I for one find the mess of workarounds to make Windows tolerable very unintuitive. And scouring the web to find an installer for a program.
I learned young and became a power user of GNU/Linux. So I’m familiar with it. Way more than I am with Windows.
If people learn on Windows well into adulthood, then that’s what they’re going to be familiar with. The challenge is getting users to accept that things will work differently. It’s not a technical problem most of the time anymore, but a familiarity one.
I think if more people learned about the importance of software freedom (like being able to take a program to any programmer like a car to a mechanic, no nasty behaviour, etc) a lot more would at least try to familiarise themselves with it.
Many people here are using Linux desktop as their normal PC without any issues, for years. I have been happily gaming on it for about 8 years. You probably don’t know how Linux desktop is for an average user nowadays. Our retired parents are using it too.
My kids use Linux. They are 5 and 7. They do just fine. They are “normal”… as in just beginner users.
The 5 year old only cares where Steam is, and where the games are in the menu.
The 7 year old is a master at it all already. He’s installing Minecraft mods all the time… downloading, unzipping the mods… running java -jar XYZ from the terminal… yeah I had to show him the first time, but TBH, I didn’t show it all to him. He read up on how it works and watched YouTube videos on it.
It’s all about what you’re used to and if you’re actually interested in learning the bits. Normal is what? Someone who treats the computer as an appliance? Yeah… with those users as long as the machine actually works… they don’t care what the underlying OS is… OSX? Windows 11? some Linux distro? It’s all the same to them. The computer is a magic machine that does things and they have no clue how or why.
This particular user seems to be a corporate shill. I hope they are getting paid for their advocacy of the malware infested OS that steals private data of paid users. At least then they wouldn’t be dumb. This user is consistently arguing that piracy is theft in other threads but will go bat for corporations. Companies that have stolen a lot more from tax money, environment, wage theft, lobbying politicians to artificially stiffle competition, lying to congress about data theft, etc.
Or you just disagree with them and can’t fathom why anyone would ever have a differing opinion? You don’t have to go around calling anyone who disagrees with you a corporate shill to every single person replying to him.
They’ve said nothing that isn’t reasonable. Piracy is theft. So is stealing art and data for training.
Linux desktop nowadays is not a matter of having above average computer knowledge, it’s a matter of habit. People/companies used Windows because they are used to it so it seems easy, but it’s not actually easier than noob friendly Linux. As an illustration many of us made our children or parents use Linux, it shows how easy it is.
I know, I know, it’s stupid easy unless you do something like buy an Nvidia card or use flatpack. I was dumb enough to use xdotool to get my track pad in unbusted, but dumb ass me had to use YDOTOOL🤦♂️ because Wayland!
Reeally depends what you consider for normal use. If you just plan to use some office programs and network without being required to use ms format then what not love there. You often even have thr office programs preinstalled
Linux is fantastic for the low end user that really needs a calculator and a web browser. It really only has pain points for people in the mid tier that don’t understand technology, but have to use it a lot for work.
It’s a big old bell curve.
True but most people are in that middle group of users. I thought my mom would always be below it, so I set her up with Ubuntu and showed her how to open the web browser. But it wasn’t long before her siblings were suggesting she install a mahjong app to play with them, or goofy camera filters for their video calls. After being reasonably sure they weren’t spyware, I still had to break the bad news to her: “Sorry mom, Windows only.”
She’s currently running a refurbished ThinkPad with Windows 10 pro.
yeah, as a video/media guy, I’m still hard stuck on windows. it’s just not viable to make enough money and say no to the jobs that require adobe. you’ll just go hungry if you try…
It’s not a mess. If you install an appropriate distro, say Ubuntu or Linux Mint, the average user would be just fine using it. Judging it based on installing it is being disingenuous. The average user isn’t installing an operating system, Windows or Linux. You know OS installation gets handled by someone that knows what they are doing regardless of what OS it is.
Linus Torvalds himself also said this and basically positied he thinks Valve will be the company that brings us to a working desktop ecosystem by deciding on a universal desktop app packaging format.
