4 ms·

I hear people make claims like this all the time on hacker news and reddit, and I just don't get it. The only way I can see someone who knows nothing about com

I hear people make claims like this all the time on hacker news and reddit, and I just don't get it. The only way I can see someone who knows nothing about computers experiencing 10x less issues by switching from Windows to Linux is because they use their computer 10x less or the person they go to for tech support knows Linux better than they know Windows.

wutbrodo 8y ago
To be honest, I'm just as baffled in the other direction. Have you ever seen a Linux Mint system? It's hardly Gentoo. What problems are you imagining, once the setup is completed? (It should be obvious that I didn't hand my dad a Live USB and say "good luck"). Installing software is simple, safe search and click in something named "software center". Updates are the same. Performance tends to be much better. For a non tech savvy user: How do you install software on Windows? How do you avoid viruses if you're not savvy enough to intuitively pick up on which sites and emails are legit and which are malicious[1]? How do you stop 500 random programs from slowing the crap out of your computer by autostarting and running in the taskbar? This is leaving aside the piss-poor performance of the actual OS itself, which certain tech-savvy people handle by fretting about antivirus programs and the necessity of defragmentation. Go far back enough and you can't even dismiss the former of these concerns offhand, while with Linux, "don't worry about viruses" is an accurate enough directive. I could've said the same for Windows, but the collateral damage would be the very useful "don't download random software from random shady sites". For fuck's sake, at one point Windows had a virus that could infect your system _without even being opened_ (if attached to an email that was opened in Outlook). Aside from setting up his system, which I'd have to do anyway, I struggle to think of a single problem my dad has had in the ten years since he's switched that wasn't an unforced error that he'd do on any system (ie accidentally changing some setting like screen magnification and being unable to find his way back). I'm actually really curious about your answers to the above overarching question, because I similarly can't imagine what computing universe you live in that is remotely similar to the one I live in. [1] some interesting research out of MSR sometime back indicated that bad grammar and other obvious tells in scam emails were actually _intentional_, in that they filtered out all but the least savvy users, who'd have the highest percentage of susceptibility during the more labor-intensive subsequent stages of the scamming process.

wutbrodo 8y ago

To be honest, I'm just as baffled in the other direction. Have you ever seen a Linux Mint system? It's hardly Gentoo. What problems are you imagining, once the setup is completed? (It should be obvious that I didn't hand my dad a Live USB and say "good luck"). Installing software is simple, safe search and click in something named "software center". Updates are the same. Performance tends to be much better. For a non tech savvy user: How do you install software on Windows? How do you avoid viruses if you're not savvy enough to intuitively pick up on which sites and emails are legit and which are malicious[1]? How do you stop 500 random programs from slowing the crap out of your computer by autostarting and running in the taskbar? This is leaving aside the piss-poor performance of the actual OS itself, which certain tech-savvy people handle by fretting about antivirus programs and the necessity of defragmentation. Go far back enough and you can't even dismiss the former of these concerns offhand, while with Linux, "don't worry about viruses" is an accurate enough directive. I could've said the same for Windows, but the collateral damage would be the very useful "don't download random software from random shady sites". For fuck's sake, at one point Windows had a virus that could infect your system _without even being opened_ (if attached to an email that was opened in Outlook). Aside from setting up his system, which I'd have to do anyway, I struggle to think of a single problem my dad has had in the ten years since he's switched that wasn't an unforced error that he'd do on any system (ie accidentally changing some setting like screen magnification and being unable to find his way back). I'm actually really curious about your answers to the above overarching question, because I similarly can't imagine what computing universe you live in that is remotely similar to the one I live in. [1] some interesting research out of MSR sometime back indicated that bad grammar and other obvious tells in scam emails were actually _intentional_, in that they filtered out all but the least savvy users, who'd have the highest percentage of susceptibility during the more labor-intensive subsequent stages of the scamming process.