Live data from Hacker News

Linux guide for power users (2022)

xnacly.me

41–50 of 110 posts

Re: Linux guide for power users (2022)

#42

> As said before, in this tutorial we will be using Manjaro due to it: > * containing a fully configured system (yes bloat, idc its a beginners tutorial) So is it for beginners or power users? Or can that be the same person? Choice of Manjaro is also curious, considering its history.

> considering its history

Can you elaborate?

Re: Linux guide for power users (2022)

#44
post #35

So it's a tutorial where the goal is to be able to take a screenshot, post to Reddit, and feel cool. There are a few pieces of good information, but it's for people learning Linux (how to install, run a package manager, etc), not power users, which I would define as someone who understands a lot of the OS and takes as much advantage of the system at hand. I feel as if I'd qualify as a power user, who has used Windows…

> This guide is meant as a loose inspiration for a poweruser looking to switch to Linux.

Yea the title and the intro sentence have a subtle, but very important difference.

And I appreciate the effort but I’m ultimately still confused who the target audience is. I’ve only ever used macOS (like ~9 years computer experience) but currently setting up Gentoo, and being a “power user looking to switch to Linux” myself, I would’ve found it more helpful to summarize the Linux equivalents and added optionality to macOS “power user” things.

Eg u use yabai on mac, well here’s i3 and [other options]. Desktop environment? You actually can choose and here’s an overview. Like it went from “eli5 what’s a distro” to vim keybindings so there was that inconsistent definition of “power user.”

I’m obviously biased in terms of what I wanted to see but my larger point is the inconsistency

Re: Linux guide for power users (2022)

#45
post #36

Why would you install Arch-based Manjaro? Why not just go with a flavor of Ubuntu to start becoming productive from like minute 5? And if you're really trying to become a super-user why not NixOS?

I still don't know what a "power user" is supposed to be, after seeing the term for like 30 years. Seems to describe a range from "able to leap tall spreadsheets in a single bound" to "the person in the office who knows how to fix things". In my experience, most long-term unix nerds today seem to end up using (a) whatever is in front of them or (b) vanilla Debian.

The articles definition of it was certainly opaque but personally, I consider it a relative term.

“[Insert random AI tool] will make all users become power users!”

By my framing, that’s literally impossible. There’s always people that can do/get more value out of the thing than the majority, ie power users

Re: Linux guide for power users (2022)

#46

Why would you install Arch-based Manjaro? Why not just go with a flavor of Ubuntu to start becoming productive from like minute 5? And if you're really trying to become a super-user why not NixOS?

Personally, if I'm recommending something for daily use (as in, you plan to do more than just work on this device) I could only recommend a rolling release where your software is always up to date. You'd usually want and expect software to be up to date (at least for software that isn't trying to screw you ;)) and if something you are using has a bug, waiting for the next Ubuntu release is unreasonable. Also, if your…

What would you recommend instead of Ubuntu for beginners?

Re: Linux guide for power users (2022)

#47

Why would you install Arch-based Manjaro? Why not just go with a flavor of Ubuntu to start becoming productive from like minute 5? And if you're really trying to become a super-user why not NixOS?

NixOS is not an obvious choice if you want to become a "Linux super-user." It takes a very unconventional approach to package management, building and configuring your system. All great for what it is but not going to teach you the conventional Linux way of doing things. I don't know if this is still the case but when installing Arch, it used to be that you would start with a very basic set of essential packages and…

Yeah, NixOS really benefits from you understanding what it's changing.

Last year I wanted to make flatpak use a different partition. Some searches (and reading the docs) later, I decided to use /etc/flatpak/installations.d/ to add an extra location. I set up environment.etc to create the file, but flatpak ignored me. After some futzing around I eventually ran strace and realised that it was searching the nix store, and not /etc. So I wrote an overlay to have it create the file during build so it existed in the store.

Being able to recognize that NixOS may be looking at an unconventional location was what allowed me to make that work.

Re: Linux guide for power users (2022)

#48

As someone who switched from Windows to Linux in college, I have no regrets. All of the rough edges I've encountered (usually) have resulted in a better understanding of how software actually works.

Can't agree more, looking at what Windows has become from Windows 8 and onwards. It used to be that Windows users chose Windows over Linux because they saw it as the OS that "just lets them get their work done." No one can possibly say that about the Windows of today, the OS that gets in the way at every turn and corner to squeeze profits out of users who already paid.

Re: Linux guide for power users (2022)

#50

> As said before, in this tutorial we will be using Manjaro due to it: > * containing a fully configured system (yes bloat, idc its a beginners tutorial) So is it for beginners or power users? Or can that be the same person? Choice of Manjaro is also curious, considering its history.

> considering its history Can you elaborate?

I don't know everything, but I do know they've let their HTTPS cert expire a few times [1], and they apparently delay package updates from upstream for like 1wk for "stability" reasons... which doesn't really add any stability, and just slows down releases.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/wr2dps/manjaro_let_t...

Post reply on HN