Yes… it’s like default settings. The very action of changing a setting on any devices means you are a “power user”. You made a conscious decision on how the device should behave and you suspect it can be done. Meanwhile the vast majority of users do not even consider this a possibility.
Windows users are not using a computer, they are doing another task that happens to required a machine, they don’t learn about what it is, how it works, how it can be modified.
IMHO it was perfectly in the 70s when there was no laptop, desktop, mobile phone, mobile data. Now that one needs to use such infrastructure to interact with others, vote, pay bills, get access to culture, etc then I do believe computer literacy is not optional anymore.
Pretty sure you can change plenty of settings in Windows.
So they are power users by your own logic.
My point isn’t the availability of settings as a meaningful information but rather if somebody did change a setting, or not. If somebody changes a default setting, or a default OS, they are radically more likely to be a power user.
It’s like that, but it’s not the whole picture. That’s how it starts. Then they get to something they can’t change and start trying to figure out why. Then in their web searches they stumble into a Linux forum…
(True story)
If I can’t resize the giant taskbar, then what’s the point?
I have the privilege of never having to think about windows. Once in a blue moon I am forced to help someone using it and I am absolutely baffled at how anyone can accept to daily drive it. You all are in an abusive relationship and you have no idea.
Even Microsoft are now renting Linux VMs on their cloud infrastructure.
deleted by creator
Lol, apple is almost as bad, especially the iPhone walled garden.
Old Apple was pretty good, but they slowly chipped away at what I liked about it. Snow Leopard was peak UI and Mojave was the last I was willing to tolerate when they dropped 32 bit apps after that.
Seconded, snow leopard was peak macosx
Problem is: once you’ve perfected an OS, you still have to satisfy the C-Suites egos with canges. Result: everything gets worse.
They kept cramming stuff into the OS that should have and in many cases were, handled by apps. Mainly 3rd party software. Watson is a historic example of that.
deleted by creator
Hard disagree. I just started using Mac at my new job.
Why are all the hot keys wrong? Windows and Linux have fairly similar basic hot keys.
They both scroll the correct direction out of the box.
MacOS has decided my usb DAC doesn’t have volume adjust. Plug and play on windows and Linux.
I don’t think your comment is fair. Shortcuts and scrolling are just a matter of habit, missing functions in drivers happen with Linux all the time… but I was talking about how the user, for Microsoft, is a commodity to be sold; useability is an afterthought to adds and useless features.
On the other hand for Apple the user is a cow to milk. The OS is quite ergonomic, but you are corraled and prodded to only use (and buy) the tools that apple wants you to use.
What is worrying to me is that android is on the same trajectory and see do not have a viable Linux distribution for most ARM phones.
The fact alone that Mac doesn’t have a Control key like every other PC OS, but a command key should tell you how contrary Mac is to everything else.
The user is only a commodity if you use the free OS that comes with the computer you buy. You aren’t a commodity if you use Enterprise Windows, like at all. Every single feature you guys like to complain about can be disabled, which you can’t say about Mac. And you still get all the compatibility with virtually every single hardware and software in existence.
I stand by my position. You are in an abusive relationship and you do not even realize it.
It’s a missing driver issue, the driver is there and working, Mac just disables the audio slider.
My comment was about how Mac departs from the standard that other systems implement. It’s 2026, it’s not crazy to think that they should standardize on what windows and Linux uses
The average Linux evangelist on Lemmy vastly overestimates the tech-saviness of the average person.
I know, the average person probably only knows 2, maybe 3 distros Max
And Mint
Yes, of course Mint
Then you find the average windows user doesn’t even know what Windows is.
You’re the relevant XKCD for that!
“What’s a Linux?”
One of my fav xkcds, nice adaptation. (here for those uninitiated)
hey, i was just about to make Mint Tea. it’s the time of day i think about installing mint, change my mind, and gossip about it
over a cup of peppermint tea. it’s wonderful.
There truly is an xkcd for everything.
I work on the IT side of a non tech company. I don’t think vastly even comes close to covering how un-savvy the average person is
And it’s getting worse, not better.
It is a miracle if the average users ever learns a new program with a GUI. And will curse the gods when even a single button is moved.
And if anyone thinks they would be fine running any command on anything ever, they are deluding themselves.
A black box with a single line of text? = they are being hacked and will pull the plug just to get rid of it.
