 So one of the things that I hear a lot about Linux is that it's very unstable. And when I hear this, I shake my head and wonder because I can't understand why people think that Linux itself is unstable because it's really, really not. One of the things that you'll hear very often and it's true is that about 50% or maybe a little over 50% of the servers in the world are running Linux right now. And that's a wonderful stat for those of us who think when Linux should win. But it's also a testament to how stable Linux actually is because companies don't care about new features or new kernels or new software at all. What they care about is is my server going to run forever and ever until it crumbles into dust and then I'll replace it and then run that one into the ground. That's, they want to spend as little amount of money as possible on time as possible as well on that piece of hardware and Linux for the most part allows them to do that. That's why it's become so popular. I think that that stability does translate to the Linux desktop, but the Linux desktop does have a reputation. And I think it's rather unfairly earned of being unstable. Now, what I want to do today is talk about the reasons why that reputation exists and why it's so wrong. So let's go ahead and do that. But before we do, if you'd leave a thumbs up on this video, I really appreciate it. It really helped the channel. So why do people think Linux is so unstable? Well, I think that the problem is, is that, and this is going to really tickle the GNU slash Linux guys, but a lot of people confuse the idea that Linux is the entire kitten caboodle that they're using. And while I do consider Linux to be a broader thing than just the kernel, even though technically it is just the kernel, I also can realize that there are things that come along with Linux distributions that aren't Linux associated. So for example, Firefox, Firefox works well on Linux very, very well. It's open source developed by Mozilla. And it just is one of the best browsers that you can use out there. It's that's absolutely true. But what's not true is that it's not part of Linux. It is shipped with the vast majority of Linux distributions as the default browser, but it's not actually part of the Linux package. That's something that developers or distro maintainers add on afterwards, right? So if you download, say, Manjaro, install it and get it up and running. Your Wi-Fi works and everything works. And you have problems with Firefox loading. That's not a Manjaro issue, at least not usually. Now, there are technical situations where your distro can cause a piece of software not to launch. So I can't say with 100 percent certainty that that's not a Manjaro problem. But for the most part, chances are it's a Firefox issue and not a Manjaro issue. But the thing is, when people first install a distribution and they encounter a problem like that, they're not going to blame the application. They're going to blame the Linux distribution. And they're going to say, well, you know, this distribution is obviously not stable. Therefore, I can't use it. I'm going to either hop away or I'm going direct to Windows or whatever. It gets more interesting when you talk about desktop environments and window managers, because again, despite the fact that desktop environments and window managers run on Linux, those things aren't themselves actually a part of Linux. They're just something that's at the top of it that allow you to see things on the screen. For example, you have things like Hyperland, right? That is a Waylon compositor. It's very, very pretty. It does a ton of stuff really, really well. It's also very fastly developed. So it breaks a lot. That's not a Linux problem. That's a Hyperland problem. Same thing with KDE, right? KDE is very well developed. It changes a lot very, very fast, at least the, you know, the more recent versions of it, right? If you want to use the LTS, you can talk about that. But the point is, is that KDE, because it has so many features, breaks a lot or it has a lot of bugs. We talked about this a lot on the channel, and that's not a Linux problem. That's a KDE Plasma problem, right? Same thing, you know, if GNOME had a problem or whatever. When a piece of your software that is inherently important to your day-to-day workflow and even using your computer period starts exhibiting bugs, you have a tendency to blame the thing that's underneath it when you really should be blaming the desktop environment. So if you download, say, Fedora, Fedora uses GNOME as its primary desktop environment, it's the one you download off their web website, and, you know, they obviously are the people who push GNOME the most. So you download Fedora, you use it, but let's just say GNOME45 has a showstopping bug. Maybe the dock disappears or whatever. Don't know, I'm just making this up completely hypothetical, but you use that and that has that problem. What are you going to blame? Are you going to blame GNOME or are you going to blame the Fedora project? Well, chances are you're going to blame the Fedora project even though it's not necessarily a Fedora problem. It's actually a GNOME issue. One of the things that this really leads to, and I've experienced this a lot recently in my own quest for support, is that when you experience one of these problems, you don't necessarily know who to go to for help. So if you have, say, for example, a bug where your dock disappears in GNOME and you're using Fedora, who do you go to for help, especially if you don't know who to blame for that particular bug? You're not a developer. You don't know what's actually causing it. Do you go to the GNOME project for help or the GNOME community for help, or do you go to the Fedora forums? Where do you go? I think that one of the reasons why people think that Linux is so unstable is because when you have a problem like that, specifically with like your window manager or your desktop environment, you have a tendency to blame the underlying distro for the problem, therefore, you go to their help or their community for your support. And a lot of times your, your help request is going to be, well, this seems more like an upstream issue or a application issue, and they're going to send you off into another rabbit hole of getting help from another developer, and they may push you onto another one and you just get, it's, it's kind of like you're on hold with the cable company and they just keep passing you along to the next person and nobody ever helps you. That happens sometimes, right? And