r/linux4noobs • u/Ok_Elderberry_1494 • 10d ago
shells and scripting breaking Linux Distros
I never broke a Linux Distro in my Life and i used Distros like Arch. What do people try to do when they break a linux distro because i feel like i miss the classic Linux Feeling and want to learn more about Linux.
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u/ohay_nicole 10d ago
One time I updated a distro and it shipped a broken package manager update. It was fixable, but does that count?
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u/redyos_s 10d ago edited 10d ago
If you really want the classic “why won’t this boot?” Linux experience, LFS will happily provide it.
This “break Linux on purpose so I can learn it” idea is getting a bit repetitive.
If the goal is actually to learn troubleshooting, randomly breaking things is less useful than deliberately reproducing a specific failure — broken "fstab", missing initramfs, bootloader issues, networking failures, and then recovering it properly.
Otherwise it just turns into another “how do I break Linux?” meme.
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u/Elvin_Atombender 10d ago
I have been using Linux for almost 10 months now, the only problem I ever had was with Fedora 37, amd did the upgrade to 38 and it borked. I just reinstalled Fedora 37 and started again.
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u/mlcarson 10d ago
Well with a rolling distro like Arch -- you just have to wait on patches a bit and that seems to break stuff. Increase the chance of breakage by installing anything from the AUR. Add on ZFS which wants to break on every kernel update. If that's not enough -- install an older Nvidia card that requires the proprietary driver. Those were my pain points.
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u/Key_River7180 Bedrock Linux / FreeBSD / 9Front 10d ago
Today I downloaded a rEFInd theme and accidentally executed:
sudo rm -fr /boot/efi/EFI
I did run refind-install again and it all works. I'm just the best /s.
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u/a1barbarian 10d ago
What do people try to do when they break a linux distro
That is easy to replicate. Simply watch some several years old You Tube video posted by an "expert" and copy and run all the same commands given in your terminal. Or ask AI a question and just copy and paste every command given.
Whatever you do. DO NOT READ ANY MANUALS OR Distro Wiki pages, as that is old school outdated and totaly usless for running a modern os. :-)
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u/GuestStarr 10d ago
For starters, install another alien (to your distro of choice) package manager and mess around with it for a while. Then remove the newly installed package manager. Clean up the mess. Come back and ask for more when done. I did it once, except the cleaning up part. I did it just to see if it could be done on a fresh install. It indeed could be done but I won't be doing it again.
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u/tomscharbach 10d ago
What do people try to do when they break a linux distro ...
My impression is that the people who "break" mainstream distributions usually push the envelope beyond design parameters -- deep customization without enough knowledge/experience or stacking workarounds like a house of cards, for example -- or use non-mainstream applications with upsteam/downsteam issues. But that is just an guess.
... because i feel like i miss the classic Linux Feeling ...
I have been using Ubuntu for two decades and do not recall the last time I "broke" Ubuntu. I do remember the days when Ubuntu was much more difficult to use and maintain, and if that is what you mean by "classic Linux Feeling" I don't miss those days at all.
... and want to learn more about Linux.
Why don't you "learn by doing" rather than "learn by breaking", that is, find things that you want to do using Linux and figure how to do whatever it is you want to do. You will be surprised, I think, by how quickly you develop your skills and reach new levels of competence.
My best and good luck.
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u/parzival-space 10d ago
Most people, be it on windows or Linux, break their system because they don't understand what they are doing. If you read into the commands and configurations you are trying to change, it's generally really hard to break your system. Problem is people usually just "want it to work now" so they skip said part. I guess reading docs is something every arch user has to to learn after a while.
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u/korywithawhy 10d ago
Trying to compile a kernel for a yy3588, got hung up, had to roll back because I couldn’t figure out what it messed up on cachy. Btrfs is awesome.
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u/heavymetalmug666 10d ago
install Arch with just a WM, no DE. you will have to get under the hood to address a lot of things...i.e. no quick click setting app to change backlight or power-save features like screen shutoff. Dont install a file manager and just do it from the CLI.
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u/truethug 10d ago
Force installing packages and dependencies that are different versions than what the system packages require.
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u/TheConatusBoy 10d ago
Your problem with Linux is that it doesn't break enough?
The few times I've accidentally locked myself out of my DE, I had to open the TTY and fix it from there.
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u/collinalexbell 10d ago
they struggle really hard to fix it in rapid time so they can catch a zoom call they need to be on.
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u/Soakitincider 10d ago
Way back I ran Slackware and to break it was easy you just updated one thing and hunted the dependencies for ages until you got it working again. Getting that dependency working would sometimes break another thing that needed the old dependency.
