I don’t know, maybe. But I don’t wanna set up something as rare as Fedora or manual as Arch for some older people, who just wanna do basic stuff. I don’t wanna support advanced setups like that. Helping them with some Ubuntu stuff is already enough.

Well, a very long time ago, I tried plenty of distributions on old hardware and that worked enough, so I could at least boot. But yeah, older hardware was always easier for Linux.

At some point I switched to the ones, which are most likely to succeed. Ubuntu is the biggest one out there and should work the best, with the most support and acceptance across the globe.

If not even Ubuntu works on those devices, then what will work, out of the box?

Besides, Ubuntu has already diverted enough from Debian, that I wouldn’t really put them in the same basket, at all, anymore…

Yeah, I am very familiar with Debian on servers. It works great on servers. Have experienced with all kinds of stability stages regarding Debian.

However, Desktop Debian usually does not work. Then I switch to the one, which should work the easiest, so Ubuntu or some derivative. And this usually still needs tons of troubleshooting over hours to make it work to a minimum standard…

I’ve tried many many laptops. Don’t remember which ones, but they there the most sock common, you can probably imagine. For example, the last one is a budget acer with a Radeon discreet card or something. No NVIDIA. Installed Lubuntu on it. Absolutely standard installation. Worked for some while. Then it stopped working. Whenever I booted up the laptop, the screen went black after a second on login screen. Researching for hours and hours did not help to find a solution.

Funnily enough, I only installed Lubuntu in the first place, because I tried Debian Stable before that and that one didn’t boot at all. It did not work even once. So, I had switched to Lubuntu…

This is one representative example for how those great Linux installations always go in my cases. Again, this did not happen once or twice. This happens almost every single time I try to install Linux on any normal stock hardware, whatsoever.

The only time I had no trouble installing Linux is on my current laptop (tablet, but like a laptop) device. But do you know why? Because I reserched for hours for a device, which fits my needs and is very compatible with Linux. That’s why. I had to research tons of hours to find a device, which is actually Linux compatible.

That said, not even this device works fine. Actually, the opposite. It is dangerous to your health. Yeah, I’m not joking, I literally mean it.

One time, I started Firefox on it and the screen started flickering really hard. Couldn’t control or fix it. If my friend would’ve been there, he would’ve gotten a seizure 100%, since he has photosensitive epilepsy. Linux is literally dangerous to your health.

Windows might be annoying and all… But it doesn’t give anyone literal seizures.

apt search is very inefficient. It outputs way too many results and at least 8/10 times, I search for a keyword related to the package, which is not in the package name or description itself, so the package does not show up for me.

Searching online is better, but still crap. I work a lot with Container Images, Alpine etc. professionally and in my free time. Searching for the right Alpine package is always a huge pain in the ass.

Less is more. Nix has lots of packages, but they are barely maintained. For fun, I set up a Kubernetes cluster on NixOS a couple of years back. Had it “running” until last month. Long story short: Kubernetes is broken on NixOS. There are several open GitHub issues since years and nobody fixes them, because not enough people care to fix Kubernetes for NixOS.

What PCs? Certified by some Linux supporting company? If you buy a random laptop or pre-made PC, chances are high, that it won’t work. And I’m not even a “beginner”, who does “beginner” mistakes. No, I’m actually a Linux pro. I work with Linux literally every single day, even in my free time.

If you never want to update and wouldn’t do it or would do it too rarely (Windows only rarely asks, so the chance is high, you would update way too seldom…), then you are part of those “other people”. :D

It’s not about the speed of the installation… It’s about the installation not working. Crashes. Hard to see error logs. Drivers missing for the most generic hardware, ever. No, I’m not talking about an unmaintained fringe distribution. I’m talking about Ubuntu, Lubuntu & Debian. Plain old stable and simple.

What do you need as proof? All I have to do, is getting a random laptop, doesn’t matter which one and I will make a video for you. Is that enough?

Tried it over many years. Last one was last year. Every time, the same problem. I even considered moving to Windows, but it would be tougher for me to administrate for me, as I’m used to headless Linux. It’s just, whenever Linux tries to GUI, it fucks up everything colossaly.

Running Gitea and want to mirror worthwhile repositories, hence this post. :)

Happened to me all the time, when, for example, setting up very generic and common laptops for family & friends. It never worked out of the box. Every single time, I had to give special treatment. Research extra drivers, etc… Hard to do in some locations, when they do not have a second system to do all the work from.

Okay, but are they in danger of being removed? I think, they should be very well preserved…

Have a different experience. Usually, Linux does not even boot, due to driver issues, in the first place. So, the first installation process usually easily takes 5 to 10 hours, straight. And this is only for common popular distributions, not to mention lesser known and lesser supported ones. (Talking about Linux GUI based installations, only.)

https://github.com/SierraSoftworks/github-backup

Oh speaking of monitors. How many times have I tried to use more than 2 monitors on Linux… Never worked. On Windows it’s a matter of plug & play and it just works. :)

The problem is, that most people would then not update, get issues, land in a thread like this, make propaganda against Windows, since something doesn’t work or is insecure, when in fact the problem is in front of the screen, who always denied the update, that fixes those issues… That is why upgrades are rightfully enforced. At some point, you gotta upgrade or stop using the system.

Good points.

My friend uses the same headset on Linux, that I use on Windows.

When he “mutes” his headset, it is not actually muted on Linux. It is not really fixable. Obviously, on Windows it just works.

Literally the same story happened on Linux in the span of decades countless times. On Windows? Cannot remember this happening more than once.