I think it’s more like people still hold onto a view of the difficulty that hasn’t been true for years now in the big ones (Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, etc). I agreed with this position 10 years ago, but not anymore. Users that aren’t super technical are likely just browsing, watching video, and playing games. All that works out of the box now with nearly no set up in my experience. My 7 year old has been using it with less problems than he was getting in Windows 11 (seriously).
This mirrors my experience as a dumb person desperately trying to seem to cool to nerds. I’d alwys try Linux and something wouldn’t work, I’d spend hours trying to fix it, then I’d just stop booting into it.
Been mono-booting Linux Mint with almost no problems for a year, the same time that Windows is the worst its ever been.
Did your 7 year old setup their own Linux environment?
Because anyone can run a fully configured computer. Doesn’t matter if it is Linux or Windows.
And the problem with Linux is the setup. Too many incompatible or badly written drivers. The first step is already finding hardware that is supported.
Also, did you use the out-of-the-box experience for Windows? Or try to put in too many workarounds because you didn’t like how Microsoft handles things? I bet your 7 year old would have zero issues with a regular Windows setup.
Yeah, but Windows is no easier to install… most people just don’t experience it because it is the usual pre installed OS. I don’t think it’s really fair to count that against Linux… in terms of the installation process, I found them to be similar, which is to say a pain in the butt. I wouldn’t recommend a non tech person try to install WIndows either.
Aside from that, no, it did not need any further set up aside from installing Steam via the repository. Arguably easier than in WIndows, certainly not harder. I did also install VLC but probably wasn’t necessary, there was a pre installed media player I don’t remember the name of…
It’s funny you mention drivers as that’s what made me switch it over. A Windows update inexplicably borked some video card drivers. I didn’t need to install any drivers manually for the Linux setup, it all worked out of the box without any issues so far. Driver pains used to be a big issue years ago, but I think for 90% of PCs it’s a non issue today.
No, it was a very vanilla Windows setup. At least I can’t think of anything… what kind of workarounds did you have in mind?
Shit’s better now. That’s not to say that your average person could handle everything.
If I have a normal person linux on a usb on a computer set to boot from usb, they could totally install it.
If an update fucks over a driver or a package, they’re completely fucked.
If they need to make their own boot usb, they’re completely fucked.
If they need to configure their computer to boot from the usb if it’s not setup that way … completely fucked.
If they’re good with generic drivers, generic browsers and probably steam, they’ll be fine.
Grandma is probably fine with Linux now.
Of course, a decent number of gen-x grandmas might have actually fucked around with linux years ago :)
It would be great if Mint or Zorin had an atomic version so a failed update can be switched back in seconds and it is essentially impossible for the user to break anything outside of the home folder.
NixOS does that. But it’s WAY too complicated for general use :)
That’s also a lot more work than I’m willing to put into using my computer when Win10 still works well enough.
Oh, absolutely. They’ve never had to do family tech support, and it shows.
Whenever you try to explain anything the conveesation is totally uninteresting
Note to self: they dont care. They dont care that they dont care
exactly the reason I swapped my parents pc to linux, its just stable and simple for them to use. they dont do much other than open the browser and go to youtube or just plug their phone in and copy over their photos to the pc
I dunno, I switched my 7 year olds laptop over specifically because Windows updates kept breaking things. Everything worked out of the box with Linux and hasn’t broken yet. He doesn’t care either way, he just wants to use his programs, and that’s been easier since switching. I say this as someone who very painfully had to use Linux for a few years about 10 years ago… the experience is just very different today. I don’t think a day to day user will notice any difference beyond better stability.
My experience is that once set up, the easy linux distros are way less likely to randomly stop working and need support. And by set up, I pretty much mean “install the OS and grab Steam”.
I tried to upvote you twice but was not allowed. So here is my second upvote: You hit the problem spot on!
Large majority of windows users never have a single thought about Linux users because they don’t know Linux exists.
MacOS users in this post:
TempleOS users in this post:
Well we wouldn’t want to commit sacrilege
lol Who?
Hated by both sides for different reasons but both are valid
macOS is for people who think people should earn for their work.
Linux is for people who believe NOBODY should EVER earn money for ANYTHING EVER.
Don’t believe me? Let’s talk about SuSE. Or Red Hat. Or IBM. All “evil” the second they started charging “money” for the “work” of the “laborers”.
lol
Open sources in awesome thing, but people should get paid for their labor without suddenly being considered evil
And you can debate the abominable labor practices of Apple Inc., but poor labor practices does not devalue their products, no matter how far you twist your logic or philosophy. nor how many childish tantrums you throw.
