edit: for anyone curious, the problem was Xorg wasnt loading or something (stuck on systemd 'graphical interface target reached' with no graphical interface). because of a typo in a config file.
Potatos_are_not_friends 18 points 3 years ago
I question who these imaginary windows users are.
I set up Windows for my parents. The biggest challenges is them not not knowing how to log into their email. Every 2-3 years, I move their stuff to the cloud and throw in a fresh Windows. Did that for 15 years. Not once did I have to mess with any weird settings for them.
During the pandemic, hating windows 11, I switched them over to linux. Every month, there's a new problem. Audio stopped working. Had some DNS issues (that required me to zoom call my brother) They did some weird things where they downloaded two Google chromes (?). I'd have to run updates manually because I don't trust them to open up terminal.
Already Linux for my parents requires more support than anything else.
I still plan to keep encouraging them to use Linux, because I really don't like the new WIn11 updates.
SaltyIceteaMaker 2 points 3 years ago
The preinstalled garbage is also annoying, but can be uninstalled easily.
Edge begs to differ
dantheclamman 7 points 3 years ago
My mom barely uses desktop anymore. Everything on iPad essentially. I'm chuckling thinking of what she'd do to me if I tried to migrate her to linux.
seitanic 3 points 3 years ago
Different people's experiences are different. My Linux installs are stable. My Windows installs are garbage.
Which distro are you using? For what you describe, it should be something like Pop! OS or Ubuntu.
avidamoeba 2 points 3 years ago
For real. I spend a lot less time supporting my Ubuntu users than Windows users. I push them into Ubuntu not for ideological or moral reasons but to save my hair. I keep saying Ubuntu because I mean it. Some folks picture Arch or some other non-boring OS when people say Linux and that would be counterproductive in this context.
avidamoeba -1 points 3 years ago
I question who these imaginary windows users are.
I set up Windows for my parents. The biggest challenges is them not not knowing how to log into their email. Every 2-3 years, I move their stuff to the cloud and throw in a fresh Windows. Did that for 15 years. Not once did I have to mess with any weird settings for them.
Read the following in a super friendly tone.
Sounds like you might be one of these Windows users. π Most Linux users I know, who have managed to kick the Windows reinstall habit, install Linux at the time of hardware purchase and never reinstall. It's a robust habit taught to us by Microsoft's not-that-great software combined with lax documentation. Personally I'm on Linux since 2005 and only managed to kick the habit around 2012. My current main machine I built in 2014. Installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on it and it's just been upgraded ever since. It got switched from Intel to AMD half way through. Its SSD setup changed from SATA to NVMe, then NVMe MDRAID. Several graphics cards replacements. Zero reinatalls. A friend of mine has an Ubuntu install that dates to 10.04. The better you understand how the system works, the more pointless it becomes to nuke and pave.
During the pandemic, hating windows 11, I switched them over to linux. Every month, there's a new problem. Audio stopped working. Had some DNS issues (that required me to zoom call my brother) They did some weird things where they downloaded two Google chromes (?). I'd have to run updates manually because I don't trust them to open up terminal.
Already Linux for my parents requires more support than anything else.
Sounds like an administration issue. Ubuntu LTS with unattended upgrades and without sudo membership for their users wouldn't run into surprising breakage, update problems or unwanted installed software. Or Debian stable for that matter but that's more work to setup.
Ddhuud 13 points 3 years ago
Figuring out? It's right there in the logs.
Fast disks are spoiling the next generation. Back in the day, 2 minutes reading could save you half an hour of reinstalling. But if reinstalling takes about the same amount of time, I guess there's no more incentive to actually learn something.
GregoryTheGreat 1 point 3 years ago
You done use anything but the base system install? No extra software? Are you okay?
Haui 11 points 3 years ago
I am new to desktop linux. It is a pain to not know certain troubleshooting steps as I do mostly for server linux.
For example, not knowing what the gui consists of, which applications are essential and which are not.
brakenium 6 points 3 years ago
In that case I would like to recommend you install Arch at least once. Not to actually use in production, but it made a lot of things click for me that help me with server stuff too. Just follow along with the install guide on the wiki inside of a VM.
If you really want to know what applications are essential I'd install a window manager and not just install the gnome package. Though even just installing your favourite DE will work fine.
