A Linux Rant | EP:1 - Hoodwinking Linux Beginners

[@coffeeScryer]

So this is a talk about the dichotomy between 1. Distros that give you stuff that's already set up the way the maintainer wants it (Ubuntu, Manjaro, Fedora, etc) 2. Distros that only give you what you need to set up stuff the way you want it (Debian, Arch, Void, Alpine, etc) and about how articles targeting new users will provide no value.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

Thanks for clarifying 🤣. I did better clarifying in episode 2. I'm kind of "dumb tarded" as my kid would say, when I'm heated. 🤣

[@soul0360]

I love that you advocate for asking for a persons usecase, before giving advice. But unless you have the patience to hold my hand throughout the process, of setting up my system. And alleviate the problems I will undoubtedly experience, when tinkering the first few months. I don't think just suggesting the distro you use, is the right one. Personally I was computer savy. I am a retired software developer and network admin. I have used Linux machines at work, but always had other people fix them. But I haven't kept up with any of it, since retiring (I'm also a vet suffering from severe PTSD). I actually somewhat loathe computers now, and currently my workstation has been in storage for 2 years. I'll soon pull it out of storage, and probably try a Linux distro. Only to hopefully get comfortable enough, to do the same to my kids computers, so they won't be mentally locked into the windows eco system as adults. For complete novices or someone like me, who can't focus on extensive tasks. What is needed of an OS, is something that works out of the box, where configuration needed is at a minimum. Exploring what packages is available, choosing the "best one", and setting it up just perfect. Is not what is needed for most, who just want to get away from Windows 10 or 11. What is needed, is something that resembles e.g. Windows 7. Not just on the desktop UI, but more so, as to available options, or even under the hood. So a bloated preconfigured system with the option to remove bloat, will be more usable to most Linux beginners, then a barebones system, with the a good package manager. And in time, they might become proficient enough, to start over with an unbloated distro. I've tried migrating to Linux a few times, years ago. Each time the toxicity in the community, and the frustration of not finding the needed help, is what has let me to yet again install Windows. That is also what I see, has been the problem for many others. Don't get me wrong. There are offcourse many good helpfull people out there, in the different forums. But, soner or later, the toxic gatekeepers will show their face in most threads. Without knowing what level of experience users has, they are called stupid, and to dumb to use Linux. Experiencing that again and again, is pretty disheartening, in the long run. As I understand you, you agree with this sentiment.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

I see you brother man, and I'll get a proper response in soon as I can.

[@soul0360]

You episode 2 cleared your point up quite a bit. In fact so much so. That I'll actually take your advice, when i finally get around to dusting off my desktop. I'll let my OP stand for reference. You earned a subscriber. Looking forward to see, how you continue your "Rant"/Guide.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

Haha I'm glad Episode 2 cleared things up. I don't like to be the "brute" all the time, but I feel its important to be transparent about some of the irritations that come with the territory. So I felt while it was important to express myself authentically, it definitely warranted a much calmer and more collected Episode 2 ;). I might encourage you to check out the NixOS video I released today as well. While it will require a bit steeper learning curve; it's quite revolutionary in how it functions. A single master configuration file to configure the entire system. Reproducible distro because of this; and because of how it functions, you'll never find yourself in what we call "dependency hell". Personally I would encourage new users to study rather extensively before trying to comit a distro like NixOS to hardware; but I do believe for those willing to study and take notes, it wouldn't be an issue. The beauty of an OS like NixOS is that once you've established a configuration that pleases you; you never have to configure it again, provided you maintain a backup of your configuration and keep it updated with any changes that you do decide to make. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions. I can't promise that I will have an answer; but I can promise that I can help you figure it out! Stay positive, and don't get discouraged!

