maple "mavica" syrup [6502] @mavica_again@computerfairi.es

i find fixing the daily annoying Linux things more difficult than "developing software". if your app has a bug, you can set a breakpoint or whatever. i wish i could do that on my entire linux install. where is it getting the y value for the icon label height? oh it loads that from this config file. etc. but i don't even know what program is drawing the icons onto the screen! if i did, maybe i could check its open file handles or something. anyway, having to think like this at all? is not Normal

for example. on my linux laptop, i updated the OS. and it changed my icon spacing on my desktop so that half the labels under each icon are now cut off. this happened in January. i've spent nearly a year trying to fix it on and off, but i've got no idea where even to start. on windows there'd be a single tool called like "Windows Icons Fixer 1.04" or a registry key you needed to change. but on linux? how do i even know which piece of software draws the icons? positions them? it's not X11

as i'm hoping to move to linux fulltime in the next couple years, i'd like a flowchart of how to fix things on linux. i've never really figured it out. on windows it's like. go into control panel. go into device manager. go into program files and delete something. but on linux it's hard to even work out what software is running on your computer, let alone which thing is causing the issue, let alone how to fix it, let alone whether the fix will break again the next time you update some package

Based on an actual conversation