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Am I the only one who never promotes Linux?
I’m currently holding an opinion that everyone who can enjoy Linux will eventually try it on their own.
I think, despite what many people say, an average user still has a very rough time using it, and in my opinion you need some level of nerdiness in order to overcome adaptation pains, and such people already use internet in a nerdy way and will try out Linux on their own eventually.
I think this depends. People who need basic computer functions can get on very well with linux.
My classmate in highschool had ubuntu on his home pc as long as I remember, because someone preconfigured it for them and it was mainly a browser - schoolwork machine. He gamed on XBox. There was no hassle, it was fine.
My mom on her run down laptop has mint now, because I configured it for her. I haven’t heard any complaints.
E: Also many hospital here run Linux and it is just fine, and trust me, many of the medical staff are barely tech literate enough to register for email themselves.
Linux is a problem for people who come from windows and need more than basics but are not tech savvy enough to get their hands dirty. Then once your comfort level with tinkering goes up again, Linux is once again not a bad recommendation. It really kind of is the bell curve meme.
Linux is a problem for people who come from windows and need more than basics but are not tech savvy enough to get their hands dirty.
Spot-on. For people with minimal to no computer skills in the first place Linux will serve them well.
The one who well struggle the most ironically are Windows “Power users” and other intermediate/advanced users who don’t have the equivalent skill already in Linux or time/willingness to learn Linux systems.
That’s exactly where I feel I’m at. I’m no tech expert but I’m the guy family calls to help with computer stuff and I know enough to realize I don’t like the direction Windows is going. I’ve gone as far as to install Linux on a single device I use but now I just use that device less cause I can’t be bothered to figure it out when I’ve already got other machines that I’ve got working just the way I like.
Feel like I’ve come to a wall that yeah, I could overcome and climb, but this side of the wall is still livable and I’m not even sure the other side will be much better.
Either that, or they use specific tools that they can’t or won’t replace and which don’t work on Linux. Usually it’s creative or engineering software. There are usually good, Linux compatible, open source alternatives, but they’re not the same as industry standard tools that they need to know how to use and be 100% compatible with. Windows or MacOS is your only safe bet there.
If you’re a mere hobbyist and interested in learning new tools it’s an entirely different answer. You can try out the windows versions of the alternative software first, then try switching to Linux down the line when see the greener grass.
What about when they buy a new printer and need drivers. Or want to install some software they heard about that only works on Windows/Mac? I am a software developer and still struggle to find a use case where Linux would be better than Windows. If it’s not a game that won’t work then it’s an IDE that’s unavailable. There always seems to be something that isn’t fully compatible or doesn’t have a functional equivalent in Linux.
What about when they buy a new printer and need drivers.
Printers have “just worked” on Linux for longer than Windows has provided drivers through Windows Update. What printer do you have that requires special drivers in Linux?
Canon Pro 9000 mkii. It works but in a basic mode. There is no way to select a color profile or borderless printing. There is no way to clean the nozzles. Our Brother Laser Printer on TrueNas was a huge pain to find drivers for it to get air print to work correctly. I think I spent an entire work day messing with CUPS until I got things working properly.
This is why I still have windows on the machines at home. There’s always some niche device, especially for my wife’s crafting, that only supports windows.
But then at work thanks to VMs I use windows and Linux side by side every day.
I’ve already given a similar answer somewhere in this thread, but my point is, yes, it works well for advanced users (stack overflow enjoyers) and total beginners (Where do I click to get to Facebook?), while average users are in the middle, and are simultaneously require more features than beginners, but do not have the means to solve them.
I don’t either (despite the fact that I use Arch BTW). The average adult in my country is barely able to use their computer for basic tasks (think Word/Excel, basic internet usage). Having all these people on Linux is a nightmare scenario I don’t want to imagine. I would love nothing more than Linux becoming the norm in the not-so-distant future, but the computer literacy in the general population is just too low right now.
It doesn’t seem to be the case with distros like Mint. I even know folks who have Mint but they have no clue about tech or computers at all. As users they can hardly tell difference. And It’s actually easier on them because it doesn’t get all messy as Windows does for non tech folks, so there is almost no maintenance needed. I very much recommended it for granparents and such, so you don’t have to go fixing their Windows PC each visit because they downloaded tons of random danger ware by not understanding what they do.
