OK, this is tongue-in-cheek, but does anyone else have the “problem” of wanting to set up and configure your computers more than you want to actually use them? And if so, how do you “handle” that “problem”?
Personally I've never seen it as a ”problem”, it's the sense of achievement that you get whereas just using it can be underwhelming.
One solution could be volunteer at a recycler that installs/provide a GNU/Linux with their system.
eg. years ago I volunteered at https://www.computerbank.org.au/ where different organizations & locals (companies weren't allowed to dispose of electrical equipment as hardwaste, so giving/selling it to recyclers is common in the city) would remove drives (dban them), check out hardware, recycle the stuff that wasn't any good, and rebuild what was left.
The newer boxes would be sold to anyone who wanted it, and very cheaply to folks with pension or equivalent cards.
When I first was there, we installed Debian (this was before the Ubuntu project had even started; ~1998), though later it was Ubuntu. The Ubuntu install included Ubuntu-MATE and whatever the Ubuntu Desktop was at the time (ie. a multi-desktop install; MATE was always suggested for the less powerful devices).
There were some classes offered should people haven't ever used any computer before, but those are fewer now. The Ubuntu has also since been replaced by Linux Mint.
Another option even closer to home (ie. Ubuntu MATE) is to help out with Quality Assurance testing... ie.
You're a few days late for the Ubuntu MATE 24.04.3 QA testing; but that would have been really useful, as I was the only person who is listed as testing the Release Candidate, and my time is limited anyway.
If you're doing install testing; installing systems is all you're doing anyway!!
No I don’t have that problem, which is why I signed up for Ubuntu Pro.
Oh yes, My first Linux install was SuSE (around the year 2000 I think, before Novell took over, kernel: 2.2.4 as far as i can remember ). It was a boxed set I purchased on a PC market. It came with an extensive set of CDs and a very good and pretty hefty book about all the basics and how to set it up, a complete linux tutorial and reference guide of high quality.
Guess what ? I loved it an tinkered with it until it was, in my humble opinion, a piece of perfection...
... and then I just left it at that because there was nothing more to do ![]()
Ubuntu became my daily driver after some distrohopping (Slackware, Vectorlinux, Gentoo, Fedora )
I might be slightly the opposite these days - I just want to use it! Don't feel as much joy from tinkering or starting from scratch (I wasn't a distro-hopper either.) That's probably why I prefer a rolling release distro where I setup up once and then incrementally change and upgrade as needed.
I do (or did) get satisfaction setting up a system for a specific use case or a person, like a slight excitement at the endless possibilities it'll get to do. ![]()
My first install of Linux was around 2006 or 07 as a dual boot on an WinXP machine with Xandros. I sent for the Disc off of Distrowatch. I installed it but you had to download tar balls and extract them to install software and update. I had no idea how to do that an didn't know the difference between a .deb file and a .rpm file, to this day I don't know which one was suppose to run on Xandros. The biggest problem was the LILO boot loader that kept failing and I had to reinstall both Windows and Xandros. My wife wasn't happy about that so there was no more experimenting until we got a new computer and I could play with the old tower. From there I installed Zorin 5 which was a mistake because I didn’t know about LTS release and it was at EOL. So I installed Zorin 6 and from there was hooked on Linux.
I first knew about Linux from Barnes and Noble book store. I was looking at some magazines and one had a CD of Ubuntu in it for free, It was the first I knew about another operating system not Windows.
I think that the "focused on set up and customization" problem ... isn't really a problem ... if you are talking about someone relatively new to Linux (0-3 years newbies).
As Luke said, the learning of how to master one's computing environment is an enriching experience that most people don't feel the compulsion to pursue which, in my opinion, deprives them of the degree of that "sense of security" which we rely upon to trust our systems.
Beyond that, it may be considered a problem, in that, after all, a computer is meant to be a tool for productive use, not a distraction from those necessary endeavours!
I think this issue is a matter of the degree to which a person is a "perfectionist".
If one recognizes that weakness/strength, there is hope to developing the discipline to keep from getting out of control.
For me, it is a matter of recognizing when my "mania" kicks in, at which point I step back, telling myself that I need to "fence it in" by defining the objectives and scope of my "tangent offshoot", so I can return to the original task that somehow led to the discovery of the instigator for this most recent moment of mania! ![]()
In other words, transform such events into mini-development projects, and view them that way, so that they do have, both, a start and an ending!
I set up (free version - fully capable) Proxmox Server (a few years ago) on a mini-pc and create VMs for all my play. I didn’t know what I was doing - just followed a You-tube video. The mini-pc I’m using doesn’t have a lot of memory - but it’s all solid state and as long as I’m using only one VM at a time - it is blazing fast. You can see my current VMs (my list changes often - if I ‘break’ one, since it’s just a VM, I fry it and create another from the iso. I’m having all kinds of fun playing with various version of Linux and other OSs (even though I often haven’t a clue what I’m doing).
