#1 is just not being the default for 99% of devices. If someone gets a new computer, why would they go through the effort of installing a new os when the one it comes with works fine? Hell, I bet at least 50% of people in the market for a pc don't even know what an OS is.
Agreed. Android and chrome os are used happily by 10s of millions without any idea it's a Linux distro
I bet if small, cheap netbooks came out running mint or fedora or something people wouldn't even or know or care that it was Linux.
In middle school I had a USB drive with Linux Mint installed on it which I was using on school PCs. We only used those PCs for internet browsing and office. Not a single soul noticed it wasn't Windows. Teacher only noticed 2 differences, "You have different version of Office installed here." and also gave me a note for "Changing wallpaper" which was strictly prohibited for some reason.
which was strictly prohibited
It was probably due to some goober like me changing it to Scarlett Johansson's bikini pics. I'm sorry.
So.. the Steamdeck?
Absolutely. In fact i think everyone is hoping steam os will be the distro to make the big push onto desktop because of the gaming and another just works kind of interface
Indeed, many Netbooks come with a firmware dual boot. Besides the crappy Windows lite edition, there's a tiny instant-on Linux too. Most people don't use that, but it's there.
Indeed, many Netbooks come with a firmware dual boot. Besides the crappy Windows lite edition, there's a tiny instant-on Linux too. Most people don't use that, but it's there.
Which actually means Linux is being successfully adopted by the general public in a similar way to windows as a general use system that doesn't require a lot of technical knowledge.
Fully customizable distress will never be popular with the general public. They want systems that just do the general stuff and have it work automatically.
Of course they know what an OS is. There's only two of them: Apple and Microsoft.
I bet at least 50% of people in the market for a pc don't even know what an OS is.
70%*
my first thought actually pointed to common OS on work devices, being Windows i’d assume a majority of the time, i’d imagine a large portion of the older population were introduced to computers in a workplace setting. But your answer makes a bit more sense.
At this point, my biggest dream is that these 'new user' distros used only Wayland, Pipewire, Systemd and Flatpaks simply to simplify things. Hopefully we're less than 2024 away from NoVideo Wayland support.
Also as soon as XFCE releases their Wayland support, that soon it'll become the most famous DE choice of Mint.
What I am really happy is to see how well supported Pipewire already is. Pipewire has never showed any problem in the new installs for me.
So ... basically Pop!_OS.
That's what I'm using now, and it's what I'd recommend for most desktop users. I've been using Linux systems on-and-off since before kernel version 1.0: Slackware, then Debian, then Ubuntu, then Mint, then Pop.
(Admittedly, my use cases are pretty simple: a terminal, a browser, Signal, VLC, and Steam.)
Pretty much. Pop is my go-to recommendation for pretty much anyone these days. It's so well polished and just easy.
Yes, that pop os. As luck would have it, Linus installed it during a very brief period where the steam package in their repo was broken. This is not a common occurrence, and I have never heard of it happening before or since.
This whole series triggered me so hard. They went out of their way to test it under the worst possible conditions.
last at night
setting a goal with a deadline/time constraints for first run
not stopping and reading or thinking, just assuming away
copy paste from google frsit thing that looks vagualy right
tunnel vission
not resources like Emily, ensuring they make big mistakes
Then they follow up with hypocrisy of this shit, after going on and on about UI not being right or hard to use for the end user.
The problem with that is most major distros market themselves as "new user" distros to some extent though. Noob-friendly, out-of-the-box, easy, etc are all distro-marketing buzz-words that mean nothing.
You can't expect them to only use Wayland, Pipewire, Systemd, and Flatpaks because that dream requires every distro to use Wayland, Pipewire, Systemd, and Flatpaks, which will never be reality.
Most distros will probably eventually adopt these tools, but there won't be a sudden shift. It will be gradual.
Well, for Pipewire it's the apps which needs to adjust at this point. Only thing missing currently is the Wayland but it's coming. Making Linux less fragmented (read: confusing), the more new users will give a try.
pipewire seems ready for primetime but I'm more dubious about Wayland. For instance KDE appears to still be a bit flaky and sway still works poorly under Nvidia and will never have proper mixed DPI for xwayland apps. Still seems like a tradeoff vs X which doesn't require a compromise. XFCE is roughly 10% of Mint users. Mint users are unlikely to switch because of wayland support
Doing tech support, I encountered this attitude. People like that are nearly impossible to help. "Why can't you just fix it!" The true answer never given is that your problem is probably something stupid you are doing, like trying to make a phone call by physically shoving the phone entirely up your asshole, and until I run through some common problems and ask some questions, I won't be able to tell you to have your significant other get the salad tongs and pull it out of your rear and then go over "dialing."
People mostly need to be willing to gather detailed system info with Inxi and share it.
I'll have you know I get better reception when it's up my ass!
No. That's the support job to figure out the problem of the user. It is not the user's job to figure out the support problems.
I work in support, so I know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately most computer guys are elitist assholes who can't understand a user doesn't have their knowledge or even the will to understand why this shitty tech is not working.
Free open source software projects you don't pay for don't have paid support. If you talk to a fellow user it IS your job to figure out your problem. if you don't have the will to understand anything you ought to buy a support contract.
I don't disagree with you, but to answer OP's question, I think this right here is the problem. I love Linux for the same reason I love building my own PCs and working on my own car. For most people that don't want to tinker, though, they're looking for something that "just works" and can be fixed by someone else when it breaks.
It's such a privileged attitude, though. One CAN get paid support, but they don't need it if they're just a bit patient and willing to follow instructions. If you don't want to pay, don't expect someone else to deal with your bullshit.
(I'm not saying this to you, but to anyone who has this attitude.)
It case the subject wasn't entirely clear in my prior post I agree with you, and that is exactly what I was trying to say. You the user of a foss project, aren't a customer unless you give someone money. It IS your job to figure out your own issues. If you ask for help from your fellow users and they graciously provide you help then this is a gift you should appreciate. Because the person isn't an expert on that topic in the employ of the creator, they might not know everything, nor do they have the infinite patience imparted by being paid by the hour to provide you help. They have their own shit to do. Treating them with entitlement and contempt like people treat support will burn these sorts of folks out, and they are far from an infinite resource. If you want a paid support relationship instead of treating the open source community as free help whose time you are entitled to, you ought to actually pay someone to do that job.
Pay for support then. Companies like Canonical and Redhat will be happy to take your money.
So you want them to provide answers by using magic? If you seek support for any software, open source or otherwise, you'll need to tell them version, build number etc. Why do you think Linux will be any different?
Because people can already barely provide this level of information for a Windows device. Most of these words look like technobabble to non-tech-enthusiasts
Why don't you magically have a magic button that magically fixes everything with no effort of my own? That's stupid, I think I will go on social media and repeatedly tell everyone that Linux is bad actually
Isn't pre-installed on well known machines by well known brands.
Popular applications (whether productivity, creativity, or games) do not work out of the box that people want. It doesn't matter that alternatives exist, or that you can use things like Wine. If it's more than just click the icon, it's too much.
If things cannot be done purely through touch / the mouse, it is too hard for most people.
If things cannot be done purely through touch / the mouse, it is too hard for most people.
100%. Even as a power-user (understatement) who overwhelmingly prefers keyboard input to control things when I'm "gettin' stuff done", I will sometimes miss the general consideration level of Windows' input handling when it comes to mouse and especially touch. Mouse is pretty damn good these days on Linux, but touch...
Touch is abysmal. A ton of modern laptops have touchscreens, or are actually 2-in-1s that fold into tablets, etc, and the support is just barely there, if at all. I'm not talking about driver support - this is often fairly acceptable. My laptop's touch and pen interface worked right out of the box... technically. But KDE Plasma 5 with Wayland- an allegedly very modern desktop stack- is not pleasant when I fold into tablet mode.
The sole (seriously, I've looked) Wayland on-screen-keyboard, Maliit, is just terrible. No settings of any kind (there is a settings button! it is not wired to anything, it does nothing), no language options, no layout options (the default layout is abysmal and lacks any 'functional' keys like arrows, pgup/dn, home/end, delete, F keys, tab, etc), and most egregiously, it resists being manually summoned which is terrible because it does not summon itself at appropriate times. Firefox is invisible to it. KRunner is invisible to it. The application search bar is invisible to it. It will happily pop up when I tap into Konsole, but it's totally useless as it is completely devoid of vital keys. Touch on Wayland is absolutely pointless.
Of course, there is a diverse ecosystem of virtual keyboards and such on Xorg! However, Xorg performance across all applications is typically abysmal (below 1FPS) if the screen is rotated at all. This is evidently a well known issue that I doubt will ever be fixed.
In the spirit of Open Source Software, and knowing that simply complaining loudly has little benefit for anyone, I have at several times channeled my frustration towards developing a reasonable Wayland virtual keyboard, but it's a daunting project fraught with serious problems and I have little free-time, so it's barely left its infancy in my dev folder, and in the meanwhile I reluctantly just flip my keyboard back around on the couch with a sigh, briefly envious of my friend's extremely-touch-capable Windows 2-in-1.
I echo your frustrations with Maalit. I am running Arch on my Surface Pro 7 and very frequently I have to snap in the keyboard just to get myself out of a situation where touch doesn't work. Maalit also has this bug where it will push and resize windows as if it was visible even though it is hidden.
Regarding the Firefox issue, it helps if you enable it's Wayland backend by passing MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 to it. Maalit should properly pop whenever you tap on a text box.
MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1
Thank you - I was already aware of this, actually, but I choose to leave it disabled because when this is set, touchscreen drag-scrolling of webpages breaks and it selects text as though it were a mouse click-drag instead. As it turns out, I barely use Maliit anyway because of its other deficiencies, but I definitely touch-scroll my browser a lot, even in laptop mode. A generally disappointing dilemma!
I also had this problem where touch scrolling on Firefox selects text instead (on ubuntu). It does however work OOTB for me on fedora, so it's the main distro on that machine.
Weird! Touch scrolling actually improves for me with the Wayland backend so that's an odd issue indeed! There's gotta be a trick to it, but I am unsure of what that is at the moment.
GNOME has amazing touchscreen gestures, and afaik comes with it's own virtual keyboard
I have been tempted by GNOME several times, but I disagree with some of their design choices and find them a bit frustrating. I feel that it's fairly strongly-opinionated software. The benefits, of course, are obvious: internal consistency that leads to a higher quality experience. But, only if you buy-in to some overarching design philosophy. That's one of the reasons I left Windows! I also have a suite of Kwin scripts that make my life a lot easier, so it's pretty hard to leave Plasma at this point.
Still, that keyboard has tempted me a lot nonetheless...
Me too. I love the look of Adwaita, but some of their choices I can't get past, like not having a system tray. I'm really excited for Cosmic, it looks like it will blend the styling of GNOME with much of KDE's customization!
COSMIC is now on my radar, thank you. It looks very intriguing.
At this point I'm just glad I migrated to GNU/Linux way before touch input was a common thing. I never experienced it on Windows and the only way I experienced it on GNU/Linux is with it behaving like simple mouse clicks. I literally have no idea what else to expect, so I expect nothing and I don't get disappointed.
Using touch on Windows has definitely set my expectations much higher than the reality on Linux right now, so this is a good call! You won't know what you're missing, so it's not going to bug you. I kind of wish I could return to this blissful ignorance. I have another 2-in-1 with Windows 11 on it in the house and anytime I look at it to keep it patched up and fix issues for its user, it reminds me very effectively of how far behind my 2-in-1 is with touchscreen interactions :(
I agree with the touchscreen thing-- I have one of those foldy-aroundy 2-in-1 laptops, and the only way I've been able to get touch to work properly (as in not like a mouse) is gnome wayland. Kde wayland's fine too, but like you said there's no included keyboard whereas gnome has one built-in. Also another wayland osk you could try is wvkbd (tho I've never used it beyond "hey what's this").
Lenovo does sell Linux laptops and then there is the HP Dev One. Also according to Canonical over 160 Dell laptop, desktop, and workstation models ship with Ubuntu preinstalled.
While this is true, if someone goes to a shop and buys a "PC", it will have Windows 100% of the time.
You have to look to get Linux preinstalled on stuff, or pick the choice yourself. People buying PCs aren't picking Windows, it's just what comes with them.
Preinstalled.
Like, were nerds and we fuck with our computers n stuff. But most people are lucky to know what a power cord is.
Honestly if Linux with a good DE like KDE or Cinnamon was already on their PC at boot they would figure it out. Most people just use a web browser anyways.
I have put my dad on Kubuntu. Don't like anything *buntu, personally, but I have to admit it's quite stable and with sane defaults. He hasn't complained ever since and support calls dropped considerably. He spends most of the time in Firefox anyways, where I've added ublock.
The problem with Windows was, he'd occasionally browse the web with Edge by mistake (or because MS forces it down your throat), and as soon as an 80+ y.o. browses the web without ad blocking, getting a virus is just a matter of time.
All this is to say that I agree with the fact that preinstalled is key. I wish that more effort was focused on fewer distros and I feel that so much talent and energies are being lost in marginal projects.
But many people do this for passion and it's of course their choice to decide where to contribute, or whether to spin up a brand new distro entirely, can't judge them for that. I'm just observing that those energies could be better used to smoothen some rough edges on more popular distros to make them even more appealing to OEMs and convince them to ship those on their hardware.
This is definitely how I feel as well. None of the other shit matters unless it comes already on the machine. Even then, it absolutely has to be rock solid stable long term for it to be comparative. Of course that’s asking a lot, considering people still take their PCs into geek squad or wherever else when something goes wrong (or their printer won’t connect).
This always reminds me of the Dell XPS option of having Ubuntu installed but of course that’s far away from “Microsoft literally pays us to sell their shit”. So, until that - or some type of adoption occurs on a B&M level/online-storefront - it’s going to be pretty “voluntary” in terms of adoption. It’s just comparatively so much more work in the layman’s sense.
It’s in a weird way the same with cars. It’s been statistically proven that most people specifically won’t go out of their way to get a simple utility pickup truck. They buy the big fuck you truck because that’s what the dealerships have. It’s the same thing with kids going to college and the parents taking them to buy a laptop for class. My point is that it’s far more easier to just use what you get than try to rehash it. Maybe you don’t even know that’s a possibility so you just settle. Of course this isn’t the only issue, but imo the largest determining factor. IBM had businesses sucking from the teet since computers dropped, and we still deal with the ramifications.
I have my dad on Mint for years. Setup browser and email program and told him to click on that little shield and do updates when it's there. You can set the shield icon to only appear in case of updates.
I sometimes have to update between versions. I think he is still on 21.0 and now 21.2 is out already.
Most people buy computers with the OS already installed and would get just as lost trying to install MacOS or Windows.
This is the correct answer. If Linux was pre-installed, most problems would vanish. My Linux computers are far, far more stable than windows once they run.
The pre installation also means the OEM will verify compatibility, a common complaint.
Based on my tests on my family and friends, the main problem is tech support. Most geeks seem to assume other people want the same things than themselves (privacy, freedom, etc). Well, they don't. They want a computer that just works.
Overall when using Linux, people actually don't need much tech support, but they need it. My father put it really well by saying: "the best OS is the one of your neighbor."
I apply few rules:
The deal with my family and friends is simple: you want tech support from me ? ok, then I'm going to pick your computer (usually old Lenovo Thinkpads bought on Ebay at ~300€) and I'm going to install Linux on it.
I'm not shy. I ask them if they want me to have remote access to their computer. If they accept, I install a Meshcentral agent. Thing is, on other OS, they are already spied on by Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. And most people think "they have nothing to hide". Therefore why should they worry more about a family member or a friend than some unknown big company ? Fun fact, I've been really surprised by how easily people do accept that I keep a remote access on their computer: even people that are not family ! Pretty much everybody has gladly agreed up to now. (and God knows I've been really clear that I can access their computer whenever I want).
I install the system for them and I make the major updates for them. Therefore, if I have remote access to the system, I pick the distribution I'm the most at ease with (Debian). They just don't care what actually runs on their computers.
When they have a problem, they call me after 8pm. With remote access, most problems are solved in a matter of minutes. Usually, they call me a few times the first days, and then I never hear from them anymore until the next major update.
So far, everybody seems really happy with this deal. And for those wondering, I can see in Meshcentral they really do use those computers :-P
When i told my dad i can install Rustdesk on his computer to do remote support (moved out), he asked me "does that mean you can look at my computer whenever you want?". I'm really proud of him, he actually listened.
I think people sell themselves short with regards to having undue access to family members' computers. If they're willing to give it then you've clearly demonstrated that you're trustworthy and haven't given them reason to assume you'll snoop or worse steal from them.
Are there any limitations to Meshcentral? I tried using Team Viewer and a few others when I was supporting family on Windows, and they all wanted to charge me after a while.
I self-host Meshcentral. I haven't seen any limitation at all.
I don't know if there are limitations when you use meshcentral.com instead of self-hosting.
Thanks for replying :)
I'll have a look into it, thanks. I pretty much only support my mother's laptop outside of my house now, but I use NoMachine to sort out the home computers. As much as I like it, it can be a bit slow sometimes, and it's always in the back of my mind that it's going to lock me out like the others did.
Oh actually if you are worried about vendor lock-in: Meshcentral is opensource. So even if they decide to try something stupid, a fork would be likely to happen.
Wayland, unless something's changed since the last time I tried it.
Try Anydesk, it's very much like Teamviewer in many ways, though it's not FOSS.
Self updating without user interaction per default.
Better support of codecs and drivers.
Linux does have better codecs and drivers than Windows for some stuff (Bluetooth for example), but it has worse codecs and drivers for some important proprietary hardware stuff (Nvidia for example)
Self updating without user interaction per default.
I think that this is a terrible idea, until a clear boundary is set between applications that can or cannot break the system. Updating flatpaks automatically might be fine, but updating everything is simply a recipe for disaster.
It needs to "just work". It's not more complicated than that.
This, a lot of ppl talk about the pre installed thing but Linux has a lot of friction yet. Linux is big, it's open and made to run in almost any device with an arm or x86 processor, yet Linux is usually a pain in the ass on edge cases and we cannot ignore. Some years ago dealing with drivers on Linux was a hell, today is better but still has edge cases (this is not a Linux fault usually, vendors are shit usually but it cause friction. Audio just recently was resolved with the adoption of pipewire but pulseaudio had a lot of caveats. Now we are getting rid of X11 that is great for usual usecases but is full of workarounds if you want to to a simple thing like having two monitors with different refresh rates. There is a lot of things but linux is going forward, last year I could made my full switch since gaming on Linux became a thing but definitely was not plug and play.
All of the basics should just work well out of the box with minimal tweaking. Yes even NVIDIA stuff.
The software center needs a massive overhaul. It feels like an afterthought by people who would rather use a command line.
Yeah, the descriptions and lack of curation is really weird ... browse games and oh look here's 27 varieties of reversi and a driving game that crashes on launch.
If it were a curated list with enthusiastic and helpful descriptions it would make it more accessible to use. Get the mature and professional looking programs front and center.
Much as I hate to say it, it could do with a makeover from someone with a sense of marketing. (Excuse me for a second, I felt a little nauseous saying that).
Installation process of Linux is complicated to an average Joe (Bootable USB/ISO file/Boot priority/format <- what are these scary terms?)
