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It blows my mind how many comments here think you are wrong. You are absolutely correct. A new user does not care how great x,y,z feature is if they can't do ba

It blows my mind how many comments here think you are wrong. You are absolutely correct. A new user does not care how great x,y,z feature is if they can't do basic things that are ubiquitous in other operating systems. New users might hear Unix is better, but if it doesn't feel that way, they're going to go back to what they know works when the next deliverable/project/essay/game comes out.

usrn 4y ago
If Linux distros implemented every feature "new users" wanted then you would end up with something nearly identical to ChromiumOS (and those same users would probably just run ChromeOS.) If you want that then go run that. EDIT: Everyone here knows how to type "sudo apt install thunderbird." People are failing to install bleeding edge software. This shouldn't be surprising or upsetting.
- suby 4y ago
  This isn't just a feature, this is installing apps. Many users are failing to install apps. Users on this forum, even, which is telling because this forum is a sort of filter to select those who are more tech savy than the average person. There is a usability issue here that absolutely should be talked about and addressed, which involves a solution that isn't "switch to chrome OS".
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    I would hazard a guess that many users on this forum are really only familiar with macOS and a smattering of CLI magical invocations. Package managers exist for a reason. Flatpack, snap etc all exist. You can't just hand wave real complexity away by yelling "usability!" without having fiat power over an incredibly diverse ecosystem. The lowest common denominator for installing software on Linux distributions is well below what an incurious user will put up with. If you don't want to understand that kind of low level tinkering, you have to wait for whatever ecosystem you bought into to catch up. That might mean moving back to Apple's curated experience. That's fine; so long as Linux itself isn't a curated walled garden, it'll never be as seamless in every instance, and that's not for everyone.
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    > There is a usability issue here that absolutely should be talked about and addressed Addressed by whom, exactly? "The Linux community" is busy addressing the things they care about. Nobody is telling anybody to use Linux if it doesn't work for their needs.
- landryraccoon 4y ago
  I think we're assuming that if an application ever wants to be "mainstream", it has to be useable by people who don't know what a command line is, let alone what "sudo" means.
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    I'm not sure why it matters. In discussions like this there seems to be the assumption that Linux must be usable by non-technical people, and if it isn't, then someone is doing something wrong. Linux is immensely useful to me and everyone else who uses it. It doesn't really bother me that my mom doesn't use it; she is perfectly happy with Windows. If someone made a Linux distro that was exactly as polished and easy-to-use for non-technical people as macOS or Windows is, it would not affect me at all. Who is this strawman entity who "wants Linux to be mainstream" ? Does anyone really care? Certainly my mom doesn't, and as far as I can tell, most Linux users who are happy with it don't either. Furthermore, it's quite easy to understand why this hasn't happened, as doing that would cost huge amounts of money and there is no incentive structure that exists to raise it.
    - smaudet 4y ago
      > Who is this strawman entity who "wants Linux to be mainstream" ? Does anyone really care? I think it's basic human desire for things to be relatable, but more than that there are those who experience the tyranny of 'modern' life - if you interface with the world, it is perhaps natural to want to do so simply, constantly switching contexts is not productive. I suppose, I do really care, because every time I am forced to use a system which I don't really want to use, is another time I don't really like the world I live in, I am resentful, and ultimately I really want to not care at all about the device in question. So, for a wide range of devices I interact with, I view them as trash, because I don't care about trash either, except to remove it from my home on a regular basis. There are others like me, I know, and there are others in similar positions but not about linux I know as well, e.g. anyone who has ever read a good book and wishes the author were more well read, and simultaneously is affronted by the cheap dime novellas they encounter while e.g. browsing a department store. "Furthermore, it's quite easy to understand why this hasn't happened, as doing that would cost huge amounts of money and there is no incentive structure that exists to raise it." There isn't, yet. There are various companies which have sought to bring it there. To use the (perhaps bad) author metaphor, we haven't had our JK Rowling moment yet. There have been pushes, e.g. Ubuntu, Redhat, but so far market forces have conspired against us, not necessarily because no one cares or no attempts have been made.
rtpg 4y ago
If you download a .deb file on Ubuntu, click on it, it will install it and do all the right things. There is Windows files also distributed as zip files, just as unusable.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  The problem is deb files don’t work on all distros and browsers tend to hide the specific distro from the user agent for privacy. Never link to a deb or rpm as the primary “download”. It should be a flatpak or app image and then an advanced options section for distro specific packages.
  - smaudet 4y ago
    The problem is flatpack/appimage are equally bad/opaque, they solve one problem at the expense of being better off just in windows or osx. tar.gz is opaque in a different way - the solution would be more like an interpreter - something which has a good guess how you should install/run the file. There is the issue also of integration with the distribution, this is a problem with distribution apis - package maintainers are invested in their formats and distribution list not solid apis with which to interact. If you could build against such a set of Apis you could bundle an interpreter which just knows what to do. Tar.gz is a hell of a lot simpler than any other format, it's not the issue, it's the desktop distros who are underfunded/at fault.
- lproven 4y ago
  > If you download a .deb file on Ubuntu, click on it, it will install it Yes, this is true. But it is no help on RPM-family distros, or Arch-family ones, or Alpine or Void or whatever. > and do all the right things. No, mostly, it won't. Because the file won't be added to the OS's list of repositories and it will never get updated. This is not automatic behaviour, but it can be: Google does this right. Do this with Chrome or Google Earth or whatever and it just magically happens, and that is the Right Thing™. https://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/ https://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/
  - 4y ago
TimTheTinker 4y ago
> New users might hear Unix is better, but if it doesn't feel that way, they're going to go back to what they know works For anyone who doubts the above, think about how much help you'd have to give many of your family members (spouse, parents, kids, etc.) for installing Thunderbird or another popular desktop app. For all of my family members, the moment they have to open a terminal to do something basic they'd say "that's it, I'm going back to macOS (or Windows)."

