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> While Linux distros have been getting better and easier for many years, installing and maintaining Linux on my own machine still requires sysadmin Linux knowl

> While Linux distros have been getting better and easier for many years, installing and maintaining Linux on my own machine still requires sysadmin Linux knowledge to this day. I'm not sure that's true. You can buy a few computers (including from Dell) with Linux pre-installed, and maintenance doesn't take a lot more than clicking on the upgrade button with the daily update-manager prompt. I _do_ have sysadmin knowledge and find the shell more efficient than the GUI in 99% of everyday-use cases (I can't remember the last time I opened a file browser). So it's entirely possible that there's some day-to-day work required that I'm not even thinking about. But my dad is running a Linux Mint system and I switched him to it (about ~10 years ago) because it required so much _less_ maintenance than running a Windows machine did. The number of phone calls for tech support I got from him plummeted from twice a week to zero when I switched him from Windows: I did so because I got tired of fielding constant questions about antivirus software, defragmentation, startup programs littering his systray, possible viruses installed, etc etc etc etc. It's really beyond me why anybody thinks that Windows is an appropriate OS for a non-technical user (er, or for a technical user, or really anyone who doesn't need specialty software).

dahart 9y ago
Good point that some people are there already, I agree with that. I’m not though, and I give it a shot about once a year to see what’s new. I’m curious if your dad installs much software? As a developer myself, I should have more sysadmin Linux under my belt, I’m happy to get very technical and nitty gritty with my own work. But I lose patience if my OS wants me to learn super arcane things for stuff that should just work and does on other OSes. Display drivers, networking, installing new drives, this is the kind of stuff that seems to trip me up in Unix.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  > I’m curious if your dad installs much software? Surprisingly, he actually does. This is in large part because this is WAY easier in Linux than anywhere else, because they've been following the "curated marketplace" model (like iOS and Android) for like, a decade (without the restrictions on other modes of install, obviously: Linux systems have an incentive to be user-friendly, but not anti-user the way Apple does). He was in the menu and found the "Software Hub" or whatever Mint calls it, and spends time randomly looking around at stuff. On Windows, he would oscillate between being too paranoid about viruses to go around installing random .exes to being _not paranoid enough and actually installing a virus_ haha.
Bartweiss 9y ago
> I'm not sure that's true. You can buy a few computers (including from Dell) with Linux pre-installed, and maintenance doesn't take a lot more than clicking on the upgrade button with the daily update-manager prompt. Is it really that good these days? I can definitely appreciate the constancy of Linux, it feels like Windows/Chrome/etc stacks move under my feet constantly. But my experience with Linux is still that when problems do arise, I have to escalate to shell commands and arcane sysadmin-ry for all but the simplest problems. Windows and OS X still offer a lot more hope of an accessible fix via the GUI or even an automated troubleshooting tool. It's totally possible I'm dealing with the wrong distros, or am resorting to Linux for weirder tasks and therefore seeing harder problems. But I don't have the sense that Linux is more painless, only that it's less chaotic.
- scaryclam 9y ago
  I'm probably not the best person to comment, as I tend to drop out to the command line for most things and might not recognise when something's hard to fix using GUI tools, but I've worked with colleagues who are not terribly good at CLI linux. They've been using some of the dell laptops and don't appear to have many problems looking after their own issues.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  > Is it really that good these days? Honestly, I constantly doubt myself on this because other people keep claiming you need to be some sort of tech-savvy god in order to use Linux: but I've had various Linux systems as my primary and only OS since 2007 and I pretty much haven't had any problems to speak of since like, 2012. To the extent that I can take myself out of my own head and try to model someone not that tech-savvy, I find Windows _much_ harder to use on a day-to-day basis. This is further validated by the experience of my dad: I went from 1-2 tech support calls a week to maybe once a YEAR. > But my experience with Linux is still that when problems do arise, I have to escalate to shell commands and arcane sysadmin-ry for all but the simplest problems. I actually prefer the command line for pretty much everything (I haven't opened a GUI file browser in years), so I'm leaning primarily on the experience of a few friends/family who switched to Linux when they saw how awesome my system in college was (where awesome = not plagued with the ridiculous problems that every Windows user has to rationalize out of existence). I've tried to evangelize the command line to most of them and they remain pretty firmly uninterested. And yet none of them ever really _have_ any problems with their system[1] to speak of: clicking "install now" on the Update Manager pop-up is the only interaction they have to have with their system beyond usage. They usually tend to be on something like Linux Mint, which has all the GUI-heavy config tools pre-installed already. When they feel like dipping a toe in the water of customization, they can do so to the precise extent that they're comfortable and think that the trade-off is worth it (e.g. re-arranging their panel). AFAICT, all the work in Linux is upfront and pretty quick: make sure that you buy hardware that supports Linux well (an easy Google search) and either buy pre-installed or spend 20 minutes installing it. [1] These include my best friends and girlfriend, people I've talked to almost literally every day for the last decade.

