Flip flop
This image was created by /u/[email protected] for this comment here: https://discuss.tchncs.de/comment/21735989. I had encouraged them to post it somewhere, but as far as I can tell, they never did.
Panel 1: “Installing Windows 20 years ago” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons
Panel 2: “Installing Linux 20 years ago” screenshot of a busy command line
Panel 3: “Installing Windows today” screenshot of a busy command line
Panel 4: “Installing Linux today” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons
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My favourite part of the Linux installation process is when it automatically places itself before windows in the grub menu boot order
Inb4 don’t dual boot: I occasionally need to for work
Better than Windows just straight up overwriting your Linux boot partition on an update.
Just boot partition?
I once installed Linux Mint by shrinking Windows 10 partition in Linux against the recommendations. On first Windows boot it seemed fine, except that C: was still showing the old size.
On next Windows reboot it got annihilated with "Repairing drive C:".
I wouldn’t blame Windows for this one. In this case, this is likely because the Windows partition table wasn’t updated when you changed your C: partition, so Windows legitimately thought there was filesystem corruption because the size didn’t match its partition table.
You should always used the currently installed OS to free up space first, so it’s aware of the change. Then run the installer and install to the free space you made.
Or better yet, use separate physical drives for different OSes.
Problem is, Linux Mint installer says nothing about that as far as I recall, and just offers a convenient slider to allocate space between Windows and Linux.
And that was my first computer. Yeah, I am relatively new to computers.
But hey, I only lasted with Windows for 2 days. In Windows 10 I couldn't even wrap my head around when to use Control Panel and when settings, because look, mature OS, we have Settings 1 and Settings 2.
In comparison, Linux Mint 20 MATE was far simpler, so having really used neither, I went with the easier one. However, that doesn't mean I had any idea what I was doing. I didn't even understand the concept of partitions.
Just imagine a total newbie.
"Where is the file stored?"
"On... the computer...?"
Fair enough, though Linux Mint also didn’t really know for sure what that partition was (other than assuming Windows because it was probably NTFS).
Disk partitioning is always a risk if you don’t know what you’re doing (and sometimes even when you do) which is why it’s always good to have backups!
There's no such thing as ‘Windows partition table’, unless MS came up with some new nefarious bullshit. The partition table is global for everyone, and any partition manager program modifies that.
One of the many reasons I stopped dual booting decades ago.
Does windows still do this shit? Lol
That really only happens if you use the same drive for both installs, though
"It only really happens if you have a common setup"
You say that as if it’s an excuse. No program should ever overwrite an existing filesystem without explicit consent from the user.
What is this con-cent you speak of? Some kind of... negative currency? A bad smell?
Overwrite existing filesystem?
it’s the part AI is doing for you now
but they've been ignoring it long before AI showed up.
During my distro hopping phase of 2011, I tried out a distro called IP Fire. It wiped out my whole drive on boot.
I still have that laptop, hoping one day I'll retrieve that data.
That is a shitty design and for an outfit a big as Microsoft, I feel that it is intentional
Ipfire is a linux firewall software lol?
Apparently performs as router and firewall distro. I have no idea what possessed me to install that at the time over 10 years ago. But in any case, bad on me for blindly trusting an unknown source and bad on them for a dick shit design.
But I know one thing is for sure, that name is pretty accurate. A lot of my own "IP" was torched.
@PokerChips i've had good luck using #photorec for #filerecovery although it doesn't preserve folder structure.
Linux: Signature look of superiority
That's only because L comes before W alphabetically tho.
Dual booting is perfectly fine. Just try to not use the windows boot partition for both OS or Windows will occasionally "lose" the Linux entry... "Oops" I guess.
If Linux is on its own drive, or at least has it's own uefi partition, it's just fine and dandy. Just chain load windows from it and there's basically nothing that can break.
Afaik having two uefi partitions isn't recommended for some reason. Linux Mint writes Grub into the same partition that Windows is using.
Thankfully, I'm not planning to let Windows update anything anymore, but ymmv for others.
If you work for yourself I get it. If you work for someone else, get them to have a desktop for you there and remote in.
I put windows in a docker on my server, and keep an instance on Azure that only comes alive when I need it. I remote into either one if I have to. No more dual boot.
Just giving you some options. Also it lets me travel while knowing if I need windows even on the road I have one.
SUsE Linux had a nice GUI installer in 2005.
Caldera had a GUI installer in 1998…
I never used Caldera, but holy hell the font and design of this installer brings back so many memories.
IIRC, Caldera also had a Tetris clone in the installer, so you could play while it installed itself.
And at least a couple years before that too, when I started with it as a windows refugee.
Ugh. That reminds me of the Microsoft admin fanboys where I worked, dissing Linux because its all command lines, while saying that MS inventing PowerShell was a stroke of genius making their lives easier.
I had a coworker, about 30 years old... Who taught computer science at a college prior to us working together... Who said to me "Command line? That stuffs ancient, man."
Just in case you were thinking about spending money on college tuition to learn computer science...
Meanwhile in Finland my first exposure to a Unix shell was in an introductory IT course in uni, and that inspired me to switch to Linux four years ago. Without all of that I would have never got my current internship where 90% of my work is in the terminal.
If an ancedote has someone questioning if they should go to college for computer science, they should definitely not be going to college for any degree.
No, they definitely should.
Tell him a wrist brace helps with mouse-induced RSI when it flares up.
