Why should I bother with a snobbish OS?

First of all, sorry if this title triggered you.
I lurked in the various Linux communities for a while, sometimes posting (to my demise), and receiving mostly negative feedback/sarcastic comments, to the point where it almost felt like I was on /b/.

Let me preface this post by saying this: I tried. I tried various distros on a VM, and finally, wiped my SSD, and installed first Ubuntu, then Fedora, and then, a few obscure distros (Edubuntu, UberStudent...), and everytime I booted my computer, it was a pain in the ass, a colossal pain in the ass. Maybe I should have jumped the fence knowing that I would have to get my hand dirty, and to a certain degree I was prepared for that. But I didn't expect my Linux experience to be so dreadful, in fact it was difficult to admit that my attempts pretty much all failed, because I wanted to use this OS, I wanted to join the club.
I know that the learning curve is steep, but would my experience really change, even after grinding for a few months between the terminal, and the barebones graphical interface ? I don't know, maybe you can tell me.
Is Linux a difficult relationship that deserve my investment in the long term ? Or is it more a one night-stand-and-we-see-how-it-goes-from-there kind of deal ?

Thanks for reading me, i'd like to quickly point out that I do not judge you, nor do I demean you if you use Linux. It is probably a fantastic platform to evolve on, and kudos to you for sticking to it, in fact, I envy you.

Yeah its difficult to do anything if you don't know how. And to answer your question; yes, it would get better with time as you learn more about how the operating system works. And its not snobbish, you don't get mad at vehicles just because they're driven by assholes do you? But yeah, after about 8 months of using linux everyday and reading the man pages life got better.

2 Likes

Why don't you try something that's REALLY beginner friendly like Linux Mint? It looks really nice, it has an active and friendly community and it's a really easy way to get into Linux. And you can do a dual boot with your Windows installation really easy. If you get frustrated with it you can just quit and boot into Windows but your Linux will still wait for you right where you left off when you decide to give it another shot.

1 Like

Linux CAN be difficult at first but it doesnt have to be. What really helped me was watching Wendell's videos. The terminology video as well as the Ubuntu Gnome. Watching these videos made it very easy for me. And Linux really isnt snobbish, in some cases the users are snobs. With the right guide you can totally learn to use linux

1 Like

Well like with all things learning new stuff takes time, but then there's the harder part; forgetting how you did stuff on another platform and learning how to use a system in a completely different way.

How can a piece of software be "snobbish". Moreover, lets not confuse the term community with user-base.

/b/

Use reddit (/r/linux4noobs, /r/linuxmasterrace) or this forum instead.

even after grinding for a few months between the terminal

How have you spent months on "learning" linux. What are you attempted to achieve? Most user-friendly desktop distribution do not require any use of the terminal. GNU/Linux is only as complicated as you choose to make it.

1 Like

triggered you ?

Edubuntu, UberStudent ?

Snobbish ?

/b ?

What the ...

People place their parents, grandparents in front of Ubuntu / Mint and they never say anything again and just use it fine.

1 Like

maybe Linux isn't for you?
there's nothing wrong with that.

I agree with @meggerman have this topic doesn't make sense.

What was a pain in the ass? What was wrong? What issues did you have?

I'm not trying to be mean but you post is complaining about.. nothing.

You tried uberstudent... what on earth is that?.. it makes me wonder what on earth youve been doing with Linux and no wonder your having issues.. but I can't tell because you haven't described a single problem you've had with Linux.

A few months on the terminal and bare bones graphical interface (what is a bare bones interface?) And not a single post here about it?

I'm confused.

1 Like

Personally if you think any OS "Deserves" you then you're missing the point, and I think you're missing the point anyways. The point of linux is to drive your machine how you want. Theres lots of interfaces, tools, and lots of ways to do things. 4 years ago I would have told you you didn't need MUCH of the terminal. 9 years ago I would have been pissed at the terminal. 15 years ago I would have been asking what a terminal even was.

Now? Depending on the OS you shouldn't even need to touch it unless you want to learn it. If you wanted a basic OS Ubuntu Mate is what I would give you. Maybe Netrunner if you weren't going to try and break it. I tell this to everyone who makes these sorts of threads so its nothing new.

Now, as to snobbish I assume you mean the arch elitists? Sabayon hethens? Suse Heretics?

I need to play dawn of war....

Anyways, what you learn about in linux is more on how you work. Linux is awesome because it works WITH you, not against you. Windows can break at such a low level that you will not know until the whole OS is fucked. Windows is a mess on that front. Linux? Linux gives you all of the notes you need. It gives you what you need to know and what you really probably don't need access to. If something breaks, you'll know, and at that you can open it, flip it out with a new piece, and fix it. Windows needs a patch on its tyre, linux just gives you a new tyre. For free.

What linux is good for is making your environment for you. I like KDE and AwesomeWM. I would like to make my own desktop environment though and I have the freedom to do that, I just don't have the knowledge. But I can learn!

The underlying power of the hardware you have can be made a lot easier to access. Hard drive File Systems are a great thing to look up for your OS. I use XFS on EVERYTHING. Why? Anything over 5 GB will just have its label changed so it appears in that directory (what I mean by that is say I have a ZIP file that is 14 GB in the directory ~/Volt/Zap.ZIP. Now say I move Zap.ZIP to ~/Ohm. Instead of waiting 3 minutes for it to move byte by byte as you would in windows, it changes its directory label and gives it a flag. Most would yell about fragmentation but it has a defrag tool built in and what doesn't transfer is moved as the old directory is cleaned). Nothing has ever been broken in the 6 or 7 years I have been using XFS. If you wanted redundancy you would use JFS. It scans files that it has logged before and after login/logout. It does a disk check on boot and will notify you of anything wrong.

Lastly, do some research and learn about what you have problems with. You can message me if you have questions and theres lots of other linux users like @Eden, @anon63470048, and @Tjj226_Angel who are very knowledgable in their own areas. Use the assets available to you on the forum. Please also read documentation from sites like the arch wiki and learn the Syntax of these tools. Theres a learning curve, yes, but this is the base of it all really.

DE, base system, syntax. Theres a discord as well. Most of us on there know what you'll probably ask about. MSG me if you want to join it.

So, good luck! Welcome to the linux world. You're pissed at it now, but we were all there at one point.

Even Torvalds.

google.com

Git good and quit whining.

Try Ubuntu Mate, Linux mint, linux lite. The community is really good here for support , and so is the Linux lite forum.

tl;dr
The internet will help with guides
Use Linux as a side OS if you want to try it out

Run Linux as a side machine and slowly learn it.
Google and YouTube will be your best friend to help.

Worst case is that you will have ask the forums for help

Heck I used the Arch Anywhere installer to set it up on laptop (and yet with barely any experience I got octopi and the essentials setup).

I use Windows on my main PC (because I am pragmatic), but I am currently running Arch on my Laptop.

Starting with a GUI based environment/installer can help transition.

Finding a YouTuber with a voice you like and a video series on setting up a version of Linux helped me the most.

I've gotten myself in some worlds of shit installing linux OS's on older laptops. Like Lubuntu... gave me so many problems I just quit. However Ubuntu being like the main linux OS has always been a relatively simple install and i usually do it on an hdd partition

I guess you might be unlucky and have a system with some hardware in it that isn't that well supported. I've found various distro's hit and miss. I'm using Fedora 24 at the moment and it's all good - except sometimes it will not recover from being suspended. Before that I've had problems with AMD GPU's and some wifi cards etc etc.

If your patience has worn out and you have Windows, just go back to that. Nearly all Open-Source programmes people use on Linux are available there and if you are sensible you can keep it secure without much effort.