The indoctrination of windows is extreme. Windows is just as hard as linux, harder even with all the layers of obscurity.

And yet… linux is hard, and users decry RTFM as “not growing the userbase”

  • @[email protected]
    38•16 days ago

    I switched to Linux mint because I don’t want to think about those things. I barely know how to use the terminal, and probably won’t anytime soon. I just pulled the apps I needed off the software manager. I’m as happy as a clam in shit.

    An OS that just works, without the constant bullshit that capitalism breeds always encroaching. It does what I want when I want it, no more no less.

    • @[email protected]English
      10•16 days ago

      Linux Mint is a great distro, and I’m happy it works for you.

      In terms of mass-adoption though, the fatal point is probably putting a Linux ISO on a thumb drive. Like I said prior, we must be aware of survivorship bias. You don’t care much for the terminal - but you made it through.

      The people that didn’t make it through probably failed from the thumb drive step. I only say this from personal experience, because when I first installed Linux, I was very determined and came extremely close to giving up at this step. And I only got through because I happened to find an obscure forum about how Rufus needed a special setting for my machine.

      P.S. I also was not tech savvy, but I wasn’t completely lost either - and I still struggled really hard here.

      • RussEnglish
        5•16 days ago

        I remember back when I was a kid, the only way I was even able to try Ubuntu was through “WUBI” which was pretty cool - it allowed you to “install” Ubuntu via Windows, by leveraging the VHD support in the Windows 7 bootloader. It could also be uninstalled via the Windows control panel as it was registered just like any other program.

        As far as I understand, it was discontinued because of inherent technical issues with that system - but I always thought if it could be done again, then it’d help bridge the gap a bit. All you had to do was download the installer, and double click it like any other program.

        I had no clue how to write an image to a flash drive, hell I doubt I even had a flash drive to use at the time. 😅

        • mittorn
          2•16 days ago

          @russjr08 @green previously it used grub4dos that was lauched from windows xp bootloader. this is still useful on mbr-efi multi-os boot usb drives

        • @[email protected]English
          2•16 days ago

          Ubuntu used to mail out free install CDs for a while. Nowadays many people don’t have optical drives anymore though.

          • RussEnglish
            2•16 days ago

            I did get one of those at one point! Definitely no longer have it anymore, but it was really cool that Canonical provided those for quite a while (from what I know).

      • @[email protected]
        3•16 days ago

        Ya the thumb drive was a tripping point for me. Took me a minute to understand I had to reformat the drive itself. I also didn’t try to partition anything.