Can you outline what things you were messing with? I am a long time linux user, and I haven't configured my computer on the command line in years. Everything works, so there is no need to change much. Last time was 3 years ago, when I really wanted an pipewire ahead of time, and so I spent some time installing and configuring it. That was indeed painful.

Otherwise, I fight with python on the command line, but you do that on Windows and Macos as well.

Just recently I got the urge to play dwarf fortress again. For the first time on Linux too.

Of course you need to run dwarf therapist, a 3rd party program, alongside the game to manage your dwarves. Dwarf therapist hooks into dwarf fortress to load data about your game in real time.

Of course, as I have come to normally expect, it didn't work. It could not find the active game session, despite the game running.

So you get on the linux answer machine (google) and start looking for those cryptic codes to painfully ctrl+shift+v (note: cannot have ctrl+v like every other interface on earth) and offer up to the emotionless terminal god with the hope that things work after submitting those magic characters (no response or confirmation, you just try to do the thing you want to do again to see if it worked).

This time around it was "ptrace_scope" settings. What is that? I have no fucking idea, I just want to use dwarf therapist.

https://github.com/Dwarf-Therapist/Dwarf-Therapist/blob/mast...

So I follow those steps to make a permanent adjustment, including getting this thing called "libcap2-bin" (again, no idea what that is, could be installing a botnet for all i know). And as I have come to expect, it doesn't work.

So instead now I have to run a terminal command (i have it saved in a text file on my desktop) everytime i turn on the PC to disable ptrace so I can run dwarf therapist.

Compare this to windows:

Download dwarf therapist.

Run it.

Works first time.

It's just such a classic linux experience.

The 'funny' thing here is that you've run afoul of security restrictions, apparently dwarf therapist hooks into dwarf fortress as a debugger (=ptrace) to mess around with its interna. Why it does that is beyond me, there are better ways to achieve similar things (e.g. LD_PRELOAD).

This (hopefully) doesn't hold in the general case, but for this very specific instance the classic Windows experience of it "works first time" seems intimately tied to the fact that it is a less secure OS.

>getting this thing called "libcap2-bin" (again, no idea what that is, could be installing a botnet for all i know)

If you get it via a package manager (like apt or dnf), it's almost guaranteed to not be malware unless some nation-actor is out to get you.

Funnily enough, this is something that Windows never solved (store is garbage and incomplete, winget is powerless and incomplete) and remains a prime vector for malware after all these years, despite a bunch of bandaids that are ultimately useless.

winget seems like a minimum effort to say they have something that seems like a package manager, from what I can tell it's a big index that either hooks into the msstore, or points to a regular installer with a version number that usually runs in silent mode.

Packaging like linux has had for decades would seem like a huge uplift for windows if they could do it, especially if it could be done with modern approaches to isolation.

This is a Dwarf-Therapist thing, not a Linux thing.

I mean, how well does it run on iOS? (It won't)

So... you are complaining that a software that hacks into another software on linux needs more effort to work compared to windows? I think that's a completely reasonable outcome in this case. Care to give a different one? Look, I'm completely aware of linux shortcomings and deal with them constantly, but I also think it's a far cry from how hard it used to be 15 years ago, or even 5 years ago! Maybe you are making things harder for yourself trying to run games on a "too stable" system like Debian or and old Ubuntu LTS? Usually people recommend more bleeding edge stuff for this like a Fedora or Arch based distro. There has been a bit of an upheaval in linux world lately, things are changing constantly and being on the bleeding edge isn't as bloody as it used to be. In exchange, you get better support for apps, which is the key thing lacking in linux since... forever.

Anyway, I also have my linux bullshit story of the day. I've been playing Nintendo Switch games on the Yuzu emulator for over two years now but things took an unexpected turn when Nintendo sued the Yuzu devs and took over the project, being hostile to anyone trying to fork it or even host it anywhere. If you are a windows user you can just keep using your installation and whatever "setup.exe" to keep reinstalling it because it's a stable api/abi system (until maybe windows 12 comes and breaks stuff). On a "unstable" linux distro, your yuzu installation is now constantly bit rotting away due to libraries apis and abis changing over time as the system updates. So now occasionally when I try opening yuzu and I'm greeted with... absolutely nothing (why linux DEs have such a hard time showing generic error messages when an app crash or exits ungracefully? That would be great feedback to the user, anyway, I digress).

