I installed Debian + KDE on my mom’s laptop. She hasn’t had a complaint since. How tech-savvy is she, you ask? I’m sitting with her right now, so out of politeness she put on headphones to watch her favorite soap opera. Mind you, the headphones weren’t plugged into the laptop. She was sitting there, headphones on her head, sound coming through the speakers, watching her soaps like this is how it’s meant to be done.
She was sitting there, headphones on her head, sound coming through the speakers, watching her soaps like this is how it’s meant to be done.
So we have to never do this to be considered tech savvy? Asking for a friend…
Lol I’m a tech lead and I’ve done this on a train no less. Thought I had my headphones paired but it took me a few minutes to realize why the sound was muffled.
i have a friend with the same concern
Mine too, since approx. 10 years already. No real complaints and overall tech-support work-load has been massively reduced. Only the nagging of Zoom to install an app has been a bit of a headache; it exists for Linux but isn’t auto-updated from the repositories, and in general using Zoom in the browser works fine, but this option is quite hidden as a dark-pattern. Yeah, I wish her various online-conferences would use something else, but here we are…
One of these days I need to troubleshoot and fix why my flatpak version of Zoom can’t install emojis.
How does Linux handle steam and games?
Personally, a solid 8/10. Steam is probably the best experience if you are playing Steam games but there are also other third party launches that can handle Epic games and GOG and others.
Some games run natively but most will be using Wine, or Steam’s implementation Proton. If you have issues, you can check out tinker steps on https://www.protondb.com (and also check there before buying a game to see if others have been running it fine).
The vast majority of games work out of the box, some need some tweaks, and I don’t think I’ve come across any that I wanted to play that don’t work at all.
Steam Deck and Steam’s investment in linux has really been a game changer in this space.
No joke. I’ve been blown away by what my old used Steam Deck is capable of to the point that I’ve already decided that I’m done with Windows. I’ll probably build a new PC soon (my 2015 laptop is only about as powerful as the Steam Deck) and I’m currently favoring Nobara as my replacement OS when I pull the trigger on parts and get started building. As somebody else pointed out, some games like Call of Duty use kernel based anticheat so only Windows will work for those games, but the only competitive online multiplayer game I ever play is Rocket League and that works pretty well on my Steam Deck as is. If you’re already a PC gamer, you’re used to having to do some troubleshooting here and there, and it seems like it’s maybe 1-5% more work to troubleshoot those occasional issues when you’re running Linux. I’m not a computer whiz or anything, just semi decent at eventually figuring out logic. If you can figure out how to get a Lemmy account and use an app for it on your phone, you can figure out gaming on Linux.
I don’t think I’ve come across any that I wanted to play that don’t work at all.
The main ones that don’t work are the ones with kernel-level Anticheat. The one exception is Easy Anticheat. They made a way for that one to work.
So that will mostly be multiplayer games like COD, Destiny 2, Overwatch, etc. And EA is making a push to switch their games to their proprietary anticheat which doesn’t work on Linux. So I think Battlefield is now on that list as well.
If those games aren’t the types of games you play, then you should be mostly fine.
Yeah I’m too old for twitch games 😆
I normally buy games without even looking whether they support Linux. On the extremely rare occasion that a Steam game doesn’t run on Debian, I’ll just get a refund. Sometimes I feel like I should stick to Linux native games on Steam, to send a message that Linux gamers exist - but then there’s sure to be something that I just can’t live without on the Windows side.
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Valve has dedicated tons of effort to support Linux. I’ve almost never encountered a Steam game that doesn’t work on Linux.
Should be as good as with the steam deck and that’s had tons of games available to it.
Pretty well. Using it daily. There are 9nly a handful of titles that don’t work well with steam on linux, but I can live without them.
I’m doing it right now. Works fine if you’re playing on steam and there are non-steam options too.
Really well. I’ve been playing Cyberpunk 2077 in Linux on my PC without issue, and plenty of other games on it, my Steam Deck and now a living room mini PC.
A combination of steam (and Proton), Wine and Heroic launcher (for GOG, Epic and toeht stores), plus tech like Vulkan, makes most PC gaming viable in Linux.
There remain some games that don’t work but generally they get tweaked into working with a newer version of Proton. Windows-reliant anticheat software seems to be an issue though if you like competitive fps type games.
Depends, if you want to play online, tough luck. Most anticheats refuse to work with Linux, the smaller games probably work fine, but if it’s somewhat mainstream (fortnite, valorant, cod, rainbow six, etc) it probably won’t work. ProtonDB has a great list.
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My dad doesn’t seem to know the difference between left and right clicking, but I installed Lubuntu to give new life to his old 2-in-1 laptop and he was pretty happy with it.
The only downside I’ve seen is that it doesn’t do “tablet mode” anymore, and the touchscreen is much less functional.
I’ve noticed KDE seems to handle some of the tablet functions better on my old shitty ASUS transformer flip (originally installed xfce mint)
My dad uses NixOS. My dad knows precisely nothing about computers; just ask him, he’ll tell you. I figure, since he’s gonna call me for free tech support no matter what operating system he has, anyway, I might as well make everything as reproducible as possible for my own sake. I tried putting Debian testing on his computer, and honestly, that was actually pretty good except that I had to update it for him at least once a week in order to keep everything running smoothly, lol.
