Most distros let you auto-update. This can be set in Discover/Settings or whatever software manager you use.
Note that auto-update IME doesn’t always work for apps or flatpaks, or other things. You then have to hit the “ update” button manually. But no CLI needed on any of the 30+ distros I tested. This is for ALL distros EXCEPT Universal Blue.
The Universal Blue distros (Bazzite, Aurora, Bluefin) actually are truly maintenance free. Unless you disable that, they update flatpaks twice daily, and the system image weekly (daily if you go on the “latest” image, which normal users shouldn’t need). Literally never a need for a user to ever know there are updates. If you are a nerd you just see you are on new Kernels or DE version. Even the switch from 43 to 44 (they are based on Fedora) is automatic and without user interaction.
Do normal users ever know what Android version or what their phone app versions are? Do they ever need to use CLI? Exactly!
Don’t set up a PC for your grandma and then teach her to go in the terminal once a week to update. Set her up with a good distro
I’d be a little wary of letting btrfs get too full, or file systems in general getting too full. Performance may get bad just before they completely fill and then they’ll kick into read only mode - if everything goes bug free - running out of space is a bit of an edge case we try to avoid
Seeing you have 4 HDDs with low utilization, might be a fun thing to explore RAID, and the worlds of btrfs / LVM / LUKS / mdadm / ZFS one day.
Wow, lots of replies since I last replied here, going in no particular order:
@LovelyLuna That was a ballsy move pushing ahead with cachy after windows was destroyed and I commend it Good luck to the both of us growing out of microslop!
Ballsy indeed but keep in mind I had already tinkered with Linux off and on for a couple years on secondary devices so I knew a little bit of what I was getting into..and I wanted to switch over to Linux fully but the sunk cost fallacy and all the years of buildup on my windows install had been keeping me anchored. Soo..yeah, ballsy but the unintended clean start was what I had set as a condition for swapping over. Basically my plan was next time I had to do a clean slate start with Windows for whatever reason I’d swap to Linux.
@boarmeat The “6 months” was meant more for deeper knowledge, it takes longer. How many people on Windows use Group Policy Editor, Eventviewer or the Registry within 6 months? I doubt many. But it is what I did right after install (after I learned about them and what I liked etc).
What I mean is there is no hurry, no one expects you to know everything. I don’t think that is even possible.
Don’t stress, enjoy the journey.
ahh yeah that makes a lot of sense and is 100% what I’ve been doing. It’s a lot of fun to tinker!
@wertigon For better or worse LLMs killed these troubles for good for me.
… Mostly. You still need to know when the AI is kinda bullshitting you. Asking questions like “I’ve heard there is a newer tool for that?” can sometimes be helpful.
Yeah LLMs are great..kinda, and yeah if you don’t babysit them and have enough understanding to smell when they are pointing you in the wrong way it can get rather dangerous rather quickly. For example I once had Claude try to get me to delete and reinstall my bootloader..over a Steam issue..
@ack I’d be a little wary of letting btrfs get too full, or file systems in general getting too full. Performance may get bad just before they completely fill and then they’ll kick into read only mode - if everything goes bug free - running out of space is a bit of an edge case we try to avoid
Yeah I try to keep at least 50-100 gigs free especially on my home drive to prevent just such a thing from happening. I have dipped my toes into RAID but only when I was doing setup for my NAS which stores actual backups of what I consider important stuff.
I say this from the stance that I too really wanted to play Wardogs and was bummed when I read I couldn’t. Almost even went and got another nvme drive just to install windows and play, but then I realized that means I “lose”.
I am more ambivalent “Use the right tools for the right job” person. For example, I run PC VR on Windows. Given the niche nature of PC VR and the troubleshooting required for unsupported or experimental mods, adding Linux compatibility hurdles simply didn’t yield enough return on effort for me. So I use a second, headless Windows PC I remote into via Sunshine and which also has my Valve Index connected. For me, this isn’t losing . It also doesn’t mean that you have to lock-in into this environment or stop experimenting.
Good luck to the both of us growing out of microslop!