Thank you for an amazing system

Thoughts & Feedback
#1

I’m still relatively new to linux but out of all 5 different OS, Mate is my favorite. Thank you to all who contribute to the program and to everyone whose been posting their issues. My multiple attempts at understanding issues with, random nights of copying commands from the forums, and the numerous “@#!@#” reinstall are due to your dedication to open source.

Hopefully I can contribute to the feelings of disappear when someone has no idea what a solution means and the eventual pride when the same person finally succeeds and understands what it took 20 people commenting on how to change the color of an icon means.

Thank again.

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#2

I do not understand. The comment felt weird in the middle.

If you were sincere in your gratitude, then thanks a bunch. I do stupid stuff that most newbies shouldn’t do but make accessible to newbies, so yeah, don’t follow any of my guides outside of a live session until you’ve gained confidence with poking around in bits of your system.

Speaking of, a live session is invaluable for debugging weird errors, and resolving mistakes you made that were fatal to your system. So like, make backups, learn to use ln and you’ll do fine.

#3

Have you ever heard of a book called ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’, by Richard Bach? url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull

It’s quite a popular and well known book and it’s not just about learning how to fly, it’s about learning anything worthwhile really.

Your post reminded me how many times I crashed and burned, or trashed an operating system and had to re-install when I first started with gnu-linux.
I eventually got good at backing up and re-installing. I learned that first. But I persisted.
Then after a while I actually got to like doing weird experiments that were right out there in the danger zone, borking my system and having to re-install just to see how far I could go.

I have friends who use gnu-linux who knew nothing about computers, they just want to be able to browse the web and get email and not need to worry about getting a Windows virus.
They never have any problems, or very rarely. They’re kind of like the seagulls that stay on the ground though.

I can already tell that you’re starting to learn to fly by the fact that you’re saying you crashed a few times.
Just make sure you keep picking yourself up, dusting off your feathers and getting right back up there again

#4

And yours reminded me of my first forays into computers in general. I think back and try to remember how I ever managed to trash DOS 3. Must’ve been something exceptionally stupid.

I must admit, though, experimenting in the Linux world is much more fun than in the old DOS/Windows days. You can actually (eventually) find a real reason other than “it’s just bl**dy windoze!”.

1 Like
#5

Always keepa live session handy. Always.

Also with the new USB type-C standard, older external hard disks may be able to reach their maximum speed when plugged into a USB 3.1-compatible enclosure, so there shouldn’t be any feeling of sacrifice when running a Linux system from an external media.

Experimentation is fun until you need to do something mission-critical with your system. It’s sometimes better to not screw around unless you know exactly what you’re doing.

#6

Wow. Cant believe you referenced that book. I havent read that one but I read Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. I’ll have to finally read Jonathan Livinston Seagull as it actually feels like the right time to see what I get from the book.

I have my moments where I want to give up and go back to a proprietary system but then I am reminded of all the amazing things that people have done with the system. I may not get into developing the system or creating new programs but I can tell that I’ve made some contributions… most of my friends who hear about me staying in all night and cursing my laptop ask what why. Some walk away thinking im crazed but Id say more than half seem intrigued and either pick up a raspberry pi or take a look at the Ubuntu line up.

Thanks again for the supporting words. I look forward to many more crashes with hopefully plenty of successes.

#7

I’m on the same page as you @BryantBelarmino. I really dislike the newbie tag and prefer “relatively new to” tag. Every time I turn on a Linux system I learn something new. I started using computers with the Atari 400/800 platforms and DOS from a really floppy cardboard covered disk . I have been “playing” around with Linux since 2005-6 when my college professor for Operating systems introduced “alternative to Microsoft Windows.”

First we went to the outdated graphics art department to use the Apple G3’s (the only time I have every touched an Apple product), then she showed us Mac OS x Tiger 10.4 on her personal Mac book. She then provided us with a 32bit live cd of Fendora 13, which I installed to 16G flashdrive, I was intrigued. I think more by the fact I could run it from a flashdrive on my laptop and did not have to install it, than by the OS itself.
I regularly use 6 different Linux OS, most to least used:

  1. Android, 2 versions 6.0 phone and 4.0 tablet.
  2. Mate 16.04 on my laptop and one home desktop.
    3)Ubuntu Studio 16.04. duel boot on (3) laptop, home desktop and custom desktop.
  3. Elementary OS duel boot on custom desktop.
  4. Lubuntu 16.04, on Frank 2 desktop. I installed this only because I read somewhere it could not be installed on an old AMD cpu. I managed to do it (feeling of pride) and use it only when my kids have the other to desktop computers tied up with homework projects. That community was right you could not install it directly on the desk top from a live cd. I installed Lubuntu 14.04 from the live cd and ran “sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade” following that with “sudo apt autoremove” or “sudo apt-get autoremove” to clean things up. With 1G of ram it runs slow, but to browse the web shopping or pay bills on-line it does work.

I should mention that I have had to reinstalled on more than one occasion, especially on the duel boot computers to get the preferred program to show up on top of the boot menu and automatically boot without having to chose it. To live is to learn, to learn is my life.

Curious, what others have you tried?