it kind of feels like that. And I think that this all comes down to, we don't know who to blame when it comes to problems on our operating system. And I think the biggest issue there is that most of us aren't developers, you know, the vast majority of people in the world aren't developers at least, right? And because that's true, we don't know what's actually causing the issue. So we go to the best guess, right? You know, we have a problem with our monitors displaying something. We're going to go to the best guess for the support. And a lot of times that best guess is the distribution maintainers themselves. So when it comes to stability, let's just kind of move it back towards the main topic. A lot of times the reputation for the instability that Linux has comes from the whole, we don't know what actually is causing the problem. Therefore, we're blaming the operating system itself when that's not necessarily always fair. Now, I will not say that Linux is perfect. I've never claimed that. And obviously there are bugs in the Linux kernel, there's bugs in the core utilities that Linux ships. And those things pop up and cause issues every once in a while. The biggest problems that most people have when it comes to actual Linux is going to be hardware related. So I would say that sometimes those are bugs, right? Those are things that people can go in there and fix sometimes, at least, you know, maybe 50% of the time, those problems aren't to do with actual instability. They're actually to do with compatibility, right? So you download a distribution, your Wi-Fi doesn't work. That doesn't mean Linux is unstable. It means that Linux isn't compatible with your particular piece of hardware. That just happens sometimes. And you see this mostly, I would say, on laptops, because there are, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but there are a gajillion different skews of laptops out there. And that may be low balling it a little bit. And each one of them have slightly different pieces of hardware in them. And that means that it's really hard for a kernel like Linux to support that amount of hardware and ensure that everything works together in harmony. Now, Linux has done a fantastic job, in my opinion, over the course of the last 15 or 20 years or so of making sure that the vast majority of hardware does work and has support in the Linux kernel. So if you just install Ubuntu on a piece of hardware that you buy off from eBay or from Best Buy or whatever, chances are most things are going to work. You get about 80 to 85% success right there. I'm just making that number out of my head, but it feels like the vast majority of people who install Linux have the experience of things just working. And there's like the 15 or 20% or whatever of us who have installed a piece of who have installed a distro on a piece of hardware, usually again, a laptop that has had problems like your again, your Wi-Fi doesn't work or your printer doesn't work or whatever. Those are hardware compatibility problems, not Linux stability problems. And sometimes I think people confuse those things. So I think that's another reason why Linux has this reputation for being unstable when really it does. It has a deserved reputation of being incompatible with some pieces of hardware. That's just it always has. It has gotten way, way better. Like if you were around Linux in the early 2000s or even way before that, you'll know that the hardware compatibility back in the day, as they say, was much worse than it is now, much, much worse. Right. You'd have to a lot of times you'd have to compile drivers for specific pieces of like Wi-Fi cards or whatever. And that's if you could find a driver at all to get it to work. A lot of times you couldn't and you'd have to either go find another distro or just not run Linux at all. That's so those were the dark days. These days are much better, but it still does happen. But again, that's a compatibility problem, not a stability problem. So at the end of the day, I think that the whole stability argument against Linux is way, way overblown. And I think that the reason for that is simply because people who come to Linux for the first time aren't interested in tinkering, or at least I should say this, a lot of people who come to Linux for the first time aren't interested in tinkering. And unfortunately, Linux is still very much for people who are interested in doing a little bit of tinkering to get things working. It doesn't mean always and it doesn't mean a lot. It doesn't mean you have to be a terminal or command line, you know, ninja or whatever. But sometimes to get something to work, you do had to put a little bit of effort into it. And I've talked about that on the channel before as well. So the instability that people tend to experience when they first install their first distro, first off, that's not instability, that's just usually compatibility issues or more likely, and this is going to sound very constant sending, it's probably more likely a skill issue, you know, because you're brand new to something, you don't necessarily know everything or is about it. So you're probably doing something wrong or you just don't know how to do something, you know, and that's just the way that is. You are a noob, and you need to learn how to do something. And blaming the piece of software for you not knowing or for a compatibility issue, isn't necessarily the fairest thing in the world. So that's it for this video, a little bit of a rambling video all over the place. I'll try to fix some of that up in post, but we'll see how that goes. Anyways, if you liked this video, leave a thumbs up on it, I would really appreciate it. It really helped the channel, you can follow me on master Donor Odyssey, those links will be in the video description, you can support me on Patreon at Patreon.com slash Linux Cast. You can also head on over to the store where we have hoodies and t shirts and desk mats and mugs and water bottles and backpacks and pillows and all sorts of stuff, all of it really cool branded with the TLC logos and all that stuff. I also have some t shirts and hoodies over there with some really neat sayings and stuff on there. So if you want to support the channel and get something really cool in return, you can you can head on over to shop. The Linux Cast.org. That's where you'll find the store. I appreciate all those who have and will do so in the future. So thanks everybody who does support me on Patreon and YouTube. 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