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I hope this doesn't sound rude, but that is exactly why desktop Linux and friends are a piss-poor experience compared to their proprietary counterparts. There

I hope this doesn't sound rude, but that is exactly why desktop Linux and friends are a piss-poor experience compared to their proprietary counterparts. There is a negative feedback look here. With enough of that kind of "customization freaks only, casuals need not apply, enjoy your non-innovative proprietary shitware" talk, user bases stay small and niche, people get alienated, and don't contribute to or use free OSes. It's perfectly reasonable to want to trade customizability for usability. Chasing people who think that away from free software helps nobody.

floatboth 7y ago
There's plenty of free polished out-of-the-box experiences, from Ubuntu/Mint/elementary/whatever to hardware from Purism and system76. There's definitely some "customization freaks only" assholes on the internet too, but… very very often, it seems like some people perceive that when a non-out-of-the-box OS just exists and people like using it just personally for themselves.
- zbentley 7y ago
  There is definitely progress here since the early '00s. However, there's a very long way to go until even the most polished home-user Linux distros approach the level of usability (and supportability, even more critical) of proprietary OSes for non-power-users. And I wasn't trying to paint everyone who wants to tinker with the same "gatekeeping" brush, sorry if I came off that way. GP equated proprietary software with "pay[ing] someone to lock you into their ecosystem" and "destroy[ing] innovation", and ended with > If you lack the desire to learn how to configure your system, then you will probably not want to use a Free system. That's just how it is. That's the sentiment I had trouble with. Not the existence of knobs (which should continue existing! Just with better tuning experience for casual users, and saner defaults).

floatboth 7y ago

There's plenty of free polished out-of-the-box experiences, from Ubuntu/Mint/elementary/whatever to hardware from Purism and system76. There's definitely some "customization freaks only" assholes on the internet too, but… very very often, it seems like some people perceive that when a non-out-of-the-box OS just exists and people like using it just personally for themselves.

zbentley 7y ago
There is definitely progress here since the early '00s. However, there's a very long way to go until even the most polished home-user Linux distros approach the level of usability (and supportability, even more critical) of proprietary OSes for non-power-users. And I wasn't trying to paint everyone who wants to tinker with the same "gatekeeping" brush, sorry if I came off that way. GP equated proprietary software with "pay[ing] someone to lock you into their ecosystem" and "destroy[ing] innovation", and ended with > If you lack the desire to learn how to configure your system, then you will probably not want to use a Free system. That's just how it is. That's the sentiment I had trouble with. Not the existence of knobs (which should continue existing! Just with better tuning experience for casual users, and saner defaults).