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Knowing how to use Linux is easy if you have a decent mental model of CPU, memory, hard drive, network, drivers. Most people outside of tech don't and would be

Knowing how to use Linux is easy if you have a decent mental model of CPU, memory, hard drive, network, drivers. Most people outside of tech don't and would be hopelessly lost debugging many Linux issues., the same way they're lost debugging iOS issues or Windows issues. That all said, it has gotten much more user friendly with e.g. Ubuntu over the past decade or so and hopefully the aforementioned state of affairs begins to change. The language chosen is harsh, but outside of our community, I'd argue that's commonly true without massive training for users.

TeMPOraL 9y ago
> Knowing how to use Linux is easy if you have a decent mental model of CPU, memory, hard drive, network, drivers. ... and of Linux internal unstructure and how it came to be. As someone who grew up with Windows and only later started to use Linux more and more, I'm still puzzled by the latter whenever something breaks. I'm no longer annoyed the way I used to be, though, because I understood the crucial thing: Linux distros are big hodgepodges of components. A distro is nothing but someone's opinionated vision of what software should be put on top of the kernel, and thus depending of the distro, version and the phase of the moon, you get different combination of stuff. And each piece of software has its own quirks, its own way of management, stores configuration in its own format in its own special place, etc. I suppose it's fine for an ever-evolving landscape of solutions, but for a casual user, it made it impossible to reconfigure pretty much anything in the system without having Google on-hand (preferably on a secondary machine, in case you break something).
- kpil 9y ago
  I can say the exact same about windows. It's confusing as hell, a mishmash of weird semi-trustable drivers and utilities with no overall plan. For a casual user it's impossible without google to figure out how to change simple settings like making alt-tab stop being on crack and disappear after 0.5 seconds of indecision. Or figure out why plugging in a headphone requires a confirmation on some machines, but not on others... Etc.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

> Knowing how to use Linux is easy if you have a decent mental model of CPU, memory, hard drive, network, drivers. ... and of Linux internal unstructure and how it came to be. As someone who grew up with Windows and only later started to use Linux more and more, I'm still puzzled by the latter whenever something breaks. I'm no longer annoyed the way I used to be, though, because I understood the crucial thing: Linux distros are big hodgepodges of components. A distro is nothing but someone's opinionated vision of what software should be put on top of the kernel, and thus depending of the distro, version and the phase of the moon, you get different combination of stuff. And each piece of software has its own quirks, its own way of management, stores configuration in its own format in its own special place, etc. I suppose it's fine for an ever-evolving landscape of solutions, but for a casual user, it made it impossible to reconfigure pretty much anything in the system without having Google on-hand (preferably on a secondary machine, in case you break something).

kpil 9y ago
I can say the exact same about windows. It's confusing as hell, a mishmash of weird semi-trustable drivers and utilities with no overall plan. For a casual user it's impossible without google to figure out how to change simple settings like making alt-tab stop being on crack and disappear after 0.5 seconds of indecision. Or figure out why plugging in a headphone requires a confirmation on some machines, but not on others... Etc.