Obviously normal/noob linux user would already be helplessly stuck, but I carry on. Running yuzu on the terminal reveals the error message, A library is missing. Running ldd on it reveals even more libraries missing. The rotting is on. I now have to run some commands to find which library pertains to which package (it's not always obvious) and find a way to get an old package containing it. Hopefully, Arch based distros have this nifty tool "dowgnrade" that lets you downgrade or download old packages. Now I have to extract all relevant libraries and put them together on some directory. I then have to run yuzu with special env vars such as LIB_PATH= LIBS= to make it load such libraries. To my demise it's not over yet, some libraries are loaded as dependencies of other libraries, which were not previously present, so ldd couldn't possibly find them. I have to repeat all steps again until all dependencies are met.

Finally, I can play some fucking Zelda. But by now I'm too tired, and it's too late. Maybe I should just have remained a Windows user 18 years ago after all. But before those intrusive toughs can complete, I think about all the bullshit people have to put up when using Windows, honestly, Linux bullshit is worth it.

Why not use the AppImage or Flatpak version of Yuzu if you want stable libraries.

I don't even remember yuzu having non AppImage releases, if you used AUR you could have just rebuilt the package instead of complaining about manually trying to find the right libraries.

A "normal user" wouldn't be using Arch Linux , building their own packages. They would just use the AppImage or the Flatpak.

I'm aware of the AppImage and Flatpak, but those vanished before I could maybe switch to them. The AUR scripts I have are broken and many of the repos they depend on vanished too. And then any attempt by anyone to revive it is met by Nintendo's iron fists, or people don't upload unofficial fixed versions because of fear.

So it sits on my machine as "legacy software" and the point of my post was to show that linux isn't very friendly with legacy software, it wants the software you have to be on a "treadmill", always updated, sourced from a repo somewhere, where someone can take care of these problems for you, where as on Windows thats less rough and usually old software just keeps on working.

I've found Pop!_OS to be completely boring in a good way, though I do think there are some rough edges that are inherent to Linux as a sort of hacker first OS, if that makes sense. I also buy Corollas or at least cross shop them when looking for a car.

Without knowing what distro you use it is impossible to derive any meaning from your post.

You practically described how I feel every time I run into an issue on windows and have to resort to editing undocumented registry keys.

And that happens how often? Once a year? On Linux, that’s more like one a day. Once a week if you’re lucky.

Can you be specific? I like to tinker with my config so am not the comparison point, but my partner, two young daughters and my mother are all on Linux and neither do I help them, nor do they use the terminal.

My mother switched to Linux several years ago and the amount of questions I receive are less than when she used Windows, mainly because if she encounters issues it's much easier for her to find a solution herself.

Linux is great for grandmas and linux junkies.

If all you do is check email and watch youtube, it works excellent. Its when you are someone in the middle that it becomes a huge PITA.

I'd agree with that, my sense is there would be a lot of benefit from adding GUIs that bridge the gap and show what they're doing. So instead of firing up a text editor to reach into the depths of /etc or googling the huge breadth of guides that essentially have "copy this into the terminal and pipe into grep" to get information sometimes without providing context. Another aspect to this is setting up guardrails on what is being done, and feedback on limits, which could increase confidence in using the system instead of treating it as something that will shatter at the slightest wrong touch or an appliance.

Exactly. I’m someone who can fix his broken Linux install because the driver update broke something again or because the display scaling is fucked again or because the game won’t launch on Steam or because wayland crashed again or because the application is missing some weird dependency, but I really, really don’t want to. I want to use my computer to do my work. I don’t want to work on my computer.

Can you elaborate on what exactly you're doing with Linux that's causing that? I use Arch daily (programming, gaming, web browsing, etc), and the last time I had to do anything more complicated than `sudo pacman -Syu` to configure my system was over a year ago.

I have no idea what you are talking about, I've used fedora for over a year now and aside from some tweaking, which I explicitly did myself, I've never had to go into some weird configs to change anything.

It just works

I think honestly PEBCAK.

