10 years of linux, or how you can waste time slowly

jwwolf · 2009-10-10 05:02:52

Get some prozac and energy drinks.

skottish · 2009-10-10 05:09:29

Lich wrote:

@skottish: Sarcasm?!

1% is an over-exaggeration of course, but it's getting to be on the edge of absurd. I mean, I've had more window managers installed on this computer in the last month than I knew existed six months ago. None of them are quite right. I've had four PDF viewers installed this week. None of them are quite right. I have two browsers installed. Neither are quite right. Hell, I been alternating between two versions of poppler so I can both use pdflatex and not regress back the stuff I have from the gnome-unstable repo. That's ridiculous. Gads!

On the other hand, I'm having fun so who cares?

Lich · 2009-10-10 05:22:20

Well the fun part is good. Aslong as you feel that you've "learned" Linux up to a level that you're proud of, then that's great (I imagine you have learned a lot since you are a mod).

@jwwolf: A man that can't control his own ways without the need for pills is no man at all (unless he's mentally challenged or has some brain affecting disease). I don't consider myself as beeing part of that crowd, not just yet anyway

PS: In other news, Happy Birthday to me (real b-day, not Linux-wise )

Last edited by Lich (2009-10-10 05:51:44)

dyscoria · 2009-10-10 09:29:25

Once you've learnt that Arch is best, then you've learnt all there is to know about linux

toad · 2009-10-10 09:32:53

Happy birthday!!!

Lich · 2009-10-10 09:48:14

toad wrote:

Happy birthday!!!

Thank you

fijam · 2009-10-10 10:17:32

I have also recently came to a sad realization that my adventure with Linux is mostly an elaborate procrastination scheme.

skottish wrote:

On the other hand, I'm having fun so who cares?

This is kind of uplifting. I guess.

rwd · 2009-10-10 10:19:26

Tweaking things beyond practical purposes to create something 'perfect' can easily become an obsession. But experience with userinterfaces and design is not waste per se. You may consider looking for a user interface related job/education.

Lich · 2009-10-10 10:22:26

rwd wrote:

Tweaking things beyond practical purposes to create something 'perfect' can easily become an obsession. But experience with userinterfaces and design is not waste per se. You may consider looking for a user interface related job/education.

I work in a totally different field (advertising), and a switch is not needed at all. I doubt many people would pay to have their window manager set up

Last edited by Lich (2009-10-10 10:24:38)

rwd · 2009-10-10 11:09:49

Lich wrote:

rwd wrote:
Tweaking things beyond practical purposes to create something 'perfect' can easily become an obsession. But experience with userinterfaces and design is not waste per se. You may consider looking for a user interface related job/education.
I work in a totally different field (advertising), and a switch is not needed at all. I doubt many people would pay to have their window manager set up

Maybe you could monetize on the-I-want-a-cool-archlinux-desktop-but-I-have-no-time crowd . I was thinking of user interaction design/ webdesign / graphic design.

Lich · 2009-10-10 11:22:28

rwd wrote:

Lich wrote:
rwd wrote:
Tweaking things beyond practical purposes to create something 'perfect' can easily become an obsession. But experience with userinterfaces and design is not waste per se. You may consider looking for a user interface related job/education.
I work in a totally different field (advertising), and a switch is not needed at all. I doubt many people would pay to have their window manager set up
Maybe you could monetize on the-I-want-a-cool-archlinux-desktop-but-I-have-no-time crowd . I was thinking of user interaction design/ webdesign / graphic design.

Well, I already do that, but it has nothing to do with my Linux abilities, I was doing it before I completly moved to Linux (at home).

Last edited by Lich (2009-10-10 11:23:23)

Army · 2009-10-10 13:43:26

Lich wrote:

@Army: As I said, this thread reffers only to my computing life. This dissapointment has not reflection in my real life whatsoever.

Ok, I missed that, sorry ;-)

StanIsTheMan · 2009-10-10 14:19:37

LoL @ this post ... very funny ... And very truthful.

I've learned more on Linux from breaking things and fixing them ... and I've had my share of distro hopping. As for themes, WM, Icons, etc ... Its seems at first (since there are SO MANY CHOICES..!) that it can be very cumbersome. Though after using the standard KDE & Gnome, I've settled for OpenBox and Flux.

Last edited by StanIsTheMan (2009-10-11 00:02:52)

Acecero · 2009-10-10 16:18:20

I learned more on Linux by talking with other people and I learn from them much faster. When I started using Linux 4 years ago, a friend of mine who was a way more experienced Linux user, mention that I have learned a lot in a very short amount of time. The rate at which I was learning was really incredible.

I would never say spending 10 years on Linux would be wasted. I see that as more of a superior seniority factor. You did what you could at the time.

Last edited by Acecero (2009-10-10 16:19:30)

QuimaxW · 2009-10-10 22:35:36

skottish wrote:

Lich wrote:
@skottish: Sarcasm?!
1% is an over-exaggeration of course, but it's getting to be on the edge of absurd. I mean, I've had more window managers installed on this computer in the last month than I knew existed six months ago. None of them are quite right. I've had four PDF viewers installed this week. None of them are quite right. I have two browsers installed. Neither are quite right. Hell, I been alternating between two versions of poppler so I can both use pdflatex and not regress back the stuff I have from the gnome-unstable repo. That's ridiculous. Gads!
On the other hand, I'm having fun so who cares?