Yeah, that’s the thing. Two categories of users can properly enjoy Linux (in my opinion):
- Technically advanced users who can figure out a lot on their own
- Technically illiterate users (“Show me where to click to get to Facebook”)
While average users are the ones to suffer. They are technically picky enough to require more advanced features than “click to open Google”, but not nerdy enough to spend hours reading stack overflow to make something they need work.
Most average users will be actively displeased that their settings menu is now different and confusing, office tools have slightly different UI, and some specialized software is missing.
Average user does not spend hours learning GIMP, they blame Linux for not having Photoshop and quit. Sad but true
Honestly, both of those groups would be doing fine using windows, too
The only reason it’s like that is because devices come preinstalled with Windows. I would love if we had the Linux option that makes the device cost less
You are not, I even warn others before they decide to try it or someone recommends it
I do both. When someone comes to me regarding their laptop overheating and slowdown issues, I recommend them Linux, right before fixing their Windows. And when someone asks me which one to use, or what to start with, or how to install, I warn them about the difficulties (because one who potentially can use Linux, will ask different questions).
Just wanted to add that i know folks who have no problem using distro like Mint but are extremely non tech. To the point they can’t set up their new TV. In fact it’s safer for them than Windows since they can’t just go clicling yes to all dangerous operations like on Windows.
I thinkbeginner friendly distros are more difficult not for total noobs but for users who are slightly experienced with PCs and want to do medium level operations like installing specific soft outside distro repo .
In that case, it seems to be a good idea to setup a linux installation yourself for the user and not give them sudo (or root password) and then make a service allowing them to use the app store and updating their system without requiring root privileges, but not letting them add a repository.
Microsoft Office and Adobe software are the main anchors to Windows currently. Anyone using them (as is professionally required) is stuck with Windows or MacOS.
I would not actually recommend it to anyone IRL, but on the internet? Sure. You are not happy with the lack of privacy on Windows? I have the solution for you! Also I setup my dad with Mint after Win XP support ran out. He uses nothing but Chrome and Thunderbird anyways. Just taught him how to do updates and he is good to go.
Agreed. Unconditionally recommending Linux to regular people isn’t a good idea. In my opinion it’s fine with all the disclaimers about possible disadvantages and recommend them to inform themselves about it.
Just talking about my experience got them interested enough to at some point try to daily drive Linux on their desktop PC, one of them used PopOS for 2 years on their uni laptop at that point.
At the end of the day it’s all about expectations. Most people are uninterested in computers and want to continue using what they know. Others want to experiment and will learn more themselves after being shown something interesting (through YT, conversations, Steam Deck tutorials, …).
“I’m having trouble with this game on Linux”
“Just install Windows, nerd. Stupid zealots.”
Goes the other way too. :p
My friend told me “it’s time to go back to Windows” just because a VST I was using was crashing.
That’s literally insane.
What they don’t know is that stuff like this is often due to my bad practices, and not something to do with Linux.
Or get Proton and Let Valve do the rest.
Proton or Valve won’t magically make anti-cheat working on Linux. I do most of my gaming now on Linux, but for specific games I still boot into Windows.
I use a tablet for gaming, Linux for almost everything and a windows vm for de-DRM’ing books I boiught so I can read them the way I want. Windows vm is just for when I have no other option.
Serious question. I’m planning on switching from windows to some distro, but it will be the first time I’m daily driving Linux. Are there any solid beginner-friendly resources for getting started? I’m familiar with simple bash commands, but that’s about it
Don’t be scared away from the arch wiki regardless of the distro you choose, or has a ton of great info that’s not just for arch.
For me worked:
- Install Debian
- be confused by all the options in the installation process, look up every unknown word, try to do everything manualy, fail
- start installation process again, choose all the defaults, works!
- trying to install a programm with terminal, fail because not in sudo list, look up how to get into sudo list
- update in terminal doesn’t work, have to remove some lines in /etc/apt/sources.list - look up how to use the text editor nano, look many yt-videos about Linux filesystem (what to those folders mean? Everything is a file?)
- try to resize a partition (can’t remember which), can’t, because I didn’t choose LVM in installation process - install Debian again, and do all the steps above again
I think I had to reinstall Debian 5 more times after that, just because I didn’t know what I was doing and it was an easy reset for me.
Very frustraiting at times, and a very rewarding feeling when something worked. Made me love tech again, 10/10 would do again.
Really threw yourself into the deep end there, nice. Hashtags team debian.