I saw a video recently about the history of x11 development from retro bytes on YouTube and it is pretty much exemplary of the nature of open source development. I think I understand this whole conundrum a bit better.
The telemetry thing got really out of hand. Me spending more time on blocking shit instead of actually using the OS… sorry, but I’d rather invest that time in learning something new than trying to circumvent things that shouldn’t be there in the first place.
Those things could be circumvented easily by just using the LTSC editions (which is what I always install for personal use), but it still bleeds out a lot of personal data to MS unless you disable services and block shit.
I dual boot, but to be honest, I haven’t booted in Windows for a long long time, probably a few months. I use it at work (because it’s easier, everything’s MS centered) and that’s about it.
There is also the thing with app capabilities in Win11 which pissed the hell out of me. Basically, if the app says that they can open this or that extension, it’s not like in previous versions of Windows where you can choose which app is used to open this or that file type. It flat out BLOCKS other apps that are not a part of the OS (like media players) and you basically have no choice but to use the integrated ones. I just gave up, I have no intention of looking for a solution to this. I’m waiting for the Win11 LTSC edition, maybe that will have this issue fixed, maybe not, still, I will only boot to it if I have no other choice. So, yeah, I will have it installed, but it’s a just in case scenario, if everything else fails.
That’s a significant portion of people. Anyone using an Adobe product, playing half of the top 10 games on steam or using any proprietary hardware is basically locked out.
Yeah, wrong. Free drivers have been written for most hardware. Maybe except the absolute newest because we haven’t had enough time. But if you’re buying the latest and greatest hardware every time it comes out, you really ought to be looking at the waste you are producing.
I’m using a near 8 year old audio interface that still can’t support Linux. Plenty of hardware doesn’t support it. Community support never covers every use case.
Apparently being responsible for your own computer is too much to ask. It’s not so difficult to manage a linux install. In fact, its much easier and smoother if you are willing to become familiar with how things work. But whining that linux OS broke like Linus Sebastian from LTT when you can’t read and take responsibility is like complaining that the car didn’t save you when you crashed a manual honda civic expecting it to perform like a autopilot car. Its asinine and illogical.
We all grew up with windows and became familiar with it as that was the only choice. To insult linux and its users just because you want 100% perfection from an OS people build as a hobby for free is quite ignorant and entitled. If you don’t like linux stop commenting on programming forums.
The year of the linux desktop for me started in 2009 when I first installed ubuntu and it has been the year of the linux desktop for me since then. I have learnt to fix flaws in my system. I know what its limitations are. I don’t expect linux to fix all my problems. But i certainly do recommend it to newbies even if it might frustrate them. I expect them to take it or leave it. I don’t insult their intelligence by assuming they definitely need handholding.
Microsoft poured several billions by now into windows and it’s only getting worse day by day. If you suggest that Windows is best for daily users then it is clear that you’re just insulting people’s intelligence instead of uplifting them.
I stopped at line 1. Yes. You finally get it. It’s an appliance. It is too much to ask me to dick around being responsible for my os. I’m glad we’re making progress.
I really don’t give a flying fuck about software privacy or open source anything. I want my computer to work with the software I need for my job, and Linux doesn’t, so it’s a non-viable OS
Shouldn’t you at least understand the reason why it is that way? Or are you going to blame Linux when there’s no single entity behind it?
Microsoft struck shady deals with laptop vendors to make them microsoft exclusive. Steve Ballmer effectively said Linux is cancer (probably blaming GPL license). They let people pirate their software so future technologists grew up with windows and other windows software (adobe did the same with photoshop, now it’s industry monopoly)
A community OS like GNU/Linux competes with Microsoft who has billions in the bank. It’s only in the past few years that Linux has seen wider hardware vendor adoption at all.
It’s fine if you think Linux is non-viable… but speak for yourself. Don’t go around trolling people who are perfectly fine with Linux.
Edit: if you don’t care about anything I just wrote then you’re just a horse with blinders on and I am wasting my time.
You’re barking up the wrong tree then. I don’t know why you would do that when you claim to be a pragmatic person. What’s exactly your beef? Care to tell me?
