Linux

It seems only natural…

• the “grandma”/casual users never try anything complicated or different so nothing goes wrong.
• the “pro” users either know what they are doing well enough to not make a mistake or to fix it when it goes wrong.
• the middle users will always have it harder, they are trying things beyond the margins of “easy” so of course things go wrong and they don’t know how to fix it.

Anecdotal example: just yesterday I found out that I broke my file picker function in five out of six web browsers, by loading an Xcompose file with some definitions that GTK apparently doesn’t like. It took me about 5 hours of poking at things to figure out that a change I did a week ago, broke a function I hardly ever use. So I did fix it eventually but I it took me a week to notice and then hours to track down what was going on.

Is there any chance at all that the casual users would be using a compose key, let alone loading a custom definition file for it? Hell no!

But here’s the secret: there is nobody out there who is the perfect expert who never makes a mistake and knows all things. We’re all out here pushing boundaries; the only difference is where those boundaries are.

As a more advanced user, I have to say, the problems don't stop. Computers will never be "solved". They just keep making new puzzles forever. That's whats fun.

The more advanced you get, well you can solve the easy problems off the top of your head, but now you have new problems and there are zero search results for your error message. If you can't figure it out from the docs or irc you just have to read source code.

I try to document stuff as I find it, even if it means resurrecting an ancient thread. I often search for things and get one result, and it's me answering my own question a few years ago.

and the IT pro with 10 NAS setup are the perfect linux users.

Well I'm closer to that. I'm an "IT pro" (I pay my bills by writing software) and I did learn CS at uni... and yet it's STILL damn hard!

I think that might be the part that "grandma" (bit sexist and ageist there but going with the example) finds it hard is a given but that professionals are struggling daily is somehow hidden away.

I can give you examples from just yesterday :

• my deGoogled Android phone rejected my SIM card yesterday "SIM 1 not allowed"
• my home IoT server stopped working

and few others smaller problems. So... I had to find ways to fix that which lead me to learn that :

• some bug into HomeAssistant (my IoT server gateway) led me to restart its container, without having to restart the device itself
• my Android ROM has a "Reset Network Settings" within the "Reset Options" menu

The irony is that some people who are not professional might even know about the later one but I didn't. So... my whole point :

TL;DR: IT is hard for everyone because it's complex (lots of moving parts) and always changing ("updates" are not just "better" but different) so we ALL must keep on learning.

This is strictly my personal experience and is not meant to negate someone else's experience.

I disagree, as a middle user myself, I've had much less problems since the switch to Linux. I don't own a VR setup, so can't speak to that, but I have used basically everything else you've mentioned since switching without issues. Older software seems to work better on Linux than windows 11 in my experience. The rare stumble I've had was easily remedied by searching forums and wikis.

Most windows problems I've had to search for solutions in the last several years led to either blind registry changes, following some useless wizard that rarely fixes the problem, or a nothing-burger circle where the OP ended up either giving up entirely or re-installing windows to avoid the problem. I've very much had better luck actually fixing a problem in Linux than just avoiding it.

all that said, linux could use some more "intermediate" tools.

windows is surprisingly decent in that aspect too. service managers, cron managers, startup managers, a good task manager, all by default.

this would help intermediate linux users quite a lot.

You've used Windows for so long that you don't remember how it was when you first started using it.

This isn't different than what you are doing with Linux. The flow gets better and better and you will acquire the experience needed to navigate the issues. It takes time, that's all.

But us in the middle who pretend we're smart

The trick you'll learn is that everyone is just pretending. The more your learn the more you realize you don't know.

Yes, but middle users are the most important.

me getting games to work:

install cachyos install steam download game pick proton in compatibility options

what else are you all doing ? you can also add a non steam game and pick proton to launch it

I also use a 4070 (Nvidia) and haven't had any issues

my audio works with an usb interface with 0 tweaking

Still, when im forced to use windows I see how bad its become, so im sticking with linux!

That's the right attitude. A lot of the comfort of Windows comes down to habit and mere exposure. Every Windows user who dives beyond the surface also spends a lot of time learning, but with the added burden of having to sift through every forum post suggesting sFc /ScAnNoW. And if you keep the same hardware for a few years, the Linux experience ages like a fine wine as drivers improve and features get some subtle polish.