[@liesdamnlies3372]

I feel like your post is exactly why endeavourOS was created. It’s basically just Arch…without the toxicity. XD

[@alphaobeisance3594]

As an Arch user, my skin crawls to even think about engaging on the Arch Linux forums lol. The pretentious attitudes are mind numbingly painful to deal with sometimes. Like dude, I was a freakin noob with an IQ of 5 in the IT department and I was able to figure out how to operate Arch Linux for gaming and general use in like 2 weeks. And that was back when I used to build it from scratch.... So when these dudes roll in with these high and mighty attitudes I just have to laugh; they're no different than those big "bad ass bikers" that ride around constantly self proclaiming how much of a big bad biker they are because they ride a Harley and turn wrench; bunch of goofs if you ask me. Love me some Arch Linux. The community..... we coexist lol

[@seeibe]

Losing 15 years of data is terrible regardless the reason, sorry to hear that

[@alphaobeisance3594]

eh, it was my fault to some degree. Granted at the time I wasn't in a position that I could afford things like NAS, and I don't fancy the idea of cloud storing all of my private and personal data on some corporate server. So it was the expense of principle I suppose; my cost of "education" if you will. I appreciate your stopping by!

[@cfehunter]

I'm not sure I completely agree with the point about the distros. Yes all of those mentioned are just small deviations from Debian on what they decide to pre-install and pack in their repositories, but then Debian is just a repository and package manager stacked ontop of the linux kernel. I feel like your argument there could equally be thrown at Suse, Debian and Fedora. Your average desktop user (which is a shrinking group as it is) doesn't want to tear down to the shell and install a new desktop environment, so the out of the box experience really is what matters to them. Personally my go to has been Arch, primarily just because of the AUR.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

I don't contest you. I elaborate ( in a much more collected manner ) in Episode 2. Through use of the Arch Installer they really don't have to do anything that say you or myself may have done prior to the archinstaller. I elaborate on the fact that the repository and the package manager is the only real difference and I only recommend arch because I'm most familiar with the AUR. I was so pissed (after reading dumb shit on the web) that I just had to vent a little in this one lol. Admittedly I was all over the place. But comments I've been receiving suggest I clarified much better in Ep2 lol. Thanks for swingin by!

[@pauldufresne3650]

I think it is better to move new users directly to learn about Ventoy to try different distros, rather than the old method of belena etcher like programs, that only allows you to try a single distro at a time.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

I use Ventoy myself; and I agree to an extent. I have no hate towards ANY distro. I just find it baffling that we would recommend any distribution that is bloated with software they "might" choose to use; indirectly risking putting them into dependency hell out the gate; resulting in an unpalatable experience for the new user. I'd rather encourage a vanilla bare bones distro that they can build to taste. It's no more difficult than building a bootable USB, and can be done in a matter of minutes if they have the guidance of someone who has the patience to walk them through it. (most distro's don't even really require any hand holding). Thanks for watching, and thanks for the comment. New video coming soon; something I'd not expected come out of left field!

[@squfucs]

Arch is fucking sick, and I'm looking to move entirely to Wayland (on Nvidia) because of all the recent X v. Wayland kerfluffling going on (easily achievable with GNOME desktop, from what I've been reading should be possible with KDE Plasma or something like Sway, dunno, never used Sway). Nooowwww my question, NixOS as a daily driver, meaning playing gaymes and doing some light shell scripting, dev work with Godot, some 3d modelling, use a DAW like FL Studio over WINE or maybe just switch fully to Reaper, etc., like, daily driver I can actually do all my work on. Got any experience on NixOS or ideas on that? The one thing I really see the benefit of the Nix pkgmanager with (not just nixos) is the CI/CD pipeline, but that would be something I'd use it for at work and not my personal PC at home -- but ya being able to declare states like that across tons of computers seems way better than chef or ansible or god forbid docker hell. Anyway, so that's where I'm stuck. I want to do a lot of gayming and gayme development and audio/3d/scripting/etc., and I also want to mess around with nix/nixos, and not sure if NixOS would be a good daily driver. Might just go with good ol' Arch, at least I can always rely on their awesome wiki. Sorry for the rant, cool video, keep posting good shit like this because most Linux youtubers suck shit and I don't even believe they use computers at all let alone know anything about Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

