this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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It kept working.
Linux, every time, without fail, commits suicide after a few weeks/months. It's never something big, always small stuff. A conf file which got fucked by a package. Init.d calls something stupid. Mbr bullshit.
And the same applies to get stuff to work. It's not hard, but researching the issue and fixing it takes time. Those issues do not exist in windows.
It gets annoying. Windows, for all it's shit has gotten more and more self repairing over the years.
I want to work. I want to play. Now, preferably.
A few years ago I installed Ubuntu on a laptop, used it a bunch of times then it got put away for a year or so. When I booted it back up it told me the OS was out of date and needed to be updated. When I tried it gave me some errors. I searched online and basically I couldn't update because it was too old. I needed to update in stages but the next release was also out of support.
I realised I don't use it enough to care. I installed windows on it.
I do use Linux at work and on things at home like routers, retro gaming, etc. They're not really comparable though.
This, and gaming. Linux has come a long way, but has a long way to go. Linux seems to be a long string of hicccups that need to be solved, instead of something that works for me. Although the POPos distro was by far the smoothest, it still became troublesome trying to play games on it.
So, I've been running Linux as a desktop for a number of years, never had a problem of it dieing weekly or monthly. I've had my share of "ah shit, I should restart because some package updated and tings got a little spooky", but never out right ded.
In saying that, I'm used to this modus operandi, and how to fix these things, but I'm curious as to why you were having weekly/monthly issues. E.g. were you running the latest distros, and not LTS versions?
A comparison with windows is that they control the whole OS, and on theory everything is LTS. Linux gives you those freedoms, and also those problems if you choose to use them etc.
You must be doing something really wrong with it because on popular distros this is not really supposed to happen. If you encounter such issues report them to the devs. You probably want to try a more stable distro
They're not doing anything wrong. This is my experience, as well as many many others. Why else would so many people and businesses overlook a completely free operating system? I've used all the "stable" distros.
If I reported issues to the devs, I wouldn't be doing anything else, and it wouldn't solve the problem I have TODAY. This is not a solution.
"Why else would so many businesses overlook a completely free operating system"
Well, they don't. Plenty of businesses use Linux systems. It's not (only) because it's free, though. The issue of licensing often isn't a factor that comes into play over having a system that just works. It's easy to customize, flexible and comparatively secure. Your experiences with Linux are valid, but many businesses and individuals do use it daily and for good reason.
Well they do. Plenty of businesses (ie: virtually all of them) use Windows. Those are the ones I was referring to.
This is just nonsense. Linux servers are all over the place. Google has its own internal distribution of Ubuntu! I feel like you're not arguing in good faith, here.
Edit: For reading at your leisure: A list of organizations that have adopted Linux for regular use
No. It's not.
Linux servers are run by IT admin. AKA people who know how to use Linux.
I feel like you're making up bullshit arguments based on angry words you read on the Internet.
Yeah, businesses that use Linux generally hire people who know how to use Linux. I don't think you actually know what you're arguing about anymore, but you can do it by yourself. Hope things get better for you in the future.
Just because you aren't able to understand what I'm saying doesn't mean I don't.
This thread is about Linux on the desktop, servers are not really relevant to this discussion.
That's fair, but it's hard to not bring up servers when someone is making broad statements like "businesses don't use Linux", though. In the scope of that particular discussion I feel servers are pertinent enough.
You are doing something wrong. Linux doesn't blow up by itself... my grandparents and wife both run it for the past 5 years and haven't had a single issue with it. So how is it that I know people that are completely tech illiterate and have no problems running it, but so many self-proclaimed "power users" here have issues with it?
Linux isn't going to wall you in and prevent you from breaking it. That's what I love about it, it gives you power and control over your machine, but if you don't have the knowledge to wield that power, then you shouldn't be fucking around with changing things. Stick with the package manager, and don't fuck with system configs... unless you actually understand how it effects the system.
There are many, many reasons... not a single one is stability.
If you think that's the case. Check some big forums for each big distro right after a point update to read the tales of woe and breakage.
My personal experience with this has been:
Pop_OS broke after an update. Unrepairable as far as I could tell. And I tried hard. Happened to multiple.people there was a reddit thread about it.
Fedora broke on an update. Not sure if repairable. I didn't try. I had the most boring vanilla installation possible.
Arch has been unbootable twice over the years. And had to do many manual interventions. Both times it was fixable.
People are not lying to you when they say it breaks randomly. Just because it wasn't your personal experience doesn't mean it isn't a common experience. You just have been lucky so far.
Again, Linux gives the user full control over it, and that includes the ability to break it... again, many people can not wield that power properly.
You're right, they are not technically lying, they are just too dumb to realize the thing they did to break it. When immutable distros become more popular, those people will be less likely to break things.
It has absolutely nothing to do with luck. Don't get me wrong, some Linux distros are known for updates breaking them. Arch based distros are infamous for it... but those are bleeding edge, rolling release distros. Distros based on Debian? Redhat? Never fucking break... there are reasons 90% of the top web and cloud infrastructures run on Linux: security and stability.
And Windows breaks all the time with updates... multiple times Windows updates have deleted peoples' user files. That's the most erogenous thing an OS can do... delete important user files.
https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/microsoft-explains-why-windows-10s-october-2018-update-was-deleting-peoples-files/
https://www.howtogeek.com/658194/windows-10s-new-update-is-deleting-peoples-files-again/
Your'e right people are not lying, they just don't realize what they have done to break it. Linux is great because it gives the users full power... and that includes the power to break it. Windows babysits the user, and it doesn't allow them to make changes that break it.
So? A lot of dumb people use Linux too... just because dumb people break things doesn't mean that Linux isn't stable. There is a reason 90% of web and cloud infrastructure runs on Linux... because it's a more secure and stable OS.
Luck has nothing to do with it.
I'm running a fresh Debian stable build for the past 2-3 days, with NO apt package installed(other than flatpak), no other modifications, vanilla as vanilla gets, only flatpaks installed.
So far: On first install, apt upgrade was broken... lol.. yeah.
Other than that, it freezes on suspend, and I'm getting weird screen flickering that it's really hard to troubleshoot so far, specially because when I turn on OBS it mysteriously just doesnt happen. Also steam doesnt open up sometimes, sometimes it does, depends on if you're feeling lucky or not, it also doesnt respect the DE settings, so when it does open the scale is wrong, and everything is tiny.
And this is with a distro known to be stable.
Why don't you explain to me why I have not had any problems running 3 servers for the last 5 years. And why I've not had any problems running it on 6 other machines of varying desktops and laptops? Why don't you explain to me why 90% of web and cloud infrastructure chooses Linux because it is so reliable and stable? I do everything in Linux... everything, including recording in OBS and video editing in Lightworks, no problems.
So tell me, why is it only certain users that seem to have a problem with Linux? Why do you think that is? Because it seems to me the really basic users get on fine with it, and the really advanced users get on fine with it. The only people that have problems are Windows power users that have no fucking clue what they are doing, but try things anyways and break things.
You seem upset.
You seem like you're trying to avoid acknowledging the fact that you are wrong.
Literally linked ya debian stable being broken out of the box. No user input required. Not sure how else to show ya that even stable Linux distros break on their own.
What part of my argument do you think that counters? Because I never said Linux has 100% reliability, I said, Linux is more reliable than Windows. Try to follow what is actually being said instead of setting up strawman arguments.
This part:
Your first line.