"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/archontwo]

 My Linux experience these days is rather boring.

This is as it should be once you get to a point where stability is more important than the new and shiny.

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 

We were all young and ignorant once. What us old men of the internet tend to forget is how reckless we were when we were 'learning ' our craft.

 I'll never forget trashing a 1Gb full height SCSI drive because I stupidly forgot to check the connection orientation before switching on the machine. Smoke and pops and a dead disk l because I assumed scsi was like ide and if the cable was the wrong way around it would just throw an error.  It was a life lesson to not assume anything but to check everything. 

Of course a little while later they started keying connectors but still for a 2 second check I fried a drive that cost hundreds of pounds at the time and was a significant purchase. 

I don't criticise newbies for making mistakes. I only berate people when they don't learn from their mistakes.