I actually installed NixOS just yesterday and got it set up and fully configured for daily driving on my rig; including RTX features. I just got done getting a hand full of game footage in ultra quality with RTX features where available to demonstrate NixOS's compatability. I did release my "first impressions" today and I show how I got the Nvidia drivers set up (it was awkward at first). See latest video for that. The one immediate take away that I got from Nix was that A: The master config is incredibly handy. and B: Configuring seems to be a bit of a PITA as pretty much NONE of the configurations are stored in their default locations. Instead they're all located in /nix/store ; which isn't an issue but it does present a bit of a learning curve that is absolutely going to be required if you want to get into deep configuration and customization. It's unavoidable with the way NixOS is designed to function. You can 100% game on either Arch, or Nix with an Nvidia rig. Though I cant speak on Wayland experiences as I've never had good ones lol so I've pussed out and stuck to the tried and true X11. But, if things are looking up for Nvidia compatibility with wayland, I may revisit it and see if I can gain the same level of stability that I have with X11. I'm definitely an "against the grain" kind of power user. A lot of my thoughts and perspectives will not set well with others. But in regards to if a distro would make a "good daily driver" i can honestly say that it doesn't matter what distro you're on, you can configure it to function as you want it too. It really just boils down to how much you know, or how much you're willing to learn. I'd never heard of NixOS until 3 days ago, and here I am 2 days later with a full blown NixOS gaming rig. All it took was about 6 hours of reading and tinkering to get things squared away; and now I have a master config that ensures my rig is stable and does what I want it too. The only two packages I've had any issues with were the jellyfin-media-player only wanting to function properly about 50% of the time; so I've opted for just streaming from Jellyfin web. And protonvpn-cli gives some stupid unknown API error upon login attempts. Aside of that, all else works as would be expected. Steam, all my games, (i.e. Baulders Gate 3, Hogwarts, Palworld, Halo Infinite, Remntant 2 ect. ect. ect.), my office suites, kdenlive for editing and so on. I'll be honest, the fact that not a single configuration on NixOS is where I feel it "should" be, does discourage me a bit. I have to learn a bunch of crap just to make simple modifications like setting an SDDM theme and so forth. That's not something I'm entirely sold on feeling like i'm prepared to take on at this time given I'm trying to set up a homelab and get it all swapped from ESXi to Proxmox; so my work load is heavy as is. Regardless, if you don't mind learning, or doing without some aesthetic configurations; I see no reason NixOS couldn't be a daily driver/gaming rig. Don't apologize for ranting with me brother man lol, I legit put my rants on video xP. And I write novels 0_o. As for my continued posting. I intend too. I bring what I call a "blue collar approach" to Linux lol. While I have love for some content creators out there since they helped me a lot when I first arrived; I feel like the vast majority are all about the political pandering and minding their P's and Q's in some attempt to avoid backlash for saying the wrong things. Not me, I'ma say what's on my mind and if I'm wrong; i'ma expect someone to step up and let me know why I'm wrong and help me understand how to fix my understanding. Pretty simple really lol, but I irritate a lot of folks from time to time ;) Thanks for stopping by!

[@Matt2010]

Just a suggestion, if coming from windows, don't do dual boot, problems can occur there too, if you must keep the windows installation, for later backup say. Install any distro on an separate hard drive instead. Just would be better for all.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

Yes! I'm not much of an advocate for dual booting 🤣. But I have no need for windows. I wish I had solid advice for successfully dual booting but unfortunately I'm unfamiliar with best practices in doing so.

[@Matt2010]

@@alphaobeisance3594 So many issues can occur though. Especially when you use windows and update, if MBR is involved will ruin the grub aspect for Linux distros. Thats one thing right there for sure will happen. Its irritating. SO yea, Never dual boot on same hard drive or SSD.

