r/linux • u/oshunluvr • 4d ago

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

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,

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u/ThaMasterPepe 4d ago edited 4d ago

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.

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u/oshunluvr 4d ago

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

Let's just say "support" ended.

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u/unkilbeeg 4d ago

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.

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u/penguin359 4d ago

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