I think I've shown in my past rants and comments that I'm pretty experienced. Looking back though, I was really fucking stupid. Since I haven't posted a rant yet on the weekly topics, I figure I would share this humbling little gem.

Way back in the ancient era known as 2009, I was working my first desk job as a "web designer". Apparently the owner of this company didn't know the difference between "designer", which I'm not, and "developer", which I am, nor the responsibilities of each role.

It was a shitty job paying $12/hour. It was such a nightmare to work at. I guess the silver lining is that this company now no longer exists as it was because of my mistake, but it was definitely a learning experience I hold in high regard even today. Okay, enough filler...

I was told to wipe the Dev server in order to start fresh and set up an entirely new distro of Linux. I was to swap out the drives with whatever was available from the non-production machines, set up the RAID 5 array and route it through the router and firewall, as we needed to bring this Dev server online to allow clients to monitor the work. I had no idea what any of this meant, but I was expected to learn it that day because the next day I would be commencing with the task.

Astonishingly, I managed to set up the server and everything worked great! I got a pat on the back and the boss offered me a 4 day weekend with pay to get some R&R. I decided to take the time to go camping. I let him know I would be out of town and possibly unreachable because of cell service, to which he said no problem.

Tuesday afternoon I walked into work and noticed two of the field techs messing with the Dev server I built. One was holding a drive while the other was holding a clipboard. I was immediately called into the boss's office.

He told me the drives on the production server failed during the weekend, resulting in the loss of the data. He then asked me where I got the drives from for the Dev server upgrade. I told him that they came from one of the inactive systems on the shelf. What he told me next through the deafening screams rendered me speechless.

I had gutted the drives from our backup server that was just set up the week prior. Every Friday at midnight, it would turn on through a remote power switch on a schedule, then the system would boot and proceed to copy over the production server's files into an archive for that night and shutdown when it completed. Well, that last Friday night/Saturday morning, the machine kicked on, but guess what didn't happen? The files weren't copied. Not only were they not copied, but the existing files that got backed up previously we're gone. Why? Because I wiped those drives when I put them into the Dev server.

I would up quitting because the conversation was very hostile and I couldn't deal with it. The next week, I was served with a suit for damages to this company. Long story short, the employer was found in the wrong from emails I saved of him giving me the task and not once stating that machine was excluded in the inactive machines I could salvage drives from. The company sued me because they were being sued by a client, whose entire company presence was hosted by us and we lost the data. In total just shy of 1TB of data was lost, all because of my mistake. The company filed for bankruptcy as a result of the lawsuit against them and someone bought the company name and location, putting my boss and its employees out of a job.

If there's one lesson I have learned that I take with the utmost respect to even this day, it's this: Know your infrastructure front to back before you change it, especially when it comes to data.

Fucking windows! I am so fucking done with this microsoft bullshit!

Hear me out here, i am a gamer. I need windows because it has the games (and software to aid those games) unlike any other platform. But windows 10 is basically already phishing andmalware at this point. I stuck to win 7 because it had a start menu and didn't totally drive me up the wall.

Just a short list of their bullshits: ads in the explorer window, ads in your taskbar reminders, data mining like it is nobodies business and trying to hide it, sharing my wifi access with friends (wtf), the fucking retarded new start menu, the crappy fullscreen apps which have less functionality than the actual proper desktop applications that you need to config what you want, and even then pushing multiple updates that simply broke peoples pc's. Fuck that, ill stick to 7.

They are making win10 worse by the week making it unlikely i will ever join that hell, and they are also aiming to force me there. Making windows store exclusives and dx12 only games. What am i supposed to do against that?! The current releases don't bother me much but fuck i figure it is a matter of time until the newest katamari game is their exclusive and i nanananana katamari damacy all over their platform.

And well all alternative os's are just out of the question unless vulkan rendering gets the upper hand. Then i'd switch to whatever stable distro and learn about our new penguin based overlords languages.

For now i will just stick to win7, suck on my thumb while in fetal position and hope it just all goes away.

