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“I am a new linux user. After 15 minutes of research on google, I found a few forum posts and some niche websites that said SystemD was bad, so I took it as gospel. Now my system doesn’t work as simply as it did with installer defaults? How do I make everything Just Work™ after removing any OS components I don’t understand the need for?”
I mean you essentially just highlighted a primary user experience problem with Linux…
Information & advice is fragmented, spread around, highly opinionated, poorly digestible, out of date, and often dangerous.
And then the other part of it is that a large part the Linux community will shit on you for not knowing what you don’t know because of some weird cultural elitism…
When you finally ask for help once you realize you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re usually met with derisive comments and criticism instead of help.
Do you want Linux to be customizable so that users can control it however they want. Or do you want it to be safe so that users don’t mess it up? You can’t have it both ways, and when you tell users to “go figure it out” and then :suprise_pikachu: that they found the wrong information because they have literally no idea what’s good or bad, instead of helping, they get shit on.
It’s the biggest thing holding Linux desktop back.
Debian, Arch, Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu, Redhat, Manjaro all have docs and wiki on their primary websites. Slackware has docs, Gentoo has a wiki. Anything that’s not on a distro’s site needs to be carefully considered before tampering. Almost all of those distros have a warning in their installation instructions to only listen to the information in their docs and wiki, and to a lesser extent their forums. Hell, even nosystemd.org tells you what systemd is, what it’s for, what replacements there are, and the proper way to get rid of it in bold text under the header “How do I get rid of systemd?”
Listening to hackneyed advice from unvetted sources just because they have strong opinions is a problem that any and every computer will face. That’s not a problem with linux anymore than the hoardes of trolls on random social media sites telling you to “delete System32” is a problem with Windows.
I want Linux to be customizable AND safe. But safe in the way that someone takes the time to learn how what they plan to do will effect their system, not safe in the sense of “impossible to bork”
As for elitism: if it’s “elitist” to indirectly poke fun of someone who deleted a core system component without understanding what it does without a backup, then so be it. It feels more like that word is levied by people whose ego is too big to take respobsibility for the mistakes they made, and instead blame others for laughing when it bites them in the ass.
Idk where these swaths of elitists that refuse to help are. OOP went to stackexchange and likely got a helpful answer complete with explanations, as that is the community standard. Over on !linux@lemmy.ml , I see people offering help with problems all the time without shitting on them. If I go to the aforementioned OS forums, or really any software-specific forums, I see people helping or pointing people to where they can get help.
And I’m not denying that assholes who say shit like “did you even bother googling?” exist. They’re nasty people with no patience, but they’re by no means the community standard unless they’re the only ones you pay attention to…
Or unless you see a screenshot of a question from a different website posted in a meme-sharing forum and expect the comments to offer advice, instead of laughing at the person who shot themselves in the foot and went to a hospital instead of seeking help at the DNC HQ
The cultural elitism comes from years of tinkering with their system since all the information they can find is fragmented and spread around, highly opinionated,’poorly digestible, out of date, and often dangerous.
I feel this in my soul, except about Windows. I’ve got a handful of machines at work that refuse to update to Windows 10 22H2. They give an error code during the compatibility check. Googling that error code returns dozens of forum posts with hundreds of users and “Microsoft support agents” chiming in. They give the same list of suggestions—that don’t work—to fix it. Nobody can say what the error code means, or what the compatibility check checks. The official Microsoft fix is to reinstall.
I don’t want to reinstall. The suite of software these computers run would take several hours to reinstall.
This is typical of my experience with Windows. (I’m a Unix/Linux guy.) I look up how to do something in Windows, and with the official Microsoft documentation, one of three things inevitably happens:
- I follow the steps and click the things, and it still doesn’t work.
- I can’t follow the steps because one of the things to click is greyed out for some reason.
- I can’t follow the steps because the documentation refers to an older edition, and Microsoft has removed one of the things to click.
