Stop being elitist, spread Linux!
Linux needs to grow. Stop telling people it's 'tech-y' or acting like you're more advanced for using it, you are scaring away people. Linux Mint can be used by a senile person perfectly.
Explain shortly the benefits, 'faster, more secure, easier to use, main choices of professionals and free'. Ask questions that let you know if they need to dual boot, 'do you use Adobe, anti-cheat games, or Microsoft Office', 'how new is your computer', 'do you use a Mac'.
And most importantly, offer to help them install.
They don't understand the concept of distros, just suggest Linux Mint LTS Cinnamon unless they're curious.
That's it, spread Linux to as many people as possible. The larger the marketshare, the better support we ALL get. We can fight enshittification. Take the time to spread it but don't force it on anyone.
AND STOP SCARING PEOPLE AWAY. Linux has no advertising money, it's up to us.
Offer family members or friends your help or copy and paste the below
how to install linux: 1) copy down your windows product key 2) backup your files to a harddrive 3) install the linux mint cinnamon iso from the linux mint website 4) use etcher (download from its website) to put the iso on a usb flash drive 5) go into bios 6) boot from the usb 7) erase the storage and install 8) press update all in the update manager 9) celebrate. it takes 15 minutes.
edit: LET ME RE-STATE, DO NOT FORCE IT ON ANYONE.
and if someone is at the level of ignorance (not in a derogatory fashion) that they dont know what a file even is genuinely dont bother unless theyre your parents cause youll be tech support for their 'how do i install the internet' questions.
haha right! Most people don't even understand that MacOS is a thing on it's own, they just think it's a Mac. They have never needed to make the distinction between software and hardware. If you were to suggest they "change to Linux", they won't have any frame of reference for what this means. Heck, most people still call Android phones "droids", or if they know anything, "Pixels" and "Samsungs" without knowing that "Android" is it's own thing. Macbooks have USB-C now but few users know that you can use an Apple charger to charge anything USB-C. It's like back in the 90s you would frequently hear people not making the distinction between "monitor" and "computer".
Don't get me wrong, I think consumer education is the only plausible way out of this proprietary mess, but the further society moves away from PCs having discrete interchangeable components the harder concepts like "operating system" are going to be to understand for anyone not specifically seeking out that knowledge.
Absolutely right. And it blows my mind that at this point people are getting less technologically literate, not more. Job security for us IT guys, I guess.
It's not all that bad. I'm sure there are as many youth keen to learn computers and they have easy access to all the tools they need to develop knowledge and skill
It's just as we have become more knowledgeable, more capable, the difference between us and the normal people seems incredible.
But put us in an area needing different specialist knowledge and we'll struggle like they do with computer technical stuff
We speak jargon. They don't know the words, or if they do they use them wrong.
Also it sucks for us in IT work; when you are in an agile team and the manager two levels up doesn't understand agile they do things like break up high performing teams (mine had been a team for four years - from the day the organisation decided to test agile) to share the people around so they can teach the others how to be high performing
Had they read anything about agile, they would know that longevity of a team is a good predictor for performances — but they wouldn't read about agile, it's an IT technical thing
I mean, two whole generations are growing up without using regular computers until they enter the workforce or go to college. When I was in highschool, I was told that the generations after me would mostly be more technologically literate than anyone was at the time, but with smartphones and ChromeOS it seems that the time to learn how to use a personal computer now begins far later than it was for us millennials.
There are so many basic things about using a computer that it is no longer to expect a high school graduate to know, such as how to use a printer (or what a printer even is), how to reboot a computer, what a browser is, etc.
education is so important
i was called into one office where they bought a backup external, like someone told them to previously. they took it out of the box, set it on the tower. and i guess, that was that. the magic box would now have backups of everything they did.
five years later, i got to tell them that there's nothing on it.
the pc was never configured to run a backup of any kind. hell, the drive was never connected to the pc.
so no backups of their documents, their spreadsheets, their mailing lists, their email, or their quickbooks (that part, they at least ran manual backups of, when prompted by the software, to a flash drive).
I bet that company hires lawyers for law technical stuff.
it's a church office, jesus does the legal shit.. and apparently the pc backups, too.
step 2 of this process involves making a backup. whether they understand how they did so or not.
I work in a decent-sized computer repair shop and this is a very accurate representation of what the average user knows.
Just in case anyone thinks this is over the top.
I'm fortnightly* helping some friends upgrade from win7 to more modern windows. They're smart people, one's an accountant, the other a school librarian. But since neither of their professions nor their hobbies are computer technical they need help
They're currently at the step "ring Microsoft to troubleshoot the licence"
*They host the d&d game
https://xkcd.com/2501/
https://m.xkcd.com/2501/
reminds me of [email protected]
Don’t support anything Google touches.
gosh
Honestly these people shouldn't use computers if they can't be bothered to learn the bare minimum ngl.
Or we need to improve IT classes and courses
I was thinking more "navigate to a file" type stuff. Understanding what admin privileges are, copying and pasting, stuff like this.
Often times when I needed to help a non-tech savvy person solve an issue on any OS it is some really dumb problem like them not knowing how to run some program as admin (no idea why they want to run a graph software that needs admin privileges to this day), opening the file manager, navigating to a folder to paste a file to it, or simply reading the popup instead of panicking.
At no point have I said going into a BIOS is basic knowledge. But if the people you're dealing with struggle with the most basic shit ever then you're not even gonna get to the BIOS part, and if they aren't willing to learn how to use a computer then they probably shouldn't use a computer.
You need a license to drive a car, and to get the license you have to pass a test to prove you know the basics of motor vehicle operation and the "rules of the road."
I really don't see why we couldn't/shouldn't apply the same logic to computer hardware.
Uh because innocent people don't die if a user doesn't know how to install an OS?
In some contexts having people who don't know what files are, what a folder is, and some other basics, do lead to people dying or lots of damage done.
Of course you'd expect people in these contexts to be trained but that's not always the case.
Also having no idea what a file is and not knowing the bare minimum of how a computer works in this day and age is unacceptable. It should be taught properly in schools (instead of teaching some very specific stuff everyone will forget, like what a bus is, and then jump to what excel is and how to use it, like they did in my IT class back in high school)
Don't get me wrong I'm very pro-tech literacy and education, especially with the tablet generation users that are becoming more abstracted from the system plumbing... but requiring licenses to use a computer?? Lol. If it's that important to the job, employer should provide training just like any other piece of equipment.
I'm not going to expect doctors to know how to get into a bios or cleanup a corrupted file system, they specialized in human biology - keep them focused on that, and I'll handle the OS management.
I don't expect anyone to know how to install an OS either, that's not the basics. But I do expect everyone to know what a file is, what file extensions are and what a directory/folder is.
Why? Those are just abstractions. Why do you get to decide at which level of abstraction is the baseline for a person to use a computer?
Especially considering most computer users are operating at a higher level of abstraction (i.e. phones/tablets).
You are not the average computer user anymore.
You realise there are people that are over 80 that only have a computer so they can check pictures of their grandkids on Facebook and that's it?
yes, I do, but that's not representative of the majority of the population.
So it's unacceptable for them to have a computer?
Tell that to the guy whose son was so influenced by grifters online that he cut off his dad's head.
Oh wait you can't because he's dead.
No, using the internet while being an idiot has literally lead to murder.
Should require a license to go outside or read a book too, they might meet a dangerous group of people or read something that influences them.
He just needed the TV to turn this way, should were require a college degree to be allowed to have a TV?
If you're actually expecting people to transition without asking for help on a regular basis, you don't know people.
You just made yourself their IT guy for life.
And I think there isn't a good solution to this. Ideally you would enable people to make good choices for themselves, know how to handle the tools they use...
Interesingly enough they come to me to fix their printer and antivirus anyways, and I have no idea of what I'm doing since I haven't used Windows in like 15 years, except for updating my GPS and filling out time-sheets for work and stuff like that. And in the meantime Microsoft switches things around every few years and bolts on a new interface onto their office suite and then moves it to the cloud. I don't think it would make any difference if my relatives were using Linux in the first place. They would still need to ask someone to fix their printer drivers and handle big version upgrades. And if it was me at the other end, it would be way more convenient to me to help them.
I stopped advertising Linux to people who didn't ask me to... I'll tell them I use different things on my computer and why this software is way better. If they pick up on that and want to try out of their own motivation, I'll gladly help.
This
No, it's better to be honest. The average user isn't ready for Linux, because Linux is not ready for the average user. I'd never try and get someone to use it if they're not already interested. I hate that it is this way, but it is. Linux is only really for people who already want to use it. Because if you're not interested in using it, you're not going to put forth the time investment to gain the benefits from it. No matter what angle I look at it from Linux is not for the average person.