Want to switch to Linux so bad right now. Getting tired of Windows and its shit. It took 12 minutes just to shut down!!! I'm just holding back until I finish this project I'm working on for Uni so I don't mess things up. After that it's goodbye Windows!
What distro should I try first? ;)

Every single stakeholder in my company tells me that I should be working on something different, every time I talk to them. For example - we've got some issues, that I've ranted on previously. I go to my manager, and tell him that it's going to take longer than I'd hoped, because the author of this part of the codebase wasn't familiar with functional programming or OOP, didn't document anything, and just generally produced an unmaintainable, borderline indescribable mess. The next guy after him made it all so much worse, because they're both a couple of tryhard douchebags, and I hope they fucking die. For real. I hope fire ants are involved.

Anyway, getting carried away there, whew. So I tell my manager that we'd be further ahead just replacing the code, because it's only doing a couple of things, and should not be so complex. He says "cool, but what you really need to be doing is rebuilding this other thing." So I switch gears and work on that other thing until I hit a point that requires the input of another stakeholder. I go to talk to this guy, and all hell breaks loose "why are you working on that, this is higher priority", and I explain the sequence of events. Manager denies having said what he said, I look like an asshole, yet again. Then the old "this should be simple, just change this" from the dudes who don't know code, and don't want to know. I try to explain, offer to show them precisely why their "simple ask" is anything but, but they just start screaming about how they hate technology. Yeah, well me fucking too. I keep hearing about how much "job security" I have, but man I'm going to lose my mind at this rate. I have seventeen motherfucking things that are "emergencies", and as many fucking dumb ass unintuitive workflows to go through to get them changed. All on production, because this place is fucking stupid. Just let me discard this shitty legacy code and be done with it already. FUCK.

Thank fucking fuck it's friday. In about six, seven hours, my goal is to be so fucking wasted that I can't feel my face. Get drunk, play with the dog, install a new distro on the desktop, maybe play a little guitar (the guitar is normal sized. It's not a ukulele or anything). Perfect friday night.

All these switching to linux posts and it feels universe is telling me to make the switch.

Yesterday, again, i had to go through failing windows 10 update. Wasted over 2 hr just booting up my pc because of fucking update that is incompatible with my PC.

I want to switch right now.

Which linux distro do you recommend? I let devRant choose my OS. ( p.s Its a laptop )

!rant

I'm going to try to switch over to Linux (dual-boot at first), but I've been trying to figure out which distro to use. Any suggestions?

Also, if you have any tips for me, you can leave them in the comments too

So I finally decided to switch to Linux.
And I need help choosing distro.
I know this is not a good place to ask this, I could just use google. But I want to hear it from you guys, from actual devs whose work with it every day, and not from some ***** bloggers whose barely know what is OS.
So please just write which distro you are using and if you are happy with it. I will be very thankful.

UBUNTU 16.04 VS ELEMENTARY OS

I'm Currently running Ubuntu 16.04 for all things dev related, is it worth the time to switch to elementary OS?

Or is there any other distro you would suggest me to switch to?

I'm looking for a distro that is more modern than Ubuntu 16.04, not the shithole that Ubuntu 17.10 is and works, practically, out of the box with my xps 9560.

this 17.10 update thing is driving me nuts. the plot twist is.. if I don't get it set up before tomorrow I'll just switch to windows.

Finally decided to switch from windows 10 to a Linux distro, probably Ubuntu, with a macOS theme because I just love the design of it. Main reason for using windows was Skype and Photoshop, but I don't use that anymore and I don't do gaming. I just hope that in terms if development/programming, I will be able to do everything I could on Windows. Laptop I use is Dell inspiron 15 3542 and I think it already sometimes comes pre-installed with Ubuntu, so I guess that's good.

So I installed a new Linux distro, and since the DE is Gnome, I wanted to spice things up with a Conky file.

I download my conky theme, extract it, and try to run it.

And it's broken.

Apparently, the Conky development team decided it would be a great idea to switch over to an ENTIRELY FUCKING NEW SYNTAX, LEAVING EVERY CONKY THEME WRITTEN BEFORE AUTUMN THIS YEAR USELESS

Oh, no biggie, I think. After all, the development did very graciously publish a Lua file to convert old conky configs to the new syntax.