One time, when trying to get Excel to run a mail merge, I ran into all three problems in three attempts.
The same happens with 3rd party sites. They never say the edition of Windows to which their guide refers, and the feature is deprecated or gone. (Most recently it was about getting a Windows 10 start menu behavior back on 11.)
Oh, and since Windows is mainstream, a lot of the information is in the form of AI vomit, and covered in ads and dark patterns.
To be fair, Windows and Macos support is like this too. Its random forum suggestions from even less technical people.
The distros official resources are comprehensive and don’t have the issue of being outdated and fragmented.
Debians official resources are often outdated, fragmented and not comprehensive in the slightest. I had to scour email list and random blog post if I had to deal with some Debian tooling problems. It’s only saving grace, is that it fairly widespread, and that there are these random blog posts.
Except the principles behind linux aren’t “being able to customize however you want”, that’s the principle behind certain distros like Arch. Linux is about being free and open-source, so nobody is beholden to a single entity making sweeping changes that are bad for the community but good for their bottom line.
that they found the wrong information because they have literally no idea what’s good or bad, instead of helping, they get shit on.
I don’t think anyone’s seriously shitting on nooby mistakes, because everyone has done something stupid like that and learned a lesson from it. It’s kind of a “cute noob” moment
This isn’t a Linux problem this is a society problem people just want to one up everyone In anyway they can and sometimes I dont think we do it consciencely
It turns into a Linux problem when it holds back Linux desktop adoption by creating a difficult or even toxic environment for new, low-technical or non-technical users.
IMO that’s not what is holding back Linux from adoption. there are great forums with great people and they happen to be in the distros for beginners. You can use your argument with any small enthusiasts groups and that was my point toxicness is not caused by Linux. I personally believe its windows and Mac forcing themselves on people. Have you ever been to a store to buy a computer and someone said hey would you like to try this free OS that installs and acts just like windows instead of buying windows for 100 bucks? Lol its just marketing.
Not trying to start an argument here but I do want to point out that your argument foundations on blaming other competitors instead of looking at what can make the platform you’re passionate about more palatable.
There are many, MANY, reasons people will choose Mac and windows on their own accord.
Your argument hand waves that away to make a boogieman out of mac and windows, and erodes the true viability of Linux as a platform by not looking at how it can improve, and instead focusing on how the competition “is bad”.
Taking the ego stance that Linux “would be great if it wasn’t being held back by the bad guys” doesn’t actually help Linux desktop adoption…
The problem is linux is palatable there are many distros that are prebuilt to run like a Mac or windows they just have no way of marketing like Microsoft or apple.
that is because of the Open source licences. If they were able to sell their product do you think linux would be as far behind as it is today?
If those thousands of companies that use linux every single day had to pay a sub fee instead of measily (tax writeoff)donations do you think think XZ would have been hacked? If they could compete in the capitalist race would they be this far behind? IMO no and the open source license is a blessing and a curse
I agree both windows and Mac were once great viable OSes now they are just an advertising machine with apps
linux distros have been held back not by those companies specifically but with how licensing works its really fucked any sort of fulltime development
a company telling me that my perfectly working hardware is not viable for their new OS and not giving me an option with security updates is a boogieman IMO
Can confirm I am a Linux lurker who would love to learn all this cool shit but right now I don’t have the time/mental fortitude to wade through all the bullshit and experiment. I already do that enough with power platform at work and I know that I know nothing. It’s exhilarating and tiresome. It would be great if we could have some “training wheels” type of community on here to help new users out.
Cool thing is, GPT fixes all the problems with elitist gatekeeping assholes, whether on stack exchange or something random Linux forum. It truly democratizes information.
Linus tech tips, is that you?
He is less technically inclined
He read a prompt asking if he wanted to remove his system and said yes
Then complained about it
To be fair it was caused by installing steam. Why System76 didn’t test that I don’t know.
