Linux needs to grow. Stop telling people it’s ‘tech-y’ or acting like you’re more advanced for using it, you are scaring away people. Linux Mint can be used by a senile person perfectly.
Explain shortly the benefits, ‘faster, more secure, easier to use, main choices of professionals and free’. Ask questions that let you know if they need to dual boot, ‘do you use Adobe, anti-cheat games, or Microsoft Office’, ‘how new is your computer’, ‘do you use a Mac’.
And most importantly, offer to help them install.
They don’t understand the concept of distros, just suggest Linux Mint LTS Cinnamon unless they’re curious.
That’s it, spread Linux to as many people as possible. The larger the marketshare, the better support we ALL get. We can fight enshittification. Take the time to spread it but don’t force it on anyone.
AND STOP SCARING PEOPLE AWAY. Linux has no advertising money, it’s up to us.
Offer family members or friends your help or copy and paste the below
how to install linux: 1) copy down your windows product key 2) backup your files to a harddrive 3) install the linux mint cinnamon iso from the linux mint website 4) use etcher (download from its website) to put the iso on a usb flash drive 5) go into bios 6) boot from the usb 7) erase the storage and install 8) press update all in the update manager 9) celebrate. it takes 15 minutes.
edit: LET ME RE-STATE, DO NOT FORCE IT ON ANYONE.
and if someone is at the level of ignorance (not in a derogatory fashion) that they dont know what a file even is genuinely dont bother unless theyre your parents cause youll be tech support for their ‘how do i install the internet’ questions.
Stop being elitist.
Use linux mint.
Why linux mint?
It’s like ubuntu but no snaps.
What’s ubuntu?
It’s like debian but not as stable. You’ll get more recent apps in ubuntu, test them, and when they are tested companies use the apps in debian.
Ok, What are snaps?
You can install packages with snap, but it’s proprietary.
Ok, that’s bad?
Yes. Foss apps are great and better than proprietary garbage.
Ok, foss good, proprietary garbage.
Why debian and not fedora?
Because all apps are build for it.
So it’s like aur?
No. Aur is made by users for users. Builds on debian are mostly official.
So the package manager is better on debian?
Yes, kind of.
I heard of distrobox. I could use the package manager on any distro.
Yes, but it’s easier at the beginning to stick to one distro and package manager to get used to it.
Why not arch?
It’s too unstable.
Ok, no arch distro. I heard manjaro is good.
No, it holds back packages for no reason.
Ok. What about fedora?
It doesn’t have as many packages.
But it has the copr, aren’t there a lot of apps?
Yes, but it’s like aur, it’s build by users. Debian builds are good, stable and widely used.
Ok. What about nix? I heared it’s the new arch and there are even more packages.
Yes, but It’s not for newbies.
What is an immutable system? I heared that’s the next big thing.
It’s like android an image based operating system where you can’t brick your system by accident with rm -rf /
What’s rm -rf /?
Just test it in a terminal, it’s fun.
How can I play games?
You install steam.
Do I have to configure anything?
Hopefully not
Can I only use linux mint?
No you can use any distro, they are all linux. You can choose whatever you want. Just choose mint.
Why mint?
It has no snaps.
What do I use instead?
Flatpaks
If I use flatpaks, why does the package manager matter so much?
Because not all apps are available as flatpacks, especially command line tools. Snaps has cli but it’s proprietary.
Can’t I just use any distro and use a debian distrobox for those packages I need from debian?
Yes, use linux mint, it’s easy to use.
Do I actually need all those packages? I only use word and steam.
No, probably not.
Why not using ubuntu and install flatpaks?
Because ubuntu sucks.
But isn’t mint based on ubuntu?
Yes, but it has no snaps.
Can’t I just use debian?
Yes, but it doesn’t have the latest packages.
How do I install word?
You can’t. You can use the online version.
That’s a lot to understand. Can’t I just windows? I only open steam anyway.
Yes, but it’s proprietary.
Steam is also proprietary.
Yes, but you xan play games with it on linux.
But if steam is proprietary, and windows is proprietary, and I mainly use steam anyway, does it even matter?
What’s a DE?
Linux mint uses cinnamon, it’s cool!
I saw some KDE screemshots. It looks cool and everyone talks about it. There’s a big release coming in a few weeks. how do I install it?
You usually don’t mix DEs unless you know what you do.
I don’t.
Then don’t mix it.
But I want to use KDE. Which distro should I use? Kubuntu?
No, it uses snaps like ubuntu.
…
No it doesn’t. If you don’t care and just want anything that runs Steam, don’t bother. Just pick anything, it runs fine on most Linux distributions, Windows and probably Mac. You’re fine with tossing a coin. I’d choose Linux in that case since it’s cheaper.
A proper conversation would be like this:
What shall I use?
Depends… What do you want to do with your computer?
Play games with Steam.
Alright, then use XY. Wanna know more?
No.
Fine.
