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Yes and no. I think at the base, everyone just wants their software to run. The challenge is, people don't want to have to learn anything new to do that. What a

Yes and no. I think at the base, everyone just wants their software to run. The challenge is, people don't want to have to learn anything new to do that. What are most people comfortable with? Windows. Why? It was on their school computers, probably on their parents' computers and most likely on their work computers. I think if schools had their computer labs (if that's still a thing), running Ubuntu 24.04 and taught computer basics on Libreoffice, that is what people would want on their home computers, if they could go to Best Buy and buy a laptop with Ubuntu pre-installed. Maybe over the next 5-10 years we see this change as some schools issue Chromebooks?

hagbard_c 2y ago
The people who are 'used to Windows' will often be none the wiser if they're confronted with a Linux installation which is configured to look like Windows. Windows has many faces going back all the way to Windows 3.1 and many of those faces can show up when clicking around on a 'current' Windows version. This rather inconsistent look and feel means it is fairly easy to create something which more or less looks and acts like Windows in the eyes of those 'used to Windows' since they're used to things sometimes looking out of place. I think Windows is close to the end of being ubiquitous. The more Microsoft forces online features onto its users, the more those users will see Windows as that thing which launches the browser and with that the easier it will be to get people used to alternatives, especially if those alternatives offer many advantages over whatever Microsoft is peddling under the Windows moniker.
- weirdal3333 2y ago
  My grandma is currently using Linux Mint with a Windows skin. She doesn't know it's not Windows. Automatic updates run in the background.
  - hagbard_c 2y ago
    My mother - 86 years old - uses Linux (Debian with Mate, default theme), she knows it is Linux but it does not matter since she uses it in the same way as she used Windows 7: as a launcher for Firefox and Thunderbird and occasionally as an interface to her phone so I can help her remotely given that she lives in the Netherlands and I live in Sweden. Apart from Linux being faster and less intrusive there are no real differences as far as she is concerned. She used to click on Firefox and Thunderbird icons on the desktop on Windows 7, now she clicks on Firefox and Thunderbird icons on the desktop on Debian Mate. There are many more people like her who use personal computers in this way and they are much better off running some Linux flavour which is kept up to date, which does not spy on them, which does not try to upsell them, which does not insist on contrived expiry dates after which they need to buy new hardware so as to run the next version of the intrusive spyware called Windows 11/12/...

hagbard_c 2y ago

The people who are 'used to Windows' will often be none the wiser if they're confronted with a Linux installation which is configured to look like Windows. Windows has many faces going back all the way to Windows 3.1 and many of those faces can show up when clicking around on a 'current' Windows version. This rather inconsistent look and feel means it is fairly easy to create something which more or less looks and acts like Windows in the eyes of those 'used to Windows' since they're used to things sometimes looking out of place. I think Windows is close to the end of being ubiquitous. The more Microsoft forces online features onto its users, the more those users will see Windows as that thing which launches the browser and with that the easier it will be to get people used to alternatives, especially if those alternatives offer many advantages over whatever Microsoft is peddling under the Windows moniker.

weirdal3333 2y ago
My grandma is currently using Linux Mint with a Windows skin. She doesn't know it's not Windows. Automatic updates run in the background.
- hagbard_c 2y ago
  My mother - 86 years old - uses Linux (Debian with Mate, default theme), she knows it is Linux but it does not matter since she uses it in the same way as she used Windows 7: as a launcher for Firefox and Thunderbird and occasionally as an interface to her phone so I can help her remotely given that she lives in the Netherlands and I live in Sweden. Apart from Linux being faster and less intrusive there are no real differences as far as she is concerned. She used to click on Firefox and Thunderbird icons on the desktop on Windows 7, now she clicks on Firefox and Thunderbird icons on the desktop on Debian Mate. There are many more people like her who use personal computers in this way and they are much better off running some Linux flavour which is kept up to date, which does not spy on them, which does not try to upsell them, which does not insist on contrived expiry dates after which they need to buy new hardware so as to run the next version of the intrusive spyware called Windows 11/12/...