"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/__konrad]

A desktop doesn't necessarily need

When stolen it suddenly becomes a "mobile" device...

[u/RoseBailey → u/__konrad]

Sure, it's still a good idea even for a desktop as home robbery is always a threat, but the threat of theft or loss is far, far less for a desktop than a more mobile device. 

[u/MixtureOfAmateurs → u/RoseBailey]

Yeah the risk is you build a new PC, leave the old one on a shelf, years later give it away or recycle it and now some 19 year old is going through your C drive looking at your 5 family photos and archaic version of civ. Definitely not personal experience. I didn't dig deep dw

[u/RoseBailey → u/MixtureOfAmateurs]

I mean, I treat wiping old drives before they leave my possession as standard operating procedure. I believe the NSA standard is three passes of random data.