So i really wanted to ditch windows once and for all so i’ve tried Linux for a week trying different distros (debian, manjaro, ubuntu, opensuse, mint) and first of all why? Why are there so many distros out there? What’s the difference between debian + kde and manjaro + kde? They look the same, they work the same. I don’t get it. Also why do things have to be complicated? I’ve installed debian, installed calibre to manage my ebooks, created a library from an existing library on my hard drive (not the one with debian installed), ERROR! All the files are read-only. What??? I’ve followed multiple guides on how to change permissions and finally solved the problem. Now let’s restart my pc. files on the hard drive are read only WHAT??? Fuck debian, let’s go on manjaro. No problems at all on calibre. Managed to create the library as easy as i did on windows. My question is: where’s the fun in this? It’s just problems, after problems, after problems and i didn’t even start gaming. I mean i tried installing retroarch and importing my saves but of course nothing works. Read this guide, read that guide. Nope. Nothing works. Ok, fuck retroarch let’s customize the appearance of my desktop: move some icons on the panel, center this, adjust height, move this on the left, spent 30 minutes tweaking, very nice… kde crashes, all back to default. Let’s download some apps. I want as many apps that i already know as possible. Let’s see if jdownloader is available for linux. Yep there’s one. Nope, not for manjaro (officially). There’s a AUR package available. Nice. What do i need to do to install a AUR package? A wall of text on the wiki, 20 minutes videos, yay. Ok let’s call it a day. Do i need to live another life to make linux work?
I doubt this is a real post, but on the off chance it is, sorry you’re having issues, but Linux probably isn’t for you.
You’re obviously very enraged and not really interested in actually getting help for any issues you’re having. You started your post screaming at Linux for not making sense to you, you haven’t described what hardware you are trying to use.
You only described your issues with Debian and Manjaro, neither of which are beginner-friendly distros and aren’t often suggested to brand new Linux users.
If you want to describe your issues in more detail, one at a time, with info about your hardware, your distro and version, and what the exact errors you are getting are, you might get some folks chiming in to help. But coming on here, posting a rage-filled wall of text ranting about how angry Linux has made you, that’s not productive for anybody.
If that seems like too much work, then sad to say, Windows will be your home for the time being.
Definitely sounds like it could be real. If I had to guess their mounting a drive (or another partition) and it’s defaulting to read only. When restarting it resets the original permissions as they only updated the file permissions, but not the mount configuration.
Also reads like some of my frustrations when first getting into Linux (and the issues I occasionally run into still).
I promise that is my experience in the last 2 days. Frustrating. I’ll try to stick with linux for the rest of the week and see how it goes.
It gets better!
I took a deep dive on fonts my first week(they were fuzzy). I now know a lot about things I almost never use or set, but every win will give you a piece of the whole thing.
Eventually you figure out the “core” (that stays the same everywhere and you don’t have to do near as much work to tack on the extras.
It’s big and complicated because you’re replacing windows with the hundred individual things windows does, each were made by someone else, in some cases decades apart.
Somehow it all works pretty well, but we stand on the shoulders of some giants.
Edit: I also don’t like manjaro, but someone here has covered why better than I would have. I run endeavouros and would recommend if you want arch with less config, but it is arch. Mint is where I have been pointing people to start recently.
So i really wanted to ditch windows once and for all
Why?
so i’ve tried Linux for a week trying different distros (debian, manjaro, ubuntu, opensuse, mint)
Why? Choose one and stick with it, preferably a beginner friendly one like Ubuntu or Mint.
and first of all why? Why are there so many distros out there?
Because different people like different things and have different opinions. Some people like to have the latest packages and so they choose Arch, while others prefer to have a stable system until they want to upgrade core packages and so they go with Ubuntu.
What’s the difference between debian + kde and manjaro + kde?
One is Debian based and the other in Arch based. Debian uses apt, Arch uses pacman. Debian has a slower release cycle to ensure compatibility while Arch has a faster release cycle to ensure the latest versions of things are available. Like these there are thousands of small differences between any two distros. It’s mostly philosophical, so just pick something beginner friendly and stick with it until you find a reason to switch.
They look the same, they work the same. I don’t get it.
They don’t work 100% the same, that’s like saying that a car and a truck are the same because they’re both painted black and have a steering wheel. Under the hood they’re very different.
Also why do things have to be complicated?
They’re not, they’re different. Doing stuff on Windows is also complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing, excepts you’ve had years of experience, in a few years Linux will feel easy and Windows complicated.