Your second paragraph says it all. Find out if the user needs to dual boot? The answer is obviously "No" because no matter what they're using the computer for, Linux is unneeded for them, since they have Windows. There are tangible benefits to using Windows, since it runs their software, meanwhile, you failed to list any real benefits to using Linux for the average user. It's faster? No, not really, since they'll be learning how to use it, and even ignoring that, it's not so much faster that they'll perceive it anyway. It's more secure? Not really, Windows is the better choice for the average user in that respect, since it'll automatically force them to restart the machine every week to install security updates. Main choice of professionals? That's not entirely true, and even if it were, it's not relevant, the average user is not a professional. And for anyone who already owns a computer already running Windows, Windows was 'free' too.
The only time to have this discussion is if the user is having a PC built, and then the answer is also "No" to Linux, because they're going to buy Windows anyway, since it's better for gaming, and that's the primary reason for someone to build a PC, unless they're doing a specialized task like video editing, and if they are invested enough into the task to want a PC just for that, they have specialized software that almost always runs only on Windows, and even if it were able to run on either, it's not my place to alter their workflow.
The real elitist attitude is thinking people need to use Linux in the first place. For me and (maybe) you, it might get the job done, but for my family and friends. It's better that they use what they're comfortable with. The main point of a computer is to accomplish tasks, and giving them Linux is a hindrance to that.
Linux is great, but it's not for everyone, and it may never be.
Thank you. Windows is plain better for the average user, and that's a hard pill for many to swallow. Heck, I force myself to use Linux time to time but I always go back because the Affinity suite and my fingerprint reader only works on Windows. I have no reason to stay on Linux, it's too limited outside niche cases.
That's plain wrong. That's not honest, that's elitist at best.
No user ever installed windows. So the whole installation and driver thing is a dishonest question.
Even for gaming on a custom PC, just take an amd card and games on steam, it'll run smoothly.
Browsing Internet and desktop? Works fine on Linux. Fuck office, you don't need it.
If you need a computer for a specific software, that's a different matter. But presenting it like everyone is concerned is dishonest.
The security paragraph is complete nonsense. And obnoxiously rebooting is a major hindrance for most people, and it's not avoidable without the professional licence.
It's not 2010 anymore.
"Fuck office, you don't need it." <- the audacity to assume someone doesn't need something.
No one needs office unless the company forces it.
No. Mint is fine for my dad who uses a browser and an email program and nothing else. I'm not gonna recommend it to people who do a lot more with their machines. I can tell them I use Linux and they can ask me anything if they are ever curious about making the switch, but that is it. If they don't make the conscious decision to use Linux, then they won't stick with it anyways.
I guess this is the purpose of Mint Linux? But I think it has a terminal, emacs, python as well? Then it's ok. A distro is only a tool for needs. I don't like this arch-talk, how cool it is and then you need month to write your configuration. By the way: what goes quicker on a laptop: Mint with xcfe or Ubuntu with xfce? I want to have a quicker boot. At the moment Kubuntu on the machine. Too slow.
Mint because Snaps
And Mint because Gnome (shudder)
All I want is to be able to post a question in a forum and get an answer besides "Until you read these 3 texts and 20 MAN entries I don't want you to even stain this forum's pages with your ignorant drivel'.
I've been trying to go linux for 20 years now and every fuckdamn time a problem I cannot solve or find an answer for online leads to the above and I'm done.
You guys may have cleaned up your community now but I don't have the energy or patience to try it again.
Full Disclosure: IT admin with 3 decades of experience including supporting linux servers. If I have a hard time with it, think about what your average 'raised on a smartphone' newbie is going to think.
Linux sysadmin here too. I run Windows on my main workstation now because I have no patience for issues like sound not working when I join a video call and shit like that. Your post perfectly describes my gripe with Linux.
Windows sucks but 99 percent of problems are solved by simply rebooting the motherfucker.
I've seen a couple of posts in here about sound. It's wild that I've been through dozens of distros since the start of high school (12 years ago), installed them on at least 10 machines over that time, and can't remember one issue with sound that took more than 15 seconds to fix (e.g discord choosing the wrong sound device because I have 6 things plugged in that can technically output sound, which also happens to my friends who use Windows).
Maybe I'm just lucky. The only issues I recall having in the last decade are essentially graphics related. Either game compatibility (though proton/wine is much better than it was in 2015) or desktop environments being finicky (freezing on sleep for example), but the latter afaict was entirely due to proprietary nvidia drivers. There are proper, high-performance open source drivers in the works, so nvidia might be on par with amd in 2-3 years on Linux (which is to say literally no issues for the vast majority of people, probably far more stable than Windows).
In the same time I've had lots of people come to me with problems that we've specifically troubleshooted and found Windows to be the issue even when it seemed like hardware problems. Like monitor flickering/black screening, and plugging in a different monitor the issue goes away. On the surface it seems like a hardware problem, but both monitors worked flawlessly on Linux for literally months. Full reinstalling Windows did not fix the issue. Upgrading from Windows 10 -> 11 did not fix the issue.
Same thing with another friend's external SSD. For some reason it wasn't being detected on his Windows 7 install. We installed Linux and the drive was picked up. Maybe Windows 10 would've also picked up the drive in this circumstance, but a lot of people hated the idea of Windows 10 at the time (this was just after Windows 10 was released, when Windows 7 still had a similar market share).
There's likely a huge percentage of problems people attribute to hardware that are actually Windows being a shitty O.S, but nobody actually checks if Windows is the problem.
Ubuntu resets my default audio every time I put it to sleep. I have no idea why, other distros didn't do this. Sometimes it fails to detect the speakers on my laptop completely.
I've found Ubuntu to need a lot less effort than other distros so I'm not planning to ditch it yet, but even Ubuntu still has weird quirks like this.
Also, some apps fail to open in x11 for some reason so I have to switch to a Wayland session every now and then. And then switch back to x11 because other apps won't open in Wayland.
Linux always has some weird usability issue no matter how many distros I've tried. It's getting a lot better but it's not there yet.
Similarly, maybe just luck, but I've not really had a problem with windows since windows 10/server 2019. Yeah it's resource heavy but I can't even recall anything I've specifically had to delve into forums to troubleshoot. That said I haven't had to do any windows desktop support since windows 7, thank the gods.
I deployed several server 2022 vms at work due to special circumstance and its actually good out of box, I only disabled some print services and my gold image was ready. Those have been running for a year and I've only rebooted them due to patching. Very different than the windows I adminned back in the 2000s.
Every word you speak is truth.
Something in my heart feels that if instead of spreading out a huge topheavy ecosystem of near identical distros that change their hippy dippy naming structures on a regular basis and instead on GETTING F$@KING PERIPHERALS TO WORK CONSISTENTLY then it would be a mainstream option.
I think the current massive distro ecosystem is actually cointelpro by the OS big boys to cripple competition.
People who daily drive Linux are not the ones who spread the old idea that it's "too techy".
I admittedly don't have many conversation about Linux with people, but yeah the ones I do have are usually me trying to convince people that it's less techy and scary than they think it is. One person asked me how I do everything if it's only text. They thought Linux was literally just the terminal with no UI at all. I had to be like "no dude, it's like everything else. You can just install Firefox or Chrome or whatever you want."
It's still techy, here two recent problems I faced with still no solution'( specially with only Gui)
and every time I say Linux is not usefull for simple use i get downvotes all the time . Cause Linux bro dudes can do it with terminal so easy... Well guess what linux dudes , its hard for performing many tasks which are simple enough on windows/Mac heck even on Android ( which is Linux also I know) , but desktop Linux has looooooooooooooong way to be normal os in households
A quick web search (even without 'graphical') turned up pages suggesting meld in the first few results.
Ignore me if you're not still looking for solutions.
IIRC, some distros have a way to do this through the gui, some don't. I'm on LMDE, and it thankfully does have a gui to set startup programs.
But all distros should be able to do this. Here are some a common ways:
https://operavps.com/docs/run-command-after-boot-in-linux/
Instead of a complicated script, your command would literally just be "firefox", or "emby". You might need to search for what the command for a given program is.
It's nowhere near as simple as it should be, but it is certainly possible.
This is gonna cause more harm than good. The reason people think it's techy is because it is. I would recommend linux to my grandma and someone who loves tech. The middleground runs into a lot of issues for doing anything beyond basic computer stuff.
This post gives me the vibe of someone desperately trying to get people to buy the cryptocurrency they're invested in. Particularly the part where only the good is mentioned and the bad is omitted.
Some linux people are pretty elitist though, and it's not helping the cause. but in the same way, i dont think pretending that it's the greatest thing since sliced tea is much better.
The Lemmy Linux Community is elitist about Linux, I mean I told them I can't find a file comparators on Linux I got downvotes , out of 4 , 1 solutions is use of Terminal(not a basic user would want to do) , 1 is claiming windows is bad and 1 might be a solutions.
But yah I got the downvotes from LINUX Bros. Dudes needs to just admit linux läcka programs and simplicity of use for general use.
