I’m a life-long Windows user who nowdays has a MacBook as a daily driver and a gaming PC running Linux. I consider myself somewhat tech savvy but holy fuck Linux just makes me want to tear my head off. I just spent 45 minutes trying to install Standard Notes “the right way” and in the end I just gave up and downloaded it from the Ubuntu store instead. Error, you need to add this repository. Error, you need to enable this feature. Error, you need to install this tool first which you can use to install another tool and that tool helps you fix the issue preventing you to solve the first issue etc. I honestly can’t even imagine how you could make this any more difficult.
I guess Linux is like welding; it’s great when someone sets the welder up for you and you just press the trigger and start welding but you’re up for some absolute misery trying to figure that out on your own.
Also, a huge credit to chatGPT. I can just take picture of my terminal window and it gives me step-by-step instructions on how to troubleshoot most issues I’ve had. I’d be at complete loss without it.
I am confused, because you ask for it to be more plug and play, complain about using the terminal to install, and then say you gave up and installed it the plug and play way by using the Ubuntu store. It reads like you are complaining that you have to drive to another city and you aren’t getting there in time because you are pushing the car. So you eventually get in and drive the car and insist that pushing it was “the right way”…
Last time I asked help on the Linux community about an issue I was having I was shunned for using the ubuntu store so I tried doing it the “proper way” this time.
Wow. Sorry that happened. As a long time linux user I am really unhappy with the way Ubuntu has gone recently. Enough so that when I was dropping in my new video card I didn’t even consider using that distro anymore. The whole snap thing just rubbed me wrong, and on top of that I was getting a message that if I didn’t join their subscription thing, that I wouldn’t get all of the updates available. Now there were explanations that that wasn’t the actual case, but their wording just really rubbed me wrong, even if it was a ‘free’ subscription for up to five machines, etc. Back to your situation, I think it might be time to explore some other distros as they might be a better fit for you, and more of a plug and play experience for you. My suggestion would be to install a VM like Virtualbox and then download some .iso files and use them on some new virtual machines that you can run and get a basic idea of how they work/look/feel. After you find one that fits your needs you can migrate. Just remember, when people start giving you grief, just give them the old grep -v… That will make them go away.