Its partial fault on all sides that added up.
Ubuntu shipped with that issue for some time and fixed it after some time.
Pop os iso on the download page contained it.
The package came from ubuntu but this issue was not visible since up to date pop os does not have this issue. Only the version in iso. So Pop os too made some mistake.
Linus tried to install steam. The installer does not allow removing necessary packages. He tried to install anyway ignoring all warnings, in cli.
It says if you are so sure, type “Yes, Do as I say!” with all cases and punctuation correct. Why would you be required to type a very specific phrase to install steam? Its a clear warning for confirmation. He too makes mistake by ignoring all warnings.
Not to blame anyone but all of them did partial mistake that added up
Almost like linus had agenda to oblige to
Or like the good old days where you deleted COMMAND.COM
Just delete the kernel and boot loader
Classic Chesterton’s fence principle.
It’s the linux equivalent of deleting system32.
He uninstalled systemd, now his computer is not doing systemd things anymore by his retelling. Seems like it worked fine. Yet he asks for a solution of a problem. Maybe he needs to state the problem.
This is like the Linux equivalent of deleting system32
Nah, more like deleting explorer.exe.
There’s isn’t really a Windows equivalent for this, as Windows doesn’t give you control on this level.
It’d be as if you could delete services.msc but also the runner behind it.
I did delete explorer.exe on an earlier iteration of Windows (possibly 98SE). I’ve just restored it with Windows Commander (now TCMD).
I don’t think you’ll get a cli if you delete system32.
I think we sound test that.
For skyense.
But system32 contains the NT kernel as well, so that’s worse. Uninstalling your init system on a Linux distro still leaves you with single user mode. You could probably reinstall an init system from there.
Is it system32 or SySWow64 these days?
System32 holds the 64-bit stuff and SysWOW64 holds the 32-bit stuff. This makes complete and total sense.
On Debian you can actually change init systems. Don’t know how hard it is and you are probably meant to install a new one after removing systemd, but it is possible at least.
I mean, it can work out if he installs an alternative init & rc and a wifi-manager first. And then recreates initrd. Maybe needs to migrate some dns stuff too.
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They forgot that heart transplant requires replacing the removed heart with another one and then connecting the blood vessels before closing up.
You can’t just take it out and say “I’ll put in another one after dinner”
Maybe they knew, but wanted to see what would happen.
Then post about how horribly complicated Linux is.
Smartest systemd hater.
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You greatly overestimate the intelligence of the average Stack Exchange question asker.
I removed and sold the wheels of my car, now it does not move.
I removed the transmission from my car but now it won’t drive
I mean if you’ve never seen or used a car before, and someone from a position of relative authority or trust gave you a very convincing argument that a particular part that you don’t understand is easy to remove and you’ll benefit from it…
Yeah it’s pretty reasonable that the average person might shoot themselves in the foot by letting them remove that part (tell them a command to run).
systemd is more like, uhh, ignition that takes care of way too many things beyond starting the engine
It is closer to the ECU on a car (in more ways than one).
That’s what you get for transphobia my dude
he fuckin got me there
It’s like saying automatic transmission is worse than manual transmission.
All these files are backed up in /System32 folder
Seeing it with a forward slash is just weird.
Windows hss supported slashes in both directions for a very long time. I almost exclusively use forward slashes to reduce mental load when switching between OSes.
Sadly not for UNC paths. Those open as if it’s a webpage.
Best way to fix that is to go back in time and not do that
Sudo snapper rollback…oh he’s on debian. nvm
Snapper works on all distros with BTRFS
Sure but not as default install
Install sysv, return to monke
Sell computer, return to monke
Lol this reminds me of a time when I had KDE desktop environment installed on vanilla ubuntu. I thought I didn’t really need ubuntu’s default desktop environment and decided to ‘purge’ it. I quickly realized my f up when it deleted so many packages and ui started to act weird, I copied the shell’s output to a file just incase, and sure enough I couldn’t login with ui on next reboot. I was somehow able to login to shell and with some awk magic I was able to parse the text file to get all the packages I deleted and lo and behold everything worked just fine. Linux let’s you f’up your OS but it also let’s you fix it, it’s just a skill issue.