Part of me thinks you're being unreasonable, because that question did receive decent responses (1 CLI + GUI suggestion, 1 GUI suggestion, and 2 beginning to try troubleshoot the drive access problem).
But I suspect it's just a dissonance in perspectives, maybe due to your Linux distro causing a bunch of stupid issues, which haven't been properly noticed by anyone yet.
It's a shame that some distros like Ubuntu have enshittified so badly that they've become unsupportable. (Nothing seems to work rationally -- the same reason I find it impossible to support users on Windows).
Advocates and potential/new users alike, need to consider specific distributions, not just "Linux".
Less people, less developers, less software. Gatekeepers seem to prefer to keep it worse, than get the obvious benefits of more users.
If Linux had the most and Windows the least users, it'd probably be in the same boat with the less ease of use in many cases.
True on both counts.
There’s 0 need for Linux to grow. It powers 80% of new web-apps, runs the big gaming systems, parts of azure and aws. It’s the go-to server os for most use-cases.
The Linux desktop needs to mature if it’s to grow. Non-tech users don’t care for “new and innovative ux paradigms”. They don’t wanna scan the internet to figure out why sound is missing after upgrading to pop_os 4. That or they need someone close by to fix it for free
My partner's Linux box runs fine and has had no faults that needed my help in the 10 years it's been showing her news, email, and web
It's a lot more stable than it was years and years ago
Is it Debian?
Ubuntu, if I need to reset it, it'll be Debian/gnome
I installed ubuntu onto a mini pc and spent days trying just to get the sound to work but gave up and went back to Mac
@qaadka @Oisteink I can help 😈
Things are fine until one day they need to plug this random peripheral/accessory and it's not plug and play. Then they hate you forever
You're totally right for brand new kit, but for older kit I've found that's swung hard in the opposite direction.
For example, I was trying to help someone at the weekend setting up some old audio kit, a few printers and a slide scanner on their mac system, and it was a nightmare, and half of it's still not working.
You're constantly getting stuck with "this device only works with these 3 versions of this software and those versions of software only works on these versions of MacOS and these versions of MacOS only work with these models of Mac.
When I tested the devices on my laptop (Linux Mint), everything was detected instantly and worked with several different pieces of software (at least as far as you can test in a few minutes).
As said, I get that's not the case with newest kit, or kit that requires special proprietary software, but for a lot of older equipment, I absolutely can't fault it.
I don't often suggest Linux to friends or family, because I don't want to be on the hook for tech support. I also don't want to be the blamed party when they inevitably give up, and be obligated to reinstall their old OS.
Linux is growing naturally. There's little reason to suggest it to someone who won't benefit from it.
EDIT: I want to clarify, I appreciate the spirit of your post. But I also want to call out, that it just isn't the best choice for most people.
fair enough
OK I'm searching in vain for the mega-upvote button.
I would add that desktop Linux only exists today as an alternative to Windows because of those values. This history of Linux desktop environments and applications is rife with examples of popular or personally important bits of software that were forked and kept alive by the freedom granted by FLOSS licensing.
If "Linux" was a thing that MS could have bought and then destroyed or enshittified, they'd have done it twenty years ago. And make no mistake, they continue to play the long game.
Yes, we should all be good to newcomers. No, the direction of desktop Linux should not be steered by wanting more of them. It should be steered by a need to provide desktop Linux for people who enjoy using desktop Linux.
I wish Free Software, Free Society were mandatory reading...
It's already dominant on the servers.
Stop being elitist.
Use linux mint.
Why linux mint?
It's like ubuntu but no snaps.
What's ubuntu?
It's like debian but not as stable. You'll get more recent apps in ubuntu, test them, and when they are tested companies use the apps in debian.
Ok, What are snaps?
You can install packages with snap, but it's proprietary.
Ok, that's bad?
Yes. Foss apps are great and better than proprietary garbage.
Ok, foss good, proprietary garbage.
Why debian and not fedora?
Because all apps are build for it.
So it's like aur?
No. Aur is made by users for users. Builds on debian are mostly official.
So the package manager is better on debian?
Yes, kind of.
I heard of distrobox. I could use the package manager on any distro.
Yes, but it's easier at the beginning to stick to one distro and package manager to get used to it.
Why not arch?
It's too unstable.
Ok, no arch distro. I heard manjaro is good.
No, it holds back packages for no reason.
Ok. What about fedora?
It doesn't have as many packages.
But it has the copr, aren't there a lot of apps?
Yes, but it's like aur, it's build by users. Debian builds are good, stable and widely used.
Ok. What about nix? I heared it's the new arch and there are even more packages.
Yes, but It's not for newbies.
What is an immutable system? I heared that's the next big thing.
It's like android an image based operating system where you can't brick your system by accident with rm -rf /
What's rm -rf /?
Just test it in a terminal, it's fun.
How can I play games?
You install steam.
Do I have to configure anything?
Hopefully not
Can I only use linux mint?
No you can use any distro, they are all linux. You can choose whatever you want. Just choose mint.
Why mint?
It has no snaps.
What do I use instead?
Flatpaks
If I use flatpaks, why does the package manager matter so much?
Because not all apps are available as flatpacks, especially command line tools. Snaps has cli but it's proprietary.
Can't I just use any distro and use a debian distrobox for those packages I need from debian?
Yes, use linux mint, it's easy to use.
Do I actually need all those packages? I only use word and steam.
No, probably not.
Why not using ubuntu and install flatpaks?
Because ubuntu sucks.
But isn't mint based on ubuntu?
Yes, but it has no snaps.
Can't I just use debian?
Yes, but it doesn't have the latest packages.
How do I install word?
You can't. You can use the online version.
That's a lot to understand. Can't I just windows? I only open steam anyway.
Yes, but it's proprietary.
Steam is also proprietary.
Yes, but you xan play games with it on linux.
But if steam is proprietary, and windows is proprietary, and I mainly use steam anyway, does it even matter?
What's a DE?
Linux mint uses cinnamon, it's cool!
I saw some KDE screemshots. It looks cool and everyone talks about it. There's a big release coming in a few weeks. how do I install it?
You usually don't mix DEs unless you know what you do.
I don't.
Then don't mix it.
But I want to use KDE. Which distro should I use? Kubuntu?
No, it uses snaps like ubuntu.
...
No it doesn't. If you don't care and just want anything that runs Steam, don't bother. Just pick anything, it runs fine on most Linux distributions, Windows and probably Mac. You're fine with tossing a coin. I'd choose Linux in that case since it's cheaper.
A proper conversation would be like this:
What shall I use?
Depends... What do you want to do with your computer?
Play games with Steam.
Alright, then use XY. Wanna know more?
No.
Fine.
most 'newbies', who just need something to launch a browser these days, wouldn't go past line 2.
💀
Thanks for the laugh 😀
Going for that "who's on first base" vibe?
Someone prefers mint.
casually mentions how i run linux. other person. that's cool. continues with windows.
if they don't want to hear it, they don't want to hear it. but if they do, they know they can ask.
No. Make them use it. Force them. Hit them if you need to. Make sure they do an Arch install without any scripts and don't help them
Look at them harshly thoughout the whole interaction and let them know they are less then us.
I went through Arch install and I'm doing just fine, thanks. They just moved me out of the ICU to a new unit called "Palliative". It's quite comfy.
Welcome to the club. You're a real Linux user now.
If someone comes to me I'm more than happy to answer questions and help, but I won't bring it up. People don't like being told that their tool of choice is "bad" "not optimal" or anything like that. Even if it's only their choice because they grew up with it or don't want to learn anything new. And they still need to learn if it's more than browsing the web.
Also I really don't want to be the one they come running to once something doesn't work the way they expected - or not at all. I don't have the time nor the inclination to be tech support for my family and half of my friends.
This is the same as how I am. People know I'm "the Linux guy", but I don't preach it. I don't try to get friends and family to switch operating systems. That's like trying to get someone to switch to your favourite brand of underpants. The whole ethos behind Linux is the freedom of choice. If someone wants to learn more about it, I'm happy to point them to helpful resources, but they need to make the decision on their own, and choose for themselves. I won't install it for them, because I don't want to deal with the "where are all my pictures are gone?", or "why doesnt my scanner work anymore?"
I don’t think anyone who isn’t already curious about Linux should install Linux. And I sure as hell am not going to try to convince anyone and be blamed for not being able to use adobe products.
I would make an exception for the type of people who only use their computer for the internet. People like my parents, who do about 98% of everything through a browser, and occasionally write a letter.
For someone like them, Linux is ideal. Just explain that Firefox is the internet and rename the office shortcuts, and they wouldn't notice a difference.
thats a huge portion of people too
Build an automatic Linux mint installer that can handle most typical configurations and migrate data and apps from windows (with wine)
Get some oldish windows exploits together.
Build a worm that replaced vulnerable windows systems with mint
???
