LINUX Unplugged - Episode 35: Windows eXPired | LUP 35

Episode Date: April 9, 2014

XP support ends today and we’ll celebrate the occasion by debating what prevents technical users switching to Linux, address some common myths, and set a course for our new howto show.Plus why Chase and Matt are wrong about DS9, blaming choice, your feedback, and more!

This is Linux Unplugged, Episode weekly Linux talk show that's soaring all of the wrong places, but still pouring out one for good old XP. My name is Chris. My name is Chris. My name is Matt. Hey, Matt. So here we are. It is XP Doomsday. And to celebrate this very special event, I've asked Chase to join us.

Hey, Chase. Hey, guys. How are you? Hey, pretty good. So guess what? I had my first wing experience with Chase today. Tell me where we went. I took, well, actually, Chris really took me.

Yeah, that's true. I said, hey, Chris, we need to go to Buffalo Wild Wings in beautiful, beautiful North Marysville. We got three types of wings. We got the Parmesan garlic. We got the buffalo dry rub and the honey mustard.

Buffalo dry rub was like wings I'd never had before. The crispy skin and the flavor just hit you. I love me some wings. It's Wing Tuesday, right? had before. Weren't they? That's the kind of dry road. The crispy skin. And the flavor just hit you. Yeah. I love me some wings. Yeah.

Oh, it was great. It's Wing Tuesday, right? Yeah, it was Wing Tuesday, so they had a great special. Yeah. So we just got all

loaded up on wings, and we thought we'd come in here and, you know, I wanted to have a conversation with Chase because I think one of the biggest pools of

switchers to Linux, and we're kind of using the death of XP as an excuse to talk about this, but I think one of the, realistically, if we're being honest, people who are going to switch to Linux today, you know, in the year 2014 and 2015,

are likely going to often be the more technical users, people who are fascinated by technology and kind of want to take that to the next level, see what other technology enthusiasts could create a la open source, right, and maybe even become a little more involved in the human side of software development by becoming exposed to open source. And I think that's going to be a huge pool of switchers. And that's not a small group. There's a lot of Windows users out there who are very technically savvy. They are geeks.

They are gamers. And guess what? Chase happens to run a podcast network called Geek Gamer. He fits that category. He's an IT guy himself, but he is a windows user primarily yeah and we're gonna pick his brain today and like get the honest real world answers maybe why he hasn't been particularly motivated to switch to linux because i think getting a little honest opinion on on maybe the barriers that are perceived and the actual barriers that exist

could help us break those down in the future and move more people over now that today is the end of XP. And I felt like it would only be appropriate if we celebrated. So what I'm going to do here is I'm just going to boot up my XP machine. Let me log in real quick because this is a special moment. And I don't normally run XP in the studio, but... All right, I got the XP machine started. Now, Chase, you can see here I just downloaded a few... Oh, let me clear that.

No, Chris, you need to install... No, I have this here I just downloaded a few... Oh, let me clear that one. No, Chris, you need to install... No, I have this... Oh, what am I... Oh, no! Uh-oh. I feel good. I feel good now. I think this is what was supposed to happen, right? That's right. Clearly. So,

goodbye to XP. We hated you. You were the bane of my existence. So many of my ass hairs were burned on solving your problem. When we went from 98 to the Fisher-Price interface of XP. I was about to say that, yeah. So, you know, it wasn't terrible. It wasn't bad when it first came out. I was the guy at a bank deploying a bunch of x86 servers,

and the mainframe guys were sitting back laughing at me, like, look at your toy computers with their toy fisher xp operating system it was a point of mockery that i had to endure for years yeah but all you had to do is enable classic mode and then you're all right come on i told them that i told them that but it killed the theme and also make sure that you change your start button to stop that's a very important registering hack i mean very important you know i'm a big pc gamer For example when Vista first came out And everybody was like I'm going to move to Vista for gaming

I got better performance on XP I stayed with XP for a long period of time Until Windows 7 Well a lot of businesses stay with XP because the hardware requirements are lower In fact a lot of businesses still are Actually there's a lot of banks that are paying for XP support For their ATMs Governments

Yeah because they're paying for that exclusive premium support. This is so brilliant because Microsoft has basically made up this phony expiration date for bits that they can then put a phony bounty on that is a completely made-up price that they can just charge people randomly for now. It's a brilliant scheme. But should they support it indefinitely, though? Why not? Why not? I mean, no. I don't actually believe that.

But as a thought experiment, let's say you had 50,000 employees and you were one of the largest software companies in the world and there were a billion users of your operating system. Let's entertain the idea of continuing to support it. I mean, why not? It keeps the world safer. Yeah. And it only keeps them safer as long as those people are updating like they should and they don't disregard updates. So you can find OS 2 still deployed in System 390 mainframes. OS 2 on a 386 still getting updates from IBM.

Wow. So it's possible. That puts it in perspective, yeah. It's possible. I don't know if you'd want to do it, but I say good riddance. Honestly, I am so glad it's out of here. XP, as a support contractor, has been the source of so many wasted hours. I lost so many clients' computers to Service Pack 3.

It bricked machines. It was a security nightmare. The security was boned from the very beginning. And, you know, I think in a large way, it was just enough of an operating system to keep people on Windows for a long time. But it introduced so many problems. And it got such a wide footprint now. I would even go so far as to say literally it was the Windows XP era that retired me from PC repair. I literally was so done with it.

I had a blood pressure issue because of it. It was so bad. I feel the same way. I feel exactly the same way. It really burned me out on PC repair. And then in later years, after 7 had been out for a while, I was so frustrated that all these people weren't switching

to it that I was still supporting XP that it is one of the major reasons I said, screw it. I'm done. For me, it has not been a good 10 years, or a 13-year run. Now, I understand that for a lot of people it has, but for me, it was a nightmare the entire time from the day that operating system shipped. But see, for me,

I can't put 100% blame on the operating system. You know, part of me is, you've got to also place blame on the I'm sorry to say, dumbass user who just says, alright, well, I'm just going to go to this not really good website or I'm just going to... And I'm going to keep using IE when I

could put Firefox on this machine. Or Chrome or whatever. Or Netscape or whatever. Picture.exe, that's my favorite. Oh, yeah. Let me open up this attachment willy-nilly. There's not enough user responsibility when it comes to these things. I mean, even when an operating system is secure, say like OSX or you're typing in a password or authentication into an installer program, people will still blindly say, all right, yeah, yeah, go, go, go, go, go.

I feel like it actually doesn't happen quite as much on operating systems that require a password. Like you were on today. You were on the Ubuntu 14.04 for the first time. This is a brand new release. I got it loaded on my Bonobo. I'm getting ready for our big review on the Linux Action Show. What is your first impression just looking at the UI? Is it clean to you?

Does it seem modern? What are your first thoughts when you look at it? Well, there's pullaways from both Windows and Mac that I feel when I use it okay. Yeah. But part of the issues that I have is some of the familiarities, like, for example, the menu bar. A menu bar, right? Right right right now i'm using x chat i was also using skype earlier yeah how long did it take for us to find and there's stupid settings there's a particular bug because there's not a little app indicator for the up in the tray

which will probably be fixed soon since this is a beta but yeah that kind of you know those are the kind of small intangibles where you know if i was making a transition from from one thing to another well let me actually back this up a little bit you know making a transition say from a windows world or from a mac world to a linux world one of my biggest roadblocks that i have is you have thousands i don't know if thousands but you have multiple flavors of linux yeah You have multiple ways of installing it. Has that been a barrier? Or have you always kind of heard the name Ubuntu and kind of always figured it out? Of course I've heard of Ubuntu.