Beef? I called out the dumb memes around Linus because he represents a normal user. You all then scream that normal users should be more educated and care about hardware, why Nvidia sucks, etc; which is a pipe dream and never EVER going to happen.
There is always butthurt about him. He’s a normal user and folks can’t cope that Linux desktop is a mess for the average user.
XXXX year of the Linux desktop.
Linux is fantastic for running shit. It’s pretty terrible for most normal users to use.
It’s not terrible, it’s unfamiliar.
I for one find the mess of workarounds to make Windows tolerable very unintuitive. And scouring the web to find an installer for a program.
I learned young and became a power user of GNU/Linux. So I’m familiar with it. Way more than I am with Windows.
If people learn on Windows well into adulthood, then that’s what they’re going to be familiar with. The challenge is getting users to accept that things will work differently. It’s not a technical problem most of the time anymore, but a familiarity one.
I think if more people learned about the importance of software freedom (like being able to take a program to any programmer like a car to a mechanic, no nasty behaviour, etc) a lot more would at least try to familiarise themselves with it.
Many people here are using Linux desktop as their normal PC without any issues, for years. I have been happily gaming on it for about 8 years. You probably don’t know how Linux desktop is for an average user nowadays. Our retired parents are using it too.
What part about normal did you miss? The folks on lemmy are about as far from the average user as you get.
My kids use Linux. They are 5 and 7. They do just fine. They are “normal”… as in just beginner users.
The 5 year old only cares where Steam is, and where the games are in the menu.
The 7 year old is a master at it all already. He’s installing Minecraft mods all the time… downloading, unzipping the mods… running java -jar XYZ from the terminal… yeah I had to show him the first time, but TBH, I didn’t show it all to him. He read up on how it works and watched YouTube videos on it.
It’s all about what you’re used to and if you’re actually interested in learning the bits. Normal is what? Someone who treats the computer as an appliance? Yeah… with those users as long as the machine actually works… they don’t care what the underlying OS is… OSX? Windows 11? some Linux distro? It’s all the same to them. The computer is a magic machine that does things and they have no clue how or why.
Exactly!
I’m gonna get my 4 year old onboard as well, soon. He’s still too young, but slowly, he will grasp the basics.
It’s amazing how quickly they get it.
LemmyIsFantastic is a corporate shill or an unpaid troll. Don’t bother wasting your breath.
You are getting downvoted, perhaps users don’t like to be called “un-normal”.
It is very clear that by normal you meant average.
Lemmy and Linux users should be intelligent enough to understand the context of your initial message…
This particular user seems to be a corporate shill. I hope they are getting paid for their advocacy of the malware infested OS that steals private data of paid users. At least then they wouldn’t be dumb. This user is consistently arguing that piracy is theft in other threads but will go bat for corporations. Companies that have stolen a lot more from tax money, environment, wage theft, lobbying politicians to artificially stiffle competition, lying to congress about data theft, etc.
Edit: I meant LemmyIsFantastic not you
Or you just disagree with them and can’t fathom why anyone would ever have a differing opinion? You don’t have to go around calling anyone who disagrees with you a corporate shill to every single person replying to him.
They’ve said nothing that isn’t reasonable. Piracy is theft. So is stealing art and data for training.
Linux desktop nowadays is not a matter of having above average computer knowledge, it’s a matter of habit. People/companies used Windows because they are used to it so it seems easy, but it’s not actually easier than noob friendly Linux. As an illustration many of us made our children or parents use Linux, it shows how easy it is.
I know, I know, it’s stupid easy unless you do something like buy an Nvidia card or use flatpack. I was dumb enough to use xdotool to get my track pad in unbusted, but dumb ass me had to use YDOTOOL🤦♂️ because Wayland!
That fixed it for you no? Why are you still bitching about it like a whiney little kid. Go cry to Nvidia.
Lost the conversation huh? I know it’s hard to follow.
Reeally depends what you consider for normal use. If you just plan to use some office programs and network without being required to use ms format then what not love there. You often even have thr office programs preinstalled
I don’t see any job listing “Libre Office skills” but “Microsoft Excel skills” though.