CAN CONFIRM LMAOOOO
Don't pay back your loans, it's all a scam hahaha
20 years ago it was way easier to install Linux from a boot disk (like ubuntu or suse) than windows from scratch. Sometimes XP didn't have the necessary drives and you'd need to find bootable drivers and load them from a floppy disk
It was even easier to install OSx86 on my laptop than windows vista from scratch in 2007
Maybe this is one of those thinking that 20 years ago was the 90s
Yeah in 2005 every major distro had a decent clean gui installer. I recall at the time using fedora. Then Ubuntu a few years later.
But god help you if you needed wifi drivers.
Even in the 90s Redhat had a decent installer.
Well that screenshot was accurate for Gentoo circa 2005, it's just the worst choice for ease of install, with Linux graphical installs provided by suse, mandrake, and redhat from the 90s.
Fair point could be made that the out of box experience was sorely lacking and you pretty much had to configure;make install most software you actually wanted...
2005... could have had Sabayon Linux. Easy way to install gentoo with a gui installer. So even then. [Initial release 28 November 2005]. Maybe even other convenient gentoo respins before that.
I guess you're right in the sense that neither could play audio off drivers packaged with install media in that era.
I remember reformatting a Windows computer to get a fresh install and I had to find the driver CD and install a driver for audio, internet and other very basic stuff.
windows xp WAS NOT 20 years ago
24 years ago! Don't forget to schedule your colonoscopy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP
Don't schedule a colonoscopy unless you have symptoms of a GI disorder, or unexplained weight loss. The evidence does not support non-targeted screening programs.
What should be my default "Remember that you're getting old!" helpful tip now, then?
Check your linkin park cds for disc rot.
Ugh yeah. I've been slowly backing up my wife's, my parents', and my own music CDs, and while it thankfully hasn't gotten to many of them, it's ate enough to be annoying.
Especially because my wife's collection is mostly very specific performances of classical music and operas, which can make finding rips difficult when it's not a particularly popular recording.
And the CD-Rs are almost all toast. I'm lucky the old family PC HDDs still have most of the old family photos, so I've been able to back them up. Can't believe we used to think that backing up the pictures to disc would last longer.
:O CDs aren't for life?!
There goes my distro-surfing phase's efforts before I switched to pendrives. Wasted a few spools on distros, archived, for a nostalgic visit I may never be able to take. :3
Get your hearing/eyesight tested. Both can gradually get worse without people realising.
The only problem with those is that saying either of those could easily be misinterpreted as me suggesting that they had misheard/misread what I just said. Colonoscopy works because it is a bizarre enough suggestion that the joke will almost certainly land. But I definitely don't want to encourage unneccessary medical procedures as a casual joke.
Or if you have a family history.
Or if you enjoy the idea...
Or that, and the colonoscopy is indicated by genetic testing.
This is bullshit lmao
How so?
Terrible advice. Screening prolongs lives much more than you think. Got a history of family polyps? Which a lot do, get screened. Those will turn cancerous. Wife is an RN at a GI clinic. They see it day in and out.
But no, go ahead and just bury your head in the sand so you don’t have to go through 1 night of shitting your brains out to find out they removed the polyp(s) that would have turned into cancer in 5 years and resulted in only having to remove some intestine, if you’re lucky. Just 1 example of why it’s important to do it. And, if you react well to anesthesia, propofol is one hell of a great nap.
What are the risks to be screened? Super freaking low.
Yes, family history is something I neglected to mention and is true. More generally though, the risks of anaesthesia are underestimated.
I've also worked as nurse in an endoscopy clinic. Different healthcare systems have different attitudes to evidence.
Damn, I'll have to look into that.
Your healthcare providers are perversely incentivised to recommend scoping because it's an easy money maker, but for most people the discovery and removal of benign polyps is not worth the risks that come with an invasive procedure (IV stab to give sedation and pain relief, over sedation affecting tasks requiring concentration, complications due to the procedure itself).
Installing windows for most of that time hasn't been a thing people do. They bought a computer and it had the internets (the picture with the blue e) and the word (the picture with the paper and a W) and that was pretty much them sorted. We're weird for knowing the difference and that's not a bad thing to be.
Exactly. Most people have no idea that is even a thing.
I remember reinstalling win95 almost daily because how it could break with just a power loss(which happened regularly to me then).
But then I remembered 20 years ago is when winxp was already 4 years old.
Tbh, Installing Gentoo today is basically the same as it was in the first screenshot anyway :D But then again, most people would object to conflating the Gentoo installation to the "Linux installation"
And there be ways to install gentoo [based respins] with a gui, even 20 years ago.
I installed gentoo slightly over 20 years ago and I don't remember a ui for it. I do remember compiling the Linux kernel
Okay, let me clarify that with an edit, adding [based respins].
E.g Sabayon's first release was out 20 years ago.
I remember trying sabayon at the time and being disappointed enough to return to gentoo 😁
Sabayon was my 2nd home, after suse, and just before my 3rd, proper gentoo. So I sabayon'd before I gentoo'd. The sabayon 3.* series was glorious. All aside distro surfing live systems, multiboots, and distro hopping on my other machine. Then came bedrock, and I stopped my rabid distro-surfing, without getting rid of gentoo.
But yeah, if you're already on gentoo at the time of encountering sabayon, toorox, calculate, redcore, clover, or whatever, it'll be a hard sell, having already chosen to have it your way. Gentoo's all about choice, and best way to do that is to do pure gentoo. But still, only point I was making bringing up the others, is that even gentoo can be installed with a gui installer.
I am new to linux Mint and mullvad had an update ready, so i clicked update. It just stayed downloading on 0% for like 5 minutes, so i remembered this ISN'T WINDOWS. So i opened terminal and sudo apt upgrade and Mullvad was updated and new version installed.
