Amateurs. I can search for fixes while my computer is still broken!
(ctrl-alt-F1, ctrl-alt-F2, etc to switch to TTY, then lynx ddg.gg to get to DuckDuckGo)
this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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This is true for any OS. If it's not working you can't use it to look up how to fix it. That's not unique to Linux.
Only linux lets you absolutely decimate the functional capability of your OS from within with ease. That is absolutely a linux thing.
As long as your installation stick is a live image and you keep it around, it also serves as a mighty tool to fix things with google and chroot.
It was definitely fun in the olden days when you fucked up your xorg.conf and you had to use elinks to try to look up a solution. At least nowadays your smartphone can be that second working computer.
Xorg.conf was genuinely something I never quite grokked.
I mean, I get it, it's a conf file for Xorg... but in practice, either your X11 worked out of the box, or it just didn't, and no manner of fiddling with the config and restarting the server would save it.
You could install other drivers and blacklist others, and that would get it to work, but touching the Xorg config file itself and expecting different results was like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone.
Edit the config was useful if you were trying to hook up a more unusual monitor that had odd timings or more overscan than a normal one, but it was definitely arcane magic.
Mode=50; RefreshRate= 50 Hz
Mode=51; RefreshRate= 59.9999999 Hz
Mode=52; RefreshRate= 60.0 Hz
DefaultMode=51
FallbackMode=50
Thanks Xorg.conf
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To be fair, this is true for Windows and Mac too, unless you aren't counting the simple scape goat of wiping and reloading lol
I'll use the scapegoat of most people with Windows aren't actively trying to do things that might massively break it, and additionally the vast majority wouldn't know how to fix it even with a second device on hand and would get someone else to do it anyway.
Also,
Windows is a mature, established OS, it is perfectly capable of breaking on it's own without the user's input
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In the era of 'smart' phones most people have what they need, other than the equivalent of a Windows installation cd (as others have said probably on a bootable usb these days).
But I think all of the ~~user~~ beginner friendly distributions have a gui settings and package manager that isn't inherently more difficult than windows straight out of the box (and is probably more straightforward). Macs are presumably marginally more stable due to the consistent hardware, but I have only ever had an issue with quite esoteric wifi and graphics cards, and not for a long time.
Back when all I had was one computer with Linux and I got in trouble I had a bootable USB stick so I could load up a browser and search forums for a solution.
Me: I have been using Linux professionally for 20 years, I can edit fstab.
Also Me five minutes later: I am glad I have live boot stick handy.
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I unironically keep a tiny linux mint boot usb key on my keychain.
When I feel bad about myself, I remember that I have that on my keychain, and I think I can't be that much of a failure because that's pretty cool.
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If I had a nickel for every time my phone saved me from massive failures in Linux, I'd have 4 nickels. "<.<
I've been there. I'm 100% sure my PC is now a brick, but I run across a post by some random person online:
"Press these keys, then type this exactly and hit "Enter"
And roughly five minutes later my PC is stable, purring happily, and two minor annoyances have gone away thanks to package updates.
Thank you all, kind Internet Linux guru strangers.
Edit: More like 25 minutes, really. 20 minutes of my reading docs to verify why this solution can work, and then 5 minutes for it to work.
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As someone that has run Linux as my primary desktop OS since 1998, I can confirm this as 100% accurate.
Tf are you people doing to your computers to break the OS?
Changing graphics card configs in linux or editing fstab, probably
Luckily fixing fstab is pretty easy. I've broken it twice I think since I started using Linux full time about two years ago, and it's not really an issue. It takes a few minutes, but if you're remotely comfortable with the command line it's pretty trivial to get it booting again.
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Exercising my skills π pls help
Dist-upgrading across 2+ years of upgrades.
It's been a long while for me, but some kind of dumb tinkering resulting in system death was semi regular 15 years ago. It got real bad when encyption started getting involved..