You think this sounds like a absurd argument? This is what you all sound like when you talk about macOS. Or even windows (which I have to agree is garbage, but that’s beside the point). Every single time. ridiculously, myopically, one-sided and so ignorantly biased… but nooo… nothing but Linux can ever be acceptable. And any criticism of it or any user of it is worse than the Holocaust.
You’re all a bunch of childish clowns
It’s a shame my instance has disabled downvoting.
Linux is not exclusively for anti-capitalist FOSS-lovers like myself. As you mentioned, there are multiple different corporate distros. Additionally, “The Cloud” runs on Linux: not even Microsoft uses Windows to host their services. And let’s not forget Android and Tizen!
All of that is, however, beside the point. Do you reject Wikipedia because it too is created by volunteers? Software, like knowledge, exists beyond the concept of scarcity.
If us FLOSS-lovers had our way, no one would ever have to pay for software, as it would be maintained by the community. And of course, most such projects and developers accept donations.
I hope this does not fall on deaf ears, though I understand that the concept of working to improve the lives of others (and one’s own life) without some form of direct payment is… foreign, to many people living under capitalism.
I’ve never seen a software freedom or open-source enthusiast make anything remotely like this argument. When we have criticisms of predominantly open-source-based companies, it’s usually because they’re adding some kind of proprietary scamware into their systems, not because they’re charging money for their services.
Plenty of people and companies have found ways to generate income - yes, even beyond donations - while still respecting other’s rights. You’re just repeating a lie that’s been debunked and dead for years.
I am a software engineer who believes software engineers should be paid for their work. I use Linux. Do I mean nothing to you??
I think most Linux users don’t have a problem with things like RHEL. I personally think it’s great. I don’t personally use it, but I have absolutely no problem with it.
The actual problem Linux users care about is when people use and modify the Linux kernel (or any other GPL project), distribute the binaries, but don’t distribute the source code. (I’m looking at you, Sony.)
Why is it that half the time I see a diatribe with no substance but a lot of syllables just for the sake of syllables it is you? Are you getting paid by the word?
Cut it out.
What a hypocritical thing to say
If you don’t like my comments, just do what I’m gonna do to you: use the block function
Also BSD
Meanwhile MacOS users:
:upscale()/2014/03/07/000/n/1922283/b02953202e56f57a_TP4tg1D-1.gif)
interpret as you see fit
IT Professional here. I would take a steaming shit on every Apple product anyone has ever needed my help with if I didn’t think it would get me fired.
There’s just as many bugs, they’re just pretty sometimes.
And when you’re not fighting bugs, you’re fighting the design of the OS itself
Welcome to your daily post about how Linux users talk so much about themselves…
Surrounded by zero Linux users talking about themselves.
I use arch btw
how are your feet?
And a whole bunch of Windows users clearly thinking way more about Linux than they care to admit.
With Lemmy, you’re being constantly bombarded how Linux is the golden grail of everything, that farts cotton candy and pisses rainbows.
I’d love to think more about Linux by installing it. But just the Linux community alone is enough to deter me. I don’t want to be seen as part of that group, ever. It is honestly the worst part about the entire environment.
And because you will need to interact with them whenever you encounter an issue. I just stay far away from them until the community can get their shit together.
Just asking what distro to use will get them fighting.
Can you point on the doll to where the bad penguin man touched you?
Honestly doesn’t come up much in my day to day
Comes up enough to post about tho, doesn’t it?
There is not a comment in this thread worthy of a shitpost, just lots of boasting how great Linux is. The Linux users don’t even get the irony of this. But, you’re technically correct.
Oh.
Well, the exact reverse of this was and has been my mental state for years now, untill a seemingly insecure Windows user here apparently felt the need to insinuate the opposite is actually case.
Evangelizing?
No, I don’t do that.
I answer some questions that some people have, where they’re initiating things.
Occasionally this elicits a REEEE type response from a Windows user… which I can usually counter with ‘I actually used to work for MSFT… that’s why I am now a linux user.’
Oh god, I remember that guy now. He would post vague linux memes that weren’t really for or against linux, then shit on linux in the comments. He made his own communities that he would solely post to. I blocked him after I realize he wasn’t going to get bored very quickly.
Linuxsucks community. Mudhunter or madhunter or something.
Found it. Madthumbs. He’s still posting several anti linux memes a day. The guy has some sort of mental illness.
