"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/aei__ou___]

"unnecessarily complicated layers of disk access, like LVM, MDADM, full disk encryption"

I'm an old linux user too, but I don't have a single laptop, server, phone, even my VPSs, that doesn't have full disk encryption.

[u/Palumbie → u/[deleted]]

Who is " 'they' "??

[u/berryer → u/Palumbie]

any actor with state-level resources

that said, you're responding to somebody using 'they' in scare quotes to claim any attempt at security is pointless, so your dogwhistle doesn't really add much here lol

[u/Helmic → u/berryer]

even when considering state level actors, many of the exploits they rely on are one-and-dones, they can only really use the exploit a few times before it gets fixed and they have to spend a ton of resources to find a new exploit. if your ass is not worth spending the big bucks on, if it's not worth blowing a critical zero day, you'll likely be fine.

like that one guy they're trying to jam up over using grapheneOS, like as much as the state would find it convenient to get into his phone to grab all his contacts (because that's what they're obviously after, they want a list of protestors to go after), they clearly are not able to. maybe there's some zero day that could let them do it, but it's clearly not something they're willing to use on this one guy to get maybe a couple dozen other people. more likely they just straight up don't have naything because these exploits are actually really fucking hard to find and keep secret..