I've actually messed around with a live distro probably a few years ago on an older laptop. But it's one of those things where, what do you go with? I mean, one site that I used to go to quite often was DistroWatch. I don't know if that still exists. It still exists, sure. And I would just go and look at the list, and I'd go, all right, well, I'll just take whatever's at the top and just mess around with it. Yeah, yeah. And so you don't know what to go with.

I mean, at least in the Windows world, you know what to go with. If you're in the OS X world, you know what you're going with. I'm surprised it hasn't just sort of settled on Ubuntu for a lot of Windows switchers. It seems like that's sort of the narrative that's out there, but maybe it's because we're so... See, this is one of the reasons I wanted to have you on today, because I've been following it so long now, and I've been switched over for so long that I've kind of lost perspective on what it would be like to come to it with fresh eyes. So to me, it seems like the obvious choice from the far outside is just Ubuntu, because that's the one you hear the most about. So you probably, that'd be the one you want to use.

So we're going to pick your brain about that. But why don't we first do a little follow-up, a little feedback, as we like to do here on the show from last week. That way we keep the continuity thread. We're not a syndicated Star Trek series here on the show. Well, it should be. We have story arcs. It should be, absolutely. Yeah, maybe, actually.

I'll be Worf. I'm putting that out there. I will do Worf. Okay, Chase, who do you want to be? Oh, I'm going to be Data. Well, then, all right. Good choice. So I either have to be, I guess I'm Riker because I have a beard. Yeah, Chase, who do you want to be? Oh, I'm going to be Data. Well, then, all right. Good choice. So I either have to be, I guess I'm Riker because I have a beard.

Yeah, do Riker. Riker works. Can you do the Captain Morgan, please? You know what I could do? You know what I have a little bit right here? Check this out. Oh, wait, I muted it. Because he pipes up too much.

Computer, what happened? There we go. Computer, what happened? Is that from like season one or two when he was just more of the stupidish Picard? Ah, maybe. That's what it sounds like. It sounds like from the early, early seasons where he didn't know what to do. Yeah, I just was talking to a guy who's re-watching.

Hey, let's see what's out there. I was just talking to a guy who's re-watching TNG and he's like, so is this show really preachy? I'm like, yeah, for the first couple seasons. He's like, oh, okay. So it gets better? I'm like, yes. Yeah, the Roddenberry. It's very Roddenberry. Yeah, Rodden't hate on rod no i'm just saying i'm just

saying it it i'm a deep space nine guy for a reason all right no me too by the way i love ds9 ds9 is my favorite i love ds9 great minds oh yeah hey ds9 would not exist if it were not for tng and the universe that they created i know and by And by the way, side trivia, the one guy outside the computer, Miguel Roddenberry, Miles O'Brien on the most Star Trek episodes out of any of them. He's a boss. Out of any of them. I would have liked to have seen him show up in Voyager once or twice.

Agreed. Didn't he? All right. So last week we talked a little bit about Mr. One Leo Laporte. Remember, he had a little – The tech guy. He had a few things to bit about Mr. One Leo Laporte. Remember, he had a little... The tech guy. He had a few things to say about Linux. There's all the software you'd want.

And he had good things to say, but he also had to say... It's for people who like to mess with computers. Oh, that hurt a little bit. It hurt a little bit, and we got some feedback on that. We got a lot of feedback on that, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time dwelling on it because I think we said our piece, and I didn't really want to make this into a bashing thing, but I did.

I wanted to Ben Frank like, what is this? Ben Frank Lingates. Ben Franklin Gates. Ben Franklin Gates wrote in. He says, I agree on how unfortunate it has been for someone in his position with experience would throw down a blanket statement about Linux. But I've noticed something about Leo over the years. My theory is that there are two Leo Laports. Wait, wait.

He's cloned himself? Two Leo Laports. Transporter accident. Wait, wait, wait, wait. He's Thomas Riker. I was going to say, do we have the evil Riker? Where's the real Riker? He's been stuck down there for a while he's a little bit you're wearing

the gold shirt yeah i knew it and my and my my beard actually peels off lieutenant reicher yeah that was a great ds9 episode that was so good so good oh man uh so i so here's the two leos you have one who answers questions for noobs and plays the childish grandpa figure and articulates those sponsored commercials in his innocent golden voice. Then there's the real Leo, the real that mostly comes out on Twit when he's among his peers, he speaks his mind critically,

and in general shows more of himself than he likes to let on, like when Dvorak's around to poke him. I think that Leo did not genuinely mean what he said when he discouraged Linux. He was just wearing his childish grandpa hat to explain how useful and compelling Linux is would have meant to to break out of character what do you think what do you think matt go ahead i agree i actually agree with that i think because looking back on what i said i

saying that my statement was that he does know better and he does know better so that actually yeah i can see that jace are there two leos yeah oh absolutely i mean obviously when he does his nationally syndicated show over the weekend he's appealing to the dare i say 55 plus audience and i've noticed he even kind of sometimes speaks in a little bit of a southern twang yeah you know he's very slow frank underwood deliberate and he know he needs to convey a message and also plug his network right yeah but you know that's the thing though he is on the air and he's providing stupid support calls for people. Right.

And it's true. I think, yeah, he was assuming a little bit about his audience based on the demo that these people are probably not smart enough for him to tell them. And if you're an advanced user, you're not going to be listening to his show anyway, for the most part.

Unless you want to pull clips to make fun of him. Right, right. I mean, not make fun of him. But I mean, you're not going to go to listen to the tech guy on the weekend to learn about the latest tech news. No, but this... After Kim Commando. This goes back to my point where I think the most potential

for Linux switchers are people like yourself who are technically qualified to install a distribution, to download an ISO and burn it to a CD. But I would say this, though. If I'm listening to a show casually over the weekend, because I'm a tech fan, I listen to Leo, and I follow Leo for a while, and maybe I'm considering Linux,

and then I hear statements from him about it, it could potentially make me go, you know, maybe I won't even bother. Now, I know better. You know, I've learned, and I have an open mind about things, but not a lot of people may have that. Yeah, that's what I was worried about last week.

It was sort of that the drive-by impression for people who are looking at their options right now. I agree. They get Grandpa Leo's advice and they go, ah, you know what? I'm going to do that Chromebook instead. Or, oh, you know what? I'm going to do that Windows 8 machine. Well, you know, the thing is, you know, a lot of people probably probably don't even consider the Chromebook, or they consider other things like that. They just stick to what they know. They'll stick

to Windows, because that's what the majority of people know. They're afraid, and what Leo does, it doesn't encourage that openness. Right. And that's... That experimentation. And it's very, very scary, and not only that, then no one learns anything. And it keeps you listening, because you gotta keep getting them tips. Right after these messages.

Right. In fact, why don't we take a break right here just as Leo would do because our next message is going to prove me wrong. I've been saying this for technical users. Our next email says it's not for technical users at all. It's better for brand new users. And he's got a compelling argument why. But first, let me tell you about my mobile phone provider. Yeah, my mobile phone provider, Ting. Ting is mobile that makes sense.

