Linux

I'm not going to give you any technical advice because there's already a lot of suggestions already. I just wanted to leave a comment in solidarity.

I am the techiest person in my fairly techy group of friends, and even I often end up making silly mistakes that mess up my system sometimes. It's easy to get overwhelmed, especially when there seems to be solutions to my problems that I'm not able to understand.

Trust me when I say that you're not stupid for not getting this. This shit is difficult. I have been in your position so so many times before — right down to the despair making me feel suicidal. It's hard when you desperately need to fix a thing, but the more you throw yourself at the problem, the harder it gets. Take as much of a break as you need to, and come back to some of the answers that sound promising, but you're struggling to understand, and ask questions. You're not dumb for not understanding — you're new at this, and that's okay.

I can't speak for other people in this thread, but I know that when I'm giving technical advice to people, it often feels like I'm getting practice at communicating things in an accessible way. I want more people to be able to participate in this hobby that I enjoy, but I've been steeping in this environment for so long that sometimes, the advice that I give is overly dense, or it assumes knowledge that the person needing help doesn't have. That's an unfortunate mistake to make, because it makes the person reading my reply feel stupid, and that's the last thing I want. I've found that giving technical advice online is often a mutual learning process — the person I'm helping is learning the tech stuff, and I'm learning how to communicate better. If you revisit some of the comments in this thread, bear that in mind — it's not all on you.

On the topic of wishing you were stronger, I can relate to that — like I said, I'm pretty prone to getting myself into a spiral of shame when I don't understand a thing and everything I do keeps getting worse. For what it's worth, I think that asking for help as you have done here is something that requires a lot of strength; it's hard to be vulnerable when you feel like you're messing things up. It also takes strength to recognise that you're getting overwhelmed enough that you need to take a step away. It's valid to want to be stronger than you are now, but I hope you're able to recognise your small achievements.

Finally, a small bit of practical advice that I'd give is that if you're entering terminal commands or changing settings to try fix this, it's super useful to make a note of what you're doing. Sometimes when I have a complex problem and I try one potential solution that doesn't end up working, the changes made in that solution can conflict with steps involved in attempting a second solution. It can make it easier to keep track of what you've tried so far, especially if you have to undo stuff later. It's okay if you haven't done this so far, but it can help going forward. I find that when I'm panicking and desperate for a solution, that makes me more likely to just attempt basically everything, and those are the times when keeping track of what I've done is especially important.

Don't feel guilty for asking for help, or for needing clarifications. We're all here of our own free will. Many of us have been in your position before, and only got to the point where we are now because of the patient help of kind online nerds. That's a big part of why I try to chip in when I find someone with a problem I can help with — it feels like giving back to the community that helped me to learn back when I was new to this.

I know it doesn't feel like it, but you're doing well. Keep trying, and I promise things will get easier. Don't beat yourself up for needing to take breaks, or for feeling overwhelmed. How you're feeling right now is within the range of what's normal for new people running into a difficult technical problem like this. You're not stupid, this stuff is just hard.