One Common Linux Myth You Should Stop Believing: there’s a FOSS alternative to every single proprietary software out there that can be used as a replacement in all and every use case.
I mean a lot of them are ok but it depends on what you are doing. Gimp can make memes but if you learned Adobe you are going to struggle.
I think half of it is people doing want to learn something new and half of it is that the tools are behind
Gimp can make memes
Yeah but if you’re a graphic designers and you’ve to share PSD files with others for your job then you’re going to have a very hard time with Gimp.
That may be a reason to run a dual boot with Windows and your special gfx or cad software that you earn your livelihood from.
But for the other 75% of the time when not working, you have Linux.
Till windows updates and over writes your Lilo or Grub boot. Might be less of thing with non-mbr setups not sure have not dual booted in a long ass time
I have not had an issue in… 9 years? Though I use separate physical drives which might help. I wouldn’t let that scare people away
Edit: I’m also using rEFInd Boot Manager. I have about 5 operating systems that I can boot into (good way to try various Linux distros)
Same here. That’s pretty much a myth. I also have a couple laptops that still have a small windows partition and never had any issues.
That happened ages ago and gets blindly parroted to this day. I’m fairly convinced it’s the same with the nVidia stories.
With EFI you can even install windows after Linux and it will not mess with your systemctl boot. Windows will only put its bootloader in the EFI partition and systemctlboot will continue working. My girlfriend made this and I lost my jaw.
Under EFI, each bootloader has its own folder in the EFI partition. Each of those are registered with the firmware, and one of them is designated as the default. Grub is still there, but you’ll have to mash (different key for every OEM) to get to the chooser menu.
More like: GIMP can do much of what PS can do, but you’ll tear out your hair trying to, cause it’s so unintuitive and slower.
More generally - stop expecting every program to have an alternative. Sometimes there’s just the one thing that does what you want.
I lost functionality when I moved from Ubuntu to Windows 7 circa 2010, and I lost functionality when I moved from Windows 7 to Mint circa 2020.
Agreed, but sometimes a compromise for a not as good alternative is sufficient depending on the task.
I don’t think that myth exists. If you thought that before trying Linux, where did you get that idea?
I don’t, but a lot of people around here do… and get really offended when you point it out.
A lot of people see articles showing how to do something and it uses the terminal and they think that’s the only way to do it. In reality, it’s just easier to say “copy and paste these commands” than it is to walk someone through how to do it in a GUI.
Furthermore, a CLI instruction is DE-agnostic. So you don’t need to cover the same topic with explanations for at least 3/4 desktop environments. GUI instructions also change a lot faster than their CLI counterparts; so by providing the commands one provides the method with the best longevity. Overall, it’s just so much more efficient.
Exactly, I switched to Linux mint a year ago and I’ve used the terminal like… twice lol.
I’m glad you’re happy with Linux. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that things have progressed that far. I’m stuck with the feeling that gui settings and such aren’t reliable, because they didn’t used to be. Moreso, I just know how to do things in the terminal because that’s how I’ve done them for decades.
But you do you. Its great to have options.
Yeah, a single
sudo mvcommand can easily be several steps in a GUI, possibly error prone too. Because if you do it in the GUI you have to navigate all the way to where the source file is, cut it, navigate to where it needs to go, paste it there. Or you can paste the command in a terminal, done in 0.1 seconds.If I want some information from someone, I can cook a big oneliner to copy paste that will give me exactly the information I want instead of needing a dozen screenshots all coming from different places and programs.
As long as you can trust the person feeding you the commands, I can get just about anything working on your computer effortlessly.
The article perpetuates another myth:
And of course, you have dedicated software stores in many Linux distributions.
Repositories are not “stores!” Repositories maximize convenience of discovering and installing Free Software, while “stores” exist to extract money from chumps for enshittified, proprietary crap. There’s a huge fucking difference.
Some GUI package applications use the store metaphor. Pop! OS uses Pop Shop currently and will use COSMIC Store in 24.04 without transactions being involved.
Yeah, and that’s a terrible, misguided thing to do.
Bold words to describe a user friendly metaphor.
Linux Is Only Free if You Don’t Value Your Time
This one is my favorite.
My co-workers SSD failed, and he was out most of the day. My SSD failed, and I was back up and running in about 10 minutes.
After several years of using Linux for work and school, I made the leap to daily driving linux on my personal computer. I stuck with it for two years. Hundreds of hours I sunk into an endless stream of inane troubleshooting. Linux preys on my desire to fix stuff and my insane belief that just one more change, suggested by just one more obscure forum post will fix the issue.
Yeah, but you can also run as a windows user and be happy. I have my moments of “from scratch” guy, but sometimes I just throw all away and reinstall (or install another) my distro when I feel the issue is too obscure and should not be occurring. A lot of ppl judge me but I’m using only Linux for the past 3 years and I’m happy as fuck with it. Even liking problem solving sometimes I just want to open a game and run, and yeah, I can do it in the exactly same lazy way of windows.