I'm reading this...I want to give you a Mac and watch your head explode! (Not literally explode...but you get the idea...)

QuimaxW · 2009-10-10 22:39:31

...and yes...I tend to use Linux as a grand procrastination scheme myself. I can't balance my checkbook in KMyMoney if the fonts don't look right after all!

I ahve to admit, my distro hopping is done for my system. It's all Arch here. Window managers, another thing. My several years of linux were from Suse to (a couple that didn't work for me) to Arch. Now I use other people's systems to check out other distros. :-P

Window managers, that's another issue. KDE3 was perfection. KDE4 & I don't get along. Openbox...eh...too much learning for me right now. XFCE is pretty good, it's what I use now. But I can never resist trying KDE to see if it can suck me back in.

What's scarier...after years of Linux, Windows 7 might just suck me back into their world again. (Yes, it is that good.)

Last edited by QuimaxW (2009-10-10 22:40:29)

skottish · 2009-10-10 22:45:53

QuimaxW wrote:

I'm reading this...I want to give you a Mac and watch your head explode! (Not literally explode...but you get the idea...)

Macs do want to make my head explode. They're almost as creepy as Windows boxes are.

Misfit138 · 2009-10-10 22:47:04

Acecero wrote:

I learned more on Linux by talking with other people and I learn from them much faster. .

I wish I had such an opportunity. I wish I could pick a guru's brain frequently.

sokuban · 2009-10-10 23:00:17

Oh yea, I have a similar story as you.

Luckily (maybe luckily?) I've gotten too tired lately. Before I'd be willing to learn lots of stuff and configure tons of stuff, but now I'm too lazy to do all that.

Or maybe not—today I am currently in the process of attempting to find out how to edit locale settings so that in the Chewing IME it shows "中/英" on the buttons instead of "Chn/Eng" which looks uglier (I say "currently in the process" because I actually did it earlier and I originally wrote this post in past tense, but now I just thought up of a more elegant way to do it); attempted to find a way to separate aac audio from an mp4 video and failed, but in the end realizing that you could tag mp4 videos, so I just dumped the whole video in my music folder and tagged it. Among other things in the past couple of days; [edit], I just remembered I also was also playing with fonts.

Aww, darn, I just thought up of a way I could edit these locale settings more elegantly and I'm going to do it now.

But besides that, I have really been doing a lot less tinkering than before. My theme has pretty much been the same as it has been a few months ago, and it looks like it'll stay the same way for a long time.

But yea, I remember back when I used windows, I didn't bother with any of this stuff, just played games all day. That was the life. Unfortunately there is no going back for me now.

Last edited by sokuban (2009-10-11 00:08:02)

opothehippo · 2009-10-11 05:06:44

This marks about 1 year for me.

In addition to wasting time with appearance and so on, its been mostly learning new things - which is good.

Lexion · 2009-10-11 12:56:29

I've probably spent 1 year out of the 2.5 of linux configuring the crap out of xmonad. On the upside, I know quite a bit of haskell. If you configured Awesome or wmii, then you learned a bit of lua or bash.

Mountainjew · 2009-10-11 13:30:51

I think this month marks my 3rd year of fully using linux. I first tried it 7 years ago, but always had major problems with hardware compatibility, so i never stuck with it. I've now been using Arch for just over a year and i'm really comfortable in it. Not scared of editing anything, and can usually pinpoint the cause of any problems i have. I'm not great at programming, still learning a lot. I use KDE and pretty much stick to the same apps and don't change themes too often. So i wouldn't say i have an addiction in that area. More like a zest for learning about linux and computing in general. Though i am becoming addicted to compiling my own kernels

I wouldn't say any of my time on Linux has been a waste, almost everyday i learn something. And it also helps with college too

bernarcher · 2009-10-11 14:29:31

Well, I am more than 30 years in personal computing now and estimate to have "wasted" about one third by tinkering around.

But I won't miss it. It became part of my life. And I did largely profit from it. (Even made my living from all this tinkering for quite some time.)

Just don't forget there is a life without computers.

Last edited by bernarcher (2009-10-11 14:30:28)

Lich · 2009-10-11 16:27:43

bernarcher wrote:

Well, I am more than 30 years in personal computing now and estimate to have "wasted" about one third by tinkering around.
But I won't miss it. It became part of my life. And I did largely profit from it. (Even made my living from all this tinkering for quite some time.)
Just don't forget there is a life without computers.

Just to be clear, I consider a waste of time ONLY the GUI setup stuff, and extensive distro hopping. I don't consider "normal" tinkering a waste, like system configurations etc. I have learned a lot about those, but I think I should have known a lot more by now.
And I never forget about the life outside of the computer, the miss takes care of that daily . Since I started this thread I didn't do anythign to my configurations, just used the computer for my daily browsing and movie watching, and I feel good about it. No more PS1, terminal, font, screen setups. My ratpoisonrc is untouched for days, this is a first for me

Last edited by Lich (2009-10-11 16:35:04)

bernarcher · 2009-10-11 18:41:12

Lich wrote:

My ratpoisonrc is untouched for days, this is a first for me

Congratulations!

Well, I couldn't resist and fiddled around with pytyle settings for an hour or two. Not really necessary, though, saving me a few keystrokes only. I feel I put more time in it than I will ever save using this part of the GUI.

It is a kind of obsession, I think. Software drug dependency perhaps...

Arch Linux

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