Not once in the 11 months and 3 updates I saw when still on my nVidia card did I need to use terminal for anything, as there’s a built-in program for that on Mint (and a couple other distros at least, looks like)
True. But do we have to include the NVidia disclaimer in every post about Linux adoption?
we do if people keep claiming things like
If all you do is web browse and play games, you should be able to use Linux without the CLI just fine.
or
Then don’t use the terminal. You don’t need it.
or
Silly to get angry about, because you can use Linux just fine without it. But the terminal is a powerful tool.
or
With flatpak/snap you don’t need to use terminal anymore.
The truth is that on a basic default install, even for a software engineer who maintains linux servers daily that you are going to encounter problems on linux that are much harder to solve than problems on other systems. And people want to pretend that it isn’t the case, because “I’ve been using linux for x years and never encountered that” (look at the other response to my comment besides yours for an explicit example of this). People want to say that all you need to do is learn to copy and paste from the internet, but 1. that’s a terrible idea, and 2. it doesn’t work half the time! An example of this is audio drivers! If your audio drivers don’t work, you’re probably just fucked. It doesn’t matter how knowledgeable in the terminal, it matters if the support exists at all for your system. Which you will not know until you actually install linux and spend hours trying to fix it.
It’s like people here refuse to believe that linux has problems, even for experienced users, because they think that it should be the norm to spend hours trying to resolve a problem on your computer that just … doesn’t happen on other systems. The thing is that other systems do have problems. They’re just not the literal show stopping problems that linux has. I’m literally unable to use my system because of Nvidia support and audio drivers. But mac and windows have other problems. For example my mac really struggles with my monitor usb hub in the back with usb-c passthrough. While my windows freezes when it tries to switch to dark mode, and blue screens once a month. Those things are resolved in seconds or minutes. But I literally cannot use my linux partition. It’s unusable. I’m not going to spend 50 more hours (i’ve already spent 48) trying to fix the damn issues to make the system literally usable.
I understand Linux is better for a lot of reasons. I want to switch to it. But I’m sick of people pretending like the issue is the user. It’s not. At least not a majority of the time. Linux as a whole is incredibly difficult to use if anything goes wrong. Because it’s not little things that go wrong. It’s big things.
But I’m sick of people pretending like the issue is the user.
Oh, it’s certainly not. Linux wasn’t accessible to ordinary users for years. But it usually is, today, finally. And we’re justifiably quite excited about that. Many of us worked very hard to get to this point.
But it’s not the users fault if something doesn’t work.
That said, it is absolutely the manufacturers fault, when Linux drivers aren’t available. We can’t fix that.
When we’re talking about a show stopping issue due to lack of hardware drivers, we need to remember to encourage new users to stick to the safe path of a manufacturer pre-installed OS.
The reasons Windows, Mac, IOS, and Android avoid those kinds of issues is that the hardware shipped with the OS pre-installed by the manufacturer, who tested very carefully for those issues. Linux does equally well on hardware designed to run Linux.
No operating system is going to be issue free on proprietary hardware that wasn’t created with that OS in mind. Making a Hackintosh is fun, but it’s a lousy way to become an Apple user.
Pre-installed Linux is now an option, and it is the best option for new Linux adoption. I think we need to be more vocal about that, to help folks avoid those issues.
you most definitely do need to use it on Linux, especially if you have a Nvidia graphics card… Audio issues are also prevalent.
Not once in the 11 months and 3 updates I saw when still on my nVidia card did I need to use terminal for anything, as there’s a built-in program for that on Mint (and a couple other distros at least, looks like)
True. But do we have to include the NVidia disclaimer in every post about Linux adoption?
Maybe we genuinely should start. It seems like it burns a lot of folks.
Some vendors have lousy Linux support.
But then, MacOS on Dell hardware, and Windows on MacBook also both require extensive CLI. iOS on Samsung gets pretty weird.
I think maybe the disclaimer we should get better at adding is:
Lots of old hardware just works on Linux, but folks trying Linux for the first time should be encouraged to check for a vendor statement.
we do if people keep claiming things like
or
or
or
The truth is that on a basic default install, even for a software engineer who maintains linux servers daily that you are going to encounter problems on linux that are much harder to solve than problems on other systems. And people want to pretend that it isn’t the case, because “I’ve been using linux for x years and never encountered that” (look at the other response to my comment besides yours for an explicit example of this). People want to say that all you need to do is learn to copy and paste from the internet, but 1. that’s a terrible idea, and 2. it doesn’t work half the time! An example of this is audio drivers! If your audio drivers don’t work, you’re probably just fucked. It doesn’t matter how knowledgeable in the terminal, it matters if the support exists at all for your system. Which you will not know until you actually install linux and spend hours trying to fix it.
It’s like people here refuse to believe that linux has problems, even for experienced users, because they think that it should be the norm to spend hours trying to resolve a problem on your computer that just … doesn’t happen on other systems. The thing is that other systems do have problems. They’re just not the literal show stopping problems that linux has. I’m literally unable to use my system because of Nvidia support and audio drivers. But mac and windows have other problems. For example my mac really struggles with my monitor usb hub in the back with usb-c passthrough. While my windows freezes when it tries to switch to dark mode, and blue screens once a month. Those things are resolved in seconds or minutes. But I literally cannot use my linux partition. It’s unusable. I’m not going to spend 50 more hours (i’ve already spent 48) trying to fix the damn issues to make the system literally usable.
I understand Linux is better for a lot of reasons. I want to switch to it. But I’m sick of people pretending like the issue is the user. It’s not. At least not a majority of the time. Linux as a whole is incredibly difficult to use if anything goes wrong. Because it’s not little things that go wrong. It’s big things.
Oh, it’s certainly not. Linux wasn’t accessible to ordinary users for years. But it usually is, today, finally. And we’re justifiably quite excited about that. Many of us worked very hard to get to this point.
But it’s not the users fault if something doesn’t work.
That said, it is absolutely the manufacturers fault, when Linux drivers aren’t available. We can’t fix that.
When we’re talking about a show stopping issue due to lack of hardware drivers, we need to remember to encourage new users to stick to the safe path of a manufacturer pre-installed OS.
The reasons Windows, Mac, IOS, and Android avoid those kinds of issues is that the hardware shipped with the OS pre-installed by the manufacturer, who tested very carefully for those issues. Linux does equally well on hardware designed to run Linux.
No operating system is going to be issue free on proprietary hardware that wasn’t created with that OS in mind. Making a Hackintosh is fun, but it’s a lousy way to become an Apple user.
Pre-installed Linux is now an option, and it is the best option for new Linux adoption. I think we need to be more vocal about that, to help folks avoid those issues.
I’m sorry you had such a bad experience.