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twovests wrote

Good take and I agree, except Ubuntu let you type "sudo apt install" anything which was fantastic. I fucked up my whole laptop constantly in 2010

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Moonside wrote

I'm not superversed in Linux lore, but wasn't that already a thing in Debian before? I don't remember borking up anything using Debian through installation shenanigans and exclusively used command line since it was more convenient than GUI tools. (Now I'm regrettably running an inherited Windows laptop which has a dead battery. Requiescat in pace, my zombie laptop, but not just yet.)

BTW Debian > Ubuntu. I used to run Debian without any desktop environment, just using some ultra haxor window manager software coded in Haskell and extensible through Haskell scripting instead. It was blissful in the sense that Linux is good - a genuine alternative and a way to rethink the way you interact with computers. Truth is that automating window management and relieving your pinching muscles from work makes a ton of sense. The desktop metaphor is alien to our current reality where files and folders don't substantially exist anymore (they're more a convenience to the software engineer than users) and dragging things along your desk in real life has become obsolete. It's just too much work to precision work dragging windows.

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twovests wrote

Oh yeah, you can absolutely do it in Debian.

My argument is that there is a lot new on the table for someone like me, who was just a kid who liked computers. I got Linux because Windows Vista was way too heavy for my laptop (+ Chrome, GIMP, etc. had Linux-exclusive 64-bit builds.)

My first experience with Ubuntu was playing around with GNOME, and then Unity when it came out on my next install. When I learned there were dozens of other DEs for me to try, I felt like a kid in a candy shop.

What's better is that I could even play Runescape and Minecraft again! It went from "6 fps and then my laptop turns off" to "like 12fps" which was sweet.

When I made the realization that almost anything I did could be written down to a .sh file and repeated, e.g. setting up a fresh install, my brain fucking exploded.

I'm a wizened Linux enjoyer now and I basically agree with you, but when I was a preteen, Ubuntu was the OS that was twice as fast, had a dozen different skins, made it dead-easy to install things, and also let you script it.

... Speaking of, I wonder what new DEs are out there...