Except no.

The file used to convert conky configs uses the old loadstring function, for which support was dropped in Lua 5.4

So not only did Conky make every config written earlier than this Autumn obsolete, the FUCKING TOOL THEY DEVELOPED TO HELP WITH THAT IS ALSO FUCKING BROKEN

Fuck Conky. I wasted 2 hours screwing with this broken-ass piece of shit

Ubuntu 16 lts wifi drivers have problem and i am unable to fix this shit, everytime there's a new problem with ubuntu I hate ubuntu now for these many problems I'm not going to use it again.
If I didn't find any good linux distro I think I should switch to mac

Time to switch distro (I'm run debian it the moment ) any recommendations

I'm noticing that installing a new distro and making it your main distro tends to be very stressful to me.

Here's a couple of reasons why:

There's this anxiety I get that is just crazy, like I need to set this thing up perfectly, meanwhile I have work to do.
And the thing you estimated to take 2 hours at most ends up being a full week.
Work starts to pile up but can't just shake the obsession with setting this thing up.

Another reason is that usually my main distro instance tends to be VERY customized.
So much that when you switch, you need to configure those things again, and troubleshoot a lot.

Troubleshooting isn't a problem in itself. The problem is that you're trying to troubleshoot with a machine that needs troubleshooting.

the shell, the editor, the terminal, the window manager, tmux, the notifications, the custom kb layout. it was all so neatly customized that fixing problems on the machine was manageable.

but without all that I feel like an idiot.

Even something as simple as keeping having youtube music to focus is now intermittent because you need to restart the X server.

Maybe my problem is that I don't do well for bootstrapping.

Anyhow, I'm really stressed right now, but I think it'll be worth it.

Time to reinstall Windows 10 again... I want to switch over to some Linux distro but then i can't play GTA :(

Hi! I want to switch to linux but i never used it before and i want advice from you guys about the OS (what distro should i use and how to get started).

Should I switch to arch?
I really like its idea of being a rolling release distro.

Currently on elementary os after trying various other ubuntus and Debian (and using them some time)

I am currently running a heavily modded version of Ubuntu 18.04. I remove gnome applications, installed xfce with sddm for my login manager, plus removed a bunch of their pre-installed applications. I mostly use AppImages and snaps for installations with occasionally using apt for packages I am too lazy to build or are not in snap form.

I have been contemplating switching to Arch/Antegros/Manjaro. Mostly because I am crazy and heard that I could get a performance boost and I like being more in control of my own software.

My question is this, does it make sense for me to switch distros? Also, I'd like to have a close to the metal Arch install, but last time I did that I got annoyed with configuring too much from the bare bone, took me like close to an hour of setup, it was not hard, just really tedious.... Is Antegros/Manjaro have options to be really close to the bare-metal? Is there maybe a really good install script that I can just tweak some basic settings for?

I just finished a bunch of newly configured containers that I had to switch off centos7 to almalinux9. I have one thing to say,

Fuck NetworkManager!

I know im basically a dinosaur when it comes to any coding, especially scripting. I prefer notepad.exe or sublime to VScode... you couldnt pay me enough to use crap like vbstudio... but I know I need to get better at not just rewriting thing to suit my preferences since i have others working for or with me now.

so... I tried... I reeeeally tried to tolerate NetworkManager... tried to learn/tolerate dumb nmcli and it's matrixed array of dyslexic syntaxes. I just couldnt do it... that plus the damn default images having bs like an effectively blank, non-error-generating resolv.conf file.

NetworkManager got killed... I went back and edited my network-scripts and scripted those to other scripts for changing the statics around if/when needed... took waaaay less time.

I just dont get why something like NetworkManager even exists on any EL distro... yeah sure, wifi takes a couple extra steps and is super common now... but shouldnt be how any actual servers need to communicate. can people just not fathom putting shit in a few files in proper syntax anymore???

