this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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    [–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

    Don't tempt me, Picard Maneuver! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe. Understand, sir, I would use this OS from a desire to do good, but through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to imagine. I should have power too great and terrible, and over me the OS would gain a power still greater and more deadly.

    [–] GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 9 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (4 children)

    The cost is the time you will spend learning how to use it and debug issues (mostly copying and pasting strange commands from strangers on old forum posts)

    [–] presoak@lazysoci.al 2 points 14 hours ago

    I haven't actually needed to do much of that. Very little actually. And when I did it was just a trivial copy-paste

    [–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

    You just summarised the pain I have with troubleshooting Linux. As a pleb, I am happy with Bazzite being user friendly.

    [–] Blemgo@lemmy.world 1 points 15 hours ago

    This is why I appreciate immutable distros so much. Sure, you can't really do super sick stuff by tinkering with system files or modify some system components to make it your dream system, but the average user really doesn't need that. In most use cases, the flatpak version of a software will just run fine, sometimes even better than the standalone version due to certain outdated dependencies being hard to acquire/install that the Flatpak just integrates. Sure, Flatpak also has issues, but for the most part it works for the end user.

    [–] how_we_burned@lemmy.zip 2 points 15 hours ago (5 children)

    What shits me with Linux commands is they don't make sense.

    Copy, diskpart, dir and so on make sense.

    But Linux. Bah.

    Cp, lsblk (sudo fdisk -l) and ls.

    I know it's an a old dog thing but having used dos and windows command line for over 50 years it just makes me so frustrated to see Linux commands and their switches, syntax and parameters so obtusely obscure, purposeful, unnecessarily filled with complex jargon.

    I write sql and python so I'm not unused to this sort of world but everytime I use Linux I find the command line, the supposedly masterful feature of the OS, just painfully, unnecessarily, poorly designed.

    copying and pasting strange commands from strangers on old forum posts)

    Yes exactly the only way to obtain the help is via weird forums where you waste hours reading posts from people trying to do basic shit. Half the time it's for the wrong distro, version or whatever bullshit problem you've got.

    Like godforbid you want to mount a drive that won't mount in the GUI version of whatever kernal distro ver you end up getting.

    You end up writing ridiculously long commands to do shit I can do in a handful of words that make sense in plain English.

    Just shits me that MS is hellbent on enshitificating windows, forcing us to find alt.

    What choice do we have anymore

    I understand your issue with the terminal. I think that it could be fixed with Oh-my-zsh for a personal computer. I have mine setup so I don't have to remember the entire command, just the first letter and it shows me all matches. I was proficient with both batch and powershell, but bash scripting is even easier.

    Yeah, I had given up Linux for over a decade, but Windows 11 has brought it back out... And tbh I like it better as an adult. Now I run Windows in a docker container only.

    [–] jj4211@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

    I mean, diskpart and dir don't make especially any more sense than lsblk/parted and ls. A fair point can be made for 'copy' being more intuitive, but 'diskpart' means you had to learn what disks and partitioning were, and lsblk means you need to learn what 'block' devices rae, and of course 'parted' references partitions. 'dir' means you wanted to 'show the directory' which means you had to learn of it as a directory, but then learn that the shortname of directory is the way to see the contents of a directory. ls means you learned you want to 'list' contents and that unix had this laziness of just the first and third letters of a word. Both involve learning, neither is 'intuitive'.

    You end up writing ridiculously long commands

    I assume this is the likes of dbus-send and crap, and I agree with you if that's the case. Dbus is a complication I could do without and have to confess that powershell cmdlets generally do a better job of instrumenting the system than a system that increasingly has no specific help and only long dbus-send commands to tackle certain things. dconf has issues too, but I think does a better job than the Windows registry at analagous function.

    [–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago

    I'm the same, but with windows.

    People just don't like changing their ways.

    Also you'll find out that linux is mostly much more logical than windows ever was.

    [–] hoppolito@mander.xyz 4 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

    Though I personally have the feeling in exactly the opposite way, having used unix-likes for most of my adult life, I won't argue with you on the principle of the idea (for obtuse syntax e.g. dd the disk destroyer or the infamous tar command come to mind).

    At the same time… I really don't think you chose your examples super well here.

    cp and it's mv companion don't seem more 'obtuse' than copy written out in your example.

    ls following the same two-letter logic for 'list' also does not seem out-of-this-world crazy syntax. In fact, I always wondered more about dir to list things, especially in a world where the things it lists are technically called folders not directories.

    This same logic once again extends to lsblk to 'list' what? 'block devices' which describes all sorts of storage media in unix-land. Sure, it's different, but in these specific examples I definitely don't see an objective better/worse option. I mean, similar examples for obtuseness could be made e.g. for why the primary drive starts with a C: on windows, or why we have magical drive letters at the beginning at all if you come from the opposite paradigm.

    And lastly your disk example is equally written as fdisk --list which once again just describes its own operation.

    Dunno, I think both systems have their idiosyncrasies which you just find weird if you're used to the other.

    [–] Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

    Its called learning. I know both sets of commands because I have chosen to.

    [–] how_we_burned@lemmy.zip 0 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

    The point is here is one of these two command line utilities are objectively easier to learn......

    Yeah linux is simple and modern. Msdos is nearly 50 years out of date. I use powershell in windows.

