I know we’re joking about how obnoxious we are when we make this recommendation… But it’s also true. Linux problems are much more likely to be solveable. The proprietary “no serviceable parts within” boxes are much rarer.
I will say however, I’ve encountered a few things that were unsolvable because I wasn’t a professional coder with tons of time on my hands. Unfortunately the only solutions were “attempt workarounds” and “wait. :(”
But at least in that case:
You can generally narrow down this is the case vs. your own config issues.
Somebody else has the same problem.
Barring all that, you can bug report!
I run Tumbleweed though, sometimes things happen. (But it’s still shockingly stable!)
I wouldn’t expect people running Mint or Debian to face this nearly as much.
The particular most recent instance I had:
All my KDE services were crash-restarting on startup because QT didn’t like my drawing tablet or something. Truly bizarre. Bug reporting lead to resolution!
I will say however, I’ve encountered a few things that were unsolvable because I wasn’t a professional coder with tons of time on my hands.
Oh, yeah. That’s still true. I’ve hit those as well.
Though at least with open source stuff, I usually find the issue solved when I try again a year or so later. (Maybe not how I would have solved it, but there’s typically at least more and better options.)
It’s a bit of both. I agreeey that Linux problems are actually solvable, but we’re also willing to put up with a lot more because of that. (Admittedly, Window’s enshitification is helping with the last part)
Yeah, the frequency of bullshit problems and just having to accept losing features and gaining advertisements has reached a point of absolute absurdity, it almost feels intentional at this point like they’re trying to see how far they can push people before they’ll leave
I know we’re joking about how obnoxious we are when we make this recommendation… But it’s also true. Linux problems are much more likely to be solveable. The proprietary “no serviceable parts within” boxes are much rarer.
I will say however, I’ve encountered a few things that were unsolvable because I wasn’t a professional coder with tons of time on my hands. Unfortunately the only solutions were “attempt workarounds” and “wait. :(”
But at least in that case:
I run Tumbleweed though, sometimes things happen. (But it’s still shockingly stable!)
I wouldn’t expect people running Mint or Debian to face this nearly as much.
The particular most recent instance I had:
All my KDE services were crash-restarting on startup because QT didn’t like my drawing tablet or something. Truly bizarre. Bug reporting lead to resolution!
Oh, yeah. That’s still true. I’ve hit those as well.
Though at least with open source stuff, I usually find the issue solved when I try again a year or so later. (Maybe not how I would have solved it, but there’s typically at least more and better options.)
It’s a bit of both. I agreeey that Linux problems are actually solvable, but we’re also willing to put up with a lot more because of that. (Admittedly, Window’s enshitification is helping with the last part)
Yeah, the frequency of bullshit problems and just having to accept losing features and gaining advertisements has reached a point of absolute absurdity, it almost feels intentional at this point like they’re trying to see how far they can push people before they’ll leave