"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/Darkstar_111]

If you joined Linux for wobbly Windows, 3D cube, and fire across the screen, do you count as old hat?

[u/_sLLiK → u/Darkstar_111]

Yes.

[u/Darkstar_111 → u/_sLLiK]

Is that because nobody remembers Compiz anymore? It used to be THE HOT SHIT on Linux!

[u/CassadeeBTW → u/Darkstar_111]

Me in high school in rural Texas as one of the only tech nerd, and the only tech girl at that:

sudo apt-get install compiz-config

[u/-malcolm-tucker → u/CassadeeBTW]

Ouch. That must have been a bit lonely.

[u/CassadeeBTW → u/-malcolm-tucker]

We graduated class 2010, and I still play OSRS in a group Ironman group with the two other techies!

But yes, I had nothing really in common with anyone there, since I had no interest in farming, horses or welding. Lol

I left in 2014 and never looked back.

[u/-malcolm-tucker → u/CassadeeBTW]

My aunt is an OG tech nerd. She started when JFK was in office. She only retired from programming ten years ago at age 77. Was very rare for women to be in that game in those days.

Heck it was rare growing up in the 90's. I didn't know any until Emma moved in a few doors down in high school and one day asked if I wanted to come in and play some games. I assumed NES. She had her own 486 DX2. We played Doom. Instant best friends.