I've heard other people recommend Gentoo and Linux from scratch as well for this purpose since they go even deeper, but that may be too much to start off with and I haven't done that myself
taaz 3 points 3 years ago
I feel this, especially the GUI/Desktop essential stuff, and I have been daily driving Linux on desktop for about 8 years now.
Going from Debian with Mate to Arch with AwesomeWM (minimal tiled window manager), there is a lot you actually need to know and it's convoluted how it interacts with each other, a lot of it is thru dbus but some things go thru env variables - .xprofile, .profile, bashrc/zshrc, pam_env.
Yesterday I found out I am actually not running any gui polkit agents - I had it installed (possibly for years) but the .deskop file had OnlyShowIn=Xfce so Dex didn't autostart it.
Sometimes I do feel like I am just making my life harder for no reason but I love the minimal UI and kb navigation.
Haui 1 point 3 years ago
Thank you very much for this explanation. i will try to check out some books on the matter. I feel like we (as in the community around linux) need to have a chat about helping others and not judging. :) we have a great opportunity here to gather a lot more users from windows but we wont until we manage to actually welcome and not insult them all the time.
NikkiNikkiNikki 3 points 3 years ago
The real terminal fun comes from accidentally entering grub's rescue mode when you fuck the config up, and then having to frantically remember how to boot linux manually
uranibaba 4 points 3 years ago
I'm just glad I have more than one device with internet access in my home. The one time a vm update was pushed to desktop users on Linux Mint, killing the desktop for anyone who got the update. I had to use my phone to find out what how to restore my pc.
emptiestplace 0 points 3 years ago
aw, you got better :)
toy_boat_toy_boat 5 points 3 years ago
- What distro?
- Are you hiring? If not, are you mentoring?
- I make a great [food]!
- Or have you just been stuck using Windows for the past ten years?
azvasKvklenko 38 points 3 years ago
Cannot relate to that. I modify the crap out of my Arch install and keep it in perfect condition all the time.
NikkiNikkiNikki 7 points 3 years ago
7 years strong here with only 1 reinstall to switch to 64 bit
NikkiNikkiNikki 1 point 3 years ago
2 reinstalls now* I had to upgrade my NVME drive and the old one shit the bed while I was moving data, so everything on this system is fresh now.... At least I keep the important stuff backed up in git haha
ccdfa 1 point 3 years ago
I was definitely scared if Arch before trying it. Seemed like the general consensus was that it wasn't a matter of if Arch would break, but when. I heard that updating everything will eventually break the system. Well, I figured, I'd like to try it just to see. I haven't had a single problem and it's the setup I'm most proud of l, having spent the most amount of time building it up to exactly how I like it.
toy_boat_toy_boat 32 points 3 years ago
- Eventually return to Mint and admit you don't know as much as you thought you did
fuck_u_spez_in_particular 15 points 3 years ago
- You get bored again and find NixOS, and your head explodes, but you have found the final distro.
toy_boat_toy_boat 5 points 3 years ago
oh no it's time again...
cybersandwich 2 points 3 years ago path: 0 3760723 3760918 3762095 3763084, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 7
dukk 5 points 3 years ago
I mean, I use NixOS daily, and aside from installing the occasional package or setting up some dot files, I donβt really touch my Nix config. NixOS was my first daily driver Linux distro and it has a lot of features that I probably take for granted. Early on, I felt like switching from GNOME to KDE. Two lines. Later on installed Hyprland, no problem, then switched to XMonad(had some Wayland issues) and it was stupidly painless.
Sure, Nix has its βfuck youβ moments too, but those are usually never anything truly system-breaking, and can be fixed after an hour or two of Discord support chats. In my eyes, the benefits of Nix definitely outweigh the flaws. Do I wish it was a slightly more sane language? Perhaps. But itβs really when you start using it that you learn to appreciate everything you get. Seriously, I much prefer editing a couple of lines in a config file to pasting commands off the Internet in hopes to achieve what Iβm looking for.
NixOS is, imho, the best Linux distro for programmers or anyone with a decent understanding of Linux (obviously not for computer noobs, and thatβs totally fine).
fuck_u_spez_in_particular 4 points 3 years ago
It's not for everyone. I think it's almost a requirement to be a programmer, and to be familiar with functional programming. It also has quite a few (necessary?) quirks/magic (module system, overlays, typing, config overrides etc.).
