Let’s say just like for example like MacOS. It’s awesome we have so many tools but at the same time lack of some kind of standardization can seem like nothing works and you get overwhelmed. I’m asking for people that want to support Linux or not so tech-savy people.
Need hardware with it pre installed with a reason to buy other than because it has Linux
Maybe use the lack of a requirement for a Windows license to bring the price to performance ratio down
If they’re really performant machines also helps break the idea Linux is only for old and slow machines, I only ever used to put it on laptops as they were reaching the end of their usefulness, the moment I put it on my pc and a new laptop it changed my perception on it entirely
I also think the majority of technical users still use windows, maybe we should concentrate on getting them first and maybe we’ll see more support
On top of being preinstalled, we also need google search-able instructions that avoid the terminal altogether. People are afraid of the terminal, it doesn’t matter why, it just is.
Currently, most solutions to linux problems come in the form of terminal commands. We would have to start creating a whole new troubleshooting forum where instructions avoid the terminal and are just lists of buttons to press in a GUI. Probably helpful screenshots too.
Of course I have no idea if some things even have GUIs at all, like configuring user groups and permissions or firewall settings, someone would need to make them. Not to mention every DE or program would need a different set of instructions, GNOME or KDE, firewalld or iptables. It’ll be a lot of work.
I searched but never ever found a website with Linux help specially for non IT people. This is seriously needed. Everywhere I’ve looked, gatekeepers with no clue about the GUI solutions, insist people use the command line for day to day user tasks. Sure things vary between desktop environments, but it’s important people learn about their desktop. It’s how they get comfortable, and stay. And not stuck reliant on strangers having to spoon feed them cryptic text commands each time. I’d be happy to help contribute. As I’ve found GUI ways to do nearly everything.
This is the biggest thing. I’m very comfortable in Bash, but that is not the norm; the second my wife needs to run
sudo apt get, she’s out, fuck that
Whether any OS could ever just work isn’t even going to solve the issue.
Getting OEMs to sell laptops and desktops in Best Buy (or the like) that have Linux installed and is properly supported — that is what will help solve the issue.
having it just work is a necessary step to gett there
When there exists an operating system that can satisfy that qualification, I’ll concede the point. Until then, OEM and retail support is what matters.
Maybe we are too used to Linux working on anything but with some imperfection.
And yet it again leads to oficial supported hardware.
Most people have had great answers coming from the company side of things. I’ll take it from the standpoint of individuals like us helping someone linux curious see the light, while still having the “just works” experience.
Do not give them any choices. None. Put them on your stable distro of choice for a new user, call whatever that is “Linux”, and be on your way.
But why? Isn’t that antithetical to everything we value? Yes and no. We value choice almost above anything else, but that doesn’t “just work” for most people. Which of those do you value more?
No-one who buys a PC with windows preinstalled gets any choice at all… and had the preinstalled malware cme with it.
That’s true. Most are perfectly fine provided they have a computer ready to use. Straight out of the box. Immediately. The lack of choice itself is comforting. Everything moves forward. No lateral motion.
We must provide them that type of “thing that just works”. Constantly move forward. What is comfortable. What is familiar.
More GUI front ends for stuff. This takes away the need to understand command line tools and syntax, and makes the out-of-the-box experience feel more like it just works.
Exactly. That’s Windows’ secret. Give us a control center where it’s easy to control NetworkManager, Pipewire, systemd, and other parts of the OS, and give them not-so-technical names. That’s one of the keys to Windows’ success. Others involve EEE and anticompetitive practices but we don’t want Linux going that way now, do we?
It’s not that Windows isn’t complicated, it’s just that there’s a GUI for everything.
Yip. I was trying to find a useful front end to manage the audio settings on my focusrite audio interface. Pipewire has the functions and capability to set the sample rate and buffet size on the fly but I failed to find a gui until for it that wasn’t part of some other complicated thing. When I suggested the Devs of pipewire should provide a GUI I was politely shot down. The reasons given were; it takes too long, and Linux users don’t mind the CMD line. I think this is a mind-set that needs to evolve.
SUSE / OpenSUSE has this. You can open Yast2 GUI utilities and access all the GUI utils like Windows old Command Center. Hardware, package and driver installs, add hardware and configure, network, enable services and tweak parameter, printer tools, mess with boot options or kernel parameters, etc. The average user would never need to touch CLI
Needs to be pre installed, most people don’t know how to reset their PC, let alone install a new OS.