Thanks for the laugh 😀
Someone prefers mint.
How do I install word? https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=LH-6tp-KBuQ
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OK I’m searching in vain for the mega-upvote button.
I would add that desktop Linux only exists today as an alternative to Windows because of those values. This history of Linux desktop environments and applications is rife with examples of popular or personally important bits of software that were forked and kept alive by the freedom granted by FLOSS licensing.
If “Linux” was a thing that MS could have bought and then destroyed or enshittified, they’d have done it twenty years ago. And make no mistake, they continue to play the long game.
Yes, we should all be good to newcomers. No, the direction of desktop Linux should not be steered by wanting more of them. It should be steered by a need to provide desktop Linux for people who enjoy using desktop Linux.
I wish Free Software, Free Society were mandatory reading…
It’s already dominant on the servers.
People who daily drive Linux are not the ones who spread the old idea that it’s “too techy”.
I admittedly don’t have many conversation about Linux with people, but yeah the ones I do have are usually me trying to convince people that it’s less techy and scary than they think it is. One person asked me how I do everything if it’s only text. They thought Linux was literally just the terminal with no UI at all. I had to be like “no dude, it’s like everything else. You can just install Firefox or Chrome or whatever you want.”
It’s still techy, here two recent problems I faced with still no solution’( specially with only Gui)
- Try to put Programs such as Firefox , emby in startup of linux
- Find a folder comparison software, let it feels nd external drive ATTACHED TO LAPTOP and compare two folders on it.
and every time I say Linux is not usefull for simple use i get downvotes all the time . Cause Linux bro dudes can do it with terminal so easy… Well guess what linux dudes , its hard for performing many tasks which are simple enough on windows/Mac heck even on Android ( which is Linux also I know) , but desktop Linux has looooooooooooooong way to be normal os in households
Find a folder comparison software [with only Gui]
A quick web search (even without ‘graphical’) turned up pages suggesting meld in the first few results.
Try to put Programs such as Firefox , emby in startup of linux
Ignore me if you’re not still looking for solutions.
IIRC, some distros have a way to do this through the gui, some don’t. I’m on LMDE, and it thankfully does have a gui to set startup programs.
But all distros should be able to do this. Here are some a common ways:
https://operavps.com/docs/run-command-after-boot-in-linux/
Instead of a complicated script, your command would literally just be “firefox”, or “emby”. You might need to search for what the command for a given program is.
It’s nowhere near as simple as it should be, but it is certainly possible.
This is gonna cause more harm than good. The reason people think it’s techy is because it is. I would recommend linux to my grandma and someone who loves tech. The middleground runs into a lot of issues for doing anything beyond basic computer stuff.
This post gives me the vibe of someone desperately trying to get people to buy the cryptocurrency they’re invested in. Particularly the part where only the good is mentioned and the bad is omitted.
Some linux people are pretty elitist though, and it’s not helping the cause. but in the same way, i dont think pretending that it’s the greatest thing since sliced tea is much better.
The Lemmy Linux Community is elitist about Linux, I mean I told them I can’t find a file comparators on Linux I got downvotes , out of 4 , 1 solutions is use of Terminal(not a basic user would want to do) , 1 is claiming windows is bad and 1 might be a solutions.
But yah I got the downvotes from LINUX Bros. Dudes needs to just admit linux läcka programs and simplicity of use for general use.
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True on both counts.
Part of me thinks you’re being unreasonable, because that question did receive decent responses (1 CLI + GUI suggestion, 1 GUI suggestion, and 2 beginning to try troubleshoot the drive access problem).
But I suspect it’s just a dissonance in perspectives, maybe due to your Linux distro causing a bunch of stupid issues, which haven’t been properly noticed by anyone yet.
It’s a shame that some distros like Ubuntu have enshittified so badly that they’ve become unsupportable. (Nothing seems to work rationally – the same reason I find it impossible to support users on Windows).
Advocates and potential/new users alike, need to consider specific distributions, not just “Linux”.
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I’ve seen a couple of posts in here about sound. It’s wild that I’ve been through dozens of distros since the start of high school (12 years ago), installed them on at least 10 machines over that time, and can’t remember one issue with sound that took more than 15 seconds to fix (e.g discord choosing the wrong sound device because I have 6 things plugged in that can technically output sound, which also happens to my friends who use Windows).
Maybe I’m just lucky. The only issues I recall having in the last decade are essentially graphics related. Either game compatibility (though proton/wine is much better than it was in 2015) or desktop environments being finicky (freezing on sleep for example), but the latter afaict was entirely due to proprietary nvidia drivers. There are proper, high-performance open source drivers in the works, so nvidia might be on par with amd in 2-3 years on Linux (which is to say literally no issues for the vast majority of people, probably far more stable than Windows).
