 So a couple of days ago on Reddit someone logged in and asked this question here What are some hard truths about Linux now? I'm gonna go over some of the comments in that thread because some of them are very very good But before I do I want to talk about some of the things that I think are hard truths about Linux So the first one is that Linux can be a time sink now I know that there's this whole quote that goes around about if you don't value your time Use Linux or something like that. I don't know the exact quote But I've always thought that that was kind of you know nonsensical because of course you can be just as productive on Linux as you can on Windows and that's almost always been the case even before Linux was fairly easy to use but there is some truth to it now I know that's going to piss a lot of Linux users off But really Linux is as you make it right you can install Ubuntu Install a Firefox or Chrome or whatever and do all of your work in your browser or in Libre Office or in a terminal Or whatever and just go on about your day and be very very productive and in that case Linux is not a time sink It's just a tool that you use and that's probably the vast majority of people They just use it to get their work done That's because the vast majority people treat their computers just as tools to do work or play games or whatever But if you become a Linux nerd like me like my fellow you Linux youtubers like the people who live in my Linux discord for The most part if you become a Linux nerd Linux can be a time sink It becomes something that you invest your time into I'm not saying that this is a bad thing But just like with anything else in life. You can make something that is both productive and a hobby, right? For me, that's the way Linux is I use Linux for work every single day. I earn my living using Linux I've created this channel using Linux I I do all this stuff that's very very productive on my computer just like a normal person But I've also invested time and effort into making Linux my own Learning about how Linux works learning how to do different things on Linux, you know all this sorts of stuff that has Turned it into somewhat of a time sink, right? It does take time and effort for me to do those things that I want to do it And that's kind of the point that it is Something that I want to do so when I hear people say Linux isn't a time sink because of that stupid quote I Can think that well it kind of can be it just really does depend on how you use it The second one that I want to talk about in terms of hard truths Is that you'll probably end up messing around with video drivers way more on Linux than you ever will on on windows I'm windows you plug in a graphics card. It's just gonna work Probably somewhere in the background. Yes a driver is probably going to get installed You're probably not going to have to deal with it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, right? You still do sometimes have to deal with drivers on windows Especially if you're dealing with older like printers or whatever you'll have to go searching for a driver Some kind and if you start having problems, maybe you'll have to you know redo a driver So it does happen, but for the most part windows does plug and play in terms of hardware Very well because almost all hardware is supported Easily on windows now that doesn't mean the hardware isn't supported very well on Linux It is but it does require some efforts specifically if you have like an Nvidia card or something like that It's going to probably take you some effort to get that thing running the way that you want It will run out of the box So the myth of the hardware not working when you plug it in not there But if you want to play games on it or you want to optimize its performance chances are you'll probably have to deal with some Drivers and that is a technical issue. That's not great for a lot of people now when I say that I'm saying it in a general form It's not going to be true for everyone because the vast majority of people aren't coming here to play high performance triple-a games Or you know render things in a in blender or whatever So it won't affect everyone But if you are the type of person who's coming here You want to have full use of your computer when it comes to games and all that kind of stuff You may end up having to deal with drivers and that's not something that is usually true on Windows Another hard truth about Linux is more about the community and that is that the Linux community is full of holes It doesn't mean that there aren't good people in the Linux community There are lots of them and you'll meet them every single day if you involve yourself in the community I would say the vast majority of people in the Linux community are very nice very willing to help very Interested in talking to you about Linux because most of us are nerds and we enjoy Socializing with other nerds, you know, it's just usually the way things go But it's a reputation that Linux has fostered over the course of the last 30 odd years There are definitely your spoiled run eggs if you will, you know the people who are Very invested in their way of doing things and are not quiet about expressing those views and people who are Ornery when it comes to answering questions and dealing with new users and stuff like that, right very Diplomatically put but there are people out there who just kind of give the Linux community a bad name And that's just kind of the truth I have made videos in