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> Linux is absolute freedom, but that comes with the cost of having to do much more than install, plug and play. You need to be a computer geek, or you need som

> Linux is absolute freedom, but that comes with the cost of having to do much more than install, plug and play. You need to be a computer geek, or you need someone else to fix things for you. Hard disagree. Linux works extremely well for the person that only does basic computing. My mother, for instance, used Linux for years. Folks that need to do things like recompile a kernel in 2022 are way in the tail end of the technical distribution.

Dalewyn 4y ago
My own experience with Linux is that it breaks from the most mundane of things, such that I wouldn't even dare suggest Linux to the average person because the tech support baggage that will ensue would be far more expensive to me than if they just used Windows.
- als0 4y ago
  Have to say that Ubuntu LTS with the Firefox web browser drastically reduced the number of support calls I'd get from my parents, who used Windows 7 before. Of course, as soon as you start messing with packages or doing more advanced things, then more can go wrong. But it's really good for the web.
  - jakswa 4y ago
    I have this same experience. I put ubuntu LTS on a family member's computer back in 2011, made sure the browser icons were big and front/center, and the support nags stopped. They said they loved whatever I did. I think there is some security-by-obscurity in there too, where all the insane spam/fraud/virus stuff couldn't even work on ubuntu if she ended up clicking on one. Nowadays I take it with a grain of salt: The support nags might have also stopped because other family got scared I would wipe their computer and put this new thing on there they were scared of having to learn.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Switch to Debian. They don't casually break things.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  And you know what? It’ll never update by itself unless you tell it to. It’s a very stable OS as long as you don’t mess with it.
CodeSgt 4y ago
I feel like linux only works for 2 categories of people: 1. The extreme laymen that do essentially nothing outside of the web browser 2. The tech savant that has the time, energy, and motivation to spend the countless hours required to get Linux to run anything sufficiently complex. Those in-between typically have the desire to do more than they are able to easily do OOTB with Linux, but also lack the technical ability to actually do it.
- dblohm7 4y ago
  You're precisely correct, IMHO. I use Windows on my desktop primarily because I don't have the patience to deal with (2).
- p4bl0 4y ago
  I would have agreed with that 15 and maybe 10 years ago. Nowadays, do you really think this is still true? At the university I work at some of the administrative staff with little to no technical knowledge are using Ubuntu and doing essentially the same thing they would on Windows or Mac, and that really not only web browsing, nor LibreOffice usage. For example they have to use custom horrible tools developed years ago that look just as familiarly awefull on Linux as they do on Windows or Mac (I'm talking of Apogée if any French academics pass by).
  - rocket_surgeron 4y ago
    >I would have agreed with that 15 and maybe 10 years ago. Nowadays, do you really think this is still true? Last month we had six linux desktops at work fail to boot after an upgrade using the disto's built-in update manager because of video card driver issues. These were all workstations manned by data scientists with brains the size of planets who foolishly thought that keeping their systems up-to-date for security reasons was a good idea. "Oh but that's Nvidia's faul.." Doesn't matter. Has never mattered. Will never matter. Upwards of 80% of all blue-screens that trashed Me's reputation were crappy S3 and ATI driver problems. I'm used to it because (to ward off distro bigots) at home I use a Linux distro so cool and advanced that you've never heard of it so I fixed the issues even though that's about six levels below my pay grade. That being said I only use Linux at home for work. And I hardly ever touch it once I get it working in case an update screws up OFED, or CUDA, or some other unresolvable package dependency hell conflict nightmare. "Oh the most current release changed the path to 'foo' even though that had been the standard for 40 years because some maintainer got a wild hair up their ass and wanted things to be 'elegant' and we didn't even bother to create a symlink" or "you can't have that version of a package because sixteen layers down is a dependency we don't want to have to deal with upgrading just do it yourself lol" every couple of months? Yuck. For everything else: macOS, "Because I ain't got time for that shit."
jwrallie 4y ago
A few years ago I installed CentOS (because it was supposed to be one of the most stable distros at the time) and my mom was happy using LibreOffice to make her documents. I taught her how to update the system and everything was well until one day she told me she could not update the system because the update program was gone. I thought the shortcut was misplaced or something, but actually CentOS had a bug where the graphical update utility uninstalled itself with one of the updates. I wonder how computer illiterate people are supposed to fix something like this without assistance :)

