Comment on Microsoft is bringing annoying Windows 11 Start menu ads to Windows 10
Boozilla@lemmy.world 2 months agoChicken and egg. Linux is roughly 4% of the OS space. If more people would get on board, it would become a better tool. I use both. Windows because I have to. Linux because I want to.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Linux missed the mark years ago. It’s not a lack of people using it, it’s a lack of usability for people. You’re blaming users because Linux doesn’t work for them.
My standard response to “just go Linux” :
I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it’s still no competition to Windows, even with this awful shit going on.
As some background - I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I’d stuck with Cobol).
I had my first UNIX class in about 1990.
I run a Mint laptop (for the hell of it, and I do mean hell) . Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won’t even boot.
Windows would never do this, no, Windows can never do this. It is incapable of running a battery to zero, it’ll shutoff before then to protect the battery. To really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows simply will not let a battery get to zero.
There’s no way even possible via the Mint GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions. None, nada, zip, not at all. Command line only, in the twenty-first century, something Windows has had since I don’t recall, 95 I think (I was carrying a laptop then, and I believe it had hibernate, sorry, it’s been what, almost thirty years now).
There are many reasons why Linux doesn’t compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let’s look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that’s just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. The devs of open office refuse to support tables, saying “you should manage data in a proper database app”. While I don’t disagree with the sentiment, no, I’m not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That’s just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn’t realistically shareable with other people. I do this several times a day in excel.
Now there’s that print monitor that’s on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? Again, in the 21st century?
Networking… Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn’t say “save creds”? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. In the 21st century?
Oh, you have a wireless Logitech mouse? Linux won’t even recognize it. You have to search for a solution and go find a third-party download that makes it work. My brand new wireless mouse works on any version of Windows since Win2k (at the least) and would probably work on Win95.
Someone else said it better than me:
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM’s on Linux (Proxmox) because that’s better than running Linux VM’s on a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.
Linux doesn’t even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it’s own way), and that’s a massive barrier for users.
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would’ve had a chance to beat MS, even then it would’ve required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980’s to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
ParetoOptimalDev@lemmy.today 2 months ago
It sounds like many of your problems could be fixed by installing kde plasma6 instead.
coolkicks@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I think this supports his argument. Having to research desktop environments to decide which is optimized for the potential problems a new user may face, then finding a distro that packages that DE is quite frankly too much for the average user.
I’d argue between 3% and 5% of PC users are willing to research and experiment to find the flavor of Linux that truly works for them.
Linux has come a long way, I still remember using Gentoo as a daily driver and seeing Linux cross 1% of desktop share, but the average desktop user doesn’t know the difference between a kernel and a colonel, and they don’t want to.
vinnymac@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Nah, completely wrong take.
Linux can be adapted to fit any use case you have, and that’s an important part of its flexibility. What you really are getting at is that mass producing a machine with an OS built into it is convenient for consumers. See Android phones or Steam decks for evidence of this convenience being important to the sale of Linux based devices.
In the not too distant future, windows will go out of fashion for the home desktop PC. Someone will sell a cheap and cool arm based PC with a decent distribution. It will be a slow win, nothing like what we saw from macOS.
IAmNotACat@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s a moot point, because the average user doesn’t install any OS on their system. They get people like us to install it for them.
They don’t generally solve their own Windows problems either. OEM is the real bulwark of of Windows dominance. Usability and familiarity is one aspect, but I’ve set a good few people up with Linux at this stage and very few of them know what a kernel is, or what Plasma/Gnome are, because they don’t need to (same way they didn’t know or care what NT was either).
tyler@programming.dev 2 months ago
Whoosh. This happens literally every time anyone comments about how difficult Linux is, someone just recommends some other distro or obscure fix (this time a new desktop). You’re literally missing the actual problem here because you’re always trying to solve strange problems on Linux. The fact that you know a solution to this and the solution isn’t continue using your current system but instead install a new graphical interface is the exact problem that the person you’re responding to is complaining about.
IAmNotACat@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You’re just assuming that installing KDE was a solution to some obscure problem he had instead of being his existing system.
