Windows vs others

[Daniel3D]

Yes, it breaks if you step outside the beaten path   But you can uninstall and reinstall it in 3 minutes, and you are good to go again.

I know, but I didn't have a use for it other than exploring it's boundaries. It's on a 12 year old laptop. I try to keep it clean...

[dreadnaut]

I know, but I didn't have a use for it other than exploring it's boundaries. It's on a 12 year old laptop. I try to keep it clean...

Makes sense. I use it to run web server and database. Most of the work for ZakStunts happens in there for example.

[Cas]

Using a typical GNU/Linux distro nowadays is really easy most of the time. There are situations in which everything becomes a hell, but that happens with Windows too. Things were different before Ubuntu started to become popular around 2005 or 2006. At that point, other distros followed suit and several easy-to-use ones were easily available and installations were easy too, including live-CDs. There will always be some hacker-oriented ones and that's great because otherwise, old hackers would be very disappointed, but for somebody who has never used a computer before, I would definitely recommend one of these distros instead of Windows.

The feeling that many people have that "linux is hard" or "linux is for hackers" comes from points like these:
- GNU/Linux used to be for hackers only
- Most people have not used anything but Windows for years, so any other thing will seem harder at first
- Most people that try to install GNU/Linux for the first time in their computers expect to have both it and Windows. Installing the two OSs together requires somewhat more knowledge. This is not a complexity of GNU/Linux; it is a symmetric complexity of both and it's primarily cause by Microsoft, because it does not want another system in your computer, whereas GNU developers actually want to facilitate this, to encourage adoption. Installing GNU/Linux alone is super easy

When I switched to GNU from DOS, it was not that easy for me. The system was super different. I was able to get it working. What I was not able to do at first was find a comfortable way to do the same things I was doing in DOS. That took longer. Now, from Windows, I expect that to be simpler, because they both are being developed in parallel, not one after the other, so they are kind of made for the same things.

[Daniel3D]

There will always be some hacker-oriented ones

Do you mean unpolished Linux versions for the seasoned Linux user?
Or distributions like parrot os?

Switching from Windows to Linux has become easier for the common home user. But if you want to do any system management the difference between the two is a big hurdle.
(The popularity of Android partly solves that issue)

Live-CD (or usb) I use mostly when in need of Linux. Parrot os has nice tool's and no trouble with Windows file permissions.

[Daniel3D]

My biggest pitfall with Linux is that I approach it like I do with Windows. So when I wanted to explore the possibility to learn python I installed the python version recommend by the book I had.

I didn't know Linux runs on python (or something like that) and I kind of downgraded the python version of Linux and thus broke it.

(Probably very funny for Linux users, but I wasn't amused)

[Cas]

Linux for hackers, this can mean many things. What I meant in general was that some distributions, if you don't know the system well enough, you will have difficulties to install it and if you install it, it'll be hard for you to get to the point when you can use it to do the things you usually do on your computer. Depending on who you are and what you do on the computer, maybe even a distro as popular as Arch can be considered "for hackers"... or maybe not. Maybe Slackware... But regardless of whether they are for hackers or not, one thing is for sure: they are not for starters

System management covers many areas. I'm not great in this in general, on any system, but the things I know, I can do them for sure much better in GNU/Linux than in Windows. Like, if everything is running well, both systems are easy to use for me. If something fails and programs are refusing to run or there are crashes, I may be able to solve it in GNU, but certainly not in Windows. Of course, it may be that I can't even do it in GNU. In my experience, general system failure is more likely to occur in Windows, but this of course depends a lot on who manages the system. The Windows computers I've used in the last two decades were not mine, but from work. I manage my own GNU in my computer, so that could be the reason too.

I know what you mean about Python. Yes, it's not that "Linux runs on Python", but Python is very popular in the GNU platform, so a great number of popular tools depend on it, including tools that other tools invoke or depend on. As I said, I hate dependencies and I prefer to use things that depend on as few things as possible. So Python comes installed in all distros I personally have come across with and tampering with it may affect a number of tools. I don't use Python because I'm already used to FreeBasic and C and I don't feel like I need another programming language, then I haven't had these problems, but I have seen during installation of some tools that Python comes up frequently.

[Daniel3D]

If something fails and programs are refusing to run or there are crashes, I may be able to solve it in GNU, but certainly not in Windows. Of course, it may be that I can't even do it in GNU. In my experience, general system failure is more likely to occur in Windows, but this of course depends a lot on who manages the system.

My experience is completely opposite.

I've also never bought software (only some games) so I'm used to pirated software. And malware. I'm quite capable of identifying bad software and fixing my mistakes.
In Windows .. in Linux I pray somebody had the same problem and posted the solution.

[Cas]

I think I've bought software probably twice in my whole life. Once was Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition and the other was QuickView (a DOS image displaying program). In the DOS times, it was impossible to find original software in Argentina even if you wanted to. At the beginning I didn't even know that what I was doing was piracy  . By the time I switched to GNU, I got those two originals (which are for DOS actually) online, but other than that, I haven't used commercial software... Ah!  Except Minecraft, which I bought when it wasn't Microsoft's!  That's the third. So I have been using mostly free software only.

The likelihood of general system failures without a question has to do with how you use it. I don't normally try to tweak my OS. Just using GNU appears to be something super stable. I've seen many Windows machines collapse without any changes being made by the user, just the system alone changing as it automatically downloads and installs stuff without you knowing. Of course, if you are constantly making experiments in a GNU system, things may be very different, but I don't usually do that, so I don't know. I can only talk for what I've seen. On the other hand, I know many skilled people who will never let their Windows installation fail, but that's because they constantly care about it and keep it in good condition. Again, I am not such person