Lack of availability of pre-installed Linux PCs at physical shops
Lack of availability of industry-standard software
Confusion for an average Joe due to excess choice of distros/application packaging format. Average people don't want choices, they want to be guided.
(Minor point) Most available guides for doing something heavily requires terminal usage which can be daunting to new users
Linux really isn't ideal for anyone who isn't already a tech enthusiast on some level. I recently did a fresh install of Kubuntu and after about a week, it prompted me that there were updates, so I clicked the notification and ran the updates, after which my BIOS could no longer detect the UEFI partition. I had to use a live usb to chroot into the system and repair it, as well as update grub, in order to fix it.
It's fixable, but this is not something anyone who doesn't already know what they're doing can fix. I've had auto updates in the past put me on boot-loops thanks to nvidia drivers, etc.
This kind of thing needs to almost never happen for linux to be friendly for those who just want their computer to work without any technical understanding. This, honestly though, can't happen because of the nature of distros, you can't ever make guarantees that everything will work because every distro has slightly different packages.
Wine is getting better, but compatibility is still an issue, especially for people who rely really heavily on microsoft office or adobe products.
It's actually ideal for people who are actually not tech enthusiasts at all and do not need specific software for their job (Photoshop, audio stuff, actually NOT Ms office)
Everybody I 've seen making this argument is actually a tech enthusiast themselves and just as out of touch with the average user as a Linux "guru" and massively overestimates the non tech enthusiast user.
They are far more likely to fuck up their Windows PC (even with UAC because they don't understand what it is) than successfullyinstall a new program on their own.
I 've borged my Nvidia drivers a few times, never via the distro auto updating. Custom kernels, trying to get newer cuda versions or something. Still better to fix than AMD drivers on windows and the whole DDU dance.
I'd say it can be, if they're running something incredibly stable that you can guarantee won't break on them... Which involves an amount of research and effort that most people simply won't put in as long as what they are familiar with continues to work. Windows might have it's fair share of issues, but at least a lot of people are already familiar with it, same w/ Mac os.
Nope. Install a distro like Ubuntu and it will not break with auto updates. Nvidia drivers included.
Much less maintenance than when they used windows.
You also overestimate the non tech enthusiast ability to use or fix issues with windows. They usually download the first program that promises to fix their issue, or increase their RAM.
I mean... that's simply incorrect. If you read my original post, I talked about that, exactly. Twice in the last month I've had running updates via the "updates available" notification in Kubuntu break the system, and require chrooting into the system via a live usb to fix it. That's without any changes or messing around with the system, on a very recent install.
When I used normal Ubuntu, there were rampant gnome shell crashes. Hardware compatibility is far from perfect, as well - case in point I've done clean installs of Linux Mint on computers for others in the past, only to find out that there simply aren't working wifi drivers for the device.
Linux CAN be less maintenance, but it's ultimately more work to actually make the jump and completely relearn how to use a computer. I'm fully aware of the capabilities on people who aren't enthusiasts, I do tech support for my whole family all the time. My stepfather's solution to the wifi being slow was to make more networks on the same router, it was hosting like 12 wifi networks at once. However, windows is already familiar to them. They could technically learn to use linux, but they have zero interest because if windows has an issue they'll just call me and I'll fix it (and that's usually not needed because it rarely breaks on them).
Well our experiences differ then. I never had any issues on vanilla Ubuntu systems. After all if there was I 'd have to be on the phone to fix it while also reminding the fam that any non specified click us a left click.
To be fair I rarely had issues with Windows myself, at least post xp. But windows do fail, especially on updates and in quite bizarre ways. I ve had to solve quite a few over the years.
The actual answer, there is no reason to switch. The vast majority of users do not care about Linux or why they would want to. For us there are lots of benefits and things we enjoy about getting away from Windows but for them "why?"
I will object on this one. Even if the majority of user does not care about privacy they do care about ransomware , viruses, speed of the system and in my opinion Linux / BSD is secure, fast and speed remains after time not like Windows where I felt that after 6 months I had to reinstall to get a performant system. I guess it is all about convincing your family and friends about those benefits.
Two weeks ago my step mother asked me "Can you help my friend connect her PC to the wifi, it runs Windows XP" users are fucking weird.
Speaking from experience, from a long time ago, and from the people/family I've installed it for on older machines: It's different. That's 90% of it.
The people that had little to no windows/PC experience actually took to Linux a lot easier not having to relearn/change habits from windows.
Correct. It's lack of familiarity. Once Linux gets around 10-15% market share, enough people who know the quirks of Linux to help new people who then Linux will be big.
Yes, I had my mom start with Linux and she's confused when she has to use Windows.
When's the last time the average user has had to install an operating system?
That's the biggest obstacle right there. I think plenty of non-techy people would use linux if it came preinstalled.
Also, if it came pre-installed, one would assume all the hardware was properly supported. A big pain point with Linux is that sometimes things just don't work right, and there's nobody to turn to for help except Google. It's been a while since I attempted to run Linux on a laptop, but when I did I struggled a lot getting good battery life, good trackpad support, and a sleep mode that worked correctly.
Reputations live on for decades after they are earned. Perhaps all of my laptop problems are ancient history, but I have no way to know without trying, and it's too much effort.
I have an example: a little whole ago I put Arch on my 2-in-1 laptop just because I prefer open-source philosophy, and although a lot of things worked out-of-the-box, my biggest problem was the actual 2-in-1 function. I know that, like Windows, I'd have to do a little digging to get it working (except Windows would involve drivers, Linux required settings) and I got a makeshift solution working: KDE has its own screen-rotating feature, and I made 2 shell commands on the desktop that, when pressed, disable/enable the keyboard/trackpad. Turns out it only works on Xorg, and Wayland requires a way more complicated setup to work, so I just gave up using Wayland on it. Something to do with udev rules or something
To be honest, one part is what everyone mentioned here. Not being preinstalled and all that.
The other part is that unfortunately at least according to my own expirence as a Linux noob a few years ago some Linux communities can be very toxic. If you're asking questions of how to do X and someone comes along and is all "why do you even want to do X if you could also do Y? Which is something entirely different but also does something vaguely similar"
That's one if the things.
And then other curiosities.
I cannot for example for the life of me get my main monitor to work under Linux with any new Kernel version. My Laptop just refuses to output to it or the second monitor attached via Display port daisychaining. On the older version it works, on the newer it's broken. I have tried troubleshooting this problem for over half a year and it's still broken. And that's out of the Box on Ubuntu LTS...
So i don't really understand this question. There are major roadblocks. With Wayland which is default for Ubuntu now those roadblock jist became bigger.
Screensharing in multiple Apps including slack is outright broken unless you use the shitty webapp.
The main player Office 365 largely doesn't work at all on Linux. All these things that should work for a Desktop operating System don't work out of the Box as they should.
That's why people aren't using it and companies aren't preinstalling it.
Most folks have been sold a story that every new technology they start using is supposed to be "intuitive"; and that if it is not "intuitive" then it must be defective or willfully perverse.
For example, novice programmers often stumble when learning their second or third language, because it differs from their first. Maybe it uses indentation instead of curly braces; maybe type declarations are written in a different order; maybe it doesn't put $ on its variables; maybe capitalization of identifiers is syntactically significant.
And so they declare that Python is not "intuitive" because it doesn't look like C; or Go is not "intuitive" because it doesn't feel like PHP.
It should be obvious that this has nothing to do with intuition, and everything to do with familiarity and comfort-level.
Commercial, consumer-oriented technology has leaned heavily into the "intuitive" illusion. On an iPhone or Windows, Android or Mac, you're supposed to be able to just guess how to do things without ever having to confront unfamiliarity. You might use a search engine to find a how-to document with screenshots — but you're not supposed to have to learn new concepts or anything. That would be hard.
That's not how to learn, though. To learn, you need to get into unfamiliar things, recognize that they are unfamiliar, and then become familiar with them.
Comfort-level is also important. It sucks to be doing experimental risky things on the computer that's storing your only copy of your master's thesis research. If you want to try installing a new OS, it sure helps if you can experiment with it in a way that doesn't put any of your "real work" at risk. That can be on a spare computer, or booting from a USB drive, or just having all your "real work" backed up on Dropbox or Google Drive or somewhere that your experimentation can't possibly break it.
It should be obvious that this has nothing to do with intuition, and everything to do with familiarity and comfort-level.
Not to be petty, but I think that intuitive is not that different to familiar.
I mean, the problem is in using the word intuitive when "selling" something in the first place. User interaction involves ton of things, large and small, and the intuitive things are rarely noticed. Such promise is likely going to lead to disappointment.
Adapting to these small differences is a skill in itself.
You have to use the terminal
Anything using the terminal... I once tried to do something on Linux because a friend told me it was great. I gave it another go when it came up on my Chromebook and tried to teach myself. I just don't get it.
I'm not a programmer at all, so anything that involves typing commands is going to baffle me!
One thing i had to learn when i started to understand how big techs really work, of what that would imply (see chat control) and get passionate about free software, free operative systems and freedom of customization is that freedom itself almost always requires work, the question is: is that a work you're willing to do?
for me the answer is a strong YES.
For the average user all that extra works gives them very little return.
Most people don't want everyday computer use to be work.
Fair.
But I was just giving my perspective as an outsider who stumbled across this post because messing about with the terminal had the opposite affect on me as someone who appreciates the concept of Linux but doesn't really have the level of passion to learn programming for it.
I’m not a programmer at all, so anything that involves typing commands is going to baffle me!
When I was in college in the 1990s, non-STEM students regularly learned enough of the Unix command-line to:
check their email with pine
chat with talk or on IRC
write their home page in HTML using pico or joe editors
The command line is something that millions of people have learned; and you can, too!
It's the first step of installation, making a bootable usb/CD. Most non-technical people can't be arsed to create a bootable drive, then go into the bios boot settings to run it. I haven't used Windows in a long time so I don't know how it's installed these days, but the fact that it comes installed out-of-the-box when people buy a computer lets them skip the first and biggest step to running linux, which is getting it installed in the first place.
Distros have come a long way that a Windows user trying Linux Mint can hit the ground running. It's no longer about the learning curve for USING linux, it's INSTALLING linux that's the problem.
Exactly. I'd argue that some supposedly mainstream distros are hard to install even for the competent. Last time I checked, Debian's funnel for newbies consisted of a 90s-era website with "instructions" in the form of a rambling block of jargon-filled text with mentions of "CD-Roms" and a vague discussion of third-party apps for burning ISOs. I mean, on Linux flashing a USB stick is matter of a single dd command with some obscure switches, but even that was nowhere to be found and I had to search forums for it. Incredible! Hard to imagine how forbidding it must all seem to the average Windows user! No Debian for them!
IIRC Ubuntu's process was much easier but still not as easy-peasy as it could have been.
The only hope for desktop Linux is a crystal-clear, bulletproof, 1-2-3-style onboarding funnel that takes the user from "this is the distro's website" to "I have a bootable USB". From that point on it's plain sailing.
Whats nice about gnome is the disk util. included: select USB stick, click restore image and browse for the iso file. click OK.
As somebody who likes using the terminal I too have mostly stopped using dd and use gnome disks instead. Getting the rightdd flags to get the best performance and progress indicators is a challenge to Google every time.
Yeah but here we're interested in how easy this is for a normie on Windows.
This is the distro website. Click on Download.
Install Balena Etcher. This is the website. Now install it.
Open Balena Etcher. Follow instructions on screen. Make sure you select the corrent iso file and the correct device (your USB of choice). Wait for the magic to happen... you have a bootable USB
Did not know Balena Etcher. Looks good - 1, 2, 3, professional-looking site.
But IMO even this is too involved. After all, by comparison, installing Windows is "Step 1. It's done!"
Let's say I know nothing about, say, Ubuntu, except that a techie friend told me to "have a go, it's easy!" Well, personally I am going to want Ubuntu to do everything. I should not need to download stuff from random third-party sites that my friend never mentioned.
Basically, IMO there needs to be a FOSS clone of this Balena Etcher tool, which all the distros can rebrand and reskin as necessary. Then step 1 of "Install" is a native experience, just it is on the corporate OSes.
Maybe one of the slicker distros already does it, perhaps Pop_OS. If so, they deserve all the new users.
For Fedora, there is Fedora Media Writer. Maybe other distros can follow in its footsteps
Indeed. I just checked and IMO Fedora is doing it exactly right: a big button "Get started" with the Media Writer as step 1. Now this is Linux for dummies! Meanwhile on the supposed dummy distro Ubuntu.com, you get "Follow this tutorial" and a stodgy bunch of howtos. And Debian all but screams "go away if you're not a nerd" 😭
A long time ago, Ubuntu actually had a interesting way to install Ubuntu on your PC through Windows. It was called "Wubi" if I remember right.
It was definitely... Odd in how it worked. I believe it created a Windows virtual disk image, stored that image on your Windows filesystem, and then added an entry into the Windows Boot Loader to somehow boot into that. On first boot, it was like Windows where it asked you to create an account and then boom - all done.
And if you no longer wanted Ubuntu, you could just literally uninstall it from the Windows "Add or Remove Programs" menu and it'd remove the boot loader entry, and delete the virtual disk image.
Super super new user friendly. Unfortunately I think the reason why it was discontinued was there was an I/O performance cost from running it in a virtual image - and of course just as it sounds, it was a hacky way to do things. And of course, you couldn't get rid of Windows because Ubuntu was living inside it.
Reminds me of how nowadays I believe Asahi Linux for M1 PCs is installed from within macOS - you don't need to create a boot USB and load it at startup.
Ha! Amazing, had no idea. Maybe that explains Ubuntu's early success. But yeah, in the grand strategy, better not to settle for being a Windows .exe app
Indeed. And I think more distros, like Mint, should take this approach.
Yeah, it took me way too long to get Debian running on my pc, because for some reason the website assumed that everyone would have a Linux to install Debain with. I haven't had that, and that one tool they had didn't work.
This is exactly what I never get. Do they not know that when you buy a new computer it tends to have Windows and only Windows on it?! I can't help concluding that the people who run Debian must be bearded nerds who live in PC-filled basements and assume that all their users are the same.
@JubilantJaguar@Flemmbrav
For me, as long as the distro comes with with GUI of some sort, I am ok. The main issues with Linux installs, for me, is usually my wifi driver, but where there is a will, there is a way.
To me, the big problem is still updates breaking things.
Everybody needs to update their system from time to time, but if doing so leaves your system in an unusable (for the average person, not a linux terminal guru) state, users aren't going to stay.
I think immutable/atomic OSes like Silverblue, VanillaOS and SteamOS are heading in the right direction to solve this issue. Particularly if they allow users to easily rollback a bad update. Otherwise maybe there is some way to detect and warn about potential compatibility issues before people update.
3rd party software/hardware. Companies don't develop for Linux. And Linux developers can't reverse engineering everything.
Things break in weird ways on Linux due to dependencies. Snap/Flatpak/AppImage has yet to show if it's enough to fix the issue.
That would depend on a case by case basis. For basic use (I thought this was the point of the post) I never had anything break, software/hardware either works or doesn't (I always use the stable release of everything).
A lot of people have already talked about the onboarding/installation experience, so I'll just chime in and say a lot of new users are unfamiliar with using a terminal for commands and instead favour a GUI experience solely for their tasks. Most modern and commercially appealing distros are moving in this direction (ie applications running the same terminal commands in the background with an easy to understand UI at the front) but I'd still say the community's insistence on terminal over all other forms of executing a command may be a turn off for the layman trying it for the first time after Windows and MacOS.
Almost makes me think it would be more ideal to reduce the stigma associated with executing commands in the terminal and find some way to get people more comfortable with using it, both via Linux and also CMD for Windows as well.
I don't mind using a terminal so much, but trying to follow people's terminal instructions can be quite challenging. It seems like 90% of the time they leave out critical details because they assume you'd already know what you're doing or you get errors because they have packages installed that you don't. It reminds me of this gem from Malcolm in the Middle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0
I would agree that this is one of the biggest barriers to entry other than software compatibility.
If i was able to use ILok on linux for my music plugins and vsts, then id likely make the switch. But unfortunately ILok doesnt seem to be interested at least not since i last checked.
I agree with this more than trying to make Linux more GUI oriented overall. GUI's are great for certain interfaces like phones and tablets for obvious reasons. GUIs are also great if you don't exactly know what you're looking for and need a lengthy list of available interactive elements you would have to read and parse a lengthy man page to find in the terminal.
Honestly I think that when learning computers in early age education systems, the terminal should be taught alongside GUI applications so the general public would have an understanding that there is this very powerful tool they can use to quickly execute commands. It is a pre requisite to demystifying computers regardless of which OS you use, and it makes working with your computer a lot less of a headache when you have this bare bones tool that can assist you in finding out the answer to your problem via a verbose error output rather than a cryptic message to call your sys admin or send a notice to the OS provider that likely will not solve your problem in a timely manner.
The misconception that you need to "know linux" to use a computer with linux.
You need to "know linux" to administer linux servers, or contribute to kernel development. My wife is a retired pharmacist, and she uses exclusively a computer with Linux since around 2008. She knows that's Linux, because I told her so. If I had told her it was a different version of Windows, she'd be using it anyway - she was using win95 at work before, so any current windows would have been a big change anyway (granted, nothing like gnome, that's why I gave her kubuntu).
This misconception is fed by "experienced" Linux users who like to be seen as "hackers" just because they "know Linux".
Nobody uses the OS. You use programs that run on the OS. My wife doesn't "use Linux". She uses Chrome, the file manager (whatever that is in the ancient LTS Kubuntu release I have there and update only when LTS is over), LibreOffice Writer and Calc, a pdf reader (not adobe's, whatever was in the distro), the HP scanner app. The closest she gets to "Linux" is occasionally accepting the popup asking for updates.
Users shouldn't need to care about which OS (or which distro, for that matters) they're running their apps on. The OS (and distro) should be as unobtrusive and transparent as possible.
Distro hopping cult. It's ok to try a few distros when adopting Linux, or even flirt with new ones after you've already settled with one. Even keep doing it forever, on a secondary machine or live usbs, if you're curious.
Doing it forever, on a primary machine is stupid; NO FSCK DISTRO WILL BE PERFECT. Windows users whine and cry every time Microsoft shoves a new and worse Windows version up their SSDs, but they stick with Windows anyway.
Distro hoppers hop often because they give up at the first inconvenience. They never feel at home or make it their home, because they never actually use their computers for long enough with any distro. They are more focused on the OS than in using the computer. Nothing wrong with that, but they'll forever be "linux explorers", not actual "linux users".
There will always be some other that has that small thing that doesn't come default on this one. There will always be compromises. It's like marriage. Commit, negotiate, adapt. Settle down ffs.
The OS/distro shouldn't be important for the average user; the OS/distro shouldn't get in the way between the user and the apps, which is what the user uses.
Of course there are distros with specific usage in mind (pen test, gaming, video production, etc), as they conveniently have all main utilities packaged and integrated. But for real average user apps, the OS shouldn't matter to the end user, let alone look like the user should know what window manager or packaging system they're using.
Then when they are faced with dozens of "experts" discussing about which distro has the edge over the other, and the gory technical details of why, and comparing number of distros hopped, well, it sounds like Linux is a goal by itself, when all they wanted was to watch YouTube and access their messages and social media.
