4 ms·

> The problem is that when things go wrong, problems rapidly begin to require levels of knowledge far outside what a layperson can reasonably acquire. A missing

• ivraatiems 1y ago
  Sure, here are a list of problems that people have come to me to help them solve on Linux machines: 1) Speakers are inexplicably swapped between left and right and you have to debug alsa/pulseaudio/pipewire to find out why 2) Bluetooth and WiFi don't work without drivers that require downloading and installing packages manually from different versions of the OS (eg the Ubuntu 22.04 drivers don't work but 21.04 do and that's not documented anywhere, I figured it out by reading logs and googling) 3) some devices or drivers don't work without enabling new kernel modules 4) some devices or drivers don't work without building a driver from source, the official binaries are not usable on a given system 5) sleep doesn't work correctly without manual configuration on command line 6) /etc/default/keyboard must be manually modified with the correct keyboard configuration for the device; the UI can't do it If you think the above are problems a layperson with no computing (and specifically Linux) expertise can solve, you may not be spending a lot of time around actual laypeople.
  • exe34 1y ago
    Now do the same with Windows. The "layperson" can't install Windows or find drivers for unusual devices either. The reason it's often easier on Windows is because the manufacturers took the time to create the image with the required components. That's what you're doing. You're the manufacturer/refurbisher.
    • okanat 1y ago
      Windows update automatically installs all drivers nowadays. Once installed all drivers keep working since Windows doesn't break compatibility that often (one can still use Win 7 drivers on Win 11). With Linux any driver compiled from source needs to be rebuilt at each kernel minor release. Some stuff has DKMS some don't. Some vendors keep up with distracted puppy level of change speed in kernel APIs. Most don't. With Linux you have to support your family computers ~each month to pull updates. With Windows all updates are automatic and require 0 remote support.
      • ndriscoll 1y ago
        My sample size is fairly small, but I've not encountered driver issues on anything in the last ~15 years. Most stuff is in tree (IME everything except nvidia), and despite what others report, I've never had an issue with nvidia binary drivers. My desktop with gtx1070 has been running the same installation for 8 years now. Why do you think Linux can't do auto-updates? There's probably a built in option for your distribution, but if not, just run your update command on a timer. Phones and ARM land seem to be a disaster of hardware support, but x86 PCs/laptops have all worked great for me.
        • okanat 1y ago
          > Why do you think Linux can't do auto-updates? Because they literally cannot. Linux package managers like to ask deeply technical questions. Even on Ubuntu dpkg will occasionally ask about configuration file changes and expect you to make decisions like keeping the existing one, replacing the config file with the new one or editing it. Windows never asks such questions. Its configs are relatively stable and usually Windows uses more formally defined forms like registry or XML files. They are much easier to write migration scripts for than human readable text files on Linux. As far as I know even packages like `unattended-upgrades` from Ubuntu doesn't perform things like kernel upgrades which requires `apt dist-upgrade`. They are required for keeping good security. And forget about upgrading an actual version like from 24.04 to 24.10. On Windows upgrades from 24H1 to 24H2 are relatively painless and can easily rolled back. My Ubuntu running colleagues had to rescue their distros at least twice since a version upgrade went wrong.
  • GoblinSlayer 1y ago
    At least on linux such bugs are fixable in theory, on windows they are unfixable even by experts.