A no BS mobile service provider. No contracts. No early termination fee, and you only pay for what you use. This has been a lifesaver for me over the last few weeks as we've been working out of the studio, having Ting, having to be able to just click or tap, I should say, a button in my Android device and have Wi-Fi come on and know that I'm just paying for what I use because everything on Ting is pay for what you use. You turn on Hotspot, tethering, text messaging, picture messaging, you just pay for what you use. They take your minutes, your messages, your megabytes. They add them all up at the end of the month. Whatever bucket you fall into, that's what you pay. And it makes so much sense. In fact, Chase, check this out. So I got

the Nexus 5, as you know, on the Ting network, right? Yeah. So I hit this Ting button, this app right here on my phone. And you do that right now. And I could do the dashboard, too. I mean, they have a really... Like, the Ting dashboard... Like the web app? Or are you talking about the... Oh, yeah. So they have an awesome web app. Whoa, hi there. Check that out. Ooh, it's a video.

I didn't know I had the music piped in. It's called multimedia. So they have the dashboard, but also right here on the phone, which I'm not showing on the screen, I have all of the same information available to me at the tap of a button. I can see, like, I've used 20 megabytes. Rikai has used zero megabytes for this billing period because he's always on Wi-Fi. Yeah, so you can always see which category you're in.

Yeah, and when you have multiple devices, it's really easy. But even when you have one device, you want to track your usage. It's straightforward. It's very easy. I can see minutes, messages, megabytes. I can set alerts. I can activate, deactivate devices. I can see minutes, messages, megabytes.

I can set alerts. I can activate, deactivate devices. Set up call forwarding for both devices, all from the mobile app or from the web standards app that they have on the web. Where you can even just, like, I've actually never even needed to call Ting. I've always activated my phones through the Ting dashboard. Wow. Transferred phones through the Ting dashboard. When Matt activated his Note 2, he did it through the Ting dashboard.

That's right. But the great thing is, like, if you ever got stuck, you call my 1-85555-TING-FTW and an actual person answers the phone. And I'll tell you something. I don't know if they want me to share this story or not, but we got an email from a viewer who was like, I wasn't in a position to get Ting, but I called them up and talked to their support reps about my options on another network. And just like, they helped me pick the right phone for me because they were on disability and they had a very limited budget. Wow. And they were getting a government sponsored phone. And Ting helped them like through the process, even though they weren't going to get a sale at the end of the day. And this is the thing about Ting is they're just an awesome company.

And to that end, on their blog, they just put up a post, the top six reasons why students should never sign a cell phone contract. And this is something you really want to go through if you're a student. And by the way, if you are a student, Ting also has a promotional program for students that is awesome to get you a ton of free minutes and help if you help spread the word about Ting. So you want to read up on that. And if you're in a contract right now to help you get out of that contract and go to ting.com slash ETF. But do me a favor, go to linux.ting.com linux.ting.com is that lets them know you heard about it right here on this show. But it also will save you $25 off your first device. If you're going to bring your own device, and they've got a BYOD page where you can find out what devices you can bring, lots of good Android devices, the iPhone 4, 4S, and the iPhone 5, you can also bring those over.

If you bring your own device, they'll take $25 off your first month. For some folks like me, that means your first month is free. When you add up the ETF, the total savings over the life of your plan, because there's no contract here, so you just keep getting the value every single month by paying for what you use. And when you consider that $25 discount, it's an incredible deal. So go to linux.ting.com. That lets them know that you appreciate them keeping us on the air. And they have a savings calculator right there for you to plug in your current bill and see if maybe you could save a bunch of money. And start actually helping clean up the mobile industry. Because at the end of the day, what Ting is doing is providing genuine, valid competition that the duopoly that runs the mobile industry in the U.S. so far has not had to answer to.

And finally, finally, somebody is challenging them and making them clean up the way they do business, forcing them to provide everyone better service, forcing them to expand their networks. And you can help be part of that by going to linux.ting.com, signing up for Ting, and forcing the hands of that duopoly to treat everyone a little bit better. And a big thank you to Ting for sponsoring Linux Unplugged. Linux.ting.com. I've said it before and I'll say it again, once I'm out of my freaking contract. And I know... We're going to have a party.

Yeah, totally. I'm ready to rock. Yeah, all right. So let's talk about Urban120's email. He wrote in and said, Linux is actually easier for new users than it is for the technically inclined. And I was like, what?

What? He says, hi, Chris and Matt and Chase. Hi. Thanks for making awesome shows. I regularly listen to Last Linux Unplugged and TechSnap. Well, thank you, Urban 120. Now go listen to Unfilter and Coder Radio and Sybyte and Foshow and BSD Now. Where have you been?

He says, I actually think that Linux is easier to use for the average user when something goes wrong or when they don't know how to do something. It's simple. The answer is the terminal. If something goes wrong in Linux, you can usually solve it from the terminal. And if you're talking with someone on a phone, it is much easier to dictate what they need to type than how to navigate them through menus or options, which is very true. We were just trying to navigate you through Skype. If I could have just told you what to type in the terminal,

that would have been a lot easier. He says, Urban says, this happened to me a while ago. I installed Manjaro on a friend's computer. My friend called me to ask me how to install TeamSpeak on Linux. I replied, press Control-Alt-T, type in Pac-Man-S TeamSpeak 3, and in a minute, his problem was solved. Easy as that. If I wanted to tell him that in Windows or any other OS with a non-CLI

method, it would have taken much more time. Thanks for making the awesome shows, Urban120. Do you think that, do you think his premise there requires a Linux expert in the wings to help him out? Boy, you know, I think in some circumstances that makes sense. But for example, installing a package, certainly. If you're troubleshooting something though, you know, I think in some circumstances that makes sense. But, for example, installing a package, certainly.

If you're troubleshooting something, though, you know, command line is not always going to be that helpful unless you're trying to actually pull down error messages and then actually send them to a forum. What I like about the terminal, though, is that, you know, like say I sent Chase home with the bonobo, which would never happen. But let's say I sent Chase home. Wait, wait, that wasn't part of the deal with me being here today. That is my baby. My baby. You have three upstairs boys shared custody all right we'll work something out very fun uh i could have turned i could open up the ssh port i could have chase forward ssh on his router or i could do it and then if chase ever had a problem i could ssh into his box and pretty much fix it from the command line is that code for something? No. Okay. Sounds a little dirty.

Sounds a little dirty. I mean, so there is definitely an advantage to the terminal. I guess what I like about it is that there's an option there. There's a route there. I feel like everything that the user would want to adjust in the normal course of using their computer needs to have a GUI way to

do it. But if you're going to get crazy, like anything, here's the Windows equivalent, Chase, and I do it. But if you're going to get crazy, like anything, here's the Windows equivalent, Chase, and I think, tell me if you're comfortable with this. I say anytime you do something that is equivalent to editing the registry or a config.ini file on Windows,

it's fair to also have to open up the terminal on Linux. Like they're equivalent there. If you're comfortable in going to the registry, you should be comfortable going to the terminal. But the thing is,

it's honestly very rare for me to have to go in the registry and i think it probably is makes it seem like more of the norm to do the terminal thing does that scare you well no it doesn't scare me but why should i why should you have to go down to that level what and what let me flip around good from the start what if what if it has always been better to do it from the terminal and all of the options that we've been working on to get away from that have actually been more in air and just having a more concise, easy, available way to do it via

the terminal through some basic commands, nothing overly complicated. Maybe that actually is the superior way to manage these types of things. You know, maybe if there was a show that would walk me through how to do these things on Linux. How to walk through commands and do certain things. Like a how-to Linux show?

