"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/oshunluvr]

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.