Profit (3 free meals a day and TV for the rest of your life)
Install a theme that looks like the Windows version it replaced
fucking genius
I’m a Linux user and fan for a lot of years now. Software engineer by profession.
It’s not ready for widespread adoption to the less tech-savvy masses.
It misses some functionality that is really hard to get right but is absolutely expected to get right. For example: graceful suspend and wakeups. It happens so often even to me that I close my Linux laptop for the day, next morning open it up to a bunch of warnings and error messages about Bluetooth adapters or whatever the device of the day that wants to malfunction is that prevents a sound
S2S3 sleep.I don’t get freaked out about it. But grandma sure would. And yet my 10 year old MacBook Pro gets it right every single fucking time; completely flawlessly. This is the bar of usability that Linux has to achieve for widespread adoption as a true, polished, personal computing experience.
edit: meant S3 sleep.
It also doesn't help that doing anything in Linux requires weird little guys like "mv" or "mkdir" or "chmod 777"
People can make their own choices. I have 6-7 Linux machines, and asked my brother to install it too. He hated the experience. He bought a Mac at the end, and he's very happy with it. Some people just don't want Linux. They don't care about its philosophy, or that it's free. They want an ecosystem, and a status symbol.
Stop being elitist about Linux, the amount of times I’ve had to explain that none of my software runs great on Linux just to have to hear how with trouble shooting it will. My work depends on the use of my software, it’s collaborative. If I have to trouble shoot every time adobe or Ableton updates it’s a bad use of my time and is actively taking time away from projects. Only I use VSTs for music production, they all work perfectly in windows and MacOS. Linux? Hit or miss.
Maybe I’m convinced. Now I gotta find the right one, set it up. Get all my software working, learn a new UI, hope that it doesn’t break collaboration. All in all, not worth the little I would save.
The Adobe photography plan costs me $120 a year, and honestly includes more useful updates than not. Their AI masking upgrades the last couple years are saving me hours to days of editing time per photo session.
$120 a year is worth maybe one hour of my free time. Even just migrating to Darktable would take me weeks or months of dedicated time to migrate my existing catalog.
vsts work great with yabridge but yeah i get what you mean :D. theres a new plugin standard called clap so hopefullt that grows
Irony: being elitist about the most egalitarian operating system
As much as I like the premise, the average Joe doesn’t care.
It is techy, as long as it’s not seamless to transition, average person won’t bother.
What a person knows already > all of the other benefits. That’s why people use Photoshop and not GIMP.
If they need to dual boot, forget it. “Can’t I just use windows instead if I have to switch anyway?”
If they can’t install it themselves, they won’t bother learning the system. Say what you want but I think Windows still shits itself less than Linux. And when it does there is a lot more people who can help without typing in cryptic commands into the terminal.
For Linux to become more popular, more open standards would need to be mainstream. Leave Adobe, MS Office and other proprietary software that everyone uses. It’s like asking people to stop using PDFs because YOU a techy person think MD is better or whatever.
I disagree with your photoshop vs gimp point. People don't use gimp because the ui is complete shit. Tons of people switched to Krita for drawing when that came out because it actually had thought put into the user experience. People don't use GIMP because no matter how much anyone begs for the devs to make the ui not suck, nothing ever changes.
Yeah, “ease of use” wasn’t the best argument, the rest still stands though. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I myself hate the UI a lot. Don’t care what they add, change the UI
I say it all the time, people care about apps and browsing websites, they don't care about the how, just the what. Too many techy folks cannot see it as a business and human problem.
The UI of Gimp is pretty damn bad, but if you've used Photoshop you probably will be able to handle the Gimp UI. However, if you use Photoshop for anything more advanced than the most rudimentary MS Paint shit, Gimp is out of the question due to it using destructive editing.
Stop doing this. Just be normal.
No, Linux (especially arch Linux) is the far superior operating system where the only limit is skill and knowledge.
I generally disagree with trying to get people to use linux now. Im seeing a lot of people leaving linux and getting turned off by the idea of it.
Aside from outliers like Android and Chrome OS, I do not think Linux is in a suitable state for non-techy people to use unfortunately. I'm really hoping PopOS will be able to change things in the future, however as it stands I really don't think it is ready for prime time.
Users expect things that kind of just work and Linux Mint has not been that experience for me. I found the app store to be kind of annoying to use and complicated. The settings app were not very well laid out and miscellaneous stuff like that, which kind of ruins the experience.
Meanwhile, there are just general Linux issues to accessibility becoming worse and worse instead of better. You have issues like we still don't have a distro with good wine integration so people can use the apps they actually need to use. The apps that we do have natively, are oftentimes relatively... janky. If you're comparing Libreoffice to Microsoft Office, the experience is just not the same, even if the technical capability is.
EDIT: I want Linux to succeed just as much as anybody else. In fact, I think I might want it to succeed more because I absolutely detest maintaining Windows installs. However, lying about the state of Linux and being dishonest about it is not the way to go about this. We should be honest with all of its issues, so to speak. So that way we can strive to make them better instead of ignoring them and sweeping them under the rug for the people we tell to trial and to find instead.
If I might ask: Who is leaving and what for? Mac? I've seen some developers buy the newer M2/M3 Macbooks. I think they're nice. But not nice enough to pay the price for one with a decent amount of RAM and storage myself.
I have had multiple friends I've gotten to try linux for a prolonged period of time leave back to windows or mac, (In one case ChromeOS). There are a variety of issues, needing to constantly wrangle to get games working even with lutris and steam, Various accessibility issues, Microsoft office as I mentioned etc.
the general consensus was "it often did most of what they needed it to do, but not all, and often times not well enough"
Uuh. Yeah I believe you. I can't really empathize with that because on friday I booted the Windows on my laptop and it took like one and a half hours with the fan on maximum and two restarts until it had done the updates of the last three months since I've last used it. And then the Steam main window started flickering like crazy and I had to reboot it once or twice more, fix the boot order since it also messed with that and the graphics issues luckily went away on their own. I like to do development and dabble in electronics projects and that's also so clumsy on windows. You need like 20 different tools to get a task done and windows doesn't come with a single one of them. No git, no proper editor, nothing to mess with firmware files or flash them onto the microcontroller Not even the driver for some really standard USB/Serial chips. You can't read some of the filesystems, it can only extract one or two types of archives and always something gets in your way and messes up your workflow... And speaking of workflows... I really like the unix philosophy, it's soo convenient to use computers with a proper cli. In windows there is no equivalent to that, you're supposed to use a plethora of UI tools, or nowadays use the WSL and just install Linux. And that's just one aspect of what I do on my laptop. Guess it's different for everyone of us. I mean I don't judge. It's just, I've tried both and I just can't imagine how I'd enjoy using Windows. But everyone should make that decision for themselves. (Sorry for rambling on and on. I was really a bit pissed before the weekend. And turns out I still am. The "things have fewer issues on windows" somehow never works out for me.)
oh I absolute hate windows too, personally I can never stop running into issues with it. I have this really bloody stupid issue where every now and then my screen will flicker purple for no reason, AMD driver updates will constantly kick me out of my games with the stupid console open but blank. and so many other idiotic issues. It's weird, it's a;most as if the second you become technologically inclined windows intentionally breaks itself xD
Hmmh. Something is going on here.
Is $1900 too much for a blazing fast laptop with 1TB/24GB that will have support for 10 years?
I'm sorry, I really don't get all the innuendo here. Are we talking about a Macbook or another laptop here that gets support for 10 years? I like to pay about 1200€ for a laptop and it usually lasts me like 6-8 years. But 1 TB SSD is a bit short of what I'm comfortable with. If I configure a M3 Macbook with 24GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD it comes down to 3149€. That is about $3.400 after taxes. Another laptop I really like is the frame.work laptop. The AMD Ryzen 7 should be plenty fast. The price including 32GB of memory and 2 TB of storage is 1918€ or about $2.070 after taxes. And in the years to come you can fix it and upgrade it however you like. So your $1900 sounds about right if it's blazing fast and lasts you 10 years. I just wonder which laptop you're talking about.
It’s a 15” MacBook Air M2. The closest frame.work laptop I could configure was $5 off from what you said, so I think we are going for the same specs.
I love the framework system. If I was going PC that’s absolutely who I’d go with. All those swappable ports?! I’m drooling.
All of my Apple laptops last a long time. I’m still using my 13” 2013 MacBook Air when I go on vacation. It’s so light and small. I’ve had to replace the battery on it, but I think that’s to be expected.
Fair enough. Yeah, the framework is a gem. And I learned about the M2 and M3 Macbooks because some people do AI / machine learning stuff on them and they seem to perform exceptionally well. I don't think I'm a Mac guy, I'd probably need Linux to achieve happiness. I haven't kept up but last time I checked M2 support was coming along.
