Well I guess I’m a Linux user now.
It’s not lost on me that it took nearly 5 days and collectively ~30 hours to set up and get my Linux install fully operational.
But it is operational.
The last bit of this was trying to get piracy up and running again. Stellaris just released the Astral Planes update, so that was my test. I downloaded the RUNE and Fitgirl versions, both of which installed and ran correctly off the rip using Lutro.
After that I popped on an USB disc drive, popped in my old total annihilation CD and installed that and got that running.
So everything works. All the games I play worked, and all the media I played worked.
Are there some things that annoy me? Yeah. Gnome apparently doesn’t let you create desktop shortcuts unless you resort to command line. That’s ridiculous. I also no longer have 20+ years of experience to draw on and am having to relearn basic stuff like “how do I uninstall or undo what I just did when I ran a script from a tutorial I didn’t understand”.
So for now, I guess I’m along for the ride, and get to relearn how to do everything.
I wouldn’t recommend Linux to my dad or any of my friends. They can barely use windows, and I had enough trouble during my setup and install that I know they’d run into an issue eventually that I’d have to solve. Plus they barely learned how to use Windows, and Linux is NOT dumbed down enough for the average user yet.
As a final note some Linux users push harder than crack dealers I’ve met. “Just one hit of KDE man I just know you’ll love it, oh you had issues with KDE? Well try these 300 different kind of KDE’s cause I promise bro once you go KDE you never go back”.
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I wouldn’t recommend Linux to my dad or any of my friends.
Well, you’d be surprised. Sometimes it is just the lack of familiarity that gets in the way.
For instance I have a 86 year old relative that decided 10 years ago that wanted a computer to get in touch with friends. I installed Xubuntu and explained the basics. My relative has been happily using it all this time (using Facebook, mail, some solitaire games, some word processing) and all I do is the occasional update. No viruses, no ransomware.
People who already use Windows can have a harder time adapting to a different system than those that never used a computer.
Same! My 80+ year old dad has been using Mint for years now. All he needs is a browser to check his bank account, read news, go on Facebook. Mint just works!
What distribution are you using? In my experience, ease-of-use varies wildly between software and hardware configurations.
There are systems that are built for Linux support, and some system builders (like System 76 and Pop!_OS) bundle their own distros with their machines, which makes for a better experience overall.
There’s also ChromeOS, which is technically Linux (in the same way that Android is), which is typically regarded as one of the most reliable and easy to use, and recently is available to install on nearly any machine.
That said, Linux is very much different from Windows. With Windows, the GUI is baked into the system and you can do almost anything without touching the terminal. In Linux, being familiar with (or at least not afraid of) the command line is a requirement to really getting things done.
One of the biggest issues with Linux is that installing applications isn’t non-destructive to the system unless you’re using Flatpak or Nix or something. Applications being installed, upgraded, removed, etc. and not putting things back the way that they were or that other applications expect them to be is probably the biggest source of frustration.
Once we have a reliable community distribution, which uses only containerized/sandboxes apps (a la ChromeOS), I think adoption for the average user will be a lot easier. Until then, just avoid using apt whenever possible.
I started with Fedora which was a bad time all around. Even their Nobara special release for Nvidia users geared towards gaming was completely unfunctional on my rig.
I’m on Pop!OS which I like. Most things were done easily, however I have a router that does Samba shares on the LAN and it uses Samba V1 which required some extensive configuration on linux to get operable.
Well I guess I’m a Linux user now.
One of us! Welcome!
Gnome apparently doesn’t let you create desktop shortcuts unless you resort to command line.
GNOME is indeed very opinionated. Consider taking a look at any of the “Desktop Icons”-extensions on extensions.gnome.org. This enables one to engage with desktop shortcuts without opening a terminal.
Linux is NOT dumbed down enough for the average user yet.
Depends. I can’t imagine how something like Endless OS could cause troubles to someone that only requires simple functionality (like e.g. their favorite web browser working etc) from their OS.
As a final note some Linux users push harder than crack dealers I’ve met.
Yes. We can be very enthusiastic at times 😅.
I do think that engaging with different desktop environments at this stage of your Linux journey might be very beneficial in the long run, but I can totally understand it if you’d like to settle down for (at least) a moment.
Thanks for the extension!
I may give it a shot later. Right now I just spent 4 days getting things set up and to a point where I’m comfortable with it’s use. So I may settle down for a bit right now and just learn to use Pop even more. I like it overall, just had a few small annoyances like the desktop shortcut thing. But other than that everything is just working right now, which has not been my historical experience with Linux.
I just want an experience that’s as dumbed down GUI-heavy and easy to use as Windows, and so far this is fitting the bill nicely.
Try using the extension Desktop icons NG. (I think)
Gnome is not supposed to have desktop icons actually.
I wouldn’t recommend Linux to my dad or any of my friends.
Actually, you’d be surprised how well Linux works* for non-technical folks who don’t have any specific computing requirements (as in, wanting to run Photoshop or use nVidia gfx etc). I’ve installed Linux (Xubuntu and Zorin) on several of my elderly relatives computers, including on my own parent’s PCs. Some of them have used Windows all their lives, some of them don’t have much experience with computers (my dad had ZERO experience), and none of them had any prior Linux experience at all.
Pretty much most of them had the same common requirement - Facebook, emails, banking, browse random sites, open and edit random documents, occasionally print stuff, occasionally scan stuff. You know, basic computing tasks. And guess what, Linux worked perfectly for them. I only had to explain them the basics - like how to save/copy files, how to print/scan etc, and that’s it.
I set up a scheduled task (cronjob) to do automatic updates, and they never had any issues. Needless to say, none of them are gamers (unless you count Mahjong) and none of them had nVidia cards. They never once had to manually run a command in the terminal. And all of them were happy that their “new system” runs so much better than their “previous one” (some of them don’t even know they’re running Linux).
I can count on one hand the number of support calls I received in the last 5 years.
So yeah, contrary to popular belief, Linux is actually a good choice for non-technical folks - it’s the technical folks, who have their own requirements, custom workflows and ingrained habits over decades of using Windows, that have issues.
* - This is of course assuming you’re using a sensible, newbie friendly distro, like Xubuntu or Zorin.
If you want to use desktop shortcuts, you’re better off using KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, Budgie, or XFCE as your desktop environment. Good thing in Linux is that you can install several DEs alongside each other.
