[developerDan]

Why don’t people like Linux? Because it takes 8 bloody commands to do something as simple as add a new drive whereas Windows you can just open disk utility and format. I bounced off Linux a few weeks ago over this. It’s for people who want to tinker more than actually use the system.

[bisby]

That's untrue though. Linux has a disk utility (I use gparted personally). And you can surely do it on the command line in a single command.

On Linux you could automate that task. How would you propose automating "open disk utility and click a few buttons" on Windows?

This is less of a "Linux can't" issue and more of a "I quickly know how to do it on Windows after years of experience and I don't know how to do it on Linux." Linux not being identical to Windows isn't a flaw. No one blames you for not wanting to relearn, but pretending like Linux is bad because your Windows muscle memory doesn't apply is nonsense.

[developerDan]

When I Googled how to complete this task I came across multiple results all of which suggesting to use a string of CLI commands. GParted was suggested in some of the results but it wasn’t installed by default on the distro I was recommended (Lubuntu) so I had to punch in even more commands to get it installed. Then after creating the partition it was still unusable until I mounted the drive (which wasn’t clear until after Googling why I can’t use it). Mounting required yet more commands. I did a cursory glance at the GUI buttons on GParted and didn’t see a simple mounting option. If you can’t mount in GParted then my claim still stands that it’s much more effort, and obscure, than Windows which automatically “mounts” the drive so to speak, when you create the partition.

[ParetoOptimal]

> GParted was suggested in some of the results but it wasn’t installed by default on the distro I was recommended (Lubuntu

You got a less than stellar recommendation based on your desire for parity with ease of use with windows. Lubuntu is a more niche distro aimed at lower resource usage at the expense of the ease of use you are looking for.

If you had installed KDE, you'd likely have explored the start menu and found gparted or typed 'disk' into search and found gparted.

[iknowstuff]

I swear the biggest problem with linux is the nerds pushing newbies towards esoteric garbage distros instead of established and widely supported ones like straight up Ubuntu with Gnome.

[bisby]

The biggest problem with linux is definitely finding the right distro. Ubuntu is awful. With their move towards "snaps everything" it just keeps getting worse. Canonical is basically Linux's Microsoft. A lot of the "established" stuff on Ubuntu is just duct tape that actually makes it worse overall. Ubuntu might have an easier getting started experience, but it's not a good long term experience.

[iknowstuff]

Snaps are fine.

[bisby]

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2024/01/valve-dont-recommend-ubu...

Snaps are not "fine."

They're generally worse than debs, and worse than alternative "all in one" package formats like flatpak or appimage. And when coupled with "not packaged by the original devs" leads to issues where people have issues and then raise bug reports to the wrong people, but beginners don't know that the snap is packaged entirely by Canonical, and not Valve, and just results in a poorer experience.

[ziml77]

There's still other things that are absurd to do under Linux. Like turning off write caching for removable drives. Unless something has changed in the past couple years, you need to either manually edit fstab per-drive or setup udev rules.

(Not write caching for removable drives should just be the default. Windows hasn't used write caching on removable drives for 20 years. It also presents a toggle in the drive properties if you really do want it on though.)

[accelbred]

On Gnome, you open the disk manager. You click format.

In fact a lot of things are easier. On windows, you need a third party tool to install an iso onto a disk. On Gnome, you open disk manager, right click disk, click restore from image.

[freedomben]

You bounced quickly then without trying very hard. Gnome comes with a GUI disk utility tool pre-installed that is easy enough for a Windows user ;-)

[developerDan]

I was recommended a distro that doesn’t use Gnome (Lubuntu). The system I was working with is very old and some light research made it seem like Gnome is pretty resource heavy.

[ParetoOptimal]

I think a lot of times recommending Lubuntu or other niche distros to first-time linux users is a mistake.

Instead one should recommend using KDE or Gnome and turning down all of the graphical settings if needed to improve performance.

[mattl]

I think it comes from the idea that you should install Linux to get more time out of aging hardware.

[ParetoOptimal]

Yeah, but for first time users I maintain it'd be better to risk potential slowness than "fast but unacceptable user experience".

[mattl]

Fully agree. I don’t really know what the user groups are doing these days? Are installfests still a thing?

[chronogram]

How old are we talking about? 10+ years ago I was running Gnome3 on decent hardware of the time, and everything was snappy[0]. Now all the OS software got faster since then, so everything is still snappy on that thing despite that hardware now being old. Similarly that laptop came with Windows 7 and that was snappy, and the Windows 2021 LTSC on it is also snappy[0].

0: I care about responsiveness, so I've always disabled animations on every device, so I have no experience if some animations can run at 60fps on some hardware and 30fps on others.

[COGlory]

I've literally never used commands to do anything with a disk. I open KDE Partition Manager and do everything in a really nice GUI. `