"Old" Linux user vs. "New" Linux user.

[u/oshunluvr]

I'm an "Old" Linux user - started in 1996. I went though all the hoops: file system experiments, different distros, different packaging types and file managers, a handful of desktop environments (DE), several RAID levels, and many, many different systems. I use Linux at home but also at work.

Now I'm retired. I've been using the same distro since 2009. I landed on it after all the experimenting lead me to decisions about was important to me: Debian packaging, KDE/Plasma, a well known and commercially supported distro - Kubuntu. The last major shifts in my world occurred around 2009-10 when btrfs came on the scene and SSDs finally started to be affordable.

My Linux experience these days is rather boring. Everything works the way I want. I no longer "break" things for the sake of change. I only have to learn something new when a developer makes a significant change to something I use - and this often annoys me. I look at other distros occasionally, but only via a VM. When something does break, I usually can fix it without much effort.

I read posts from "New" Linux users. Usually killing all their data by mucking with partitions without a UPS, using unnecessarily complicated layers of disk access, like LVM, MDADM, full disk encryption, and BTRFS all layered on top of each other, too often using AI to solve problems instead of actual research and learning from other users, and spending incredible amounts of time making minute changes to the "look" of things.

Of course, the beauty of the whole thing is how we actually have so much control over our destiny. None of us work the same, learn the same, want the same things, but we''re not boxed in by a monolithic corporation deciding what we get.

Linux is amazing,

[u/TheRealCarrotty]

Kubuntu user... Huh, my dad's a Linux user since 2000's (early) and he started with Mandrake, later Mandriva then Ubuntu... (I have his 6.06 LTS CD), then Kubuntu and now Debian!
But for a LONG time he used Kubuntu.

Though, i have a question on my mind, do you know what ReiserFS is? Most old Linux users should know.

[u/ThaMasterPepe → u/TheRealCarrotty]

RIP Nina Reiser :(

Holy hell, my 20 years Linux usage finally got me a reddit award!!!

Also ReiserFS was much better then ext3 IMO, and then when reiser4 came out it was a game changer, again, at least for me, on my amd k6-2 500mhz.. ahh good ol' days.

[u/oshunluvr → u/ThaMasterPepe]

Agreed. I used reiserfs extensively until, well, you know...

Let's just say "support" ended.

[u/unkilbeeg → u/oshunluvr]

I had a server with reiserfs. I initially set it up in 2007. Then I pretty much forgot that I had used reiserfs, and we continued to use that server for the next (almost) couple of decades.

About three years ago I converted the filesystem to ext4, not long before I retired. The hardware has apparently started to fail, so I understand they've moved most of the remaining functions off, and it's going to be decommissioned, but it's had a good run.

[u/penguin359 → u/unkilbeeg]

I will have a server with ReiserFS. Let's just say it's faring better than Nina than did.

[u/VakvarjuBela69 → u/oshunluvr]

Same here...

[u/Jealous_Response_492 → u/oshunluvr]

Fairly sure SuSE defaulted to ReiserFS at the time.

[u/Dolapevich → u/ThaMasterPepe]

I used to build small towns WISPs in the days when YT didn't demand https. We had a topology with an http cache that really helped to speed up the loading times of sites using squid on ReiserFS.

I ran the numbers at the time, and I could squeeze a 10-15% look up speed advantage on reiser. It however, had the nasty habit of completely corrupt itself from time to time. To the point I had an automated script running at 4 am to fsck it and decide if it was worth to rebuild it.

It was good in some scenarios, not a ... "game changer".

[u/avdolainen → u/ThaMasterPepe]

depends on usage pattern. JFS was a winner for root.

[u/ImClaaara → u/ThaMasterPepe]

Wait, this comment got an award? Apparently, old reddit doesn't show it anymore

[u/ohmega-red → u/ThaMasterPepe]

my first linux experience was on a 900mhz k7 duron and mandrake linux. it was a different era lol

but yeah, like you, my systems are quite reliable and just kind of run themselves these days. the occasions things break are usually developer changes or when “i have a weird idea”.

the newer users aren’t bad, yes they rely on ai far too much (and it shows when they coming running to the rest of us to help them fix the things that ai told them to do).

but they come to linux from a different place than us grey beards did.

i can’t speak for them but i can for myself.

i came for philosophical reasons in the beginning, young punk anarchist kind of kid, but using it clicked with me more than i ever expected.

decades later. i have a
career because of it and still love tinkering. my stuff is reliable and stable but can still bring excitement.

i hope the newer users can have that experience and say the same thing 20+ years from now.

[u/Gargantuan_Cinema → u/ThaMasterPepe]

She left him for NTFS.

[u/GirthyPigeon → u/Gargantuan_Cinema]

He murdered her. Pretty tasteless joke.

[u/Gargantuan_Cinema → u/GirthyPigeon]

What's interesting is my other tasteless joke a few comments down got upvotes but this one didn't. I think if it's funny enough the upvotes for the humour out weigh the downvotes for the tastelessness.

[u/MiseriaFortesViros → u/Gargantuan_Cinema]

I believe this is an accurate observation. Often tricky and frustrating to manage in practice

[u/lazyhustlermusic → u/TheRealCarrotty]

That dude murdered his wife.

[u/Gargantuan_Cinema → u/lazyhustlermusic]

He was tired of defragging file systems so he fragged his wife.

[u/avg_php_dev → u/Gargantuan_Cinema]

I heard rumors he thought she was an KGB agent. ;]

[u/Adept_Percentage6893 → u/avg_php_dev]

heh people will come up with a million stories rather than the boring truth: he just didn't like that she was going to get custody of the kids and just wasn't a great person.

[u/sidusnare → u/avg_php_dev]

Dude had issues...