[@SearchFinger]

If you're a beginner good luck installing your first distro using Arch and expect to have a smooth install. You'll just end up pulling your hairs out. So I still would recommend the beginner distro mentioned because it just make sense.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

$ archinstall EZPZ

[@sharperguy]

If you're a programmer and have a lot of time to spare you might enjoy something like Arch more than just plopping ubuntu on and then not being sure what the type is about.

[@cerebrlflatuenz2324]

not sure how i found your channel but i am glad i did, personally went thru dependency hell on one of my first ventures into linux. during my first attempt to jump into linux i went with garuda and while cool, it had so much pre-installed, later tried to do arch and was lost on what to do, felt lost on how to customize it and make it look like home. would you know someone that would be willing to help a newbie setup the system?

[@alphaobeisance3594]

Welcome to my studio; glad you stopped by! Garuda threw me for a loop as well; which was the final distro to convince me I just simply needed to learn Arch lol; prior to Garuda was Manjaro. It treat me really well, but I prefered the idea of DIY Arch rig. I'd be glad to help you set up your rig my friend! Absolutely. Is there anything in particular that you'd like to know? If I don't know, I can find out pretty quick and I'll gladly demonstrate anything I can. I initially fell in love with GNOME desktop environment and used it for a good while; but it's been a hot second. So if it's a little man with a pointy hat in your tech garden; I'll have to re-familiarize but I'm happy to do so! I'll get an Arch Linux VM fired up with a few different configurations and I'll go over the process as I do it; from start to finish if you like.

[@Dudik28]

Why not try something that is pre configured and has sensible configuration out of the box? Something like Zorin OS, Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Fedora?

[@alphaobeisance3594]

This was answered within the video. Thanks for stopping by!

[@cerebrlflatuenz2324]

@@alphaobeisance3594Vm is't necessary, just a bit of guidance to steer me in the right direction. last time i tried arch was right after i used garuda for a few months and i confused on how to configure it, lol. kde just has so many options. my use case is primarily gaming and media consumption. im just looking to use something that isnt windows at this point while also being able to enjoy my steam library. I personally would like to learn arch but don't know where to begin, probably should've included that in my initial comment , sorry for being all over the place.

[@cerebrlflatuenz2324]

​@@alphaobeisance3594A vm isn't necessary although i would appreciate some guidance since the last time i tried arch was right after i used garuda for a few months, while i kinda understand how to use arch a bit, i am completely lost on what to do or where to begin when customizing it so its not just a big white bland DE. I am mainly just after getting away from windows at this point. Would doing this over discord be plausible for you?

[@jttech44]

I mean, if someone's a newbie, they need debian. Offering them different flavors of debian is a good start if you're not personally holding their hands. (I use arch btw)

[@alphaobeisance3594]

Episode 2 elaborates a bit more logically my stance on the matter. Feedback has been positive as I more clearly define my stance on this subject matter.

[@jttech44]

@@alphaobeisance3594 I get what you're getting at to be honest. Linux onboarding has, historically, been mostly hazing newbies, and, well, that's not going to change, but, we can at least get them a little deeper into it with onboarding software beforehand and they'd be much more likely to stick.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

@@jttech44 🤣 you just inspired a new discussion, as I suppose hazing does have its place in ensuring only the competent survive. The Darwin theory of Linux I suppose lol. By no means do I claim to be an expert. I don't hold a candle to those who do this for a living or have had homelabs for decades. I honestly look up to the experienced. I guess I just never really understood the need to exaggerate the complexity of Linux. In the grand scheme of things, when I first started using Linux, Arch was the golden child of DIY "power users", but after learning how to use it I realized how easy it actually was (back prior to the arch installer even). I never bothered to look into Gentoo. As I didn't have a reason too for my use case. But I gained respect for it from what little I'd gained from discussion. I'm on a road of learning in hopes to eventually find an entry level gig as a sysadmin. But I've still got so much to learn. Constantly feeling overwhelmed with the amount of data I have to consume just to try and keep up and I'm STILL light years behind.