Linux let’s you f’up your OS but it also let’s you fix it, it’s just a skill issue.
Yeah, there’s something about Linux that makes me feel like if something breaks in it, the only reason I can’t fix it personally is because I lack the skills to fix the problem. Just feels nice, really.
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- Linux lets* you
- also lets* you fix it
It’s no tits
If your installing, or deleting something and your package manager is modifying more then a few packages: stop, read and think about what your about to do.
I updated my sources.list to something non-existing at some point and run
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremoveonce and it also basically uninstalled everything. But that didn’t even matter, I popped in a recovery disk and could reinstall everything. Pretty great to be able to do all that with Linux, fuck everything up in an instant but after a few hours everything is back againWell you could have saved those hours if you were on one of those restrictive OSs. I mean why would anyone even wanna do that? /s
Now remove the rest of the OS; it’s bloat.
Who needs that pesky kernel and bloated bootloader anyway?
Refuse computers, go back to Abacus
That’s a bit much, perhaps though they should use a real mode OS
Why shackle yourself to a physical object? Just use your brain!
Arch?
Arch?
How the fuck is login and “the command line” still working? Maybe they did not reboot.
The reboot probably sent him straight to a virtual console.
I was curious too, so I tried it in a virtual machine
It half installed sysvinit, systemd failed to get fully removed, and apt gave up due to too many post-install errors
The reboot threw me into an init that asked for me to specify the runlevel (since there wasn’t anything in init.d)
I guess they didn’t understand the difference between that question and a logged in shell
My guess before trying it was that they somehow got stuck in Grub’s shell
Yeah i remember debian installs sysvinit if you apt remove systemd and installs systemd if you apt remove sysvinit
haha why does debian bother adding this rule if the system will be left in broken state anyway
Maybe because its still not a broken state? They could still add init files ig
(As the tester above) It is a broken state
It failed to install the
initscriptspackage because apt bailed outapt —fix-broken installgot you a little closer, but the screenshot didn’t say they tried thatMy bet is this worked when systemd was first introduced, but since there’s not much use for it now, and sysvinit is deprecated, it just doesn’t accidentally work anymore
I mean you still can use cli? So you can technically make an init file and boot?
You can’t - it’s just asking what runlevel to launch, and there are no files for any runlevel
You’d need to add init=/bin/sh through grub at that point
As long as you can run
vim,gccandmake, it’s not broken.
initramfs recovery shell or they are trolling
Just install Devuan.
Devuan GNU+Linux is a fork of Debian without systemd that allows users to reclaim control over their system by avoiding unnecessary entanglements and ensuring Init Freedom.
Gotta love this linux rhetoric, man! It’s so out there.
I don’t want to be in control of starting up all the services during boot.
I want the init system to do that.
Or install MX and have both systemd and sysvinit instead of having systemd packages banned.
laughs in Gentoo
install that rm -rf theme
Run installation media and copy systemD over to the system
For real though, if you break ANYTHING in Linux, it can probably be repaired through live image on your flash drive.
I use BTRFS, and it randomly decided to corrupt like half of the system packages on my system after an update, but all I had to do to fix it was boot into a live environment and run a command to reinstall everything on my system. :P
Its been pretty stable for me
Same 7 years with no issues
Using btrfs for past 6 months in my kde environment, doesn’t encountered any problem like this. Pretty stable
It’s only really a problem if I try upgrading while low on space and also having disk compression enabled
No probably about it
Or just use the recovery shell. They did say they could log in.
Is it possible to chroot from a livedisk and reinstall systemd from that? I’d imagine the Internet connection would work just fine.
