• da_cow (she/her)@feddit.org
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    2 hours ago

    Can’t speak for you, but trouble shooting, even if you dont know what you do, is at least in my experience way easier. A terminal command does the exact same thing, no matter on which system (OK, there are differences like package manager, but you get what mean) and no matter when. On Windows you get 10 screenshots of a UI that has changed 10 times since the creation of the guide and no or a completely useless error message if something does not work. As long as you are not trying to debug big ass problems that affect core components of your system (bootloader, drives, stuff with the kernel) it is in fact quite hard to fuck up your entire system (it can happen with Updates on Arch, but this is usually quite rare). As long as you are not touching anything else except your /home directory you should not be able to break your entire system. Also if you are still scared of losing date, there are ways of creating system snapshots (backups). Backing up your home directory is enough because this means, that all the files you use daily are backed up.

    Since you mentioned dependencies, here’s a quick answer to what this means. There are a shit ton of programming libraries. A library has the use case, that a developer does not have to reinvent the wheel every time they want to do something. You dont want to write a complete library for GUIs every time, but instead use standardised well maintained and documented libraries. Since Programms use these they depend on the user having this library (or alternatively Programms) installed. This is called a dependency. In most cases dependency errors mean, that an expected library is not installed. In this case simply copy the name, and search “install name Linux (or your Distros)” and you are almost guaranteed to find a tutorial for installing it.

    My best tip is, that you take the time to learn the basics of Linux. What is a package manager and which one does my system use, how do I navigate directories, how do I create and delete files, how do I edit files. How do I copy or move files. If you know the basics of these things you know most of the stuff you need to know to understand what you are doing. If you want to read more about a specific command you can also always refer to the man page of said command. For this simply type in man “command name” (e.G. “man cd” this gives you the basic infos about the CD command (used for navigating directorys))