I use an AMD GPU. When I installed windows, windows kept insisting to downgrade my drivers. I looked it up and the official solution on Microsoft was a regedit to disable auto updates for GPU drivers.

This actually happens pretty often when I’m using windows as a power user.

On Linux, I’ve setup endeavourOS once (and by setup I mean installed it, and then installed Flatpak for the rest of my applications). I run yay every once in a while and everything works.

Meh if you’re not picky about the way your desktop looks/acts then you can install it and run __aslongas__ linux has the software you need. If you use office/play games all day long linux probably isn’t for you because it simply doesn’t have the the software you want to run which is the most important thing for people. That isn’t the fault of linux it’s just a market fact. Linux has everything I need and 80-90% of the games I play install easily via steam. I mean I know I’m giving up a little, but it’s just games. I prefer to have a stable system that isn’t spying on me 24/7 and trying to insert ads between myself and my very prodigious computer time.

Or worse, the knobs don't exist because Daddy knows what's best for you, and you can't have the source to implement those knobs yourself either.

You didnt mention which distro.

Are you using outdated Linux? (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint)

Or modern linux? (Fedora)

Too many people fell for Ubuntu's Free CD marketing 20 years ago and repeat a prayer that its 'sTaBlE'. Its not stable, Outdated linux is garbage.

Since switching to Fedora, I install RPM fusion + Nivida and never touch the terminal. I don't use app managers either, I just havent had a reason to use either app managers or the terminal in the last 1.5 years.

> Are you using outdated Linux? (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint)

> Or modern linux? (Fedora)

Citation needed. As an application developer, I'm seeing interest and activity on Fedora and Ubuntu decrease, and Debian and Mint increase.

(I'll agree with Ubuntu being a "trap", though not really for any reason related to stability.)

I have had a lot of luck using the Plasma desktop environment (on Arch). Super customizable, to the level of hyper specificity you've described (down to the pixel, sometimes), and is mostly intuitive how to make these customizations.

My local machine basically looks/runs like Windows 10, but with the KDE Plasma logo in the corner instead of Microsoft Windows.

I have a similar setup using Cosmic on Pop_OS!

> TBH, I'm ready to go back to windows.

I'm ready to go back to Windows 7. But between Windows 11 (or 12 or whatever), ios ("macos"), and Linux, it's not so simple anymore. It's just bad options all around.

I had a very old HP laptop. I installed Ubuntu 20.04, no problems. Laptop board died. I bought a mini pc, different CPU and GPU. I moved Ubunuty SSD from HP laptop to mini pc as it was, and it worked. Without doing anything all was running: wifi, gpu, bluetooth (even better than corporate Win11 laptop). I run Steam and I was playing just like before my old games. Magic.

100% agree with this.

From my perspective, Linux only works for people if you give a fuck about Linux and make it part of your core being. Some of us give a fuck about solving the problem, not the tool.

There is nothing more frustrating when I'm told "have you used Linux on the desktop". I literally use it on the server, have done everything down to writing kernel modules, have brought up startups and piles of infrastructure on it for 25 years but fuck no, it isn't going to the desktop because it doesn't solve any problems there, only creating new ones.

Despite the downvotes, I agree with you: I only care about getting the thing done. I don't want the OS to matter. I don't want it to be part of my identity. I don't want to think about the OS at all. Whereas most people using Linux are like: "whatever, once you read all the man pages and understand how the process isolation model works and find the right Discord chats to ask your question and know which packages to download and pick correctly from the 743 different distributions and make sure all hardware you buy is Linux-compatible and configure your kernel to sudo dev/null/ then you really don't have to jump down to the console more than once every few weeks" ... sorry, it's still currently much easier to unplug the internet when you first install Windows, edit a few regex keys to disable some ads, and then tell that popup "later" every few weeks. While the latter is infuriating, it takes two orders of magnitude less upfront mental load.

You can't be using KDE Plasma then.

I don't even know how to access the KDE Plasma help because it is just so easy to use.

I am writing this on a $500 ASUS Vivobook that came with Windows 11. The hardest thing was making the KDE thumb drive because Windows kept giving me a blue screen of death.

Once installed everything just works.