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Getting a smartphone in 2010 was what gave me the confidence to switch to Arch Linux, knowing I could always look things up on the wiki as necessary.
I also think my first computer that could boot from USB was the one I bought in 2011, too. Everything before that I had to physically burn a CD.
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That's what the tty is for, or at worst a bootable thumbdrive, CD, or Floppy. If I can't switch to a tty, I boot a bootable drive, mount my harddrive, and chroot my install. No second machine required. It's rare that I fuck something up though. Rest assured it was some bullshit I was trying, zero to do with Linux itself. But I do remember Windows would just bork itself randomly for no reason at all. I'm sure Microsoft has all that resolved now, but man back in the day it was painfully often.
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You know for a bunch of tech-savvy people you all seem to fuck up your installs a lot.
Linux can be booted from a USB drive, Windows is deliberately designed to be easy to install and takes less than an hour, and nobody's installing MacOS anyway.
I reckon it's because you can't resist tinkering and never READING THE INSTRUCTIONS
I reckon itβs because you canβt resist tinkering and never READING THE INSTRUCTIONS
I think you may have hit on the answer here. If you don't mess around with Linux, it will usually run fine for years. Mess around, and you can do things that only someone with you+2 years experience can undo.
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I've been using linux since last December and I haven't majorly broken anything. Am I doing Linux wrong?
You are. You are supposed pretend, everything you know on Windows should immediately transfer to Linux. Try to do techie things on Linux the Windows way; borking your system. Finally claim Linux isn't ready for the average user, despite not using Linux like an average user would.
No, people like to pretend that using linux is hard for some reason.
It's not 2003 anymore.
You're certainly doing Linux! I've only had one bad break, but i had a backup (if you mess with f-stab, save a copy it before you do anything)
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I remember printing the gentoo handbook back in 2005 to have something to troubleshoot my install process.
Put a distro on a flash drive. Throw the flash drive in a drawer. If computer break, retrieve flash drive. Thereβs your spare computer. Now try doing that with windows.
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Iβve had this very experience with every OS I have ever touched. Itβs just that Linux encourages you to experiment while the more popular OSs discourage experimentation by making it as hard as possible to get things done.
what? windows breaks and you need second screen... but grub never fails you. the meme is closed source propaganda.
Grub failed me 2 times since the last 5 years. I moved to systemd boot. This is systemd propaganda.
or did you fail grub? grub is always your friend. unlike cocky systemd not even requiring the kernel to be on laaarge efi partition. and can you rice systemd? noes...but grub.
but ofcourse systemd is "easier", like the iphone or using ai slob. so it depends on which direction you want your life to go...
I don't quite remember when or of it's grubs fault or arch but in 2021/22, I remember I had to regenerate it's config for it to work and it was not just ke but everyone else doing it too. Also you can't use secure boot with riced grub.
Your 2nd paragraph is just rage bait.
I remember these tough times. Doing all kinds of shit as a kid and the resolution was just to nuke it all and start anew.
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Can't relate, I do not use Arch.
Comically, my Arch felt easier to maintain than ubuntu.
Tbf this would be the same on windows (well, if there was a fix other than reinstall...), unless you just already know the fix, which then would be the same on linux, you just don't know it yet.
Besides, since windows only fix would be to reinstall, no second pc needed, just keep the installation drive and treat it like a windows reinstall, bam same same.
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openSUSE Tumbleweed (and any other distros that take advantage of BTRFS and snapshots) is what made me love Linux.
I've always used Windows, but wanted to move to Linux as it is more in line with what I feel about computers, and openSUSE made that a reality for me. Fuck something up by doing what you thought was going to be a normal operational moment? No biggie! For example, sudo snapper rollback 333, and I'm back up and running after reboot. Has literally saved me and the distro a few times now.
Needless to say, I love Windows (for what it is, hate M$ though) but I am a full Linux convert now. When I log into Linux, it feels like home. When I log into Windows, it feels like someone else's home. :P
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