Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies
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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.
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@Tim_G
But, things are slowly turning around... so we'll see.
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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:
@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.
In your example, what made the computer unusable? What was the issue? Why did Windows not work, but Ubuntu did?
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@Tim_G said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
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.
But that's stuff I was pointing out. I've not tested with an external video card... ever on any OS. I have a web cam ready right now, so I'll test. But my POINT above was specifically that things like printers and such were EASIER on Linux because Windows didn't handle them well and had all kinds of problems. You keep saying that Linux won't work, but for the people who aren't Windows users, they seem to find that it does work - really well.
I'm not seeing these issues that you see. Sure, initial install is a pain sometimes because of using untested Windows gear, but past that, I've never seen these issues.
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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:
@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.
In your example, what made the computer unusable? What was the issue? Why did Windows not work, but Ubuntu did?
Because Windows was hard, required more maintenance that they didn't understand, drivers were flaky or required more knowledge - they couldn't just plug things in and know that they would work like on Linux. Wasn't as extreme as my wife's case where the Windows machine was actively unstable and Linux has been rock solid. it was more subtle. but the point was that it was an instant "totally easy to use", from the moment go. No issues at all.
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My gaming rig constantly has issues with drivers. Drives me a bit nuts for what I spent on the hardware.
But for gaming I'll make due.
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@DustinB3403 said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
My gaming rig constantly has issues with drivers. Drives me a bit nuts for what I spent on the hardware.
But for gaming I'll make due.
For Windows or Linux or both?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
You keep saying that Linux won't work, but for the people who aren't Windows users, they seem to find that it does work - really well.
There's a term for that, can't think of it at the moment.
It's demographics or something. You're taking a survey of a group of people for the wrong reasons, getting results exactly you'd expect... but it's the wrong group of people you are surveying. You need an equal mix. You can't just take all the non-Windows users and form a real opinion based on their results.
For example, non-Windows users will find Linux to just work. Just like you'll find non-Linux users to find Windows to just work.
Man I really wish I could think of this concept right now... it's after midnight for me
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
My gaming rig constantly has issues with drivers. Drives me a bit nuts for what I spent on the hardware.
But for gaming I'll make due.
For Windows or Linux or both?
Gaming = Windows
Didn't we have this conversation before?
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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:
You keep saying that Linux won't work, but for the people who aren't Windows users, they seem to find that it does work - really well.
There's a term for that, can't think of it at the moment.
It's demographics or something. You're taking a survey of a group of people for the wrong reasons, getting results exactly you'd expect... but it's the wrong group of people you are surveying. You need an equal mix. You can't just take all the non-Windows users and form a real opinion based on their results.
For example, non-Windows users will find Linux to just work. Just like you'll find non-Linux users to find Windows to just work.
Man I really wish I could think of this concept right now... it's after midnight for me
Well the point of the article is that there is specifically a difficulty in using Linux for people coming from Windows. It's not unexpected, if you really think about it. Any time you have a group that has trained on something they come to expect that behaviour.
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@DustinB3403 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:
@DustinB3403 said in Why Linux is Hard for Windows Users but Easy for Newbies:
My gaming rig constantly has issues with drivers. Drives me a bit nuts for what I spent on the hardware.
But for gaming I'll make due.
For Windows or Linux or both?
Gaming = Windows
Didn't we have this conversation before?
I thought that you might have added linux too, didn't you mention that at some point?
