Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@dafyre said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
This kinda goes back to what @Tim_G was saying about hardware. Folks coming from Windows expect things to just work.
What Windows works like that? Windows requires SO much massaging. This case was him wanting to switch drivers from the built in ones that "just work" to something high performance from nVidia. nothing wrong with that, but it's extra work that an end user would not experience. If they did the same thing on Windows, they'd have the same problems. And I can attest to that because I do that on windows, and it has lots of problems.
I can't deny the massaging. But I have never had a problem with Windows being so screwed up that I couldn't get back into the GUI after installing NVIDIA drivers. I've had several instances of that happening in various Linux Distros.
I also agree with you that an average end-user wouldn't have to deal with that type of thing.
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@dafyre said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
I can't deny the massaging. But I have never had a problem with Windows being so screwed up that I couldn't get back into the GUI after installing NVIDIA drivers.
This is because on Windows the GUI is the console, it's the primary interface. On Linux it is not. On Linux, the fallback access method is the serial console, TTY. One is designed for end users on desktops, one is designed for headless servers. Both support the other situation, but they are native to different things. On Linux, the desktop is a service like any other. And the desktop is always provided over the network, even when it is local. On Windows, the output is the output.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
Yeah, it should... but since there's I don't know how many HUNDREDS of versions of Linux flavors... there's not enough people and resources to keep up with hardware support.
That's not quite fair, though, there are only a very few in actual use. Fedora and its derivs like korora that share drivers, Ubuntu and Mint, Suse and Gecko. That pretty much covers all of the bases. there are a few others out there, but effectively they don't matter because only hobbiests that want to tweak things are using them and they are less than 1% of the market.
The truth is, is that Linux will never go main stream for personal use until "they" cater to the hobbyists. They being whoever is responsible for making sure the same hardware that works on Windows, also works on Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Korora, blah blah blah... I'm not going to name all the Distros it should work on.
And no, I don't think that if a manufacturer releases a driver package click-to-install for Debian, that it'll "just work" on any Debian-based Linux distro. Ideally it would, but nothing works out like that in the Linux world.
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I'd love to run Fedora, and only Fedora, on my personal computer. But the hardware support is just crap for all Linux distros.
Sure, I may get my video card working after a month of troubleshooting... but there are weird issues with other things I just can't have.
Lack of real fan control... they go crazy sometimes, when the system is cool.
Other built-in hardware that should just work.
Unable to shutdown or reboot usually. Forced to hold down the power button.This isn't just with my personal laptop... these and other less-severe issues happen to like almost every non-enterprise system I've put Linux on.
It's the little things. They make all the difference.
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@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
I'd love to run Fedora, and only Fedora, on my personal computer. But the hardware support is just crap for all Linux distros.
Sure, I may get my video card working after a month of troubleshooting... but there are weird issues with other things I just can't have.
Lack of real fan control... they go crazy sometimes, when the system is cool.
Other built-in hardware that should just work.
Unable to shutdown or reboot usually. Forced to hold down the power button.This isn't just with my personal laptop... these and other less-severe issues happen to like almost every non-enterprise system I've put Linux on.
It's the little things. They make all the difference.
These things just don't happen in Windows. And if they do, it's probably a 30 year old system... or some other anomaly. You can't say "Windows has problems to"... sure, everything in the universe does... but you get the point.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@dafyre said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
I can't deny the massaging. But I have never had a problem with Windows being so screwed up that I couldn't get back into the GUI after installing NVIDIA drivers.
This is because on Windows the GUI is the console, it's the primary interface. On Linux it is not. On Linux, the fallback access method is the serial console, TTY. One is designed for end users on desktops, one is designed for headless servers. Both support the other situation, but they are native to different things. On Linux, the desktop is a service like any other. And the desktop is always provided over the network, even when it is local. On Windows, the output is the output.
You're exactly right.
Windows is for GUI (and users), Linux is for CLI.
Linux went bad when they started trying to cater to Windows users... introducing GUIs and all that. Now look, people like me are wanting to run Fedora on a system with a graphics card... and other hardware that wouldn't be needed if Linux just stuck to CLI.
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@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
I'd love to run Fedora, and only Fedora, on my personal computer. But the hardware support is just crap for all Linux distros.
Sure, I may get my video card working after a month of troubleshooting... but there are weird issues with other things I just can't have.