It's weird how windows makes things looks easy, but then they don't work well. Linux makes things look difficult, but it they work well.
to be fair if it had an update button, that should have been enough for it. you don't need to run commands because this is the Linux Way, but because better solutions are not there yet
I mean,
aptitudeand Synaptic update packages or the whole system fine. It's just that Mullvad has no business trying to do that itself.apt and synaptic is not really user friendly though. but something based on packagekit can show a better program ctalog, and even provide automatic updates, or even just reminders that there are new updates.
Not exactly. The GUI variant of the updater that you tried also didn't work well.
CLI mostly works ok (unless a bug causes your DE to be uninstalled if you try to install steam), but GUI is very hit-and-miss.
Just the other day I had a bug in XFCE where I want to scale up the contents of the screen. So I use the GUI display config tool, set the scale to 0.5 (because for some reason they scale the wrong way round, <1 enlarges, >2 makes things smaller). It does work, the display gets scaled up.
After I'm done I want to scale back down and the GUI display config tool just locks up on startup and only shows a blank window with a few blank dropdowns.
A bit of googleing later I found the config file where I can change it back and once I changed the scaling to 1 again, the GUI tool worked again.
I've been using Linux exclusively for many years now, but without google I couldn't have fixed that.
Uhhh. No.
Is this like the time that travel journalist was in Hungary, saw 1 cow, that happened to be white, then wrote "all the cows in Hungary are white"?
Over 20 years ago, I installed linux with a gui (suse, as easy as ubuntu to install, before ubuntu), and still could. At the same time, could also install Gentoo, and still do. Free to choose how to install linux, any of many ways, gui or not, then as now.
... Was this made by a windows user, and windows only gives you one way, and they thought that's what it was like with Free Software too?
Think you're taking this too seriously.
To the average Joe, yeah, Windows is easier to install than ever. But to anyone with a passing interest in the OS has needed to do more and more work just to keep the OS recognizably sane vs the mess it has become.
Contrast that to Linux, which has stayed recognizably sane or even getting better.
Welcome to Linux. You'll hate it here.
Hell, I looked at installing Slackware again a few months back. I think I've said enough.
Coincidentally, I actually did install Slackware as one of my first distros some 20 years ago. I actually had one of those old Linux for Dummies books, which made the experience close to painless.
Sadly, the call of PC gaming pulled me back to windows for a while. But with Steam, and more specifically Proton, now those calls are coming from inside the house.
Put some respect on the sackcloth and ashes that Slack is. I did my Slack phase 20 years ago also. Soooo many config files.......But if you understood those, Slack was near bulletproof.
Back in the day Slackware prided themselves on the fact that a woodpecker mashing ‘enter’ would be able to install the distro.
I remember it was painless, except for some drivers.
But I also remember having to choose how to set up the partition table, including what format it would be in. I didn't know the difference between any of them, just that ext3 and reiserfs were "good". So I flipped a coin.
With respins, there are probably at least a few ways to install Slackware with a gui rather than its blue tui. ~ Heck, even a variety of ways to install Slackware itself (~ do they have a gui method too? ~ It's been a few years since I explored Slackware.)
Slackware has a gui, but it's not a simple "click here to install" type. It has you creating your own partition table, with all the options.
You also had to spend hours tweaking your install in any Linux distro. Now most work out of the box.
Windows on the other hand...
"had to"?
got to.
Also not Linux dependent, I’m sure windows users spend hours tweaking their installs to how they want it.
Not as much as we have to now.
I'm usually a Windows shield-bearer around these parts, because it's not quite as much of a dumpster fire as people say (please for the love of god don't debate me on this, I prefer Linux and have better things to do), but this is inarguably something Windows has gotten far far worse at. Out of the box experience (besides having to shove drivers into the install media) used to be a pretty definitive thing that Windows beat Linux on. Install and it "just werkd". It used to be the cornerstone of pushback, that Linux required you to tinker and Windows didn't. But Microsoft destroyed their lead in that so they only have (fast dwindling) business appeal and entrenchment to lean on now.
Yeah. It's not the dumpster on fire. This is fine.
When I switched to Linux in late 2003, with SuSe, iirc everything just worked, out of the box, and I ran it vanilla for a couple years. Didn't even need to install an image manipulation program, or an office suite, or a second web browser, or many other things, because it all came already installed. When did windows ever have a sound argument for "the cornerstone of pushback" claiming to be superior for "just werkd"? The early 90s? I doubt even then. Seems from my experience like it was more likely always advertising FUD.
But once you got that XFree86 config dialed in, life was awesome.
(Ok looks like Xorg has been around for 21 years, so maybe you were running it instead.)
But they don't work the way I like so I still have to spend hours tweaking them.
My favorite conspiracy of the moment is that Microsoft intentionally does this New Coke thing and then they will roll out actually good Windows and make all of DA MONY AND KEEL DA LEENOOCKS DIZIZZ. But it's Microsoft, so the long game will go on forever and there will be no pay off. Also - Mint is soooo gooooood to use compared to Win11
People forgot already...
EVERY SECOND WINDOWS IS GOOD Win XP good, Vista bad, 7 good, 8 bad, 10 good, 11 bad, 12 good?
Only this time around Linux got to the point where everyday users can switch and only run into debiliating problems twice a year, so MS is losing customers.
All windows after 7 was just a downward spiral of shittiness.
You say so yet 10 is fast, convienient and easy to use. Wouldn't call it better than 7, but it was good.
I wonder how it feels compared to AntiX Linux.
[Or VoidLinux with any Window Manager. ~ for different strokes a little further into the FOSS adventure.]