Also, get the updated kernel out of the backports repo as the main repo is pretty far behind in my opinion. I needed 6.5+ to get the hardware compatibility for some stuff and then I more or less had an out of box experience. I also highly recommend having your /home on a separate partition or drive. This way you can keep your user files if you ever want to change or reinstall the OS.
Don’t feel bad about messing up the install. Everyone fucks it up a few times. The best one I did was forget to make the user account AND did not set a root password. Thou shall not install things at 2am…
Try installing something like Linux Mint that is Ubuntu or Debian based which has a lot of beginner documentation. You don’t really need much resources after that, you will probably learn while using it and searching for how to do things. Also if you play games, check if the games you play work in Linux via ProtonDB.
I’ve heard a lot of talk in the linux community about linux mint being a good beginner distro.
As someone who recently did a switch to get used to Linux, if you’re planning on gaming then Nobara is supposedly the beginner friendly gaming distro. I switched to Nobara and my only issue was screen flickering that I fixed by switching from Wayland to X11 (that was as simple a choosing the other option on the login screen). Everything else just works and KDE looks similar to the windows layout so it doesn’t feel too unintuitive either.
My two gripes that I can’t do anything about are the lack of HDR support (supposedly that’s finally in the works) and no Linux support for some online games (The Finals in my case, but maybe if Linux numbers go up they’ll finally flip the switch), neither could be solved by having a different distro.
If you just want to game and want it up and running without tinkering too much I recommend Nobara.
Raspberry pi os was built for education, it’s a fork of debain and can run on computers that aren’t raspberry pis. They also have a digital bookshelf with many ebooks that can also be downloaded without the OS as they’ve been released as creative commons.
No thanks i’ll keep complaining that the game does in fact run on linux but the anti cheat has linux support disabled
Ahem rainbow 6 siege
…I don’t remember typing this.
Well you didn’t
But in reality, you really only recommend it to strangers. If you recommend any piece of tech to someone you know, you iust changed your status to tech support.
Tech support has been my status since I was 12. Honestly, I enjoy being able to explain stuff like this.
Yeah, same, stuff like why is Linux on my computer now, why are ads blocked, where is Chrome, etc - listen, I’m the only tech support you have, you get what you get, and you get FOSS.
Honestly it worked fairly perfectly for me over the decades.
Me being tech support is WHY i said that. I told my family either use Linux or leave me alone. Half of them let me install Linux and I’ve not needed to do anything in years. They are basic users aka open chrome and nothing else and unlike windows Linux doesn’t constantly kill itself over time.
I occasionally ssh in to make sure updates are still working and once to setup a new printer remotely but that’s it
Exactly. If someone recommends Linux to a person in real life, they deserve what’s coming to them.
“IF I’M ALREADY DOING SUDO WHY IS IT PROHIBITED?” “THE ETC FOLDER? WHICH ONE?”
I do use Linux, and I’m usually glad about it, but I wasted an hour last night trying to figure out how to change my microphone port to a subwoofer port, and never did solve the problem. Linux is awesome, but sometimes basic stuff is ridiculously difficult or impossible.
Does the physical port actually have that capability? My motherboard has a lot of audio ports but inputs cannot be outputs and vice versa
Probably not. Unless it’s bi directional combined port. But remapping audio ports like that seems like an extremely niche case I find support for it very rare in any case.
Yes, and it’s trivial to retask with the AC97 HD Audio program in Windows, but I couldn’t find an equivalent program for Linux.
If you’re using pipewire, try XDAJackRetask, I use it for that purpose.
Thanks, I’ll give it a shot.
Well, as a Linux user myself, I used to do this kind of thing when I was getting started and was too damn hyped about FOSS and everything. Now, I simply ask people what they want from a computer and how much are they invested into tech.
Do you want things to be as simple as possible? Use Mac or Windows.
Do you want to learn more about how things work under the hood? Use Linux.
Gaming? Use Windows (and yes, although I’m a proud Proton user, some games just won’t work, like Valorant and PUBG).
Gaming? Use Windows (and yes, although I’m a proud Proton user, some games just won’t work, like Valorant and PUBG).
I love proton on my steamdeck, and I’d like to try to go linux vs having to stay on win10 with no updates on my gaming computer. But outside of some games not working, a lot of hardware/accessories don’t have official support either. As far as I can tell, goxlr, streamdeck, and other hardware/software I use daily, have no official support, which for items I use that often makes it pretty much a non-starter on migrating.
