this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
62 points (97.0% liked)

Linux

53529 readers
1799 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
62
[meta] is your post discussion or user support? (lemmy.eco.br)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

i get a little annoyed at posts that start with broad statements like "is linux actually ready for the average user?" but then it's just someone asking for help to fix a problem they have with their sources.list or whatever. it's not a massive problem, but it's misleading and it feels borderline inflammatory sometimes

please tell when you're asking for help

ty

top 14 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

On another note, I sometimes get tired of "Please recommend a good laptop" posts - they're always just the same old advice: "I liked my Framework" or "Get a Thinkpad".

I kind of wonder if we could just have an annual mega-post for Linux hardware that gets pinned and mentioned in the server links. For example, "(Pinned) Linux Hardware 2025". Then we have a rule that you don't do hardware recommendation posts unless it's something extremely oddly specific, like "Best Linux hardware for a Pentium II build" or maybe even a question about people's experiences with VFIO on recent motherboard.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I swear I remember there being a website dedicated to documenting laptops and other hardware linux compatibility. Someone here must know what I'm talking about.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I do use that sometimes. I was able to use it to look at similar laptop models to my Thinkpad to inform my purchase. I then uploaded a probe when I got my hands on it.

I see the need for posts with recommendations in some ways, though - neither the main site or the forum are the easiest to parse, and it doesn't have every computer model. It is nice to have a human to guide you - it just isn't so nice when the community starts to get cluttered with these requests.

Honestly part of it is some of these people just don't do online research, and they might not read the community rules anyway, but it would be nice if we had an explicit rule that hardware recommendations either go to the annual post or be for very oddly specific needs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Yeah it depends. For "What's the best laptop for Linux", literally just look it up; there's hundreds of articles, forum threads, Lemmy/Reddit posts, etc discussing this topic. But I don't think there's an issue asking for hardware recs if you are explaining a specific use-case. I would say still do an online search first—like some use-cases are quite general, e.g. for music production, for gaming, and so on. And even for the most general cases, I think if your thread is more something like "does anyone else disagree that ThinkPads are good for Linux?" that's also fine, because it's actually sharing your opinion and giving something more to go off of than "give me a laptop".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

h-node?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I feel you and that's the main reason why I eventually give up on Linux discussion groups. "Is Linux ready"? Yeah, it's been ready for decades now. I sometimes wonder if these annoying posts are just FUD coming from Apple and Microsoft.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

to be fair, I understand the frustration and i myself hate linux sometimes too. i just wish they'd communicate they're asking for help

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Seriously, as someone who has been using linux as their daily driver since 2000, I find it pretry amusing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, I started my journey in about 2001. Linux was definitely more geeky back then.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Linux feels so mainstream to me now. Some days I'm temped to switch to OpenBSD or something ;)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sometimes I think about doing this, but then I remember that Linux is not my hobby these days, it's my productivity platform.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I understand! For most of my career its been the same for me.

The "big" switch I'm currently contemplating at the moment is moving to FreeBSD on my home file server.

I do sometimes consider switching my workstation to OpenBSD when I get nostalgic for the early struggle days of linux. Like when you had to be really careful with hardware selection and what not.

But then I remember I had a lot more free time in those days!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Same here - daily driving Linux at home for at least 25 years now. I'm not a gamer, but for all the things I do, Linux has worked perfectly fine.