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u/Dolapevich Seasoned sysadmin from AR 10d ago
I am in your boat, I've been using Linux since 97' and ...the only times I've been forced to reinstall was that time ~2000 when the filesystem corrupted on its own, and HDD issues.
Most of the times people resort to reinstal when they break grub or the loader. Just check how many posts are here of pictures showing a kernel with an OOPS unable to find the root filesystem on hd(0,0) or similar.
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u/WeepingRoses 10d ago
run the commands that googles ai over view told them to use for their problem.
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u/SweetNerevarine 10d ago
Newcomers are lead to believe Linux is a Windows replacement with the same philosophy and rules minus the telemetry and annoying shit.
Newmedia has two camps: one is honest about Linux (telltale sign: chronicling my own journey angle), the other one promotes Linux for the ad revenue promising the moon complete with mis-characterizations or even outright lies and ludicrous claims.
An ever growing portion of the newcomers come to Linux having consumed the latter kind of content overdosed on false expectations. Their expectations are wholly unrealistic, and they miss the *real* picture.
Linux is about freedom and taking full control over your computer. However big power comes with an equal magnitude of responsibility. You can't just "migrate" over to Linux, do random things, accept all answer GPT churns out. Look if GPT cannot understand Linux in-and-out with a 99% of correctness then it truly signals the fact that Linux is on a different plane that requires nuanced abstract human thinking, some hands on experience and above all intuition.
Linux is also community driven in *every* aspect as opposed to a capitalist product. I'm not shitting on either, and I'm not an anti-capitalist, each have their merits and weak points. Which one to go with depends on your use case, circumstances etc. A portion of people who are fed up with Windows will not like Linux because they are lead to believe Linux is a "product" that comes with "support" and perhaps even "warranty". Nope. These are all on the user and the community.
So, to answer your question as to why breakages happen, what I see is the following:
- Content creator is in it for the money, makes hype video/post/etc about Linux downplaying the complexity and up playing the "oh its just a replacement" angle. Leads to...
- (side effect) More ad revenue for the creator. Hot topic, gotta ride the waves. Disregard for the consequences of pushing such net malefic content. Feeds into...
- Influx of new users under false impressions. Leads to...
- (often, variant A) Bad hardware choices that may not play well with Linux. Leads to...
- (often, variant B) Sticking to Windows only or generally problematic software at all costs. Loads to...
- (very often, variant C) Not even understanding the installation process, the meaning of choices or consequences. Not backing up, not having a clear plan complete with a rollback option etc
- Troubleshooting sessions with the wrong mindset. Leads to...
- Troubleshooting with a shotgun approach: "Oh one will work eventually". Common mistake: copy pasting bash commands without the slightest inclination to learn what might the command lead to.
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u/Chromiell 9d ago
I've used Arch for a while around 2023-2024 and Grub just started throwing an error after an update, for no reason at all, the workaround was downgrading the grub version from an external USB. The issue is documented here and here.
Before that I had issues with kernel 6.1 which bricked my laptop backlight, documented here, for this issue I also got in touch with the kernel developer and provided logs (great guy btw).
Then kernel 6.4 introduced issues with the boot and poweroff process, you can find various reports here.
And lastly, before that, I ran into random stutters because there was an issue with kernel 6.1 and AMD CPUs that used the TPM, the stutters would affect the whole system, audio included, and would last for a couple of seconds every couple of hours, extremely annoying. This issue is documented here.
All this to say: I have absolutely no idea how you never run into issues while using Arch while for me I run into all these and many more that I'm now forgetting in just less than 1 year...
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u/A_Harmless_Fly Manjaro 10d ago
Usually people just make their GUI not work and don't know how to fix it from the TTY.
But if you want to experience breakage that makes it non-bootable just update cachy os or arch without checking anything for a few months, at some point limlime boot loader or something will break on you ;p.
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u/mystirc arch with sway 9d ago
I'm not sure about limine, but I switched from windows to arch as a complete beginner. My first time using Linux as well. While I do agree the installation process was not smooth and took me 2 days to figure out. My computer has been working just fine since then.
I do know about limine from arch wiki but many distros have grub as default so I just went with it. It works great, the setup was also easy, unlike systemd which was so hard only for it to not work on my case (probably skill issue)
I never check any news before updating. I have been using arch for 1.5 years. Never had anything break on me. Although there were a few updates in which they probably replaced a few packages and I had to manually type
yandenterto proceed. So pretty much a smooth ride for me.I think that Linux breaking is a thing of the past and stuff like that is simply no longer common. I've even had windows break on me but that was very rare. And I never had Linux break on me but I've only used it for 1.5 years.
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u/Friendly-Inspector71 10d ago
Depends on what you're trying to do.
Setting up exotic programs, a VM with hardware acceleration or using Nvidia hardware makes it a bit more difficult.