I’ve installed debian, installed calibre to manage my ebooks, created a library from an existing library on my hard drive (not the one with debian installed), ERROR! All the files are read-only.
Is the entire hard-drive read only? How did you mount it? What format is it on? You’re skipping a lot of important questions, that if you had answered (or asked about this issue) you would know the problem. My guess is that you don’t have ntfs-3g installed and the drive was NTFS.
What??? I’ve followed multiple guides on how to change permissions and finally solved the problem.
How? This might give us an idea of what was wrong with it.
Now let’s restart my pc. files on the hard drive are read only WHAT???
Yes, makes sense, did you applied a permanent fix or a temporary one? Since we don’t know what you did we have to assume you did a temporary fix, so it’s like asking why did Firefox not opened after I restarted my computer if I had open it before.
Fuck debian, let’s go on manjaro.
That’s a bad reason to switch distros, if you switch distros every time you run into something you don’t understand you’re going to run out of distros fairly quickly. Let me tell you right now, EVERYTHING one distro can do another one can, no exceptions. Something not working is a bad reason to switch distros unless you know why the other distro makes it work and are okay with the philosophical differences between distros.
No problems at all on calibre. Managed to create the library as easy as i did on windows. My question is: where’s the fun in this?
The same thing that’s causing you problems is an awesome feature, Linux is very modular, you can build yourself your system exactly the way you want it. That is very fun.
It’s just problems, after problems, after problems and i didn’t even start gaming.
Well, yeah, it’s an unfamiliar thing, I feel the same every time I have to use Windows.
I mean i tried installing retroarch and importing my saves but of course nothing works.
Why not? AFAIK RetroArch should have cross compatible saves.
Read this guide, read that guide. Nope. Nothing works. Ok, fuck retroarch let’s customize the appearance of my desktop: move some icons on the panel, center this, adjust height, move this on the left, spent 30 minutes tweaking, very nice…
Did you saved in the meantime? Let his be a lesson, save often, you never know when something will happen.
kde crashes, all back to default.
That’s weird, I don’t remember last time KDE crashed, but then again I’m not using Manjaro so maybe the current version there is broken? What was the error? Did you submitted a bug report? That might be an important finding.
Let’s download some apps. I want as many apps that i already know as possible. Let’s see if jdownloader is available for linux. Yep there’s one. Nope, not for manjaro (officially). There’s a AUR package available. Nice.
Not nice, don’t use AUR on Manjaro, you will break stuff.
What do i need to do to install a AUR package? A wall of text on the wiki, 20 minutes videos, yay.
That’s because AUR is not meant for people who don’t know what they’re doing. It’s dangerous and unstable, the way to get an air package is to build it yourself, the way to get an automated tool to install them is to build the package for it yourself, this should prevent people who shouldn’t be building packages from doing so. BTW, Manjaro is especially unsafe because it has an AUR manager in their official repos IIRC, which btw is called yay, so not sure if that was a joke.
Ok let’s call it a day. Do i need to live another life to make linux work?
No, you just need time to learn something new, instead of jumping around thinking that things would solve themselves. If you had started with Ubuntu you might not had either of those problems, and if you had learned what was wrong with the first problem on the first distro you would know how to fix it in every other distro and solve similar problems, just like you did with Windows before and now solving things there is intuitive for you.
Why?
I’ve used win11 and didn’t like it. Time’s ticking.
One is Debian based and the other in Arch based. Debian uses apt, Arch uses pacman. Debian has a slower release cycle to ensure compatibility while Arch has a faster release cycle to ensure the latest versions of things are available. Like these there are thousands of small differences between any two distros. It’s mostly philosophical, so just pick something beginner friendly and stick with it until you find a reason to switch.
Yada, yada, yada.
They’re not, they’re different. Doing stuff on Windows is also complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing, excepts you’ve had years of experience, in a few years Linux will feel easy and Windows complicated.
Things to do to install an app on Windows: download the exe, double click on the icon, follow the instructions, done. Things to do to install an app on Linux: check the package manager, if the app is not there go on their website, cross your fingers, copy and paste x lines in the terminal, cross your fingers (had problems with windscribe, enpass, spotify), wget command not found, install wget, retry, cross your fingers one last time, done (?).
if you switch distros every time you run into something you don’t understand you’re going to run out of distros fairly quickly
Man, there are hundreds (nonsense) distros out there, i need something like 3 lives to try them all.
Why not? AFAIK RetroArch should have cross compatible saves.
Apparently not. I’ve saved a copy of the saves folder and simply pasted it in the retroarch folder on linux but the game doesn’t read anything.
