Then why make GUIs, or software installers, or update managers? Let’s keep the people in TOP FORM in case of an outage!

Hey, it’s not like I don’t agree with you, but actually I found myself learning faster in spite of the help. Having someone guide you through something is very educational, and getting things wrong is (sadly) a method of contributing a LOT of detritus into your brain.

“Let’s see, I did this last time, but was that when I fucked up or when I fixed it?” I like it better just learning the right way only.

Claude can pay me if they want to. So far no paycheck tho.

You didn’t used to have to say “homemade ranch dressing,” that’s the only kind there was.

My first computer was an Atari 520ST with GEM operating system. Are you older than that?

It’s all about support, and enough people not wanting to put up with being annoyed. Windows has the bulk, the sheer hulking size of userbase, that there are myrid tools to help you do almost anything. You don’t need to search manuals, the answers are easy to find.

Not so Linux. Sometimes the problem is my Ubuntu, or maybe my hardware, or maybe the Cinnamon desktop, the wrong kernel (I didn’t realize I shouldn’t update to the most recent kernel…That I should wait and only use the kernel that Linux mint was using.)

So yeah, it’s not just “complex system” problems, it’s federation complex system problems.

Keep making the product better. Eventually they won’t be needed. It’s much closer than it was back when I was dual-booting in 2009.

Yep. But you do understand a lot of us don’t want to be students of Linux. We just want to do things we want to do. Without having to dig through forums and manual pages to find the solution.

If you want a culture where your niche operating system is dominated by people who read through forums and manual pages to find the needle in the haystack for the problem they’re trying to solve, then continue with the mindset that downvotes something that tries to help people who are novices switch to your system. (Because newbie, Claude.ai will help you)

BUT If you want a system that is opened up to people switching from Windows to it, then you need to make it a shit-ton more accessible.

If that means having a virtual assistant who will patiently walk people through the arcane commands required to make scripts to configure WLANs and whatever other required bash commands necessary to get things done…

Not to mention diagnose graphics or whatever problems that they’re having and solve them without having spend days weeks or months not being able to use their system…

Then open up your minds a little bit to the idea that AI may assist you in getting there.

But I think that’s my point. It was surprisingly not shitty. In fact it was as though someone who knew Linux was on call 24/7 and willing to sit and walk me through very patiently all the steps necessary to do things.

I thought they hated when you count at them

Sorry. I made myself “instructional” videos installing things and whatnot on the live USB before installing and BOY!, watching myself go so slowly through everything and still miss obvious stuff is EXCRUCIATING.

But I know who I’m dealing with. I’m solidly average or below.

Can I use usermod to apply the -r after the fact, or do I need to remove the user and redo it correctly?

Linux Mint 22.1

I bought 4TB of cloud storage and I’m uploading to it now, I’ll format both drives in a day or two.

I’ll watch it, thanks

This turned out to be key, along with another comment. I went BACK to my BIOS and sure enough, with all the changes I had left secure boot enabled. Disabled it and everything went so smoothly I felt a little embarrassed.

Thanks friend!

Working. I had reset my BIOS and “safe boot” was back on. Turned it off, reinstalled the driver from “Driver Manager”, Used your commands and followed your instructions and found that the Nvidia driver was working. Opened Nvidia X server settings and it looked the way it should. nvidia-smi showed the whole shebang.

I knew you guys could help me. I could cry.

Seems like a promising answer, I wonder why someone downvoted it. I wish they’d left a comment.

I’ll def explore it

I turned secure boot off a while ago but I did update the BIOS which involved resetting to default and I should check that, thanks.

I’ll try disks, but I think the problem is NTFS formatting. Which sucks, but it’s understandable.

Shoot. I got a lot of stuff on that drive.

I thought about pop OS but I don’t like that it’s owned by some corporation or something. And I thought about Manjaro but it’s Arch Linux and I don’t even want to open that can of worms. I’m having enough trouble in debian, with tons of tutorials and help.

I have used the software manager to install the drivers (didn’t work and the computer froze at login) but it was after a Timeshift not a fresh install. I’d hate to do that now just to find it still didn’t work.

Thanks for the info and the feeling of not being alone 😄

1. I have successfully “installed” them but when I’ve run nvidia-smi it says they aren’t loaded. Nvidia Prime applet says ERR.
2. Yes they’re NTFS. The computer is using fuse to access it. It seems the root permission things is linked to installing video drivers. Every time I do it it changes the “home” drive and the “root” drives.

Can’t disable in BIOS, I even updated my BIOS hoping the new one would have that capability, but no joy.

Yes, video drivers got me using Timeshift a LOT.