If the user sees the following
Linux Is Only Free if You Don’t Value Your Time
one must immediately counter with
Windows Is Only Free if You Don’t Value Your Privacy
The Windows user will immediately disintegrate if performed optimally
How were you able to do this?
Most likely through a combination of backups and the fact that all your apps can be redownloaded from the repos with a single terminal command followed by a list of packages. I literally keep a list of installed packages. When I reinstalled my system years ago. I restored all configs from my backups and just installed all the same packages I had last time. Reboot and boom you are up and running in no time flat. Depending on your internet speed.
That makes sense, can you please guide me to a term that I can google or perhaps a guide article, if you dont mind, please?
You will come across all sorts of different solutions by just searching for linux backups. I personally use the app vorta which uses the command line tool borg under the hood. As for the list of packages, that will differ per distro, so just search how to list all installed packages on your distro.
Boot to USB drive and load documents from backup. After my shift is over, I restore or replace the bad drive.
The cynic in me says maybe your coworker was just taking their time
“I don’t value my time. I value my braincells.”
– Me, every time someone says the “…value your time” argument.
The article’s “valuing your time” argument is problematic in certain contexts. My brother has had so much trouble with his dual-boot (Windows and Linux). Yes, he could learn how to solve something in Linux every time a problem arises, but he also has to deliver his projects on time. Because of that, he mostly spends time on his Windows dual boot. Yeah, it sucks ethically and has its own pragmatic issues, but he has never had issues resolving dependencies or hunting down the most recent version that can actually be run in NixOS.
I don’t doubt these will become issues that will not be as problematic in the future, but right now my brother cannot use Linux reliably for his assignments.
Edit: My brother has tried what I use: Fedora and NixOS. He has also tried PopOS.
In Fedora, he found some of his software didn’t exist as .deb, and struggled to make .tar files work smoothly for him.
He tried NixOS afterward. He really liked the whole immutability thing, as well as the idea that apps would have their own dependencies.
His dependency problem happened in PopOS. If I remember correctly, it was a code editor that required a version of something that was different to what a package he used in his software was.
I think the order he tried was Fedora -> NixOS -> PopOS -> NixOS -> ? (Haven’t talked to him about it recently)
I have used a lot of different distros and I never had dependency problems whether on Linux mint, Debian, open suse or fedora. And yes, this can be a problem, especially on distros like Manjaro, but you still can use flatpaks/appimages/snaps and don’t deal with dependencies at all. NixOS and all rolling release distros can be great but they are not meant for people who are not ready to troubleshoot their system at any time. If you stick with a more stable distro like Debian you will most likely get a more reliable system then with windows.
Why does your brother use NixOS in the first place?
Don’t get me wrong; I think NixOS is a very interesting project with a very bright future. It probably wouldn’t be an exaggeration if I said that NixOS has single-handedly inspired the current immutable revolution. However, it’s also a distro that wants you to learn and digest its ways before it will return the favor.
But, based on my reading/understanding of your comment, your brother doesn’t strike me as a seasoned Linux user. Am I right? Btw, NixOS is hard unbeknownst of how many experiences you got with other distros. However, I would simply never recommend a new user to use (Gentoo, Guix System or) NixOS. There are definitely outliers, but they would have to find it themselves then.
i dunno ubuntu has been plug and play for my work, and it gets much less in my way.
I just recently switched to mint, and so far it’s been great. I will say though, I find it pretty ridiculous how many hoops I had to jump through just to get my second drive to mount on boot and for programs to maintain write permissions to it. Which is a situation that a lot of non tech savvy will deal with when switching, especially gamers.
A garbage to run ads again. Everyone already knows the myths and they don’t need the same post to pop up every year.
HowtoGeek used to be a legitimately good site back in the day but now has a proliferation of low quality articles. Also, uBlock Origin by default blocks it’s links sometimes since they redirect via awstrack.me as well.
This is Linux propaganda.
Notice they didn’t bother to give any truth other than sunshine and rainbows. It would be nice if they gave good information.
It starts with a blatantly llm-generated image, with the text possibly being a chatbot as well; good journalism is rare these days compared to this mass-produced slop
It honestly reads like a Linux fan wrote it. Just look at some of the comments on Lemmy. Linux is this magic operating system everyone is going to love. There are absolutely no issues and everyone’s ok using Linux native tools.
I think Linux is solid but to try to sell it to someone as absolutely perfect is frankly silly. To be fair I am not totally innocent in this regard but I at least try no to leave out information.
Just to be clear I am not taking about you in particular.
What I find funny is people act like windows just works. Windows has its own issues and work arounds.
True but this article isn’t about Windows
Agreed. As a self-proclaimed Linux fan, I’m also trying to give an unbiased perspective but I still find myself presenting things as nicer than they are sometimes.
How can you sell someone free stuff?
Words
I wonder what their ‘prompt’ was, especially with the demonic blowfish thingy. “Theo De Raadt as a FreeBSD convert assaulting Linux” – maybe?
Theo de Raadt doesn’t need FreeBSD. Because OpenBSD is much better.