That’s weird, I don’t remember last time KDE crashed, but then again I’m not using Manjaro so maybe the current version there is broken? What was the error? Did you submitted a bug report? That might be an important finding.
There were no errors. Screen went black and then everything was reset.
If you had started with Ubuntu you might not had either of those problems
This is actually fun: i have Ubuntu Budgie on my laptop and i was trying to create a bootable win10 on my pendrive with ventoy given that jesus christ woeusb is super complicated to install with all those manual dependencies installs and woeusb-ng gives problem with python. Installed ventoy, copied the iso, pasted it, nothing shows up in the drive. Copied the iso again, pasted it again, file already existing. ???. I’ve extracted the drive, plugged it back in, nothing. Extracted it again, plugged it in on my desktop, iso is actually there. Wtf is wrong with linux?
I see a common trend here. You seem to be very tech savvy and a windows power user, and get frustrated with Linux because you’re trying to solve problems with a windows mentality and failing.
Yada, yada, yada.
That yada yada yada is the most important part from my entire answer, choose a beginner friendly distro and stick to it.
Things to do to install an app on Windows: download the exe, double click on the icon, follow the instructions, done.
Nope, things to install an app on Windows: Open a browser, search for the program, click the wrong link, download a virus, go back, try again, find a more reputable site, download another virus, run anti-virus, discover your computer has been completely overrun by viruses, format, reinstall everything, find the right site, download the installer, click next 20 times, accept to have a new service running when you start your PC by accident, done?. You don’t do all of that every time? That’s because you know what you’re doing, I certainly don’t do half the stuff you mentioned for Linux.
Things to do to install an app on Linux: check the package manager
That’s it, if it’s not there you shouldn’t worry with it until you’re a bit more experienced. This is why I recommend beginner friendly distro a, they will have more stuff and possibly have snaps/flatpacks by default which should cover most of your use ases and are installed via the same GUI.
Man, there are hundreds (nonsense) distros out there, i need something like 3 lives to try them all.
Precisely my point, don’t. Pick a beginner friendly distro and stick to it.
Apparently not. I’ve saved a copy of the saves folder and simply pasted it in the retroarch folder on linux but the game doesn’t read anything.
Have you tried saving something new to see if we have the correct folder?
There were no errors. Screen went black and then everything was reset.
That’s crashing, there should be some log somewhere, can you reproduce or is it random?
This is actually fun: i have Ubuntu Budgie on my laptop and i was trying to create a bootable win10 on my pendrive with ventoy given that jesus christ woeusb is super complicated to install with all those manual dependencies installs and woeusb-ng gives problem with python. Installed ventoy, copied the iso, pasted it, nothing shows up in the drive. Copied the iso again, pasted it again, file already existing. ???. I’ve extracted the drive, plugged it back in, nothing. Extracted it again, plugged it in on my desktop, iso is actually there. Wtf is wrong with linux?
Did you installed Ventoy properly on the drive? Did you unmounted before removing the first time? Otherwise you might have corrupted the file, remember how people always say to eject before unplugging a USB drive? This is the reason, the GUI that shows you copying stuff is just a FE to the calls to the kernel for writing, the kernel actual writing to the disk is done afterwards, so even after the GUI closes the file was not totally written. Again, regardless of OS, unmount/eject drives before unplugging them. Also is your desktop Linux or windows? Does the bootable drive works? You need to learn to provide more information if you expect help, saying “stuff doesn’t work, what’s wrong with Linux?” Will get you a lot of answers of the type “the problem is between the keyboard and the chair”.
I won’t choose any distro. I chose to stick with windows. I spent 1,5 hours setting EVERYTHING UP. Apps, accounts, settings, everything. I spent the exact same trying to figure out why the fuck steam is not automatically downloading dependencies as it did on my laptop and didn’t even get an answer.
I’ve never, ever got a virus on any of my pcs. I grew up with internet, since the ADSL days, i know my shit.
Some of the apps i use are very important to me and some of them don’t have packages so i had to rely on commands in the terminal.
I was not expecting any help actually. The amount of problems i encountered is too much. The past 3 days dealing with linux have been extremely stressful. No wonder linux is still super niche. I can fairly say that i’ve been reckless going for non beginners distros but linux has problems, huge problems.
I’ve never, ever got a virus on any of my pcs. I grew up with internet, since the ADSL days, i know my shit.