Anyhow, my last two laptops were Thinkpads. They were both good machines, suffered quite some abuse and are still running. The old one is pretty damaged though, display hinges broken and some obvious damage, fan does everything but what it's supposed to do. But it served me well for god knows how long. I think I went through 3 or 4 batteries until I finally replaced that one. The one after that also refuses to die. But it's getting old and slow and I'm not willing to spend the money to upgrade the RAM and also buy a new battery. It didn't last me as long as the one before. I'm just not in love with their current lineup. Next laptop isn't going to be another Thinkpad. Maybe I'll go for a Framework.
i have a client in need of a new laptop to replace an aging windows one with multiple issues. a $280 sale of a 12th gen 1215u with 8gb and 250gb ssd staring at him, and way more than they 'need'. but his wife, a k12 teacher, will insist upon a macbook when she retires and has to give hers back to the district. so they're looking at about $1000 instead, minimum.
Mmh, everyone is allowed to make stupid choices. I've told multiple people that drawers in the kitchen and in your wardrobe are awesome. That you don't need the Adobe suite to cut your 1.5 travel videos a year, let alone a $1200 phone... Stop using software when we have way better alternatives that are also easier to use. Many people don't listen. And they're entitled not to listen to me, it's their money, life and choices.
Third best enterprise OS.
Well, it’s better than Windows, so besides Linux what is better than macOS?
Not in an enterprise setting, so patato potato
Depends on the enterprise.
This, don't get why people are so set on convincing the world to switch.
Userbase is big enough that support is pretty good, we've all got what we want out of it, why try to push it on people who don't care about technology
People making OS their religion and following one of the Penguin Creeds:
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, installing Linux in the name of Torvalds, Stallman, and the Holy Kernel: Teaching them to use only FOSS software. Amen.
See the whole point of Linux to me seems to be to allow user choice.
Windows and Mac are just as valid choices depending on a user's needs
Personally, I want everyone to switch. I help my family all the time with their computing needs. I myself would greatly prefer them running linux all the time, but needs are needs.
But please don't give unsolicited advice about Linux. No one wants that.
Do you have a few minutes to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Linus Torvalds?
and RMS. And we need a third person to get to the holy trinity. Greg Kroah-Hartman? Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie? Bjarne Stroustrup? We could choose Lennart Poettering, that'd certainly annoy a few people. Maybe we need some more apostles and additional people since all of that is based on the work of so many different people.
thats where the 'dont force it on anyone' comes from
Headline: "Person new to and overly excited about Thing, starts telling other more experienced people about how to approach and think about Thing"
:(
This is the attitude the OP is talking about.
Being snobbish helps noone, we've all been noobs at some point.
Linux is the most widely deployed OS on the planet. I'm not sure OP is actually talking about aside from desktop usage. It's in your headphones, home appliances, routers, competing OS's, datacenters that run the world...what do you imagine is missed?
Not only should we not recommend Linux we should be more "elitist". If a user wants to use Linux we should provide help but we should not convince. Linux is a fundamentally technical system due to its high skill celling. It will also never be able to do everything Windows does, I may be ok with that (and most Linux users are) but the average person may not. Also why do we need to advertise? More users doesn't mean anything. The only thing that matters is more programmers who are willing to contribute and maintain along with corporate sponsors.
TLDR; there is nothing wrong with telling someone to not use Linux if they aren't already
this is why we dont have adobe, or so much else. proper nvidia support? drivers?
That takes away most teenagers' motivation to use Linux xD
I've "refreshed" a couple coworker's old PCs with Linux Mint XFCE. It's actually gone pretty well.
"All I do is browse the net."
Okay, I'll put the browser right on the desktop, so you don't have to search for it. Be patient, it's an older computer. But at least this works, unlike Windows.
And I haven't really heard too much from them. Internet works. Basic needs fulfilled.
I feel like someone who knows a bit more could be more of a pain. But for very basic computing needs like paying your bills and surfing IG, it can go well.
But you’re forgetting the most important thing—people don’t want to change. They want a big corporation to tie themselves to because brand loyalty is a replacement for the need to learn.
Linux isn’t going to replace your phone with AppleCare. Linux doesn’t have a support line to bitch to or a geek squad to call. In fact, most of the places your typical user would think to go for support will likely balk at a Linux system because they aren’t power users either—just employees trained for a specific service.
I love Linux. I flirt with going 100% FOSS all the time. But I wouldn’t recommend it for my mom. All the free security in the world couldn’t replace the value of being able to tell her “take it to Apple and let them fix it for you”.
So yes, I’m with you, but I also think we need to acknowledge that all tools serve a purpose, and some people prefer the kids meal over the big boy buffet—and that’s ok.
There are companies working on providing that experience for Linux. System76 is one. You can buy a laptop with their is pre installed. Everything works, including suspend. If something breaks, you call the support number or email and they either talk you through fixing it or sending it in for repair or replacement. It's not that different from having a Dell or HP.
I wrote it here some time ago. Tried Linux Mint with the intention of finally switching from windows on my notebook. Bricked one partition that I forgot I had set to dynamic, Headphone jacks didn't work even after fiddling around with arcane parameters in the cli. If you mainly need the command line to set your system up and stuff doesn't work out of the box people don't have the nerve to switch and learn all that. Love Linux, great on steamdeck, have a couple of Virtual Machines to play around with on my old Poweredge server but it's not ready for me, the average user. That and I've to use windows for my cad work at my job anyways. I'll take the downvotes but you'll have to realize you are tech savvy people who have fun learning all that. Most people don't.
The average user doesn't install windows. I used to get paid when I was a kid to install windows in my village.
I think Mint is better out of the box than it used to be. I was on it maybe 5 or 6 years ago and had to troubleshoot a few issues, but I just came back to it a few months ago and everything worked flawlessly out of the box.
wait did you install linux mint regular or edge??
Just plain old regular Mint.
Linux is not ready for mainstream users. I daily drive Mint, have a recent (2 year old) system, and still run into annoying bugs that would drive non-techies back to Windows. My current issue is my permanently attached external hdd mounting under a new folder name every reboot. Other issues I've had to resolve include (but are not limited to) bluetooth, graphics drivers, software repos, etc. I would not want to become tech support for somebody else dealing with their random issues because I recommended Linux.
Mounting to a new folder name? Wtf? Are you running this as a VM? What does your fstab look like? This is going to keep me up at night, you monster. /s
Yep, WTF indeed. It appends a '1' to the end of the old name. The old one stays as a permanent folder
Nope, bare metal.
Default untouched. Haven't had a chance to dig into it yet
There’s only one option—drive a stake through its heart, cut the head off, and never speak of it again. That thing’s cursed.
I have porn there, not the bible.
Laymen are the greatest thing that can happen to Linux.
Ill be honest I don't feel any need or desire to actively crusade for Linux or spread it. Microsoft will keep making windows worse, many users will eventually reach a breaking point. Just be there to support the people seeking a better path, easier than trying to convince disinterested people into throwing out their tools.
Things are about to get worse for onboarding those from other platforms. There’s been this massive push the last year to get every window manager to switch to Wayland & drop X11 support… meanwhile Wayland doesn’t support color profiles or color management (just sRGB). How are you going to convince someone with an awesome screen to drop down to sRGB? How will you convince someone with a poor screen that has been color calibrated to make it usable to go back to off colors? How do you expect content creators to migrate & still create content if they can’t have access to all the color tools they use in their workflow to come to Linux when Wayland won’t support them? A lot of Linux folk act like this doesn’t matter, but to a lot of people, a computer is a magic box that they interact with via a screen + keyboard + mouse, & if non-niche peripherals aren’t supported (which DCI-P3 is becoming the norm & saving a screen from a landfill can often be fixed to ‘good enough’ thru calibration), users will think it’s trash & unfinished.
x11 is still supporred by mint and realisrically will be for years???
The Mint team recently made experimental Wayland support available. Still very alpha but I don't think it will be years.
Sorry, but it is tech-y. Not out of reach by anybody who is interested in learning, but ask the average person to self sign their drivers (required for any Nvidea card if you want to game and don't turn on legacy bios). Or maybe you want the latest version of Spotify on Mint and therefore need to add flathub using the terminal. With help or research, sure, not hard concepts to grasp. Without help though, it'd probably be a dealbrealer.
And once you'ce done both of those I'd consider you 'tech-y'
Isn't flathub configured out of the box in Mint nowadays?
I also don't think you need to manually sign drivers? Or at least, I've never seen anyone mentioning needing to do it. If you do though, I imagine turning off Secure Boot is probably easier.
Dkms takes care of this
Honestly, most people just use their computer for documents and the web. If they have their browser of choice, Libreoffice or equivalent document suite, and whatever file manager comes with the window manager they're using, so long as they've used a computer at some point in the last couple of decades they'll be set.
I feel like the techy people oversell Linux because they don't know how not to be a power user. We tend to teach things the way we do them, and that's not good for beginners to learn things that way.