the past talking about how Wonderful the Linux community is and it is I think that the Linux community is probably the best part about Linux and The vast majority of people inside of the Linux community are wonderful people but there is some truth to the fact that the Reputation that Linux has garnered over the course of 30 years is one of a very prickly community people who are very invested in Linux itself and in the way Linux is supposed to go for them and they are Not so open-minded when it comes to new users and even if it is a small portion of the community You are probably as a new user or even as someone who's you know Invested themselves in the next community for a long period of time Eventually you're going to run into people like that and probably way more often than you'd expect just because there are quite a few of them And they are very Loud when it comes to their opinions and their way of conducting themselves on the internet So there are polls unfortunately in the Linux community just like there are any community But it does tend to taint the reputation of the Linux community quite a bit and probably for good reason unfortunately So those are the three that I wanted to talk about let's take a look at some of the comments on that thread on Reddit So the first one that is rated best now I'm not signed in on Reddit so I can't sort these by anything other than best So the this person here says the biggest issues average people run into on Linux If they don't choose a beginner friendly distro is when they buy a brand new laptop with leading edge loaded with windows Well Then load up an LTS distro with only to find the components not working as required So that's a driver issue right older LTS kernels obviously not going to work with brand new bleeding ed Bleeding edge hardware, which is what I talked about earlier, right? So yeah, that's a that's a problem I don't think that it's as big a problem as it used to be obviously only really truly Debbie and I would say is probably going to see the Worst aspect of that because their kernels run so far behind if you're going to use the LTS of Ubuntu a lot of their kernels are patched I believe to support newer hardware even the LTS ones So it's not going to be that big a problem and to be honest with you most people still do as Saddened as it makes me to say they still use Ubuntu. So it's not really not that big of a deal This is a big one I saw this before I scrolled down because it you know just before the fold or whatever Linux is not Windows. I've talked about that before as well People expecting Linux to act like Windows to have all the applications of Windows is definitely a problem and people do treat it like that Unfortunately, even though it definitely is its own thing own thing I'm not sure if I agree with this one Linux is best for people with an interest in how computers work I couldn't tell you exactly how a computer work computer works. Okay. I know the the Generalities of it, but I have no interest in getting into the electrical engineering that goes into how a computer works And I never have Now I know I know what they're really saying here is that it's for more technical people and I can I've made that argument before But I think that's becoming less and less true as the years go by But probably mainly because it does take a little bit of technical knowledge to install Linux Whereas all hardware comes with Windows installed so they don't have to have that knowledge I'm not surprised that the GNU people came here and said it's just the kernel Nobody cares that it's just a kernel. Yes. Technically Linux is just the kernel, but nobody cares anymore. Okay? Yes, sure It's GNU plus Linux GNU slash Linux is technically the right term for it, but people don't use it like that Okay, you're not unless you're gonna go search out a really rare distribution like alpine Linux or something like that You're probably going to be using all the GNU core utils You're gonna be using Linux the regular kernel. You're not gonna use Linux as just the kernel You're just gonna use a distribution That has all the stuff that makes Linux Linux, and you're not gonna care that Technologically some nerds gonna point out to you that it's GNU slash Linux. So this one here is nonsense. This one here is also true. I You know People have their favorites when it comes to desktop environments That's for sure Some people are granone people some people are plasma people some people swear by the cinnamon some people are Xfce People and that's the reason why there's choice right right now. I'm in Xfce This is where I do a lot of my work here, and you know, it's a fantastic desktop environment It's my personal favorite, but it has its issues, right? It's definitely Prickly when it comes to customization and stuff like that and it's not as flexible as plasma It's not as inflexible as GNOME So it's it's got its own issues and same thing with GNOME and plasma plasma is buggy af right in my experience It's it now it hates me and I'm sure there's people out there who have a wonderful experience when it comes to plasma Just as there are people out there who swear by the GNOME workflow, and I can't stand it so desktop environments are mess and it's actually worse now that you have to kind of Slytherin and try to figure out, you know the differences between Xorg and Wayland The vast majority people aren't going to do that because they're just going to use Wayland because that's what's default But if you you know