The problem is, that no operating system “just works”. It also highly depend on what the person wants to achieve, and if there are any pre experience with computers or even relying on existing software or specific hardware. My recommendation is not to tell people the illusion of “just works” and be honest upfront. People should learn how it works, what to expect and if tradeoffs, time and resources are worth it.
Same is true for the other way too. Does Windows “just works”? Especially if someone switches from Linux to Windows.
Rather, we should teach the reasons to switch and encourage that decision. In example why it matters to have control over your system, rather than the company has control over it (MacOS and Windows) or why spying on you is bad (Windows). And encourage giving up something you are used to (and maybe paid). Sometimes its okay to use a program that is not as good as Photoshop. Sometimes its okay to give up playing a videogame you like (and maybe associated with friends playing that game with you). But most people are not ready to do it, because that is associated with lowering quality of life.
I switched in 2008 from Windows XP to Ubuntu. I know these struggles. And they are not over yet. This is an ongoing task between my brother and me too, and he was using the Steam Deck, but decided to go with Windows 11 with the recent build. It was almost there, but there is always a butt. I say, don’t tell people that “Linux just works”. No operating system “just works”.
I hate to say this, but windows rarely breaks itself from updates. basic things like the desktop, audio and the lock screen is essentially never broken after an update.
yeah it may reset the audio settings and other such things, and I don’t know how do they manage to do that, but that’s relatively simple to revert.
probably it’s just thanks to old, battle tested code though. can’t wait for Linux desktop systems to reach that point
Most common Linux distributions focused on stability do not randomly break with updates. That’s usually not an issue. Basic things like Desktop and audio or lock screen are also never broken after an update. But it depends on the Linux operating system you are using (there are thousands of Linux operating systems and they can vastly differ) and what hardware and habits you have. Windows biggest strength is that it gets the most support from developers and being basically only one distribution to target.
But calling Windows “battle tested code” is a bit of stretch. Windows is full of problems and I had my own issues due to updates of Windows (when I was using it in dual boot). Also in Linux I can update and do not boot until I want to boot. I can decide not to update. Overall I have more trust in Linux updates (even using on Archlinux) than Windows updates. Microsoft constantly fucks up updates. And they even introduce and install stuff you don’t know or want to.
An old story of mine buying Civilization 6 at launch on Windows was unplayable. After days and contacting support, turned out it was a Skype installer that was installed with a Windows update without my knowledge. And it was just an installer to install Skype, not even running. Removing it made my game Civilization 6 playable. I never had such an issue on Linux.
I tried switching to Linux many years ago (forgot what distro). It was hell.
I don’t remember the specifics anymore, but I remember encountering issues almost every step of the way. Driver support, not being able to find the right buttons, etc. Searching for fixes usually led me down a rabbit hole of “oh cool this user on this forum said in another thread that I just need to install Gobbledegook… But what is it and how do I install it?” and of course a bunch of things require CLI which I’m not fantastic at. Unfortunately I gave up after a week.
Compared to that, Windows really “just works”. I have had my share of frustrations, but it’s usually with stuff that’s comparatively an edge case when compared to the problems I had with Linux. I don’t like that I’m giving money/data to a megacorp, but the price of that is convenience. I don’t churn my own butter, I don’t build my own car, I don’t want to think too much about how my OS works under the hood.
Also, Linux does not auto-update itself, and that’s bad mostly when looking at the programs (like the web browser) that did that automatically, and here it can’t anymore.
I understand that most users don’t update their system and the utils they downloaded, but that’s essential for a web browser.
I was considering that I should just install Firefox as the fatpak for everyone, instead of the core package manager, for this and other reasons, but my users have so little memory in their old machines that it’s already barely necessary.
BazziteOS is really straightforward. Newbies can just jump on there.
MacOS being a bad example here since Apple only needs to make its OS work on a very small set of hardware that they control wheras Linux (and Windows, yes) need to work on probably hundreds of thousand if not millions of devices (including Macs 👌) with at least the same amount of peripherals combined in almost any imaginable way. That’s a completely different task.
Software-wise, it seems that the relatively fast adoption of flatpaks and other containerized formats somewhat solves the typical dependency hell that was so common in Linux just a few years back (and to some extent still is an issue today depending on your distro and use case). The hardware support side is a little harder. That’s going to be up to vendors to play nice with the Kernel team and/or introduce reasonable userland software that doesn’t break the golden rule. Until Linux gets more market share the latter isn’t likely to happen. A nice side benefit of the emergence of immutable and/or atomic distros is that users can play around and try things with much lower risk of bricking their systems, so I’d also consider that a step closer in the “it just works” department.