I try to make Linux sound boring. I establish that it will do everything that someone currently does, and show them that it will be in-support on their computer longer than Windows 10 will be, and it usually works out.
Get someone logged into Chrome, show them how to install Spotify so they can see that it is easy (and doesn't require the command line if they don't want it to), and get any other basics like messengers and cloud storage stuff worked out, and most people will be sold.
Getting into the weeds about how how FOSS is superior, or how you can customize everything can come later. Let a person actually get comfortable using Linux before you try to upsell the libre movement. That shit definitely scares people off.
Most importantly, remember that software freedom includes the freedom to use proprietary software. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. People will use Chrome, Discord, Spotify, and other closed source tools, and we should be happy they can do so on an open source OS.
Stop telling me what to do. Your post is exactly what you are complaining of. Those with the curiosity and aptitude will gravitate to the tech that serves their needs. Usually on their own, regardless of what anybody else tells them. How do you think Linux came to dominate Internet infrastructure in the first place.
Go preach elsewhere.
?
Yes i agree, those who love tinkering and computers and care about thier privacy will find thier way to us. Just like birds that immigrate in autumn.
I know i did, it was around 4 to 5 years ago when i needed a programme that only runs in w10. It was the first time i tried to install an operating system ever ( i can say i wasn't Nearly as tech savy as I am now,but i defently always loved computers) then during installation i somehow dicided to read the EULA and i came to know that w10 is more privacy invasive than an old lady who doesn't have anything to do.
I used Wifislax before and i said "if i can use it to browse the internet then i dont care my privacy worth more" and then i remembred that my friend installed ubuntu before on his computer,so i searched ubuntu (around the time when the linux mint snap contreversy started) and now here i am a fully fledged linux user
I wouldn't do this since I don't want to be even more tech support for people I know.
My mom has used windows for as long as she has had a computer and still doesn't know what the start button or the windows key are.
I've explained it millions of times.
I'm not signing up for more of that than we need.
NOPE. Every time I do it, I have to give them a lot of help and I end up becoming their technical support staff; my quota is already full, I've done my part.
thank yiu, i appreciate you
Why does it need to grow? Seems fine the way it is now.
It needs to grow because monopolies are bad. Linux is the only thing that stands between us and being totally controlled by the tech giants. If you run Windows on your computer, it's not your computer.
Windows has been getting worse and worse all the time. With any luck, as Windows gets worse, interest in Linux will rise on its own. But it's hard to say what tomorrow brings.
It'll be a rocky road. Not least because of the anticompetitive practices of Microsoft. Anyone remember netbooks?
Yeah, what happened to those? (Honest question)
The first netbook (Asus EEE PC) ran Linux because Windows was too heavy for the processor it had. People predicted, this would be the year of the Linux desktop (ha ha ha). Then Microsoft came up with a cut down version of XP and basically gave it away for free. And you can bet your ass there was some shitfuckery going on behind closed doors. So from then on all netbooks ran Windows.
Oh and recently a company called Ayaneo wanted to put out a handheld with HoloISO (basically SteamOS). Then suddenly they announced it will run Windows. Again, I'll bet Microsoft pulled some strings.
Why is a windows computer not my computer? makes no sense
Just off the top of my head. The enshittification of Windows and the disenfranchisement of users has been going on for decades and it won't stop any time soon.
It's yours as long as you and MS agree regarding what you want to do with it, which includes you being cool with (or being cool with being forced to sometimes repeatedly disable) each of the things in the bullet list reply you got.
we are not prioritised by hardware companies or by software companies. makes stuff a lot harder than it has to be. all they care about is marketshare.
There are some hardware companies prioritizing Linux (System 76, Tuxedo, Framework, etc) yet when someone asks for a hardware recommendation around here the answer is always "Lenovo" for some reason. The Linux community needs to do better in this area.
Are we usually being elitist? I mean, you could dig on the forums for people being toxic and looking down on "newbs", but you can find that in both Windows and MacOS places. Honestly, this post could be considered elitist, because you are saying that people should be using Linux rather than Windows or MacOS.
IMO the problem with most kinds of Linux evangelism is that some people push it too much. They say to people that they should use Linux and it's better for XYZ reasons. While usually true, it puts the person in a defensive state and a desire to prove you wrong. After all, Windows has been fine for their entire life, why should they switch to something new?
Personally, I think the better option would be to work on letting people know that Linux exists, and is rather user friendly. Make them know it's an option for them to fall back on if they need to. And then at some point they'll get frustrated by Windows, and think "maybe I should try that Linux thing". They'll be more willing to try it and work with it because it was their idea, and they want to prove to themselves that trying it was the correct move. Fundamentally people should want to use Linux, not feel made to use it because it's the correct decision.
Is it? A lot of talk has gone into Windows only being "easy to use" because people are used to it... But isn't that not just what being "easy to use" means? I'm a Linux user, I find Linux easier to use than Windows or MacOS because I've used it more. A MacOS user would find MacOS easier than Windows or Linux. That's just how it works.
You could make reference to things like UI design, interface layout and so on, but nobody is coming to an OS from a vacuum. They will have prior notions of how things should work from the OSes that they're familiar with, and complying with those notions will make things seem "easier" to them.
Don't most professionals use software that is only available on Windows or Mac? Like Adobe stuff?
Strong agree. We argue about distros a lot and we hype it up to be much more important than it really is. Either install Mint with Cinnamon, * mumbles * with KDE or * mumbles * with Gnome. Show them screenshots and ask them which they like the look of. Let them know they can switch it easily if they wish.
I think nowadays Windows product keys are linked to your Microsoft account? Not sure how that works with OEM keys though (which most people with legitimate keys will probably be using). I think a physical code with numbers hasn't been used for a while now.
Why Rufus and not Etcher? Genuinely curious, Etcher seems to be the most recommended one.
I don't know why this seems to be an uncommon sentiment but new users should be using a dual boot. Like, this is not the time to commit to 100% full time being a Linux user. If someone tries it and doesn't like it they should be able to go back to Windows. Or maybe they want to use Windows software or games? Or even are just afraid of the commitment.
I'd consider myself a hardcore Linux user, but I still have a Windows install. There's no reason to delete it unless you are very constrained on space.
If they don't like Linux then they'd have to go through the trouble of reinstalling and reconfiguring Windows, which is not something I'd wish on anyone.
It'll take longer than 15 minutes. Not everyone has a high speed internet connection, USB drive, storage or CPU. And once the installer is complete, you'll probably have to browse forums and guides for that one piece of hardware that should work but doesn't. And then spend some time configuring and installing all the programs you want to use. It's certainly something you should budget a full afternoon to at least.
when I was dual booting, I found that as long as Windows was around even knowing how bad it was, I continued to use windows. When I no longer had to personally use windows for anything I went all Linux without problem.
More users usually ruins things, that’s how we ruined and lost the internet.
Sure, but I need more software and hardware to be Linux compatible, so I still need more people to come over.
I really don't understand why so many advocate for Linux, FOSS, and an overall open web while actively making Linux and other free software as complicated and "tech-y" as possible.
If Linux isn't growing, what's the point? If it remains stagnant, its getting closer to fading away. We've seen the impact of Linux becoming more mainstream and known to the general public through the Steam Deck, and it has done wonders for the platform. Why do people actively not want it to grow?
Helping it grow doesn't mean being annoying like Edge pop-ups, simply throwing out suggestions to try easy-to-use distros here and there. And let's be honest, the average internet user can use an easy distro like Ubuntu or Mint proficiently after 20-30 minutes of playing around with it. We need to make it seem accessible so that more people will actually be interested in the first place.
Really happy to see a post being made about this.
Hehe, I think it's more the Windows people who spread that urban legend. While I completely agree with you, I didn't learn anything new here 😉
I gave my neighbour's teenager an old laptop pre-installed with Linux Mint LTS Cinnamon to study programming on. So at least I know his weed dealer is enjoying the Linux experience.
I like Linux, but it sucks to support it in a corporate environment, specifically when it comes to trying to help end-users with it.
There's so many distros and configurations, and the ones who call in with issues are the ones who probably shouldn't be using Linux because they barely know how to work a computer, it was just their well meaning family member who put them on it.
I haven't seen anyone scaring people away. All I see is people saying "try Linux" and others complaining that it's too much Linux encouragement. They want to stay with their windows. Not our fault. :)
I like a small Linux community so I'm fine. The more people who stay on windows, the more likely it is that Microsoft feels like they have enough users to leave the rest of us alone.
Don't tell them, just break in their home at night and install it. They'll call you in the morning. Probably to thank you. Probably.
rufus isn't a website.
typo
Billions need to switch to linux to save the planet
I do not believe, at all, that linux needs to grow. We don't need to appeal to every casual pc user, because for most of these people what they are using already works just fine for them - and if they don't already have the drive to learn about and try linux on their own, there's no reason to shove it in their faces.