I feel like the very moment we go for any linux aimed at being lightweight, windows loses due to cramming cramming as much compatibility and tools as is possible inside.
...
...and also you got me intrested in AntiX. I have old laptop that struggles even with Debian...wonder if that would work on it.
AntiX is a great choice for lightweight and easy.
However, I find even the most fully-loaded out-of-the-box distros crammed with everything including the kitchen sink are still lighter to run than windows.
But if even modern AntiX is too much for some ancientware, there are weirder niches of tiny & fast, like tinycore, slitaz, puppy (or forks of puppy), deli and damnsmalllinux (old versions especially), and others for old computers
Even debian (or (better yet) devuan) could work well on wimpy hardware with a clever choice of a lightweight DE/WM, like LXDE or IceWM... (but if you opt for IceWM, you may as well stick with AntiX, where it has IceWM already well configured). Don't have to stick with the old heavy bloaters like XFCE (not as light as promoted), GNOME, KDE, etc.
Nah, 10 is the primordial ooze from which all the current vile evil coming out of microsoft was formed.
7 was faster, more convenient, less in your way, and just overall a superior product. No microsoft OS has even equaled what 7 was, much less be superior to it.
Straight up said I wouldn't call 10 better than 7. So what's your point? 10 is, overall, good OS. Not best, not great, good.
Agree to disagree. 10 is fast, reliable and convienient. I agree it served as a sandbox for all the shit they crammed into 12, but it doesn't change anything.
Still would prefer 7. Kinda loved 7.
All after win 2000 was complete shit.
Even 2000, it was the roller coaster starting its decent, worsening after NT. Barely indistinguishable, but there were clues, the trajectory had started to tip down.
I think it was Windows 2000 I had to install on a laptop for someone..
This was 20+ years ago, so I dont remember the details..but i think there was like 11-13 floppies for the install that I had at the time? All of them OEM floppies.. I think from microsoft, but maybe from the laptop OEM?.. and every time I ran the installer another disk would fail, and i'd have to go online and find that disk image and burn it to a replacement floppy. It was the worst OS install experience of my entire life, lol. I think by the time I was done I had replaced all but the first oem disk.
The fuck? XP was awful. I left because of it. What are you on about?
Maybe you had a specific experience with It, but XP was and is considered universally a good windows version, compared to its predecessors and the posterior Vista. Only losing to windows 7 when it launched.
Security was awful, multi user wasn't, windows started the Microsoft id program with it, they lied about removing programs with an apllication that only hid them, they tied music downloads to explorer only, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.
It was a nasty looking mess, got hacked in 10 minutes if you put it on the internet until service pack 3, and in person it wouldn't last 3 minutes.
That's leaving out the crazy licensing programs they introduced.
It was really, really bad. But since a lot of people knew nothing before it, they look back at it with rose colored glasses. It was truly garbage.
Yes it had very bad flaws, which didn't discourage its wide range of use. One can say it's not objectively good, but it's subjectively not bad.
As I answered below, it was part of the "good guys" versions of windows, not receive popular backlash like windows ME, 8 and 11
It was so bad I had to leave. It was bad. Like really bad. People mayhave liked it, but it was objectively awful.
So if you're correct with that, that NewNewAugustEast and I find it intolerably bad means we must exist outside the universe?
Is this what happens... to the perception of those who remained with windows, those who escaped to FOSS, apparently just ceased to exist?
Nothing of the sort, just said it based on the general usage, for all the flaws it had, It was, undeniably a very popular and used piece of software.
At the time of its peak, it was not universally bashed against like Windows ME, 8 or Vista. It was well received like windows 95, 7 and10
Oh, sorry. I must have had a dyslexic moment and misread:
as
"universally considered"
Np, have a good one
Me too!
XP was what sent me running looking for an alternative. Nearly landed on IRIX, until I found the GNU GPL to read.
Is that what microsoft put in the microsoft windows subliminal messaging subsystem?
(or whatever its called now)
It's been better than that for around quarter a century. From 2003, I had my first distro run solid for 4 years, before choosing to switch, ran that one for near 4 years too (with more meddling for fun), before switching to what it was based on (and in a sense, been with various installs of mostly that since... call that 2nd or 3rd time lucky). One does not have to go with a distro that does a 6 month fixed release cycle. Long term support can go 5 years (and eased seamless transitions are possible anyway, so that's near meaningless). Rolling can go forever. There's still Arch if you want debilitating problems (more than) twice a year. ;D (Now watch me be beat to death with baseball bats that say "Arch BTW" for saying that. lol)
debiliating problems?
Is there any coke alternative that's almost as good and in some regard better, but for free?
Amusingly, Ubuntu Cola is pretty good.
Lots of smaller, independent brands make nice cola, like Fritz-Kola in Germany or Breizh Cola in France. Don't expect to find them at your local hole in the wall though.
Fritz is the best
No but RC cola is pretty good if you want something that tastes similar to coke. My hick is showing ain't it?
And here I like RC cola because it tastes to completely different than coke. I find it to be the most distant from coke flavour of all the colas I've had
nope, but i have no idea how else to describe their counterproductive logic
They've cared about the shareholders over the customers for way too long. Enshittyfication isnt a strategy, it's a symptom of promising infinitive growth.
and it's a pity
I bought Pepsi after a long time of drinking almost no sodas, and none of big-brand ones (and I prefer Pepsi to Coke generally). It was somewhat of a shock as to how loaded it was with caffeine and sugar. Next time I'll rather get store-brand soda that's five times cheaper and has barely any sugar and no caffeine, even if it's blander in taste.