When my wife started using a Linux computer I didn't tell her which distro was there (she probably knows the name kubuntu because it shows during boot). I didn't give her a lecture about Gnome vs KDE, rpm vs deb, or the thousands of customizations she could have now. "You log in here, here's the app menu, here's chrome, this is the file manager, here's the printer app". Done, linux user since 2008.
Linux will never be mainstream while we make it look like "using Linux", or "this distro", matters, and that is an objective in itself. Most users don't care. They want to use their apps.
This. You dont have to be a linux guru if you want to use Ubuntu or Mint. I'm not generalising, but in many linux user groups, there is a lot gatekeeping taking place, even when a new user asks a genuine question and provides all the necessary information.
I saved that, because it's some of the most useful stuff I've ever found.
Linux needs developers developers developers developers developers developers developers. Notably gamedevs. And kde needs to be default. Osx is only popular in a couple countries.
Make it just run and pre install it on most computers.
With "just run" I mean things like:
Audio just working
Bluetooth just working
Bluetooth and audio working together (I still can't get this one right, after 5 evenings of trying)
WiFi supporting all the frequencies, instead of just some
remembering monitor configurations
Troubleshooting audio shouldn't mean that you almost completely kill your OS with that
You know, things like that that might cost you an evening or two or three to figure and make you feel like you're the rarest edge case alive.
On Windows, these work just fine out of the box.
I know this ain't easy to get to, but I can't recommend people to use Linux when even a phones does perfectly fine out of the box results in at least an evening of troubleshooting.
man you must be using some fucked up distro because never had those problems in the last 4 years.
That's kinda the problem here. I've heard people say how complex and difficult Android is so they have to use iOS.
People have personal experiences and beliefs that differ and there's no way to fix them other than to dive into it and they don't want to dive into it. Unless they are highly motivated to change they will likely just stay where they're comfortable.
It's like trying to logically and reasonably explain why being vegan is morally right to someone who absolutely refuses to read the labels on the stuff they buy. They're not going to want to go into the BIOS to fix a boot order to boot to a flash drive let alone learn a new UI. Hell, most people didn't even want to move off Windows XP, 7, now 10 till they are absolutely forced to.
It was never about what problems you have had it is about the problems they have had. Most of the time MacOS/Windows are good enough for most users.
Ubuntu 22.04 (granted it was upgraded a few times, but origianlly a 20.10 box), even with bredr set int he conf, wouldnt work with Airpods...
pop_os does, but since its a dual boot, i have to re-pair them if i use it in another OS, since they share the bluetooth adapater.
this also wont apply to pre-login stuff. You would need to copy that over to a different file there.
this also wouldnt work if you had say....3 monitors and wanted to use 2 configs. In windows you can do that with super+P and swap between extend and only external etc.
My pop_os install wont recognize my logitech 720p USB camera thats like. Its a brand new install of 22.04.
Teams, even in the PWA, and other apps often dont respect the system defaults for sound/mic inputs. Especially if you have a few, which all laptops do since theres always shitty onboard speakers and mics.
There are all experiences of mine from this calendar year. I can work around them mostly. But my wife or others....no way. They would just chuck the PC at me and say "fix it". These are all also things that work OOB on windows or MacOS.
A fellow laptop user :-)
For the monitor setups I use batch files with xrandr settings. I could imagine there being a way to get them to run via hotkeys...
But yes, the whole thing summs up with "I may use it for myself, but I just can't recommend the whole package without providing tech support for it".
Yeah I use Debian. (At least once a while when I decide to give it yet another shot...)
Edit: in case you are interested, I can give some extra details on that list, and how I fixed them or not.
But all these fixes ain't a thing I'd expect the median user to be able to figure.
Out of curiosity, how long ago did these problems happen? I've been using Mint and Xubuntu for a while now, but had to use a few different troubleshooting distros to fix a Windows boot issue, and none of these came up. As these are Debian based distros, I'd expect the same problems to filter down.
The only thing I've had issues with lately is setting up a USB wifi adapter on a Raspberry Pi, but I'd expect some problems with that.
Around a year ago I fixed the bigger issues, but I started with Linux around 5 years ago.
The WiFi issue has been around a month ago, but didn't do a lot of troubleshooting outside of rebooting and browsing all wicd settings because well I was offline because of it. Didn't visit that place again and at home there's wifi on all bands as well as ethernet almost everywhere, so the issue doesn't hurt me that much.
Booted into it today to see if things are better, ran the update/upgrade/reboot after and:
Bluetooth seems to be better! It now connects to my headphones even when paired before. But now I fails a2dp even after forget/re-pair.
I had to start the system a couple of times before it actually did start, there's been some issues finding thermal data of the cpu during startup.
I'll play around with it a bit these days, but sadly it did not magically just work.
Why would you expect issues with an external WiFi adapter for the RasPi?
I wonder if it was an edge case that the Linux driver didn't account for, like a minor incompatibility between the two devices.
You've just reminded me that I had a Bluetooth problem with my laptop a few years ago. My headset would connect and work properly, but wouldn't be recognised after the laptop had either been to sleep or shut down. I had to go through the bluetooth device folder, something like /dev/bluetooth/, find the folder that corresponded with the headset's address, and delete the cache folder inside. It would then work until the next sleep / shut down.
I expected problems with the Pi because USB wifi has always seemed to be a bit dodgy, even on Windows, and wifi is apparently still a problem area with Linux. Add to that the Pi's limited distro, and I thought it was bound to go wrong.
I just had the opposite problem, tried to re-image a brand new laptop with windows 10, keyboard and mouse dont work in setup. Works in the bios, works in linux, doesn't work in windows until it can hit windows update. Honestly in recent years stuff in linux just works.
When you have a problem the solution is fragmented between distros, configuration, opinions, and time as solutions constantly change and they all have subtly repercussions. It becomes very overwhelming to figure out a solution and pick the right one.
I recently changed and could only do it because of ChatGPT.
There are a lot of things that work different in Linux, like package managers, the file system in general, the focus on terminal, stuff that works different with different distros.
For almost all questions, ChatGPT helped me within seconds. This is even more true, when I kinda don't know, what my question actually is. Then it helps to give me some good buzzwords to Google for.
If I would have done this with just reddit and forums and stack or something, I'd get so much non-helping, gatekeeping, belittling answers - if any.
It's incredibly powerful when used like this. The real time nature of it is super nice.
If you have a quick question, you almost can't beat it.
Another thing it is great for us explaining what commands do. So if you are following a tutorial or blog and want to double check that a command is safe, it's great at that.
One thing I always talk about is how DE is much more important for new user than a distro. New users will only use GUI anyway so their choice of DE has to be the most comfortable.
Took me years personally to switch to Linux, trying stuff like Ubuntu or PopOS, and I couldn't understand why it doesn't "click" for me until I understood that I simply personally dislike Gnome (being an ex Windows user). Tried a KDE distro and it clicked immediately, never looked back. Now I don't even use KDE but it helped me to get through initial frustration period.
This is very true.
It breaks. And I cant imagine anyone who wants to spend time fixing it, much less how long it would take tech illiterate people. Cant explain how many times ive gotten some random error downloding a package, and even ill have a hard time finding what tf the cryptic error message means
That and permissions, though they could be lumped into the first point
I remember recently there was something where a fairly low level system dependency was having trouble installing during a system upgrade, but only until partway through the install. It caused chaos on my system that took a good week to resolve. I can't imagine that 99% of people have the skill or patience to go through that process.
That said, that particular problem may be solved by the new generation of distros that allow for rollback of system changes.
Do you think just restarting with no information would be better? I could understand that cryptic error Message could scare some people, so do you think a "blue screen" and restart would be better for the average person?
If the device can self repair behind the scenes, 100% most users couldnt care less about an error message or having to reboot, as long as not too often and requiring too much input. I can see why linux is excellent for servers requiring little to no downtime though
Follow Steam's example and make a cohesive operating system with good default apps so the user experience streamlined.
Makes one wonder how many use their Steam Deck and know it runs linux by default
Last time I was hired as a code monkey we used Linux with a dual-monitor setup. The setting would not, under any circumstances, see one of those 1080p monitors as anything more than 480p.
I spent literally half the first day of work looking for solutions, and eventually settled on running some random command i don't understand copied from the internet running on startup.
I had a lot of troubles running dual monitors, too. Thankfully its been sorted out by switching to wayland and updates over time.
You'd think Linux, of all the OS's, would have the best support for such things.
If it helps, Mint seems to have this sorted. I was using a 1080 screen and a 2k screen. Now I've got two 2k screens (1440 x something?). Mint detected both configurations correctly and set them up for me. The only thing I had to do was tell it which monitor was the primary, and that was only because I prefer my primary screen to be on the right.
I had the 1080 screen set up in portrait mode for a while too, and Mint had no problem with it 👍
That's really interesting - and I see others are saying the same thing. I have never had this issue, and I've been using dual-monitor setups on Linux for years. I've never had an issue getting any monitor working correctly with Linux (and I've been using Linux practically full time at home since the late 90s). I wonder what's going on for your issue.
Linux needs more apps that GUI friendly and easy to use, better support for hardware and upgrades that doesn't break easily. Should come pre-installed with PC. Most people don't bother or know how to change OS.
The odd thing about this is that because Linux generally doesn't come preinstalled (though some sellers do have it), I've found the Linux installation process is usually smoother and easier than installing Windows.
I realize it's extra work, though, which is a barrier for some. Worrying about screwing up their new computer and voiding the warranty is certainly a deterrent.
One funny thing about it is that I bought a pc with linux preinstalled, but reinstalled it anyway, because I don't trust an installation from the oem.
It made me wonder how, in the windows world, we simply trust the manufacturer with that.
Having worked with preinstalling Windows with a major pc manufacturer, I will say that it is already such a freaking effort that nobody would want to do even more effort to install malware on top.
Notwithstanding so called partner apps... If there's anything in those, I can't say.
The main issue is that easy problems that should be solved baseline by the OS crop up far too often for the average user to want to have to deal with day to day. Also, whenever you go to ask on a forum, you're usually told to just do something entirely different or use another distro. Every time I go to fix something on this machine it sends me down a rabbit hole of shit I don't care about because it doesn't solve my problem since it introduces a brand new one to solve. If I want to use solution X don't tell me to go install program Y that's your favorite program to use but is literally not what I'm trying to accomplish.
Today I installed Manjaro onto an old laptop and for the life of me I could not figure out why it wasn't connecting to the internet. It wasn't a network issue, it was the fact that the time was out of sync. It took me a while to realize that was the issue and not that I had fucked up my router config or something. It just couldn't validate any cryptography because the time was off. There were like four different solutions that all attempted the same fix and eventually I was able to connect with ethernet and restart timesync, which only worked after a restart.
Preinstall it on cheap laptops.
It's that simple hard.
This is harder than it first appears. Microsoft actually subsidizes vendors for selling machines with Windows installed. So these cheap laptops would actually be a bit more expensive without the Windows installation.
That's why I crossed out the "simple" 😉
This was sort of a thing in the brief netbook flowering
It didn’t work
But it could do. I bought a mainstream laptop from a European big-box retailer 17 years ago which came without Windows installed and nothing but a Knoppix CD. It all worked great out of the box. It would work greater still today.
The corporate monopoly in OS software is just as outrageous as the one in browser software. It's time for Brussels to step in.
Linux should be teach at school instead of windows. Most people assume Linux is harder only because they are not used to it. Once you get accustomed you realize that it's even easier, for example in popular distros with package manager opening a terminal and write a 3 words command followed by the name of software, as hard as it may sound, it's much easier and fast than using google to download shady .exe files that needs to be installed manually.
Also people really needs to stop being lazy. You don't jump into a car and drive it if you don't know how to do it. If you are not down to spend 2 hours of your life learning how to use a machine you use daily you really should change mindset.
The fact that we use private software for public schools is something I will never understand.
Linux is the coolest fucking OS, hands down... If you're a computer nerd. Otherwise it's inconvenient at the best of times. Many users click around in their OS of choice without fully understanding what they're doing, myself included. Try this in Linux and you're in for a really bad time.
Reminds me of a saying I first heard 20+ years ago:
"Unix is user friendly, it's just selective who it's friends are"
I recently gave up on daily driving Pop OS. About 6 months ago I got a new laptop with Windows 11, which for various reasons I am not a fan of. I decided it would be a good time to try an experiment and install Linux. The biggest issue right off the bat was lack of hardware support, the fingerprint reader and the speaker amp are not supported. I spent a bunch of time researching and seeing if I could make them work but apparently it has to do with the kernel and isn't really something I can fix. This didn't seem like a big deal at first because I can get sound out of the headphone jack or via bluetooth, and while it was convenient to login via a fingerprint reader, it wasn't something I really felt like I needed. Since then I've become much more reliant on biometric authentication, it's just so much more convenient to be able to auth bitwarden with my finger instead of having to type in a password. More recently, I started using Proton VPN and the client is pretty crap in Linux. Switching over to Windows 11, I can login with my finger, all of my passwords are a finger print away, Proton VPN works natively with wireguard and is generally much more reliable and easier to use. It's just a much better user experience, there's nothing weird and janky to deal with, I don't need to mess about in the command line to do basic things. I really loved Pop, and I'm sure I'll boot back into it, but I'm daily driving Windows 11 until I can sort out the hardware issues and get Proton VPN working better, and I think both of those issues are out of my hands so all I can do is wait.
Bugs. People that are into linux have enough compium and often the expertise to fix broken stuff that otherwise would work on windows.
Your average user will quit after too many things don't work out of the box.
@Maticzpl Tbf my Windows OS makes me perform a bizarre ritual to just get my headphones to connect each time. Windows has as many bugs as Ubuntu at least.
I also have known people that were non technical that had way worse a time getting drivers to work on Windows than on Linux.
Real issue is software support. A lot of the big closed source stuff only wants to run on Windows whereas most open source stuff is fine working on everything.
Probably just hardware compatibility and me specifically NVIDIA x) once you get the kinks sorted out it's a pretty stable experience
I think that is not a question Linux users can answer. I feel so out of touch with what the average joe needs and wants in an OS. Ask them.
The second that you have to google the more basic things...you have lost the audience
I'm currently trying to run a Sven Co-op server under Ubuntu Server. This has been a five hour chore of trial and error, dealing with library incompatibility, architecture incompatibility, poor documentation and Stack Overflow messes.
Im currently using about twenty tabs of documentation and support requests. At this exact moment, I'm trying to compile a 32 bit version of libssl 1.1.1, at which point I will be able to test again. If it doesn't work this time, I absolutely do not have time to continue trying.
So what's the challenge here? Nothing is simple and nothing is well explained. This is a three-step process on Windows that just works. On Ubuntu, the first step requires you to add a new apt repo and install support libraries, and beyond that, you're on your own to figure out the compat issues further down the line.
Edit: Can't make it work, it's just one thing after another. I'm just gonna do a fresh install of the whole OS, considering how much bs I installed chasing these issues, and then, idk, just not play a game with my brother I guess.
I don't know how much time you have left, but if it's a dedicated server machine/system (I assume it is since it's running Ubuntu Server) you could look into installing Pterodactyl which is a game server panel + daemon which can take care of setting up and running game servers for you. It uses Docker under the hood which helps solve issues like this.
I see there is an egg for this game that someone has made for Pterodactyl (eggs are just basically instructions for Pterodactyl on how to create a game server) that you could import, and then just practically hit create. This particular one uses Ubuntu 16.04 as a container image, which would make sense if that game needs libssl 1.1.1
Could definitely be worth a shot, especially if you're planning on running other game servers down the line - that repo I linked to has a ton of game server configuration ("eggs") on it. Hell it even has some eggs for non-game servers, like if you wanted a Mumble/TeamSpeak server.
I'll be sure to give that a try. While I was vomiting from frustration about this last night, I came across a Docker image I was going to give a shot.
I personally dont understand why mass adoption is a goal.
The "challenge" to bring users to Linux is simply making them want to use Linux. There are enough flavours and guides ranging from plug and play that anyone can use to build your own kernel and distro from scratch that anyone can find what they want in Linux... if they want it.
The truth is that for a not insignificant portion of computer users, the OS is a means to an end not a feature. Its "the computer". A laptop that comes with windows 11 is a windows 11 machine.
If you want the average user to move to Linux, create an desktop environment with the option to look and behave like either windows or Mac, have a software compatibility layer for both that can run at the same time, buy a hardware company and include the distro as default and sell it to the masses at a loss to undercut all other options. Flood all consumer electronics stores with them.
Outside that, its not going to happen and I dont know why people want to make a competition out of it. Linux doesnt suit everyone and it doesnt have to. We see less GUIs as a good thing, id rather dev time from the solo/small dev teams go towards the functionality not making it look pretty. The majority of computer users dont agree with that though, and thats fine. I like being able to add/remove from my OS, most don't and thats fine too. I like rolling updates, the uproar around windows updates with thousands of youtube videos dedicated to people stopping them indefinitely indicates many others dont.
Our semi annual O365 update is currently rolling out at work, and people are freaking out that one of their outlook toolbars moved. Never mind its a 4 second fix to move it back, but can you imagine these people seeking out/installing/configuring/using a new desktop environment?
Its not an elitist thing. Id love more of my friends to use linux, but I cant make them want to use something. It either appeals to them or it doesnt. For most the appeal of a computer is the software it runs, and the OS is just a means for that.
I personally dont understand why mass adoption is a goal.
Oh this one is easy. The higher market share the better software support they get.
And as a secondary bonus, the more people use it the more people contribute to it and make it even better. But mostly this one is just an extension of the first point.
I utterly agree. I don't get this push to have everyone on Linux. Once you get the majority of users on Linux, the enshittification will begin.
I'd say its probably, among other thigs, hardware compatibility issues.
Running Linux on a mashine, most notably portable, that is somewhat recent and is not specifically built with linux in mind is, imo, almost certainly going to cause some, for the average user unfixable, issues. Things like wifi, bluetooth, audio, etc. not working due to missing or broken drivers.
The best way to fix that would be official Linux support by the OEMs, which realistically is never going to happen. Or extremely time consuming reverse-engineered community drivers.
That's a wrong take. The issue is when you install Linux. Once installed and running, it works fine.
And users don't install computers. So it's not their problem. You merely need to not break you distro once it's working. And if it's not arch Linux it's been a long time since I read it can break on an update.
Intimidating to install and then an unfamiliar interface and applications.
It might be more accepted if it came preinstalled and simply had a browser like Chrome and an app store, where all the other 'helpful' but confusing apps like Libre office were kept out of the way.
I install it for my family and it would only be accepted if it looked and worked just like Windows or MacOS. All they really need is a browser to get to GSuite or Office365.
I'm a new user. How do I disable being prompted for a password every time I want change/install anything? I just want password requirement at logon and not when logged on.
Why would you want to disable that? It's there for a very, VERY good security reason.
User Account Control on Windows was no different, other than being a few decades late to the party.
Kind of, but to be fair UAC doesn't prompt you for the account password unless you're not an Administrator on the PC (in which case you have to enter the password of someone who is). If you're on a single user PC, you'll be an admin and it'll only be a "Yes / No" prompt.