You know, that would be nice to do. But it's one of those things where the user, when they're walking into this world and they're moving into a Linux world, they're not even going to know anything to do. I mean, all they know is, I have this distro, I'm going to put it in my disk drive, if they have a disk drive, and they're going to try to install it. Well, you know, I'll tell you, like, I just installed that 14.04 install last night, and so far, I've installed Chromium, Skype, and like Flux, like the, you know, the Screen Flux app. But none of that. I haven't had to open Flux app. But none of that.

I haven't had to open the terminal once to do any of that. And to be fair, there are a number of GUI tweak tools that are gaining in power. They're actually becoming very powerful and quite good. So I would like – I think it was Windows Tweak. I forget exactly what the Windows equivalent was, but Windows Power Tools I think is what it was. Very much like that, where you can really get under the hood and play with stuff. I'm just thinking that the basic common user, they're

just not going to do that. Even as an advanced user, I rarely have to go to the command window in Windows. I mean, there are certain things, with the exception of the problem that I was having the other night, where I sent you a Viber or whatever, and I was ready to destroy my computer. I was ready to destroy my computer.

And I was saying I was ready to give up technology. What was going on? I don't remember. Oh, that's right. Yeah. So on certain files in Windows, when I right-clicked on certain files, Explorer would crash. Right.

Because there was something going on with the contextual menu. And do you remember what my response was to that? I was like, yeah, you're getting to the – so we all – everybody talks about Windows like, oh's it's it's it's modern oh god no yeah yeah it's like you get to this point windows is like okay this feels like it's straight out of 1989 oh yeah there's some aspects that feel real old and busted and i'm jumping through old system tools to find the contextual menu that is bugged so i can pull it out of there without having to reinstall my whole freaking operating system yeah i mean so I can pull it out of there without having to reinstall my whole freaking

operating system yeah I mean so it can happen in Windows too yeah um I see what I wanted to try to float past you is the concept that I feel like almost we've been marketed to believe that the terminal is like this thing we shouldn't have to do like if you have to go to the terminal it's a failure it is a it is a it is a is a failure in a sense of providing and exposing a way to do something via a GUI. And I think in reality, and I think if you look at what Microsoft is doing, and all of Microsoft's high-end tools, they're going command line. They're going PowerShell, server core, right? Everything that you now do when you administer an Exchange box, all of that GUI is doing is executing PowerShells, server core, right? Everything that you now do when you administer an exchange box,

all of that GUI is doing is executing PowerShells underneath the hood, and you could open up PowerShell, and you could actually just execute those same commands. Same with Lutter. Right, yeah. And Microsoft is now moving that direction. And I believe part of it was this marketing hype to get us to buy these newfangled computers,

and oh my God, you no longer have to use the command line. But the reality is in some ways the command line is the superior way to do it. It is the most efficient way and I've also worked with users who are completely and totally computer illiterate who

had no problem if you just gave them instructions using the command line. Well you know I would even go as far as to say I would agree with you if we were to have a Windows wiki and a Linux wiki, and we were telling people to basically use those as your tools to solve your problem.

At that point, when I can copy and paste those commands and drop them in a terminal, then I agree with you on that. Because then there's no room for mistyping, there's no room for mistakes. Boom, done, bam. Let me say Boom, done, bam. Let me say this, though. The danger in that, and I've seen it so many times, where people blindly follow instructions,

and they can cause some serious harm. Well, that's what happened to Leo in our last show, yeah. Right. This is true. And they just blindly copy commands based on a wiki where someone can obviously, you know, if they edit it at the impromptu time, then all of a sudden you've... Or the command's old or whatever. I guess, you know, if they edit it at the impromptu time. Or the command's old or whatever.

I guess, you know, part of the thing a GUI gives the user is a sense of security and a step-by-step approach. If somebody's managing the details for you behind the scenes, you're not going to mess something up. Oh, yeah. Right. Or there's protectionary measures like, oh, you forgot to type this specific thing in. And when you're working in the command line, if you forget a character or you forget a dash or you forget something that you're supposed to do, sometimes it doesn't really give you full feedback of what you missed. I think what you can equate that to is abstraction. And I think any time you layer on too much abstraction, it's too much. I'll give you an example.

My wife had to get our sunroof repaired, and we had a rental that they just gave gave us while we had the work done and they no longer had first and second and third gear it was just l and drive yeah i don't like that that is too much abstraction i want to know what gear the car's in like to me that is a bit of data that is relevant to how i drive right and i have i feel the same way with the computer i feel like sometimes too much abstraction when I'm on the line to make something work is a bad thing. Now, I will say this. If they took away the command line from Windows for me, for example, I would be

livid. I mean, I like having the flexibility and the ability to go in and do certain commands and do certain things. You know, like I use a lot of the network tools from command line to this day. Rele releasing and renewing an IP address is a great example. Trace routes, things like that.

I will always do that from the command line because it's the most efficient way of doing it. I don't need a GUI to do that. Well, Urban 120 has joined us in the Mumble room and he had a little follow-up to his email about Linux being easier for new users. Urban, what did you want to add? I'd just like to add that GUI is great,

and I actually prefer it. But if you need to do just something simple with someone that does know how to use computers, it's much simpler to just say what he needs to do in a simple way. In terminal, it helps you do that. Right, you can explain it to him over the phone

and you don't have to be vague like yeah, click on this thing, it should be about in the left corner and then you should see this option, click that. I don't see that option. No, you need to click the square, not the circle, then you'll see that option no you need to click the square not the circle then you'll see that option like that's very hard to do over the phone and i've done it plenty of

times and that's why i've probably tried just about every decent remote desktop solution that's out there so that way i didn't have to be stuck in that very situation so i agree urban um yeah and if you have text he can tell you what he just read and tell you back to you. And you say, okay, just do that. And it's much simpler over the phone. But you need someone that knows how to use Linux. And on top of that, you could even email them, like, do this. You know, type this in, that kind of stuff.

All right, Chase. Well, I want to pick your brain a little bit about some of the things that I know you mentioned the mini distro aspect, but I know there's more things that as a computer enthusiast, as a technology enthusiast that have kept you from switching to Linux because, I mean, you've had plenty of opportunities and thought about it. So we're going to talk about that here in just a second. But first, I want to thank our second sponsor this week. It is the awesome folks at DigitalOcean. Who is DigitalOcean? Well, they are a company that has based their entire technology stack off of Linux. And if you use the promo code unplugged

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Okay, Chase. Yes. So, let's get past the distros because i feel like that's a bit of a cop-out because you you know you were going to go up on two if you're going to do it not necessarily no i really yeah really and the reason is simple what if there's something better i mean how do i know right there is See? Get in the mumble room so they can yell at me. Yeah, so, I mean, that's just one thing, right? Or let's say I went with Unbootoo for a minute.

Mm-hmm. Okay, there's different versions, right? So when you go and download it, it's like, which one do I download? Different desktops, different stuff. Right, right. I mean, there's multiple options of options. So you know too much, in a way. You know enough to be paralyzed by choice, but not enough to make that choice.

Right. And then there's the whole other areas of, okay, what are good resources for me to go for support, for example? All right, some people may yell, all right, go to the Reddit. Go to Reddit. Well, but what if I ask you the same thing about Windows? Well, the majority of my friends know Windows, so I just go to them, right? Ah, yes. Right.