usrn 4y ago

If Linux distros implemented every feature "new users" wanted then you would end up with something nearly identical to ChromiumOS (and those same users would probably just run ChromeOS.) If you want that then go run that. EDIT: Everyone here knows how to type "sudo apt install thunderbird." People are failing to install bleeding edge software. This shouldn't be surprising or upsetting.

suby 4y ago
This isn't just a feature, this is installing apps. Many users are failing to install apps. Users on this forum, even, which is telling because this forum is a sort of filter to select those who are more tech savy than the average person. There is a usability issue here that absolutely should be talked about and addressed, which involves a solution that isn't "switch to chrome OS".
- zdragnar 4y ago
  I would hazard a guess that many users on this forum are really only familiar with macOS and a smattering of CLI magical invocations. Package managers exist for a reason. Flatpack, snap etc all exist. You can't just hand wave real complexity away by yelling "usability!" without having fiat power over an incredibly diverse ecosystem. The lowest common denominator for installing software on Linux distributions is well below what an incurious user will put up with. If you don't want to understand that kind of low level tinkering, you have to wait for whatever ecosystem you bought into to catch up. That might mean moving back to Apple's curated experience. That's fine; so long as Linux itself isn't a curated walled garden, it'll never be as seamless in every instance, and that's not for everyone.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  > There is a usability issue here that absolutely should be talked about and addressed Addressed by whom, exactly? "The Linux community" is busy addressing the things they care about. Nobody is telling anybody to use Linux if it doesn't work for their needs.
landryraccoon 4y ago
I think we're assuming that if an application ever wants to be "mainstream", it has to be useable by people who don't know what a command line is, let alone what "sudo" means.
- School-Cotton 4y ago
  I'm not sure why it matters. In discussions like this there seems to be the assumption that Linux must be usable by non-technical people, and if it isn't, then someone is doing something wrong. Linux is immensely useful to me and everyone else who uses it. It doesn't really bother me that my mom doesn't use it; she is perfectly happy with Windows. If someone made a Linux distro that was exactly as polished and easy-to-use for non-technical people as macOS or Windows is, it would not affect me at all. Who is this strawman entity who "wants Linux to be mainstream" ? Does anyone really care? Certainly my mom doesn't, and as far as I can tell, most Linux users who are happy with it don't either. Furthermore, it's quite easy to understand why this hasn't happened, as doing that would cost huge amounts of money and there is no incentive structure that exists to raise it.
  - smaudet 4y ago
    > Who is this strawman entity who "wants Linux to be mainstream" ? Does anyone really care? I think it's basic human desire for things to be relatable, but more than that there are those who experience the tyranny of 'modern' life - if you interface with the world, it is perhaps natural to want to do so simply, constantly switching contexts is not productive. I suppose, I do really care, because every time I am forced to use a system which I don't really want to use, is another time I don't really like the world I live in, I am resentful, and ultimately I really want to not care at all about the device in question. So, for a wide range of devices I interact with, I view them as trash, because I don't care about trash either, except to remove it from my home on a regular basis. There are others like me, I know, and there are others in similar positions but not about linux I know as well, e.g. anyone who has ever read a good book and wishes the author were more well read, and simultaneously is affronted by the cheap dime novellas they encounter while e.g. browsing a department store. "Furthermore, it's quite easy to understand why this hasn't happened, as doing that would cost huge amounts of money and there is no incentive structure that exists to raise it." There isn't, yet. There are various companies which have sought to bring it there. To use the (perhaps bad) author metaphor, we haven't had our JK Rowling moment yet. There have been pushes, e.g. Ubuntu, Redhat, but so far market forces have conspired against us, not necessarily because no one cares or no attempts have been made.

rtpg 4y ago

If you download a .deb file on Ubuntu, click on it, it will install it and do all the right things. There is Windows files also distributed as zip files, just as unusable.

Gigachad 4y ago
The problem is deb files don’t work on all distros and browsers tend to hide the specific distro from the user agent for privacy. Never link to a deb or rpm as the primary “download”. It should be a flatpak or app image and then an advanced options section for distro specific packages.
- smaudet 4y ago
  The problem is flatpack/appimage are equally bad/opaque, they solve one problem at the expense of being better off just in windows or osx. tar.gz is opaque in a different way - the solution would be more like an interpreter - something which has a good guess how you should install/run the file. There is the issue also of integration with the distribution, this is a problem with distribution apis - package maintainers are invested in their formats and distribution list not solid apis with which to interact. If you could build against such a set of Apis you could bundle an interpreter which just knows what to do. Tar.gz is a hell of a lot simpler than any other format, it's not the issue, it's the desktop distros who are underfunded/at fault.
lproven 4y ago
> If you download a .deb file on Ubuntu, click on it, it will install it Yes, this is true. But it is no help on RPM-family distros, or Arch-family ones, or Alpine or Void or whatever. > and do all the right things. No, mostly, it won't. Because the file won't be added to the OS's list of repositories and it will never get updated. This is not automatic behaviour, but it can be: Google does this right. Do this with Chrome or Google Earth or whatever and it just magically happens, and that is the Right Thing™. https://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/ https://www.google.com/linuxrepositories/
- 4y ago

TimTheTinker 4y ago

> New users might hear Unix is better, but if it doesn't feel that way, they're going to go back to what they know works For anyone who doubts the above, think about how much help you'd have to give many of your family members (spouse, parents, kids, etc.) for installing Thunderbird or another popular desktop app. For all of my family members, the moment they have to open a terminal to do something basic they'd say "that's it, I'm going back to macOS (or Windows)."