What are some of the easiest ways for a beginner to make their system untable when they start tinkering with it?

  • cerement@slrpnk.net
    22·
    23 days ago

    once you have some experience under your belt, these are non-issues:

    • deciding to “learn Linux” the hard way by starting with a specialized distro (Slackware, Gentoo, Alpine)
    • switching to unstable or testing branches before you’re ready ’cause you want bleeding edge or “stable is too far behind”
    • playing around with third-party repositories before understanding them (PPAs in Ubuntu, AUR in Arch)
    • bypassing the package manager (especially installing with curl | sudo sh)
    • changing apps for no other reason than “it hasn’t been updated for a year”
    • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
      4·
      23 days ago
      • changing apps for no other reason than “it hasn’t been updated for a year”

      That’s the only part I disagree with. Software not updated in a long time can easily become a risk.

      Everything else though, spot in.

      • cerement@slrpnk.net
        14·
        23 days ago

        aimed at beginners who confuse “hasn’t been updated for a year” with “hasn’t needed to be updated for a year”

    • Churbleyimyam@lemm.eeOP
      2·
      22 days ago

      bypassing the package manager (especially installing with curl | sudo sh

      I’ll admit that I’ve done this with a few things that I wanted to install but weren’t in my repo…