Define “Normal”.
Linux is fantastic for the low end user that really needs a calculator and a web browser. It really only has pain points for people in the mid tier that don’t understand technology, but have to use it a lot for work. It’s a big old bell curve.
True but most people are in that middle group of users. I thought my mom would always be below it, so I set her up with Ubuntu and showed her how to open the web browser. But it wasn’t long before her siblings were suggesting she install a mahjong app to play with them, or goofy camera filters for their video calls. After being reasonably sure they weren’t spyware, I still had to break the bad news to her: “Sorry mom, Windows only.”
She’s currently running a refurbished ThinkPad with Windows 10 pro.
🙄 oh God here we go with not understanding tech.
You can understand technology and dislike Linux DE. It’s so condescending.
“Linux DE” is not a thing. There is no one “Linux DE”.
If you understood technology, you would explicitly know why tracking within windows is dangerous. Either way. Its not a very good look for you.
🙄🙄🙄
Again with the condescension. Assuming your values have anything to do with my technical skill.
Your technical skills won’t save you from your own loud mouth
Hmm you seem to denigrate people for not understanding tech while seemingly giving up your privacy and $100 for Microsoft.
Do you understand not being ripped off?
Nah. I’ve never had to spend hours dicking around fixing Wayland. That’s worth its weight in gold.
Nobody is breaking Wayland except seemingly you. What are you doing that Wayland breaks for you regularly?
Edit: You know, Now I understand Microsoft’s business model. There’s always a fool like you to buy their spyware and then go to bat for them for free.
👌👍🤣
yeah, as a video/media guy, I’m still hard stuck on windows. it’s just not viable to make enough money and say no to the jobs that require adobe. you’ll just go hungry if you try…
It’s not a mess. If you install an appropriate distro, say Ubuntu or Linux Mint, the average user would be just fine using it. Judging it based on installing it is being disingenuous. The average user isn’t installing an operating system, Windows or Linux. You know OS installation gets handled by someone that knows what they are doing regardless of what OS it is.
Linus Torvalds himself also said this and basically positied he thinks Valve will be the company that brings us to a working desktop ecosystem by deciding on a universal desktop app packaging format.
I saw a video recently about the history of x11 development from retro bytes on YouTube and it is pretty much exemplary of the nature of open source development. I think I understand this whole conundrum a bit better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-N-fgKWYGU&t=0
Flatpack really had solved packaging IMO.
True, also worth mentioning appimage, like flatpak but portable
Appimage may be the closest thing to the “executable” that Linus is talking about in that specific conference I mentioned.
Debconf14 QA with Linus Torvalds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzl1B7nB9Kc&t=530
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=Pzl1B7nB9Kc&t=530
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It was only after becoming acustom to linux that I realized how horrifically insecure executables are.
If Windows used repositories, there would be way less old folks with malware.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=R-N-fgKWYGU&t=0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I think its just a matter of taste. I’ve used Linux for a long time and I will choose GNOME or Cinnamon over anything any day.
I also appreciate that I don’t need a online account and everything I do isn’t being analysised.
The telemetry thing got really out of hand. Me spending more time on blocking shit instead of actually using the OS… sorry, but I’d rather invest that time in learning something new than trying to circumvent things that shouldn’t be there in the first place.
Not to mention Windows constantly battering you to sign in and to buy office 365.
Those things could be circumvented easily by just using the LTSC editions (which is what I always install for personal use), but it still bleeds out a lot of personal data to MS unless you disable services and block shit.
I dual boot, but to be honest, I haven’t booted in Windows for a long long time, probably a few months. I use it at work (because it’s easier, everything’s MS centered) and that’s about it.
There is also the thing with app capabilities in Win11 which pissed the hell out of me. Basically, if the app says that they can open this or that extension, it’s not like in previous versions of Windows where you can choose which app is used to open this or that file type. It flat out BLOCKS other apps that are not a part of the OS (like media players) and you basically have no choice but to use the integrated ones. I just gave up, I have no intention of looking for a solution to this. I’m waiting for the Win11 LTSC edition, maybe that will have this issue fixed, maybe not, still, I will only boot to it if I have no other choice. So, yeah, I will have it installed, but it’s a just in case scenario, if everything else fails.
