Stop being elitist, spread Linux!

shared XKCD about experts overestimating laypeople's knowledge of their field
Double clicking it opens a weird folder.
I just put the ISO on my external drive and now my backup is gone what happened?
Proceeds to assume laypeople have backups
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
Don’t support anything Google touches.
https://xkcd.com/2501/
https://m.xkcd.com/2501/
reminds me of !windows_help@iusearchlinux.fyi
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
- Honestly these people shouldn’t use computers if they can’t be bothered to learn the bare minimum ngl.
  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.

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
The unpaid intern of tech

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. 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
I am genuinely curious what "more with their machines" actions you found Mint to be lacking in?
- I can't speak for OP, but I remember reading about two years ago that Linux Mint is a poor choice for gaming because Cinnamon's compositor can't handle more fast-paced games (even just 60 FPS) and will reduce them to a stuttery mess even if the game's otherwise running fine. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but I did deal with it back in late 2021.
  There was also the stuff about Lutris developers abandoning their support for Mint (in a letter I feel was frankly way too harsh, rude and unprofessional) due to it doing some weird stuff with system packages that made the Lutris program generate weird bugs that couldn't be replicated in other Ubuntu-derivative distributions. However, that can be circumvented by using the Lutris flatpak.
  Honestly, I do hope those are no longer issues. I have a soft spot for Linux Mint since it was the first distro I daily-drove (and has a similar UI to Windows XP my beloved), and even though I don't use it anymore, I still follow its development from time to time and I'd love to see it getting better and universally usable for everyone.
- proprietary software that won't run under wine

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.
What’s rm -rf /?
Just` test it in a terminal, it’s fun.
💀
Going for that "who's on first base" vibe?
Thanks for the laugh 😀
Someone prefers mint.
How do I install word? https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=LH-6tp-KBuQ

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)
  Try to put Programs such as Firefox , emby in startup of linux
  Find a folder comparison software, let it feels nd external drive ATTACHED TO LAPTOP and compare two folders on it.
  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

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.

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?
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 😈

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.
- 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.

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?"

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

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.

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

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.

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 _S2 S3 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"

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.

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

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.

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

Irony: being elitist about the most egalitarian operating system

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"
- Is $1900 too much for a blazing fast laptop with 1TB/24GB that will have support for 10 years?
- 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.
- Third best enterprise OS.
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.
- 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.

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?

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'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.

Stop being elitist

That takes away most teenagers' motivation to use Linux xD

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

Also why do we need to advertise? More users doesn't mean anything
this is why we dont have adobe, or so much else. proper nvidia support? drivers?

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.

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.
The average user doesn't install windows. I used to get paid when I was a kid to install windows in my village.
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

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.

The vast majority of people don't know what sRGB or DCI-P3 or color profiles are, or care about it. I understand that you may be frustrated about bad support, but it is just not that big of a deal for most people. That said, color management and HDR support for wayland is being actively worked on, and I wouldn't be suprised if it works better on wayland than X11 in a year or two. Also the distro suggested here (linux mint cinnamon) uses X11, not wayland. I agree with OP that we shouldn't scare people away from linux. Forcing people to have an opinion on X11 vs Wayland or color profiles, definately could scare them away.
- I have used labwc (a really close equivalent to openbox) with great excitement with the exception of one thing.
  Running a graphic application as a different user within a user's session is impossible. Even if a different seatd session is active for the 2nd user, wlroots refuses to draw anything as a different user than the one initiating the session.
  It is a form of containerization for me that just requires x11
  @noddy @toastal
- I’m not anti-Wayland… I’m anti-saying-it-good-enough-when-the-featureset-doesn’t match. I know it’s being worked on & I’ve followed the work pretty closely for over 4 years fingers-crossed there would be less bike-shedding & having things come out in easy-to-digest phases instead of holding back the monolith that they are building.
  Knowing sRGB vs. DCI-P3 vs. AdobeRGB might not be immediately known as marketing teams like to hide the names behind marketing terms, but users very much understand ‘this displays a more vibrant range of color’. The whole ASUS laptop line is basically banking on having these great, color-calibrated 100% P3 OLED panels up all the price ranges because when a casual buyer walks in a shop, that those dominates the showroom & will sell better because it’s easy to compare even at a distance without looking at the spec sheet or touching the device; users are also used to it because smart phones have followed Apple’s P3 lead & expect better from laptops & monitors where the market can actually cater to this crowd (which is great since for years it seemed it was only dominated by how many frames you could get for the gamer crowd). Folk are getting QD OLED & other such monitors / TVs which have support. Imagine you buy that monitor, looks great, then move to Linux & now it doesn’t--which will become even more obvious when HDR is more mainstream, as you definitely noted. You don’t need to know the names of every technology or how they work to have a validated ‘bad feeling‘ about something not working as intended.
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.

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.
- Why is a windows computer not my computer? makes no sense
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.

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.

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

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 😉

Laymen are the greatest thing that can happen to Linux.

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

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.

easier to use

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.

main choices of professionals

Don't most professionals use software that is only available on Windows or Mac? Like Adobe stuff?

They don’t understand distros, just pick Linux Mint LTS Cinnamon unless they’re curious.

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.

copy down your windows product key

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.

use rufus (a website) to put the iso on a usb flash drive

Why Rufus and not Etcher? Genuinely curious, Etcher seems to be the most recommended one.

erase the storage and install

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 takes 15 minutes.