Just donate to The Linux Foundation.
I try to preach GNU/Linux to anyone who will listen. GNU/Linux & GPG.
Only had one success on the former. My wife. Technically there is another but every time I see that guy I fix petty easy stuff that's obvious. Sure, I've been doing it a decade and a half but...WHY DOES NO ONE LISTEN? IT'LL BE THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD IF YOU DON'T START NOW!
FUCK.
Convenience and pop-whores .. it is what capitalism prescribes. Add games, bookmarks on Edge, saved passwords, that people don't want to change ... and this is the disability they develop. Then win gets all borked BSOD and all, and they start the only way they know how, disk, format, new install.
They buy their own prison cells and the camera that monitors them like they live in a reality show.
What did you expect, a social revolution?
@Chakravanti @jackpot
Once I learned the truth, I decided to figure out how to teach people how to save the world. Not a single individual has listened to the obvious let alone bothered to learn a single bit. Even my father, a fucking career programmer won't fucking listen or learn.
gpg?
RMS's FOSS flip of PGP.
Pretty Good Privacy
GNU Privacy Guard
I just think that if we include the name of GNU/Linux into FOSS we could call it IA! FGLOSS! And summon a Cthulhu we know and understand.
You do have a point. Most of the issues I've ever had on any of my computers has been with windows. Linux just keeps on humming along. Every one of the hand me down laptops I seem to get because they are "too slow", gets wiped, Linux installed and they work great after.
My chromecast recently gave up.
So I went on our equivalent for craigslist and bought a cheap, old-ish laptop for 80€. It was okay with windows, but it feels snappy and like new with linux. Not only can I control it from my couch using my phone similar to the chromecast, but it also enabled me to consume media off of a USB stick. looking forward to playing around with this thing as a game server.
I have a laptop I bring all over just for media. It works great in hotel rooms too.
good point!
Trying to do that
github.com/trytomakeyouprivate
what youre missing here is a windows application that scans a users apps and puts them into a markdown and then auto-installs all of them once back on linux (or adds a checkbox for which you want re-installed).
You wouldnt use markdown, more like json
I'm thinking of switching and will run mint off a live USB on my rig. Just need to find a new guide on setting up persistent data from the USB.
What do you use your pc for?
Gaming, documents, web surfing, streaming media, light coding.
what do you mean by persistent data
Booting to a Linux live USB doesn't save user data right? I'm talking about installing Linux on a USB and maintaining data/configuration across reboots.
This way I can slowly build out my ideal environment with distro and apps. Goal is to document the process so I can replicate it onto a laptop permanently. Then my main desktop.
@Landless2029 @jackpot
MX Linux- MX’s graphical tools provide an easy way to do a wide variety of tasks, while the Live USB and snapshot tools inherited from antiX add impressive portability and remastering capabilities.
https://mxlinux.org/
install on a usb drive and make sure that there is enough free space for creatng a live usb(double)with persistence.there are user curated lists of software on github-linux and lightweight.
https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome
That's my goal for the USB part.
MX Linux seems like a different distro? I plan to play with my Nvidia gpu / proton / wine / bottles / steam / gog to figure out my install/config requirements.
Goal is to figure it out and back it up in my personal git.
I was going to start with mint cinnamon
@Landless2029
mx linux is based on debian,so mint might be bettet for your needs(fresher packages).for mint there are explanations on reddit for the best way to do it.mx linux has a subreddit.it works for gaming but may be it is the best to do a domain query for reddit and protondb
what is best for your needs.
@Landless2029 @jackpot
forgot something.when you have created a live usb from mx linux with all your packages and
flatpaks you can install from usb .so you have always a backup with internet access that is fresh.
I got Linux mint and I'm shit at it, terminology and step by steps are lost on me. It definitely needs a significant time commitment.
Im not particularly adverse, but gaming largely still keeps me a Windows main. I tried dual booting Ubuntu (I know it's not the best choice but it handles dual boot nicely,) but if I keep having to switch back to windows I just stay on windows
I've not actually run into any games so far that can't run on Proton.
It's pretty good for single player games on Steam but a lot of multiplayer games use anti-cheat that doesn't work on Linux, and some launchers don't work well. And of course if you use Game Pass for PC you're out of luck entirely. Most VR headsets also won't work on Linux.
So it really depends what kind of games you play. It's kind of similar to the Adobe situation. I suspect most gamers will have at least one deal-breaker that forces them to keep at least a dual-boot around. But many people could use Linux most of the time, including for games, and that's already pretty exciting for Linux fans.
Fair enough, I'm not into multiplayer so I've not run into that
I'm not either (besides Minecraft and such) so my personal experience with Linux gaming has been pretty good. There's some jank with needing to pick the right Proton version and adding command line options, but I'm not sure it's any worse than Windows - I've had to reinstall my graphics drivers way too many times. But there's a large portion of gamers that almost exclusively play the big multiplayer games, and Linux is definitely not ready for that group.
Ah shit here we go again
I'm not elitist. I'm a weirdo who likes weird things. If we get a bunch of normies in here normying up the place I'll just end up having to switch to FreeBSD.
Just tell em, "What if I told you theres an OS with no annoying ads popping on your screen 24/7?" -- "Yeah? Is that a modified Wi--" -- "Nope. Linux". And bam. :^)
"I know, that's Windows 11 on the 5 PCs that we own."
Windows has fallen billions must use Android and IOS
grapheneos
I see this more as a thought experiment. You can't really tell other people what they should use. I can't also do that at my workplace. If someone comes to me for help fixing their PC I can of course tell them just use Linux, but most of the time I need to reinstall the OS it came with. The Linux culture is intrinsically elitist, that's just the way it is. That's not to mean that you need to be a jerk about it, I use Arch btw, use whatever fits your needs.
Some time ago I got a mini PC for my dad who was curious about the web and stuff and I haven't hat a shred of a doubt that it would be Linux. To satisfy my own curiosity, I used it as an excuse to do some distro hopping and tried a lot of distros to try and find a balance between ease of use (from a standpoint of an elderly person) and my own nerdyness. I ended up installing a KDE based distro because the UI can easily be customized, resized and simplified for his needs. But let's be honest, not anybody is willing to spend hours searching and trying different operating systems and tweaking and stuff. Also the web sucks nowadays for people that are not used to it, for example how should I explain all the stupid cookie stuff, or the ads in between articles. Come on just be nice to people.
im confused, whats the thought experiment here?
Well, you've said it yourself, don't force it on anyone.
I've been using Linux for 30 years now, certified to teach it and everything... Here's your problem:
"Stop telling people it's 'tech-y'"
Compared to Windows or MacOS, yes, it is very techy.
"offer to help them install." - If they need your help to install it they absolutely have no business running Linux.
"They don't understand the concept of distros" - If they have no understanding of distros, they have no business running Linux.
Think of it like this... if they can't wrap their head around a distro, what's going to happen when you try explaining a package manager?
I get the evangelism, but Linux simply is not for everyone, that's why Apple invented iPads.
I'm curious what have you learn and certified to teach? I want to learn all of them :)
I don't know that you can learn "all of them", there are new ones popping up all the time.
I started with Unix in 1988 because I wanted to play on the Internet and back then you either learned Unix or you didn't go.
Unix is interesting because when Bell labs came up with it, they were told "Look, you can have a monopoly in the telecommunications industry, or you can have a monopoly in the computer industry, PICK ONE."
So they picked the telecom industry, but at the same time they went "Hey, here's this computer OS, see what you all can do with it!"
So you ended up with Unix System V, HP-UX, Irix, BSD Unix, and so on and so on. They were all Unix but all also a little bit different.
Roll forward to the early 90s and Linus Torvalds going "Hey! Imma make my own Unix!" and then THAT splintered into all the Linux variants we have today.
When the early days of Linux happened, my reaction was "Well, I already learned Unix, how hard could this be?" :)
The problem was, there was no easy way to collect everything you needed for an install, so I waited until someone put out a CD with all the files I needed, I think that was 1993? 1994? Something like that.
Anyway, my first was Slackware. Since then, I can't tell you how many I've used. Different situations call for different things. I was a Redhat admin for awhile. I installed YellowDog on a PS3 for fun. MacOS X is not Linux, but it's underpinnings are based on BSD Unix so it's kind of a kissing cousin. Apple does a lot of goofy shit, but it's not insurrmountable if you know Unix.
My certifications were done around 2000/2001 through a company called SAIR and I'm not even sure they exist anymore. They got absorbed into Thomson Learning in 2002.
It was a great experience though. Wouldn't trade it for anything. I made some good money administering Avaya Definity and Intuity phone systems running Unix.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaya
The core remains the same. And if I'm not stupid, everything I learned in Linux (yeah, kernel things) can be easily adapted to OpenBSD which I'm using.