I'm a full stack developer, I have been using windows all my life but I purchased a new laptop recently, it has only 4gigs of RAM and I will upgrade it in the future but that's gonna take a while but mean while its running windows and its a pain in the ass! Memory is always almost full, disk(HDD 5400rpm) usage is 100% when I don't expect it to be. Chrome and VSCode hogs my memory and the laptop lags like crazy because of that webstorm and pycharm are all out of the question. I'd like to switch to a Linux distro, dual boot it since my windows is a genuine copy. Which Linux distro would be the best for me?

Any opnSUSE users here, I might switch to that distro but I would first like to know what you think.

!rant
Although I wouldn't change my main os (os x), I'd like to have a linux VM ready on my machine.
Which distro would you guys recommend?
To give you a quick description of how advanced I am with operating systems, I have used windows for the majority of my life (I'm 19), have recently switched to osx (when the new mbp came out) and have spent about 3-4 months using only ubuntu in between my windows/osx switch. Besides that, I've only done some minor projects with a raspberry pi.

I want to switch over to Linux again, Windows just annoys me a lot lately. Thing is, I don't know what distro I wanna use yet.
I want one that is:
0. Security focused, so encryption, VPN and so on. (I know software could do the job, but would be nice if it comes with the OS)
1. Not hard to configure, but I should be able to configure it more when I want to.
2. Not too ulgy looking.

I have a little bit of experience with Linux, but I'm not even close a professional.
Looking forward to your suggestions!

!rant
It's been over a year since I installed elementary OS on my laptop and I still haven't regretted switching from Ubuntu. There were a few issues initially while setting things up but similar issues even used to happen when I was using Ubuntu.
The desktop shell of elementary OS is perfect for my use cases, its easier to switch between virtual desktops and the app bar at the bottom makes it easier for me to transition between my Macbook and Linux based laptop with ease.
The only major issue I found was no proper multi-monitor support.
The closest thing I found to the simplicity of this shell/distro was Zorin OS, although at this point I am just too lazy to try it out.
P.S. Feel free to mention your favourite Linux distro in comments 😁

I'm fucking tired of my computer having random
2 seconds latency on any basic action and being slow as fuck regardless of powerful processor, ssd and 32GB RAM. Music via bluetooth is basically unusable since every few seconds the music stops for a 0.2s then plays again. I installed this system (opensuse tumbleweed) in February this year and it's just sad that I have reinstall again (any ideas for distro) ?

I made a dummy mistake of buying a CPU without internal graphics and this resulted in having to buy a GPU. So I got myself Nvidia(another mistake) since i though i would be using CUDA on the university. Turnes out CUDA cannot be installed for some retarded reason.
With Nvidia GPU the screens on my two monitors are swapping every time I use a hdmi switch to use other computer. On AMD GPU this problem does not exist. AMD GPU pro drivers are impossible to install. Computers barely fucking work, change my mind. Shit is breaking all the time. Everything is so half assed.

The music player that i use sometimes swaps ui with whatever was below it like for example the desktop background and i need to kill the process and start again to use the program. WTF.

Bluetooth seems to hate me. I check the bluetooth connected devices on my computer, it says headphones connected. BULLSHIT. The headphones are fucking turned OFF. How the fuck can they be connected you dumbass motherfucker computer. So I turn on the headphones. And I cannot connect them since the system thinks that they are already connected. So I have to unpair them and pair them again. WTF. Who fucking invents this bullshit?
Let's say i have headphones connected to the computer. I want to connect them to phone. I click connect from the phone settings. Nothing happens. Bullshit non telling error "could not connect". So I have to unpair from computer to pair to phone. Which takes fucking minutes, because reasons. VERY fucking convenient technology.
The stupid bluetooth headphones have a loud EARRAPE voice when turning them on "POWER ON!!! PAIRING", "CONNECTED", "DISCONNECT". Loudness of this cannot be modified. The 3 navigation buttons are fucking unrecognizable so i always take few seconds to make sure i click the correct button.

Fucking keyboard sometimes forgets that I remapped esc key to caps lock and then both keys don't work so i need to reconnect the keyboard cable. At least it's not fucking bluetooth.

