Both OS are hard if you don’t know how to use them.
Both OS are easy if you know how to use them.
Linux’s problem is fragmentation. There’s not a single OS that many people are familiar with like Windows. Instead there’s hundreds of different distros that all function in a variety of different ways. Even if a person learns to do something on Mint or Ubuntu, they will be completely lost trying to do the same thing on Fedora or Arch.
And out of those “hundreds” only a handful of them are actually popular and progressing innovation…
As someone who’s distro hopped across a wide verity of distros, the fundamentals are more less the same across all of them. Just go with a popular distro with good documentation and you’ll be fine. If you’ve learned enough from mint to feel comfortable tackling Arch Linux, then the documention (e.g. ArchWiki) will be your strongest asset.
Good documentation is great to have. Here’s the thing though. If you need documentation to use an OS… That just proves that it really is harder for people to use.
Mint and Windows both share the ability to pick it up and use it for the majority of what most people do. Arch is like the textbook example of having to learn a bunch in order to use Linux.
I have used Windows since I was a child and I still need “documentation” to do routine things, because they hide stuff 8 levels deep inside an obscure settings window that requires an arcane ritual to access.
I think Arch is meant for people who want to learn the software - so that you can also choose, control, customize, diagnose, and fix the software!
That said, archwiki is still a great resource on other distros for when something does go wrong, or when it’s not obvious how to do something, particularly when messing with experimental or server stuff.
The Arch wiki is one of the main reasons I use Arch/Arch based Distros. Its so insanely good and after you learned some of the basic stuff and what certain terms mean its a very good resource for doing stuff.
I’d argue that there’s like 4 ways that 90% of distros work like and even they are extremely similar to each other. You got Fedora, Debian, Arch, and whatever Gentoo users do when they are in the dark in the basement. The rest are niche and weird stuff that not even Linux hardcore fans know all about. Similarly there’s only two desktop things that matter, GTK or QT. Everything else is us nerds nick-picking.
Ok, there’s also nixOS and the new wave of atomic monolithic containerized whatever distros, but they are like, super new and the resulting system is indistinguishable for the end used from the other 4 main.
Problem is is that is that too many people insist on doing things the Windows way and they get frustrated because of it. For example, instead of going to the software center, they choose to download their programs from a website, even though that’s not how you’re supposed to do it most of the time. They’ll also spend hours trying to get Windows only programs to run, when there are alternatives available that work just as well.
I still don’t fully know how to install rpm files lmao, that’s how I learned about Apt back on linux mint, don’t remember what I was trying to install as it was like 15 years ago. Deb files were nice because they did work like a windows user would expect.
Let’s use Tor Browser as an example since that’s one of the programs that typically gets installed with a tarball. Once you’ve downloaded and extracted the tarball, you’ll want to navigate to the extracted files. You can do this in the terminal using CD commands, but I think it’s easier and a little more intuitive to just use your file manager and navigate to the folder that way. Once you’re in the correct folder, you’ll want to right click on an empty space and select “open and terminal.” Now you’ll have a terminal open and it will already be in the correct directory. From here you’ll want to run the “start-tor-browser.desktop” script. To do this, simply type ./start-tor-browser.desktop and you’ll be able to follow along from there.
Running programs from a Tar image typically involves running a script. You just have to change the name of the script to match whatever they have in the directory. Auto complete is your friend here. You don’t have to actually type the entire name of the script, you only need to type the first few letters and then hit tab.
Definitely this. I have been eyeballing Linux for years, always intimidated by the CLI and the notion that everything you try to do on Linux requires user research and work first.
Now I finally made the switch a couple days ago, and while it took a bit of tinkering and googling here and there I am amazed how simple, even way simpler than on windows, the experience for a an average user is, particularly with the very beginner friendly distro I went with (bazzite/gnome).