Don't forget to remove the french language pack
No :<
Non !
For real!
Getting help with Linux 15-20 years ago: some forum full with slurs telling you to google it
Getting help with Windows 15-20 years ago: "Do this and this, if that fails look up data backup methods before the reinstall."
Getting help with Linux now: various Wikis and blogs. The hazard of finding an AI hallucinated blog post is significant, but can be blocked.
Getting help with Windows now: support forums owned by Microsoft filled with users telling they have the same issue, and AI agents hallucinating solutions.
I feel this to my core.
My work PC uses Windows, and sometimes I have to Google something that is acting up, which takes me to these sorts of threads. It's always:
lol, freaking nailed it. God those are insufferable.
to be fair, some linux forums still have toxic members, and some others while probably not toxic, are still a bit harsh with people
No it wasn't, where we you going for help lol?
On the forums asking for help.
What forums? In 2005 every forum I went to was really helpful, friendly, and nothing like what you describe.
Certainly there was a little bit of internet snarkiness I would imagine, but I remember everyone being pretty nice to each other.
I decided to go back and look using the way back machine and went through a few threads, everyone is being really nice and helpful to each other.
Same experience.
Huge part of what kept me in the community of the Free Software philosophy.
It's in the 4 freedoms. Free to use, study, share and change, the software. That's the enabled and protected spirit of helping each other.
Assertions of contrary, has me wonder what those offering those other assertions were doing to get that kind of reception and impression.
Asking for Linux help online is still just as toxic and useless as 20 years ago.
Being told "RFTM! noob", isn't as common as it was 20 years ago. At least with Fedora where good help can be found. Still, there are a good number of questions that just don't get answered either.
Try Reddit or Stackoverflow for a contrasting experience.
I often go through r/fedora and I very seldom come across anyone belittling anyone else. You might not get an answer at all, but it's seldom anyone will tell you to RTFM. I have little experience with stackoverflow, so I can't say anything about them.
Being told to read the manual did me good.
We should bring back RTFM, and cease allowing it to be smeared as something bad. Burnout is no fun. RTFM spares developers from burnout, allowing them to continue developing good software (and have it be well documented... if only users would read the flippin manual!) ;D
RTFM is good and can be useful for newcomers, if you help them through finding and understanding the RTFM. Many of them are poorly organized and written. It can be hard to understand them.
All the support forums I went to (redhat, gentoo, debian) in 2005 were friendly helpful and well moderated. What is this fud?
not very accurate, you can still install Windows graphically, and you could install Linux either on a console or with a GUI both in 2005 and now
Yes windows can be installed easily, but it'll require a Microsoft login to do it- this meme is made for people who don't want that.
I'm not installing win 11 anyways, but if I did, there's no way in hell I wouldn't install it without spending half a day fucking with regedit and powershell.
Just FYI, ReviOS is a playbook (set of system changes) that strips all the crap out of Windows 11 while still being almost entirely functional (I believe it disables automatic driver downloads, but it still gets Windows security updates.) I use it in my VM.
It's super easy—install Windows 11, run the ReviOS playbook, then a Ninite to install all the essentials (including Classic Shell I think? Although I prefer one called something like Start Back.)
I think Linux has progressed a lot since 2005. It's mostly idiot proof these days - it asks about language/keyboard/timezone/wifi and unless you ask for an advanced install (to partition a hard drive or whatever) it just installs.
I don't think installing Windows is any harder but it may stop to ask for a registration key. Windows also prefers to connect to wifi during installation to fetch patches whereas Linux tends to do it after the fact.
Seemed idiot proof already a couple years before 2005 in my experience. I hear for years prior already too. Rumours of Linux's difficulty have been grossly exaggerated, like in the OP image.
... And reading the EULA for Windows may be non-idiot preventative. But who ever reads what that says. ... I did, when I had read the GNU GPL. The difference... it's worth the read... to experience that vivid constrast awareness, with one offering freedom, the other with it's deal with the devil clause, that they can change the agreement after they make it, and do all manner of nasty to you. GPL's easier to read only a few thousand words, compared to the proprietary license etc that are probably something like thousands of pages in their entirety. The BSD licenses are an even easier read. The WTFPL even shorter yet. Freedom's brevity not trying to hide something nasty in either the license nor the software... unlike the scary stuff one can find hidden in proprietary software. ~ Anyhoo, I'll stop rambling on your comment. It just sprang to mind.
Unless windows hates your computer then it's powershell and regedit for you!
My first Linux distro was Ubuntu in 2006, with a graphical installer from the boot CD. It was revolutionary in my eyes, because WinXP was still installed using a curses-like text interface at the time. As I remember, installing Ubuntu was significantly easier than installing WinXP (and then wireless Internet support was basically shit in either OS at the time).
When Ubuntu came along, I could not understand the fuss about it being easy to install... It seemed no easier than other distros years prior. Yes, 2004 04 (iirc~ or was it 10?), ubuntu's easy to install... so are half a dozen others at the time, for years. Twas just marketing. If only we could have got the word out already before then... or even now... still people seem to think it was hard back then. It wasnt. A monkey pushing the button could install it. Did not have to install Arch, Gentoo, or LFS, the hard way. Could install debian, slackware [Edit: oh wait, slackware woulda been curses tui], redhat, suse, or whatever even easier respins (ubuntu wasnt the first debian respin). Some people still think it's hard now. It's not. It has not been difficult all this millennium so far. Oh to let other people have that awakening moment, have it be revolutionary in their eyes, still today, dispelling their notions of how life has to be, into how life can be. :)
It's a meme, Karen.
