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@lemmy.world
        13·
        9 months 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.

        • brakenium@lemm.ee
          141·
          9 months ago

          It’s probably best to use an immutable distro like NixOs or Fedore SilverBlue when installing for people who don’t know Linux and don’t want to learn

        • Polar@lemmy.ca
          7·
          9 months ago

          Honestly the worst part about Windows is the fact that sometimes it will restart to install updates through the night, closing everything you had opened. The preinstalled garbage is also annoying, but can be uninstalled easily.

          Outside that, it honestly just works. It’s great for old people.

          My experience has been the same as yours. Trying to get WiFi, Audio, webcam, bluetooth, GPU, etc. working on a Linux distro is a nightmare. Then when you get it working somewhat, it’ll just be randomly borked the next time you boot your system. Requiring another 5 hours and 600 tabs of research to figure out what you did to fix it the first time.

        • seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org
          32·
          9 months 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.

          • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
            2·
            9 months 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.

        • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
          23·
          9 months 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. 😁 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.

  • kool_newt@lemm.eeEnglish
    211·
    9 months ago

    In enterprise, this usually is the way. No sense wasting engineer hours troubleshooting something in prod when you can use Ansible to replace the system and restore data in 10 minutes (while your redundant system handles the load of course).

  • archchan@lemmy.ml
    11·
    9 months ago

    I did that as a beginner a few times but now I’m able to resolve everything I need to with the good old terminal.

    • darcy@sh.itjust.worksOP
      2·
      9 months ago

      sometimes i just cant be bothered figuring out why systemd isnt starting a graphical interface, or whatever, and reinstalling doesnt take very long if you have a home partition

    • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      9 months 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@lemm.ee
        3·
        9 months 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

        • Haui@discuss.tchncs.de
          1·
          9 months ago

          Thank you very much for this suggestion. i will spin up a vm on virtualbox asap to check this out. :)

      • taaz@biglemmowski.winEnglish
        0·
        9 months 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@discuss.tchncs.de
          1·
          9 months 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@kbin.social
      0·
      9 months 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

  • HiddenLayer5@lemmy.mlEnglish
    7·
    9 months 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.

    • AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      9 months 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.

  • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    9 months ago

    The only time I’ve ever done this on Linux was 20 years ago, trying to f with XF86 before I understood it.

    • toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world
      3·
      9 months 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 :)