Sometimes I wonder if my health takes a toll each time I help someone set up Windows. I can literally feel my heart rate increase as I go through the privacy-related settings.

I always fail at mapping my multiple HDDs then assigning them to jellyfin.

External drives? Usually on most distros and file managers, it’s just one click.

I have had a bit of a horrid time with Bluetooth, though, especially when it comes to audio. However, I will say Linux allows you to do some nuts things with Bluetooth like emulate a Nintendo Switch controller with NXBT, allowing you to use a PlayStation controller on a Switch with a spare laptop.

As for audio, I feel like life has gotten much better for the layman since Pipewire.

I don’t think VR setups are that common, and the Venn diagram of VR owners and Linux users has to be even smaller. I’ve probably only known 2 people who actually own a headset, and both of them were standalone Oculus affairs.

Overall, I feel like it’s possible to conceptually understand Linux and which config file is while, while Windows registry is an incomprehensible beast. Also, it feels like Linux tends to have better errors that correlate to a specific problem, whereas the same Windows error could be caused by many different things and lead you on a wild goose chase through forum posts filled with generic advice and dead ends.

I had a crisis too some years ago, when Windows 7 was the shit, I heard Windows 7 was very good (for Windows).
So I tried to dual boot Windows 7, goddam a load of crap!! I'll never believe anyone claiming Windows is good again.
The structure of security is a bloody mess, providing worse security, while taking control away from the owner of the system.
And lack of package manager makes it ask for updates at the most inopportune moments. Just a tiny program like Adobe reader was super invasive, and was a major pain in the ass.

Windows is not in any way user friendly, it's just what most people are used to.

I keep breaking my setup when I update my Nvidia drivers. Feels like shit, but I am never going back to windows

Gonna be real, I haven't had to bother with my OS for the past two months, so I disagree with a lot of this post. The take I disagree with the most is that things that would be difficult regardless of OS are somehow "harder" in Linux though. Getting old games to run on Windows is also a massive PITA, and oftentimes can be easier on Linux since you can always just run a WINE instance using whatever version of Windows the game was originally intended for. Same for old obscure software, anything from like the XP era does not play nice with Windows 11 in my experience. It sounds like the bigger issue is that you have learned a lot about Windows, and haven't learned a lot about Linux, so your knowledge base for Windows is better.

The actual issue I think is huge for your hypothetical "middle user" is hardware based. Some hardware is just better for running high performance applications on Linux than others. In my fancy, shiny, top of the line rig, my experience in getting games to work is I download them and run them with Proton. I've done no troubleshooting, barely use any applications other than Steam for gaming, and so far have not found a game I wanna play that doesn't work. On my old Nvidia-based rig that I replaced, however, it was the exact opposite story. Nothing ever worked, I was constantly looking through error logs and trying to troubleshoot, and most of the time the answer was hardware that wasn't properly supported.

A few months ago I wrote out some recommendations around the same theme here. Extracts:

A good start is to install tldr. You use it like man, but it gives you shorter explanations – or rather, a short list of illustrative examples.

Going further, check out Fish instead of Bash. I haven’t use Fish yet, but it’s said to be much better for learning Linux commands as a beginner. Later on, you may switch to Zsh. In any case, hitting Tab once or twice will often give you a list of possible completions to the command you are typing.

Also, I hugely recommend reading at least one book about Linux. I'm now almost through with the O’Reilly book “Classic Shell Scripting” by Robbins and Beebe (ISBN 9780596005955). Despite the fact that it's 20 years old, it helped me hugely – primarily with the shell and its commands, but also with understanding things like file structure.

It presupposes some familiarity with Unix-like systems and with the shell, so if one’s just starting out, the book “Learning the Unix Operating System” may be better.

This is very true. Linux is great if you just want to check email, or if you want to compile your kernel or dig into incredibly esoteric config files. But if you want to do something between those 2 extremes, the learning curve is extremely steep. My Windows box and Mac Mini both do all the things I want them to, but my Linux box keeps breaking and I don't trust it with anything important. I usually try to do things on Linux first, but when it inevitably breaks I switch over to Mac and get it done in a tenth of the time.

I'm sure I could get my Linux box to do everything I want. I'm busy and I don't want to fight with it and spend all my time learning about its eccentricities. I want to point and click and occasionally modify a text file.