You know, and part of the thing is, and maybe this is a stereotype, and maybe I'm wrong on this, but as a Windows user maybe making my way into the Linux world and saying, hey, I'm wanting to step my foot in the water. I want to learn how to swim. I feel I get two different responses. Either, ew, you're a Windows guy. I hate you. Or then you get five or six, seven or eight

different suggestions on what you should be doing. Ah, yes. We've run into that, too. We've talked about that. So the community can be a bit of a barrier. Like, you feel like you go down a path and then you get yelled at for going down that path. Right. And then when you do go down that path, then you have eight different options.

And if you don't pick the right one, you don't open the right door, then you're going to get abused for it. We've talked about this too. We've wondered if that's a problem. And I wonder too, like, if that's not just the internet. Like if you got a Mac and then you got like one text editor, wouldn't then a bunch of advocates of another text editor jump on you? But that's a little bit different than an operating system choice, I feel. Because everybody has their preferences for apps, but now you're breaking it down to an OS level. Everybody has their preference for OS.

I mean, I've seen it in the JB community. You know, people love Ub, or they like BSD, or Arch. Or OpenSUSE. Right. There's so many different options. And so what do I go with? What would be the best for me? And then someone may go, well, what programs do you use, or whatever. And then it's like, is there a simple resource to say, all right, well, I like using Final Cut. Like, is there a simple resource to say, all right, well, I like using Final Cut. Okay. It works great for me on Mac.

Some people said, well, you know, you could use Premiere on Windows. And I'm like, yeah, it's true. But I want something that is solid and works great. And I don't have to worry about doing weird conversions and stuff. Right. Yeah, yeah. And then another thing for me is I'm also a gamer. You know, I know Steam is on Linux and that's great. But like a big game that I play right now, you know it.

Battlefield. That's Origin, right? Yeah. Linux? No. So I'd have to do some sort of emulation, right? Yeah. Or if that works.

Or in some cases, Wine maybe, kind of, sort of, not really. Or maybe, you know, Dual Boot. Yeah. What about Dual Boot? What is that? So what does a Dual Boot situation look like for you? Does that seem crazy to you? Well, like does it seem pointless in a way?

The only dual booting I do is on Mac. I do boot camp, and the only time I do that is if I'm going to do any type of gaming streaming. So it would be kind of like that. So if you have a Mac, you dual boot between – only if you have a PC, you dual boot between Windows and Linux. Right. I just don't like dual booting that often. I just like turning it on and just going in. So gaming is definitely a big barrier.

And thankfully, that's a situation that is rapidly improving. It is. No, and I agree with that. But then also, is SLI supported in Linux? See, I don't know if that is or not. Yeah. I'm an NVIDIA guy, so I don't know. You use SLI still?

I don't mean to be judgy No, no, I have NVIDIA 580 SLI graphic cards Oh, okay, so you've got 580s You're trying to squeak a little life out of it Well, they are old NVIDIA support in Linux is actually very friendly

They've got the great GUI That's actually what I use, it's what I prefer to use It's actually pretty good I could definitely see how certain games actually a nice little thing. They've got the great GUI. That's actually what I use. It's what I prefer to use. It's actually pretty good. Yeah, I agree. Potentially. I could definitely see how certain games, you know, any time you get application specifics like AutoCAD or Premiere,

I'm not worried, obviously, on the website of things. But then you start going into other areas. Like, for example, the simplicity of, say, if you call it simplicity, of setting up a printer. You know, I would actually argue that's easier under Linux. I would know that. I think distro-specific. On some distros, it's stupid.

It's actually way easier than on Windows. And on other distros, it's ridiculously stupid hard. So it really depends on the distro. If you had a brand new Arch installed, it'd take you forever. If I started a poll right now on the last subreddit, I bet you $100 that I'm going to get so many fragments of things. Chase, this is your first. Right.

You need to use this. This is the best to use. This is what you should use. Yeah, I think that's a big problem. I think, too, there's always those specific things. I look at it like this. If you could do 80% of your computing under one operating system. So I guess what I come back to is for me, what got me onto Linux was the technological curiosity of it. Like it fascinated me from a standpoint that there was an operating system not necessarily controlled by any single company that was created by a bunch of individuals that have come together to work on something.

by a bunch of individuals that have come together to work on something. And I like that from a standpoint of, I'm not necessarily a fan of where either large computer OS manufacturer, commercial OS manufacturer is going right now. I don't know if you've seen the mock-ups for OS 10.10. Have you seen them? No.

They look like iOS 7, and it looks horrible. It looks really, really bad. And I definitely don't like the new Windows Start menu. I don't like any of the direction Windows is going either. No, I don't like it either. Like, for example, I'm staying on Windows 7, and I'm staying on 10.8.5 on OS X. So let's go four years down the road.

You see how there could be some, there's a problem you run into here, where both these now, 10.8 and Windows 7, are getting pretty old, pretty long in the tooth. Yeah. Ubuntu, you're using it right now. It looks pretty good. It looks pretty modern, right?

You got Chrome. It's just one of those things where there's certain things that, you know, gaming is a big one for me, right? It's huge for me. And I know there's Steam, and I know it's getting better. I mean, you were just telling me about the green lighting. If your favorite games were on Linux, let's just, like we're talking four or five years down the road. If your favorite games were on Linux, so it's a whole new generation, maybe one or two generations of games have come out now.

They've all shipped with Linux versions, the ones you want to play. Maybe not all games, but the ones you want to play have. Let's say that's removed. What now is the barrier? What is the problem from switching? The other that i use for example uh you know you know me i do a lot of game streaming yeah and so multimedia production so wirecast for example only mac and pc yeah open broadcaster software uh x split some of these other programs right pc only yeah um so there i haven't seen a linux equivalent to that but you

don't need that on every computer no no yeah and that's true i i worked with webcam studio which was supposed to be an equivalent for it for linux but didn't quite work out as well as we'd hoped right i mean i'm not so that's fair i mean for example you know i think you know for a a system that like a skype machine you know for my production or, for example, a secondary box where I'm not doing main production stuff or an older laptop that I haven't used in a while. Those are some situations where I could see myself installing something like this. This is very snappy to me. Obviously, I'm not doing anything hardcore with it, but it works for me. The other thing, too, you know, some of my experiences in the past, you know, where the distribution didn't work with everything on my laptop perfectly.

So I have to jump through. Now, I understand people are going to say, well, you have to do that with Windows. But at least with Windows, it feels like I can install a driver easily. Has that changed? Yeah, a lot of that's improved over the years. Like, for example, I installed the NVIDIA driver. I go to one screen and I say, you know, I choose

which driver I want, and it just goes and installs it. For the most part now in Linux, it either works out of the box or it doesn't work. Because unlike Windows, all of the drivers are included at the kernel level in Linux. So when you install a distribution, it pretty much supports everything out of the box. Now I'll say this

and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like with Linux, and this is one of the parts that really excite me, is I can really take full advantage of my system resources depending on what I'm doing sure i always always feel that with windows and even with mac that there's some bloated overhead or there's something

happening that's hindering my full potential of using my system and with linux i feel i get this impression that it unlocks something and like it gives me more power so behind it so one of the things that's interesting and it's kind of hard to translate you know uh you can't put it on the side of a box but on on windows and on on mac let's just this is my a horse that i beat all the time on the show but the file systems yeah on both of those operating systems are very old now yeah but the thing is is there's no internal if you look think about the politics of a company that has to ship a product, it doesn't do them any good to make something that's really low level and something the users never see. It doesn't do them much good to spend a lot of time and money on that.