My dad always urge me to learn things "around assembly" (binary math, how the kernel operate). I wanted to know how to get started with these :)
The core is the same, the shells are each a little different. I remember juggling 3 different installs and having to keep a cheat sheet to keep them all straight. :)
Do you know how can I get started with things around the kernel?
So when it comes to kernel modifications, I'm old school...
"If it's not broken, don't fix it." :)
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/balancing-if-it-aint-broke-dont-fix-it-vs-release-early-and-often
Unless there's some VERY specific need, some security hole that needs patching, some critical flaw that is failing, in general, DO NOT mess with the kernel.
That being said, there are tons of good guides you can find just by googling "linux kernel modifications", but also specific guides for your installations. RedHat makes it dead simple to do stuff like this.
But before you do it:
Make sure you have a specific need you're addressing.
Make sure you have all the necessary backups you require.
Have a roll back process in case something goes wrong.
Have a diagnostic testing plan.
what I actually need is understanding the kernel.
At least process, memory management, ipc, handling device, etc.. Reading "The design and implementation of the 4.4BSD operating system", but I think I need to read something before reading that book.
Distros that have so much graphics like ubuntu and their linux mint isn't (much) :)
there's a guy even claimed "Linux is almost identical to Windows". That guy is a "masturbing monkey" that cannot care about anything other than privacy.
correct. I think Torvalds would agree.
Many people have no concept of a computer, offer them running linux is destroying their business and render them jobless
And these guys are so hilarious: switching to linux but want to use windows app with wine !
Switching to linux only to decorate the desktop and neofetch!
They want to switch but never want to learn what a kernel is.
Switching to linux and claim about "free", "open source" but they hide their proprietary games
Insert link to linus daily driver video
I stopped having Linux discussions years ago. If people approach me and ask for my opinion I tell them to try Linux Mint and make backups before installation.
I was just about to install Linux mint (once I free up space on my drive, that is)
get the edge version if youre running new hardware and use the update manager the second you first boot
Im installing it next to my current install of windows, but I'm going to make a new partition
I never heard of the edge version
In order for MS and Apple/ios to block people from booting linux on "their" machines, they came up with the secure-boot scheme. Commercial puppets and traitors of open free software rushed to be part of the scheme so all the rest of the linux distributions couldn't boot but their systems could.
Now we are accused of being elitists and not alarm new users of true garbage distributions?
If anyone is stuck trying to disable secure-boot and couldn't it is their own damn fault for buying garbage machines. Gigabyte (not Gigabit) has created some monstrosities of bios software that look like a video game and it is hard to count in how many places you have to disable the crap in order to boot open and free linux.
My own opinion, won't fit with post like this
So lucky that OpenBSD never cared if anyone used the operating system or not
The operating system is for developers, to fit developers' need
the better support for single root partition... UNIX have a removable filesystem, you can use different partition for / and /usr and /usr/local and /var and /home but hardly any distro can offer that. They all use a single root partition for everything just like windows use a single C:. Spliting /home is just like spliting D:
quality is better than quantity... look at the current state of linux communities (and distros too!) make me switched to BSD
10 person knows how to code python or DOS' C (Turbo C, obsolete) might be better than 100 person that use linux like they would use windows (but think themselves smart)
And if everyone is going to use wine then you should use Windows instead. I think it is much more stable and secure to run windows apps natively
can't drop windows entirely? h-
no one in my family or friend group is tech literate enough to follow most of those steps, let alone deal with all the tiny troubleshooting they're in for at every step.
You know back in the day they used to sell Linux distributions on the shelf at software stores. I remember seeing a boxed copy of mandriva next to windows. Home computing used to be a hobby for some but that means there was commercial support at some point.
I do think that home users of "Linux" will need a commercial alternative that supports all their apps. ChromeOS looks like the current best alternative. If you can get people into chrome books, you're one step closer to getting them onto Linux.
what are the catches of chromeos
everything. everything about it sucks. it's like the chastity cage of OSes, even moreso than Apple OSes
You mean, besides being chromeos? ;)
@randomaside @jackpot I'd disagree, chromeOS really is the worst
I agree with this but we also need the average user to become tech literate.
There's little reason to introduce linux to someone who doesn't understand basic concepts like "I can save this file in this folder and find it there in the future instead of putting everything on the desktop" and doesn't even want to learn.
This goes for everything not just Linux. Maybe instead of dumbing everything down completely (not saying things shouldn't be made simple enough but there's a point where you need to get people to get up their asses and actually learn something) maybe we should be teaching people the basics at school, in my IT class back in HS they taught about buses, drivers, some other shit even I can't remember, and then immediately jumped to how to use excel specifically. None of the information in the first part was at all useful to anyone in that class (none of us was even studying IT, we were mixed classes to become chemical and architecture (?) technicians) and in fact promptly forgotten as soon as IT lessons ended, if not earlier. What would have been useful is the basics of how to use it and how the part users actually interact with works.
Then, once the population is tech literate enough to not panic as soon as they see a sudden popup and mindlessly click "ok" without reading, that's when Linux (and honestly Windows and Mac too because the OS is irrelevant if the user is a moron) will be truly ready for everyone
id really like to use linux, but not before this is working. i dont understand how you linux people can live witout ahk.
Auto Hot Key, that's something I haven't heard of in a while. Probably because it's not as essential in a Linux environment when you can more easily accomplish most of what you'd accomplish using AHK in a shell script. What problem are you trying to solve using AHK? Someone might be able to tell you how to solve it.
mostly just abbreviations like
:*:ty-::Thank you very muchI know its possible in linux. but on windows in ahk it takes me seconds to add/remove/deactivate/activate them. and on a good working day do that maybe 20 to 50 times. and they are all in one single file.
i also use it for simple shortcuts or things like
:R*?:ddd:: FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, dd.MM.yy SendInput %CurrentDateTime% returnor stuff like search selected text in search engine X or Y; but if selected in program A, then use search engine Z or open program B and enter it there. but those are the most complicated ones i use and dont need quick changing.
Check out
keyd, might be what you are looking for. I used it to customize dead keys.Anything you can do with AHK you can do with Python. No need for ahk on Linux tbh.
???
Not MS but IBM, created a front 13y ago called RedHat, financed it with consulting subcontracts installing RHEL,Fedora,Debian everywhere, to steer all Desktop/GUI development to depend on it, and when it all met its goals bought it to create its mass consumed system to compete with MS.
Very few attempt to maintain desktop functionality without systemd today, and upstreamers just quitely conformed to the "market'.
@jackpot @octopus_ink
and will this ever be fixed or?
I don't want a lot of tech illiterate people using Linux.
Well congrats, a lot of tech illiterate people don't want to learn it either :/
why
It boils down to them having no idea what they're doing, asking for help with almost every tiny thing, and cluttering forums with basic questions that have been answered thousands of times already.
I only recommend Linux to people who I think could actually use it with little help.
again, elitism. i get it's annoying but theres a diffrtence between someone who refuses to look things up themself and people who arent techy. have faith
I recommend it to the people I have faith in.
Offer family members or friends your help or copy and paste the below
how to install linux: 1) copy down your windows product key 2) backup your files to a harddrive 3) install the linux mint cinnamon iso from the linux mint website 4) use rufus (a website) to put the iso on a usb flash drive 5) go into bios 6) boot from the usb 7) erase the storage and install 8) celebrate. it takes 15 minutes.
I sent this to my mom, she said "I'm not sure what mint cinnamon is, but you'll probably want the oven at 350"
step 1 isn't needed for nearly all already-activated windows 10 or 11. microsoft activation servers will 'remember' your pc hardware configuration's hash and its activation state. don't even need to associate the install with a microsoft account either, when reinstalling to the same pc, it just works.
@jackpot Then they ask what's a bios? what's a product key? how do boot from USB? there is huge details your missing maybe for a Linux native 15 minutes seams reasonable but my first install took maybe 45 mins, and I'm tech competent.
Also people will be asking how do they copy over their data already on windows. The other question for many is why would I want to? sadly the general population doesnt care about open source
it is not more secure for the average user. sure it can be hardened to a great degree but that takes proper knowledge of the underlying architecture. for the average user's ootb experience, Linux is the least secure option.
Least secure isn't accurate. The security model for Linux of apps being from a trusted repo or sandboxed from flatpaks is better than Windows defaults to.
malware isnt targeted towards linux and if theyre not running wine theyre safer. also, open source software's dangerousness can be evaluated more easily than proprietary ones
open source exists elsewhere and security through obscurity is a terrible, strawman argument
im arguing against securitt thrpugh obscuriry, we're on the same side
the argument that Linux is less popular therefore less targeted is both misguided and a security through obscurity based argument. Linux is the most used server operating system and servers are targeted more than any individual and those server based malware often works on desktop versions as well.
the monoculture nature of prepackaged distros is also a problem.
Stop being elitist, spread Linux without systemd!
@jackpot