linux is great for two types of people… those that just need a browser or libreoffice and could use even a livecd or reset-on-reboot kiosk mode type se;tup that’s been set up for them, and those that want to get their hands dirty.
for everyone else, it can really be a pain in the ass sometimes when something goes wrong. help is fragmented in even more ways than the distros themselves, and every third response is usually something along the lines of ‘google it’ (“i did, that’s how i got here”) or ‘rtfm’ (“what fucking manual?”–documentation is lacking for soooo many things) and then silence.
at least with windows you should already know going-in that ‘backup and reinstall’ is probably high-up at #3 on the list of things to try/do, after you search and scan a much larger pile of resources specific to windows and its (relatively few, by comparison) different versions.
This is a take I would have agreed with 10 years ago but not today.
There’s also the SteamDeck and gaming is a very valid use case now. I do admittedly like getting my hands dirty but I use Linux as a daily driver for school and home.
The forum culture has gotten a bit better. It used to be like that more often 10 years ago but now people seem more helpful. It also really depends on what you google. (E.g. my desktop crashed Linux help vs gnome crash error from logs) But you’re also expecting a lot of free support from the community. If you need support buy Linux from a company that offers support like System76, Steam, etc.
Ok, and you can also just backup and reinstall Linux?? In fact some distros automatic snapshots of your system get taken and you can roll back from the terminal or bootloader.
The last one I just don’t get. Windows errors are cryptic hieroglyphics or UX’d to uselessness. At least I’m Linux it tells me what went wrong either on the screen or in logs. Even with visual bugs I’ve been able to find an exact bug report with the developers response and the version it will be fixed in after some Googling.
help is fragmented in even more ways than the distros themselves, and every third response is usually something along the lines of ‘google it’ (“i did, that’s how i got here”) or ‘rtfm’ (“what fucking manual?”–documentation is lacking for soooo many things) and then silence.
This, and persistent sound driver issues, are what ultimately drove me away after using Linux as my primary for a few years. Forums were also filled with shorthand and they wouldn’t tell you what to actually type into the fucking terminal. Can’t figure out what the shorthand means? Too bad, because nobody will tell you.
Totally agree, but with the caveat that if you have to support this user anwyay, bite the bullet and switch to Apple - at least they can still run Office and pretend it’s windows while still benefitting from simply restarting everything as a fix.
linux is great for two types of people… those that just need a browser or libreoffice and could use even a livecd or reset-on-reboot kiosk mode type se;tup that’s been set up for them, and those that want to get their hands dirty.
for everyone else, it can really be a pain in the ass sometimes when something goes wrong. help is fragmented in even more ways than the distros themselves, and every third response is usually something along the lines of ‘google it’ (“i did, that’s how i got here”) or ‘rtfm’ (“what fucking manual?”–documentation is lacking for soooo many things) and then silence.
at least with windows you should already know going-in that ‘backup and reinstall’ is probably high-up at #3 on the list of things to try/do, after you search and scan a much larger pile of resources specific to windows and its (relatively few, by comparison) different versions.
This is a take I would have agreed with 10 years ago but not today.
There’s also the SteamDeck and gaming is a very valid use case now. I do admittedly like getting my hands dirty but I use Linux as a daily driver for school and home.
The forum culture has gotten a bit better. It used to be like that more often 10 years ago but now people seem more helpful. It also really depends on what you google. (E.g. my desktop crashed Linux help vs gnome crash error from logs) But you’re also expecting a lot of free support from the community. If you need support buy Linux from a company that offers support like System76, Steam, etc.
Ok, and you can also just backup and reinstall Linux?? In fact some distros automatic snapshots of your system get taken and you can roll back from the terminal or bootloader.
The last one I just don’t get. Windows errors are cryptic hieroglyphics or UX’d to uselessness. At least I’m Linux it tells me what went wrong either on the screen or in logs. Even with visual bugs I’ve been able to find an exact bug report with the developers response and the version it will be fixed in after some Googling.
This, and persistent sound driver issues, are what ultimately drove me away after using Linux as my primary for a few years. Forums were also filled with shorthand and they wouldn’t tell you what to actually type into the fucking terminal. Can’t figure out what the shorthand means? Too bad, because nobody will tell you.
Totally agree, but with the caveat that if you have to support this user anwyay, bite the bullet and switch to Apple - at least they can still run Office and pretend it’s windows while still benefitting from simply restarting everything as a fix.