It’s absolutely fine for most normal users, the exception being people that need to run proprietary software that only runs on windows
That’s a significant portion of people. Anyone using an Adobe product, playing half of the top 10 games on steam or using any proprietary hardware is basically locked out.
“Using any proprietary hardware”
Yeah, wrong. Free drivers have been written for most hardware. Maybe except the absolute newest because we haven’t had enough time. But if you’re buying the latest and greatest hardware every time it comes out, you really ought to be looking at the waste you are producing.
I’m using a near 8 year old audio interface that still can’t support Linux. Plenty of hardware doesn’t support it. Community support never covers every use case.
I said most.
You said any proprietary hardware is unsupported. Which is flat out wrong.
Skill issue.
Imagine insulting someone who said “this sucks for normal user” with get gud 🤣
Absolutely fantastic. We’ve really gone full circle.
Apparently being responsible for your own computer is too much to ask. It’s not so difficult to manage a linux install. In fact, its much easier and smoother if you are willing to become familiar with how things work. But whining that linux OS broke like Linus Sebastian from LTT when you can’t read and take responsibility is like complaining that the car didn’t save you when you crashed a manual honda civic expecting it to perform like a autopilot car. Its asinine and illogical.
We all grew up with windows and became familiar with it as that was the only choice. To insult linux and its users just because you want 100% perfection from an OS people build as a hobby for free is quite ignorant and entitled. If you don’t like linux stop commenting on programming forums.
The year of the linux desktop for me started in 2009 when I first installed ubuntu and it has been the year of the linux desktop for me since then. I have learnt to fix flaws in my system. I know what its limitations are. I don’t expect linux to fix all my problems. But i certainly do recommend it to newbies even if it might frustrate them. I expect them to take it or leave it. I don’t insult their intelligence by assuming they definitely need handholding.
Microsoft poured several billions by now into windows and it’s only getting worse day by day. If you suggest that Windows is best for daily users then it is clear that you’re just insulting people’s intelligence instead of uplifting them.
I stopped at line 1. Yes. You finally get it. It’s an appliance. It is too much to ask me to dick around being responsible for my os. I’m glad we’re making progress.
You should blame software makers and hardware vendors. Not Linux. There isn’t a Linux company that pays for vendor lock-in.
Doesn’t matter in the least bit when talking about the viability.
100%
I really don’t give a flying fuck about software privacy or open source anything. I want my computer to work with the software I need for my job, and Linux doesn’t, so it’s a non-viable OS
Shouldn’t you at least understand the reason why it is that way? Or are you going to blame Linux when there’s no single entity behind it?
Microsoft struck shady deals with laptop vendors to make them microsoft exclusive. Steve Ballmer effectively said Linux is cancer (probably blaming GPL license). They let people pirate their software so future technologists grew up with windows and other windows software (adobe did the same with photoshop, now it’s industry monopoly)
A community OS like GNU/Linux competes with Microsoft who has billions in the bank. It’s only in the past few years that Linux has seen wider hardware vendor adoption at all.
It’s fine if you think Linux is non-viable… but speak for yourself. Don’t go around trolling people who are perfectly fine with Linux.
Edit: if you don’t care about anything I just wrote then you’re just a horse with blinders on and I am wasting my time.
You’re barking up the wrong tree then. I don’t know why you would do that when you claim to be a pragmatic person. What’s exactly your beef? Care to tell me?
Beef? I called out the dumb memes around Linus because he represents a normal user. You all then scream that normal users should be more educated and care about hardware, why Nvidia sucks, etc; which is a pipe dream and never EVER going to happen.
I have no beef. This is reality.
Oh boy you’re still hating on linux and shilking for big corp.
Yeah? Where’s the shilk? What’s a shilk?
Shilling + Milking = Shilking
Unhinged.