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7) It's way easier to find someone you know to help you on Windows than Linux, for now. I visit my parents once a year and always mark out a day to spend fixin

7) It's way easier to find someone you know to help you on Windows than Linux, for now. I visit my parents once a year and always mark out a day to spend fixing/updating/removing junk on my dad's Windows laptop. Three times I installed Linux and when I came back the following year Windows was back on the laptop. The reason being people just know Windows where I am from and the moment they see Linux they feel that's the problem. Even if my dad is struggling to print something which has nothing to do with Linux, the first thing they do is remove Linux.

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
I have installed Ubuntu to my mom and my wife's parents PCs and I never ever spent time having to worry about those computers again. They instantly learn where the browser, skype and printer menu is, and NEVER have a problem with a computer again. I also never worried about antiviruses and malware since. They are all in their 70s. No regular user has a problem with Ubuntu these days, but they regularly did have all kinds of trouble with Windows. I also run a business and for the last 13 years have had countless new hires (non developers) who have never seen Ubuntu and were productive on it instantly, without any problems with the OS ever. So it is simply not true that people "feel there is a problem the moment they see Linux". Ubuntu is the most friendly and reliable OS for a regular person out there, I say it from decades of experience.
- mmsimanga 6y ago
  My intention was not to create impression that Linux is the problem. I myself have had similar experiences as you have had and use Ubuntu on all my PCs. However the reality is schools teach on Windows and just about all PCs and laptops sold in my home country have Windows installed. Apple products very rare and for the very rich. What this means is the average "computer guy" available to help my dad is typically a Windows person. If my dad says he can't print, the Windows guy cannot help him on Ubuntu so typically thinks the problem is Ubuntu. I am not saying the problem is Ubuntu, Ubuntu just isn't common in my home town.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
    These days the only application that is important for a non-computer folks is the browser, and Ubuntu can run Firefox just fine, it's easy to launch and turn off. In my experience, the perception that Linux is somehow 'hard' is just not true, deeply rooted in 2002 or something. Things have changed so much, and whatever kids are taught in school is not that big of a problem anymore.
    - mmsimanga 6y ago
      You quite right, if you only browse the Internet then using Firefox will suffice. Problems tend to start when you editing documents and sharing them with people on Windows computers. Yes I know LibreOffice can edit MS Office documents but the inconsistencies in formatting tend to add up especially for novice users.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
        The key here is simply to stop caring about MS office documents, and use open standardized format for information exchane. That is, OpenDocument, a native format of LibreOffice, which is available on any platform out there. My company never ever sent out a single file on MS Office format since it was founded in 2007, and I assure you that business can work just fine without ever using .doc(x) / .xls(x) files.
- dTal 6y ago
  I have both user stories. I put Debian on the laptop of one relative, and never had to support him again (almost - he needed help setting up a printer once, which I was able to do entirely on my phone using CUPS' web interface over an SSH tunnel). I dist-upgrade him every couple of years. Totally painless. But his needs are modest - a web browser and an email client mostly keep him happy. I have another relative who mostly uses her X220 laptop to write in Microsoft Word, and she is constantly having computer troubles. Shitty battery life (Windows keeps resetting power management to "max performance"), fans constantly blasting, endless file management issues and no backups. I am constantly having to support her, and Microsoft Windows makes that a royal pain. I knew she was going to kill that machine eventually, so I got her another X220 as a cheap backup computer, which had no OS and so I put Debian on it. I was right, her computer died, she ended up being forced to use the Debian machine, which netted her among other things triple battery life. But she was so tunnel-visioned into her particular idiosyncratic workflow (see https://xkcd.com/763/ https://xkcd.com/763/) that every minor hiccup was met with "I want to go back to Windows". It astonished me how much patience she had for Windows' daily WTFs, and yet so little patience for anything else. Within months the computer was running Windows again. I expect she'll kill that too...

Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago

I have installed Ubuntu to my mom and my wife's parents PCs and I never ever spent time having to worry about those computers again. They instantly learn where the browser, skype and printer menu is, and NEVER have a problem with a computer again. I also never worried about antiviruses and malware since. They are all in their 70s. No regular user has a problem with Ubuntu these days, but they regularly did have all kinds of trouble with Windows. I also run a business and for the last 13 years have had countless new hires (non developers) who have never seen Ubuntu and were productive on it instantly, without any problems with the OS ever. So it is simply not true that people "feel there is a problem the moment they see Linux". Ubuntu is the most friendly and reliable OS for a regular person out there, I say it from decades of experience.

mmsimanga 6y ago
My intention was not to create impression that Linux is the problem. I myself have had similar experiences as you have had and use Ubuntu on all my PCs. However the reality is schools teach on Windows and just about all PCs and laptops sold in my home country have Windows installed. Apple products very rare and for the very rich. What this means is the average "computer guy" available to help my dad is typically a Windows person. If my dad says he can't print, the Windows guy cannot help him on Ubuntu so typically thinks the problem is Ubuntu. I am not saying the problem is Ubuntu, Ubuntu just isn't common in my home town.
- Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
  These days the only application that is important for a non-computer folks is the browser, and Ubuntu can run Firefox just fine, it's easy to launch and turn off. In my experience, the perception that Linux is somehow 'hard' is just not true, deeply rooted in 2002 or something. Things have changed so much, and whatever kids are taught in school is not that big of a problem anymore.
  - mmsimanga 6y ago
    You quite right, if you only browse the Internet then using Firefox will suffice. Problems tend to start when you editing documents and sharing them with people on Windows computers. Yes I know LibreOffice can edit MS Office documents but the inconsistencies in formatting tend to add up especially for novice users.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 6y ago
      The key here is simply to stop caring about MS office documents, and use open standardized format for information exchane. That is, OpenDocument, a native format of LibreOffice, which is available on any platform out there. My company never ever sent out a single file on MS Office format since it was founded in 2007, and I assure you that business can work just fine without ever using .doc(x) / .xls(x) files.
dTal 6y ago
I have both user stories. I put Debian on the laptop of one relative, and never had to support him again (almost - he needed help setting up a printer once, which I was able to do entirely on my phone using CUPS' web interface over an SSH tunnel). I dist-upgrade him every couple of years. Totally painless. But his needs are modest - a web browser and an email client mostly keep him happy. I have another relative who mostly uses her X220 laptop to write in Microsoft Word, and she is constantly having computer troubles. Shitty battery life (Windows keeps resetting power management to "max performance"), fans constantly blasting, endless file management issues and no backups. I am constantly having to support her, and Microsoft Windows makes that a royal pain. I knew she was going to kill that machine eventually, so I got her another X220 as a cheap backup computer, which had no OS and so I put Debian on it. I was right, her computer died, she ended up being forced to use the Debian machine, which netted her among other things triple battery life. But she was so tunnel-visioned into her particular idiosyncratic workflow (see https://xkcd.com/763/ https://xkcd.com/763/) that every minor hiccup was met with "I want to go back to Windows". It astonished me how much patience she had for Windows' daily WTFs, and yet so little patience for anything else. Within months the computer was running Windows again. I expect she'll kill that too...