It just works right out the box for 90% of whatever I want to do, configuring it is simply flipping some switches in the software and extension apps. Feels more like setting up a new smartphone than a PC. I didn’t even have to mess with the CLI all that much, perhaps half a dozen times so far, and each time i followed specific steps in a guide or tutorial, or tried out some basic things like file search.
It is good to send new users to something like Gnome they can branch out. I think Cosmic will be a great fit as well. Outside of updates, you don’t have to do too much in the CLI really. But long as you learn some of the basics how to get around and maybe make an alias. I think that will get you by just fine on Linux. I do think people should get users to try less Windows like experiences on Linux. Because a Windows like UI will just make them miss Windows.
I do think people should get users to try less Windows like experiences on Linux. Because a Windows like UI will just make them miss Windows.
That is actually the exact reason I went with gnome instead of KDE myself; I find it much easier to learn a new system than to adjust habits that have formed for years. I will probably eventually switch to KDE when i feel fully comfortable, because it is supposedly slightly better in performance and far more customizable.
An Epson XP-830. Full disclosure: When it was brand new it was a severe pain in the ass because it wasn’t supported by CUPS yet, I had to go out to Epson’s website and download a driver in .rpm fromat and install it with alien. Bought it a couple months before I abandoned Windows for Linux and had to make it work. After about a year CUPS suddenly knew what to do with it and it’s Just Worked™ ever since.
One thing Linux needs to do is change the perception of how hard everything is compared to Windows. Some things are extremely less difficult on Linux.
Both OS are hard if you don’t know how to use them.
Both OS are easy if you know how to use them.
Linux’s problem is fragmentation. There’s not a single OS that many people are familiar with like Windows. Instead there’s hundreds of different distros that all function in a variety of different ways. Even if a person learns to do something on Mint or Ubuntu, they will be completely lost trying to do the same thing on Fedora or Arch.
And out of those “hundreds” only a handful of them are actually popular and progressing innovation…
As someone who’s distro hopped across a wide verity of distros, the fundamentals are more less the same across all of them. Just go with a popular distro with good documentation and you’ll be fine. If you’ve learned enough from mint to feel comfortable tackling Arch Linux, then the documention (e.g. ArchWiki) will be your strongest asset.
Good documentation is great to have. Here’s the thing though. If you need documentation to use an OS… That just proves that it really is harder for people to use.
Mint and Windows both share the ability to pick it up and use it for the majority of what most people do. Arch is like the textbook example of having to learn a bunch in order to use Linux.
I have used Windows since I was a child and I still need “documentation” to do routine things, because they hide stuff 8 levels deep inside an obscure settings window that requires an arcane ritual to access.
I think Arch is meant for people who want to learn the software - so that you can also choose, control, customize, diagnose, and fix the software!
That said, archwiki is still a great resource on other distros for when something does go wrong, or when it’s not obvious how to do something, particularly when messing with experimental or server stuff.
The Arch wiki is one of the main reasons I use Arch/Arch based Distros. Its so insanely good and after you learned some of the basic stuff and what certain terms mean its a very good resource for doing stuff.
You forgot the entire point of Arch Linux, it was never meant for newbies, bud.
Arch is the easy way, when you compare it to Debian Sid.
I’d argue that there’s like 4 ways that 90% of distros work like and even they are extremely similar to each other. You got Fedora, Debian, Arch, and whatever Gentoo users do when they are in the dark in the basement. The rest are niche and weird stuff that not even Linux hardcore fans know all about. Similarly there’s only two desktop things that matter, GTK or QT. Everything else is us nerds nick-picking.
Ok, there’s also nixOS and the new wave of atomic monolithic containerized whatever distros, but they are like, super new and the resulting system is indistinguishable for the end used from the other 4 main.
Problem is is that is that too many people insist on doing things the Windows way and they get frustrated because of it. For example, instead of going to the software center, they choose to download their programs from a website, even though that’s not how you’re supposed to do it most of the time. They’ll also spend hours trying to get Windows only programs to run, when there are alternatives available that work just as well.
