this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
343 points (92.3% liked)
Linux
48315 readers
976 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's funny you say that. I find the Linux way of getting software way more intuitive. Just hop in the terminal and use the package manager. When I used Windows, I always felt like I was doing something shady when I was getting a .exe. With drivers, I've only had an issue once; everything else was pre-compiled into the kernel. On Windows, I had driver issues a lot. For those reasons (and others), I switched full time to Linux almost a decade ago.
Totally anecdotal, of course, but I just thought it was funny how our experiences were complete opposites and sent us in complete opposite directions for the same reason.
I'm convinced most of this stuff is FUD. I've seen people throw up their hands in despair at the first sign of trouble with Linux and go running back to Windows, but they'll grit their teeth and put up with all kinds of issues with Windows.
When Linux breaks, it's because Linux sucks. When Windows breaks, it's because software breaks sometimes.
Oh for sure! Sometimes it's not even when something breaks but just a normal thing that's different. I used to be a Linux evangelist, and when I convinced my to mom to simply try Linux, she was upset when she had to enter her password to do something (I think it was an update or something) rather than it just doing it. She was mad that it prompted for a password rather than "just updating."
Explaining that giving permission is much safer than just running everything as Admin did nothing. She hasn't used Linux since.
You can set it up so that it doesn't require a password, but of course it isn't a good practice. I was using a Fedora distro on one of my laptops that didn't ask for a password out of the box. You needed a pw to log in but not for updates. It made me uneasy.
Yeah, I didn't even get to say that I could change it (though I don't recommend it) before she wanted to throw the whole thing out for not being "user friendly" enough.
My little anecdote. I was watching a YT video where the guy spent 10 minutes explaining where to go to download and install python, git, and something else. The entire time I was cringing thinking that's a one liner.