Now macOS on the other hand does require the password, unless you have an Apple Watch (if I heard correctly) in which you can confirm it by pressing a button on it. Or, using the fingerprint reader on the Macs with a TouchID sensor.
It depends on your distro but there is a NOPASSWORD option in some that you can add to a sudoers file. Without knowing your system its probably best to use your search engine of choice to look for answers to that but be warned that it is a security risk.
Can you tell what distro you are using?
Mint Cinnamon
The program that asks for password graphically is polkit. As far as I've searched online it only supports bypassing password prompts if you're admin on the system. It does not have a password less prompt like in Windows. I'm using this and this as source in case you want to disable it all together. I'm not a mint user my self so I cannot validate this without spinning up virtual machine. I would recommend the community just look at whatever I wrote for 24h and mention some issues that might occur. I'll update it if someone points out any issues.
Open any terminal (sorry) and copy one line at a time into the terminal and hit enter. After the first line you'll be asked to enter the password. For the consecutive commands password will not be asked. On the last command you'll open a graphical text editor and make sure certain text is present.
sudo su
mkdir -p /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/
cd /etc/polkit-1/rules.d/
touch 49-nopasswd_global.rules
xdg-open 49-nopasswd_global.rules
You should now see a text editor appear with a file opened. Copy this and paste it in the file at the bottom. Then save, close and reboot.
/*
* https://lemmy.world/comment/1396602
* Allow members of the wheel group to execute any actions
* without password authentication, similar to "sudo NOPASSWD:"
*/
polkit.addRule(function(action, subject) {
if (subject.isInGroup("wheel")) {
return polkit.Result.YES;
}
});
This is a security risk as you might understand, but it's your computer and you can do whatever you want. If you have any issues just post them here and maybe we'll figure something out.
Thank you, will try that!
You will want to modify the sudoers file. In a terminal sudo nano /etc/sudoers. You will want to go down to the line %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL and comment it out by adding # in front of it. A few lines down should be a similar line # %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL. You will want to uncomment this by deleting the # at the beginning of the line. With nano, you can save by hitting ctrl+O then hitting ENTER to confirm. Hit ctrl+X to exit nano.
Thanks, I tried that before and I think it only worked until I re-logged (?). I'll try that again, this time will use something else than vi editor to be sure.
vi is definitely different being a modal editor. If you are new to Linux, I would suggest nano. It is much easier to understand, even if it isnt as fast as vi can be. Many distros have it installed, and pretty much all of them should have it in their repos.
The biggest issue ive had (ive only used ubuntu) is the file management. Disks and file system is a bit different from boyh mac and windows, and i had a hard yime figuring out where and how, etc.
I couldnt figure out how to get my home network to work (so my windows pc could grab files off the linux pc) and such.
I had no issues setting that up, between my mac/windows pcs
I do plan on installing linux for my sons pc which he will then be forced to learn to some degree.
Your issue is probably with Gnome. It's file manager is shit and the mechanisms for sharing files aren't obvious.
I think you just made another point why Linux is difficult to adopt to for non-tech people. It takes a level of understanding about how computers work in general, and operating systems specifically, that that majority of people just do not care to have. It’s not that people are too stupid or anything like that. It’s just that the majority of people absolutely do not care what a Desktop Manager is, or why and how it’s different from the OS itself.
Well… people like you and me care because we think it’s interesting. We are the exception. The very thing we love most about Linux is the thing that stops it from general acceptance. It’s too flexible to “Just Work”.
For file sharing over a network between Linux and Windows, the keywords are "samba" and "cifs". In my experience, that's variable levels of pain in the ass to set up, but does work once you've got it configured. (Sometimes it's easier to run an sftp server or similar on the Linux machine.)
But yeah, nontrivial.
The number one issue for me was games.
Like seriously, why do most developers not give a damn about their Linux playerbase?
With proton now it is easier than ever! Right in steam. Lutris is awesome for almost all the others.
I saw this in a YouTube video about some indie video game. They had a native linux port. The userbase was like 99% windows and 1% linux, but 99% of the crash reports were from linux users.
This and the "problems" with adding anti cheat software that works with linux is just too much for most to bother.
Might be because the average Linux user is way more aware of how useful a crash report can be and therefore actually submitted them.
At least most Linux users I know actually read error/ crash messages and not just call someone saying there was some pop-up, I just clicked ok and the game was gone.
Most likely this will become less of an issue over the comming years due to the popularity of handheld Linux based devices such as the steam deck.
Also thanks to Wine/Proton. You have to give it to Valve : overall it works surprisingly well.
It does. I am disappointed in the game studios who refuse to allow Linux players, though, such as Bungie. I'm certain that Destiny would be playable if not for their obstinacy.
Off the top of my head things that Ive run into over the years that would have caused 99% of computer users to throw Linux in the bin:
*Having to edit xorg.conf to set the graphics driver
*A typo in the sources list that prevented any packages from downloading (distro upgrade)
*A bug in systemd that resulted in the OS not booting (fresh install)
*The wrong graphics card driver being selected and not being installed correctly because Ubuntu kept back 5 packages necessary for it to function (fresh install)
*A bug in how Ubuntu handles the disk platter that causes hard drives to fail far more rapidly than they should (that bug has been there for years and probably ruined a few hard drives)
*Having to recompile the wifi driver after every upgrade (broadcomm chipset) before the driver was included in the kernel and having to reinstall the OS after the driver was included in the kernel because something went wrong during the upgrade. ie recompiling didnt fix anything and the native driver wasnt working either.
*failed drive encryption
*grub being installed incorrectly (no boot)
*dealing with UEFI to maintain a dual boot for programs that cannot be emulated or virtualized effectively (lag sensitive non-native games)
*Audio output defaults being incorrect (no sound, no mic)
But the one thing that above all else, will drive newbies away is how the general linux community tends to respond to things.
Ok, so I have an ASUS Zephyrus M16 with a Core i19 12th Gen and an rtx 3070. I was able to install fedora and able to get it mostly 100% working, but my two biggest issues where I could not play Destiny 2 (because they didn't want to support Linux and actually would ban players who tried), and the switch between egpu and the discrete gpu that you have to reboot for the changes to take effect. Every once in a while the display wouldn't work and I had to reboot multiple times before it would start to work again because of the aforementioned issues with the gpu. All in all I love Linux but I can't spend any time troubleshooting and just need a laptop that just works.
Have you set it up per https://asus-linux.org? These guys do amazing work to make ASUS laptops feel like first class citizens on Linux in both kernel patches and software. Strongly recommend, only takes a few minutes on Fedora if you're already installed and up to date. You should be able to get working Optimus and less GPU issues.
Can't help ya with Destiny though, they're just jerks.
Thanks for the info but yeah that's the guide I followed and even they mention driver caveats
it need to work like how your microwave works. You don't don't have to know ANYTHING about how any thing related to computer. Just click stuff to make it work. Also get more companies to ship things with Linux
How to make Linux better:
Better quality control eg. no more issues like Ubuntu shipping a broken version of systemd that wont allow the system to boot.
Prioritize performance over FOSS purity in newbie friendly distros. A graphics card driver that gets 1/30th the FPS should not be the default for a 1,000 dollar graphics card. Anyone that wants the FOSS driver can install it if they want.
Avoid homogenization of software features.
i.e. better support of the feature outliers. eg. KDE does not have an option to adjust contrast of scrollbars without a theme that specifically has that contrast. This makes it harder for the vision impaired like myself to use software.
Exiting Vi/Vim 😂
IMO one of the main problems is eliminating the workflow of older commercial operating systems and having to build a new habit of using a new system.
There are various Linux-based distributions that manage to give the user everything they need without having to resort to using the specific terminal.
Creating a new habit after spending years developing one for an old system, for me, is the main problem that leads many users to leave it.
Nvidia. Within two weeks, their shitty drivers broke my system twice. If I didn't already know about that beforehand, I would've probably quit linux for good after that experience.
Out of curiosity, did you download the nvidia drivers with the distro's package manager or did you go to nvidia's website and do there installer thing? When I had an nvidia card I had plenty of problems over the years but I specifically remember that using the installer from nvidia's site caused all kinds of hell to break loose haha
Funding. Nobody has figured out how to fund development for large open source OSes outside of the enterprise realm. You crack that, you can have linux be installed by default on Desktop/Laptop computers, and patches that come as a result of that funding benefit the rest of the ecosystem as well. People will use the default, they will complain about it, just like they complain about Windows Update randomly restarting their computer, but they'll use it.
But also the share of people who own laptops or desktops continues to dwindle. Many people don't have and see no need for a computer. So they run Android, which is Linux, so I guess we're winning there?
I mean... Is Linux even a challenge to anyone that just needs basic stuff? (Ubuntu, fedora, etc)
I only have trouble trying to install shit that's not in repos.
Keeping the discussion of running Windows applications through Wine/Proton aside; there are a lot of little things which happen to annoy me while I am using my PopOS install for example the most recent one is my headphones don't play any sound from the left year, it works properly on my other devices...
I'm willing to make it work, but most general users wouldn't be. This statement continues to be true even after the huge amounts of progress Linux community has made to make a better experience.
The absolutely never ending jank.
My latest grippe, Ubuntu 22.04 . Remote desktop needs password reset after every reboot, no idea why, grdctl set password doesn't help, only doing it in the Ubuntu settings UI works.
Never ending stream of tiny annoyances like that
The average user doesn't give a shit about what OS they're running. They also don't know what tools they need. I remember a client who dropped $700 on Photoshop because "How else can I resize my photos?"
Linux is to hard for someone who doesn't know why it's bad to install multiple antivirus suites. People who don't know the difference between a web browser and a search engine.
Linux will only ever be for hobbyist because they the only ones who give a damn.
commercial, immutable distro with professional support team.
Easy desktop env. like cinnamon, budgie or kde
Preinstalled on new devices
Lack of backwards compatibility for older versions of software/games requiring older libs. All I see it lots of pointing back and forwards but it doesn't get solved.
Lack of legacy drivers for graphics cards. I want to run a new distribution on my old hardware, using graphics acceleration and no screen-tearing. Is that too much to ask?
If a program is executed through a wm, have it submit errors to the wm as well so I can see why it's not running, instead of seeing a loading cursor for 2 seconds and then nothing.
I want to be able to do 99-100% of what I want to do using a GUI. Even installing drivers and changing settings. I don't want to have to change things in a text editor just so I can have a simple shortcut on the desktop. I've learned how to do it and I can do it in my dreams now, but that doesn't mean I like doing it.
I’m an artist who is never switching to linux unless they fix my major gripes (which seem like it’ll never happen just looking at the answers here lol).
Allergic to GUIs
Devs and most Linux users act allergic to having intuitive GUIs. It’s already a pain to use a lot of small programs that don’t have them on windows. I’m familiar enough with using terminals for stuff but I am so incredibly disinterested in using it All The Time or even often.
Not having easy to access and understand toggles/settings are actually a friction point for most users—I think people who are tech inclined seriously need to remember and understand this. Needing to dig for a command to do simple things IS the OS getting in the way in my experience. I’ve seen screenshots of elementaryOS which seems to get this but my next issue is:
Software and hardware compatibility
A lot of things I use for work like CSP, Adobe suite, Live2d, etc aren’t natively supported. I also don’t want to be risking encountering possible bugs or errors trying to get it to run them. Not all my games are from steam either, and I don’t know if those would run. There’s simply too many things I use daily that don’t have native support.
I also keep hearing about AMD driver issues which is no good for my pc.
Overall, as much as I hate windows and microsoft, it’s easier to put up and debloat the garbage that comes up over dealing with the issues above. Because when it works, It Actually Just Works. There’s more google-able tech support answers for it too instead of me needing to ask for help every time I encounter something.
Things that are easy to do does add up eventually, which again, is why needing to use the terminal often is not at all an ideal average user experience especially if this could be cut down with some mouse clicks. I think distros could address this if the devs actually care about the non-tech nerd user experience, but I don’t know if the software support/compatibility will ever be fully dealt with.
edited to fix formatting
I also keep hearing about AMD driver issues
I'm pretty sure it's a tale from the older times
ie: "I haven't used Linux in 10 years but feel qualified to pipe up about why it's shit."
Agree with pretty much everything. If I have to fight just to do basic shit why should I bother with it? My tools of the trade don't work on it, a lot of my games don't work on it, and my computer itself might not work on it (also AMD here). There's no value to using it. Just a lot of headaches.
That's exactly how I feel on Windows. I have to fight with stupid unintuitive guis and when you google for help, the solutions don't work because Microsoft changed something in some version, switched something around without any logic
Googling never works for me on windows, I just get redirected to their stupid forums with generic "update your pc" shit, problem solves itself after sometime somehow and I never know what the fuck happened in between. Windows to me is a magical box that sometimes breaks and fixes itself. Wasting my time in the process.
I work with programming so my experience of linux is obviously a bit different than an artist trying out linux for the first time. What are things you remember having to use the command line for? Installing packages is the most obvious one but there are graphical front ends for many package manager. Editing config files maybe? I wonder if part of the problem is that most tutorials when you google explain how to do things on the command line rather than how to do it through a gui.
I agree that part of the problem is the tutorials and average linux video shows mostly terminal usage. I’m aware of distros that do have GUI front ends like elementaryOS as mentioned, but again I am not going to install linux due to my program requirements for work not having official support. I try to keep up with some linux OS vids/posts because I think the development is interesting to see, but in the end it really is not built with the “average user” in mind no matter how many people keep saying it is lol.
I use programs in windows with only terminal support and config/json files I have to edit myself but it does remind me how much more convenient a GUI is. But devs and other tech people don’t find it worth the dev time to implement. That’s fine but it’s weird to expect widespread use when convenience is considered a waste. Sorry if I keep repeating myself but that’s genuinely a big point in the matter haha
I am not going to install linux due to my program requirements for work not having official support
Fair!
That’s fine but it’s weird to expect widespread use when convenience is considered a waste
I don't think it's just about saving dev time (though that is also a big part of it) but also that many people, such as myself as well as most people who make open source programs, genuinely think that the terminal is more convenient than a gui. This is a niche position though and as you say an obstacle to mainstream use.
I do wonder how far away we are from a linux for casual use that you can use without the terminal, since there are already a couple of gui tools for common tasks. In my mind, the average casual user mostly uses maybe their browser, spotify, office products, steam (which may require installing a different graphic card driver, which isn't very user friendly), some messaging platform and photoshop or something. Honestly this shouldn't be that hard to do with just gui tools, modulo the graphic card drivers. Comparability with various programs is a problem though, you might have to settle for libre office and gimp instead of ms office and photoshop for example.
Creating a GUI for changing a few lines of text in a file feels like a lot of extra work for no benefit for most developers.
Yeah and that’s exactly why it’s not going to be an OS with a wide ‘average windows user’ base.
The main challenge is resisting the urge to install Linux on your own. Because you will need help at some point, so start now by asking for help.
And then, when you don't find the solution by yourself don't waste time and ask for help.
In time you will get it enough to know what you're doing.
The challenge is also to find these people that can help you out.
Yes that can be difficult some time.
But it's really mandatory to anyone wanting to use GNU/Linus.
Fragmentation, there is so many WM, DE, Distros, package managers. This is the beauty of open source but it is also the plague.
Toxic communities, where people are thrashing you if you don't understand sometimes the overly complicated wiki and you dare open a thread in one of the forums to seek for help.
Driver support, sometimes installing your OS requires a lot of manual configuration to make everything work ok your machine the way you want it.
Honestly I think Linux has been on a great path with flatpak and appimages and graphical software centers. With BTRFS Snapper system recovery if an update goes wrong is even easier than the windows version to be honest. Honestly the big push now just needs to come from some corporate and also adoption at the early education level. One reason its so hard for people to switch from windows is because most windows users have at this point used windows and nothing else for 20+ years.for those of the millennial generation and gen z they've been trained to use windows literally since childhood. Linux and open source tech being free and open source would make it a great cost savings move forpublicc education institutions and getting newer generations of young people not straight indoctrinated into using exclusively windows is important.
But to do this IT departments need to have corporate fallback for support. We need companies like suse enterprise or redhat etc to do the corporate level support to even think about an endeavor like that.
Unwarranted fear.
There is a perception of Linux as this hacker, terminal-only OS with a million equal choices and no direction or guides. This is not a true view or at least this is hyperbolic/based on Linux from 15 years ago. It is a stigma that Linux has. Every distro these days has to market itself as "We're the out-of-the-box distro" which is just silly. Out-of-the-box is meaningless. Even Windows users modify their OS in certain ways. However, it breaks the stigma.
Linux adoption just needs more time. Most of the big issues for adoption have been solved in the past few years, and Linux is ready and knowledge of Linux and removal of the stigma is growing.
Fear of terminal
Getting some specific thing to work
I come from a Windows and Mac environment and I now happily use Linux Mint. It has a similar aesthetic and is really easy to use. I think not recommending newbies Arch would be a good start.
I agree. Zorin OS is another good option, if people accept the fact that new users don't care about snaps vs flatpaks. And Zorin OS Pro helps the distro maintainers put food on the table.
BTW, its been too long of a wait for Zorin Grid
It's still software support. Yes, there are many great alternatives, but not being able to use apps like everyone and not being aplble to keep the apps you have is just too complicated for many
Understanding what different distros offer and being able to make a educated decision about it. I looked around for a week or so until I found a arch distro that worked, took away the manual installation process as a complete noob, and wasn't all red flags straight away (the example is that a lot of ppl advised against manjaro). I ended up with garuda (which some ppl aren't a fan of because of chaotic-aur, but we have to start somewhere, haven't we) atm which works fine until I am confident enough to do a complete base arch installation the next time.
For me it's always been partly about ease of use, but the biggest thing is a superficial one. I just really enjoy a beautiful UI and slick UX. In these categories Windows is deep in the trash, but the bar for me is MacOS. An OS needs to make what I'm using it for easier and nicer, not have me spending time just making it work.
I haven't dipped my toe into the distro test pool in a few years, but every time I do I find myself spending more time sorting out the OS than just using it, and we'll, they just haven't been pretty to look at.
I think that's what it comes down to, distros can be decently developed but are often severely lacking in the design department.
I'd definitely love to know if any distros out there for that sort of vibe!
The installation process and the fear of frying your computer can actually be a no-no for some users. (Not that it actually happened or can happen but some people are just really scared of doing this type of thing)
Like the Linux experiment said : we need to have more accessible Linux hardware like we have Windows Laptops and desktops.
has there been a case of linux actually frying a PC in the past 20 years?
No fortunately lol.
Fortunately we have some and are getting more options with the framework laptops, and there are some other hardware manufacturers who have Linux compatibility as a priority
The last time I tried to make a USB dual-boot Linux on a laptop I ended up breaking the laptop. It would turn on but show nothing but a black screen. Makes me really hesitant to try again on an old laptop that I would still like to be able to use if I fuck it up.
How about not just dumping the user to a weird terminal prompt at startup because it thinks the file system needs a check?
They shouldn't have to google what to do next.
Whenever I try to go full Linux, 80% of the time I revert back to Windows due to lack of compatibility with games. The other 20% Is due to something breaking or being a pain in the ass to get working. Need to install a program? Here is a .deb file that you have to right click, allow execution. Then you go to execute it and it opens in a text document that has a run button that ends up taking 2 hours to load and ends up failing. Turns out you could go to terminal, CD to the file location and it seems to install.
