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Comment by hungerstrike | Hacker News Reader

We had Google in 2002 and the answer would probably have been easier to find at that time since there wouldn't be hundreds of different Ubuntu versions and sub-distros to clutter up the results. I can't count the number of times I've found an answer that applies to "Ubuntu" where the alleged solution didn't apply to the version that I'm running.

Also, systemd can cause anyone problems - I'm not sure it can distinguish between you or Grandma.

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There were Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, Debian, Slackware, and dozens of others then too. Software still switched its method of configuration between versions, and distros still had their own incompatible ways of doing things. Linux was farther from mainstream, StackExchange didn't exist, Google wasn't as good, and Linux in general was less polished (and required more manual intervention to get things going).

And this situation doesn't apply to windows or macos how, exactly?

since there wouldn't be hundreds of different Ubuntu versions and sub-distros

There are no macOS or Windows subdistros. So, the only difference may be between different versions. Adding to that, Apple generally does not have the tendency to replace/rewrite macOS subsystems every few years, so it is much more likely that thing still work after a couple of years.

> There are no ... Windows subdistros

That's a pretty naive trust in Microsoft's branding/marketing team. Of course there are heaps of different Windows distributions. They don't necessarily differ as much as, say, Ubuntu vs Gentoo, but they do differ.

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