The only reason why hdmi switches exist is because monitor's navigation menus have terrible ui and/or infrared activated, non-mechanical buttons.
Imagine the world where monitors have a button for each of it's inputs. I click hdmi button it switches it's input to hdmi. I click display port button - it switches to display port. But nooo, you have to go through the OSD menu.

My ~ directory has hundred of files that I never put there. Doesn't feel like home, more like a crackhead crib.

My other laptop (also tumbleweed) I click on hibernate option and it shuts down. WTF. Or sometimes I open the lid and screen is black and when i click keyboard nothing happens so i have to hold power button and restart.

We've been having computers for 20 + years and they still are slow, unreliable and barely working.

Is there a cure? I'm starting to think the reason why everything is working so shitty and unreliable, is because the foundations are rotten. The systems that we use are built with c, ridden with cryptic abbreviated code, undefined behavior and security vulnerabilities. The more I've written c programs the more convinced I am, that we should have abandoned it for something better long ago. Why haven't we? And honestly what would be better? Everything fucking sucks. The rust seems to be light in the tunnel but I don't know if this is only hype or is it really better. I'm sure it can't be worse than c or c++. Either we do something with the foundations or we're doomed.

Sooooo, would need a little help here please.
Would like to switch from OpenSuse at home to some other Linux distro. (Side note: using OpenSuse at work and at home, would like to discover something new).
Already tried Ubuntu but really didn't like it. Arch Linux was okay though.

Saw some of your pictures of your nice customized desktops and would like to try something like this, but really don't know which distros can do this.

While searching a bit I found three which look/read quite interesting:
Devuan, Alpine Linux and Sabayon Linux.

What would be your thoughts on those, or which distros would you recommend?

Would be grateful for any advice. 😊

Hi there

Every few months I switch my Linux distro, currently I’m having a look at Manjaro.

I really like it so far, but there’s one thing that sucks freaking donkey balls..

Everything works perfectly until I shutdown.
On shutdown the whole OS freezes.

Although Manjaro is known for its big and new-to-arch friendly community, I didn’t find many posts about this problem and if I did, the questions were not answered.

Any ideas?

Which linux distro you use ? I am currently using fedora and want to switch

Hi devs! I wanted to switch to a different distro but do not want to loose data, is it possible? And I don't have separate home partition, every thing is in one partition only

Been working on redoing my desktop lately. Currently the specs are:
-FX-8350
-Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P motherboard with a broken USB 3.0 header lmao
-GTX 660 (Gonna upgrade to an RX 580 at some point, I don't do any hardcore gaming so I know I don't need a top of the line GPU)
-Crucial BX500 240gb SSD
-WD 500gb HDD (gonna upgrade to a bigger one eventually)
-Some like $60 Dynex PSU I bought a while ago, waiting on my Corsair RM650x to come in

At this very moment, it's running Windows 7 Ultimate x64. Once I get to a point where I'm happier with the build, I'll switch it over to Linux and start ricing. It has Windows right now cause I'm just using it for some games and when I last fucked with the hardware, it was the middle of the night so I didn't want to spend too much time setting up a Linux distro the way I want it and everything right then, just putting that off for later (especially cause I use Arch btw)

I have been playing some Half Life 2 lately. I forgot how fucking fun that game is.

Aside from my PC, my birthday was technically yesterday (it's about 2:30AM as of writing this, and I've been up for a while, so I still consider it today). Now I'm 2 years away from being able to legally drink (and smoke since the law change, although I still do both anyways).

I'm gonna stop rambling. Life is fairly decent right now. Not too much to "rant" about except for shit with my roommates, but I won't bore everyone with that

What would be the best Linux distro for someone who's used Windows all his life? My friend has recently been getting super pissed about windows and it's land of a million updates so he wants to switch to Linux but doesn't know what distro to use. Personally I would recommend Ubuntu.

What's everyone favorite Linux distro? Currently using elementary OS, still relatively new to linux but looking to make an official switch since it speeds up my development flow.

Currently using Ubuntu Gnome. i would like to switch to a new distro. which one should i choose?
Personally, i would like to switch to Manjaro, it looks good : P