It's not a sexy feature. They can put a bullet point on a box, right? Yeah, that's true. But open source, everything's out there in the open. And when something sucks, everyone in the entire world can see it. And there's a peer pressure about keeping your components that you're responsible for up to date and modern. And so what ends up happening in Linux is a lot of the little things, you know, how

an application talks to the file system, right? All these little things that Windows and Mac and Apple, they just can't really care about because they can't advertise it as something they've spent time on. But in Linux, there's this open pressure to keep all of that lower level stuff really tight. Not only because they're constantly pushing on ARM devices and they're trying to just keep really competitive in that space, but also because so many people can see the flaws that it becomes incumbent upon the person responsible for those flaws to fix them because otherwise their dick's hanging out in the open and everybody can see that they got a small dick.

Yeah, you know, and the other things that kind of concern me too, not so much, but you know, obviously continuation of support. I mean, with so many fragments and so many different distributions of Linux out there, you know, something might get discontinued or something might change in the very next version.

You know, it seems like to me there's a lot of turnover and a lot of change. I mean, a lot of change that happens, even from one month to the next. So that distro will be supported for five years, the one you're on right there, which is pretty good. But there are distributions like the one that I primarily use where every day it's called a rolling release

where there's new stuff that's just integrated continuously. Now, the flip side is there's never a big version. There's never a Windows 7 and a Windows 8. There's never a big version. There's never a Windows 7 and a Windows 8. There's never a big jump. It's every day something is updated. It's a continuing role. And here's one other thing. For example, you know me. I have an HTC One. Yep.

It's an Android device, and one of the first things I did was root it. And then, you know, I've been installing my own... You Linux hacker. I've been installing, you been installing all these custom ROMs and that sort of thing, right? Yeah. So, for example, I know Linux is very heavily customizable, right?

And one of the things that I like about Windows and I like about Mac is, well, I know that you can do some customizations. For the most part, the base level is always the same. I feel like I could get myself in a world of trouble. Honestly, because... And then what? So that sounds like...

I mean, some of these things sound a little bit like there's been a narrative built up around Linux because there are some desktop environments where it could be like this custom thing, very unique to Chase Nunes, and nobody else has a desktop like Chase Nunes. But right now you are using something called Unity, which is, you can modify it, but pretty much what you see right now is what you get. If you change the background, the sidebar will change color. There's your customization. Literally, you can change the background and that's pretty

much it. Now you can install apps to tweak it more. But then there's desktops, and I'm not hating on KDE, but I'm just saying there's desktops like KDE where every pixel on the screen is pretty much you've customized it yourself, and you can choose where it's laid out. But if you were to go with the most common Linux entry point, which is Ubuntu, and it would be probably their LTS, you would have this experience. Very Mac OS X-like in its customized options with probably a little bit more options. It's not going to get you in a world of hurt. But what I'm trying to get to the root of is how to kind of push through some of these, because some of these misconceptions were right a few years ago and I think they really took root and they've sort of just continued to exist

when the folks that are working on these distributions have really spent a lot of time to fix some of this stuff and make it better and address some of those concerns. But that message isn't out there. It obviously goes back to how Leo, on his nationally syndicated radio show,

pushed the narrative about Linux. And it pushed the stereotype. And you know who you are. If you're somebody who doesn't want to mess with it, I just want to surf the, just want to buy something on Amazon, send an email to my kids, look at some websites. If that's you, you don't want to mess with it, probably not a good choice.

You know, and here's the thing, right? You know me, Chris. You know, I'm not running Linux. I don't have a Linux laptop. But hearing that freaking cringes me as a fan of software, as a fan of furthering technology. And it frustrates me because when I'm using Linux right now and I'm using Ubuntu, Leo jumped through advanced things that he didn't have to do. And then he screwed himself up. And then what does he do when he screws himself up?

Well, so he doesn't look bad himself. He just deflects. Right, yeah. And he badmouths. Yeah, it's not my fault. Yeah, right. No, I didn't do anything wrong. Yeah.

I mean, seeing something like this and messing around with this, this is solid. This is very, very nice. And I know this is beta.. This is very, very nice. And I know this is beta. And this is very, very nice. I mean, the app store, if you call it the app store, where you can just type in software center.

These are the kind of things that I would love to be able to, and I might do it, where I will say, hey, dad, I'm going to throw Ubuntu. Is that okay? And throw it on there. I guess, too, what I was kind of curious, too, if you looked at it so much, when you looked at it, do you look at, is it really, I guess what I'm trying to get past, are you really afraid of what the community is going to say?

Is that really a barrier? No, it honestly is. Part of it is. Because that seems like that's on us. That's why I feel really bad honestly is. Part of it is. Because that seems like that's on us. That's why I feel really bad about that. Part of it is. But then again, you've got to realize something. I understand that for years that the community has been bashed by Windows users.

Right, yeah. They've been bashed by OSX users. They've been bashed. They're embattled, Chase. And they're also bashed within their own communities. Honestly, they're bashed within their own communities. So you have internal factions, right?led, Chase. And they're also bashed within their own communities. Honestly, they're embashed within their own communities. So you have internal factions, right? So you have all these different things.

What if there was a federation of Linux users called the Linux Federation where you have all these different factions where it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, you're still using Linux? Well, let me help you out with that. Essentially, we're the Maquis. And, you know, I mean, that's the best description out there. We are the Maquis. We literally, in every sense of the word, go into it with a very Maquis mindset. If we can't make it work, we throw a, you know, we take a little ship and throw a bomb on it. No, I mean, it's very Maquis-like. I think most of the challenges you're probably facing, too, are task-centered. How do I accomplish X?

How do I accomplish Y? Can I accomplish Y and X in the same level of quality that I accomplished it with the other operating system? And this is why I'm super excited to be doing the How to Linux show. Yeah. Just because of the fact, I mean, even doing the show today and looking at the chat room, I've had literally probably five different suggestions of what Linux distro I should start with. There is no answer. Right. And that's the thing, right?

That inherently is one of the core problems is where you have a new user or an experienced technical user like I am. And what should I be going into? What would be the easiest transitional thing for me? Well, I know Riley wanted to make a point about the community. Go ahead, Riley. Yeah, so I'd say the community does not matter. Whatever you like, you need to go with. If you're a new user, don't listen to the community at all.

Yeah, seriously. If you're going on Disco Watch, check out a couple of these shows. They sound cool. If you want to use Zorn, go for it. But look at those screenshots of it and look at maybe some user reviews and go from there. Now, Brett Romney wanted to bring up the point

that Brett Mitt Romney said, all this Ubuntu bashing is bad for new switchers. Go ahead, Mr. Romney. First of all, it's R2. It's fine. Okay. Well, I believe that a lot of people are misinformed by the other people.

I truly believe Rupert is one of the best options for newer users. The constant bashing makes them, I don't know, more hesitant to use it, I kind of believe. Woo-hoo! Especially the unnecessary unity bashing coming from

let's be honest, a lot of Nixleaks. I think you guys give yourselves too much credit. I don't think I don't, Chase, have you heard a lot of Ubuntu bashing? Has this been a thing? I don't think this makes it outside our circle. No, and it doesn't. It doesn't, but when for example you

know some people will talk to other like-minded individuals and i'll say all right i'm thinking about moving to linux what do you think i should move to and then you go to your friends and they'll give you some feedback and i consider the community my group of friends here and i'm going in that scenario you get that person's opinion right right? And they'll say, oh, well, Ubuntu sucks. I mean, that's what Leo got. Leo went into his chat room, and his chat room immediately said, oh, my God, Leo, you have to uninstall Unity right now. And it sent him down a path of borking his system.

