I like learning new things where I don’t have to do:
“weird concepts”
mandatory to know about [weird concepts; internals] or you can’t do basic things (🤯)
made me read a good amount of source code [I do that enough at work, I don’t want to be forced to do that at home]
there’s often not enough documentation available [fuck that noise]
the error messages might be very basic or misleading 😐🙄
Like I said, I do like learning new things, but this ain’t it. I had a hard time figuring out if you were being sarcastic or not, based on how ridiculous these points usually are when it comes to defining a good piece of software. All those things, poor documentation, poor error messages, having to read the source… are steering me far away from something I was already hesitant about due to how little gain there is.
It’s like the whole project exists only to waste as much collective time as possible. 🙎♂️🤷♂️
I want to learn new things, that can benefit me in some way. Not for the sake of knowing something. 😆
Thanks, and that’s the right thing to do… I deliberately phrased it so you can’t tell if it’s sarcasm. I mean the “weirdness” is a bit due to how it works very differently than the usual Linux distribution. I mean it’s not really objectively weird, these things are there for a reason. But it’s subjectively very weird and confusing to anyone who dares to apply their pre-existing Linux knowledge… Because there’s a lot of additional stuff to factor in.
And I didn’t mention the upsides. You can easily define and manage reproducible development environments. Roll something out to 500 servers or workstations without any effort and it’ll install your Firefox addons and bookmarks and favorite shell customizations while at it. It’s highly customizable. And if it’s in there, you can install a mailserver or Nextcloud with 10 lines of code and one command. And it’ll usually be very easy to maintain after that. It can roll back the system and a few nice things.
So it’s gonna save a lot of time as well, if you use things to your advantage. But I highly doubt that’s going to be someone’s average desktop Linux install. Other than that I think my portrayal of the underlying complexity, the disorganized documentation and the learning curve (which is as steep as a wall) is somewhat accurate.
I’m glad we have all the options available with Linux. And there’s some valid niche for all of them. Just think twice whether those highly specialized ones are what you need. I think NixOS is quite an investment in learning things, poking at stuff and getting lost in side-quests. Whether that’s wasted time in total, entirely depends on what you do with it later. I tried it. And I like it and hate it at the same time. And I wasted more time on it than I’m willing to admit… It’s not bad, just a lot. And the average admin or user might not need all the things it’s good at.
Yeah, I run like two or three computers, for which chezmoi is more than enough of a solution. I don’t run complicated services or anything. Firefox add-ons are synced already. All good. If I didn’t have kids and approaching my 40s with a growing games and movies/shows backlog, increasing demand for exercise, etc, etc, I might dabble. But now, too late for me. 😆
I like learning new things where I don’t have to do:
Like I said, I do like learning new things, but this ain’t it. I had a hard time figuring out if you were being sarcastic or not, based on how ridiculous these points usually are when it comes to defining a good piece of software. All those things, poor documentation, poor error messages, having to read the source… are steering me far away from something I was already hesitant about due to how little gain there is.
It’s like the whole project exists only to waste as much collective time as possible. 🙎♂️🤷♂️
I want to learn new things, that can benefit me in some way. Not for the sake of knowing something. 😆
Thanks, and that’s the right thing to do… I deliberately phrased it so you can’t tell if it’s sarcasm. I mean the “weirdness” is a bit due to how it works very differently than the usual Linux distribution. I mean it’s not really objectively weird, these things are there for a reason. But it’s subjectively very weird and confusing to anyone who dares to apply their pre-existing Linux knowledge… Because there’s a lot of additional stuff to factor in.
And I didn’t mention the upsides. You can easily define and manage reproducible development environments. Roll something out to 500 servers or workstations without any effort and it’ll install your Firefox addons and bookmarks and favorite shell customizations while at it. It’s highly customizable. And if it’s in there, you can install a mailserver or Nextcloud with 10 lines of code and one command. And it’ll usually be very easy to maintain after that. It can roll back the system and a few nice things.
So it’s gonna save a lot of time as well, if you use things to your advantage. But I highly doubt that’s going to be someone’s average desktop Linux install. Other than that I think my portrayal of the underlying complexity, the disorganized documentation and the learning curve (which is as steep as a wall) is somewhat accurate.
I’m glad we have all the options available with Linux. And there’s some valid niche for all of them. Just think twice whether those highly specialized ones are what you need. I think NixOS is quite an investment in learning things, poking at stuff and getting lost in side-quests. Whether that’s wasted time in total, entirely depends on what you do with it later. I tried it. And I like it and hate it at the same time. And I wasted more time on it than I’m willing to admit… It’s not bad, just a lot. And the average admin or user might not need all the things it’s good at.
Good follow up.
Yeah, I run like two or three computers, for which chezmoi is more than enough of a solution. I don’t run complicated services or anything. Firefox add-ons are synced already. All good. If I didn’t have kids and approaching my 40s with a growing games and movies/shows backlog, increasing demand for exercise, etc, etc, I might dabble. But now, too late for me. 😆