this was the issue I had with using a Linux OS (ubuntu, mint) full time and why I switched back to Windows (and run a VM). many of the distros are focused on replicating basic OS features over and over again.
They seem to be focused on providing features 99% of Linux users don't want or need instead of fixing the plethora of bugs that are creeping in. Last time I tried to install Ubuntu, I ran into several bugs in the installer, which Linux Mint inherited. The hard disk encryption setup failed, for example. When I finally got the installer to work, I was greeted with several background apps crashing. Months later, these bugs still aren't fixed. The quality has really gone down in the last 2 years, to the point where I'm thinking I'll have to give Debian or Fedora Core a shot next time.
I wish these people would focus on being more minimal: do one thing and do it well. Instead, they've been trying to tailor their desktop OS to run on tablets. Who the f* runs Ubuntu on a tablet anyways? (if you do, please respond) They're alienating most of their users for a potential market they realistically have almost no chance of getting into.
I definitely agree.
One grave mistake I made had resulted in all my data being lost.
I have always been Fedora fan and mostly I am not disappointed, (although Fedora suffers from equally annoying bugs as well, like sound). But overall it's a great distro, and installs nicely.
Now I am doing development work, so tend to try and stay up to date as much as possible, since the software I use is very unstable and just beginning to mature so they can play fast and loose with the upgrade cycle.
Now typically Fedora installs are easy, I can allocate free space or it knows about other distros and I can replace them.
Now I had a perfect running system with Fedora 18 and Linux Mint 13(Maya), and probably longest running without upgrade. After this long period I had forgotten that if I want Linux Mint, I have to manually partition for it to behave properly. I had forgotten this and selected the option to replace the existing Linux Mint like I always do in Fedora for like the last 4 releases.
For whatever reason it automatically chooses my raid partiton(sda), instead of my SSD(sdb) which I store my OSes on to format, and I loose about 1.5TB of data I have been collecting for sometime.
Not to mention it is incapable of behaving nicely with Fedora(possibly due to LVM structure) and in the end I loose everything and have to go back to scratch. It also makes a new partition for the bootloader then cannot boot Fedora, I cannot even repair the grub bootloader for both oses to work together.
It's a shame because one release ago everything was fine.
But now I have sworn of Ubuntu and Linux Mint unless I am forced to.
It's come to a point where I just want to create the same packages for Fedora and maintain it myself. I am sick and tired of this constant upgrading and loosing your shit. I am use to it as a developer, but it's really starting to kill a lot of time having to re-setup my system.