dahart 9y ago

Good point that some people are there already, I agree with that. I’m not though, and I give it a shot about once a year to see what’s new. I’m curious if your dad installs much software? As a developer myself, I should have more sysadmin Linux under my belt, I’m happy to get very technical and nitty gritty with my own work. But I lose patience if my OS wants me to learn super arcane things for stuff that should just work and does on other OSes. Display drivers, networking, installing new drives, this is the kind of stuff that seems to trip me up in Unix.

wutbrodo 9y ago
> I’m curious if your dad installs much software? Surprisingly, he actually does. This is in large part because this is WAY easier in Linux than anywhere else, because they've been following the "curated marketplace" model (like iOS and Android) for like, a decade (without the restrictions on other modes of install, obviously: Linux systems have an incentive to be user-friendly, but not anti-user the way Apple does). He was in the menu and found the "Software Hub" or whatever Mint calls it, and spends time randomly looking around at stuff. On Windows, he would oscillate between being too paranoid about viruses to go around installing random .exes to being _not paranoid enough and actually installing a virus_ haha.

Bartweiss 9y ago

> I'm not sure that's true. You can buy a few computers (including from Dell) with Linux pre-installed, and maintenance doesn't take a lot more than clicking on the upgrade button with the daily update-manager prompt. Is it really that good these days? I can definitely appreciate the constancy of Linux, it feels like Windows/Chrome/etc stacks move under my feet constantly. But my experience with Linux is still that when problems do arise, I have to escalate to shell commands and arcane sysadmin-ry for all but the simplest problems. Windows and OS X still offer a lot more hope of an accessible fix via the GUI or even an automated troubleshooting tool. It's totally possible I'm dealing with the wrong distros, or am resorting to Linux for weirder tasks and therefore seeing harder problems. But I don't have the sense that Linux is more painless, only that it's less chaotic.

scaryclam 9y ago
I'm probably not the best person to comment, as I tend to drop out to the command line for most things and might not recognise when something's hard to fix using GUI tools, but I've worked with colleagues who are not terribly good at CLI linux. They've been using some of the dell laptops and don't appear to have many problems looking after their own issues.
wutbrodo 9y ago
> Is it really that good these days? Honestly, I constantly doubt myself on this because other people keep claiming you need to be some sort of tech-savvy god in order to use Linux: but I've had various Linux systems as my primary and only OS since 2007 and I pretty much haven't had any problems to speak of since like, 2012. To the extent that I can take myself out of my own head and try to model someone not that tech-savvy, I find Windows _much_ harder to use on a day-to-day basis. This is further validated by the experience of my dad: I went from 1-2 tech support calls a week to maybe once a YEAR. > But my experience with Linux is still that when problems do arise, I have to escalate to shell commands and arcane sysadmin-ry for all but the simplest problems. I actually prefer the command line for pretty much everything (I haven't opened a GUI file browser in years), so I'm leaning primarily on the experience of a few friends/family who switched to Linux when they saw how awesome my system in college was (where awesome = not plagued with the ridiculous problems that every Windows user has to rationalize out of existence). I've tried to evangelize the command line to most of them and they remain pretty firmly uninterested. And yet none of them ever really _have_ any problems with their system[1] to speak of: clicking "install now" on the Update Manager pop-up is the only interaction they have to have with their system beyond usage. They usually tend to be on something like Linux Mint, which has all the GUI-heavy config tools pre-installed already. When they feel like dipping a toe in the water of customization, they can do so to the precise extent that they're comfortable and think that the trade-off is worth it (e.g. re-arranging their panel). AFAICT, all the work in Linux is upfront and pretty quick: make sure that you buy hardware that supports Linux well (an easy Google search) and either buy pre-installed or spend 20 minutes installing it. [1] These include my best friends and girlfriend, people I've talked to almost literally every day for the last decade.