But wait! 10 dependencies are missing.
Need to install a program? Here is a .deb file that you have to right click, allow execution.
Don't do this if you can avoid it. If you want to install something use the application store installed on your distro. This way the dependencies will be handled. Installing using a Deb file should be the last option or second last option
Hey thanks for this tip!
After being on Lemmy for the last month, it has really driven me to try out Linux again. I've spun up unbuntu (Desktop) on my home server and currently utilizing it as my docker host.
My server is a bare-metal host with ESXi so I'm interacting with it via the VMRC Client. This works great for doing what I am doing but the latency is a bit to much for using it for my day to day workload. if I could get a proper remote console setup using some native built in protocol that has low latency. I'd be happy to use it for my day to day operation on top of my Windows OS..any suggestions?
Use screen sharing in gnome and RDP.
Silly me. I didn't realize there was a prebaked setting already in Ubuntu.. I'll give this a shot! Thank you!
Or just AUR.
Too much choice:
100 distros x 100 DEs x wayland vs x11 x 20 login managers x wayland vs x11 x ....
Being called out as autistic
Many comments here largely underestimate an average non linux user.
Maybe it needs a rebranding. If people have heard of linux, they think it's for devs, IT nerds, too complicated, etc. Most of the people just have never heard of linux because they don't look out for it. Most people don't know what FOSS is, etc. People just don't know that their OS is spying on them.
Chromeos is linux, it's in every store. Linux made it. Gnu didn't.
#1 is just not being the default for 99% of devices. If someone gets a new computer, why would they go through the effort of installing a new os when the one it comes with works fine? Hell, I bet at least 50% of people in the market for a pc don't even know what an OS is.
Agreed. Android and chrome os are used happily by 10s of millions without any idea it's a Linux distro
I bet if small, cheap netbooks came out running mint or fedora or something people wouldn't even or know or care that it was Linux.
In middle school I had a USB drive with Linux Mint installed on it which I was using on school PCs. We only used those PCs for internet browsing and office. Not a single soul noticed it wasn't Windows. Teacher only noticed 2 differences, "You have different version of Office installed here." and also gave me a note for "Changing wallpaper" which was strictly prohibited for some reason.
It was probably due to some goober like me changing it to Scarlett Johansson's bikini pics. I'm sorry.
So.. the Steamdeck?
Absolutely. In fact i think everyone is hoping steam os will be the distro to make the big push onto desktop because of the gaming and another just works kind of interface
Indeed, many Netbooks come with a firmware dual boot. Besides the crappy Windows lite edition, there's a tiny instant-on Linux too. Most people don't use that, but it's there.
Indeed, many Netbooks come with a firmware dual boot. Besides the crappy Windows lite edition, there's a tiny instant-on Linux too. Most people don't use that, but it's there.
Which actually means Linux is being successfully adopted by the general public in a similar way to windows as a general use system that doesn't require a lot of technical knowledge.
Fully customizable distress will never be popular with the general public. They want systems that just do the general stuff and have it work automatically.
Of course they know what an OS is. There's only two of them: Apple and Microsoft.
70%*
my first thought actually pointed to common OS on work devices, being Windows i’d assume a majority of the time, i’d imagine a large portion of the older population were introduced to computers in a workplace setting. But your answer makes a bit more sense.
New user: I have a problem 😊
Everyone:👍
New user: Nevermind 😮💨
if a new user is using a distro that doesn't use systemd they fell for a meme
At this point, my biggest dream is that these 'new user' distros used only Wayland, Pipewire, Systemd and Flatpaks simply to simplify things. Hopefully we're less than 2024 away from NoVideo Wayland support.
Also as soon as XFCE releases their Wayland support, that soon it'll become the most famous DE choice of Mint.
What I am really happy is to see how well supported Pipewire already is. Pipewire has never showed any problem in the new installs for me.
So ... basically Pop!_OS.
That's what I'm using now, and it's what I'd recommend for most desktop users. I've been using Linux systems on-and-off since before kernel version 1.0: Slackware, then Debian, then Ubuntu, then Mint, then Pop.
(Admittedly, my use cases are pretty simple: a terminal, a browser, Signal, VLC, and Steam.)
Pretty much. Pop is my go-to recommendation for pretty much anyone these days. It's so well polished and just easy.
This PopOs ?
Yes, that pop os. As luck would have it, Linus installed it during a very brief period where the steam package in their repo was broken. This is not a common occurrence, and I have never heard of it happening before or since.
This whole series triggered me so hard. They went out of their way to test it under the worst possible conditions.
Then they follow up with hypocrisy of this shit, after going on and on about UI not being right or hard to use for the end user.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=smd8cTFchF4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
The problem with that is most major distros market themselves as "new user" distros to some extent though. Noob-friendly, out-of-the-box, easy, etc are all distro-marketing buzz-words that mean nothing.
You can't expect them to only use Wayland, Pipewire, Systemd, and Flatpaks because that dream requires every distro to use Wayland, Pipewire, Systemd, and Flatpaks, which will never be reality.
Most distros will probably eventually adopt these tools, but there won't be a sudden shift. It will be gradual.
Well, for Pipewire it's the apps which needs to adjust at this point. Only thing missing currently is the Wayland but it's coming. Making Linux less fragmented (read: confusing), the more new users will give a try.
pipewire seems ready for primetime but I'm more dubious about Wayland. For instance KDE appears to still be a bit flaky and sway still works poorly under Nvidia and will never have proper mixed DPI for xwayland apps. Still seems like a tradeoff vs X which doesn't require a compromise. XFCE is roughly 10% of Mint users. Mint users are unlikely to switch because of wayland support
Doing tech support, I encountered this attitude. People like that are nearly impossible to help. "Why can't you just fix it!" The true answer never given is that your problem is probably something stupid you are doing, like trying to make a phone call by physically shoving the phone entirely up your asshole, and until I run through some common problems and ask some questions, I won't be able to tell you to have your significant other get the salad tongs and pull it out of your rear and then go over "dialing."
People mostly need to be willing to gather detailed system info with Inxi and share it.
I'll have you know I get better reception when it's up my ass!
No. That's the support job to figure out the problem of the user. It is not the user's job to figure out the support problems.
I work in support, so I know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately most computer guys are elitist assholes who can't understand a user doesn't have their knowledge or even the will to understand why this shitty tech is not working.
Free open source software projects you don't pay for don't have paid support. If you talk to a fellow user it IS your job to figure out your problem. if you don't have the will to understand anything you ought to buy a support contract.
I don't disagree with you, but to answer OP's question, I think this right here is the problem. I love Linux for the same reason I love building my own PCs and working on my own car. For most people that don't want to tinker, though, they're looking for something that "just works" and can be fixed by someone else when it breaks.
It's such a privileged attitude, though. One CAN get paid support, but they don't need it if they're just a bit patient and willing to follow instructions. If you don't want to pay, don't expect someone else to deal with your bullshit.
(I'm not saying this to you, but to anyone who has this attitude.)
It case the subject wasn't entirely clear in my prior post I agree with you, and that is exactly what I was trying to say. You the user of a foss project, aren't a customer unless you give someone money. It IS your job to figure out your own issues. If you ask for help from your fellow users and they graciously provide you help then this is a gift you should appreciate. Because the person isn't an expert on that topic in the employ of the creator, they might not know everything, nor do they have the infinite patience imparted by being paid by the hour to provide you help. They have their own shit to do. Treating them with entitlement and contempt like people treat support will burn these sorts of folks out, and they are far from an infinite resource. If you want a paid support relationship instead of treating the open source community as free help whose time you are entitled to, you ought to actually pay someone to do that job.
Pay for support then. Companies like Canonical and Redhat will be happy to take your money.
So you want them to provide answers by using magic? If you seek support for any software, open source or otherwise, you'll need to tell them version, build number etc. Why do you think Linux will be any different?
Because people can already barely provide this level of information for a Windows device. Most of these words look like technobabble to non-tech-enthusiasts
Why don't you magically have a magic button that magically fixes everything with no effort of my own? That's stupid, I think I will go on social media and repeatedly tell everyone that Linux is bad actually
100%. Even as a power-user (understatement) who overwhelmingly prefers keyboard input to control things when I'm "gettin' stuff done", I will sometimes miss the general consideration level of Windows' input handling when it comes to mouse and especially touch. Mouse is pretty damn good these days on Linux, but touch...
Touch is abysmal. A ton of modern laptops have touchscreens, or are actually 2-in-1s that fold into tablets, etc, and the support is just barely there, if at all. I'm not talking about driver support - this is often fairly acceptable. My laptop's touch and pen interface worked right out of the box... technically. But KDE Plasma 5 with Wayland- an allegedly very modern desktop stack- is not pleasant when I fold into tablet mode.
The sole (seriously, I've looked) Wayland on-screen-keyboard, Maliit, is just terrible. No settings of any kind (there is a settings button! it is not wired to anything, it does nothing), no language options, no layout options (the default layout is abysmal and lacks any 'functional' keys like arrows, pgup/dn, home/end, delete, F keys, tab, etc), and most egregiously, it resists being manually summoned which is terrible because it does not summon itself at appropriate times. Firefox is invisible to it. KRunner is invisible to it. The application search bar is invisible to it. It will happily pop up when I tap into Konsole, but it's totally useless as it is completely devoid of vital keys. Touch on Wayland is absolutely pointless.
Of course, there is a diverse ecosystem of virtual keyboards and such on Xorg! However, Xorg performance across all applications is typically abysmal (below 1FPS) if the screen is rotated at all. This is evidently a well known issue that I doubt will ever be fixed.
In the spirit of Open Source Software, and knowing that simply complaining loudly has little benefit for anyone, I have at several times channeled my frustration towards developing a reasonable Wayland virtual keyboard, but it's a daunting project fraught with serious problems and I have little free-time, so it's barely left its infancy in my dev folder, and in the meanwhile I reluctantly just flip my keyboard back around on the couch with a sigh, briefly envious of my friend's extremely-touch-capable Windows 2-in-1.
I echo your frustrations with Maalit. I am running Arch on my Surface Pro 7 and very frequently I have to snap in the keyboard just to get myself out of a situation where touch doesn't work. Maalit also has this bug where it will push and resize windows as if it was visible even though it is hidden.
Regarding the Firefox issue, it helps if you enable it's Wayland backend by passing MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 to it. Maalit should properly pop whenever you tap on a text box.
Thank you - I was already aware of this, actually, but I choose to leave it disabled because when this is set, touchscreen drag-scrolling of webpages breaks and it selects text as though it were a mouse click-drag instead. As it turns out, I barely use Maliit anyway because of its other deficiencies, but I definitely touch-scroll my browser a lot, even in laptop mode. A generally disappointing dilemma!
I also had this problem where touch scrolling on Firefox selects text instead (on ubuntu). It does however work OOTB for me on fedora, so it's the main distro on that machine.
Weird! Touch scrolling actually improves for me with the Wayland backend so that's an odd issue indeed! There's gotta be a trick to it, but I am unsure of what that is at the moment.
GNOME has amazing touchscreen gestures, and afaik comes with it's own virtual keyboard
I have been tempted by GNOME several times, but I disagree with some of their design choices and find them a bit frustrating. I feel that it's fairly strongly-opinionated software. The benefits, of course, are obvious: internal consistency that leads to a higher quality experience. But, only if you buy-in to some overarching design philosophy. That's one of the reasons I left Windows! I also have a suite of Kwin scripts that make my life a lot easier, so it's pretty hard to leave Plasma at this point.
Still, that keyboard has tempted me a lot nonetheless...
Me too. I love the look of Adwaita, but some of their choices I can't get past, like not having a system tray. I'm really excited for Cosmic, it looks like it will blend the styling of GNOME with much of KDE's customization!
COSMIC is now on my radar, thank you. It looks very intriguing.
At this point I'm just glad I migrated to GNU/Linux way before touch input was a common thing. I never experienced it on Windows and the only way I experienced it on GNU/Linux is with it behaving like simple mouse clicks. I literally have no idea what else to expect, so I expect nothing and I don't get disappointed.
Using touch on Windows has definitely set my expectations much higher than the reality on Linux right now, so this is a good call! You won't know what you're missing, so it's not going to bug you. I kind of wish I could return to this blissful ignorance. I have another 2-in-1 with Windows 11 on it in the house and anytime I look at it to keep it patched up and fix issues for its user, it reminds me very effectively of how far behind my 2-in-1 is with touchscreen interactions :(
I agree with the touchscreen thing-- I have one of those foldy-aroundy 2-in-1 laptops, and the only way I've been able to get touch to work properly (as in not like a mouse) is gnome wayland. Kde wayland's fine too, but like you said there's no included keyboard whereas gnome has one built-in. Also another wayland osk you could try is wvkbd (tho I've never used it beyond "hey what's this").
Lenovo does sell Linux laptops and then there is the HP Dev One. Also according to Canonical over 160 Dell laptop, desktop, and workstation models ship with Ubuntu preinstalled.
While this is true, if someone goes to a shop and buys a "PC", it will have Windows 100% of the time.
You have to look to get Linux preinstalled on stuff, or pick the choice yourself. People buying PCs aren't picking Windows, it's just what comes with them.
Preinstalled.
Like, were nerds and we fuck with our computers n stuff. But most people are lucky to know what a power cord is.
Honestly if Linux with a good DE like KDE or Cinnamon was already on their PC at boot they would figure it out. Most people just use a web browser anyways.
I have put my dad on Kubuntu. Don't like anything *buntu, personally, but I have to admit it's quite stable and with sane defaults. He hasn't complained ever since and support calls dropped considerably. He spends most of the time in Firefox anyways, where I've added ublock.
The problem with Windows was, he'd occasionally browse the web with Edge by mistake (or because MS forces it down your throat), and as soon as an 80+ y.o. browses the web without ad blocking, getting a virus is just a matter of time.
All this is to say that I agree with the fact that preinstalled is key. I wish that more effort was focused on fewer distros and I feel that so much talent and energies are being lost in marginal projects.
But many people do this for passion and it's of course their choice to decide where to contribute, or whether to spin up a brand new distro entirely, can't judge them for that. I'm just observing that those energies could be better used to smoothen some rough edges on more popular distros to make them even more appealing to OEMs and convince them to ship those on their hardware.
This is definitely how I feel as well. None of the other shit matters unless it comes already on the machine. Even then, it absolutely has to be rock solid stable long term for it to be comparative. Of course that’s asking a lot, considering people still take their PCs into geek squad or wherever else when something goes wrong (or their printer won’t connect).
This always reminds me of the Dell XPS option of having Ubuntu installed but of course that’s far away from “Microsoft literally pays us to sell their shit”. So, until that - or some type of adoption occurs on a B&M level/online-storefront - it’s going to be pretty “voluntary” in terms of adoption. It’s just comparatively so much more work in the layman’s sense.
It’s in a weird way the same with cars. It’s been statistically proven that most people specifically won’t go out of their way to get a simple utility pickup truck. They buy the big fuck you truck because that’s what the dealerships have. It’s the same thing with kids going to college and the parents taking them to buy a laptop for class. My point is that it’s far more easier to just use what you get than try to rehash it. Maybe you don’t even know that’s a possibility so you just settle. Of course this isn’t the only issue, but imo the largest determining factor. IBM had businesses sucking from the teet since computers dropped, and we still deal with the ramifications.
I have my dad on Mint for years. Setup browser and email program and told him to click on that little shield and do updates when it's there. You can set the shield icon to only appear in case of updates. I sometimes have to update between versions. I think he is still on 21.0 and now 21.2 is out already.
Most people buy computers with the OS already installed and would get just as lost trying to install MacOS or Windows.
This is the correct answer. If Linux was pre-installed, most problems would vanish. My Linux computers are far, far more stable than windows once they run.
The pre installation also means the OEM will verify compatibility, a common complaint.
Based on my tests on my family and friends, the main problem is tech support. Most geeks seem to assume other people want the same things than themselves (privacy, freedom, etc). Well, they don't. They want a computer that just works.
Overall when using Linux, people actually don't need much tech support, but they need it. My father put it really well by saying: "the best OS is the one of your neighbor."
I apply few rules:
The deal with my family and friends is simple: you want tech support from me ? ok, then I'm going to pick your computer (usually old Lenovo Thinkpads bought on Ebay at ~300€) and I'm going to install Linux on it.
I'm not shy. I ask them if they want me to have remote access to their computer. If they accept, I install a Meshcentral agent. Thing is, on other OS, they are already spied on by Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. And most people think "they have nothing to hide". Therefore why should they worry more about a family member or a friend than some unknown big company ? Fun fact, I've been really surprised by how easily people do accept that I keep a remote access on their computer: even people that are not family ! Pretty much everybody has gladly agreed up to now. (and God knows I've been really clear that I can access their computer whenever I want).
I install the system for them and I make the major updates for them. Therefore, if I have remote access to the system, I pick the distribution I'm the most at ease with (Debian). They just don't care what actually runs on their computers.
When they have a problem, they call me after 8pm. With remote access, most problems are solved in a matter of minutes. Usually, they call me a few times the first days, and then I never hear from them anymore until the next major update.
So far, everybody seems really happy with this deal. And for those wondering, I can see in Meshcentral they really do use those computers :-P
When i told my dad i can install Rustdesk on his computer to do remote support (moved out), he asked me "does that mean you can look at my computer whenever you want?". I'm really proud of him, he actually listened.
I think people sell themselves short with regards to having undue access to family members' computers. If they're willing to give it then you've clearly demonstrated that you're trustworthy and haven't given them reason to assume you'll snoop or worse steal from them.
Are there any limitations to Meshcentral? I tried using Team Viewer and a few others when I was supporting family on Windows, and they all wanted to charge me after a while.
I self-host Meshcentral. I haven't seen any limitation at all. I don't know if there are limitations when you use meshcentral.com instead of self-hosting.
Thanks for replying :)
I'll have a look into it, thanks. I pretty much only support my mother's laptop outside of my house now, but I use NoMachine to sort out the home computers. As much as I like it, it can be a bit slow sometimes, and it's always in the back of my mind that it's going to lock me out like the others did.
Oh actually if you are worried about vendor lock-in: Meshcentral is opensource. So even if they decide to try something stupid, a fork would be likely to happen.
Wayland, unless something's changed since the last time I tried it.
Try Anydesk, it's very much like Teamviewer in many ways, though it's not FOSS.
Linux does have better codecs and drivers than Windows for some stuff (Bluetooth for example), but it has worse codecs and drivers for some important proprietary hardware stuff (Nvidia for example)
I think that this is a terrible idea, until a clear boundary is set between applications that can or cannot break the system. Updating flatpaks automatically might be fine, but updating everything is simply a recipe for disaster.
It needs to "just work". It's not more complicated than that.
This, a lot of ppl talk about the pre installed thing but Linux has a lot of friction yet. Linux is big, it's open and made to run in almost any device with an arm or x86 processor, yet Linux is usually a pain in the ass on edge cases and we cannot ignore. Some years ago dealing with drivers on Linux was a hell, today is better but still has edge cases (this is not a Linux fault usually, vendors are shit usually but it cause friction. Audio just recently was resolved with the adoption of pipewire but pulseaudio had a lot of caveats. Now we are getting rid of X11 that is great for usual usecases but is full of workarounds if you want to to a simple thing like having two monitors with different refresh rates. There is a lot of things but linux is going forward, last year I could made my full switch since gaming on Linux became a thing but definitely was not plug and play.