In the same time I’ve had lots of people come to me with problems that we’ve specifically troubleshooted and found Windows to be the issue even when it seemed like hardware problems. Like monitor flickering/black screening, and plugging in a different monitor the issue goes away. On the surface it seems like a hardware problem, but both monitors worked flawlessly on Linux for literally months. Full reinstalling Windows did not fix the issue. Upgrading from Windows 10 -> 11 did not fix the issue.
Same thing with another friend’s external SSD. For some reason it wasn’t being detected on his Windows 7 install. We installed Linux and the drive was picked up. Maybe Windows 10 would’ve also picked up the drive in this circumstance, but a lot of people hated the idea of Windows 10 at the time (this was just after Windows 10 was released, when Windows 7 still had a similar market share).
There’s likely a huge percentage of problems people attribute to hardware that are actually Windows being a shitty O.S, but nobody actually checks if Windows is the problem.
Ubuntu resets my default audio every time I put it to sleep. I have no idea why, other distros didn’t do this. Sometimes it fails to detect the speakers on my laptop completely.
I’ve found Ubuntu to need a lot less effort than other distros so I’m not planning to ditch it yet, but even Ubuntu still has weird quirks like this.
Also, some apps fail to open in x11 for some reason so I have to switch to a Wayland session every now and then. And then switch back to x11 because other apps won’t open in Wayland.
Linux always has some weird usability issue no matter how many distros I’ve tried. It’s getting a lot better but it’s not there yet.
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casually mentions how i run linux. other person. that’s cool. continues with windows.
if they don’t want to hear it, they don’t want to hear it. but if they do, they know they can ask.
No. Make them use it. Force them. Hit them if you need to. Make sure they do an Arch install without any scripts and don’t help them
Look at them harshly thoughout the whole interaction and let them know they are less then us.
Things are fine until one day they need to plug this random peripheral/accessory and it’s not plug and play. Then they hate you forever
I don’t think anyone who isn’t already curious about Linux should install Linux. And I sure as hell am not going to try to convince anyone and be blamed for not being able to use adobe products.
I would make an exception for the type of people who only use their computer for the internet. People like my parents, who do about 98% of everything through a browser, and occasionally write a letter.
For someone like them, Linux is ideal. Just explain that Firefox is the internet and rename the office shortcuts, and they wouldn’t notice a difference.
thats a huge portion of people too
Build an automatic Linux mint installer that can handle most typical configurations and migrate data and apps from windows (with wine)
Get some oldish windows exploits together.
Build a worm that replaced vulnerable windows systems with mint
???
Profit (3 free meals a day and TV for the rest of your life)
fucking genius
Stop doing this. Just be normal.
No, Linux (especially arch Linux) is the far superior operating system where the only limit is skill and knowledge.
I’m a Linux user and fan for a lot of years now. Software engineer by profession.
It’s not ready for widespread adoption to the less tech-savvy masses.
It misses some functionality that is really hard to get right but is absolutely expected to get right. For example: graceful suspend and wakeups. It happens so often even to me that I close my Linux laptop for the day, next morning open it up to a bunch of warnings and error messages about Bluetooth adapters or whatever the device of the day that wants to malfunction is that prevents a sound S2 S3 sleep.
I don’t get freaked out about it. But grandma sure would. And yet my 10 year old MacBook Pro gets it right every single fucking time; completely flawlessly. This is the bar of usability that Linux has to achieve for widespread adoption as a true, polished, personal computing experience.
edit: meant S3 sleep.
It also doesn’t help that doing anything in Linux requires weird little guys like “mv” or “mkdir” or “chmod 777”
Stop being elitist about Linux, the amount of times I’ve had to explain that none of my software runs great on Linux just to have to hear how with trouble shooting it will. My work depends on the use of my software, it’s collaborative. If I have to trouble shoot every time adobe or Ableton updates it’s a bad use of my time and is actively taking time away from projects. Only I use VSTs for music production, they all work perfectly in windows and MacOS. Linux? Hit or miss.
Maybe I’m convinced. Now I gotta find the right one, set it up. Get all my software working, learn a new UI, hope that it doesn’t break collaboration. All in all, not worth the little I would save.
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The Adobe photography plan costs me $120 a year, and honestly includes more useful updates than not. Their AI masking upgrades the last couple years are saving me hours to days of editing time per photo session.
$120 a year is worth maybe one hour of my free time. Even just migrating to Darktable would take me weeks or months of dedicated time to migrate my existing catalog.
vsts work great with yabridge but yeah i get what you mean :D. theres a new plugin standard called clap so hopefullt that grows
But please don’t give unsolicited advice about Linux. No one wants that.
thats where the ‘dont force it on anyone’ comes from
People can make their own choices. I have 6-7 Linux machines, and asked my brother to install it too. He hated the experience. He bought a Mac at the end, and he’s very happy with it. Some people just don’t want Linux. They don’t care about its philosophy, or that it’s free. They want an ecosystem, and a status symbol.
Irony: being elitist about the most egalitarian operating system
