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"Just use Linux" is much like "just ride a bike" or "just shop at a refill store" - accessing the non default option can be time consuming, expensive or unavailable locally. We need to recognise you need a certain degree of privilege to have the capacity to complicate your life voluntarily. We need to be trying to make the better, harder thing more accessible, not blaming people for not using it.
@afewbugs
People have been working on making Linux more available for decades now. It's at the stage where it's probably more intuitive, more usable and more friendly than Windows ever was.
Yes, it's different, and thus requires investment in familiarizing yourself with a different os, but it's no worse than going, say, from win10 to win11.
The "Linux is for nerds" meme has to die.
@Mux @afewbugs it's not about it being "for nerds" or not, it's simply less accessible because it's not The Default and it's not what people are already used to using
There's always gonna be an uphill struggle in cases like these, and blaming people for not essentially gambling away their time for something unknown to them just reinforces the idea that Linux is for pretentious nerds
@hazelnot
Neither is Microsoft's latest os, whatever that is. Every time I have to use one I'm completely confused because each version has a completely different interface.
Honestly Classic Gnome on Ubuntu would be so much more familiar to anyone who was there for the Win95/XP/Vista era than modern Windows interfaces.
People get used to what they're given. Don't underestimate people. They can learn a new interface pretty quickly. They have been doing so for decades.
@afewbugs
@Mux @hazelnot @afewbugs I teach tech, mostly to folks who tend to be older and less confident. The most common response to this proposal tends to be around the fact that, ironically, they trust big tech companies more, even if they hate them; if it's free - many assume - then it must also be worthless. They struggle on with a clunkier, more confusing Windows operating system because of this, when they could be using an OS more comparable to the one many of them use on their phone (essentially a free, open source OS with a simple software centre). I agree that we cannot underestimate the mass marketing of Microsoft that promotes their inferior product. I remember mentioning this challenge to folks who work on Linux, who told me "We don't have time or money to do publicity, we're busy working on creating a better OS." There's the rub!
@MediaActivist @Mux @hazelnot that's a fascinating point that the boomer generation in particular seems to trust corporations more than the alternative, which feels a bit perverse. My Mum for example prefers to eat supermarket vegetables and won't eat vegetables from the local farm box scheme or even the neighbour's garden because "you don't know how they grew them"! They do seem to believe corporate stuff has to meet certain standards of safety or something
@afewbugs
Well, tbf, Linux does come with NO GUARANTEE OF USABILITY OR FIT FOR PURPOSE, so there's that.
@MediaActivist @hazelnot