All of the basics should just work well out of the box with minimal tweaking. Yes even NVIDIA stuff.
The software center needs a massive overhaul. It feels like an afterthought by people who would rather use a command line.
Yeah, the descriptions and lack of curation is really weird ... browse games and oh look here's 27 varieties of reversi and a driving game that crashes on launch.
If it were a curated list with enthusiastic and helpful descriptions it would make it more accessible to use. Get the mature and professional looking programs front and center.
Much as I hate to say it, it could do with a makeover from someone with a sense of marketing. (Excuse me for a second, I felt a little nauseous saying that).
Linux really isn't ideal for anyone who isn't already a tech enthusiast on some level. I recently did a fresh install of Kubuntu and after about a week, it prompted me that there were updates, so I clicked the notification and ran the updates, after which my BIOS could no longer detect the UEFI partition. I had to use a live usb to chroot into the system and repair it, as well as update grub, in order to fix it.
It's fixable, but this is not something anyone who doesn't already know what they're doing can fix. I've had auto updates in the past put me on boot-loops thanks to nvidia drivers, etc.
This kind of thing needs to almost never happen for linux to be friendly for those who just want their computer to work without any technical understanding. This, honestly though, can't happen because of the nature of distros, you can't ever make guarantees that everything will work because every distro has slightly different packages.
Wine is getting better, but compatibility is still an issue, especially for people who rely really heavily on microsoft office or adobe products.
It's actually ideal for people who are actually not tech enthusiasts at all and do not need specific software for their job (Photoshop, audio stuff, actually NOT Ms office)
Everybody I 've seen making this argument is actually a tech enthusiast themselves and just as out of touch with the average user as a Linux "guru" and massively overestimates the non tech enthusiast user.
They are far more likely to fuck up their Windows PC (even with UAC because they don't understand what it is) than successfullyinstall a new program on their own.
I 've borged my Nvidia drivers a few times, never via the distro auto updating. Custom kernels, trying to get newer cuda versions or something. Still better to fix than AMD drivers on windows and the whole DDU dance.
I'd say it can be, if they're running something incredibly stable that you can guarantee won't break on them... Which involves an amount of research and effort that most people simply won't put in as long as what they are familiar with continues to work. Windows might have it's fair share of issues, but at least a lot of people are already familiar with it, same w/ Mac os.
Nope. Install a distro like Ubuntu and it will not break with auto updates. Nvidia drivers included.
Much less maintenance than when they used windows.
You also overestimate the non tech enthusiast ability to use or fix issues with windows. They usually download the first program that promises to fix their issue, or increase their RAM.
I mean... that's simply incorrect. If you read my original post, I talked about that, exactly. Twice in the last month I've had running updates via the "updates available" notification in Kubuntu break the system, and require chrooting into the system via a live usb to fix it. That's without any changes or messing around with the system, on a very recent install.
When I used normal Ubuntu, there were rampant gnome shell crashes. Hardware compatibility is far from perfect, as well - case in point I've done clean installs of Linux Mint on computers for others in the past, only to find out that there simply aren't working wifi drivers for the device.
Linux CAN be less maintenance, but it's ultimately more work to actually make the jump and completely relearn how to use a computer. I'm fully aware of the capabilities on people who aren't enthusiasts, I do tech support for my whole family all the time. My stepfather's solution to the wifi being slow was to make more networks on the same router, it was hosting like 12 wifi networks at once. However, windows is already familiar to them. They could technically learn to use linux, but they have zero interest because if windows has an issue they'll just call me and I'll fix it (and that's usually not needed because it rarely breaks on them).
Well our experiences differ then. I never had any issues on vanilla Ubuntu systems. After all if there was I 'd have to be on the phone to fix it while also reminding the fam that any non specified click us a left click.
To be fair I rarely had issues with Windows myself, at least post xp. But windows do fail, especially on updates and in quite bizarre ways. I ve had to solve quite a few over the years.
The actual answer, there is no reason to switch. The vast majority of users do not care about Linux or why they would want to. For us there are lots of benefits and things we enjoy about getting away from Windows but for them "why?"
I will object on this one. Even if the majority of user does not care about privacy they do care about ransomware , viruses, speed of the system and in my opinion Linux / BSD is secure, fast and speed remains after time not like Windows where I felt that after 6 months I had to reinstall to get a performant system. I guess it is all about convincing your family and friends about those benefits.
Two weeks ago my step mother asked me "Can you help my friend connect her PC to the wifi, it runs Windows XP" users are fucking weird.
Speaking from experience, from a long time ago, and from the people/family I've installed it for on older machines: It's different. That's 90% of it.
The people that had little to no windows/PC experience actually took to Linux a lot easier not having to relearn/change habits from windows.
Correct. It's lack of familiarity. Once Linux gets around 10-15% market share, enough people who know the quirks of Linux to help new people who then Linux will be big.
Yes, I had my mom start with Linux and she's confused when she has to use Windows.
When's the last time the average user has had to install an operating system?
That's the biggest obstacle right there. I think plenty of non-techy people would use linux if it came preinstalled.
Also, if it came pre-installed, one would assume all the hardware was properly supported. A big pain point with Linux is that sometimes things just don't work right, and there's nobody to turn to for help except Google. It's been a while since I attempted to run Linux on a laptop, but when I did I struggled a lot getting good battery life, good trackpad support, and a sleep mode that worked correctly.
Reputations live on for decades after they are earned. Perhaps all of my laptop problems are ancient history, but I have no way to know without trying, and it's too much effort.
I have an example: a little whole ago I put Arch on my 2-in-1 laptop just because I prefer open-source philosophy, and although a lot of things worked out-of-the-box, my biggest problem was the actual 2-in-1 function. I know that, like Windows, I'd have to do a little digging to get it working (except Windows would involve drivers, Linux required settings) and I got a makeshift solution working: KDE has its own screen-rotating feature, and I made 2 shell commands on the desktop that, when pressed, disable/enable the keyboard/trackpad. Turns out it only works on Xorg, and Wayland requires a way more complicated setup to work, so I just gave up using Wayland on it. Something to do with udev rules or something
To be honest, one part is what everyone mentioned here. Not being preinstalled and all that.
The other part is that unfortunately at least according to my own expirence as a Linux noob a few years ago some Linux communities can be very toxic. If you're asking questions of how to do X and someone comes along and is all "why do you even want to do X if you could also do Y? Which is something entirely different but also does something vaguely similar"
That's one if the things.
And then other curiosities. I cannot for example for the life of me get my main monitor to work under Linux with any new Kernel version. My Laptop just refuses to output to it or the second monitor attached via Display port daisychaining. On the older version it works, on the newer it's broken. I have tried troubleshooting this problem for over half a year and it's still broken. And that's out of the Box on Ubuntu LTS...
So i don't really understand this question. There are major roadblocks. With Wayland which is default for Ubuntu now those roadblock jist became bigger. Screensharing in multiple Apps including slack is outright broken unless you use the shitty webapp. The main player Office 365 largely doesn't work at all on Linux. All these things that should work for a Desktop operating System don't work out of the Box as they should.
That's why people aren't using it and companies aren't preinstalling it.
Most folks have been sold a story that every new technology they start using is supposed to be "intuitive"; and that if it is not "intuitive" then it must be defective or willfully perverse.
For example, novice programmers often stumble when learning their second or third language, because it differs from their first. Maybe it uses indentation instead of curly braces; maybe type declarations are written in a different order; maybe it doesn't put
$on its variables; maybe capitalization of identifiers is syntactically significant.And so they declare that Python is not "intuitive" because it doesn't look like C; or Go is not "intuitive" because it doesn't feel like PHP.
It should be obvious that this has nothing to do with intuition, and everything to do with familiarity and comfort-level.
Commercial, consumer-oriented technology has leaned heavily into the "intuitive" illusion. On an iPhone or Windows, Android or Mac, you're supposed to be able to just guess how to do things without ever having to confront unfamiliarity. You might use a search engine to find a how-to document with screenshots — but you're not supposed to have to learn new concepts or anything. That would be hard.
That's not how to learn, though. To learn, you need to get into unfamiliar things, recognize that they are unfamiliar, and then become familiar with them.
Comfort-level is also important. It sucks to be doing experimental risky things on the computer that's storing your only copy of your master's thesis research. If you want to try installing a new OS, it sure helps if you can experiment with it in a way that doesn't put any of your "real work" at risk. That can be on a spare computer, or booting from a USB drive, or just having all your "real work" backed up on Dropbox or Google Drive or somewhere that your experimentation can't possibly break it.
Not to be petty, but I think that intuitive is not that different to familiar.
I mean, the problem is in using the word intuitive when "selling" something in the first place. User interaction involves ton of things, large and small, and the intuitive things are rarely noticed. Such promise is likely going to lead to disappointment.
Adapting to these small differences is a skill in itself.
You have to use the terminal
Anything using the terminal... I once tried to do something on Linux because a friend told me it was great. I gave it another go when it came up on my Chromebook and tried to teach myself. I just don't get it.
I'm not a programmer at all, so anything that involves typing commands is going to baffle me!
One thing i had to learn when i started to understand how big techs really work, of what that would imply (see chat control) and get passionate about free software, free operative systems and freedom of customization is that freedom itself almost always requires work, the question is: is that a work you're willing to do? for me the answer is a strong YES.
For the average user all that extra works gives them very little return.
Most people don't want everyday computer use to be work.
Fair.
But I was just giving my perspective as an outsider who stumbled across this post because messing about with the terminal had the opposite affect on me as someone who appreciates the concept of Linux but doesn't really have the level of passion to learn programming for it.
When I was in college in the 1990s, non-STEM students regularly learned enough of the Unix command-line to:
pinetalkor on IRCpicoorjoeeditorsThe command line is something that millions of people have learned; and you can, too!
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It's the first step of installation, making a bootable usb/CD. Most non-technical people can't be arsed to create a bootable drive, then go into the bios boot settings to run it. I haven't used Windows in a long time so I don't know how it's installed these days, but the fact that it comes installed out-of-the-box when people buy a computer lets them skip the first and biggest step to running linux, which is getting it installed in the first place.
Distros have come a long way that a Windows user trying Linux Mint can hit the ground running. It's no longer about the learning curve for USING linux, it's INSTALLING linux that's the problem.
Exactly. I'd argue that some supposedly mainstream distros are hard to install even for the competent. Last time I checked, Debian's funnel for newbies consisted of a 90s-era website with "instructions" in the form of a rambling block of jargon-filled text with mentions of "CD-Roms" and a vague discussion of third-party apps for burning ISOs. I mean, on Linux flashing a USB stick is matter of a single
ddcommand with some obscure switches, but even that was nowhere to be found and I had to search forums for it. Incredible! Hard to imagine how forbidding it must all seem to the average Windows user! No Debian for them!IIRC Ubuntu's process was much easier but still not as easy-peasy as it could have been.
The only hope for desktop Linux is a crystal-clear, bulletproof, 1-2-3-style onboarding funnel that takes the user from "this is the distro's website" to "I have a bootable USB". From that point on it's plain sailing.
Whats nice about gnome is the disk util. included: select USB stick, click restore image and browse for the iso file. click OK.
As somebody who likes using the terminal I too have mostly stopped using
ddand use gnome disks instead. Getting the rightddflags to get the best performance and progress indicators is a challenge to Google every time.Yeah but here we're interested in how easy this is for a normie on Windows.
Did not know Balena Etcher. Looks good - 1, 2, 3, professional-looking site.
But IMO even this is too involved. After all, by comparison, installing Windows is "Step 1. It's done!"
Let's say I know nothing about, say, Ubuntu, except that a techie friend told me to "have a go, it's easy!" Well, personally I am going to want Ubuntu to do everything. I should not need to download stuff from random third-party sites that my friend never mentioned.
Basically, IMO there needs to be a FOSS clone of this Balena Etcher tool, which all the distros can rebrand and reskin as necessary. Then step 1 of "Install" is a native experience, just it is on the corporate OSes.
Maybe one of the slicker distros already does it, perhaps Pop_OS. If so, they deserve all the new users.
For Fedora, there is Fedora Media Writer. Maybe other distros can follow in its footsteps
Indeed. I just checked and IMO Fedora is doing it exactly right: a big button "Get started" with the Media Writer as step 1. Now this is Linux for dummies! Meanwhile on the supposed dummy distro Ubuntu.com, you get "Follow this tutorial" and a stodgy bunch of howtos. And Debian all but screams "go away if you're not a nerd" 😭
A long time ago, Ubuntu actually had a interesting way to install Ubuntu on your PC through Windows. It was called "Wubi" if I remember right.
It was definitely... Odd in how it worked. I believe it created a Windows virtual disk image, stored that image on your Windows filesystem, and then added an entry into the Windows Boot Loader to somehow boot into that. On first boot, it was like Windows where it asked you to create an account and then boom - all done.
And if you no longer wanted Ubuntu, you could just literally uninstall it from the Windows "Add or Remove Programs" menu and it'd remove the boot loader entry, and delete the virtual disk image.
Super super new user friendly. Unfortunately I think the reason why it was discontinued was there was an I/O performance cost from running it in a virtual image - and of course just as it sounds, it was a hacky way to do things. And of course, you couldn't get rid of Windows because Ubuntu was living inside it.
Reminds me of how nowadays I believe Asahi Linux for M1 PCs is installed from within macOS - you don't need to create a boot USB and load it at startup.
Ha! Amazing, had no idea. Maybe that explains Ubuntu's early success. But yeah, in the grand strategy, better not to settle for being a Windows .exe app
Indeed. And I think more distros, like Mint, should take this approach.
Yeah, it took me way too long to get Debian running on my pc, because for some reason the website assumed that everyone would have a Linux to install Debain with. I haven't had that, and that one tool they had didn't work.
This is exactly what I never get. Do they not know that when you buy a new computer it tends to have Windows and only Windows on it?! I can't help concluding that the people who run Debian must be bearded nerds who live in PC-filled basements and assume that all their users are the same.
@JubilantJaguar @Flemmbrav
For me, as long as the distro comes with with GUI of some sort, I am ok. The main issues with Linux installs, for me, is usually my wifi driver, but where there is a will, there is a way.
To me, the big problem is still updates breaking things.
Everybody needs to update their system from time to time, but if doing so leaves your system in an unusable (for the average person, not a linux terminal guru) state, users aren't going to stay.
I think immutable/atomic OSes like Silverblue, VanillaOS and SteamOS are heading in the right direction to solve this issue. Particularly if they allow users to easily rollback a bad update. Otherwise maybe there is some way to detect and warn about potential compatibility issues before people update.
3rd party software/hardware. Companies don't develop for Linux. And Linux developers can't reverse engineering everything.
Things break in weird ways on Linux due to dependencies. Snap/Flatpak/AppImage has yet to show if it's enough to fix the issue.
That would depend on a case by case basis. For basic use (I thought this was the point of the post) I never had anything break, software/hardware either works or doesn't (I always use the stable release of everything).
A lot of people have already talked about the onboarding/installation experience, so I'll just chime in and say a lot of new users are unfamiliar with using a terminal for commands and instead favour a GUI experience solely for their tasks. Most modern and commercially appealing distros are moving in this direction (ie applications running the same terminal commands in the background with an easy to understand UI at the front) but I'd still say the community's insistence on terminal over all other forms of executing a command may be a turn off for the layman trying it for the first time after Windows and MacOS.
Almost makes me think it would be more ideal to reduce the stigma associated with executing commands in the terminal and find some way to get people more comfortable with using it, both via Linux and also CMD for Windows as well.
I don't mind using a terminal so much, but trying to follow people's terminal instructions can be quite challenging. It seems like 90% of the time they leave out critical details because they assume you'd already know what you're doing or you get errors because they have packages installed that you don't. It reminds me of this gem from Malcolm in the Middle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0
I would agree that this is one of the biggest barriers to entry other than software compatibility.
If i was able to use ILok on linux for my music plugins and vsts, then id likely make the switch. But unfortunately ILok doesnt seem to be interested at least not since i last checked.
I agree with this more than trying to make Linux more GUI oriented overall. GUI's are great for certain interfaces like phones and tablets for obvious reasons. GUIs are also great if you don't exactly know what you're looking for and need a lengthy list of available interactive elements you would have to read and parse a lengthy man page to find in the terminal.
Honestly I think that when learning computers in early age education systems, the terminal should be taught alongside GUI applications so the general public would have an understanding that there is this very powerful tool they can use to quickly execute commands. It is a pre requisite to demystifying computers regardless of which OS you use, and it makes working with your computer a lot less of a headache when you have this bare bones tool that can assist you in finding out the answer to your problem via a verbose error output rather than a cryptic message to call your sys admin or send a notice to the OS provider that likely will not solve your problem in a timely manner.
You need to "know linux" to administer linux servers, or contribute to kernel development. My wife is a retired pharmacist, and she uses exclusively a computer with Linux since around 2008. She knows that's Linux, because I told her so. If I had told her it was a different version of Windows, she'd be using it anyway - she was using win95 at work before, so any current windows would have been a big change anyway (granted, nothing like gnome, that's why I gave her kubuntu).
This misconception is fed by "experienced" Linux users who like to be seen as "hackers" just because they "know Linux".
Nobody uses the OS. You use programs that run on the OS. My wife doesn't "use Linux". She uses Chrome, the file manager (whatever that is in the ancient LTS Kubuntu release I have there and update only when LTS is over), LibreOffice Writer and Calc, a pdf reader (not adobe's, whatever was in the distro), the HP scanner app. The closest she gets to "Linux" is occasionally accepting the popup asking for updates.
Users shouldn't need to care about which OS (or which distro, for that matters) they're running their apps on. The OS (and distro) should be as unobtrusive and transparent as possible.
Doing it forever, on a primary machine is stupid; NO FSCK DISTRO WILL BE PERFECT. Windows users whine and cry every time Microsoft shoves a new and worse Windows version up their SSDs, but they stick with Windows anyway.
Distro hoppers hop often because they give up at the first inconvenience. They never feel at home or make it their home, because they never actually use their computers for long enough with any distro. They are more focused on the OS than in using the computer. Nothing wrong with that, but they'll forever be "linux explorers", not actual "linux users".
There will always be some other that has that small thing that doesn't come default on this one. There will always be compromises. It's like marriage. Commit, negotiate, adapt. Settle down ffs.
The OS/distro shouldn't be important for the average user; the OS/distro shouldn't get in the way between the user and the apps, which is what the user uses.
Of course there are distros with specific usage in mind (pen test, gaming, video production, etc), as they conveniently have all main utilities packaged and integrated. But for real average user apps, the OS shouldn't matter to the end user, let alone look like the user should know what window manager or packaging system they're using.
Then when they are faced with dozens of "experts" discussing about which distro has the edge over the other, and the gory technical details of why, and comparing number of distros hopped, well, it sounds like Linux is a goal by itself, when all they wanted was to watch YouTube and access their messages and social media.