Software, 1,000%. I love linux and daily drive it. But when I have videos to edit, photos to rework, or collateral to design I have a windows laptop with professional grade tools to do the job.
I’m sorry, gimp is hot garbage. There isn’t a pro-grade, open source video editing tool or anything close. Inkscape is useable in a pinch. Scribus is useless.
Not everyone is a multimedia creative professional, but most software on linux never quite have the features you need, are no longer maintained, or will be useful in ten years.
That said, I’d still rather break out the laptop when doing client work than daily drive MacOS or Windows 11. Either way the barrier for most users is that linux almost works.
Gimp works really well, just that it is destructive editting.
As for the software not having features or not being useful, part of that comes down to: if a company offers a linux version make sure you use it. For a proprietary MCAD and PLM system from Siemens, we had a unix version, then windows, then when Linux was viable with support on SUSE and RHEL we had the exact software OEM aerospace and Automotive engineers used for design and management. Trouble is not enough companies used it to make supporting it a worthwhile effort, so they ditched the GUI desktop support. You can still run the few years old version. Maybe it will come back with Linux rising from 1-2% to 4.5% ; if that trend continues
It would be nice if it was possible to simply go to a website, check off on the stuff you want and then get a full package.
I liked the idea of AV Linux, because it comes in a bundle of stuff that I need, but it also comes with a lot stuff that I don’t need, and I’m not sure the desktop is my choice. It also didn’t really work at the time I tried it.(Some years ago).
So… if I, a stupid user, could simply go to a website, check mark at the desktop, check off which office package, music apps, browser, etc.etc. and then get a download of that in one go where it’s all set-up and works, it would be a lot easier than having to go through the process of installing the OS and then installing/removing apps, and then making it work…
Like, let’s say I want a PC just for music creation, I should be able to download the the OS with the DAW of my choice, all the VSTis and potentially also the most common free sound banks. In one file.
If I wanted an office PC, I should be able to get the OS, the office suite of choice and all the misc. PDF tools, email client and whatnot of choice. All in one go.
Windows and macOS sort of came with everything before, but these days they’re just as annoying to set up as any Linux distribution. Linux as a whole could take advantage of that situation by offering a prepackaged but custom installation.
Of course it would also help if someone made a Linux installer for windows, so users didn’t have to use windows to create a bootable USB. I think this is the step that normal users hesitate on. I don’t know if it’s possible, but it ought to be possible from software to partion the disc and install dual boot or something.
Like Ninite but for distros. Man…that sounds so easy of a concept. Shocking that no one has made that.
Linux is a tool that big corporate entities have profited greatly from for many years, and will continue to. Same with BSD, Apache, Docker, MySQL, Postgres, SSH…
Valve, Sys76, Framework, etc. Are proving that using Linux to serve an end user market is also profitable, and are capable of supporting enterprise use-cases.
I understand that there may be specific problems to solve wrt improving adoptability, usability, compatibility, etc., but Linux is doing more than ok within the context of the FOSS ecosystem (and increasingly without).
Your thinking is slightly skewed, IMHO. Linux doesn’t have an inherent incentive to compete with MacOS or MS, and if it did, it would be subject to the same pressures that encourage bad behavior like spying on users, creating walled gardens, and so forth.
But Linux is open source? So if hypothetically so distro adopted spying al la windows couldn’t people just change distros? tbh I also think the question is slightly confusing as I don’t understand why OP thinks Mac OS is not standardized but I digress.
Yeah sure, a distro could start spying on users. How easy it would be would depend on their distribution model, and how willing they are to violate the GPL.
lack of some kind of standardization
Standardization = monopoly risks. It’s not worth it in the first place.
Let’s say something like systemd standarization.
Such stuff is almost perfectly standardized on Linux (and the risks are there too).
List me what is standardized on Linux.
I’m not that much of an expert but I know display protocols, init system and audio protocol (there are 2 but the new standard supports stuff made for the older one) are standardized.
They are getting closer to this but also I think those projects emerged from being old and unorganized so they want to do it decently.
It is very hard, time consuming and boring to iron out those finishing issues in any software product. You need team of people being paid for that.
When doing it for fun, I just go until it works and until it is fun. As soon as I come to those last 20% I never touch it anymore.
So ai doubt it will happen until more companies start paying decelopera to do it. But I don’t see the business model in that, so I doubt it will get better fast.