Dalewyn 4y ago

My own experience with Linux is that it breaks from the most mundane of things, such that I wouldn't even dare suggest Linux to the average person because the tech support baggage that will ensue would be far more expensive to me than if they just used Windows.

als0 4y ago
Have to say that Ubuntu LTS with the Firefox web browser drastically reduced the number of support calls I'd get from my parents, who used Windows 7 before. Of course, as soon as you start messing with packages or doing more advanced things, then more can go wrong. But it's really good for the web.
- jakswa 4y ago
  I have this same experience. I put ubuntu LTS on a family member's computer back in 2011, made sure the browser icons were big and front/center, and the support nags stopped. They said they loved whatever I did. I think there is some security-by-obscurity in there too, where all the insane spam/fraud/virus stuff couldn't even work on ubuntu if she ended up clicking on one. Nowadays I take it with a grain of salt: The support nags might have also stopped because other family got scared I would wipe their computer and put this new thing on there they were scared of having to learn.
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
Switch to Debian. They don't casually break things.
Aeolun 4y ago
And you know what? It’ll never update by itself unless you tell it to. It’s a very stable OS as long as you don’t mess with it.

CodeSgt 4y ago

I feel like linux only works for 2 categories of people: 1. The extreme laymen that do essentially nothing outside of the web browser 2. The tech savant that has the time, energy, and motivation to spend the countless hours required to get Linux to run anything sufficiently complex. Those in-between typically have the desire to do more than they are able to easily do OOTB with Linux, but also lack the technical ability to actually do it.

dblohm7 4y ago
You're precisely correct, IMHO. I use Windows on my desktop primarily because I don't have the patience to deal with (2).
p4bl0 4y ago
I would have agreed with that 15 and maybe 10 years ago. Nowadays, do you really think this is still true? At the university I work at some of the administrative staff with little to no technical knowledge are using Ubuntu and doing essentially the same thing they would on Windows or Mac, and that really not only web browsing, nor LibreOffice usage. For example they have to use custom horrible tools developed years ago that look just as familiarly awefull on Linux as they do on Windows or Mac (I'm talking of Apogée if any French academics pass by).
- rocket_surgeron 4y ago
  >I would have agreed with that 15 and maybe 10 years ago. Nowadays, do you really think this is still true? Last month we had six linux desktops at work fail to boot after an upgrade using the disto's built-in update manager because of video card driver issues. These were all workstations manned by data scientists with brains the size of planets who foolishly thought that keeping their systems up-to-date for security reasons was a good idea. "Oh but that's Nvidia's faul.." Doesn't matter. Has never mattered. Will never matter. Upwards of 80% of all blue-screens that trashed Me's reputation were crappy S3 and ATI driver problems. I'm used to it because (to ward off distro bigots) at home I use a Linux distro so cool and advanced that you've never heard of it so I fixed the issues even though that's about six levels below my pay grade. That being said I only use Linux at home for work. And I hardly ever touch it once I get it working in case an update screws up OFED, or CUDA, or some other unresolvable package dependency hell conflict nightmare. "Oh the most current release changed the path to 'foo' even though that had been the standard for 40 years because some maintainer got a wild hair up their ass and wanted things to be 'elegant' and we didn't even bother to create a symlink" or "you can't have that version of a package because sixteen layers down is a dependency we don't want to have to deal with upgrading just do it yourself lol" every couple of months? Yuck. For everything else: macOS, "Because I ain't got time for that shit."

jwrallie 4y ago

A few years ago I installed CentOS (because it was supposed to be one of the most stable distros at the time) and my mom was happy using LibreOffice to make her documents. I taught her how to update the system and everything was well until one day she told me she could not update the system because the update program was gone. I thought the shortcut was misplaced or something, but actually CentOS had a bug where the graphical update utility uninstalled itself with one of the updates. I wonder how computer illiterate people are supposed to fix something like this without assistance :)