When my wife started using a Linux computer I didn't tell her which distro was there (she probably knows the name kubuntu because it shows during boot). I didn't give her a lecture about Gnome vs KDE, rpm vs deb, or the thousands of customizations she could have now. "You log in here, here's the app menu, here's chrome, this is the file manager, here's the printer app". Done, linux user since 2008.
Linux will never be mainstream while we make it look like "using Linux", or "this distro", matters, and that is an objective in itself. Most users don't care. They want to use their apps.
This. You dont have to be a linux guru if you want to use Ubuntu or Mint. I'm not generalising, but in many linux user groups, there is a lot gatekeeping taking place, even when a new user asks a genuine question and provides all the necessary information.
I saved that, because it's some of the most useful stuff I've ever found.
Linux needs developers developers developers developers developers developers developers. Notably gamedevs. And kde needs to be default. Osx is only popular in a couple countries.
Context for developers, developers, developers - https://youtu.be/rRm0NDo1CiY
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/rRm0NDo1CiY
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
We'll ui/uz designers are also much needed.
Make it just run and pre install it on most computers.
With "just run" I mean things like:
(I still can't get this one right, after 5 evenings of trying)You know, things like that that might cost you an evening or two or three to figure and make you feel like you're the rarest edge case alive. On Windows, these work just fine out of the box.
I know this ain't easy to get to, but I can't recommend people to use Linux when even a phones does perfectly fine out of the box results in at least an evening of troubleshooting.
man you must be using some fucked up distro because never had those problems in the last 4 years.
That's kinda the problem here. I've heard people say how complex and difficult Android is so they have to use iOS.
People have personal experiences and beliefs that differ and there's no way to fix them other than to dive into it and they don't want to dive into it. Unless they are highly motivated to change they will likely just stay where they're comfortable.
It's like trying to logically and reasonably explain why being vegan is morally right to someone who absolutely refuses to read the labels on the stuff they buy. They're not going to want to go into the BIOS to fix a boot order to boot to a flash drive let alone learn a new UI. Hell, most people didn't even want to move off Windows XP, 7, now 10 till they are absolutely forced to.
It was never about what problems you have had it is about the problems they have had. Most of the time MacOS/Windows are good enough for most users.
pop_os does, but since its a dual boot, i have to re-pair them if i use it in another OS, since they share the bluetooth adapater.
this also wont apply to pre-login stuff. You would need to copy that over to a different file there.
this also wouldnt work if you had say....3 monitors and wanted to use 2 configs. In windows you can do that with super+P and swap between extend and only external etc.
My pop_os install wont recognize my logitech 720p USB camera thats like. Its a brand new install of 22.04.
Teams, even in the PWA, and other apps often dont respect the system defaults for sound/mic inputs. Especially if you have a few, which all laptops do since theres always shitty onboard speakers and mics.
There are all experiences of mine from this calendar year. I can work around them mostly. But my wife or others....no way. They would just chuck the PC at me and say "fix it". These are all also things that work OOB on windows or MacOS.
A fellow laptop user :-) For the monitor setups I use batch files with xrandr settings. I could imagine there being a way to get them to run via hotkeys...
But yes, the whole thing summs up with "I may use it for myself, but I just can't recommend the whole package without providing tech support for it".
Yeah I use Debian. (At least once a while when I decide to give it yet another shot...)
Edit: in case you are interested, I can give some extra details on that list, and how I fixed them or not. But all these fixes ain't a thing I'd expect the median user to be able to figure.
Out of curiosity, how long ago did these problems happen? I've been using Mint and Xubuntu for a while now, but had to use a few different troubleshooting distros to fix a Windows boot issue, and none of these came up. As these are Debian based distros, I'd expect the same problems to filter down.
The only thing I've had issues with lately is setting up a USB wifi adapter on a Raspberry Pi, but I'd expect some problems with that.
Around a year ago I fixed the bigger issues, but I started with Linux around 5 years ago. The WiFi issue has been around a month ago, but didn't do a lot of troubleshooting outside of rebooting and browsing all wicd settings because well I was offline because of it. Didn't visit that place again and at home there's wifi on all bands as well as ethernet almost everywhere, so the issue doesn't hurt me that much.
Booted into it today to see if things are better, ran the update/upgrade/reboot after and:
Why would you expect issues with an external WiFi adapter for the RasPi?
I wonder if it was an edge case that the Linux driver didn't account for, like a minor incompatibility between the two devices.
You've just reminded me that I had a Bluetooth problem with my laptop a few years ago. My headset would connect and work properly, but wouldn't be recognised after the laptop had either been to sleep or shut down. I had to go through the bluetooth device folder, something like /dev/bluetooth/, find the folder that corresponded with the headset's address, and delete the cache folder inside. It would then work until the next sleep / shut down.
I expected problems with the Pi because USB wifi has always seemed to be a bit dodgy, even on Windows, and wifi is apparently still a problem area with Linux. Add to that the Pi's limited distro, and I thought it was bound to go wrong.
I just had the opposite problem, tried to re-image a brand new laptop with windows 10, keyboard and mouse dont work in setup. Works in the bios, works in linux, doesn't work in windows until it can hit windows update. Honestly in recent years stuff in linux just works.
When you have a problem the solution is fragmented between distros, configuration, opinions, and time as solutions constantly change and they all have subtly repercussions. It becomes very overwhelming to figure out a solution and pick the right one.
I recently changed and could only do it because of ChatGPT. There are a lot of things that work different in Linux, like package managers, the file system in general, the focus on terminal, stuff that works different with different distros. For almost all questions, ChatGPT helped me within seconds. This is even more true, when I kinda don't know, what my question actually is. Then it helps to give me some good buzzwords to Google for. If I would have done this with just reddit and forums and stack or something, I'd get so much non-helping, gatekeeping, belittling answers - if any.
It's incredibly powerful when used like this. The real time nature of it is super nice. If you have a quick question, you almost can't beat it.
Another thing it is great for us explaining what commands do. So if you are following a tutorial or blog and want to double check that a command is safe, it's great at that.
One thing I always talk about is how DE is much more important for new user than a distro. New users will only use GUI anyway so their choice of DE has to be the most comfortable.
Took me years personally to switch to Linux, trying stuff like Ubuntu or PopOS, and I couldn't understand why it doesn't "click" for me until I understood that I simply personally dislike Gnome (being an ex Windows user). Tried a KDE distro and it clicked immediately, never looked back. Now I don't even use KDE but it helped me to get through initial frustration period.
This is very true.
It breaks. And I cant imagine anyone who wants to spend time fixing it, much less how long it would take tech illiterate people. Cant explain how many times ive gotten some random error downloding a package, and even ill have a hard time finding what tf the cryptic error message means
That and permissions, though they could be lumped into the first point
just use strace!
I remember recently there was something where a fairly low level system dependency was having trouble installing during a system upgrade, but only until partway through the install. It caused chaos on my system that took a good week to resolve. I can't imagine that 99% of people have the skill or patience to go through that process.
That said, that particular problem may be solved by the new generation of distros that allow for rollback of system changes.
Do you think just restarting with no information would be better? I could understand that cryptic error Message could scare some people, so do you think a "blue screen" and restart would be better for the average person?
If the device can self repair behind the scenes, 100% most users couldnt care less about an error message or having to reboot, as long as not too often and requiring too much input. I can see why linux is excellent for servers requiring little to no downtime though
Follow Steam's example and make a cohesive operating system with good default apps so the user experience streamlined.
Makes one wonder how many use their Steam Deck and know it runs linux by default
Last time I was hired as a code monkey we used Linux with a dual-monitor setup. The setting would not, under any circumstances, see one of those 1080p monitors as anything more than 480p.
I spent literally half the first day of work looking for solutions, and eventually settled on running some random command i don't understand copied from the internet running on startup.
I had a lot of troubles running dual monitors, too. Thankfully its been sorted out by switching to wayland and updates over time.
You'd think Linux, of all the OS's, would have the best support for such things.
If it helps, Mint seems to have this sorted. I was using a 1080 screen and a 2k screen. Now I've got two 2k screens (1440 x something?). Mint detected both configurations correctly and set them up for me. The only thing I had to do was tell it which monitor was the primary, and that was only because I prefer my primary screen to be on the right.
I had the 1080 screen set up in portrait mode for a while too, and Mint had no problem with it 👍
That's really interesting - and I see others are saying the same thing. I have never had this issue, and I've been using dual-monitor setups on Linux for years. I've never had an issue getting any monitor working correctly with Linux (and I've been using Linux practically full time at home since the late 90s). I wonder what's going on for your issue.
Linux needs more apps that GUI friendly and easy to use, better support for hardware and upgrades that doesn't break easily. Should come pre-installed with PC. Most people don't bother or know how to change OS.
The odd thing about this is that because Linux generally doesn't come preinstalled (though some sellers do have it), I've found the Linux installation process is usually smoother and easier than installing Windows.
I realize it's extra work, though, which is a barrier for some. Worrying about screwing up their new computer and voiding the warranty is certainly a deterrent.
@limelight79 @panpan
One funny thing about it is that I bought a pc with linux preinstalled, but reinstalled it anyway, because I don't trust an installation from the oem.
It made me wonder how, in the windows world, we simply trust the manufacturer with that.
Having worked with preinstalling Windows with a major pc manufacturer, I will say that it is already such a freaking effort that nobody would want to do even more effort to install malware on top.
Notwithstanding so called partner apps... If there's anything in those, I can't say.
The main issue is that easy problems that should be solved baseline by the OS crop up far too often for the average user to want to have to deal with day to day. Also, whenever you go to ask on a forum, you're usually told to just do something entirely different or use another distro. Every time I go to fix something on this machine it sends me down a rabbit hole of shit I don't care about because it doesn't solve my problem since it introduces a brand new one to solve. If I want to use solution X don't tell me to go install program Y that's your favorite program to use but is literally not what I'm trying to accomplish.
Today I installed Manjaro onto an old laptop and for the life of me I could not figure out why it wasn't connecting to the internet. It wasn't a network issue, it was the fact that the time was out of sync. It took me a while to realize that was the issue and not that I had fucked up my router config or something. It just couldn't validate any cryptography because the time was off. There were like four different solutions that all attempted the same fix and eventually I was able to connect with ethernet and restart timesync, which only worked after a restart.
Preinstall it on cheap laptops.
It's that
simplehard.This is harder than it first appears. Microsoft actually subsidizes vendors for selling machines with Windows installed. So these cheap laptops would actually be a bit more expensive without the Windows installation.
That's why I crossed out the "simple" 😉
This was sort of a thing in the brief netbook flowering
It didn’t work
But it could do. I bought a mainstream laptop from a European big-box retailer 17 years ago which came without Windows installed and nothing but a Knoppix CD. It all worked great out of the box. It would work greater still today.
The corporate monopoly in OS software is just as outrageous as the one in browser software. It's time for Brussels to step in.
Linux should be teach at school instead of windows. Most people assume Linux is harder only because they are not used to it. Once you get accustomed you realize that it's even easier, for example in popular distros with package manager opening a terminal and write a 3 words command followed by the name of software, as hard as it may sound, it's much easier and fast than using google to download shady .exe files that needs to be installed manually.
Also people really needs to stop being lazy. You don't jump into a car and drive it if you don't know how to do it. If you are not down to spend 2 hours of your life learning how to use a machine you use daily you really should change mindset.
The fact that we use private software for public schools is something I will never understand.
Linux is the coolest fucking OS, hands down... If you're a computer nerd. Otherwise it's inconvenient at the best of times. Many users click around in their OS of choice without fully understanding what they're doing, myself included. Try this in Linux and you're in for a really bad time.
Reminds me of a saying I first heard 20+ years ago:
"Unix is user friendly, it's just selective who it's friends are"
I recently gave up on daily driving Pop OS. About 6 months ago I got a new laptop with Windows 11, which for various reasons I am not a fan of. I decided it would be a good time to try an experiment and install Linux. The biggest issue right off the bat was lack of hardware support, the fingerprint reader and the speaker amp are not supported. I spent a bunch of time researching and seeing if I could make them work but apparently it has to do with the kernel and isn't really something I can fix. This didn't seem like a big deal at first because I can get sound out of the headphone jack or via bluetooth, and while it was convenient to login via a fingerprint reader, it wasn't something I really felt like I needed. Since then I've become much more reliant on biometric authentication, it's just so much more convenient to be able to auth bitwarden with my finger instead of having to type in a password. More recently, I started using Proton VPN and the client is pretty crap in Linux. Switching over to Windows 11, I can login with my finger, all of my passwords are a finger print away, Proton VPN works natively with wireguard and is generally much more reliable and easier to use. It's just a much better user experience, there's nothing weird and janky to deal with, I don't need to mess about in the command line to do basic things. I really loved Pop, and I'm sure I'll boot back into it, but I'm daily driving Windows 11 until I can sort out the hardware issues and get Proton VPN working better, and I think both of those issues are out of my hands so all I can do is wait.
Bugs. People that are into linux have enough compium and often the expertise to fix broken stuff that otherwise would work on windows. Your average user will quit after too many things don't work out of the box.
@Maticzpl Tbf my Windows OS makes me perform a bizarre ritual to just get my headphones to connect each time. Windows has as many bugs as Ubuntu at least.
I also have known people that were non technical that had way worse a time getting drivers to work on Windows than on Linux.
Real issue is software support. A lot of the big closed source stuff only wants to run on Windows whereas most open source stuff is fine working on everything.
Probably just hardware compatibility and me specifically NVIDIA x) once you get the kinks sorted out it's a pretty stable experience
I think that is not a question Linux users can answer. I feel so out of touch with what the average joe needs and wants in an OS. Ask them.
The second that you have to google the more basic things...you have lost the audience
I'm currently trying to run a Sven Co-op server under Ubuntu Server. This has been a five hour chore of trial and error, dealing with library incompatibility, architecture incompatibility, poor documentation and Stack Overflow messes.
Im currently using about twenty tabs of documentation and support requests. At this exact moment, I'm trying to compile a 32 bit version of libssl 1.1.1, at which point I will be able to test again. If it doesn't work this time, I absolutely do not have time to continue trying.
So what's the challenge here? Nothing is simple and nothing is well explained. This is a three-step process on Windows that just works. On Ubuntu, the first step requires you to add a new apt repo and install support libraries, and beyond that, you're on your own to figure out the compat issues further down the line.
Edit: Can't make it work, it's just one thing after another. I'm just gonna do a fresh install of the whole OS, considering how much bs I installed chasing these issues, and then, idk, just not play a game with my brother I guess.
I don't know how much time you have left, but if it's a dedicated server machine/system (I assume it is since it's running Ubuntu Server) you could look into installing Pterodactyl which is a game server panel + daemon which can take care of setting up and running game servers for you. It uses Docker under the hood which helps solve issues like this.
I see there is an egg for this game that someone has made for Pterodactyl (eggs are just basically instructions for Pterodactyl on how to create a game server) that you could import, and then just practically hit create. This particular one uses Ubuntu 16.04 as a container image, which would make sense if that game needs libssl 1.1.1
Could definitely be worth a shot, especially if you're planning on running other game servers down the line - that repo I linked to has a ton of game server configuration ("eggs") on it. Hell it even has some eggs for non-game servers, like if you wanted a Mumble/TeamSpeak server.
I'll be sure to give that a try. While I was vomiting from frustration about this last night, I came across a Docker image I was going to give a shot.
I personally dont understand why mass adoption is a goal.
The "challenge" to bring users to Linux is simply making them want to use Linux. There are enough flavours and guides ranging from plug and play that anyone can use to build your own kernel and distro from scratch that anyone can find what they want in Linux... if they want it.
The truth is that for a not insignificant portion of computer users, the OS is a means to an end not a feature. Its "the computer". A laptop that comes with windows 11 is a windows 11 machine.
If you want the average user to move to Linux, create an desktop environment with the option to look and behave like either windows or Mac, have a software compatibility layer for both that can run at the same time, buy a hardware company and include the distro as default and sell it to the masses at a loss to undercut all other options. Flood all consumer electronics stores with them.
Outside that, its not going to happen and I dont know why people want to make a competition out of it. Linux doesnt suit everyone and it doesnt have to. We see less GUIs as a good thing, id rather dev time from the solo/small dev teams go towards the functionality not making it look pretty. The majority of computer users dont agree with that though, and thats fine. I like being able to add/remove from my OS, most don't and thats fine too. I like rolling updates, the uproar around windows updates with thousands of youtube videos dedicated to people stopping them indefinitely indicates many others dont. Our semi annual O365 update is currently rolling out at work, and people are freaking out that one of their outlook toolbars moved. Never mind its a 4 second fix to move it back, but can you imagine these people seeking out/installing/configuring/using a new desktop environment?
Its not an elitist thing. Id love more of my friends to use linux, but I cant make them want to use something. It either appeals to them or it doesnt. For most the appeal of a computer is the software it runs, and the OS is just a means for that.
Oh this one is easy. The higher market share the better software support they get.
And as a secondary bonus, the more people use it the more people contribute to it and make it even better. But mostly this one is just an extension of the first point.
I utterly agree. I don't get this push to have everyone on Linux. Once you get the majority of users on Linux, the enshittification will begin.
I'd say its probably, among other thigs, hardware compatibility issues.
Running Linux on a mashine, most notably portable, that is somewhat recent and is not specifically built with linux in mind is, imo, almost certainly going to cause some, for the average user unfixable, issues. Things like wifi, bluetooth, audio, etc. not working due to missing or broken drivers.
The best way to fix that would be official Linux support by the OEMs, which realistically is never going to happen. Or extremely time consuming reverse-engineered community drivers.
That's a wrong take. The issue is when you install Linux. Once installed and running, it works fine.
And users don't install computers. So it's not their problem. You merely need to not break you distro once it's working. And if it's not arch Linux it's been a long time since I read it can break on an update.
Intimidating to install and then an unfamiliar interface and applications.
It might be more accepted if it came preinstalled and simply had a browser like Chrome and an app store, where all the other 'helpful' but confusing apps like Libre office were kept out of the way.
I install it for my family and it would only be accepted if it looked and worked just like Windows or MacOS. All they really need is a browser to get to GSuite or Office365.
I'm a new user. How do I disable being prompted for a password every time I want change/install anything? I just want password requirement at logon and not when logged on.
Why would you want to disable that? It's there for a very, VERY good security reason.
User Account Control on Windows was no different, other than being a few decades late to the party.
Kind of, but to be fair UAC doesn't prompt you for the account password unless you're not an Administrator on the PC (in which case you have to enter the password of someone who is). If you're on a single user PC, you'll be an admin and it'll only be a "Yes / No" prompt.
Now macOS on the other hand does require the password, unless you have an Apple Watch (if I heard correctly) in which you can confirm it by pressing a button on it. Or, using the fingerprint reader on the Macs with a TouchID sensor.
It depends on your distro but there is a NOPASSWORD option in some that you can add to a sudoers file. Without knowing your system its probably best to use your search engine of choice to look for answers to that but be warned that it is a security risk.
Can you tell what distro you are using?
Mint Cinnamon
The program that asks for password graphically is polkit. As far as I've searched online it only supports bypassing password prompts if you're admin on the system. It does not have a password less prompt like in Windows. I'm using this and this as source in case you want to disable it all together. I'm not a mint user my self so I cannot validate this without spinning up virtual machine. I would recommend the community just look at whatever I wrote for 24h and mention some issues that might occur. I'll update it if someone points out any issues.
