this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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A non-technical end-user once had a problem with Windows. A technical friend said "SWITCH TO LINUX". Now they have thousands of problems.
I've been a non-stop user of Linux as my primary OS since before Ubuntu was a thing. I do not recommend Linux systems to my non-technical friends.
My Aunt bought a new laptop to run her eBay/Facebook selling business on. She's not particularly techy but has used Windows machines for admin work for prob 20 years or so. Laptop had no office apps installed and she tracks everything in a spreadsheet. Original plan was to install Libreoffice but it was running some budget version of Windows 10 you can't install anything on, can't remember what it's called. So I installed Fedora. Chromium and Libreoffice Calc open on login, her ancient HP printer works, she's able to access her camera as USB mass storage when she lists items and unattended upgrades are enabled. That was 2 years ago, no problems since.
Cool story, bro. And for every such cool story you can bring up I can bring you a hundred, probably, of people who got set up on Linux and returned to Windows because it was a horror show from their perspective.
Let me give you the clue: "The Year of the Linux Desktop" has been declared with monotonous regularity since the 1990s. It still hasn't arrived. There's a reason for this, and the quicker Linux (and other F/OSS) advocates grasp why this is, the quicker will the year actually arrive.
Until then, Linux is a fringe OS for techies. (And there it excels. As I said, I've been a non-stop user of it for ages.)
I totally agree that can happen. My first experience with Linux was installing Slackware from a CD I got with a magazine at 16. Install worked but I couldn't really do much with it with no internet connection so abandoned it. Also I hosed the Windows partition when trying to set up dual boot so got banned from the family PC for a while.
Huh. My first Linux experience was an early Slackware too! And yeah, I tinkered with it (thankfully I had a second computer so I didn't trash my valuable computer) and just stopped using it because it didn't bring anything useful to the table at the time. (I switched to QNX on that computer instead.)
Years later I was a lot more impressed by Linux and made the switch to dual-boot, then finally ditched the Windows side entirely.
Mind clarifying?
Clarifying what? That Linux is not the choice of non-techies as their primary desktop operating system? I think a quick observation of, you know, desktop computers would settle that in seconds.
All you have to do is turn that off and you can install anything you want. You took a simple problem and made it hard.
It sounds like they're talking about the N versions of Windows, which can only install apps through the Microsoft Store. That can be disabled, but my understanding is it's a pain to get it done. It's meant to be locked down kind of like Apple products.
It's S mode and it's just a couple buttons.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-out-of-s-mode-in-windows-4f56d9be-99ec-6983-119f-031bfb28a307
I don't know how this solution should be hard. I always have a live boot usb(O.K. not Fedora) with me and installing these apps is about 1-2 commands and I really don’t like scrolling through legacy Gui apps.
I couldn't find any way to do it. I also carry a Ventoy USB drive with me everywhere I go with Fedora on it as it's the distro I use so it was the quickest way I could think of to get everything working at the time.
Windows S can be turned off, but it does require an internet connection.
I installed Linux to my tech illiterate parents. They are doing fine. No issues in years.
They probably stopped asking you for help and just used their phones.
My dad thought the XFCE-Materia-Theme is the occasional Windows redesign until i told him.
And last month he wanted his antivirus back, even though i explained it already. But he's good at other things.
I love XFCE because of its retro 90s Win98 look!
I mean, that's what themes are for. Just adapt it to your liking.
There is fine line with being tech illiterate and being able to use linux when it all just works. The problems arise only when you are just slightly more advanced and want to do something weird without actually being able do it in linux with some things being a bit too much for the average Joe.
The only thing people like my parents need is a functioning browser. I bet %95 of all Windows/Mac users are similar.
Yeah that is not true. Microsoft Office is one super commonly used thing, and that doesn't work on Linux.
And before you say, yes there are alternatives to Office. The point is most people definitely need more than a web browser.
Yeah correction, people think Chromium is enough until it's not
Microsoft Office works in the browser.
It's shit, I've tried it, so many features missing.
I tried to install I think Ubuntu for my parents. I failed to find a way to properly allow short/simple passwords after like 2 hours of fiddling with configs. Gave up on it after that.
You shouldn't be allowing that to be honest. You also shouldn't be using Ubuntu especially for new users.
Well, its between allowing that and not using Linux at all so that is that. If I could get them to remeber a strong password, it would not be for PC login.
What distro would you recommend? I was under the impression Ubuntu was furthest with UIs.
I don't know if something changed but you can use even 4 digits now.
I would recomment Mint to users who use their Computer for more than just Webbrowsing. If its just webbrowsing and you know Linux, try setting up Fedora silverblue. In my vm's two digit passwords work.
Ubuntu has turned to garbage in recent years because of canonical. It also looks more like mac than Windows.
Try Linux Mint.
Hmmm, I had mint for a little bit once. I don't remember having any issues with it which probably means it is good. Paradoxically it also made me forget about it somewhat.
But I really have an urge to try NixOS for myself... And I don't really want to mess with my parents setup now.
Yeah I can understand not wanting to mess with something that works
I've found that OpenSuse Tumbleweed is better than both Ubuntu and Linux Mint.
They set out to make a distro that is kept up to date perpetually instead of managing different versions.
You gave Ubuntu to your grandmother and she fucking died?
OMG, Linux kills grandmothers!
(I know, I quit Windows around 95, it's just that I couldn't resist)
Have you tried turning it off and back on?
I don't because I don't wanna be that guy.
But in general these days, I'd absolutely recommend it. Anything in the debian family is just as easy to use as windows. As long as you hook them up with some good cron jobs for auto updates and rollbacks on failures and stuff, they'll be right as rain.
To be clear, I wouldn't have in like 2015.
As long as the distro is stable anyone can use it to use a browser and browse the internet. I had put Ubuntu Linux for my mom on a laptop, back in 2010, she was using just the browser. She had it for 2 years, no problems. She did nothing else with that laptop though, because that was the first time she was using a computer. She was mostly facebooking.
Exactly. My parents have been using Linux for years, they have no technical expertise, and most of the time they don't need it. For the average user, I find linux more stable than windows.