this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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Linux
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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.
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As a mostly windows user, I've tried a few times, using various distributions. When buying my last pc and installing a popular linux distribution, it did not recognise my network card at all. Researching online told me I had to compile the drivers myself, since my distri did not have any shipped with it yet. ...which is pretty hard, having no internet access because of the network card not working. To be fair, that was ~8 years ago.
For non-tech users, I feel like some parts are still pretty hard to diagnose. If an issue arises you mostly have to touch the command line and I can understand people being scared of it, having to edit plain text files, or type and enter commands that aren't descriptive, much less finding the right command by guessing. It certainly improved, with GUIs being available for most stuff, but if you want something specific, is still feels pretty rough on the edges sometimes, from the eyes of a normal user.
If you mostly need your basic apps, like browser, some office apps or a music player it works great, though.
IMHO driver issues are not normally a problem anymore. I have a ton of random USB stuff plugged into my Ubuntu desktop and it all just works. Like USB display adapters and studio interfaces. My nivida card works fine too w steam for gaming.
I had a bad time with ubuntu 18 lts and Bluetooth. Neither bluez nor the other one (forget which) would recognise the controller in my mobo. Tried the man pages. Searched high and low. Asked for help on the forums - got nothing. Decided to never again try using Linux for my workstation. I'm perfectly happy to use it to run my scripts, daemons and containers on a dedicated box, but there's just no upside for my games and work machine.
Bluetooth. I had the same issue, just the other way around, with Windows 11. The Bluetooth option would just disappear, and only rarely re-appear after many restarts until I locked/shut off the laptop. But it always worked fine with Mint, so I know it wasn't hardware issue.
Hah. I like that the same experience led us down different paths.