Windows is just the micro kernel running the actual operating system: Firefox.
this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Windows, is in fact, Firefox/Windows, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Firefox plus Windows. Windows is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning Firefox system made useful by the Firefox browser, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS.
Many computer users run a modified version of the Firefox system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of Firefox which is widely used today is often called Windows, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the Firefox system, developed by Mozilla.
There really is a Windows, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Windows is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Windows is normally used in combination with the Firefox operating system: the whole system is basically Firefox with Windows added, or Firefox/Windows. All the so-called Windows distributions are really distributions of Firefox/Windows!
This is the year of Firefox-on-the-desktop. I can feel it.
FoxOS - coming soon?
This is the year of Firefox-on-the-desktop. I can feel it.
That is the most delicious flavor of that pasta I've ever read.
Firefox OS says hello from the grave!
Still better than ChromeOS.
When I was at Qualcomm we had an experimental, internally developed mobile OS that embraced the ubiquity of the browser and the power of apps written for the browser. The code name was b2f, which stood for "boot to Firefox"
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linux has 2 really good target audiences people using it as a near chrome book like experience, and ultra advanced users who want fine control of the system.
its everyone else in the middle that needs to play how much do i have to tweak in order to do what I want.
Moving from Windows as an intermediate user was the worst. I hated Linux for like a year. I knew just enough quirks about Windows to get 95% of what I wanted, 95% of the time, and on Linux I had to start from scratch.
Now of course I love I made the switch, as my Linux proficiency let me customize the heck out of everything, but damn, that first year...
I wish instead of complaining to people that they didn’t read the docs or whatever that linux devs would scour the internet for these criticisms (like when specifics are provided) and then develop solutions for them.
Yeah, people are shitting on your product because it’s not obvious. Make it more obvious!
(Thankfully this is starting to happen…)
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Yeah my grandma uses it without any problems. I would never recommend it to my sister or mom but i know my grandma is completely happy with her basically chromebook.
Speaking of a chromebook experience, installing ChromeOS Flex on my wife's slow, outdated Surface Pro made it sleek and fast again. Can you suggest a Linux distro that would be similar on old laptops?
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"What was Windows even doing for us?"
Providing minimal malware protection while being actual malware?
As a retired software dev, for me Windows is simply a longtime habit enforced by past work environments. I did use Linux for over a year on my main PC but went back to Windows so I could keep using my old copy of Visual Studio. My deeply conditioned shortcut keystrokes didn't work in VSCode - in fact, why did they change so much of the UI? But now that I'm used to VSCode, which I only use for hobby coding anyway, there's no excuse and I intend to go back to Linux by year end.
VS Code is an electron app, mostly likely coded by some flavour of Javascript developers, so I doubt it was ever planned to go in the same direction as Visual Studio. VS Code follows a design very close to what Sublime made popular.
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whatismypurpose
yourunfirefox
I’m having a very hard time accepting that your 60 year old parents, after seeing Linux, said something along the lines of “What was windows doing for us?”
I teach adults 40-80 on how to use Windows products. I’ve taught over 5,000 people this year so far. The vast majority didn’t even understand the concept of browser tabs or copy/paste. These are people well into their professions in corporate office jobs. They don’t even know what an operating system is.
Today's 40 year olds graduated in the high school class of 2002...there are people from that era that can't copy/paste? For real?
I expect someone in their 40s to not know copy and paste. The more savvy that I have worked with/taught knew they could right click and then click “copy” from the drop down list. Ctrl+c blew some peoples minds when I showed it.
People who are good with tech VASTLY overestimate the general public’s tech literacy. But don’t take my word for it, take this study’s word: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/
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I've met people who don't know what a URL is.
The kind of people that google "facebook" when they want to visit facebook.
Completely flabbergasted that we run internal services not indexable by google.
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I think you're overfitting to the average here with your expectations. Especially basing that on the experience level of people who would sign up for help learning how to use Windows products. And even then, the ones learning about copy/paste for the first time will likely make more noise about it then those waiting to see if you'll teach them something new or any that ended up in your training because their work made them or something.
While the majority might lack familiarity, the 40 - 80 age range includes tons of people that have been working with computers (windows or otherwise) since before Windows was even a thing, including many who worked on Windows and/or developed applications for it. Experience will range from not knowing what windows is, knowing it's the OS but not knowing what an OS is, to understanding what goes on in the kernel at a high level of detail.
There's a lot of people on Windows just because of inertia and Linux can handle a lot of the use cases. It makes perfect sense to me that someone, once they've seen that things aren't so scary and different on the other side of the fence, would wonder out loud about why they thought their inertia was so strong.
Your skepticism is more baffling to me than that.
I got my parents in their 70s to use Ubuntu for a few years now. All they use is a web browser and word processing application for .docx files. They used MS Word for years and I found Only Office has a similar UI and opens word docs.
At one point I gave them an older laptop running windows again and they hated it. They wanted Linux back.
Libreoffice has an option for a ribbon user interface. It makes it nearly identical to Microsoft's stuff that I grew up on.
Onlyoffice is a near clone of MS office though, so there's basically no friction in adopting it unless you're heavily into advanced Excel features.
From my experience, OnlyOffice provides better compatability with MS Office-files (that is, more so than LibreOffice). However, having used Powerpoint quite a lot in my professional life, and using OnlyOffice Presentation to make a slide deck now, that is an area where I unfortunately find it severely lacking. There's also the issue about their license - I am not all that familiar with it, but apparently they are not as free and open as they claim to be.
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“What was Windows even doing for us?”
Beautiful 🥲
Did the same thing. Got them using FOSS apps on Windows (Firefox, LibreOffice, Thunderbird), then switched them and made Linux look like Windows. They never cared, kept on using it like nothing changed.
If either of my parents could use a computer it would run linux.
But then I have to do all of their online tasks anyway, so technically they are using linux.
I'd like to interject for a moment, what you're referring to as Linux is actually gnu/linux/churbleyimyam
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Last time I tried convincing em to install Linux, they said "I'm on it" to end up ghosting me after like I was a weird, random beggar they met on the street.
Usually the reaction you'll get trying to convince someone to use an operating system when they don't know or care what an operating system is
"Do you mean the Internet? I use Bing."
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Great! I've got my Dad on it, just need to get my mom off of her iPad now
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