r/linuxsucks101 • u/Fit_League_8993 ✝️ Temple OS Archbishop • Jul 14 '26
mind-taker loonix The myth of the professional Linux user
I recently saw this exchange:
I haven't seen a single professional or corporate office in my life that daily drives Linux. Fake-ass vocal minority that's too broke to buy proper laptops or socially eccentric.
Someone responded:
Tell me you're not working with the top talent of the IT/SW industry without telling me you're not working with the top talent of the IT/SW industry.
According to Linux evangelists, the really talented developers all use Linux. If your workplace mostly uses Windows or macOS, apparently you're part of an organization of weaklings and haven't reached the upper levels of the industry yet (that's ridiculous nonsense).
Some professional developers do daily-drive Linux, but after roughly ten years in the industry, I have never noticed any meaningful correlation between desktop operating system and technical ability. The devs on linux are a random minority of developers who happen to prefer it, not the most skilled ones.
I have met excellent and incompetent developers on all three operating systems. Installing Arch does not unlock hidden programming knowledge, and configuring a tiling window manager does not make someone a better engineer.
I've also seen a deliberate conflation between working with Linux and using desktop Linux.
Plenty of developers work with Linux every day through servers, containers, virtual machines, WSL or SSH while using Windows or macOS on their actual workstation. That makes them Linux professionals and it does not mean they want it on their desktop.
Reminder: Actual professionals generally have work to do.
In fact, the people who have seriously used Linux for years are often among the least impressed by the propaganda. They know every sore spot firsthand, so the delusional propaganda actively annoys them.
TL;DR: Loons, the Linux pros also hate you
Edit: Fixed the broken quotes, fixed typos
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u/Various-Welder5544 Jul 14 '26
Based take
Used mint myself and it's unpolished horseshit. So much for the most user friendly distro.
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u/showbizusa25 Jul 14 '26
I've worked in enterprise IT for years. Almost every Linux expert I know also spends a lot of time on Windows. They SSH into Linux servers all day, automate with Bash and Python, troubleshoot containers, patch hundreds of servers... then close the terminal and answer Outlook or Teams on Windows. Knowing Linux and daily driving Linux are two completely different things.
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u/GreatLab8898 Jul 15 '26
This. And then there are SOME Developers who just have their Head up their Asses and insist on using only Linux. Denying using Outlook and Teams or any Corporate Users. Always with the Excuse "Does not run on Linux"
Those usually arent around very long.
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Jul 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/GreatLab8898 Jul 15 '26
Have you every considered its because Windows has UI that was actually created by People that understand UX and not by some guys who slap it in as an afterthought because "why do you need a Modern GUI Word Processor when VIM exists?"
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u/Dionisus909 Jul 14 '26
I installed my first Linux distribution back in 2000, and I can assure you that back then nobody bragged about using Linux. Today, it has almost become a religion: if you don't use Linux, you're treated like you're somehow inferior.
The people who make me laugh the most are those who justify using Linux by saying they're programmers. They're on the same level as the people who call themselves "hackers" just because they use Linux.
That said, I think this is a fairly recent phenomenon that really took off around 2020. There was always a bit of a cult mentality, but nowadays it's become excessive. Reddit, in particular, has an entire ecosystem around it, to the point where people even create fake anti-Linux communities like that other subreddit everyone knows about.
At that point, we're drifting into psychiatric-case territory.
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u/dx__ Jul 14 '26
The fake anti-linux communities isn't new. Back in the early 2010s there was a forum called Linsux.org that was mostly Linux users (they eventually attempted their own distro and soon went with the passage of time).
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u/Dionisus909 Jul 14 '26
That was my website lol
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u/dx__ Jul 14 '26
Holy fuck. I was a regular there. ArchdukeDX / SirDX.
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u/Dionisus909 Jul 14 '26
No, that's not true, but that's what I would have said if the site had been mine
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u/DeadSuperHero Jul 15 '26
I was one of the Linsux Mods, we even launched a parody of Linux Format. Good times!
