommends

<FLAVOR OF THE MONTH HERE>

Arch be in them context clues.

My guess your brother with Linux? It's probably used as a wank machine with privacy feature built-in no need to worry Microsoft looking into your browser history lmao.

Unfortunately that's the only reasonable advice. Did it myself a few years ago and it was painful for like 3 months and now having to use corporate BS à la Apple / Microsoft seems bafflingly limiting and counter intuitive to me.

For my servers, already done. For my daily driver? Hell no.

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

I honestly can't tell if you are making an ironic joke

In the last decade the only serious troubleshooting I've had to do is on non-Windows OSes. Including an install of Ubuntu that I blew away because it froze in the middle of an upgrade and couldn't load into the OS anymore.

So, speaking from personal experience, Windows is what I use when I just want stuff to work. Other OSes are fun when I have time to kill trying to figure out how to do things.