[pluc]

I think the problem here is that you cause breakage without ever gaining the knowledge of why. Pop_Os might break on you just the same as other distros might, because it's very likely a manual operation that got you there.

"Miraculous" belongs on Windows or OSX, not Linux.

[myself248]

To be perfectly clear, the "miracle" was finding a clear and cogent support page that addressed my issue. I was back in action like ten minutes later.

The technology itself is nothing special. Knowing that it may break, and positioning resources where search engines can find them, and making the resources readable enough to understand which one to try first, is what sets System76 apart here.

When I ran into the same problem on Ubuntu I wasted a week using my other machine to search forums, mailing lists, bug tracker tickets, visit IRC channels (and then leave the machine on to lurk in the channel in case of a reply...), and try any web result I could find that seemed to address my issue. I sunk probably 30 or 40 hours in, and made zero progress, before finally giving up and deciding to install fresh and restore /home/ from backup. I'm sure the resources were out there for someone who knew what to search for, but that's one of the things about being a Linux idiot, I've only been doing this a few years and I've found it incredibly hard to learn the art of divination to resolve "half my apps crash on start" to "package manager problem". There's just no hand-holding for that, you're expected to just know it.

> you cause breakage without ever gaining the knowledge of why.

Exactly.

The acute irony is that I strongly suspect that the Pop_OS support page may have fixed my broken Ubuntu installations too, but I didn't find it while I was searching for Ubuntu issues.