This meme would be better if it were:
left column: 20 years ago
right column: today
Both work because the reversal is part of the point. I didn’t find it difficult to read, so it’s subjectively legible.
Linux mint is my distro for now and a good while! I cannot complain (except for a few very minor things).
Printers are a pain in the ass. But who still uses printers?
Quite a lot of us
I use them daily at work. But at home? Never
I work from home. Checkmate!
My HP printer was plug and play for printing over the network, quite delightful really.
Ah yes, liji printer best for cups!
I do... Kids in school occasionally need stuff printed. I have a network attached laser printer, it was super easy, barely an inconvenience to set up in Linux. It was fairly easy to setup in windows too, but every so often it stops working randomly for a few minutes, then as soon as I start trying to figure out why, it randomly starts working again... No such trouble from Linux.
I installed my first linux using graphical installer over 25 years ago
I don't think I ever messed with the Windows 3.1 OS on my family's 486, but from Windows 95 and onwards I've done multiple installs of all the consumer versions of windows and was an avid user of win2k at the time. And for Windows 11 I have only ever installed it in a VM on a Linux machine to test Windows tools that are part of our builds at work.
I've also installed the last couple versions of Linux Mint a few times on some newer and older PCs. And some other distros in VMs for various reasons.
ALL of my recent Linux installs have gone far more smoothly and quickly than ANY Windows installs I remember.
Old windows? Better.
New Linux? Best!
Did you install linux at all in the same time in the 90s? SLS? Slackware? Debian? Caldera? RedHat? SuSe? Etc? to have a counterpart reference for that era?.. Contrary to the depiction in the OP image, GNU+Linux was fine and easy to install with a gui installer since 20 years years ago and far longer.
Nope I don't have experience installing older distros. I used some Unix systems in the late 90s (Sun Solaris) and really liked them even though I wasn't yet the Linux/FOSS enthusiast I am now.
Your comment does not surprise me at all, though. For any rough edges Linux has had over the years, at least the motivations of the developers creating it have been in the right place all along. That is, making software for themselves and users, as opposed to the innumerable forces of enshittification within tech giants like Microsoft.
3 out of 4 panels should be a picture where the operating system cant find the proper drivers
Real lmao
Which was the last version of Windows where that was an issue?
xp and 2k. first of all they were on nt achitecht, second the insrall disc had jackshit drivers due to cd size limits.
Such a shame that Wayland did away with accessibility APIs which makes switching a hard stop for those of us with disabilities that rely on software that works with these APIs.
They work with X11, which had consistent APIs, but Wayland leaves it up to each distro to implement their own APIs, if they do at all, fragmenting the ecosystem.
Hell, even mouse acceleration curves are skuffed now, it really sucks.
X11 still works fine, despite the FUD.
Xfce4 is one option, several others exist.
@douglasg14b @SatyrSack distros do not implement APIs. I'm unsure what "consistent API" means in this context, but X11 is anything but consistent. And you can still just... Use X.org Server. What "X11 APIs" are you missing in specific?
I wasnt aware of this. Do they plan on adding some sort of API implementation like they are with other features or do you know?
Usually, the desktop environment devs come together and standardize on something. But yeah, someone has to drive that effort. Open-source isn't really something you plan, you just need someone to push for it.
Urgh, we downgraded from Gentoo to Ubuntu.
I was scared because i thought there was a windows 20
i installed mandrake in 2004. It came with a nice graphical installer.
Same with Opensuse
Ewbuntu. Show us the installer for Hannah Montana Linux.
Yup. Gosh. HML was about 20 years ago now. Time flies.
And yeah, as the point being made over and over in the comments keeps saying... we had gui installers even then (and even a decade earlier too).
Also, Green on Black is subjectively better than White on Blue.
::: spoiler spoiler No puns here.
Keep it out of the gutter. :::
kinda unrelated but why is this image seemingly recreated ui's rather than screenshots
Because it's LIES!
"How the turntables" -- Michael Scott
Now both sides meet in the middle: GUI for setup, terminal for fixing the one thing that breaks.
Lots of remarks here on Linux GUI, but Windows installations of XP and 2000 all started in DOS with a blue background and yellow progress bar…
The installing Windows 20 years ago panel is missing the bit where you have to push F6 and have a floppy disk handy with the drivers for your storage device. Yes, an actual floppy disk. Ditto for all the other drivers (video, sound, network, etc.) that you usually had to install once you were booted into the OS.
May I remind you that 20 years ago was actually 2005? What you are referring to was more like 30 years ago.
20 years ago you needed to search the web and download all the drivers AFTER the windows install then install all of those.
I don't miss that time. Especially on laptops that weren't supported by the manufacturer and you had to hunt for individual drivers.
Today that only happens if you run Linux and have an Nvidia card. Especially one that's not supported by the newest driver version anymore.
30 years ago, Windows 95/98 (not sure about things like NT4) would just fall back to going through the BIOS to access the disk. It was slow, but it worked, and you could install Windows and then install your storage drivers later. Needing to push F6 and install your storage drivers during the install was a Windows 2000/XP thing.
I skipped 2000, but I installed XP a lot of times and I never had to insert a floppy. IDE and SATA drivers were preloaded, maybe you had some really weird storage system?
It was probably a combination of using the motherboard RAID and AMD motherboards to boot.
Microsoft also updated their Windows XP install disk a few times over the years. If you were installing from an original launch disk from 2001 on a PC with 2006 hardware it was quite a different experience than with a disk that already had SP3 and a bunch of newer drivers.
Yeah, that's rather obscure hardware. I can imagine that you need some drivers for that.