That’s absolutely true. I made the same mistakes and I got absolutely mad.
I still don’t fully know how to install rpm files lmao, that’s how I learned about Apt back on linux mint, don’t remember what I was trying to install as it was like 15 years ago. Deb files were nice because they did work like a windows user would expect.
I don’t even know what rpm files are xD. I personally havent figured out how to make use of a tar.gz file.
A tar file is similar to a ZIP file. The easiest way to uncompress them is by using your file manager and right clicking.
I know, but since Programms often ship as tar.gz I still have no fucking clue on how to finally install a Programm from it.
Right, the few times I used tar.gz it was basically just a portable app, which isn’t how I think about “installing” programs usually.
Let’s use Tor Browser as an example since that’s one of the programs that typically gets installed with a tarball. Once you’ve downloaded and extracted the tarball, you’ll want to navigate to the extracted files. You can do this in the terminal using CD commands, but I think it’s easier and a little more intuitive to just use your file manager and navigate to the folder that way. Once you’re in the correct folder, you’ll want to right click on an empty space and select “open and terminal.” Now you’ll have a terminal open and it will already be in the correct directory. From here you’ll want to run the “start-tor-browser.desktop” script. To do this, simply type ./start-tor-browser.desktop and you’ll be able to follow along from there.
Running programs from a Tar image typically involves running a script. You just have to change the name of the script to match whatever they have in the directory. Auto complete is your friend here. You don’t have to actually type the entire name of the script, you only need to type the first few letters and then hit tab.
Thx
Woops I did actually mean tar.gz files lmao
Definitely this. I have been eyeballing Linux for years, always intimidated by the CLI and the notion that everything you try to do on Linux requires user research and work first.
Now I finally made the switch a couple days ago, and while it took a bit of tinkering and googling here and there I am amazed how simple, even way simpler than on windows, the experience for a an average user is, particularly with the very beginner friendly distro I went with (bazzite/gnome).
It just works right out the box for 90% of whatever I want to do, configuring it is simply flipping some switches in the software and extension apps. Feels more like setting up a new smartphone than a PC. I didn’t even have to mess with the CLI all that much, perhaps half a dozen times so far, and each time i followed specific steps in a guide or tutorial, or tried out some basic things like file search.
It is good to send new users to something like Gnome they can branch out. I think Cosmic will be a great fit as well. Outside of updates, you don’t have to do too much in the CLI really. But long as you learn some of the basics how to get around and maybe make an alias. I think that will get you by just fine on Linux. I do think people should get users to try less Windows like experiences on Linux. Because a Windows like UI will just make them miss Windows.
That is actually the exact reason I went with gnome instead of KDE myself; I find it much easier to learn a new system than to adjust habits that have formed for years. I will probably eventually switch to KDE when i feel fully comfortable, because it is supposedly slightly better in performance and far more customizable.
I’ve been using KDE Plasma for 5 years now and I’ve never missed Windows UI.
I always show people single click printer setups.
Linux (and sometimes Android) is the only platform printers actually work reliably.
You have to click? I turn on my networked printer and every Linux machine on my network sets it up whether I wanted them to or not.
Which printer?
An Epson XP-830. Full disclosure: When it was brand new it was a severe pain in the ass because it wasn’t supported by CUPS yet, I had to go out to Epson’s website and download a driver in .rpm fromat and install it with alien. Bought it a couple months before I abandoned Windows for Linux and had to make it work. After about a year CUPS suddenly knew what to do with it and it’s Just Worked™ ever since.
My printer worked out of the box under Windows no driver or anything needed. Maybe I got lucky.
Using Linux isn’t hard. Switching to Linux is hard.
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Imagine being this unironically toxic… in a meme community.
I am convinced you breathe that gas that broke the ozone layer.
Yeah, sure, we like to promote it because it’s… harder??