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Comment on No More Windows! Indian Defence Services are Switching to Linux: Indian Govt offices to use Linux distribution, replacing Microsoft Windows

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Hazdaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

That’s absurd. So installing a distro as a n00b and you happen to pick one because you’ve heard of it before only to find out it’s not the one you should have used. That’s not some obscure one that no one’s heard either.

You understand how frustrating that can be for a new user, right? I see all the Linux people have downvoted the hell out of me, and that’s fine, but Linux has a massive user-friendliness issue if you seemingly have to pick the right one, or your fucked. I’m sure the Germans didn’t take that selection lightly, and now someone is claiming that it’s because of that choice that the switch over failed.

Can this OS be any more user UNfriendly? It’s to the point of being user-hostile.

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d3Xt3r@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

but Linux has a massive user-friendliness issue if you seemingly have to pick the right one, or your fucked.

That’s not really a “Linux” issue.

“Linux” isn’t some singular OS, it’s an ecosystem. It’s just like choosing a car, just because most cars have four wheels and an engine doesn’t mean they’re all the same. Selecting the right car is rightfully frustrating and can and does make a huge difference.

It’s like selling a Tesla to a 90 year old grandma and then her complaining that it’s unfriendly. And just because the Tesla is unfriendly to a particular audience doesn’t automatically make it a bad car, but even if it was, that doesn’t mean that all electric vehicles are as bad as Tesla.

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Kyleand19@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’m not sure about the scope and details of Germany’s attempt to switch to Linux, but for the average user, any of the popular distros would likely serve them well. I think there’s a huge difference between a user installing Linux on a general purpose PC vs. trying to incorporate it into an entire country’s worth of devices.

I’ve heard horror stories of people spending loads of time tinkering with their OS to fix obscure issues, but generally, these distros are often as easy-to-use (if not more so) than Windows these days. I think the main issues people have stem from software built specifically for Windows that won’t work on Linux, which hardly seems the fault of Linux imo.

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Agent641@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I would probably choos Debian over Ubuntu vecause “debian” is more fun yo say. Or even Arch. “Ubuntu” is just a clunky 3-syllable word that makes me sound like I have a speech imprdiment. I dont know the difference between any of those distros and would probably choose wrongly.

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- Hazdaz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It seems like you need to be an expert to pick a distro, but how do you become an expert without actually using it.
  
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raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Even the most complicated Linux distro is more user friendly than Windows 10 or later. And the mainstream linuxes are trivial to install and use as a daily driver. The only tech skills required are when you want to

use software that requires wine (windows binaries compatibility interface) which sometimes requires some fiddling

get proprietary drivers running for graphics 3d acceleration (most simple 3d chipset drivers work out of the box, other drivers work out of the box anyways on major distros)

do techie stuff, which by default requires fiddling and often isn’t even possible on windows because you go insane by the OS annoying you with notifications etc
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- rambaroo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Linux can be easy to use if it’s set up to be easy to use, and you have the right hardware. It’s the set up process that most people can’t get through on their own.
  
  I tried installing Fedora the other day with the provided installer, and it failed to even launch from USB. Then I used the same image and wrote it with Rufus instead, and it worked fine. But your average person wouldn’t know to even try that.
  
  Linux is almost never as easy to set up as techies make it out to be. And you can’t just hand wave issues like graphics drivers. Even after I installed the drivers I still had to sign them manually so secure boot would actually accept them. That’s just too many hoops for most people.
  
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  - raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    secure boot is intentionally designed to lock out open source software as much as feasible within current legislation - turn it off and tell your HW vendor to shove it up their bum
    
    at least for debian, nvidia drivers are part of the non-free software packages that come with the OS repositories, installing them is trivial. And even the driver downloads directly from nvidia are usually straightfoward to install, I have used them in the past and the last time I had troubles with configuration fiddling is well over 5 years ago
    
    yes, installing Linux may appear a bit fiddly, however, it’s a TON easier than installing a windows from scratch. The only reason people tend to not see that is because everyone uses an OEM windows and never installs one
    
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