Lack of real fan control... they go crazy sometimes, when the system is cool.
Other built-in hardware that should just work.
Unable to shutdown or reboot usually. Forced to hold down the power button.This isn't just with my personal laptop... these and other less-severe issues happen to like almost every non-enterprise system I've put Linux on.
It's the little things. They make all the difference.
These things just don't happen in Windows. And if they do, it's probably a 30 year old system... or some other anomaly. You can't say "Windows has problems to"... sure, everything in the universe does... but you get the point.
My experience is the opposite. Both have their issues but I've seen more Windows 10 issues with drivers than I have Linux ones. Korora on my desktop, Ubuntu on my laptop I see no issues. My wife's machine was non-stop issues till we went from Windows 10 to Korora. Korora fixed the constant network and GPU driver issues.
Same thing with printers. We moved from Windows to Linux and years of my wife complaining that printers are annoying and take so much work just vanished. Suddenly you just "plug them in" and they work.
It's definitely both directions. I think that people get used to them with Windows so much that they forget how much they are actually there and the ones on Linux are new and surprising and they sense them more acutely.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
I'd love to run Fedora, and only Fedora, on my personal computer. But the hardware support is just crap for all Linux distros.
Sure, I may get my video card working after a month of troubleshooting... but there are weird issues with other things I just can't have.
Lack of real fan control... they go crazy sometimes, when the system is cool.
Other built-in hardware that should just work.
Unable to shutdown or reboot usually. Forced to hold down the power button.This isn't just with my personal laptop... these and other less-severe issues happen to like almost every non-enterprise system I've put Linux on.
It's the little things. They make all the difference.
These things just don't happen in Windows. And if they do, it's probably a 30 year old system... or some other anomaly. You can't say "Windows has problems to"... sure, everything in the universe does... but you get the point.
My experience is the opposite. Both have their issues but I've seen more Windows 10 issues with drivers than I have Linux ones. Korora on my desktop, Ubuntu on my laptop I see no issues. My wife's machine was non-stop issues till we went from Windows 10 to Korora. Korora fixed the constant network and GPU driver issues.
Same thing with printers. We moved from Windows to Linux and years of my wife complaining that printers are annoying and take so much work just vanished. Suddenly you just "plug them in" and they work.
It's definitely both directions. I think that people get used to them with Windows so much that they forget how much they are actually there and the ones on Linux are new and surprising and they sense them more acutely.
It's like that every time a new Windows version comes out. People start installing the newest and greatest, and fail to verify driver availability for it. But after a little bit of time, all is well.
I'd say the same for Linux... but you need to wait like a decade for today's hardware support. It's just not the same.
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Something to compare... when is the last time you bought a machien that shipped with Linux and tried to run Windows on it? Or one meant for Linux? Go ahead, put Windows 10 on your Raspberry Pi, see how well it works. We always compare a system custom designed and built for Windows and THEN try to see if Linux can work on it with no planning. Try the opposite and I bet you'll find that the degree of issues with Windows is 10x or even 100x what you see with Linux on Windows-intended machines.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
I'd love to run Fedora, and only Fedora, on my personal computer. But the hardware support is just crap for all Linux distros.
Sure, I may get my video card working after a month of troubleshooting... but there are weird issues with other things I just can't have.
Lack of real fan control... they go crazy sometimes, when the system is cool.
Other built-in hardware that should just work.
Unable to shutdown or reboot usually. Forced to hold down the power button.This isn't just with my personal laptop... these and other less-severe issues happen to like almost every non-enterprise system I've put Linux on.
It's the little things. They make all the difference.
These things just don't happen in Windows. And if they do, it's probably a 30 year old system... or some other anomaly. You can't say "Windows has problems to"... sure, everything in the universe does... but you get the point.
My experience is the opposite. Both have their issues but I've seen more Windows 10 issues with drivers than I have Linux ones. Korora on my desktop, Ubuntu on my laptop I see no issues. My wife's machine was non-stop issues till we went from Windows 10 to Korora. Korora fixed the constant network and GPU driver issues.
Same thing with printers. We moved from Windows to Linux and years of my wife complaining that printers are annoying and take so much work just vanished. Suddenly you just "plug them in" and they work.
It's definitely both directions. I think that people get used to them with Windows so much that they forget how much they are actually there and the ones on Linux are new and surprising and they sense them more acutely.