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.

erase the storage and install
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.

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.

Your post is exactly what you are complaining of.
?
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

Good luck but as someone who is techy, Linux drives me insane every time I use it. Yes, it's a skill issue. I think that's sort of the nature of the problem regarding Linux adoption.

I'm capable, a quick learner interested in learning, good at following step by step instructions, and am really good at teaching others once I've learned it.

I've been on and off Linux for at least 8 years now and I feel like I end up hating it more and more each time I work with it. I will say, all of them are hobby projects of things that I just want, or tried to replace something from Windows by using my server.

I'm sure if it was just basic web browsing it would be fine, but I inevitably want to do something so I look for how to do it, follow a guide or the documentation and inevitably 5 steps in something goes wrong. Like, I genuinely can't think of a single instance where I've been able to follow a step-by-step outside of the Steam Deck and have it actually work the first time.

That aside, usually the amount of networking that has to be done manually is what gets me, bonus points if you are double natted.

Docker has made things better but it's still a pain in the ass for me. I enjoy working with computers and software but more often than not I do not enjoy my time working with Linux and by the time I finally get something working I am just wishing I hadn't wasted all my time trying to get it working, and wishing that I didn't care so much about this. Cause if I didn't care I could happily live without home assistant and my server. But I do care, so I have to work on it.

It's genuinely frustrating. Something as simple as Stable Diffusion - literally a git clone command - something I've set up a dozen times on Windows installs, just will not work on my server because it decides something is wrong following the install.

This whole time running Linux there have only been 2 things that I rarely have problems with. The first is Plex, since I first installed it on a RasPi using DietPi I've had nothing but good, smooth experiences. Once in a while there would be a hiccup but it was straightforward enough. The most difficult Plex has ever been is on my recent server build with an NVIDIA card, just getting hardware transcoding to work (which it at least recognizes the GPU now so I think it is). Oh, and stupid fucking permissions. God I hate permissions.

The other has been my Steam Deck, where I've had no issues through and through, from modding to random installs.

Anyway, I'm ranting like this because I'm so frustrated with Linux's ease of use/access. Technology has gotten so much easier to use that it feels insanely archaic being forced to tell Linux every specific little thing to or not to do. What's more frustrating is when you are following the documentation and it never mentions what to do if ______ doesn't work, it just continues on.

So all told... As someone who is confident with technology and familiar with Linux, I just have a hard time believing that someone who can hardly use an iPhone will have an enjoyable experience trying to, say, watch Netflix on Linux. I'd like to believe it, maybe my experiences have me biased.

And before anyone comes at me, I hate and get frustrated with Windows too, but I use it because when I try and do something it works, usually in a quarter of the working time. Surprising considering it's Windows, but of all the projects I've tried to do on both Windows has a much higher success rate. Like almost 100%. Off the top of my head the only thing I couldn't get working was DizqueTV on a Windows-Plex server (which ended up being why I moved it to Linux). Funny enough, DizqueTV wouldn't work on my Linux install either because of my ISP.

FOSS takes your time, not your money.

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.

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.

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.

use rufus (a website)

rufus isn't a website.

typo

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 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 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.

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.

Billions need to switch to linux to save the planet

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.

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."

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

Ah shit here we go again

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 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.
What do you use your pc for?
- Gaming, documents, web surfing, streaming media, light coding.

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

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.

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.

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.

Just donate to The Linux Foundation.

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.

Windows has fallen billions must use Android and IOS

grapheneos

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.

› Tell a person to use linux.

› "Wtf is that"

› Tell 'em how good it is, and you can use almost all of his common sofware and games!

› "Almost?"

› It can't run some software

› "Can it run (Insert almost anygame with anticheat or adobe software)?"

› no...

/Gets beated up in the parking lot

Such is the life of the linux user.

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'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’ve been using Linux for 30 years now, certified to teach it and everything
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
Compared to Windows or MacOS, yes, it is very techy.
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.
but Linux simply is not for everyone
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

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

My own opinion, won't fit with post like this

Stop telling people it’s ‘tech-y’ or acting like you’re more advanced for using it, you are scaring away people

So lucky that OpenBSD never cared if anyone used the operating system or not

The operating system is for developers, to fit developers' need

That’s it, spread Linux to as many people as possible. The larger the marketshare, the better support we ALL get

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

copy down your windows product key

can't drop windows entirely? h-

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.

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.

@randomaside @jackpot I'd disagree, chromeOS really is the worst
what are the catches of chromeos
- You mean, besides being chromeos? ;)
- everything. everything about it sucks. it's like the chastity cage of OSes, even moreso than Apple OSes

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

I think GNU/Linux (What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.) is a great fit for non-technical people when they don’t have an established workflow on another OS. If their needs can’t easily be translated over, though, I think it’d turn users away.

Well, one of the benefits of Linux is that it's extreme customizability allows you to emulate whatever workflow you want. I think that Zorin OS has the right idea of asking what workflow you want to use. This way, even a noobie use can feel at home

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 much
  I 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% return
  or 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.
Anything you can do with AHK you can do with Python. No need for ahk on Linux tbh.
???
- Needs more ? because the parent comment is truly baffling.

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 @octopusink

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.

Stop being elitist, spread Linux without systemd!

@jackpot

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