My experiences with Linux. I tried making the switch about 10 years ago for the same reasons many others are doing, because I didn't want to deal with Windows and its switch to in-OS advertising and all the telemetry bullshit, not to mention back then Windows was a huge cunt about wanting to update the system while you are busy gaming. Back then everyone was all "Arch, Arch, Arch, dude it's totally worth it, it's the ONLY distro worth using, once you figure it out it runs like a dream, Arch, and if that's too hard for you use Manjaro."
So I installed Manjaro. And hey, it looked and felt cool and easy to use. Hell, even the terminal looked and felt cool and easy to use. So I start installing some software. Then I start using the software. Then I realize the software is missing some rather important features. Features that I kinda fucking need because I have a brand new computer and not having those features means I might as fucking well have bought a potato instead of wasting all that money on a brand new computer. I look and see why the software is missing some important features, and it turns out it's because it's years out of date. Why is it years out of date? For stability. If you want the features that were added just a year or two ago you need to use this other repository that installs packages directly from the Arch Linux repository and do a full system update. I do so. The OS breaks and I get the option of switching to another distro or re-install Manjaro. People tell me "Dude, that's just what you get for using Manjaro. Arch distros are meant to be BLEEDING EDGE, where you use the LATEST SHIT, meaning you need to use the actual ARCH LINUX DISTRO. And don't worry about all that shit about the install being complicated, that was last year. There's installers and shit now to do all that stuff for you." So I choose to switch to Arch instead of re-installing Manjaro.
So I run the installers and shit. First impressions are that the system doesn't look as cool and easy to use as Manjaro, especially not that super cool terminal Manjaro had which was so intuitive and I could just open it wherever I needed to and not have to navigate the file system by manually typing the path and whatnot, but I figure hey, it's Linux, I can just make it look and feel like Manjaro myself, right? Except apparently no. I check to see what DE and whatnot Manjaro uses and install it. Doesn't look or feel the same at all. The terminal is a no go, and I can't figure out what Manjaro did to make it seem so cool and user friendly, but I figure fuck it, I'll just learn whatever's available on Arch. Then I immediately start stumbling on problems, and I don't mean small problems, but rather fundamental problems, like my audio, keyboard, mouse and monitor aren't working as they're supposed to. The keyboard is the first major problem because I'm multi-lingual, and I need a Swedish keyboard layout to type shit that an English one can't handle, but I also need to use an English layout to type all the stupid little symbols needed for terminal commands and whatnot without giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome, or in case of Linux at all because apparently the way Linux handles dead keys makes using rather important Linux things like the fucking terminal with a non-English layout impossible because it just won't properly register the key presses, which wouldn't be a problem if it supported International layouts without dead keys and let you use standard keyboard shortcuts like ctrl+alt = alt gr, which is an important keyboard shortcut for people who don't want to break their fingers, but no, that shit just doesn't work, and if you want to customize your keyboard layout you better learn how to program because fuck me if I want to switch layouts on the fly or install a no-dead-keys international layout or even just use the now useless Windows key as a shortcut for alt gr because fuck you, you just can't do that apparently (isn't Linux supposed to be more customizable than Windows?). Then there's the problem with the mouse, in that apparently Linux just hates raw mouse input.
There's no "enhance pointer precision" checkbox that I can uncheck to fix the shitty mouse input, there's no convenient "in_mouse 2" command that I can type into the terminal or put in some config file. All I can do is sort of approximate it by editing some file with a stupid name like ~xorg or whatever the fuck idiotic naming scheme Linux uses for important fundamental functions that you have to look up in a fucking wiki whenever you want to know where your mouse settings are (have you fuckers ever heard of "discoverability"? You know, that thing that lets people guess where shit can be found without having to open up a fucking manual by using context clues like the name? Names like "mouse" for settings related to the fucking mouse?) and input an arcane string of text that contains symbols that I can't fucking type because the fucking keyboard layout doesn't support them because Linux doesn't know how to handle dead keys, so I essentially have to copy paste everything from the wiki. Then the sound. I have no clue why the sound was so hard to get working, but apparently it could be boiled down to "lol, you bought the wrong sound card so you have to use this substandard shit instead". Then comes a really strange problem. Everything finally starts to look halfway decent and even though I'm still struggling with making keyboard layouts function in a sane way I can at least start using the thing. So I start my browser and everything looks and feels weird. All other programs? Look fine, feel fine, scroll fine. Chromium and Firefox? Blurry as shit, feels like my 144hz monitor is running or 30hz or something, and the scrolling is just wrong and causes shit to smear and oh god my eyes are burning. I start searching and searching to see what the fucking problem is. "lol Nvidia, should've bought an ATI." Wait, what? Why the fuck would having an Nvidia card make my browser look like shit but not anything else? That can't be right. Whatever. I start installing the software and stuff, use the OS for a few days, follow the instructions in the wiki clearly, especially the part that Arch only supports full system-wide updates and you should do them whenever installing new software. I do that. Works fine, until suddenly it doesn't. I install a piece of software (think it was a video player, might even have been VLC), do the same copy pasted full system update and the OS again just fucking breaks, even though the Arch wiki specifically told me to use this exact command to stop precisely this from happening and even though it had worked the past several times I did it.
Fuck Arch.
Okay, what's next? "Bro, you're a newbie, fuck these Arch fags, just use Mint. It's basically just like Windows, it just doesn't work quite as well with games and shit." Okay, if Mint is basically just like Windows but worse, why don't I just use Windows? I said fuck it and installed Windows 10. I've had plenty of problems with Windows 10, but unlike with Linux I've been able to solve those problems without my OS breaking or having to resort to satanic black magic rituals, and Microsoft doesn't tell you to go fuck yourself if you need a non-English keyboard layout and you can even install custom ones made by randos on the Internet by just downloading them and running them on the spot.
Linux works well when it works, but when it shits itself it shits itself so hard you have to reinstall your entire OS, something I haven't experienced in Windows since XP, and I spent more time maintaining my system than actually using it. Shit, using Arch was like playing Skyrim, where you spend more time installing mods and messing with load orders than actually playing the game. A Linux fag in uni told me that my problem with Linux is that I was trying to update it, period. He was a Gentoo user and basically said once you have it working you're not supposed to update things. Ever. Because if you do, shit that used to work no longer works. How fucking great.
linuxmint.com
