this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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I'm somewhat amused by the fact that lots of people are suggesting Linux as an alternative but can't agree on which flavor to use as the alternative.
Don't get me wrong, I think Linux is awesome, but this is the problem. You're never going to get the saturation necessary to bring average consumers over in significant numbers until they have a clear choice.
This user to be Ubuntu. I think I see probably something like SteamOS maybe being a standard in the future since many who stay on windows are doing so for gaming reasons, and that's the best prebuilt distribution for gaming.
Mint. The answer is Mint.
As a windows user, that desperately wants Linux to be user friendly enough, Mint is the only one that comes close.
Last time I tried the switch, it was just miles ahead of the rest of the distros.
I can vote Mint. I try out distros every once and a blue moon. And the one I keep coming back to is Mint.
So, Linux is written by system programmers for system programmers.
The rest of us get to outsource that work by using a premade distribution, where system programmers mostly volunteer their time and efforts to package togther the system they want to use and they distribute it for free. Of course, there is no consensus of what anyone wants to use so there are lots of different distributions.
This isn't a problem and there will never be consensus.
If you need a "clear choice", you can always subscribe to one from Microsoft.
This must be one of the most uninformed comment in a long time. Already 2001, there was quite a lot of UI work being done by the company Eazel, founded by Andy Hertzfeld who from Apple and with a bunch of former Apple people. Around the same time, Ximian (I think) was pushing project Utopia with the idea to form project teams of people from kernel devs up to UX, to ensure common tasks worked out of the box. One result of this is that printer configuration on Linux is a much easier than on any other OS. This all happened 20+ years ago, there have been quite a lot of UX people involved after that. And my experience is that people with little prior knowledge have an easier time with a modern Gnome desktop, than with Windows. The problem here is that most people know Windows to some extent, and are used to the weird quirks there, but any slight inconvenience on a new OS make them quit.
Maybe that's true for gnome, but gnome isn't linux just like CUPS isn't an operating system and systemd isn't an operating system (which is based on launchd).
It all has to be packaged together and distributed and unless you're doing all your own packaging (and LfS is an experience, but not really an OS!), you're relying on a distro maintainer to do that for you.
I thought the whole point here was to suggest people not use Windows... That seems to be what all the people saying "switch to Linux" are saying...
Your money, spend it how you want. Me, I'll eschew the bloated system designed to separate customers from their money in favor of the free and open source alternatives.
I guess I feel like "spend your money however you want" does a disservice to people who are not tech savvy who will now be pushed into a subscription model because they don't know any better. And they don't deserve to be kicked to the curb just because they don't have the computer knowledge to understand that Microsoft is fleecing them.
Offering them an alternative is great. Offering them 10 alternatives is just confusing. At best it will push them over to a Mac or a Chromebook because at least they know what those are.
The move to a subscription model is the disservice and requires no particular savvy to differentiate from free.
Macs and Chromebooks are fine for some people and won't require as much hand holding as a direct Linux install regardless of the distro.
People are going to rely on what others recommend when they don't know themselves. It's up to those people to cull the list from ten to two.
Is the person a budding tech that wants to hack on their system? Send them to Arch.
Are they a creative looking to craft? Throw them into Ubuntu Studios.
Maybe they're grandparents who barely understand tech. Ok, Mint or Elementary are good options... Just maintain SSH access with keys.
The options are a strength.
That's community software!
If you want to stick your fingers in your ears and go "LALALA" we don't care. We're not selling you anything, do what you think is best for you.
If you want to be treated as a consumer (aka milked for money), then go right ahead, we are not here to convince you otherwise.
Whenever you want something better, you know where to look. Some of us will be here to help you along.
The future is riddled with choice. That's kinda the point and it encourages competition and results in better products. The choice may not be obvious now but will become with time. Leaving reddit? A year ago, the alternative was unknown, today the choice is clearer.
I've been hearing Linux is the Future for... Well almost since Linux existed.
And at some point, it may just become the present, too :)
The thing is you won't find people discussing which service pack of windows to use. The cool thing about Linux is the diversity in environments. If win12 is a subscription based build, I will be joining the flock moving to Linux. After that moment linux will have all the saturation necessary for whatever is in store. I just hope it stays FOSS.
Most of the major components to Linux can't become not-FOSS. It's more likely that Windows will be made into a good, quality, user-respecting operating system.
(Also they can all be forked.)
I make it a habit to not underestimate corporate greed.
For the "I just want things to work because I got home and I don't want to deal with any troubleshooting" crowd like myself, should look to Ubuntu, Mint, and Pop!.
Different hardware combinations may work slightly better/worse on each, but they are all plug and play.
Mint is what I generally recommend
Windows is for the average person, but there's a linux distro for everyone.
Basic Internet-Browser/Email users should either get an ubuntu distro, or a debian distro, but not directly debian. Enthusiast Gamers and Power Users may prefer arch-based distros for their lightweight, and bleeding edge updates. Developers, and Power Users might prefer Debian over arch for it's intense stability over any other distro or OS.
If you're the type of person who wants a drop-in replacement where you don't have to learn anything new ever, and can just be 1:1 with windows, keep dreaming.
This isn't even the case between versions of Windows itself. This is a pipe dream and an excuse made up for some inconceivable reason.
It's an issue of culture not an issue of a clear choice. This is kind of the entire point of the Fediverse. Defaulting to the "Big Social Media" because it's easy and everyone knows it, and we know many people will go to it. But Once they're in, they'll begin to understand how the fediverse works.
It may seem entirely fascinating to us that people can't comprehend how the Fediverse works, but they eventually learn. Similarly we do have an easy Linux Distro that most people start with. Ubuntu.
Is ubuntu the best linux distro? no. Is Lemmy.world the best instance? also no. But looking for the best "x" in an ocean of choices is the wrong question to be asking. What we want to ask is "What is the best 'x' for them?" Ubuntu has the foundations of most everything linux. Most people know Ubuntu, some before they even know what linux is. Once they've gone through and learned more about linux they typically go through the phase of distro hopping for desktop environments, not understanding quite yet that those two are not married to eachother. Slowly they'll start to come to this understanding, but it won't click until they go to a distro originator like Arch or Debian. Where the install process includes selecting a desktop environment. Then from there more things will begin to click.
The best thing we can do is forward people along this path. Imo, the average user should probably start with installing debian in a virtual machine and installing every desktop environment. Allowing them to switch between them until they decide which one is the best for them.
I've been linuxing for about a year and a half now and have tried Manjaro, mint, Ubuntu, Kali. And fedora. I could not for the life of me get my graphics card working with it. So I moved on. Ubuntu ran like hot ass which lead to mint. Which just kind of did what it should. Manjaro was a g=st way to dio my toe into arch l, and I use it as a backup os on a spare ssd. Kali is occasionally useful when I want to do some digging or broaden my knowledge on infosec.
I guess my point is that there isn't really one flavour that does it all. For me anyway, there's just kind of a handful of daily driver candidates and ones for specific use cases. \ete I tk get back into gaming id imagine pop os would appeal.
And the average consume would probably rather have a piping hot ramen enema then learn or tinker with any of the above. Command lines are intimidating and most people will give up as soon as they see one.
OpenSUSE looks the most like Windows. The real problem is driver support being Windows first.