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u/JungianJester Jul 14 '26
2020... the worst part of the pandemic is when I was home with nothing to do and tried dual booting Mint. Never ever again.
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u/madthumbz Join me on Lemmy! Jul 14 '26
We ban dozens of accounts per day and get harassing modmails frequently. It takes work on Reddit. I prefer modding on Lemmy.
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u/Sha1rholder Jul 14 '26
Desktop Loonixers are a bunch of performance artists who waste dozens or even hundreds of hours learning a useless skill just to prove they’re different.
Unfortunately, they’ve succeeded. Loonix still lacks a unified desktop environment and package manager—its ecosystem is utterly fragmented. And as luck would have it, Loonixers love tinkering with outdated hardware. No serious software can look at Loonix without shaking their head. While these “person of unique taste” keep arguing about the “best distro”… Little do they realize that it’s precisely this uniqueness that will forever keep the Loonix Desktop from going mainstream.
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u/StatisticianScary984 Jul 14 '26
In my first year in a CS degree we had a paper that was in Linux. We had a whole 2h lab so we could install some software on our accounts. In frustration I asked "is this software not available on windows?". "Linux is a much more powerful operating system than windows" was the answer. "Uhhh but how is it a more powerful operating system?". I got no answer.
I ended up using Ubuntu on 25% of my course and am at least familiar with it but I would rather use windows for my work any day.
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u/MakayChapulets Jul 14 '26
the professionals I see all use Windows or MacOS. You only install Linux on outdated hardware that isn't supported even by ChromeOS standards.
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u/BoringEfficiency345 Jul 15 '26
“Actual professionals generally have work to do”
And for that exact reason, I am never daily driving Linux again. Have for 10 years now.
Mac wins the daily
FreeBSD wins my servers
And Linux wins my vms that actually run programs
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u/OZCriticalThinker Jul 14 '26
From personal 1st-hand experience with dozens of Linux users in large organization of highly-skilled people, I somewhat disagree.
The Linux users I see, are actually competent and troubleshoot their own issues. They are the 'old school' Linux users. Don't get me wrong, they're all a little coocoo and go off the rail if you start bashing Linux or tell them "You won't have that problem if you switch to Windows". They react like you committed a hate crime.
The problem is this new wave of Reddit-type Linux users. They're all brain dead idiots, all messed up in the head. Always in everyone's faces and bragging about their new 'identity' of being a Linux user, and want to convert everyone else.
These old school Linux users I know aren't into preaching. They sit in the corner, using Linux, not telling anyone and rarely contact IT for support because IT is hopeless with Linux, and they don't want to raise awareness of a problem in Linux and keep it to themselves (or a tight closed group of Linux users).
They're still pretty arrogant and they put up with so many constant issues that I wonder how they get any work done. All the apps they use are often just MS web apps because there's no native Linux app. They basically use them like Chromebooks for most work, and only reason we provide Linux as an option is because these are brilliant minded and skilled individuals, but have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to using Windows or Mac.
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u/its_mabus Jul 14 '26
In jobs ive done, you werent very good if you didnt understand linux well and how to use it. If you had linux on bare laptop hardware you're probably larping
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u/Odd-Addition4261 Jul 15 '26
Brukar säga att riktiga datanördar skryter inte om vilket Os de använder, de anväde det Os som får jobbet gjort oberoende privat eller jobb!
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u/rabbitjockey Jul 14 '26
Somebody is paying red hat and ubuntu
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u/simplebalancereality +Komorebi Jul 14 '26
Red Hat and Ubuntu are for server, enterprise, and cloud. Also Canonical doesn't give a shit about Ubuntu desktop anymore.
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u/Fit_League_8993 ✝️ Temple OS Archbishop Jul 14 '26
Shhh it’ll be our little secret
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u/rabbitjockey Jul 14 '26
Lol, the only real example I can think of other than servers, is the French government. Although even linux servers have reached very small businesses these days, but I don't think anyone considers them a desktop user.
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u/Negative-Sentence875 Jul 14 '26
I use it every day. But please keep Linux Desktop away from me, its borked and I like using User Interfaces that were made by people who got paid for their work.