That’s how it’s been for me at any rate. I read a lot of your post while thinking ‘I’ve never had that problem.’ After the first day of setting up the installation, I don’t really do any meaningful tweaking of the OS. Personally, I switched over from Windows because I was tired of fighting it to make it behave how I wanted and solving obscure problems with meaningless error messages.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I was going to write a reply to that guy about how linux doesn’t work for the common man, but then you come in and write shakespear level articulation that blows away my tiny brain cell reply.
It’s just such a complete analysis of the situation. The only thing missing is how linux requires you to use the terminal. Yes, REQUIRES. People can say it doesn’t all they want, but go on any self help guide, and any problem you have, is “step 1, open terminal”.
What would you say to someone who doesn’t know what terminal is?
“Ok, open terminal?”
“Whats that?”
“Its like a command line, but better”
“Whats a command line?”
And this is why 96% of people AREN’T using linux. Most windows users don’t understand how windows works. Most drivers don’t understand how cars work. And linux you HAVE TO be a mechanic to use linux. Because unlike windows and mac, linux isn’t designed to be used by idiots. And most of the world are idiots. Hell, I’m an idiot.
And until linux can fix itself FOR the user, no user will even take a look. Even if there were a single distro that did all that, you’d have to convince people “this linux isn’t like the other linux”. It’s the main reason that even though Android is linux, it stays far far away from that branding. It doesn’t want the linux stink.
And from what I’ve seen, every developer WANTS linux to be hard to use. Like a right of passage. “I had to endure these learning curves, and so shall you!”
antithetical@lemmy.deedium.nl 2 months ago
I have heard this argument for over 20 years… “You have to use the terminal in Linux, so user hostile”.
Well, try to do ANY windows sysadmin tasks without Powershell… See how far that gets you. Need to manage Exchange? Powershell. Need to change some settings? Powershell… It is even getting more and more unavoidable. Now Powershell doesn’t even have a good terminal environment, sane parameters or good usability. And a general lack of documentation for all the obscure incantations.
In the meantime KDE on Linux is wonderful, fully integrated with the system, easy software maintenance (on Kubuntu for example) and with a sane settings menu… You hardly need a terminal at all. Try to find that in Windows.
So sorry, this argument is either invalid, out of date or Microsoft is even worse.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I don’t know what powershell is. I just use control panel. Even though I have Windows 7, I have it laid out like Windows XP, because thats what I know.
So if I wanted to do something in network, I go to network settings.
AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
I’ve been using Windows personally and professionally since 3.1, and Windows 11 was the last straw that finally got me to jump over to Linux for my home PC. I hate what Windows has become but I’ve got a lot of history with it. My experience with Linux (Mint FWIW) has been as smooth as it ever was in Windows, neither of which was perfect. I’m a definite convert from Windows and would encourage most people to consider taking the leap themselves.
I gotta disagree with you about modern Powershell and terminals in Windows, though. Good terminal? Windows Terminal has been around for years now. It’s fast and functional. Whether Powershell’s parameters are “sane” is probably a matter of taste, but I’m definitely willing to stick up for its usability. Yes, the parameter names are much more verbose, but they all get tab completion out of the box, and you don’t have to type the full names at all, just enough of the start of the name to be unambiguous. For personal automation scripts, I think Powershell is way ahead of Bash. Parameters get bound automatically without needing to write
for/caseloops withgetopts. You can write comments at the top of the file that automatically get integrated into Powershell’s help system. Sending objects through the standard pipeline means you spend a lot less time and code just parsing text.tyler@programming.dev 2 months ago
You do not need to use PS to manage network settings. And no normal user has any clue that exchange even exists much less needing to modify it. And saying that PS doesn’t have good documentation is laughable comparing it to bash. Listen, I hate windows just as much as you all do, but it is most definitely more user friendly than any Linux distribution out there. No windows user ever needs to even touch PS much less program network settings with it. Literally the fact that you need to even open the app at all is a massive fucking downside to Linux. Users don’t want to type out “weird incantations”. They want to click a button, select from a dropdown, or in the case of many many many drivers, do absolutely nothing at all.