Actually one of my colleagues just switched from Pop OS! since System76 put all focus into their new desktop environment (while the current distro is barely maintained), which will be available on NixOS too, when it's ready (which is his plan to use, and mine too).
adept 2 points 3 years ago
As long as you arent doing anything to advanced nix is basically only a configuration languages. You probably have to make heavy use of the option search to know where and what to configure
dontcarebear 6 points 3 years ago path: 0 3760723 3760918 3766763, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 2
utopiah 4 points 3 years ago
... but if you do it starts here https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/...
I had a lot of fun few years ago.
dustyData 2 points 3 years ago
Please, always use a dedicated hard drive to tinker with LFS, never ever try anything on a machine that's suppose to be used for work or do anything else. You'll think this is common sense, but it's anything but. LFS is involved, complex and takes a significant chunk of time. Make sure you don't need that machine you're tinkering on.
NotAnAstronaut 4 points 3 years ago
I feel personally offended by this
alvanrahimli 2 points 3 years ago
This is a very accurate comment. I do like this every damn time. It has been years now lol!
Honytawk 2 points 3 years ago
Of course. Windows is the most widely used business OS for a reason.
They have options to manage anything, even reinstall Windows every time you open your laptop if you so wish. With preinstalled software, activation, mounting drives, specialised settings through GPO, ... and fully automated.
ky56 6 points 3 years ago
You seem to implying that doing anything other than using preinstalled apps like the web browser is "poking too much into the system" and are therefore idiots. As I have had a system break just by installing or upgrading packages on Ubuntu. Now I always use ZFS on root and make snapshots of everything beforehand.
PrincessZelda 4 points 3 years ago
I installed Ubuntu on my desktop I wasn't using for a while, then had to wipe it again a couple hours later after I seemingly bricked my OS installing a package necessary to run AppImages, except it uninstalled some pretty critical shit
linearchaos 18 points 3 years ago
The only time I've ever done this on Linux was 20 years ago, trying to f with XF86 before I understood it.
const_void 18 points 3 years ago
Reinstalling is the Windows way of solving problems.
toy_boat_toy_boat 6 points 3 years ago
Additionally, going full Linux and then trying to install Windows again is a nightmare (but I guess that's not really what we're talking about here).
okamiueru 5 points 3 years ago
I learned the hard way to never trust windows to not destroy other disks. One time it decided to place the boot partition on a disk it saw having a unknown file system. Turns out it was a disk on a raid-array. After that I physically unpower all other disks before installing windows.
jelloeater85 16 points 3 years ago
I mean, who doesn't use snapshots these days? BTRFS / ZFS has saved me days of grief.
GodsKillerKirb 8 points 3 years ago
As an Arch user, BTRFS has saved me SO much pain, suffering, and time. BTRFS is a LIFESAVER!
thedeadwalking4242 3 points 3 years ago
Love nix
fuck_u_spez_in_particular 1 point 3 years ago
This is the way
Bonehead 15 points 3 years ago
You need to rethink your reinstall process. My root is on a separate drive from my home directory. My home directory has a script that installs all of my basic software, along with any specific config files that don't reside in my home directory naturally. I can reinstall the system in about an hour.
Klaymore 8 points 3 years ago
Yeah, I use NixOS so my whole system is defined in a couple config files, so when reinstalling I can just point the installer at my config and get (pretty much) the exact same system. Same packages, git config, aliases, package versions, firewall rules, kernel version, etc, only thing missing is a couple dotfiles I haven't switched over yet but those are synced using Syncthing anyways.
mihnt 3 points 3 years ago
This is basically what I used to do with Windows before I switched. All my document, picture, videos, music links pointed to my storage drive and I had a ninite installer with all my required programs ready to go. Plus my barebones microsoft account I used to save all my Windows settings so they just loaded right up when logging in after the new install.