[@jttech44]

@@alphaobeisance3594 I'm currently a (mostly) linux sysadmin, and, if I'm being honest, you already know enough for the day to day ops I have to deal with. Like you said, it really isn't that complicated, and, virtualization massively decreases how much you have to immediately know because you can clone a server/service and evaluate changes as much as you want, if something goes wrong, snapshot recall or you ol'yeller it and re-clone. Also, production systems tend to be very single purpose and simple, server needs get modularized and managed separately. You can do this in a homelab easily, proxmox is your friend and, well, it's just debian. In fact 90% of our prod environment is debian. So you're already doing harder things with arch than I do for work. Get your certs, linux+ and sec+, then find a gig at an MSP for a couple years, the world's your oyster basically. And yeah, a little hazing and gatekeeping is necessary. Linus understands this and people get saltyyy about it. Hope he lives forever.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

I appreciate the vote of confidence; more than you know. I really need to familiarize myself with softwares like Puppet so that I can understand the processes of mass configuration and deployment. Partly why I wanted to get the R730 for the homelab to practice with. I'm trying to familiarize myself with ESXi's interface and systems tools; but I've got a long way to go there. As it stands, I really only know how to create VM's and do some basic monitoring. I'm 99.9% sure I screwed up when setting up my server though, as I went with Raid 0 to ensure I had the most space; but if recent studies make sense then I screwed myself on redundancy in the event something goes south. So I've got to back up all my data and start over. Not a huge deal considering I'm contemplating migration to Proxmox to future proof the homelab. But that's a whole new can of worms I have to study; I figure sleep is about 6 months out lol! if production systems are single purpose and simple then I am going way overkill with my servers lol. It was nothing for me at first to set up services like nextcloud, wazuh, and jellyfin all on the same server VM until I figured it'd just set up a VM for each service. I don't really know the most proper way to do it in regard to Enterprise though. I guess I just figured that if something went wrong, at least only one server goes down if there's an issue. Thankfully I've got a good friend that worked with Intel early on and he's been a huge motivator in my continuing to pursue these ambitions. Unfortunately, in regards to getting certs; I want to very badly. But I am the worst tester known to man. I once had a gig working for the county exterminating mosquitos and the job required a pesticide license; but I was able to work supervised until then. I went the whole summer, having mastered all the information and proved it to the boss. But come each and every test time, I bombed it. I can't test for shit, and I can't afford to test repeatedly until I beat it. I figure I'll track down some practice tests somewhere along the line and do my best to prepare. Until then, hopefully just making stupid videos on the internet will be evidence of whatever level competence I may poses haha. Again, thanks for the encouragement. I needed it.

[@yames2696]

You've convinced me to retry arch as my daily driver, will be following your content! Same boat as you once were, trying to migrate out of windows fully to Linux

[@alphaobeisance3594]

Apologies for all the heat I put off in this one lol; Part 2 was a lot more collected. I have another video that I need to get made and released. Another comment below actually got me to look into NixOS commit it to hardware. Arch Linux (LTS) has been INCREDIBLE to me; truly. Once I figured out how to properly configure and optimize my system, it never let me down (excluding tinkering gone wrong). But I was turned onto "NixOS" and I've got to say; I'm impressed. Until now, Arch Linux has never had a contender for my heart. Yet, I just spent the past day learning how to set up NixOS and get things rolling on my machine. A single configuration file to control it all; that's some real power. I have yet to use it enough to speak of it's stability, but on paper; they legit have a god tier distro here. I just got up and running; but i'll try to give my hot take on NixOS here very soon. For the first time in 3 years; I've changed distros! But will it stick?!

[@Sharp931]

Nice clock.

[@alphaobeisance3594]

Aesthetic Clock widget on KDE. My go-too =). Thanks for stoppin by.