The reasons I use Windows instead of Linux:
- I don’t really care that much
- i’ve had my PC on windows for a long time and haven’t had any major issue with it
- i’ve hard it’s a lot of work, especially when you already established a lot of things on windows
- I suck at coding. Closest I can do is vibe coding and it is very shameful. I can read and somewhat understand what code does, but I don’t have the time or patience to learn. Especially since there are so many languages and my school tried to teach Java for 2 school years, HTML for 1, and CSS for 1.
I switched to linux with no prior knowledge recently and it takes a while to learn things again I agree. Helps that I had to learn linux to mess with games not on steam for my steamdeck 🤷 it’s much much easier than it was before but it’s still a leap to switch from windows
Everyone knows Temple OS is the superior OS. You. Would say its divine
deleted by creator
It’s funny because without Linux, they wouldn’t have any of their modern luxuries, but they’re usually completely ignorant to that fact, like a bird eating fries off the ground thinking they’re really good at scavenging food.
You know people would just… Use other operating systems, right? The march of Technology doesn’t just halt because Linux never got invented, it likely would have just ended up with smaller machines using a stripped down form of windows
Yeah, I know that. It would probably be BSD though. Doesn’t change what I said. They’d be ignorant of whatever else it was. It definitely wouldn’t be Windows though. Proprietary systems would never work for things like server farms that have 500,000 servers.
What are you basing this off of? The alternate histories stock market history?
I promise you if Linux wasn’t invented we would have made another niche product or adapted what we have lol, the world doesn’t need to revolve around Linux
I’m basing off of the fact that Microsoft doesn’t even use Windows for their server fleets. Windows makes a terrible server.
IIRC, one of the main reasons Linux is so dominant for server-usage is because it was released before BSD. If Linux had never been made, BSD would very likely have taken its place. If BSD wasn’t made either? Some other Unix-like. Maybe Solaris or Mac. If Unix was never invented, then maybe Windows would take its place.
BSD was released as a standalone kernel over ten years before linux.
I lookes it up, and the quote I was thinking of was this:
“If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened.”
So yeah, sorry about getting the timing of things wrong, and thank you for correcting me.
I do still think however, that if not for Linux, it would be BSD running most servers and such.
I was wondering, the timing was a sore point for bsd users back in the day. But linux had the upper hand because it was built on pc, spoke the language, so to speak. The groundswell was immense because all the hobbyists already understood the boot stack and the machine code. I don’t disagree but it is “coulda woulda shoulda”.
If they had ported to 386 a few years earlier, linus probably would be a bsd enthusiast. It is also possible the window that drove him there could have persisted well past bsd on 386. Who knows.
BlueScreenofDeath is an operating system? how long was i high for?
You really underestimate the amount of companies using Windows servers to do literally everything.
The irony.
Linux? Isn’t that the kid from the Charlie Brown cartoons that walks around holding a blanket?
You clearly do if you went out of your way to make this meme.
I assumed it was a Linux person making it. As someone who is a Windows user by trade, but a Linux user at heart, I found it quite funny.
Nah, Linux users don’t have this much self awareness.
awhatness?
I’m well aware that Linux is niche for home-use, but I think that’s going to change very quickly, and I should like to hasten such changes.
Then do so by improving the community. Help new users without being condescending. Without just RTFM-them. And agree that Linux is far from perfect. That it still requires a lot more knowledge to use than a consumer based OS. And to call out any Linux hardcore that thinks they are better than others just for using a specific OS. Or shit on any other OS for that matter.
Then and only then will Linux get the chance to go mainstream.
Firstly, I actually don’t interact much with the Linux community itself. I’ve helped convince some of my online friends to switch, and I’m always available for tech support (unless I’m at work), and I’ve never RTFM’d anyone, nor do I act superior for using Linux (I am not holier than them, I merely want to save them from eternal damnation).
While I agree that Linux isn’t perfect (the fact that there’s AI code in the kernel makes my heart burn with fiery hatred), I think it’s a lot better than Windows (11; 10 was actually pretty decent). As for ease of use, that heavily depends on both the use case and the distro.
If you’re an author who only needs to write and use a browser, you can quite easily handle Ubuntu or Debian. If you’re a gamer, things can get more complicated, but Valve’s Proton has made Linux gaming so much more “it just works”.
So basically… yeah, I think Linux is better than Windows, and I’m happy to help people make the switch. When someone asks about Linux, or needs help, I get excited; I’m always happy to teach and share.
I don’t think about you at all
Creates and posts a meme depicting an imaginary interaction, because they don’t think about it.
