linuxmemes

A usb stick with a live linux iso is generally enough

To be fair, this is true for Windows and Mac too, unless you aren't counting the simple scape goat of wiping and reloading lol

I remember these tough times. Doing all kinds of shit as a kid and the resolution was just to nuke it all and start anew.

That's true, but it actually feels worse than it is because if it was Windows you couldn't fix it anyway, so you still needed a second computer so that you could keep doing whatever you do on your computers in your life.

Until you need a third running an entirely different distribution or OS

I had two laptops both set up very similarly, both Thinkpads on LMDE and running Tailscale.

Something broke my network setup on both of these laptops within the same day and it turned out to be Tailscale DNS conflicting with some other Linux network service, but I only learned that after using my phone to look online

One does not simply Linux without having a stable backup computer. 👌

Back when all I had was one computer with Linux and I got in trouble I had a bootable USB stick so I could load up a browser and search forums for a solution.

That's what the tty is for, or at worst a bootable thumbdrive, CD, or Floppy. If I can't switch to a tty, I boot a bootable drive, mount my harddrive, and chroot my install. No second machine required. It's rare that I fuck something up though. Rest assured it was some bullshit I was trying, zero to do with Linux itself. But I do remember Windows would just bork itself randomly for no reason at all. I'm sure Microsoft has all that resolved now, but man back in the day it was painfully often.

Back when I first started using Linux, it was rare to have more than one PC in a house. Now I personally have 3 computers, a desktop and a couple of laptops, and a tablet, and a phone, and some old barely-working tablets and laptops in a drawer.

It is definitely the case that I've had to use one of the other machines when the Linux desktop had issues. OTOH, I've also had to use other computers to help me out with a Windows issue (though it wasn't an OS error, it was a drive that went bad).

It's funny though. Back in the day when I only had the one computer, I was able to troubleshoot issues with it while still using it. That was probably only possible because tech was less advanced. For example, it was possible to browse the web effectively using a text-only client. Back then websites were simpler and Javascript was pretty much non-existent, so if you were troubleshooting a graphical issue you weren't so crippled. Similarly, you weren't so crippled if you couldn't use GUI programs, because in those days almost every GUI program had a console equivalent that worked as well if not better.

These days, it's pretty likely that the info you need will be on YouTube -- obviously not very useful from a console, or a Discord chat -- same problem.

Nah now you just switch to a TTY with a bunch of sick Rust terminal tools, or if its really borked you boot into recovery mode and mount the old filesystem and do magic spells at the filesystem until it works.

I've been using linux since last December and I haven't majorly broken anything. Am I doing Linux wrong?

Lmao. I thought I was the only one. I have like 5 USB sticks with 5 different distros on them all tested and working. I also have a laptop with bazziteOS so the chance of it breaking to no return is very slim. That way, I can fix my desktop if it breaks.

I unironically keep a tiny linux mint boot usb key on my keychain.

When I feel bad about myself, I remember that I have that on my keychain, and I think I can't be that much of a failure because that's pretty cool.