Asklemmy

Tried years and years ago and gave up. Was lazy, used to work on Windows servers at work and I was an Admin and didn't want to relearn a bunch of similar but different stuff. That was my mistake.

Tried again and some Distros broke stuff for me. Issue was that I did have to pick up another learning curve, so I just got to it.

Learned lots and then picked different Distros for different needs and computers. Daily drivers, I pick only solid, yet lean Distros, little tinkering and they have worked almost flawlessly for years on end. On some other machines, I dump stuff to tinker and learn some more, might break something but nothing is lost. If I break something on those, don't care. Now I run a server for fun with tons Apps for partner and I and all machines are on Linux. My TV runs off a small PC, too. No Google, or Apple, no ads on anything and server costs are dirt cheap. It would cost me hundreds upon hundreds a year to pay for 3rd party services for the same.

There are no shortcuts and in a way I wished I had stuck with it back then. But, I am happy where I am now.

My cousin gave up Linux because he struggled to find answers to problems. He was really into trying to build a home server and followed YouTube videos. He used to video call with me for tech support, which was kinda exhausting like teaching a kid how to use a computer.

After a few months, he gave up on it and gave me his server filled with weird ass directories and software constantly giving errors because it's not configured correctly. It was easier to wipe and restart.

I've always loved using Linux, but sometimes I just need things to work; so that whatever I'm doing is quick/painless. But as much as I've switched back and forth, I keep getting pulled more into Linux, the more I learn about my (personal) technical problems

Sure, I can fix it on windows... but the more I delve into Linux, the more I begin to understand the underlying principles of all of it. And for a lot of things; the more I learn about Linux, the more I'm able to navigate across multiple OS's. Learning a little Linux has taught me a metric shit-ton about how computers "speak", and that knowledge has crossed over to a lot of different applications.

I still don't use Linux full-time. But I'm definitely starting to prefer it the more I learn. I hate fighting against locked-out bullshit on windows, when I "just need things to work". But I still like being spoon-fed sometimes, when I don't have time/patience... but I now much prefer taking the time to make my computer work for me. I've learned a shit ton about computers because of Linux

Because it's not Windows and it's not MacOS. Yes, it's an operating system, but what people are comparing against are their expectations. I dont expect a program that's not written or designed for my particular distribution or operating system to work. Now, in some cases it turns out that it does and sometimes it works better then under Microsoft, but that shouldn't be your expectation. The software that is made for it runs as expected.

Working hardware is usually step one. If your hardware isn't supported then of course you're in for a rough ride.

I haven't used it since Valve made Proton what it is today, but:

The troubleshooting was a nightmare. Heaven forbid the trouble be with graphics drivers. I love the command terminal and all but when you try 10 different solutions from Stack Exchange and Reddit and all of them give you errors or do nothing at all.... At some point I just had to accept that it wasn't worth the amount of time I had to invest in it.

I hate Windows as much as the next guy but I had to admit that troubleshooting, for whatever reason, took significantly less time when problems came up on Windows.

Why people gave up adulting?

Because it refuses to work well without constant tinkering.

I picked up a raspberry pi 5 to use as my desktop at home, and tried pi OS, Ubuntu, KDE Plasma, all of which could connect to my home wifi network, but none of which would provide reliable upload or download speeds. Ongoing issues with connection quality to my Bluetooth speaker. Trying to find fixes online is challenging.

I wound up installing android, and everything just works.

This is a weird reason, but there is a logic to it.

I use Linux at work, and I associate Linux with writing software.

Once I'm done working for the day, I want to relax and do something fun. For me, that is Windows. While I don't particularly care for any OS, I associate one with work and one with play.

The opposite was true when I used to work with .NET on Windows 7. I hated using Windows on my home laptop, and Fedora became my "fun time OS".

For me was when Mint suddenly broke my Bluetooth driver and I had to dig deep about how to fix that wasting my entire day on it, this was 2016 I think.

I just wanted to play some games.

My guess is also choosing the wrong distro and/or the stress of having to reconfigure your digital life.

Most people are coming from being on a PC/Mac for +10 years and so it feels inefficient for the first month or so until you get the hang of things. I legit had a checklist of +20 tweaks to make to my env to make it more to my liking. The joys and frustrations of choosing KDE as my intro DE almost drowned me but I made it to the other side.

I've used Linux exclusively for several years now, but problems that killed earlier attempts were:

• I'd encounter a hardware driver issue I didn't know how to fix (Nvidia...)
• I'd dual-boot Windows for playing games and maintaining both OSes was too much (this was pre-Steam client on Linux)
• I wanted to customize some setting that the desktop environment's control panel didn't support, and I'd have to copy/paste terminal commands I didn't understand, usually breaking something which necessitated a reinstall.
• Ubuntu would provide outdated / buggy versions of software, and installing the newer version meant installing PPAs which could conflict with other packages / cause other instabilities I didn't know how to fix.

The first two have seen massive improvements but I still find most desktop environments limiting if you aren't a terminal expert / Arch type of user, and Ubuntu still provides buggy versions of programs.