Yeah linux handles many games fine with proton and stuff, but there are too much things you give up.
Razer mouse with multiple side buttons? No GUI for setting that up, download some other hotkey software and make a custom profile on that. Open razer for RGB control.
Corsair headphones? No software, not able to get task bar icon about battery level.
Sometimes play racing games? Too bad there is no drivers for your wheel, except one that was made by some guy 5 years ago that got 60% of the features working, and to change settings you have to edit text files.
A new multiplayer game comes out that doesnt work on linux and all your friends are playing? Soon you find yourself just booting straight to windows instead of sometimes hopping on windows to play some game.
Connect a ps4 controller and linux sets it as default audio device and there is no GUI option to disable that, just gotta switch back when connecting the controller.
Boot to OS and open steam, no games are installed? Oh right you need to go mount the drive first. Watch a 10 minute youtube video where some dude explains how to auto mount drives.
Want to create a bootable windows USB and the tool that came with the OS tells you the usb stick is in use and that it needs to be unmounted, do that and then it tells you there is no usb there, because ya unmount it. Try another software but it wont select the iso file. Try google for help, top answer is “borrow your friends windows computer”
I like linux and learned a lot when using it, and will use it in the future on machines that dont need anything extra. But for my habits it just felt silly to be there, and constantly switch back to play games, or stay on linux and have a worse experience doing something, like driving games.
I am also real tech savy person and can overcome most of these hurdles, but most of my friends would never be able to overcome some of these things. I also found that many questions about linux on some forums are answered with stuff like “why on earth do you want that? Just dont do that or do something else” and that was kind of a bummer as well.
I think that your priorities are horrible. If the things you listed are enough to get you to abandon GNU/Linux, then FOSS might really not be for you. Also, you describe yourself as tech savvy, but I find that doubtful judging from the experiences you recounted and the non-technical way in which you write.
I dont really understand what you mean about my priorities being horrible. My priority is for my PC to do what i then and there need it to do, if it is to display my headset battery lever or create bootable usb media.
And I didnt say abandon, I said i like linux and will use it.
I told you that i am tech savvy, but instead of taking my word you decipher my message and say it is the opposite?
I am not the god of tech, but if a person who writes their own wifi drivers is 10 on the scale, and my father who can barely use a non smart phone is 1, i am a solid 8 on the tech savvy scale.
Slay queen.
Those sound like real problems anyone could experience to me whether you’re tech savvy or not. Unsupported devices and software
While not official, this used to work fine for me when I had a streamdreck
Thank you. I saw there is a community goxlr project on github as well. For me, not having the official support is frustrating. I spend a lot of time messing around with community projects for my homelab. I don’t want that effort transferred over to my daily driver.
What I’m really waiting for is a decent/cost effective AMD laptop I can scoop up to put linux on.
“How the fuck linux is gonna help my faulty PSU dumbass??”
sudo apt-get install --reinstall psu
Damn they really do have commands for everything
I thought there was an emacs command?
I’m not going to try to explain how to use Linux to my wife unless I get a salary for it.
In an effort to relieve her PC of constantly deluge of virus and malware, I switched my Mom over to Ubuntu in the 2000’s. She lasted a month.
The experiment ended when she called me in tears because of her silent 4 week struggle with the OS.
She couldn’t get her scanner to work reliably, and none of her “print shop” software was compatible.
I know more now than I did then, and the distros have come a long way since, but I don’t have the time to retrain her and at 70 years old, I just want her to use what she’s comfortable with, even if that means I have to occasionally scrub her PC.
An oldie but still relevant
https://www.theonion.com/getting-mom-onto-internet-a-sisyphean-ordeal-1819566480
Wow this article perfectly captures the early 2000s experience of trying to teach parents how to use the internet. Internet access wasn’t very widespread in Australia yet, and my parents weren’t really interested in it and thought it was too difficult to use.
Things from that article that really stuck out to me:
- Not being able to type searches directly into the address bar. This confused me as a child, and I was really excited when browsers started to incorporate the feature
- Mentioning the use of a pager
- Knowing that all the photos in the article are of real people and not AI because it’s from 2002
A good read, thanks!
What concept is so foreign on mint or ubuntu that it would need explanation?
My parents didn’t notice a difference (early 60s). Firefox, Spotify, and vlc, done.
Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing.
Windows is only $price if your data and privacy are worth nothing.
That can be applied to most hobbies in general. Not using an automated coffee machine? Time worth nothing. Cooking rather buying takeout? Building your own pc rather than buying prebuilt? Drawing rather than generating with AI? Time worth nothing, that’s why.
The thing is a PC isn’t a hobby, but a tool for most people.
The learning experience gained from the time worth nothing is also worth nothing
The only thing Linux costs is your soul because you will be configuring and fiddling with it for all eternity.
… so your time …
All of my computer problems went away after switching to Linux, so I’d say it’s solid advice.
Granted, I do have computer problems, they’re just different 🐧
The difference is that with Linux, it’s possible to become smart enough to fix all the issues. Windows is designed in such a way that there usually isn’t a way to fix its problems to avoid format and reinstalls no matter how much you know.
Lol, Linux users are funny.
I’ve found that my problems went from “minor annoyances that occur regular with no way to fix other than waiting for it to fix itself” and “major annoyance with workaround, has been like this since Windows 7” to “this bug almost completely breaks your system but the first search result has the three steps to permanently fix it”
Granted I’m on Arch and Plasma 6 Beta so that’s to be expected
I have a friend who hates Microsoft in probably every way possible, yet still uses Windows, because he doesn’t want to use “the nerd OS”.
He might just need to print something.
Printing is broken everywhere
Problem Lies Between Computer And Paper
Not over here on WinPro. You want a duplexed laser-printed copy of a high-resolution scanned .pdf wirelessly in another room? Wait one literal second.
I don’t think he ever does something other than gaming and watching youtube.
Linux is for nerds. Apple is for hipsters, posers, and narcissists.
It’s just a computer . Stop gatekeeping and chill.
And billionares
You get a huge backlash if you advice Windows to a Linux user.
But somehow this is supposed to be funny?
Its funny because a lot of people do this even though its completely unhelpful in solving their problem.
To be fair, Windows’ support is also unhelpful in solving their problem.
It’s the “just Google it” response
Ah, the funny part is the cringe, I see.
I encountered it tons before, like people suggesting Chrome when the only browser that was supported was IE back in the day.
the irony is the “just use another distro” advices
To be fair, using Linux is (usually) much more of an active decision.
As an IT professional with over two decades of experience I can say this meme is wholly inaccurate.
The first thing you try when you have computer problems is to turn it off and on again.
Then if it’s still broken, install a PDF reader.
You sir/maam/non-binary made me laugh, that was a good joke. Thank you :D
It’s all fun and games until you try to use Linux and spend 3 months trying to figure out how to do something like setting up digital 5.1 audio or how to get your graphics drivers to actually work properly
Tell me you haven’t tried to use Linux in a decade without telling me you haven’t tried to use Linux in a decade.
I use it both for my home teather PC and for my work PC and I consistently run into those kind of issues
Not plausible. You are either lying or lack the skill and experience for handling your system, the latter of which would be okay if you were to admit it.
“git gud”, the exact rhetoric that causes people to stay away from Linux and in the hands of Microsoft despite them making their products worse year over year
Took you 3 months to type “sudo apt install nvidia”?
And this is why average joes hates Linux and its communities.
Your elitist attitude is off the chart dude.
It’s only natural, really. When you get used to putting the brainpower into learning it as if it were breakfast, you feel frustrated when someone comes around putting a tenth of the effort and acting like the world is weighing on them. Then you tend to forget that most people choose something else to put that effort into, same as they forget that you chose this.
Yeah because the Nvidia drivers work totally fine and have no issues whatsoever
I think you mean sudo pacman -Syu mesa
Not to be that guy, but this is actually the most useless advice ever for someone who genuinely has a computer problem. Like, I like Linux as much as the next person, but asking someone to learn a whole ass OS from scratch on the OFF CHANCE it will fix their issue is not great.
i agree, but when they keep complaining about ‘file explorer is too slow’, ‘popups/ads are so annoying’, ‘cant open .tar.gz’, you can see that this all comes from the same underlying outdated system. i know all these problems can be solved in windows, but more will always appear
“My Linux computer has problems!”
“Just compile from source”
It failed compiling
“Just make your own OS”
I use Arch by the way
😅 That’s what i thought as well but it also depends on distro and their community. I’ve never got such a support from MS or Google as i did from these non payer dudes who do it in their free time.
