That is because they think of that as active time. For instance windows updates probably waste much more time (and are much more annoying), not to mention all the individual app updates also popping up to take a few minutes at a time. Yet, when you ask people about how much time they spend maintaining windows, they will say zero.
Anyways, my impression on debian stable would also be that I spend about zero hours for 3 years until there is a major upgrade (which is basically starting the upgrade and then drinking coffee until it is done). However, I am probably also wrong about that and actually spend a few seconds here and there on changing a wallpaper, seeing what is new in a new Firefox version etc. Summed up over a month that might actually be many minutes, but it does not feel like it.
This is how I would describe my experience when running a Linux distribution on a corporate laptop that was pre-configured for me to work properly. But it has yet to ever be my experience on a personally-maintained Linux laptop. And anecdotally, my coworkers who are running Linux still seem to be sinking time into stuff like "ugh, sorry, can't get my microphone working today" type stuff.
I love Linux and I'm glad so many people are happy with their setups, but it just hasn't worked flawlessly enough for me over the years.
Note: I'm specifically talking about laptops here. It has worked great for me as a mostly headless workstation and of course as a server.
I think it’s because most people assume that their setup doesn’t need maintenance at all. So any amount of time just needing to be invested simply to keep things working is strange - 2 hours seems excessivr
They don't think about the time they spend updating brew, or dealing with pipx, or waiting for corporate McAfee AV to update, or figuring out weird docker/rancher/podman on osx issues, or "ffff `date` doesn't work that same as anything else..."
And you think those two hours are not "while I do something else"? I highly doubt you can spend two hours of active time a month on maintenance even if you tried. However, if you count "clicked yes, then it took 30 minutes to download and update" as 30 minutes, then this seems about right for any OS.
I am not doing any significant manual configuration, tweaking, or futzing with my system setup beyond maybe half an hour after initial install. There might be occasional changes I try but they are (1) rare, (2) just toggle a setting, and (3) are very occasional - in the order of seconds-single digit minutes over the course of a year.
Your phrasing makes it sound like you are spending multiple hours every month fiddling with your system.
I think most people aren’t measuring the time spend doing updates because for most people they are done overnight, and aside from major updates take just a slightly extended reboot if done during the day. No one is including the os updates, chrome updates, etc downloading in the background as time that they’re are spending maintaining their system, etc.
It is reasonable to read someone saying “I spent X amount of time doing Y” as meaning the person is saying that they were personally spending that time doing Y, not “my computer spent X amount of time doing Y while I was using it”
Ah, I assumed from your comment you were the original commenter that said "I don't think I spend more than an a couple of hours per month maintaining my configuration", but I see you are not, sorry!
I dunno, if someone is saying “I spent a few hours every month maintaining” and they mean “I do other things while packages download” then they need to phrase it better.
Linux doesn't keep you from having to update packages.
I agree that there is all this software tedium as well, that I'd much prefer to eliminate, but it sadly exists across all platforms.
But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about time spent getting and keeping hardware working properly, writing stuff into x11 or networking config files, that sort of thing. I have always found myself doing significantly more of that when running Linux (specifically on a laptop) than I have any interest doing anymore.
I don't understand why you'd need to configure x11 or networking more than once.
My routine maint tasks are `fwupdmgr get-updates` and `yay -Syu --devel` followed by `reboot`
I'm not sure what else people are doing other than tinkering with how things are setup. I spend a lot of time trying out other window managers and compositors or setting up various keybinds or automations I think would be useful, but I don't consider those maintenance tasks.
Oh you definitely don't in theory. But you totally do in practice. There's no good reason, it's just the actual experience many people have.
> I spend a lot of time trying out other window managers and compositors or setting up various keybinds or automations I think would be useful, but I don't consider those maintenance tasks.
This is the kind of (in my opinion) low value tedium I'm talking about.
I'm aware that we're talking past each other in these threads. Some people are thinking of software updates, others of us are thinking of stuff like trying out window managers and messing with keybindings, and these are indeed very different kinds of toil.
>Oh you definitely don't in theory. But you totally do in practice. There's no good reason, it's just the actual experience many people have.
What are you referring to here?
That's like saying it's low value tedium to set folder view in finder to compact. Or trying out Rectangle or one of the auto-tilers, enable night shift.. They're preferences and I don't see how the experience would differ from one OS to another.
Maybe you like the way everything works out of the box on OSX. That's cool. I don't. I don't really like how any OS (or wm or compositor) works out of the box.
I both understand the surprise - after all, I used to spend a lot more than two hours a month on this myself! - and consider it a lot of time for what I consider to be a very low value activity.
Reading and commenting on HN is also fairly low-value activity, but I certainly learn useful things more often than I do when futzing around with my OS, and that's just bonus; it's mostly an entertainment activity. Playing with my Linux configuration used to be an entertainment activity for me as well, but once that stopped being the case, it stopped being a good use of my time.
It is a lot. My laptop applies security patches itself at night, and then I wake up and use it. It’s great, I get time back in my life for other more important priorities.
I have spent enough time managing Linux environments on desktops, servers, laptops, embedded devices etc. Spending more time on that maintenance, even if it is small 90% of the cases, is a complete waste of my time on this earth.
You can disagree and find this enjoyable, no one is saying you need to see things their way. We all have different hobbies and priorities. It is fine if other people do not want to use Linux as a daily driver.