Right. And here's the thing, right? If I started, you know, if I installed this, and I went to you, or if I went to Matt, or I went to any other member of the JV community and said, right i just installed this what should i do next i would probably get three or four different answers and it's one of those things where at least like i know in the windows world all right i install windows first thing you gotta do install antivirus you know there's a certain checklist right raise my blood pressure just i know. I know. No, first thing I do is install XP. And then – go ahead, Popey. You get five different answers to which antivirus to install.

And if you asked an expert or your local expert to help you with some problem you have with Windows, you almost certainly get a different answer than someone else. Linux is not unique in having multiple ways to skin a cat. Everybody has that. Yeah, the antivirus thing is a good point. You'll hear a lot of debates about which antivirus scanner is the best one. It's gotten worse, too. Do I need one for Linux, for example?

No. The thing is, it's kind of like that for desktops on Linux, too. It's the same thing with desktops. It's like, oh, man, you can't use Unity. You've got to use XFCE or you've got to use Cinnamon. Let's be honest. You've got to use GNOME. Come on.

Let's be serious. Oh, God. So I can give you a recipe that's going to get you started really easy because it's how I actually personally made the switch because I've not used Linux as long as Chris, for example. I started on a laptop. I ran Windows for a long time on my main desktop because I wanted to game. I wanted to do my stuff. I wanted to do what I needed to do.

And I found that to be a really healthy compromise because I was free to not have to dual boot. I was also free and not feeling obligated to use it. But at the same time, when I wanted to use my laptop, I was, in a sense, forcing myself to use it. And I found that to be a really dynamic way of doing it. Yeah, that actually is a great way. It's like you say, okay, I have to be able to solve it under here.

And I wonder, too, Chase, would you feel better? So this Bonobo here is a System76 machine, and they're a sponsor of Linux Action Show. And this came preloaded with Ubuntu, which looks a lot like what you see now. If you were buying an end-to-end product solution, like you're buying a machine that has an OS loaded on it from a vendor, maybe they even offer you a 1-800 number to call if you get stuck,

does that solve some of these problems? Does it solve, like if you trust the brand of that vendor to pick the right choices, does that kind of solve the which direction do I go first problem? Is that the better approach? Well, I guess it depends on what i'm starting off with you know if i if i'm let's say you're gonna buy a new uh see here's the thing like you know i'm i'm a big do myself or you know i like to do my own thing so you know i like to build but but let's say that i was starting you know i just i didn't want to worry about it i would probably do like that sort of thing a system set of mistakes but I also remember Dell

doing Linux laptops for a while. I don't know if they still do. I think they do. I'm not sure. I can't really... I know that they did... Do they still have the Sputnik? They're all over the map on it. Don't they have the XPS 13 developer edition? Yeah, that's the Sputnik. That's the Sputnik. Oh, sorry.

But, you know, I will say this. When I was first starting off Windows, long, long, long, long time ago, and when I was first starting out, and I called at least one time in my whole life, I can remember calling Windows support for some issue. They make you feel like a dumbass. They make you feel so terrible. It felt like, you know, felt like you are so stupid.

Let me hold your hand and walk through the baby steps. Now, I don't know what System76 support is like. And I'm not afraid of anything. It's just that it would be nice. That would be simple to have a real simple, easy, where I just have the laptop. It's ready to go. Some of the more nebulous choices are made for you. Right.

And they do the testing for you too so that you don't have to worry about future-proofing your laptop. But most importantly, my experience with their support, like back in 2008 when I got burned by Dell and ended up going to these guys, I found that even all these years later on laptops I don't even have support for anymore, I can still go to their actual forum filled with the folks from that community as well as the tech support guys, and they'll still support me without making me feel like an idiot.

That's nice, too. Yeah, I really like that. That's not even an ad. That's just legit endorsement. And I think that's... So I think that answers part of the problem there, but I think... And that's why I have felt like...

Because sometimes techie guys will and gals will want to research this stuff like yeah it's fun to dig into it and that's why i've thought the the best switchers for linux for the next couple of years are people like yourself who are capable of using google right capable of understanding that there's some compromises that have to be made or some adjustments that have to be made on how you do something. And you're familiar with, like, you understand that sometimes the Mac does something one way and Windows does something the other way. So the concept that you might have to adjust your workflow behavior for an operating system

is not foreign to you. So you're a good candidate in that regard. You're a good candidate in the regard that you know how to use resources like chat rooms and Reddit and forums. So I've always thought, like, if we could focus not so much on this mythical new user, the regard that you know how to use resources like chat rooms and reddit and forums yeah so i've always thought like if we could focus not so much on this mythical new user who's never used a computer for and is going to magically pick a unicorn pc running linux i thought it would make more sense to focus on a person like yourself who's fully aware of how to do this all right

and it could even capably do it themselves and i've always wondered what could we clear out of the way and the thing that is kind of leaving me a little bummed as we wrap up is like kind of sounds like in some ways the some of the best aspects of linux like you've you've characterized it as two like you didn't know which direction to go and i look at it as a lot of a lot of market dynamics apply picking the best things all this choice also is you can look at this as lots of choice. And I love choice. Sort of like you can with Android devices, right? I love choice, yeah. And so that's like-

But what's the flagship, right? I mean, we see it in Android devices all the time where, all right, is it the Galaxy Note? Is it the HTC One? I'm shocked that Ubuntu hasn't sort of stood out from the outside to you. Actually, I assumed, looking out from the outside, that you would have always seen Ubuntu as that flagship standing out. I'm not saying it is one way or the other, but I just kind of assumed that was the perception. Is it quote-unquote the flagship because there's more support behind it, or there's more money

behind it, or whatever? It doesn't necessarily make it best if there's more money behind it. So you would want the best technical solution? I would want the best solution that takes advantage of my system hardware and that has support for the programs that I want to use. What if the best was harder

than the other option? I guess what the definition of harder is. Like just a little more involved in getting set up. Are you saying if you're going to switch, you'd rather go all in, like you're all cards in? I would want something that is inherently me, right?

If I have the choice, I would want the programs, obviously, that I'm going to use. I would want a nice, beautiful interface. I know some people like the live-in command line world or terminal. I don't. I like a beautiful beautiful nice interface and something that is very easy for me to use but has those advanced features for me to jump into when i need to but you want something that also feels like it's yours yeah yeah you know it's it's one of those things where you know i and the and the other things too is you know obviously you know

if i have a piece of hardware i know that all all my things at home, like my laptop, old laptop at home, I know will run XB, sorry. Oh. Windows on there just fine. Yeah. But if I picked a Linux distro, what if it doesn't plug into all the pieces of hardware? Just try a live city and find out. Right. You can.

And here's another thing. Here's another thing. The beauty about Linux is you can always distro hop. I distro hop like a jackrabbit all over the place. Yeah, and a lot of us do. And that's the thing, especially if you make a separate home directory, which I'm sure somebody can show you how to do, then you could go ahead and just go to wherever distro you want.

Exactly. Because people usually don't start using Linux because of their own decisions, but they usually have somebody to show them the way. Right, and that's where I'm obviously very excited about HowToLinux and that show, is where it's not just picking a Linux distribution for me. It's about all the intangibles.