But there's always an uphill battle with Linux in generally.
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@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
I'd love to run Fedora, and only Fedora, on my personal computer. But the hardware support is just crap for all Linux distros.
Sure, I may get my video card working after a month of troubleshooting... but there are weird issues with other things I just can't have.
Lack of real fan control... they go crazy sometimes, when the system is cool.
Other built-in hardware that should just work.
Unable to shutdown or reboot usually. Forced to hold down the power button.This isn't just with my personal laptop... these and other less-severe issues happen to like almost every non-enterprise system I've put Linux on.
It's the little things. They make all the difference.
These things just don't happen in Windows. And if they do, it's probably a 30 year old system... or some other anomaly. You can't say "Windows has problems to"... sure, everything in the universe does... but you get the point.
My experience is the opposite. Both have their issues but I've seen more Windows 10 issues with drivers than I have Linux ones. Korora on my desktop, Ubuntu on my laptop I see no issues. My wife's machine was non-stop issues till we went from Windows 10 to Korora. Korora fixed the constant network and GPU driver issues.
Same thing with printers. We moved from Windows to Linux and years of my wife complaining that printers are annoying and take so much work just vanished. Suddenly you just "plug them in" and they work.
It's definitely both directions. I think that people get used to them with Windows so much that they forget how much they are actually there and the ones on Linux are new and surprising and they sense them more acutely.
It's like that every time a new Windows version comes out. People start installing the newest and greatest, and fail to verify driver availability for it. But after a little bit of time, all is well.
So the same thing that people do with Linux, but not nearly so dramatic because it is just a Windows version update. You never see issues like that with Linux. It's Very much a Windows system problem.
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@black3dynamite said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
I'd love to run Fedora, and only Fedora, on my personal computer. But the hardware support is just crap for all Linux distros.
Sure, I may get my video card working after a month of troubleshooting... but there are weird issues with other things I just can't have.
Lack of real fan control... they go crazy sometimes, when the system is cool.
Other built-in hardware that should just work.
Unable to shutdown or reboot usually. Forced to hold down the power button.This isn't just with my personal laptop... these and other less-severe issues happen to like almost every non-enterprise system I've put Linux on.
It's the little things. They make all the difference.
These things just don't happen in Windows. And if they do, it's probably a 30 year old system... or some other anomaly. You can't say "Windows has problems to"... sure, everything in the universe does... but you get the point.
My experience is the opposite. Both have their issues but I've seen more Windows 10 issues with drivers than I have Linux ones. Korora on my desktop, Ubuntu on my laptop I see no issues. My wife's machine was non-stop issues till we went from Windows 10 to Korora. Korora fixed the constant network and GPU driver issues.
Same thing with printers. We moved from Windows to Linux and years of my wife complaining that printers are annoying and take so much work just vanished. Suddenly you just "plug them in" and they work.
It's definitely both directions. I think that people get used to them with Windows so much that they forget how much they are actually there and the ones on Linux are new and surprising and they sense them more acutely.
But there's always an uphill battle with Linux in generally.
Is there? When? I hear this a lot but never see it. We do an apples to oranges, put Linux as a massive disadvantage, it often works even under those conditions and that we call it an uphill battle. But is that really the case? I've moved a lot of people to Linux over the years and consistently Windows has been harder at every generation.
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@black3dynamite said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
I'd love to run Fedora, and only Fedora, on my personal computer. But the hardware support is just crap for all Linux distros.
Sure, I may get my video card working after a month of troubleshooting... but there are weird issues with other things I just can't have.
Lack of real fan control... they go crazy sometimes, when the system is cool.
Other built-in hardware that should just work.
Unable to shutdown or reboot usually. Forced to hold down the power button.This isn't just with my personal laptop... these and other less-severe issues happen to like almost every non-enterprise system I've put Linux on.
It's the little things. They make all the difference.
These things just don't happen in Windows. And if they do, it's probably a 30 year old system... or some other anomaly. You can't say "Windows has problems to"... sure, everything in the universe does... but you get the point.
My experience is the opposite. Both have their issues but I've seen more Windows 10 issues with drivers than I have Linux ones. Korora on my desktop, Ubuntu on my laptop I see no issues. My wife's machine was non-stop issues till we went from Windows 10 to Korora. Korora fixed the constant network and GPU driver issues.
