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I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

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Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#171

Post by mplanchard »

isityettime wrote: post #166
mplanchard wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used nix for developer environments, and nix to define docker containers for our production services. The biggest problem is the “nix people” can become blockers if there is an issue and they aren’t around to figure it out, because most engineers are just not going to learn nix. However, we felt the benefit was worth the cost, overall, especially because we used the same flakes and therefore versions across all de…

I'm the Nix guy on my small team at work and I'd love to train any of teammates on Nix stuff. One of them already has some Nix experience and I make sure to walk him through my Nix work whenever I finish something new. But it seems like no one is really interested in truly diving in like I did when I was new to Nix. I don't really know why that is, because it doesn't seem to have to do with intelligence or general ex…

Yeah, similar experience here. One pattern that was helpful for us was defining a nix file that just contained a mapping of names to lists of packages: dev, ci, and so on, so that if you wanted to install something that was on the nix search page, you could just go toss it in there and immediately get it locally. It also made it clear which package sets would wind up where, and allowed recursion so you could say that like dev was rust-base ++ rust-dev ++ js ++ common, or whatever.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#172

Post by ErroneousBosh »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #170
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows issues are much more common, but they are just fucking annoying. Apart from the ones that are completely 100% usage-blocking.

I find that a very weird thing to write. I think the last BSOD i had was 10 years ago and when a laptop didn't work anymore, it was usually because some of its hardware broke. It's true though that over time laptops become too slow or have too little resources to run a recent (and secure) windows version over time, but that goes for most software in general.

Okay, but it's more that there are a lot of things you simply cannot do in Windows. It's got extremely poor hardware and software support.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#175

Post by wormius »

nsvd2 wrote: post #129
Telaneo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found Windows issues to be just as usage-blocking. I tend to have better luck with google-fu when it comes to Windows problems, just though the user base being so much larger, so it's much more likely that someone's written a guide or an explanation of my exact problem, while on Linux, it's much less likely that someone's written an exact guide, but general knowledge goes further (but you need more of it to fill…

I usually find the exact opposite, where for Windows I can sometimes find a few SEO optimized pages with vague instructions, but for Linux I'm much more likely to hit a wiki or forum with in-depth technical information to solve my problem.

"Hi I'm Mohinder from MS MSP, MSVP, SUPERSTAR ASSIST, Can I have you restart your computer... once you do that, please report back if that fixes the problem"

ms.com "support" pages.

Meanwhile, Archi Wiki? That is like... the best thing and should be a national treasure.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#177

Post by graceful6800 »

ghusto wrote: post #84

> I subconsciously tell myself 'If I just used Linux, I could be like them!'. Your intuition was right. Learning to fix issues in Linux gives you long-term transferable valuable skills in troubleshooting and far-reaching knowledge. Learning to fix Microsoft's latest fubar gives you nothing, unless you're in corporate IT fixing other people's computers. You'll become more confident and niggles won't bother you that mu…

You know what? I think this is dead on. Like a lot of us, I grew up in the 90s tinkering with Windows regestries and internals. That knowledge only ever really helped me with Windows systems, and it really only carried me up to Windows 7/10. After that, it felt like debugging an opaque blob, just pulling levers until something different happened and trying a blind binary search across random behaviors.

But since Linux is open, you can observe it as a holistic system. You don't need to-- and likely shouldn't try to understand it as a whole, but you can follow a thread all the way down if you want to. If the audio system really pisses you off, you do have the power to follow it and fully understand it.

Thinking about systems and how many different pieces fit together to make a cohesive whole is honestly the vast majority of my life and work as an engineer. It's a fundamental skill that doesn't seem very common outside the realm of nerds who like picking apart complex problems. But it's certainly my most heavily used skill, and in large part it's because I got into Linux as a teenager in an era where Linux was absolutely not meant for teenagers to be daily driving on a new laptop with no drivers.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#178

Post by graceful6800 »

martinald wrote: post #37

Two thoughts (I was in the same situation, constantly trying desktop Linux then pinging back to Windows after hitting issues). 1) Fedora is really worth a try, it's extremely polished. The best thing is the packages in the repo are generally much more up to date that debian based distros, which maeans less random PPAs to work around it, which cause issues. 2) The biggest change is having Claude Code/Codex able to dia…

Genuine question, how is everyone else dealing with giving agents elevated permissions? Obviously the answer is "don't", but some things are pretty harmless, like journalctl and dmesg, and are pretty useful for debugging the system.

I guess you could make a new user to run the harness under and give it no-password sudo rights for select commands? That doesn't feel like a great solution but it's the only thing I can come up with

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#179

Post by graceful6800 »

gregates wrote: post #58

Hate to be the one to drag AI into every conversation, but I recently switched to arch linux and it's been delightful -- largely because of Claude. I have leaned on Claude heavily to diagnose and resolve issues that I probably could have theoretically solved on my own, but which also probably would have made me switch back if I didn't have help to resolve them quickly. (Yes, I know arch linux is not what you want if…

I'm a lifelong Arch user (btw) but I would also call out Manjaro as a less full-contact way of using Arch. It's got a slow and stable release cycle, it's fairly reliable because it stays behind the bleeding edge like Debian does.

But you still get the raw unadulterated power of the archwiki, and the same full control of the internals. It's a great middle ground between Ubuntu and rawdogging pacstrap.

Then again you still have the slightly heretical option of running Manjaro but using the unstable repos so you're getting the full Arch experience

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#180

Post by graceful6800 »

kgwxd wrote: post #56
osigurdson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some issues with docking and audio with Arch. Maybe I am asking too much to have a docking station work perhaps. I still don't feel the need to go back to Windows however.

Why do people even use docking stations anymore? I've never used one but I have used plenty of KVM-type devices that just work over various standard usb/display ports. What's the appeal of using the specialized "docking" port?

There are no more docking stations. The dedicated dock port died many years ago, and everything has been USB-C/Thunderbolt ever since.

Which really isn't too much different, docking ports were by and large PCI with extra sauce

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