Don’t you have to update NixOS too?
Yes; the difference with NixOS is that you can go way longer than you ever should without updating it, and then do a full system upgrade, and then turn around and walk away without ever having to worry about anything breaking.
you can do almost everything in your browser, so why don’t you just switch to linux, i asked myself this question, using linux since.
going to use your title in lieu of “I use arch btw”
I installed Linux Mint on my dad’s laptop. The laptop previously had Windows 10 installed on it and it took approximately 10 minutes to boot. Now it boots in like 1 minute. The only thing that he doesn’t like is that he has to use LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office and he has not get used to it yet.
I feel like this gets so close to understanding why non-technical people don’t use Linux. I had a class once in college I had to use Linux for so I have used it. It wouldn’t be hard at all to use Linux for what I use my computer for everyday. So if my laptop come with Linux or someone else installed Linux on it I’d be fine. I might not even notice right away honestly.
The barrier isn’t using Linux, the barrier is installing Linux in the first place. Windows also works fine for the random low level stuff I use my laptop to do, so why would I go out of my way to install Linux when it would improve my life 0% and be a huge boring hassle for me?
install process for Linux is easier imo. no bullshit licence agreements, just give it a disk to install onto, set your language, and it handles the rest
I agree it’s easy now. For non-technical people who aren’t interested in tech, even that would be too much. They’re not building their own computers, and prebuilts almost always come with Windows. Going out of their way at all and learning to switch from Windows, which works fine for their needs, to something else doesn’t make sense to them.
I buy a new laptop and I open it. It’s running windows as soon as I turn it on. How is that easier than having to go find something to install? If I turned on a brand new laptop and it was running Linux then I’d just use Linux. I wouldn’t bother going to find windows to download it either.
yeah I misunderstood. windows being preinstalled definetly makes it easier to use windows lol
Kinda shows you haven’t actually installed Linux, if ever, in the last 10 years
Yeah, that’s kinda my point. Why would I? If it came on laptops out of the box? I’d use it. But as someone whose job description lists excel as “a plus, not required” Why would I have installed Linux in the past 10 years?
Windows is trash
Sooner or later, a non-techy user is going to ask their techy friend for advice because their Windows PC is slow, full of spam, or they can’t find anything after an automatic update.
At that point you might just offer to install Linux for them.
I have never had to ask someone for help with my laptop even after an update. As far as I can tell my PC isnt slow and Ive never noticed spam. I just don’t use/push my laptop enough for that to have ever been a problem.
That said, if someone installed Linux for me and set it up? I’d use Linux. The operating system really doesn’t impact my use of the laptop. The point I’ve been trying to make, and that seems to be largely being lost on the angry Linux bros on lemmy, is that using Linux isn’t the barrier and most people would use Linux- if it came pre-installed. Installation is the barrier, not use. If you put it on family/friends computers they’ll probably use it just fine. They just aren’t gonna bother learning to install it themselves.
using Linux isn’t the barrier and most people would use Linux- if it came pre-installed. Installation is the barrier, not use.
That’s a very important and apt analysis. Thanks for sharing your perspective!
As for spam, I was actually referring to things that Windows decided to build into the interface that the user may not like: Low quality news, Cortana, Copilot, calls to create an online account.
I’ve never used KDE before, how does it compare to Cinnamon?
Cinnamon is kinda like KDE with all the options removed.
KDE is whatever you want it to be. Out of the box it looks similar to Windows, but you can turn it into a tiling window manager, or a clone of Gnome, without touching the command line.without touching the command line
This sounds extremely impressive to me, as customizing Cinnamon without using overly technical tools has been quite hit and miss for me.
Cinnamon is the only other desktop environment that I can really use besides KDE. To me they’re equal in quality. Cinnamon does some things better than KDE, KDE does some things better than Cinnamon. It varies based on how each one is configured in your distro’s repository more than anything. KDE on Arch is top notch. Cinnamon on Arch is hot garbage. Cinnamon on Ubuntu is usually really good, KDE on Ubuntu was barely usable last time I tried it.
If you know a lot about desktop environments you could fix either one yourself but I only use them based on which one works better after I download it and configure basic settings.
KDE on Ubuntu. Try Kubuntu specifically, it’s quite nice.
KDE on Arch is top notch. Cinnamon on Arch is hot garbage. Cinnamon on Ubuntu is usually really good, KDE on Ubuntu was barely usable last time I tried it.
This sounds weird to me, why is there such a big difference?
I like the Wayland support from KDE Plasma for things like HDR and Freesync. If you don’t need advanced stuff like that then it’s preference really, Cinnamon would probably be my second choice.
She probably hasn’t had a complaint because her son is a techie, and because promoting Linux seemingly makes him happy…
I love Linux and all, and I don’t want to take away from OP, but I think this is more of a sweet story rather than the example many commentators will use to cite that everyone can and should use Linux.
My mom also uses Linux, no complains from her, lot less support to be performed by me. Shit just work.a
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Only if it’s shitty proprietary drivers. Never had AMD/Intel drivers break on me.
I debated heavily about whether or not to install Linux on parent’s computer(s) over the years. The thing that always made me decide to have them stick with windows was a couple of crappy software programs they used. Yeah, this does go back to when people bought software on discs instead of everything being web based. I honestly don’t know if I made the correct decision or not.
Your mom’s a thug