Same thing with printers. We moved from Windows to Linux and years of my wife complaining that printers are annoying and take so much work just vanished. Suddenly you just "plug them in" and they work.
It's definitely both directions. I think that people get used to them with Windows so much that they forget how much they are actually there and the ones on Linux are new and surprising and they sense them more acutely.
But there's always an uphill battle with Linux in generally.
The whole point here was that Linux was "drop in, just works" and Windows was an uphill battle, even after Windows 10 was years old.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
Something to compare... when is the last time you bought a machien that shipped with Linux and tried to run Windows on it? Or one meant for Linux? Go ahead, put Windows 10 on your Raspberry Pi, see how well it works. We always compare a system custom designed and built for Windows and THEN try to see if Linux can work on it with no planning. Try the opposite and I bet you'll find that the degree of issues with Windows is 10x or even 100x what you see with Linux on Windows-intended machines.
I don't have a personal need for Windows on any hardware Linux is on natively. What would I use Windows on a Pi for? I don't even need a Pi with Linux on it.
I mean I get your point and you're right... but still not the same because if I bought an Asus gaming laptop that came with Linux on it with all hardware components working 100%... sure. Then I can also assume the drivers that are being used on it won't work on other Linux Distros. But, I do know it would work if I put Windows on it. Because it already does.
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But I think that this discussion is proving my point and the article's point, right? The people seeing Linux as hard are coming FROM Windows, right? But if I get Linux for my sister in law who barely uses a computer she says it "just works and is so much better than what she had." That's the entire point, that people with Windows experience perceive issues with Linux that those without the Windows experience tend not to have issues with.
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@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
I mean I get your point and you're right... but still not the same because if I bought an Asus gaming laptop that came with Linux on it with all hardware components working 100%... sure. Then I can also assume the drivers that are being used on it won't work on other Linux Distros.
Right, just like the ones that come with Windows. Although often they would.
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@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
But, I do know it would work if I put Windows on it. Because it already does.
Because it's a Windows laptop, right? Asus only makes Windows machines. That's my point. We only test Linux under unfair conditions. Windows gets a free pass that someone tested every component for one specific version for us. Do the same thing with a Linux distro and Linux has all the same advantages. We are holding Linux to a higher standard we'd enver consider holding Windows to because we know it would miserably fail.
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It's much like the dual booting problem. People used to complaint hat Linux was hard because of how difficult it was to get it to work with Windows while dual booting. But Windows was EVEN HARDER to use that way, but people ignored that and only considered the problem to be a Linux one, even thought Linux was doing things that Windows could not even do and maybe still can't.
In reality, what they were seeing was Linux blowing Windows out of the water in boot loader handling, but the common response was that Linux was hard and Windows was easy - while they had just demonstrated the very opposite.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
But I think that this discussion is proving my point and the article's point, right? The people seeing Linux as hard are coming FROM Windows, right? But if I get Linux for my sister in law who barely uses a computer she says it "just works and is so much better than what she had." That's the entire point, that people with Windows experience perceive issues with Linux that those without the Windows experience tend not to have issues with.
That's not a Linux thing, though.
That means you are giving your sister in law an appliance. Really, a web browsing and email appliance. A stripped down piece of hardware with basic components and minimal functionality, that's pretty much restricted. That's why it "just works".
You can do that with anything, not just Linux.
Now, if she decides to do anything else with it... boom, it will no longer work. What if she buys a new mouse? A web cam? An external video card? I dunno, just giving examples to make a point. It won't "just work" like you are saying.
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@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
But I think that this discussion is proving my point and the article's point, right? The people seeing Linux as hard are coming FROM Windows, right? But if I get Linux for my sister in law who barely uses a computer she says it "just works and is so much better than what she had." That's the entire point, that people with Windows experience perceive issues with Linux that those without the Windows experience tend not to have issues with.
That's not a Linux thing, though.
That means you are giving your sister in law an appliance. Really, a web browsing and email appliance. A stripped down piece of hardware with basic components and minimal functionality, that's pretty much restricted. That's why it "just works".
You can do that with anything, not just Linux.
Except doing the exact same thing with windows didn't work as well. So you can do it with anything... that's easily like Linux. It wasn't stripped down or special, it was a full Ubuntu OS. If a normal Windows desktop is an appliance, then... okay. But that's a weird way to think of it.