    [–] Honytawk@feddit.nl 3 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

    Doesn't make those commands any more readable.

    If you can't discern the use of the command by reading the command, it is a bad command.

    It should be obvious what it does without the need to translate it.

    I know when I need to fix or alter a disk I prefer linux. If I don't understand a command I can simply type man and there it all is. Whereas in windows you have to look through slop and incomplete answers.

    [–] jj4211@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

    Yeah, but without learning Microsoft, how would you know that 'dir' just makes sense? Or that you might want to look at 'diskpart' to look at your drives?

    Its not. Diskpart is the stupidest way to set up a partition. Simple fdisk is way more intuitive. cfdisk is extremely simple.

    [–] bridgeburner@lemmy.world 2 points 16 hours ago

    Or using LLMs. For common problems they give good answers. But for niche problems one should double check what the proposed commands actually do.

    [–] NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 24 points 23 hours ago

    Not only free, but private and secure. Won’t even spy on you, and if it tries you can just tell it no and it listens!

    Fuck, I love Linux.

    [–] orenj@lemmy.sdf.org 27 points 1 day ago

    GOD can you imagine paying 140 dollars for an ai generated OS with ads? could never be me

    [–] HeyJoe@lemmy.world 79 points 1 day ago (16 children)

    Please, i never once paid for windows either.

    [–] Aganim@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago

    I paid for a ticket to the Windows 7 launch event back in the days. Cost a few euros, in return I got a day of talks, networking, a laptop bag full of sweets and a retail copy of Windows 7 Ultimate. The serial also worked for Windows 10 and 11, so I'd say that was a pretty sweet deal. I honestly cannot say if that technically counts as having paid for Windows though.

    [–] jj4211@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

    Well, Microsoft didn't offer it to you freely....

    [–] passepartout@feddit.org 68 points 1 day ago (10 children)

    You paid the markup when buying hardware with OEM license though.

    [–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    Not if I've never bought a prebuilt PC.

    [–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 day ago (10 children)
    [–] Rusty@lemmy.ca 2 points 14 hours ago

    You only need laptops if you actually leave your home.

    [–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 1 points 15 hours ago

    Probably depends on the store, but the 2 times I bought a laptop in my life, both stores had a No OS option in the drop-down, which brought the price down. (One actually came with no OS, the other came with FreeDOS IIRC for some reason)

    [–] nialv7@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

    system76 let's go

    Nope. Never bothered with a laptop until work provided me with one.

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    [–] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 54 points 1 day ago (7 children)

    It's a trap. Once you accept linux, you will become a linux person. At every technical issue your friends and family encounter, you'll say stuff like "have you tried switching to linux?"

    [–] ragas@lemmy.ml 3 points 17 hours ago

    I always say: Its Windows, I have no clue how that might work.

    [–] The_Picard_Maneuver@piefed.world 41 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    It's too late...

    [–] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Maybe if they stopped having issues Linux would fix.

    Oh, Windows broke the printer driver? Yeah my Linux laptop still works. Can't turn your PC off? Yeah my Linux boots and shuts down fine still. Oh updates randomly restarting your PC in the middle of processing something? Yeah Linux let's you control updates.

    I could go on.

    [–] Honytawk@feddit.nl 1 points 14 hours ago

    Quite the one-way argument you have there.

    While Windows broke the printer driver, Linux didn't have a driver to begin with.

    And Windows forces updates because otherwise you have people who would never update and then complain that their computer gets hacked.

    Switch those users to Linux, and they would complain a lot more while breaking their entire computer, including hardware.

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    [–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

    Gotta love a free product that also does not suck.

    [–] bratorange@feddit.org 0 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

    Man I’m at the point where I would like to pay for a Linux distribution(ofc. under the assumption that source remains open) if that meant that someone was responsible for stuff working reliable. I hate my headphones not connecting via Bluetooth. I would like a consumer ready distribution and don’t want fiddle around with problems potentially everybody has to solve. Why do there have to 10000+ different package managers with 10000 different incomplete package sources?

    [–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

    Ubuntu and fedora both have that I think

    [–] The_Picard_Maneuver@piefed.world 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

    I'm no expert, but I believe there are some distros with paid support (intended for corporate clients).

    [–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 hours ago

    Yeah, SUSE, REL, Ubuntu have paid support. SUSE started as a service support company before spinning their own.

    [–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 hours ago

    There are paid subscriptions with support. You could also test out other distros, the currated nature of some distros means a problem in one doesn't show up in another.

    I.e. My wife's laptop is a samsung from 2010. Debian derivatives won't run because of a bios bug that halts the system, or even halts install. Fedora or SUSE run fine, it shows the bug and works around it.

    [–] Friendlybirdseggs@sopuli.xyz 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    A gif? On lemmy? How queer

    They used to not work well as uploads (and/or I just didn't know what I was doing), but since this one seems fine, maybe I'll start posting them more. I don't really have a smooth process for creating gifs on my phone.

    Instead of an end user you shall have an ADMIN! NOT BEHOLDEN TO MICROSOFT BUT BEAUTIFUL AND TERRIBLE AS THE DAWN! POWERFUL AS THE SEA! ALL PROGRAMS WILL WORK FOR ME AND DESPAIR!

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