Open any terminal (sorry) and copy one line at a time into the terminal and hit enter. After the first line you'll be asked to enter the password. For the consecutive commands password will not be asked. On the last command you'll open a graphical text editor and make sure certain text is present.
You should now see a text editor appear with a file opened. Copy this and paste it in the file at the bottom. Then save, close and reboot.
This is a security risk as you might understand, but it's your computer and you can do whatever you want. If you have any issues just post them here and maybe we'll figure something out.
Thank you, will try that!
You will want to modify the sudoers file. In a terminal
sudo nano /etc/sudoers. You will want to go down to the line%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALLand comment it out by adding#in front of it. A few lines down should be a similar line# %wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL. You will want to uncomment this by deleting the#at the beginning of the line. With nano, you can save by hitting ctrl+O then hitting ENTER to confirm. Hit ctrl+X to exit nano.Link to sudoers man page
Thanks, I tried that before and I think it only worked until I re-logged (?). I'll try that again, this time will use something else than vi editor to be sure.
vi is definitely different being a modal editor. If you are new to Linux, I would suggest nano. It is much easier to understand, even if it isnt as fast as vi can be. Many distros have it installed, and pretty much all of them should have it in their repos.
The biggest issue ive had (ive only used ubuntu) is the file management. Disks and file system is a bit different from boyh mac and windows, and i had a hard yime figuring out where and how, etc.
I couldnt figure out how to get my home network to work (so my windows pc could grab files off the linux pc) and such.
I had no issues setting that up, between my mac/windows pcs
I do plan on installing linux for my sons pc which he will then be forced to learn to some degree.
Your issue is probably with Gnome. It's file manager is shit and the mechanisms for sharing files aren't obvious.
I think you just made another point why Linux is difficult to adopt to for non-tech people. It takes a level of understanding about how computers work in general, and operating systems specifically, that that majority of people just do not care to have. It’s not that people are too stupid or anything like that. It’s just that the majority of people absolutely do not care what a Desktop Manager is, or why and how it’s different from the OS itself.
Well… people like you and me care because we think it’s interesting. We are the exception. The very thing we love most about Linux is the thing that stops it from general acceptance. It’s too flexible to “Just Work”.
For file sharing over a network between Linux and Windows, the keywords are "samba" and "cifs". In my experience, that's variable levels of pain in the ass to set up, but does work once you've got it configured. (Sometimes it's easier to run an sftp server or similar on the Linux machine.)
But yeah, nontrivial.
The number one issue for me was games.
Like seriously, why do most developers not give a damn about their Linux playerbase?
With proton now it is easier than ever! Right in steam. Lutris is awesome for almost all the others.
I saw this in a YouTube video about some indie video game. They had a native linux port. The userbase was like 99% windows and 1% linux, but 99% of the crash reports were from linux users.
This and the "problems" with adding anti cheat software that works with linux is just too much for most to bother.
Might be because the average Linux user is way more aware of how useful a crash report can be and therefore actually submitted them. At least most Linux users I know actually read error/ crash messages and not just call someone saying there was some pop-up, I just clicked ok and the game was gone.
Most likely this will become less of an issue over the comming years due to the popularity of handheld Linux based devices such as the steam deck.
Also thanks to Wine/Proton. You have to give it to Valve : overall it works surprisingly well.
It does. I am disappointed in the game studios who refuse to allow Linux players, though, such as Bungie. I'm certain that Destiny would be playable if not for their obstinacy.
Off the top of my head things that Ive run into over the years that would have caused 99% of computer users to throw Linux in the bin:
*Having to edit xorg.conf to set the graphics driver
*A typo in the sources list that prevented any packages from downloading (distro upgrade)
*A bug in systemd that resulted in the OS not booting (fresh install)
*The wrong graphics card driver being selected and not being installed correctly because Ubuntu kept back 5 packages necessary for it to function (fresh install)
*A bug in how Ubuntu handles the disk platter that causes hard drives to fail far more rapidly than they should (that bug has been there for years and probably ruined a few hard drives)
*Having to recompile the wifi driver after every upgrade (broadcomm chipset) before the driver was included in the kernel and having to reinstall the OS after the driver was included in the kernel because something went wrong during the upgrade. ie recompiling didnt fix anything and the native driver wasnt working either.
*failed drive encryption
*grub being installed incorrectly (no boot)
*dealing with UEFI to maintain a dual boot for programs that cannot be emulated or virtualized effectively (lag sensitive non-native games)
*Audio output defaults being incorrect (no sound, no mic)
But the one thing that above all else, will drive newbies away is how the general linux community tends to respond to things.
Ok, so I have an ASUS Zephyrus M16 with a Core i19 12th Gen and an rtx 3070. I was able to install fedora and able to get it mostly 100% working, but my two biggest issues where I could not play Destiny 2 (because they didn't want to support Linux and actually would ban players who tried), and the switch between egpu and the discrete gpu that you have to reboot for the changes to take effect. Every once in a while the display wouldn't work and I had to reboot multiple times before it would start to work again because of the aforementioned issues with the gpu. All in all I love Linux but I can't spend any time troubleshooting and just need a laptop that just works.
Have you set it up per https://asus-linux.org? These guys do amazing work to make ASUS laptops feel like first class citizens on Linux in both kernel patches and software. Strongly recommend, only takes a few minutes on Fedora if you're already installed and up to date. You should be able to get working Optimus and less GPU issues.
Can't help ya with Destiny though, they're just jerks.
Thanks for the info but yeah that's the guide I followed and even they mention driver caveats
it need to work like how your microwave works. You don't don't have to know ANYTHING about how any thing related to computer. Just click stuff to make it work. Also get more companies to ship things with Linux
How to make Linux better:
Better quality control eg. no more issues like Ubuntu shipping a broken version of systemd that wont allow the system to boot.
Prioritize performance over FOSS purity in newbie friendly distros. A graphics card driver that gets 1/30th the FPS should not be the default for a 1,000 dollar graphics card. Anyone that wants the FOSS driver can install it if they want.
Avoid homogenization of software features. i.e. better support of the feature outliers. eg. KDE does not have an option to adjust contrast of scrollbars without a theme that specifically has that contrast. This makes it harder for the vision impaired like myself to use software.
Exiting Vi/Vim 😂
IMO one of the main problems is eliminating the workflow of older commercial operating systems and having to build a new habit of using a new system. There are various Linux-based distributions that manage to give the user everything they need without having to resort to using the specific terminal.
Creating a new habit after spending years developing one for an old system, for me, is the main problem that leads many users to leave it.
Nvidia. Within two weeks, their shitty drivers broke my system twice. If I didn't already know about that beforehand, I would've probably quit linux for good after that experience.
Out of curiosity, did you download the nvidia drivers with the distro's package manager or did you go to nvidia's website and do there installer thing? When I had an nvidia card I had plenty of problems over the years but I specifically remember that using the installer from nvidia's site caused all kinds of hell to break loose haha
Funding. Nobody has figured out how to fund development for large open source OSes outside of the enterprise realm. You crack that, you can have linux be installed by default on Desktop/Laptop computers, and patches that come as a result of that funding benefit the rest of the ecosystem as well. People will use the default, they will complain about it, just like they complain about Windows Update randomly restarting their computer, but they'll use it.
But also the share of people who own laptops or desktops continues to dwindle. Many people don't have and see no need for a computer. So they run Android, which is Linux, so I guess we're winning there?
I mean... Is Linux even a challenge to anyone that just needs basic stuff? (Ubuntu, fedora, etc)
I only have trouble trying to install shit that's not in repos.
Keeping the discussion of running Windows applications through Wine/Proton aside; there are a lot of little things which happen to annoy me while I am using my PopOS install for example the most recent one is my headphones don't play any sound from the left year, it works properly on my other devices...
I'm willing to make it work, but most general users wouldn't be. This statement continues to be true even after the huge amounts of progress Linux community has made to make a better experience.
The absolutely never ending jank. My latest grippe, Ubuntu 22.04 . Remote desktop needs password reset after every reboot, no idea why, grdctl set password doesn't help, only doing it in the Ubuntu settings UI works. Never ending stream of tiny annoyances like that
The average user doesn't give a shit about what OS they're running. They also don't know what tools they need. I remember a client who dropped $700 on Photoshop because "How else can I resize my photos?"
Linux is to hard for someone who doesn't know why it's bad to install multiple antivirus suites. People who don't know the difference between a web browser and a search engine.
Linux will only ever be for hobbyist because they the only ones who give a damn.
commercial, immutable distro with professional support team. Easy desktop env. like cinnamon, budgie or kde Preinstalled on new devices
Lack of backwards compatibility for older versions of software/games requiring older libs. All I see it lots of pointing back and forwards but it doesn't get solved.
Lack of legacy drivers for graphics cards. I want to run a new distribution on my old hardware, using graphics acceleration and no screen-tearing. Is that too much to ask?
If a program is executed through a wm, have it submit errors to the wm as well so I can see why it's not running, instead of seeing a loading cursor for 2 seconds and then nothing.
I want to be able to do 99-100% of what I want to do using a GUI. Even installing drivers and changing settings. I don't want to have to change things in a text editor just so I can have a simple shortcut on the desktop. I've learned how to do it and I can do it in my dreams now, but that doesn't mean I like doing it.
I’m an artist who is never switching to linux unless they fix my major gripes (which seem like it’ll never happen just looking at the answers here lol).
Allergic to GUIs
Not having easy to access and understand toggles/settings are actually a friction point for most users—I think people who are tech inclined seriously need to remember and understand this. Needing to dig for a command to do simple things IS the OS getting in the way in my experience. I’ve seen screenshots of elementaryOS which seems to get this but my next issue is:
Software and hardware compatibility
I also keep hearing about AMD driver issues which is no good for my pc.
Overall, as much as I hate windows and microsoft, it’s easier to put up and debloat the garbage that comes up over dealing with the issues above. Because when it works, It Actually Just Works. There’s more google-able tech support answers for it too instead of me needing to ask for help every time I encounter something.
Things that are easy to do does add up eventually, which again, is why needing to use the terminal often is not at all an ideal average user experience especially if this could be cut down with some mouse clicks. I think distros could address this if the devs actually care about the non-tech nerd user experience, but I don’t know if the software support/compatibility will ever be fully dealt with.
edited to fix formatting
I'm pretty sure it's a tale from the older times
ie: "I haven't used Linux in 10 years but feel qualified to pipe up about why it's shit."
Agree with pretty much everything. If I have to fight just to do basic shit why should I bother with it? My tools of the trade don't work on it, a lot of my games don't work on it, and my computer itself might not work on it (also AMD here). There's no value to using it. Just a lot of headaches.
That's exactly how I feel on Windows. I have to fight with stupid unintuitive guis and when you google for help, the solutions don't work because Microsoft changed something in some version, switched something around without any logic
Googling never works for me on windows, I just get redirected to their stupid forums with generic "update your pc" shit, problem solves itself after sometime somehow and I never know what the fuck happened in between. Windows to me is a magical box that sometimes breaks and fixes itself. Wasting my time in the process.
I work with programming so my experience of linux is obviously a bit different than an artist trying out linux for the first time. What are things you remember having to use the command line for? Installing packages is the most obvious one but there are graphical front ends for many package manager. Editing config files maybe? I wonder if part of the problem is that most tutorials when you google explain how to do things on the command line rather than how to do it through a gui.
I agree that part of the problem is the tutorials and average linux video shows mostly terminal usage. I’m aware of distros that do have GUI front ends like elementaryOS as mentioned, but again I am not going to install linux due to my program requirements for work not having official support. I try to keep up with some linux OS vids/posts because I think the development is interesting to see, but in the end it really is not built with the “average user” in mind no matter how many people keep saying it is lol.
I use programs in windows with only terminal support and config/json files I have to edit myself but it does remind me how much more convenient a GUI is. But devs and other tech people don’t find it worth the dev time to implement. That’s fine but it’s weird to expect widespread use when convenience is considered a waste. Sorry if I keep repeating myself but that’s genuinely a big point in the matter haha
Fair!
I don't think it's just about saving dev time (though that is also a big part of it) but also that many people, such as myself as well as most people who make open source programs, genuinely think that the terminal is more convenient than a gui. This is a niche position though and as you say an obstacle to mainstream use.
I do wonder how far away we are from a linux for casual use that you can use without the terminal, since there are already a couple of gui tools for common tasks. In my mind, the average casual user mostly uses maybe their browser, spotify, office products, steam (which may require installing a different graphic card driver, which isn't very user friendly), some messaging platform and photoshop or something. Honestly this shouldn't be that hard to do with just gui tools, modulo the graphic card drivers. Comparability with various programs is a problem though, you might have to settle for libre office and gimp instead of ms office and photoshop for example.
Creating a GUI for changing a few lines of text in a file feels like a lot of extra work for no benefit for most developers.
Yeah and that’s exactly why it’s not going to be an OS with a wide ‘average windows user’ base.
The main challenge is resisting the urge to install Linux on your own. Because you will need help at some point, so start now by asking for help.
And then, when you don't find the solution by yourself don't waste time and ask for help.
In time you will get it enough to know what you're doing.
The challenge is also to find these people that can help you out.
Yes that can be difficult some time.
But it's really mandatory to anyone wanting to use GNU/Linus.
Fragmentation, there is so many WM, DE, Distros, package managers. This is the beauty of open source but it is also the plague.
Toxic communities, where people are thrashing you if you don't understand sometimes the overly complicated wiki and you dare open a thread in one of the forums to seek for help.
Driver support, sometimes installing your OS requires a lot of manual configuration to make everything work ok your machine the way you want it.
Honestly I think Linux has been on a great path with flatpak and appimages and graphical software centers. With BTRFS Snapper system recovery if an update goes wrong is even easier than the windows version to be honest. Honestly the big push now just needs to come from some corporate and also adoption at the early education level. One reason its so hard for people to switch from windows is because most windows users have at this point used windows and nothing else for 20+ years.for those of the millennial generation and gen z they've been trained to use windows literally since childhood. Linux and open source tech being free and open source would make it a great cost savings move forpublicc education institutions and getting newer generations of young people not straight indoctrinated into using exclusively windows is important.
But to do this IT departments need to have corporate fallback for support. We need companies like suse enterprise or redhat etc to do the corporate level support to even think about an endeavor like that.
Unwarranted fear.
There is a perception of Linux as this hacker, terminal-only OS with a million equal choices and no direction or guides. This is not a true view or at least this is hyperbolic/based on Linux from 15 years ago. It is a stigma that Linux has. Every distro these days has to market itself as "We're the out-of-the-box distro" which is just silly. Out-of-the-box is meaningless. Even Windows users modify their OS in certain ways. However, it breaks the stigma.
Linux adoption just needs more time. Most of the big issues for adoption have been solved in the past few years, and Linux is ready and knowledge of Linux and removal of the stigma is growing.
Fear of terminal
Getting some specific thing to work
I come from a Windows and Mac environment and I now happily use Linux Mint. It has a similar aesthetic and is really easy to use. I think not recommending newbies Arch would be a good start.
I agree. Zorin OS is another good option, if people accept the fact that new users don't care about snaps vs flatpaks. And Zorin OS Pro helps the distro maintainers put food on the table. BTW, its been too long of a wait for Zorin Grid
It's still software support. Yes, there are many great alternatives, but not being able to use apps like everyone and not being aplble to keep the apps you have is just too complicated for many
Understanding what different distros offer and being able to make a educated decision about it. I looked around for a week or so until I found a arch distro that worked, took away the manual installation process as a complete noob, and wasn't all red flags straight away (the example is that a lot of ppl advised against manjaro). I ended up with garuda (which some ppl aren't a fan of because of chaotic-aur, but we have to start somewhere, haven't we) atm which works fine until I am confident enough to do a complete base arch installation the next time.
For me it's always been partly about ease of use, but the biggest thing is a superficial one. I just really enjoy a beautiful UI and slick UX. In these categories Windows is deep in the trash, but the bar for me is MacOS. An OS needs to make what I'm using it for easier and nicer, not have me spending time just making it work.
I haven't dipped my toe into the distro test pool in a few years, but every time I do I find myself spending more time sorting out the OS than just using it, and we'll, they just haven't been pretty to look at.
I think that's what it comes down to, distros can be decently developed but are often severely lacking in the design department.
I'd definitely love to know if any distros out there for that sort of vibe!
The installation process and the fear of frying your computer can actually be a no-no for some users. (Not that it actually happened or can happen but some people are just really scared of doing this type of thing) Like the Linux experiment said : we need to have more accessible Linux hardware like we have Windows Laptops and desktops.
has there been a case of linux actually frying a PC in the past 20 years?
No fortunately lol.
Fortunately we have some and are getting more options with the framework laptops, and there are some other hardware manufacturers who have Linux compatibility as a priority
The last time I tried to make a USB dual-boot Linux on a laptop I ended up breaking the laptop. It would turn on but show nothing but a black screen. Makes me really hesitant to try again on an old laptop that I would still like to be able to use if I fuck it up.
How about not just dumping the user to a weird terminal prompt at startup because it thinks the file system needs a check?
They shouldn't have to google what to do next.
Whenever I try to go full Linux, 80% of the time I revert back to Windows due to lack of compatibility with games. The other 20% Is due to something breaking or being a pain in the ass to get working. Need to install a program? Here is a .deb file that you have to right click, allow execution. Then you go to execute it and it opens in a text document that has a run button that ends up taking 2 hours to load and ends up failing. Turns out you could go to terminal, CD to the file location and it seems to install.
But wait! 10 dependencies are missing.
Don't do this if you can avoid it. If you want to install something use the application store installed on your distro. This way the dependencies will be handled. Installing using a Deb file should be the last option or second last option
Hey thanks for this tip!
After being on Lemmy for the last month, it has really driven me to try out Linux again. I've spun up unbuntu (Desktop) on my home server and currently utilizing it as my docker host.
My server is a bare-metal host with ESXi so I'm interacting with it via the VMRC Client. This works great for doing what I am doing but the latency is a bit to much for using it for my day to day workload. if I could get a proper remote console setup using some native built in protocol that has low latency. I'd be happy to use it for my day to day operation on top of my Windows OS..any suggestions?
Use screen sharing in gnome and RDP.
Silly me. I didn't realize there was a prebaked setting already in Ubuntu.. I'll give this a shot! Thank you!
Or just AUR.
Too much choice: 100 distros x 100 DEs x wayland vs x11 x 20 login managers x wayland vs x11 x ....
Being called out as autistic
Many comments here largely underestimate an average non linux user.
If anything, the opposite is prone to happen
Maybe it needs a rebranding. If people have heard of linux, they think it's for devs, IT nerds, too complicated, etc. Most of the people just have never heard of linux because they don't look out for it. Most people don't know what FOSS is, etc. People just don't know that their OS is spying on them. Chromeos is linux, it's in every store. Linux made it. Gnu didn't.
https://lemmy.world/comment/1373607
One word : affordance
Call it Grandma Linux™ if you want. It needs to be a deploy and forget distro. I'm not recommending Linux right now unless they're developers.