I’ve used Linux off and on since 1998 or 1999. I bought Red Hat off the shelf originally and installed it. At the time, my video card wasn’t supported, so I couldn’t get a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to work. I played with the command line for a while, then reinstalled Windows98.
A few years later, I bought SuSE off the shelf. I had enough old parts to build a separate computer, so I installed it on that box. I had a Windows computer and a Linux computer. I don’t remember doing anything extraordinary with it. I browsed with it occasionally.
I’ve tried a few other variants. When Debian released an .exe to install from Windows, I tried it in a Virtual Machine and wrote a blog post about the results. Ubuntu is one of many forks of Debian Linux.
But typically, I found Linux too limited for my use. I guess I’m spoiled by Windows and Mac applications, and if there is an alternative on Linux, it rarely measures up and is not interoperable with Windows and Mac users. Web applications have alleviated that to a point, but sometimes it’s better to just have an app that runs on your own device.
People on Linux forums are generally friendly and want to be helpful, but they are not helpful. Even today, visit a Linux forum and ask “Which version should I use?” You’re likely to get the response “Whatever works for you.” Now, I’m fairly technical and have some Linux experience, and that barely makes sense to me. Imagine some 70 year old Boomer who can barely turn the computer on and doesn’t understand the difference between the operating system and Microsoft Word. How helpful is that going to be? Most people do not want to spend weeks installing Linux distro after distro until they finally land on that magic one that “works for you”. I wish Linux people understood this.
You also hear things like “You should compile your own kernel!” Why would I want to do that? Why would anybody trying to leave Microsoft and Apple want to just jump into that end of the Linux pool? Once you get REALLY good at Linux, sure, compiling your own kernel might be fun, but for the casual user who just wants to use their computer, it’s not fun. It’s very complex, and you need a deep understanding of kernels to do it. I tried it once, and I was lost. I didn’t understand what most of the components were and eventually ran out of patience for Googling them and why I should include or exclude them. If you want to promote Linux adoption, stop telling n00bs they should look at compiling their own kernels.
You can occasionally find posts and videos that will tell you about various distros, but they’re generally of the variety “Here’s this one. You might like this feature. This other one has this other feature. You might like that too.” It’s like they’re trying to be TOO impartial.
You may hear testimonies like “I breathed life back into my old Dell laptop by installing Linux! It runs fast!” So you take an old laptop, install Linux, and cannot duplicate the experience at all. It may run slower than Windows, if it even runs.
I took a Raspberry Pi 3 a friend gave me a while back. I tried running Ubuntu on it, but it was too slow. Ubuntu requires 4GB of RAM, and the Pi 3 has 1 GB. The Pi 4 is out now with up to 8GB of RAM. I got the Pi 3 running with Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspian) so I can play with it.
I figure I’ll dig back into Linux and try to find a way to think about it in a way that makes sense to me. Some of it is probably the heuristic Linux is based around. Linux is an x86 port of the Unix operating system. Unix was developed “by programmers, for programmers”. It makes sense to programmers, but not so much for the rest of us. I am not a programmer. I’m technically capable of learning it, but my experience in a Java class for my Bachelor’s degree made me swear off programming. I know enough to work with programmers and to manage software projects, but I haven’t been interested in writing programs since that class.
I’m glad Linux handles hard drive partitioning now. I remember having to manually partition my hard drive before I could even THINK about installing Linux. And Linux required at least 2 partitions, sometimes more.