Therein lies the problem, you’re a windows expert, moving away from your comfort zone will always feel bad. It’s okay to stick to Windows, no one should be forced to use an OS they don’t like. But if you ever want to try again, I recommend taking a step back and accepting that for all your years of experience in Windows you are a noob here, and trying to jump into the deep end is more likely to get you drowned than learning how to swim.
Also I recommend dual-booting, so you have the safe heaven of a known OS to reboot into in times of need. Most of us started that way and dealt slowly with the difficulties in using Linux with a windows user mentality, until at some point we realized we were spending the majority of our time in Linux and Windows had become unusable because we were now thinking like Linux users. I’m sure that if I had tried to do what you did I would also be frustrated, so I completely understand you. But let me tell you something which you might not want to hear, and will possibly even get angry at me for telling you, but there’s a fairly good chance that the majority of issues you encountered were self-imposed. Linux has near infinite possibilities, but that’s like saying the ocean is nearly infinite, it doesn’t mean you should try to swim across it just because you’re used to doing it on a swimming pool, you’ll drown fairly quickly and get nowhere.
the majority of issues you encountered were self-imposed.
How? I’ve installed Debian with KDE, downloaded the .deb from steam website, learnt to install that using sudo dpkg -i steam_latest.deb, opened the app and i’ve been welcomed with a text inviting me to press enter to continue, pretty simple. The program downloaded stuff, steam is ready now. Not bad. Repeated the exact same thing on Debian with xfce, that apparently doesn’t come with a software installer, nothing works. An alert says i need to download dependencies (i know dpkg doesn’t resolve dependencies). Where’s the “enter to continue”? How is this my fault??
How? I’ve installed Debian with KDE
Mistake number 1, Debian is not beginner friendly.
downloaded the .deb from steam website
Mistake number 2, this is windows mentality, if it’s not in the package manager it’s too advanced for you for the time being. Beginner friendly distros would have had steam in their package manager.
learnt to install that using sudo dpkg -i steam_latest.deb
You could have also double clicked the Deb file, but this is a bad way, dpkg does not resolve dependencies, so you would need to figure those out and install them by hand, which can be tedious at best.
opened the app and i’ve been welcomed with a text inviting me to press enter to continue, pretty simple. The program downloaded stuff, steam is ready now. Not bad.
You lucked out, your system had all of the requirements met.
Repeated the exact same thing on Debian with xfce, that apparently doesn’t come with a software installer, nothing works. An alert says i need to download dependencies (i know dpkg doesn’t resolve dependencies). Where’s the “enter to continue”?
No such luck therez remember when I told you to use the package manager? This is why. Possibly missing something stupid like an i32 library, which you could manually install, but you shouldn’t, you’re making things hard for yourself for no reason other than wanting to avoid beginner friendly distros.
How is this my fault??
It’s your fault because like I’ve been saying since the beginning you’re trying to use Linux as if it were Windows and getting frustrated because it behaves differently. Trying to do this will be frustrating and you will become angry because nothing works like you expect, but you must understand that it’s not that things don’t work, it’s that they work differently.
You might be thinking this is stupid, an installer should install everything it needs, right? Nope, that’s a windows mentality, in Linux the main idea is that an installer only installs what it’s supposed to, any dependency should be system-wide. Why you might ask? Simple, imagine if every single GUI app had to include it’s own copy of the full GUI library it uses, your system would quickly become bloated, not only that but each program would open it’s own copy of the library using more and more memory, not to mention the interoperability problems between programs using different versions of the same library. In Linux the standard is for programs to use system libraries, it’s the convention, just like how on Windows it is to not (which has its own set of problems). This is why package managers are important, they’re not just downloading an executable and running it, they’re doing lots of stuff behind the curtains, all of it can be done manually, but like you found out it’s troublesome, so best is to avoid.
Mistake number 1, Debian is not beginner friendly.
If i got a beginner friendly distro how will i learn how to use linux properly?
if it’s not in the package manager it’s too advanced for you for the time being
So if an app is not a package manager i’m fucked?
You could have also double clicked the Deb file
I tried, it did nothing, i went online to search for a solution.
which you could manually install
This is mental. This shouldn’t be a thing even for pros. I need 15 minutes to install an app? Sorry i won’t go out this evening, i need to install an app and god knows what can happen.
You might be thinking this is stupid
Well, yes, of course. Also i read some contradictions in your post: the installer only installs what is supposed to, but it needs dependencies to actually make the app usable. But that’s what package managers do, right? Different apps could use the same libraries but also different ones, so the system could become bloated nonetheless. I don’t see how is this beneficial for the user.
If you ever try it again just go for ubuntu. That distro hides a lot of the complexity from the user.
