Would people hate Linux if its users weren't insufferable?

.....says the one-man-band running the linuxsucks comm...

I'd certainly use it more.

I don't hate Linux, I think it's an amazing bit of kit. A brilliant idea to build a Unix-like OS for desktop hardware.

The flexibility it has is astounding. The different distros really exposes this.

This flexibility is also it's Achilles Heel - no single UI to Rule Them All means it's not approachable by the average user. The lack of standard tools in all distros means you have to add them, but which ones? (Of course this lack of tools means you can assemble a smaller, more compact, reduced risk-surface build for specific purpose).

I currently run 3 or 4 different distros/builds for different purposes - Proxmox, UnRAID, Mint, Truenas, etc.

The problem with Linux is the community. Us tech folks are (as a group) terrible at clearly documenting things in ways that address why someone would be reading docs, e.g. the minimalism of man pages that only show switches. That's tolerable for man pages (or was 30+ years ago, when the only people using these systems were studious technical folks who had put lots of effort into learning the systems first), but most other docs today look just like them.

Related, we're also not great at working with people, often assuming they know what we know, so our answers tend toward only answering the very specific part of a question, rather than the bigger picture, e.g. "Use this command", without explaining what's going on, how this command addresses the issue, or even trying to understand what they're actually trying to do. We tend toward efficient terseness.

Just step into a business meeting with Senior Management and tech folks - the tech folks are gritting their teeth to get to the next thing, because in our minds we've already solved what management proposed, while management wants to spin the idea around seven ways to Sunday before they feel good about it. (Neither is "wrong" just different sets of priorities and responsibilities).

TL:DR, Don't hate Linux, we (the tech head community), are the problem.

Loving this community. Keep it going!

I use Ubuntu and it works perfectly fine for me but I'm not allowed to say that around Linux guys.

It doesn't matter to me that much whether you use Windows, Mac or Linux. It's just that there are a lot of articles saying how Windows keeps nagging people to upgrade to 11, how they keep breaking their own product, how they haven't fixed 20 year old bugs, how they tack on stuff like AI that nobody asked for, on and on. As the local tech wiz my family and friends complain to me about these unwanted changes too from time to time. On the Mac side it's more polished but you're locked into a very limited set of hardware options. The thing is that it's not a given that an OS or computers do these things. There is a good alternative, and Linux evangelists (which you could call me one of) are simply making people aware of it.

"I use Linux" is an assertion that you haven't ceded most of the control of your computer to Microsoft or Apple, and that you are willing to trade a little bit of convenience for software freedom. Just like Lemmy is to Reddit, Bluesky and Mastodon are to Xitter.

I think they talk about it so much because it’s a large time investment, so it becomes just as much of a hobby as it is an operating system. That’s why you don’t see post after post about using Windows or MacOS.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt. The last time I ran Linux it was red hat, and that shit took a ton of forum research to cobble together to my liking and support all peripheral functions. I understand it’s easier these days.

I know a guy who calls it lye-nux

Hating on people for showing enthusiasm for their hobbies has real middle school bully vibes.