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💡 Newskategorie: Linux Tipps
🔗 Quelle: reddit.com
I've been using linux on-and-off and specifically Ubuntu from its inception back on 2004 - 04.10 release and exclusively for the last few years. Down the line, i've tried a few other distos, like openSuse, Fedora, Debian, Arch and a bunch other Debian/Ubuntu based ones. I always found myself getting back and feeling "at home" on Ubuntu. It's probably some weird "first love" thing, i don't know.. but it's what it is.
I currently run a PC-repurposed homeserver running Proxmox for various containerized services, 2 Raspberry Pis on Raspbian and my getting-older personal laptop on Kubuntu, so the entire environment is built around Debian. That's hard for me (personally) to change at this point, since there are so many things involved here and this setup just works for me. I 've also always done all the administration on my own.
I have to add, i don't consider myself an "advanced user" by any means. What does an "advaced linux user" even means/implies? Actually, i'll better get back to this later.
Now, i see a lot of material (videos, blogs articles, forums..) online trying to recommend various distros based on user experience with linux: for beginners and advanced users mainly.
I'm trying to understand the reasoning here, since distros such as Debian or Fedora/CentOS are usually recommended to advanced users, while others such as Mint, MX Linux, Ubuntu, Elementary, etc are considered beginner distros.
I could support the Arch case to being an advanced user distro since it's more difficult to install and configure to a complete/usable installation. Same about Gentoo, let alone LFS. So, i agree with advanced distros requiring the user to do at least on of the following:
- manually install the distro and/or control the various packages/modules (same as Arch, Gentoo, LFS)
- manually build from sources
- missing graphical tools for daily basic functions (if such case even applies - e.q.: system updater, GUI app manager or app store) - but i'd rather put this on an "intermediate" level as long as binaries are available in repos
There is still the case with those distros not installing non-free drivers and media codes, but the level of difficulty to obtain and install such packages is pretty low. I'd put these also on the "intermediate" level.
With that said, I'm trying to justify the view of different people/bloggers/streamers/media influencers on how linux distros could be grouped and so recommended to different users, but I personally cannot see why the likes of Debian or Fedora (and their respective forks that don't lower their "difficulty level") might qualify as distros for advanced users.
If a more "bleeding-edge" distro is considered to have a higher probability of crashing and requiring higher level of maintenance, i could understand the case of Fedora, but then why is it in the same basket with one of the most stable linux distros out-there? Surely, these people don't take stability into consideration, since Debian stable is more stable than Ubuntu and Ubuntu based distros. Personally, i would much rather have my mother use Debian stable than Ubuntu, since the installation and initial config would be done by me anyway, but on the long run i'd feel more relaxed with her running Debian since i'm quite far away from her to be able to give on-premises support.
When it comes to consider documentation and support, it's much of the same situation as above.
These last 17 years of using linux drove me to a "slightly" different view on these distros and their possible categories from a user perspective:
- beginner user distros (freshly switched from Windows & completely non-technical): all distros having graphical installers, all required base apps preinstalled or at least readily available in Store or package manager as binaries, including non-free software. Package manager is standard.
- intermediate user distros: not yet sure/convinced this category is a necessity. but i could put it here for those distros that rely more on shell commands for various reasons/tasks, as i see it as a better fit for the two distros i talked about earlier, at least by comparison on configuration with other ones. I'd add here manual package compilation of packages done on any distro for that matter.
- advanced user distros: those requiring the user to manually set up de distro (installation, configuration, administration, maybe even writing your own software, if software development is not a different/higher level than "advanced"). Also , i'd add any manual dependency resolution and less-than 100% reliance on the package manager which should put Slackware here along with Gentoo.
I said i'll come back to this one: what makes one an advanced user? I have been using linux for the most part of the last 2 decades, but i'm pretty sure i don't qualify (and i cannot speak for anyone else, so i'm using my own case for this):
- i don't play well with REGEX. I simply don't. I didn't put much effort into learning them in the past, I've turned my attention to them lately but i'm always on top of StackOverflow looking for solutions as i'm not (yet) able to fix my expressions on myself.
- I've installed Arch numerous times in the past, but i always follow the guide as i cannot remember all steps and commands. Never had interest in Gentoo/LFS (yet).
- I'm always using various guides to do various tasks. Is an "advanced user" supposed to memorize these? Is this the criterion? Because i can't remember things, but i can follow guides and i understand what those commands do.
- i don't do programming. I've learned some C++ in high school, i understand algorithms, i did a few bash scripting in the past, for personal use - automation of administration tasks.
So, if these aforementioned points disqualify (in my view) one of being called an advanced user, than surely Debian/Fedora and similar cannot be considered advanced distros.
I would consider a sysadmin an advanced user on the other hand. Also a software engineer or developer. Or at least one with similarly technically inclined. In which case, not even Arch would qualify as an "advanced" user's distro, maybe more of a higher-intermediate one.
Which, at least from what i've exemplified in here, leaves only things like Gentoo, Slack and LFS as advanced distros. Of course these are just exemples of ditros as members of their respective categories.
What do you think? Is all this "advanced linux distro" an understatement, as described by many? Or did i go too far?
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