Btw, while this dialog asked for a floppy, it actually used the regular file system, so a CD or even an USB drive worked as well.
I think with cheaper consumer desktops using IDE hard drives, that worked out of the box, but some more exotic storage configurations (SCSI, anything to do with RAID) were a little bit harder to get going.
Isn't that a bit more than 20 years ago?
A realistic memory (set to music) of Windows technologies
First read that as “Windows 20”
Never used cli to install windows in the 25 years I have been dealing with it. I have used dism to remove as much unnecessary crap as I can before installing it though. It only half works anyway since the next feature release reinstalls most of what you remove anyway. These days I just use Rufus to make a bookable USB since it will remove all the requirements and other things by just checking them off as options. GUI is fine after that.
Some of the many ways to bypass making a Microsoft account required hitting the shell in the installer for a moment, but the example screenshot looks more like someone removing shit post-install.
The short guide to not performing CBT with Windows is:
For anyone who's coming from. Windows world desktop environment DE is just look and feel of is you can change it or i install multiple of those. Most famous are GNOME KDE, etc. Distro is something that someone packaged together DE and a tool (pakage? Managet) to gether there are essentially 3****** distros Debian :, rhel., and arch Ubuntu, Linux mint, popOS all Re derived from Debian while fedoro centos were all derived from RHEL bit f*cl Redhat and canonical. And msnjaro arach are all forks of arch and there are freebsd and susu which corpos like becausr of not licensing
If you arrnew and using old hardware then choose Debian or a year alternatives if you're using bleeding edge hardware (newes than 1 year( then choose Fedora
heyyy i'm the 900th upvote
Unless you're installing some weird corporate build of Windows you'll have a very simple installation process. Linux has caught up a lot to that experience.
linux has had easy gui installers since the 90s. what do you mean linux has caught up a lot?
Might be more a question for OP. 20 years ago was 2005, so I suppose they're the ones making that claim.
Real
Now do adding program to startup directory on atleast 5 windows modern version from xp to today to same with 5 different distros.
Also show the screen after attaching external HDD and trying to use it in ANY 5 softwares in windows xp and any 5 softwares on different Linux distros . Pathetically hard is word that comes wit mind.
too many variables. what are you hoping to show? what's pathetically hard?
För first part, its pathetically hard to find the directory and more over out a program shortcut so that it can immediately start at computer start in Linux because the directory is not existent and there is no exe shortcut equivalent in Linux to out in that directory
Secondly if you connect an HDD , it's instantly available to copy and to read FROM any and all apps in windows.this is very very hard in Linux , I connected externe HDD but I had do "mounting" to use it in media manager to even say save media here.
Apart from being trivial to these things in windows, there is some firing telling how to do it on their own distro usi g Terminal. I mean come on, who want to use terminal in 2026 as a regular user and for regular use.
Admit it Linux bros; Linux sux. Most celebrated- 4% market share for Linux os - is hardly any measure of usefulness and I doubt it will go beyond measly 5-7%. Until Linux stops , fix problems by Terminal, and be actually usefull.
Many tools to help facilitate that.
locate,find(or easier syntaxfd),tree,ls,grep,lnand various shell builtins.Perhaps you want to search
$PATHdirectories.There's typically a reason things are the way they are, and not always legacy cruft no longer relevant. If something seems odd or inconvenient compared to what you're used to, it may be because it has other advantages being that way.
OUCH btw. That was really painful to read. XD
Also,
Perhaps you want Gobo Linux, which has a different file tree arrangement perhaps more familiar and forgiving to those who've grown accustomed to how windows does things. (Almost certainly better off learning the more conventional ways though, even with how more unfamiliar as they may be to start with.)
Or perhaps you want the freedesktop XDG .desktop files directory? *shrug*
Or... just use the command line (or something like dmenu), if you know the name of the command you want to launch. It's faster. ... Or then eventually perhaps set up keybind shortcuts to launch things you want regularly and fast.
Or... o_O I suppose, if you really want... you could issue 1 command to make a directory of symlinks to all the executables in $PATH... something like
mkdir ~/exes ; find $(echo $PATH | tr ':' ' ') -maxdepth 1 -type f -executable -exec ln -s {} ~/exes/ \;(countless ways to do that... I just plucked the 2nd suggestion from an LLM, since the way I would have done it would have been using Fish... and that's more bash/posix compliant, more universal.) But I'm not sure why you would want that. GNU+Linux is full of little programs, from the unix philosophy of "do one thing, well", and it'd just be a lot of clutter in one dir, for what you can already access more cleanly and easily just from the command line and tab-completion (or even more completion advantages in ZSH and Fish).Also, if you're not yet familiar with what tool does the job you seek to have done, you may strike lucky using the
aproposcommand to help you find which command does what you need done.Then of course all the various GUI tools to help you find things.
Which distro and desktop environment have you tried this on? Many pre-install the things to make that "just work". For some users, this is a feature that it does not do that. Learning how to use
mountandlsblock(andgrep) is handy, more awareness, control, fidelity, transferable skills, etc, than just having it do it for you and leaving you oblivious to what's happening, to atrophy further from being able and eager to "give back". Remember, it's Free Software, largely made by users volunteering their contributions to improve the code... it's good to learn.It's also trivial in some distros with their preconfiguration, and in some desktop environments, and also trivial once you install/configure things in more barebones distro installs.
See, Linux is not just one thing. Can't judge it all by one experience. It's free software... it's the freedom. It's not "the one true way" imposed upon you. It's good to explore this, and feel the neurons grow. ;)
I struggle to parse that. "some firing telling"?