start broadening your horizons to other desktop environments who haven't switched to Wayland yet You're gonna start thinking about those differences and stuff. So it can be very much a mess And this one here is one that I've talked about in the past before One hard truth is that you won't get to lay of the land unless you go hiking I'm guessing that they're talking about distro hopping So basically what they're saying here is that the vast majority if you can't really listen to other people's experience on Linux Because their experience is not going to be your experience and that's absolutely the truth Everyone has their own hardware setup their own expectations for how the desktop environment is going to work their own Pleasures when it comes to how package management works and stuff like that So definitely your experience is going to trump all others and you won't get that experience unless as you do this as this person says Go hiking. I like the term go hiking instead of distro hopping. That's very nice Another thing that this person says is try to understand that apt is not Linux now I don't think that people think that apt is Linux But I think that people think that apt is the universal package manager, especially people who don't understand the concept of distros Right, they've understood that Linux is its own operating system, but on Windows Windows is Windows, right? There's no Alternatives to Windows for the most part. I suppose there are nowadays, but everything that comes from Microsoft on Windows It's just going to work as Windows, right on Linux. Linux is not one big thing it's a Collection of distributions that all do something a little bit differently and that one thing is going to be the package manager But the thing is that because Ubuntu has been so popular for so long a lot of people They really do confuse the fact that apt is not the package manager for every distribution So they'll eventually learn that there are distros and then when they get to the distribution that they hop to they'll immediately do Pseudo apt update now if you let watch the Linus tech tips Linux challenge one of the first videos in that series Linus did this he's moved from pop OS Which he Bork if you remember he moved to Manjaro and one of the first things he did was Pseudo apt update or Pseudo apt Install or something like that and I said command not found right because obviously Manjaro is based on arch and doesn't use apt So that is definitely another thing that people should keep in mind So I'm going to go through a couple more So this one here is something that I've covered before but I don't cover very often on the channel because those videos don't do all that well and You know people just don't like to talk about money for whatever reason so we don't I don't talk I don't cover it as much as I should on the channel That's for sure, but the thing is is that people do you know the people who make Linux the people who make open-source software very often almost universally work for free and So that leads to people using their software and taking advantage of that Freeness and it does oftentimes lead to Entitlement on the part of the the Linux user or the open-source software users So people do need to keep in mind that the people who make these applications and make Linux itself You really don't have any Claim on their time unless you're going to send them some money right and even then you probably don't either So just something to keep in mind there as well And we'll end on this one because I just kind of talked about window managers window managers look cool But they're paying the asset setup. I'm going to disagree with that for the most part. That's a very harsh generality And I don't think that that's overall true. It can be true You know xmonad dwm even qtile You know can be hard to set up But if you're just using a regular old you know like i3 or something like that It's not hard to set up and the documentation is really good Now is it harder to set up than a desktop environment? Sure But just because something is harder or doesn't make it hard. I don't think So yeah, anyways, I could probably go. I think that this goes on for quite some time I will leave a link to this Thread in the video description. The main post on this here has is says is being Moderated for some reason. I didn't see anything wrong with the posts, but this is r slash linux. They moderate everything really weirdly So but anyways, I'll leave a link to this in the video description So if you want to peruse what other people think are some hard truths about linux I'll leave that for you because I don't have It could take a while to go through all of them So I just I just picked out a few of the ones that caught my eye So that's it for this video if you have some hard truths about linux You can leave those in the comment section below. I'd love to hear from you You can follow me on mastodon or odyssey those links will be in the video description You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash linux cast links for liberapay and youtube will be in the video description as well If you'd like to support me there. Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon and youtube guys. You're all absolutely Absolutely amazing. Thank you so very much for your support. I truly do appreciate it. Seriously guys Continues to blow my mind that you support me and I'm so very very grateful. Thank you so very much. Thanks everybody for watching I'll see you next time