Do you have/know of a guide to pull this kind of thing off on Mint?
brakenium 1 point 3 years ago
I used to use Ninite, but Chocolatey has so many more packages. These days I only have to export my package list to a file, reinstall windows, install chocolatey and install the packages by importing the file. That just leaves my favourite debloat script, some light setting changes and maybe the one or two programs that aren't on Chocolatey
utopiah 11 points 3 years ago
Surprising to me so I must do some things right :
- dedicated /home partition
- OS on SSD, new OS on fast USB stick
- backup on another physical disk of important data (usually a subset of /home )
- other partition for OS testing
- other working device for instructions and search online (mobile phone is usually enough)
- documented setup for complex tools, e.g /home/Prototypes where you might have container setups, e.g docker-compose.yml
Usually if you have this in place its a matter of hour, at most. Sure in 1h you will not have ALL the apps you need perfectly configured but, for me at least, enough to feel at "home" again. It's usually about having ~/.bashrc or ~/.tridactilrc in place but if you do have /home on another partition, it's basically "free".
brokenlcd 10 points 3 years ago
I have only really done this while i used windows, on linux i have always been able to find a solution that didn't require reinstalling; on windows on the other hand i had a time where it just started to bluescreen at every boot out of nowhere...
seitanic 1 point 3 years ago
They should explain what the commands do. Nobody should be blindly copy-pasting commands into their terminal.
Also, consider the source. Advice you get from Stack Overflow is going to be better than what you get from some random you DMed who said they were a "Linux ninja".
toy_boat_toy_boat 3 points 3 years ago
I scored a bunch of used SSDs from my old work that were out in the dumpster. Company was fine with tech dumpster diving back then. Now I can do full installs and really see what they do on my potato :)
HiddenLayer5 9 points 3 years ago
Goddammit I'm literally right now trying to decide if I want to spend an entire day wiping and reinstalling the OS in my main PC or if I can live with the current glitches for now. Full disclosure, in my case the glitchy behaviour is entirely on me trying to tinker with the OS and accidentally breaking stuff, not an issue with Linux or the distro.
Amends1782 3 points 3 years ago
Without hesitation I will always recommend reinstalling the os I have it down to a fucking science haha
bit_thanos 8 points 3 years ago
Fixing a small bug, then reinstall everything...
AllHailTheSheep 1 point 3 years ago
yep. not worth the troubleshooting time when you can pull a brand new image from the servers in about 5 minutes, especially when it ties into a file server so you don't have to worry about lost data.
DrTeeth 3 points 3 years ago
If you've done any weird customisations you may want to make a ba k up of /etc . I wouldn't recommend blindly restoring /etc , but at least you'll have a record of the system configs, should you need to redo stuff post reinstall.
NegativeLookBehind 6 points 3 years ago
Snapshots
magic_lobster_party 5 points 3 years ago
Did that just last week. Managed to break my system after an upgrade. I wasnβt in the mood to troubleshoot it, so I just wiped everything.
foiledAgain 3 points 3 years ago
literally about to do this today. Ubuntu->Fedora
Asymptote 3 points 3 years ago
I recently fucked a system because I wanted to resize the swap partition. Started throwing time after trying to recover. Realized that even if I succeeded, I'd have spent more time recovering than it would take to reestablish a new system, and no important data was on the system.
daredevil 2 points 3 years ago
Haven't needed to do either yet since I started using #EndeavourOS. I'm a bit surprised, given how many posts I've seen about people bricking their Arch installs.
Sanctus 2 points 3 years ago
Yeah I've been on it a solid 5-6 months and the only issue I had was on initial setup I forgot NetworkManager or lost it somehow. That was literally the only issue. Been less issues than Windows since.
cyanarchy 2 points 3 years ago
I mean I've had no end of problems, generally created and fixed by me. But none of them have raised to the level of breaking my machine or operating system. I guess I did upset it by giving fstab bad info, but it's not like I managed to uninstall system packages or something.
euphoric_cat 1 point 3 years ago path: 0 3753800 3764363, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
Jean_le_Flambeur 2 points 2 years ago
Trying to get teamspeak hotkeys to work in arch wayland - tinker with system for 2 hours - give up and try to revert the changes for 2 hours - give up and load btrfs snapshot - still got bugs you didn't have before - give up and install Debian.
bennieandthez 1 point 3 years ago
Me when i cant get rid of some weird dependencies.
Spacegrass -2 points 3 years ago
Thought it was just me.
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