And giving real answers to these questions. I mean, that's what I want to try to figure out is I want to try to solve these real questions and real problems. Totally. And how do we solve them for you? Right. I'm going to put a bet on Chase being a KDE guy.

I'm just going to put that out there. I could see it happening. I mean, it's one of those things where it's also the beauty, I guess I would say, of Windows and the beauty of Mac is, you know what, it works. I don't have to do much to keep it going. I don't have to tweak every other day. It's negative in the freedom dimension. But at the same time, I know installing a program is pretty simple.

Like, for example, when I was looking at chat programs, now I knew that it was at, what was it, the app? Oh, the Software Center. The Software Center, but before that, I went to Google, I typed in XChat, I went to XChat.org or whatever, and I was like, we got results for Fedora. Right, and I was like, all right, so which one do I install? Right, I'm like, no, no. But see, that's the thing.

That's one of the issues, right? It's like when you see... I think there's an intimidation factor here, that there's too much choice that it actually scares you away. That's a good thing. There's intimidation factors preventing them from even making an initial choice. But it's not just intimidation factor. There's confusion.

Because, for example, I went to go grab the Linux version of XChat. But that Linux version is not the same as another Linux version. That's where there's confusion. And because I'm like, wait, Linux? I thought Linux is Linux. No, you see, it's different in the sense

Linux is a general purpose technology platform. Think of it that way. There's core kernel like that android runs on right but then there's solutions built on top of that a lot of them are very very very very similar right like they use a lot of the same tools and stuff but they're each their own implementation of that general purpose platform it's think of it as a lower level thing i. And I've learned about it firsthand in trying to set up that airtime server. There's Ubuntu and there's all these

different... CentOS. CentOS and Gentoo or something like that. Yeah. So you have all these different things and that's where I just need to learn because it gets so freaking confusing and obviously confusion becomes intimidation. Go ahead, Poppy. I think Chase needs to break out of his

comfort zone. He seems to be quite entrenched in that comfort zone and happy that the GUI gives him a sense of security, he said earlier on. Whereas a GUI on Windows you could right click a sql database and drop it and and you would ruin everyone's day within your company the gui the gui doesn't give you that that sense of security that you think it does i think if you embrace the choice that you have with linux and the option of the the lack of lock-in almost in a sense yeah it's it, it's open.

Without wishing to sound too much like a hippie, you know, you can embrace that openness. But it's much harder to get support in the terminal than it is within a GUI, because then you know it can at least connect. I mean, links. Not if you can copy and paste what you're experiencing. Not necessarily.

Yeah, look at how Leo did that. That worked really well for him. Oh! So let me break it down for you like this. If I was to basically break this down into something that's just free of geek speak, essentially Linux is like a Ford. And then you've got your model, which is

essentially your desktop environment, what not. And then you've got your model, which is essentially your desktop environment, whatnot. And then if you want to get into deeper things, you can then look at the trim. And it basically comes down to that sort of thing. But I think when it comes to anything with Linux, you basically look at a base of what – you've got your Ubuntu's and their variants. There's a Cousins and everything like that. Or you've got your Arch and its variants and these types of things. You kind of settle on the base that feels good.

Okay, I want compatibility. I want it to work with my printers. I want it to just get the job done. I want to make sure gaming is being paid attention to. And then you look at the variants surrounding that globe and then try those various variants, try different desktop environments. And then I think it becomes a little less annoying in my opinion because then you have something from which to try from, I guess. What you're really saying is be open to experimentation. Well, but within a smaller circle.

Instead of this shotgun approach of try everything under the sun, which is just – it is intimidating. Right, yes. Find a base you like and start within that circle eventually. Oh, I see. Start within a boon-two base. But how does he even know what base to start with? I think that's part of the problem. Well, that's part of the problem.

I agree with Matt. I think this is very much an analogy-based show. And if I'm... He's going to go down the car route. I'll go down the beer route. I think different Linux distros are like different beers. You start off with the basic ingredients of hops, barley,

water, yeast, and then you build upon that. But you have to try them all in order to figure out what the best one is over the supermarket brand beer. That's interesting. And that makes me beer thirsty too. And you might be – maybe you're into dark beers. Maybe you're into light beers. If you know you're more into light beers, you're going to stick in that realm of influence I think. Exactly.

See, Matt gets it. This is where, honestly, as a technology fan and as a community fan, I'm very, very excited about getting into this area. And I'm not afraid. First off, when I was giving the example of GUIs, I was giving it from a general user's perspective, not necessarily my perspective. I want yours, though. Yeah. But, I mean, like, for example, I don't mind either.

I mean, obviously, depending on the application that I'm working with. You know, for example, I'm going to work in command line when I'm doing network administration. It's more comfortable for me. Right, right. But it's one of those things where, you know, I'm very, very excited about. And obviously, you know, being able to work that into the How To Linux show is going to be great because everybody's going to be able to learn through me as this happens. But also, I'm hoping to be that user, that person that helps bridge the gap between... For other people that

are watching, trying to figure this stuff out. Right. And not being afraid. Yeah. And, you know, jumping in there with two feet, you know, it's like learning how to swim. You know, I'm not afraid. You know, I'm not afraid of the water. I'm not going to drown because I know I have people that are going to hold me up and not let me sink to the bottom. And that's where I'm very excited about. We'll go forth and impart that wisdom.

And at Heaven's Revenge, I think you wanted to mention something, didn't you? Yes. Lots of people are scared of the differences or at least the amount of choice that you're given. There is one crucial area in which every distro or almost every distro has, which is similar. And it's extremely important to understand because in Windows, you look outside of the operating system to bring pieces into it. As in you go to Google, download packages as a separate package, and install it. The most important thing

for a new user to know is that every distro has its own repository in which you're supposed to get software from. Make them look at the repo first, then they'll find every answer, almost every answer that they want. Instead of going out to the

internet and Google instead. That's a great point. And that's the biggest shift that I think Chase will... So one of the things, Chase, I'll just let you know, one of the mistakes you made is that Linux distributions come with a package management system. So instead of having to go out to the web and just download some installer for some website,

most of the time the software you want, the system is already aware of in repositories. You just have to issue the command either through a GUI or through the command line to go grab that piece of software. So, for example, like on my machine here, I would do pacman-s skype, enter, and then it would go out and download Skype for me and install it. I wouldn't have to go to skype.com and download it

because this is part of the huge difference. But that's kind of the entrenched learning experience of knowing how to do certain things. It's like that's what I've been used to do for years. Yes, my friend, that is a journey you are now beginning. I know. So we will be

keeping you up to date, everybody, on future editions of HowToLinux. Matt, on Sunday, I'm not going to tell you what the plan is because we've got two possibilities and they're both kind of crazy. One of them, speaking of package managers, is waiting on some software, but we'll talk about that. But either way, Matt, I'm going to see

you on Sunday, okay? Sounds good. See you then. Now, don't forget, everyone, we do Linux Unplugged live on Tuesdays. Join us over just go to jupyterbroadcasting.com slash calendar actually to get it in your local time, but we do it at 2 p.m. Pacific, and you can hang out in our chat room over at jblive.tv or join our virtual lug.

We have a mumble room over there. Okay, everyone. Well, if we don't see you on Sunday, I want to be sure we see you right back here on Tuesday because Linux Unplugged comes out every single Tuesday. day