This is gonna be an unpopular opinion here but telling people who have used Windows their entire lives to just switch to Linux as if it's that easy is entirely unhelpful and makes the Linux community look elitist and out of touch.
this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025
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I mean... they are out of touch. I'm sure its possible to have a pain free switch over but when I had trouble the advice was interspersed with quite a few caveats. In essence Linux is 'easy to setup but...' Still gonna try again though, also guys that laptop you all said was dying because linux made it crash is still working fine on windows with no sign of trouble.
I think I understand your broader point as saying that a switch to Linux being as simple as switching from Coors to Miller is underselling the fact that Linux is a fairly different environment/ecosystem. You’re right on that. But as someone who’s made a switch to Linux (Ubuntu) after a lifetime of other OS use, I have to say that I think it’s worth it, even with the learning curve.
I have been exclusively a Mac user and Apple cultist for at least twenty years now and only knew Windows (3.0-ME) prior to that. I have a few 2011 Intel Macs that I use for work and home exclusively (two of which were hand-me-downs) and have not been receiving updates for awhile now. I’m not in the financial position to buy a new computer and I randomly read that Ubuntu runs great on these old Macs. So I decided to give it a try. It was a bit of work that was bolstered by the fact that I do have a bit more computer know-how than the average person (but nowhere near most of the people I see on the Fediverse). But I’ve come to love it and am now working my way over to this being a permanent change.
I’m only sharing this as an example that even deeply entrenched people can learn to use this stuff. And I was a Mac guy! Apple holds your hands and does so much thinking for you! I’d think with Windows, the switch over to something like Mint would be fairly easy, given the GUI (I specifically chose Ubuntu over Mint because Mint’s GUI is described as “Windows-like” and I personally hate all things Microsoft—which is definitely a “me problem” lol—but I’m probably going to load it onto an older ThinkPad of my wife’s that we want to set up for our son).
Life is a long learning experience. Installing (or asking that nerdy relative to install) a Linux distro is no biggie anymore and when picking a good all-around distro like Mint, for example, pretty much anyone who has some basic experience on computers can do it.
I do agree that life is a learning experience, but I might say that you're overestimating what "basic experience on computers" means, and I tend to find that this is fairly typical of people who have more advanced skills because this stuff is basic to us. But we can sometimes lack perspective in that regard.
Basic experience on computers for most people means "can use Office apps, can send emails, can more or less use the internet". Essentially, they can use the computer for their work or for some light entertainment. It certainly doesn't mean that they know how to or that they even can configure the BIOS to boot from a USB, or for that matter what the BIOS is or that it exists. It doesn't mean that they can use the terminal, or use WINE to run their favourite Windows applications or troubleshoot an operating system that is entirely alien to them. I'd even go as far as to say that most people don't even know what an operating system is - to them, Windows is the computer and they don't know or care about anything different. This is the kind of person I'm talking about. Everything you said might as well be Ancient Greek to that person.
I can read the manual that comes with a camera and it will teach me how to set it up and take some pictures. Most (at least all that I've used) linux distros have something similar. Unless there's some sort of incompatibility with your system it should not be an issue. If you do have problems you get to choose whether or not to troubleshoot them but in my experience doing so on Linux is a lot easier.
When I first set up Ubuntu I was astonished by the fact that I could just download a windows executable and double-click to start it. But I loved how simple it was to download stuff using the package manager.
I had a bit of experience with the Windows terminal and had been coding for two years at that point so I was able to almost fully switch over within two weeks and found it significantly easier.
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Windows is becoming increasingly uncomfortable in that regard. I've been thinking about switching to Linux Mint for a while now.
Make a flash drive bootloader so you can preview what it is like? Why not?
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I swapped from Windows 10 specifically because I didn't want to be in the Windows 11 and forward environment. (I use Arch btw)
I really don't regret it, the set up was really painful but once that was done, the KDE had so many good features that I immediately felt at home. I'm floored by how good Proton/Steam is at handling games, I don't think I've had to skip on any game due to my OS (so far).
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Probably what I'm gonna do. I used to live in a country where it was completely normal to illegally download software from ThePirateBay, and that's how everyone got their Windows versions, but I don't even feel like doing that anymore.
Id run Linux if it could run the apps I need efficiently
I stopped using windows while using Win XP, maybe 16 or 17 years ago. When I try using current windows I become useless, I can barely figure out how to use it.
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As someone tried to build the snes9x-nwaemu fork from scratch today after spending hours fighting the Linux mint updater getting stuck, ahhhhhhhhjjj. I still have to have windows for a couple of things anyway which makes this all the more annoying. The update also wrecked my davinci install which I need to produce videos. Also, I work two jobs so not a ton of time for this.
Edit: it turns out that upgrading mint also broke the video editing software I need to use (divinci resolve). Yay. Also python version conflicts trying to use an open source project and other shenanigans. Python has some sort of virtual env or something, apparently, but I'm done; I do not have the time or energy to throw at this and it's just frustrating. Back to windows I go.
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I tried Linux Mint, and enjoyed my experience and even setup everything and then when I booted up Factorio Steam didn't use my 3080 somehow. Pop OS worked but I didn't like the experience. I'll have to give Linux Mint a shot again.
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It's like they are not even trying. I have a laptop with 7th gen CPU that works perfectly fine. I don't have any choice than install Linux, lol.
try mas for activiating ESU
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