• Godnroc@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I’m literally trying to get into Linux and one of the first things was installing software, which involves copying and running random bits of code from whatever website has the highest search result. I would say a lot of software is running code you have no idea what it does.

      • szczuroarturo@programming.dev
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        7 months ago

        He has a point tho. The amount of copy pasting random shit from the internet into the console is way too comon if you go down the rabbit hole on some issues with the system and find a solution on some abandoned by god itself linux forum. To be fair its usualy just a comand that does shit for you in 5 seconds so you dont have to use gui buuut it does happen and i can tell what this stuff does but the average user likley dosent . Alghtough it might be less common today. Its been quite a long time since i last broke my system.

    • smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.deOP
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      7 months ago

      Those are just tutorials showing how to install something. Typing flatpak install firefox is one and the same as going into the app store, searching for Firefox and clicking “install”. Tutorial websites would just show terminal as it’s more universal.
      If they ask you to actually download some file there is something very wrong.

      I often see people overwhelmed by universality of some things. Instead of searching “How to install Firefox on Linux?” what should be learned is “How to install software on Linux?” and, unless met with something badly ported, never do the search again.

      But what my meme is about is Windows-only style of having some file and by default having no idea if that’s going to run in some program or be a program.

    • TheRedSpade@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Installing software on Linux almost never involves “copying and running random bits of code” unless you have a need for some really obscure program. Learn how to use your distribution’s package manager.

      • RidcullyTheBrown@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        if we’re being fair, it did involve a lot of that historically. Package managers weren’t always around and even after they became established, there was still a lot of fiddling with bad drivers and various distributions had policies which didn’t allow certain software with certain licenses to be setup through their package repository and so on and so forth. Sure nowadays this is less of an issue, but then windows security is also much better than it used to be. People here seem to want to compare the latest Ubuntu to windows 98