The fact that you had to call out a specific nonstandard desktop environment to support your case for Linux being easy to use is exactly the point that several other people in this thread are trying to make.
AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
I really don’t understand the objection to using a terminal to get things done. It’s just a window that you can type text commands into. You don’t even have to come up with the commands on your own, you find the ones that solve the problem on the internet, copy and paste, and boom problem fixed. How is this different from looking up a solution to a Windows problem that walks you with a series of pictures through using Regedit or Group Policy Editor, only instead of pasting text into a terminal, you have to click through dozens of menus, trees, and tabs to find the setting you need to change? You’re still looking up solutions online in either case, but the Windows solutions require navigating windows with dozens of mouse clicks versus copying and pasting some text in Linux.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Me: My fan doesn’t work.
Internet: To install fan copy this command into terminal.
Me: does that.
Computer: error.
Internet: ???
Me: ???
And 5 years later I still can’t turn on the fan.
IAmNotACat@lemmy.world 2 months ago
vs
obbeel@lemmy.eco.br 2 months ago
That’s a marketing problem, not a functionality problem. The terminal isn’t really hard to use.
People used BASIC easily back in the 80’s. My mom did it back then, and she isn’t tech savvy.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’ve been trying to learn it for 15 years. The only thing I’ve learned is that sudo stands for super user. Outside of that, I’ve learned nothing about how to use terminal other than copy/pasting other peoples commands.
mox@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. For what it’s worth, I haven’t run into laptop problems like those you described.
You’ve reminded me that people who declare “linux isn’t ready” often make the same mistakes:
Proficiency with any tool takes practice. More so when you don’t have an abundance of good mentors and pre-packaged solutions for what you want to do with it. That doesn’t make the tool bad. It doesn’t mean it lacks usability. It mostly just means that you haven’t learned how to use it yet.
To anyone who is seriously considering a move away from Windows:
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Thats ALL PCs.
Alright, fair enough. But then within the linux operating system, it should make those islands official sources for quality information. Make them easier to find.
mox@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Nope. (example) (example) (example)
(And if you don’t like ready-made PCs, you can always build your own.)
Heh. It would be nice to have such things handed to us on a platter, wouldn’t it?
In reality, there is no central organization in a position to speak for the whole linux ecosystem, and a great deal of the work and knowledge comes from unpaid volunteers acting on their own. Standing out from the noise is harder than you might think.
However, there are companies selling direct support, and communities focused on specific topics, and wikis run by some of the most popular linux distributions, and classes, and books, and various other good information sources.
And, even if you have no money to spend, you will eventually come across some of the community-maintained gems just by regularly dedicating time to learning. Finding good info gets easier with practice.
foofiepie@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Thoroughly enjoyed this post thanks. I have long wished for a FOSS OS that can truly become popular by considering these users and carving a mainstream path for them. Even - for people who don’t even know what terminal/shell is and don’t care.
Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
You must be fun at parties
barsquid@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You post this same thing all the fucking time. “Someone said it better than me,” this guy decides to install random shit and run whatever command he can find and it, shockingly, doesn’t fix the problem?
obbeel@lemmy.eco.br 2 months ago
If you want to run Spotify, Linux really isn’t your thing. Now, aside from Autodesk (I’m not an engineer, but I think FreeCAD doesn’t come close), you can easily use Linux to work. It is much better for programming also. Windows puts so many proprietary barriers into programming that you actually need a minor version of GNU (MinGW) to make C++ work. Want to program something on C#? You should have this proprietary Visual Studio. Wants something for Android? You will need proprietary Android Studio.
The environment is just different. Every thing is built around people expecting to make money out of proprietary software. That’s Windows. It’s built by proprietary for proprietary. It encourages people to put absurd licenses into the most minor of works. “Wants to automatically lowercase a text? Hey, you should be profiting out of that!”. “Wants to automatically copy and paste a text to many boxes? Oh my, you should be profitting out of that, clearly!”.
It’s another environment. Don’t compare Windows as if it were more convenient because for programmers, and for ordinary people in many cases, it certainly isn’t.
That said, I agree that Office 365 is a flagship, but maybe that flagship is sinking.