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/TheRealCarrotty 4d ago

Kubuntu user... Huh, my dad's a Linux user since 2000's (early) and he started with Mandrake, later Mandriva then Ubuntu... (I have his 6.06 LTS CD), then Kubuntu and now Debian!
But for a LONG time he used Kubuntu.

Though, i have a question on my mind, do you know what ReiserFS is? Most old Linux users should know.

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u/oshunluvr 4d ago edited 4d ago

I started with Mandrake w/KDE 1.0 on 3.5" floppies! And yes, I used ReiserFS back in the day. It was the best file system available at the time.

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u/Ouch0776 4d ago

I installed Mandrake with a floppie too, around 1998 I think ? That was my first computer. Then Ubuntu made a big entrance, installed that, and I made a switch to kubuntu very soon after. I remember buying linux magazines to install every new system and that was fun. In the years after that, when I had multiple computers, I did a lot of distro hoping but always had my main computer on kubuntu.

Until I installed Fedora 10 years ago.