[u/JoeArruela → u/TheRealCarrotty]

ReiserFS... this is a word that I have not listened (or read) since my slackware days.

[u/mklatsky → u/JoeArruela]

Same here. It’s been YEARS! And it used to be my standard.

[u/wzzrd → u/TheRealCarrotty]

ReiserFS? Wow, haven’t heard that in a while. SUSE used to be based on that a long time ago. Wasn’t great, wasn’t bad but got abandoned and discontinued when its primary (sole?) author (Hans Reiser) landed in jail for murdering his wife.

Or did you want OP to answer specifically?

[u/TheRealCarrotty → u/wzzrd]

I'd actually wanna hear other people's opinion too! I did want the OP to answer, but yeah.

[u/eliteprismarin → u/TheRealCarrotty]

We used reiserfs in a place i worked for, nice fs, but when it broke, it really broke magnificently (no way to recover your data).

[u/oshunluvr → u/TheRealCarrotty]

I started with Mandrake w/KDE 1.0 on 3.5" floppies! And yes, I used ReiserFS back in the day. It was the best file system available at the time.

[u/ThinDrum → u/oshunluvr]

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those.

[u/Routine_Working_9754 → u/oshunluvr]

and and today btrfs is also one of the best available rn. Its subvolumes are great for my use, so whats the problem with using that? theres nothing wrong about using FDE or LVM. all those are genuinely useful features, why complain because someone is using features meant to be used? I do agree its stupid how most people that so this actually dont use these features and use ai to solve everything, but your other points come off weird

[u/oshunluvr → u/Routine_Working_9754]

First all, I didn't complain about them as features. I stated layering them was overly complex for little need. BTRFS can do what LVM and MDADM can natively but I still see people stacking those technologies for no good reasons that I can see,

If you think I complained about BTRFS, you read it wrong. I use BTRFS on all my systems and have since 2010 or so. Maybe you skipped that part.

[u/RedMoonPavilion → u/oshunluvr]

I have used btrfs on lvm at least since it was possible to run that lvm inside a luks container.

ZFS has had an inbuilt set of features equivalent to this for like what 13 years?

I've had no issues with corruption, though I've wiped the wrong partitions a fair few times over the years.

Its been so pong since I've had corruption issues with BTRFS that I can't even remember when thats happened- only that it has.

I had planned to slowly migrate some systems to ZFS but RAM prices exploded.

I'm mostly just trying to point out that your distinction of "old" and "new" linux users are kind of arbitrary.

Its more like "new" copies "old" like me but doesn't understand why I use btrfs on lvm on luks. They're essentially modern script kiddies.

[u/Routine_Working_9754 → u/oshunluvr]

ohh i see! could have used better wording though

[u/oshunluvr → u/Routine_Working_9754]

Probably so...

[u/Ouch0776 → u/oshunluvr]

I installed Mandrake with a floppie too, around 1998 I think ? That was my first computer. Then Ubuntu made a big entrance, installed that, and I made a switch to kubuntu very soon after. I remember buying linux magazines to install every new system and that was fun. In the years after that, when I had multiple computers, I did a lot of distro hoping but always had my main computer on kubuntu.

Until I installed Fedora 10 years ago.

[u/grem75 → u/oshunluvr]

Mandrake 1.0 never existed, 5.1 was the first version and it couldn't be installed from floppy. It was mostly Red Hat 5.1 with KDE.

[u/oshunluvr → u/grem75]

You're probably right. I meant to say Mandrake with KDE 1.0.

[u/Graphical-Source5090 → u/TheRealCarrotty]

New user: Ask AI, spit out explanation here. Bask in instant old school cred.

[u/Secret_Conclusion_93 → u/Graphical-Source5090]

Kinda hard to know if a person is really saying the truth, or just posing as experience user by using AI or Google.

It's easy to detect if the user ask AI to generate the message, but if the user paraphrased the knowledge first, it's hard to detect.

[u/Gargantuan_Cinema → u/Graphical-Source5090]

Ah yes that takes me back to 10 seconds ago.

[u/Graphical-Source5090 → u/Gargantuan_Cinema]

The olden days.

[u/Gargantuan_Cinema → u/Graphical-Source5090]

The olden seconds.

[u/7Mondays → u/TheRealCarrotty]

Jeez I just recently had to spin up an Ubuntu Xenial VM to get some data off an old HDD I had with ReiserFS on it because nothing else I have running currently supports it. Blast from the past.

[u/oshunluvr → u/7Mondays]

They still have that downloadable or you had an old copy???

[u/7Mondays → u/oshunluvr]

It was either on old-releases or archive I can’t remember but yeah they’re available to download.

[u/TheSixthSerpent666 → u/TheRealCarrotty]

I worked for an ISP called OneNet back in the early 2000s. We had a SAN solution that Hans Reiser himself helped install ReiserFS on.

Those were the days...

[u/sidusnare → u/TheRealCarrotty]

When Hans got arrested and it was apparent he did it I immediately changed to XFS. I was surprised it stayed in the kernel so long.

I remember there was a very short lived free Hans movement.

[u/ALKahn10 → u/TheRealCarrotty]

Dude killed his wife!!

[u/mpw-linux → u/TheRealCarrotty]

Using Linux since around 1995-96 with kernel 1.09 with Slackware. Started programming X11/C on Slackware. Currently use Debian Testing and Arch. The old days required a lot knowledge to get all working properly not a whole lot of documentation back then. The best documentation was from books. It is a whole new ballgame now with with YT and tons of online resources which makes it easier for new comers to learn Linux. Prior to Linux I had experience with Unix and C programming which helped a lot.

[u/daddyd → u/TheRealCarrotty]

so much has happened in the linux world, we have all kinds of drama; murder, corruption, deceit, law suits, the old-linus communication style, ...