MANY people. It's understandable, coming from windows, thinking that the terminal is some inferior ancient thing. It's not like that on linux. Maybe if Bash is unappealing, try ZSH with Oh-My-ZSH, or even go straight to using Fish (Friendly interactive shell), for something even more convenient and humanable.
It may surprise, but often the terminal is faster than a GUI.
It's also a universal interface. Text.
This makes documentation easier and more consistent. Where GUI instructions are a long series of click this and click that and so on, requiring the user to look for the things to click, and hoping they remain consistent (which they're probably not), it can leave the user stuck. Whereas with text commands, you can copy and paste, and get the whole thing done in one. And can even investigate each of the parts to learn about it even more, further empowering the user.
I remember one of the coolest things to discover on my Linux honeymoon, was pipes. You can pipe commands together. This makes it tremendously powerful. It's like language, able to form complex combinations of commands, like putting words together to form sentences, allowing the user the freedom to have the computer do what they want. Contrast that to a GUI which only allows the user to do what the programmer allows them to do.
https://www.youtube.com/@BreadOnPenguins is one example of a user showing off some of the power of the command line. :)
Some examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A4bs40scSo ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNLGVFsQmsg ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7GrT2jOy4Q ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duKXvHa1HMs ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5BoVPhewWM ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x22k3csfJCo ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCqOgWR0g2o ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyd6Lxy1IuE ; and on and on it goes.
https://xkcd.com/1205/ ... It's worth the time:
n_n Amusingly, "Linux sucks" has been the title of a recurring series of articles/videos from at least a couple free software advocates/journalists. n_n It's not about that though is it, true or not... It's the freedom. Quality of software/experience is a secondary concern. Sure, it may be true that the freedom allows better software to be made, but that's not a guarantee, and we can't get there without the freedom. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ is worth exploring.
Are we doing argumentum-populum there? The merits lay elsewhere. I wonder what % use Ironclad has... maybe 0.000,000,001%? But it's still of merit. And how many users when Richard Stallman started the GNU Project, or how many users when Torvalds started the Linux kernel... See? Not really a worthwhile measure is it.
But if you insist... Check out how much a % share for servers. ;) ;p
And, it does look like it wont top out at around 7%. The trajectory has been increasing in recent years, such that it's near doubled... I'd be interested to hear what you base your doubt upon. Some (weak) measures suggest it's already passed 6%.
(Tried to find a server specific image I'd seen (I think) on Lemmy, but failed to find it... but found this one instead...)
?
If Linux stops (as in the kernel development ceases (~ which seems wildly implausible)), there are still the BSDs, Solaris derivatives, Ironclad, Hurd, and other kernels, and dozens of completely other operating systems not even in the UNIX paradigm, like AROS and Kolibrios and TempleOS and Plan9, and on and on, and plenty enthusiasts who may yet start other projects entirely new, or rekindle the likes of IRIX with a free software license. Linux is just a kernel that slots into the GNU system (or non-GNU, or Android, or embeded, or others).
Most important take-away from this long reply:
Even in 2026, the command line's advantages over GUI are still strong and persisting and growing in usefulness more than GUI. The terminal is not inferior, and that's why it is not going away. It's very well worth the time invested in learning.
... I've saved so much time, I had the time free to leisurely write this long reply. ;)
...
Oh, and PS: as for your original challenge, to which I said there are too many variables... most things that need to be on startup, will be added to startup, by the package manager, when you install it... so... that's easier. Then, so many ways to do it after that, be it via your init system (copy-pasta a pre-existing startup script in /etc/init.d for sysvinit, or service file in /etc/systemd/service for systemd, or script in /etc/sv for runit, etc., and edit the program name, and run the couple init system specific commands to enable it, which in runit's case, is just a
chmodandln -s... all of which can be scripted up for even greater convenience over control), or just add it to your bash profile, or to your GUI autostart, or set it up in a startup cron, or, other ways... Nice to have that much choice and control over your software. :D "Either the user controls the software, or the software controls the user." :)Look.
I get your point, but I still haven't gotten over the trauma from the time I installed openSUSE on my desktop as a teenager because Windows Vista had gotten too slow for me and I'd seen some people talking about Linux online.
Somehow, the bug I ended up encountering on this distro was the worst thing imaginable: the inability to download anything, ever again. So even when I found solutions for it on obscure forums... I was unable to download any tools to actually use to rectify this problem.
My computer was a brick for 3 years.
This was a long time ago, and I've graduated with a degree in CompSci since then. However, I'll never forget the one Linux/Unix course I took, where the final was to blindly install a Linux OS onto the machine.
I had issues with 5/6 of them.
I remember briefly asking the professor for guidance, worried I was gonna fail... and he confessed to me that he'd never actually done it before, so he didn't really understand why they weren't working.
The professor of the university level course.
So yeah, my days of tinkering with Linux are over. I'm happy for you, and Imma let you finish, but Linux is the most nightmarish OS for a layman user of all time lol
So you couldn't find anyone to download those tools for you? Sounds like Linux wasn't the problem in this scenario
Hell, just go to the library. Or since they were a student in cs, download it from the school computer.
Yus. Did this a few times.
Also, I wish I had known what all the FSF and GNU banners in the library were, the first time I saw them. If I had, I would have started using GNU+Linux years earlier, in the 90s. Well done the library for being Free Software friendly so early on. :)
on obscure forums like youtube?
seriously, I can't imagine how could that happen. it sounds like you could log in to the desktop, probably the browser was working too.
Yeah I can't imagine what he's talking about, also why he couldn't just boot from the Windows disc and reinstall Windows